Best Arc Raiders Skills to Unlock First Beginners Guide 2025

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Understanding the Arc Raiders Skill System

Arc Raiders sets itself apart from most extraction shooters with a full progression system that sticks around even when you lose your loot. The skill tree has 45 unique abilities spread across three branches, and most of them offer five upgrade levels each. This means you're always working toward something permanent, which takes some of the sting out of getting killed and losing everything you carried.

How to Earn Skill Points

You get one skill point every time you level up. There's a cap of 75 total points, so you can't unlock everything in the tree. You'll need to make some tough choices about which abilities matter most for how you play.

When you hit level 20, you can start participating in the Expedition system if you want. Think of it as a seasonal reset where your character "ventures into the unknown" according to the game's lore, and you start fresh with a new recruit. This is completely optional, so if you've invested serious time and don't want to restart, you don't have to.

The Three Skill Tree Branches

Mobility (Yellow Branch)

This tree focuses on movement and stamina management. Skills here reduce stamina drain, increase your max stamina pool, and make moving around more efficient. Mobility matters for everything: crossing large maps, escaping danger, reaching extraction points before they leave, and staying effective in combat.

Conditioning (Green Branch)

The Conditioning path helps you survive when things go wrong. These skills help you manage equipment weight, stay effective when injured or downed, and handle physical stress. Many abilities here become more valuable in squad play.

Survival (Red Branch)

This branch makes looting faster, expands your crafting options, and improves inventory management. Survival skills let you gather resources more efficiently, craft items during raids, and carry more loot without getting slowed down.

Why Stamina Management Matters So Much

Stamina drains fast in Arc Raiders when you run, jump, vault, or dodge roll. Your starting stamina pool is painfully small, making stamina management your biggest early priority. Without enough stamina, you can't:

• Sprint across open ground to reach loot before other players
• Dodge roll in and out of cover during firefights
• Escape from ARC enemies chasing you
• Reach extraction elevators before they leave
• Complete quest objectives that require long-distance travel

Low stamina affects literally every part of the game. That's why you should focus on the Mobility tree first.

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Priority Skills for Everyone

These skills help every playstyle, whether you're going solo or running with a squad. Get these first to build a strong foundation.

Marathon Runner (Mobility) - 5 points

Marathon Runner cuts down how much stamina you burn while moving. This should be your first priority, and you should dump all five points into it as fast as possible.

Why you need this: Maxed Marathon Runner lets you sprint noticeably longer before running out of steam. This makes crossing the huge maps way less frustrating and stops you from constantly waiting for stamina to regenerate. You'll feel the difference immediately.

When to get it: You can max Marathon Runner around level 10-11, making it a realistic early goal.

Youthful Lungs (Mobility) - 5 points

Youthful Lungs increases your maximum stamina pool directly. This works perfectly with Marathon Runner to massively improve your movement.

Why you need this: More stamina means more options in every situation. You can run farther without stopping, execute more dodge rolls in a row during combat, and stay mobile during long fights. The bigger stamina pool essentially gives you more "actions" during critical moments.

When to get it: Max this right after Marathon Runner. Combined, you can finish both within your first 10-11 levels.

In-Round Crafting (Survival) - 1 point

This single point unlocks the ability to craft items during raids. With In-Round Crafting, you can make Bandages, Shield Rechargers, Smoke Grenades, Light Impact Grenades, and other necessities using materials you find.

Why you need this: Running out of healing mid-raid is basically a death sentence. In-Round Crafting gives you insurance against this. When you've burned through all your Bandages fighting ARC enemies and suddenly run into hostile players, being able to craft replacements from salvage can save your life. This also makes free loadouts way more viable since you can craft what you need from scavenged resources.

Practical use: When you're looting everything, you'll accumulate spare salvage materials. Instead of wasting inventory space, you can convert them into whatever items you currently need.

Looter's Instincts (Survival) - 5 points

Looter's Instincts speeds up how fast items appear in the looting interface when you search containers.

Why you need this: Faster looting means you're safer. Less time spent with your inventory open means less vulnerability to ambushes from other players or ARC enemies. In extraction shooters, speed keeps you alive. You want to spot valuable loot, grab it, and move to the next location quickly. Looter's Instincts also helps when you're competing with teammates or other players for the same containers.

Broad Shoulders (Survival) - 5 points

Broad Shoulders increases your maximum carry weight, letting you collect more loot before getting overencumbered.

Why you need this: Being overencumbered is brutal. When you exceed your weight limit, you move way slower, make way more noise, and regenerate stamina at a much lower rate. Since weapons are among the heaviest items you carry, it's easy to hit the limit fast. Broad Shoulders provides huge quality of life improvement and directly increases how much value you can extract from each successful raid.

