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The best Outer Worlds build requires the best perks, mixed carefully with character attributes, skills and more. What works for you depends on how you play and what companions you take with you as you explore, but there are some obvious things to look out for.
As you put together your Outer Worlds build, bare in mind there are six attributes to choose from, seven skills sets, and an aptitude - all of which will affect your stats so there's a lot to balence. Given that the Outer Worlds is easily 20+ hours you want to make good choices early on so here are some of the best Outer Worlds attributes, skills, perks, and more to help you out.
Best Outer Worlds attributes
Attributes are the first thing on the menu, and there's six to choose from. It's tough to say exactly what the best attributes are because it all boils down to personal preference, so here's an explanation of what skills each attribute affects and the additional bonus from each:
Strength
-1-Handed Melee
-2-Handed Melee
-Heavy Weapons
-Block
-Inspiration
-Intimidate
Bonus: Melee Damage and Carrying Capacity
Dexterity
-1-Handed Melee
-Handguns
-Dodge
-Block
-Sneak
-Lockpick
Bonus: Melee Weapon Attack Speed and Ranged Weapon Reload Speed
Intelligence
-Long Guns
-Persuade
-Hack
-Medical
-Science
-Determination
Bonus: Critical Damage
Perception
-Handguns
-Long Guns
-Heavy Weapons
-Dodge
-Lockpick
-Engineering
Bonus: Extra Headshot/Weakspot Damage
Charm
-Persuade
-Lie
-Intimidate
-Hack
-Science
-Inspiration
Bonus: Companion Ability Refresh, Positive & Negative Faction Reputation Reactions
Temperament
-2-Handed Melee
-Lie
-Sneak
-Medical
-Engineering
-Determination
Bonus: Health Regeneration per Second
Best Outer Worlds skills
The Outer Worlds excels when it comes to story, dialogue, and conversation choices. While you can play as a violent, murderous madman with buffs to skills like Long Guns, Heavy Weapons, and 1/2-Handed Melee, the combat mechanics aren't the most refined or polished. Playing as a smooth talker with the ability to deceive and break into anywhere is something you can have some serious fun with in The Outer Worlds. With that said, here are my favourite skills to buff up as high as possible:
Dialog: Persuade/Lie/Intimidate
Conversational skill checks are found in most chats you'll have with named NPCs, so if you want to talk your way out of any situation, this is a crucial one to invest in. All three of Persuade, Lie, and Intimidate show up frequently, so unless you're vehemently against the idea of lying to someone or intimidating them, I recommend investing in all three.
Long Guns
Under the Ranged category is where you'll find Long Guns, and this encapsulates most of the The Outer Worlds best weapons. Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Snipers and more are all classed as Long Guns, so invest in this to be adept with most of the powerful guns in the game.
Stealth: Sneak/Hack/Lockpick
Putting points into all three Stealth skills is required in order to explore as much of the world as possible, because there's a considerable amount of loot and secrets hidden behind locked doors and terminals. If you are aiming to talk your way out of situations rather than killing things, Sneak will be extra useful too, as having this high reduces the distance you can be detected by a considerable distance. You can also pickpocket humans when you get it up to 40, so it's more than worth it.
Science
Another skill check I found to pop up quite frequently was Science, which also provides you with the ability to tinker at workbenches. This means you can spend credits on improving the quality of your weapons and armour, and if you want to make sure you can pass almost every skill check in the game, you'll want to put some points into Science.
Leadership: Inspiration/Determination
Finally, unless you're running as a lone wanderer, you're going to want points in Inspiration and Determination in order to keep your companions alive. The former lets you use companion abilities while the latter means your inhaler also heals your pals in the midst of battle.
Best Outer Worlds perks
When you start leveling up, you'll be able to choose from three tiers of perks. You unlock a perk point every other level, and to unlock the next tier, you need to have picked five from the last tier, for a total of 15 perks when you hit level 30 (excluding any extras from flaws). Here's my top picks for perks and what they do:
Tier 1
Toughness: +50% base health
Depending on the difficulty you're playing on, you may need the +50% base health. Hard difficulty isn't particularly tough, but the standard amount of health isn't much, so a +50% increase is very useful.
Slow The World: +25% Tactical Time Dilation Meter Max
Tactical Time Dilation is the slow-mo mode you can enable in combat, and if you don't choose Slow The World, it's over very quickly.
Traveler: Unlock the ability to Fast Travel when Encumbered
It's easy to become encumbered in The Outer Worlds when you're looting everything possible, so the Traveler perk makes your life much easier so you can fast travel to a vendor and sell your excess junk.
Cheetah: +20% Sprint Speed
You're quite slow if you walk everywhere, so grab Cheetah and sprint through towns to speed up the game.
High Maintenance: -25% Weapon/Armor Durability Loss
When you come across a weapon you're particularly fond of, having High Maintenance will mean you can use it for longer before having to repair it.
Tier 2
Weird Science: +50% Science Weapon Damage
The Outer Worlds Science Weapons are unique guns found throughout the Weapons from the Void quest like the Shrink Ray and Gloop Gun, but without Weird Science, they're not very powerful at all.
Tag Team: +25% Chance to reset a Companion Ability cooldown when using the other Companion's Ability
Companion abilities are huge in this game, so every time you use one, Tag Team has a 25% chance of resetting the other one. Of course, this isn't useful if you don't have two companions with you.
Soliloquy: +10 Dialog Skills when you have no Companions in your party
On the other hand, if you're playing as a lone wanderer, take Soliloquy to get a bonus to all Dialog skills.
The Collector: +5m Interactable Highlight Range for objects around you without looking directly at them
This is a small quality of life improvement: all objects you can interact with will be highlighted from five metres further away with The Collector.
Scanner: +20% Bonus to Extra Headshot/Weakspot Damage when using Tactical Time Dilation
Tactical Time Dilation is crucial in tough combat situations, so the ability to deal 20% extra damage to weak spots is very useful indeed.
Tier 3
Wild Science: +50% Science Weapon Damage
Just like Weird Science, Wild Science will stack even further and make the Science Weapons the best weapons in the entire game.
Don't Go Dyin' On Me!: Revive Companions to 25% Health when using the Inhaler
Companions tend to go down impressively easily on the higher difficulties, so Don't Go Dyin' On Me revives them to 25% health whenever you use the Inhaler. Handy.
Super Pack Mule: +100kg Carrying Capacity
The standard Pack Mule perk in Tier 1 only gives +50kg, so since Super Pack Mule is +100kg, I'd recommend skipping the first perk and just going for the second one. Unless you're a hoarder, in which case both are useful.
Armor Master: +10% Armor Rating Bonus and +100% Skill Bonus from any armor you wear
You'll pretty much always be wearing armor in The Outer Worlds – unless you're doing a nude – so Armor Master is a great perk to choose for some serious buffs.
Confidence: Your next attack after killing an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Hit
Critical hits are the way forward in this game because of the extra damage, so when combined with Scanner, you'll be dealing impressive damage throughout.
Ready to make the tough choices? Check out the Outer Worlds Edgewater or Deserters page we've laid out!
