The best Outer Worlds 2 Skills are a huge help, letting you pass checks like lockpicking or hacking, unlock dialogue options and plenty more. There are 12 available but because The Outer Worlds 2 very much favors min-maxing a narrow range of talents, you really have to dig into a few select options rather than try a bit of everything. To help, I've laid out everything you need to know about Skills in The Outer Worlds 2 below, including what I think are best ones, and how they all work in terms of benefits and levelling up.
What are the best Skills in The Outer Worlds 2
All 12 Skills in The Outer Worlds 2 are viable options, but some are definitely a lot more useful than others. There are certain checks and interactions that pop up more frequently as you play and because of that, I think the best Skills are Engineering, Lockpick, Speech, and Sneak.
Engineering and Lockpick allow you to interact with a lot of machinery and locked-off areas. That means you can access more places, shut off threats and uncover more information or items that could help in a quest.
Because there is a lot of talking in The Outer Worlds 2 the Speech skill is basically essential. Having a high speech will uncover a lot of dialogue options you wouldn't otherwise have, and can massively change the outcome of a lot of things. If you get the Space Ranger perk as well you'll also scale up damage with speech, which is big advantage.
Investing in Sneak and opting for a stealthy playstyle will help you dispatch enemies quickly and with minimal fuss compared to a guns-blazing approach.
Levelling up Skills also grants access to various Outer Worlds 2 perks that can help you as well. For that reason alone it's worth throwing some points at other skills if you want to get the perks they can unlock.
All Outer Worlds 2 Skills explained
Outer Worlds 2 skills determine your core abilities and affect pretty much every aspect of the game, through passive benefits, special abilities, and unique skill check and dialogue opportunities. They also determine which Perks you'll have available to unlock. So, your Skills, Perks, and Outer Worlds 2 Traits all come together to form the basics of your character build.
At the start of the game, when you're also choosing your Outer Worlds 2 Background, you'll get to pick two Skills to specialize in, which means that they start at level 2. From then on, whenever your character levels up, you'll be given two Skill Points that you can allocate to any of the 12 Skills. It's important to understand that there are no opportunities to respec in The Outer Worlds 2 after the prologue mission. So whatever you pick is with you forever unless you start a new game.
To help you figure out what skills you want in The Outer Worlds 2 here's the full list and what they do:
- Engineering:
- You can fix various mechanical systems, such as power systems and doors, with a difficulty at or below your Engineering level.
- Gain +1% Damage Resistance per Engineering level.
- Explosives:
- You can disarm traps and mines and blast open certain doors with a difficulty at or below your Explosives level.
- Gain +10% Explosives Damage and +1% Explosive Damage Resistance per Explosives level.
- Guns:
- Gain +10% Ranged Damage and +1% Armour Penetration per Guns level.
- Hack:
- You can hack into various mechanical systems, such as terminals, automechs, and vending machines, with a difficulty at or below your Hack level.
- Gain +5% Damage to Automechs per Hack level.
- Leadership:
- Gain +8% Companion Damage and +4% Companion Health per Leadership level.
- Lockpick:
- You can pick locks with a difficulty at or below your Lockpick level.
- Gain +1% Evasion Chance per Lockpick level.
- Melee:
- Gain +10% Melee Damage and -2% Damage Received while Blocking per Melee level.
- Medical:
- Gain +7 Toxicity Crash Threshold and +5% Damage to Creatures per Medical level.
- Observation:
- You can spot hidden objects with a difficulty at or below your Observation level.
- Gain +15% Weakspot Damage per Observation level.
- Science!:
- Gain +7 maximum Gadget Energy Meter and +10% more stacks of non-Physical Damage Type side-effects per Science level.
- Sneak:
- Gain +35% Sneak Attack Damage and -2% NPC Awareness Detection Rate per Sneak level.
- Speech:
- You can choose dialogue options and attempt Speech checks with a difficulty at or below your Speech level.
- Gain +5% damage to humans per Speech level.
When it comes to actually allocating Skill Points and levelling up, I recommend focusing your efforts on three or four main skills, and occasionally allocating the odd point to others to try them and perhaps unlock a useful perk or two. The Outer Worlds 2 is structured such that you will miss a lot of Skill-based opportunities because you can't level up everything enough. However, you will miss out on more if you spread your Skill Points too thinly and try to do a bit of everything. With that in mind, do not take the Easily Distracted Flaw if it pops up as it will probably ruin your game by limiting how you level up (we've more on all the Outer Worlds 2 Flaws if you want all the information there).
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