More Mobility Skills You Need

After establishing your stamina management, keep investing in Mobility to unlock powerful utility skills.

Effortless Roll (Mobility) - 5 points

Effortless Roll reduces the stamina cost of dodge rolls, letting you use this defensive move more often.

Why you need this: Dodge rolls keep you alive in combat. During intense firefights, it's really easy to drain your stamina without realizing it, especially if you're also sprinting between cover. A single dodge roll at the right moment can be the difference between survival and death. Effortless Roll makes sure you always have enough stamina for emergency defensive moves.

For solo players: This becomes even more critical when playing alone, since you don't have teammates to cover your movements or revive you.

Calming Stroll (Mobility) - 1 point

Calming Stroll lets your stamina regenerate at the standing-still rate even while walking.

Why you need this: Normally, stamina regenerates at different rates based on how you're moving. Standing still is fastest, while walking slows it down considerably. Calming Stroll removes this penalty completely. This is invaluable for maintaining stamina during long-distance travel or when you need to approach situations cautiously. Combined with your other stamina improvements, Calming Stroll means you're almost always ready for sudden action.

Carry the Momentum (Mobility) - 1 point

After performing a sprint dodge roll, sprinting doesn't consume stamina for a brief duration. This has a cooldown between uses.

Why you need this: This skill gives you a window of "free" sprinting after a dodge roll, allowing aggressive repositioning or quick escapes without draining your stamina. Being able to chain a dodge roll into extended sprinting creates powerful movement options during combat.

Sturdy Ankles (Mobility) - Varies

Sturdy Ankles reduces damage from non-lethal falls, letting you drop to lower areas more aggressively.

Why you need this: Less fall damage gives you more flexible movement across vertical terrain. You can take shortcuts or escape routes that would otherwise cost significant health. Even just one or two points early provides noticeable benefits.

Critical Conditioning Skills

The Conditioning tree has situational but powerful abilities that help you survive extreme circumstances and manage equipment weight.

Used to the Weight (Conditioning) - 5 points

This is one of the most valuable skills in the entire game. Higher-tier shields provide better protection but slow you down. Used to the Weight reduces these penalties, letting you maintain mobility while wearing superior defensive equipment. As you get better shields through progression, this skill becomes increasingly important to maintain competitive movement speed.

Timing note: This isn't a day-one priority because you won't have Medium or Heavy Shields initially. But once you start using these better shields, max this skill immediately to eliminate the mobility penalty.

Loaded Arms (Conditioning) - 1 point

Loaded Arms reduces how much your equipped weapon affects your encumbrance.

Why you need this: Weapons are among the heaviest items you carry. Reducing their weight contribution directly increases how much extra loot you can extract. This works great with Broad Shoulders to maximize your carrying capacity.

Drawback: Loaded Arms sits late in the Conditioning tree, requiring substantial investment to reach. Prioritize Mobility and early Survival skills before pushing toward this unlock.

Survivor's Stamina (Conditioning) - 1 point

When you're critically injured, your stamina regenerates faster.

Why you need this: This gives you a boost in desperate situations. Faster stamina regeneration while critically hurt can provide the movement speed needed to reach cover or healing supplies. But this is highly situational since you're ideally trying to avoid being critically hurt in the first place.

Downed but Determined (Conditioning) - 5 points

When downed, you survive longer before collapsing (fully dying and losing everything).

Why you need this: This extends the window where teammates can revive you. In chaotic squad battles where enemies are too busy to immediately finish downed players, the extra survival time can let your team win the fight and then revive you.

Important Survival Skills for Efficiency

Beyond the foundation skills, the Survival tree offers powerful utilities for looting and crafting.

Traveling Tinkerer (Survival) - 1 point

Traveling Tinkerer expands the selection of items you can craft during raids beyond the basic options from In-Round Crafting.

Why you need this: More crafting options give you more flexibility in responding to raid circumstances. This transforms In-Round Crafting from an emergency backup system into a full field logistics solution.

Looter's Luck (Survival) - Varies

When looting containers, there's a chance to reveal twice as many items at once.

Why you need this: More items revealed per container means faster looting overall. This pairs perfectly with Looter's Instincts: you're searching faster AND potentially seeing more items per search.

Security Breach (Survival) - 1 point

Security Breach unlocks the ability to breach Security Lockers found during raids.

Why you need this: Security Lockers contain high-quality loot but are completely inaccessible without this skill. These lockers are a middle ground between standard containers and keycard-locked major rooms. The loot quality justifies the deep investment into the Survival tree.

Good as New (Survival) - 1 point

While under a healing effect, stamina regeneration is increased.

Why you need this: This creates positive synergy between healing and movement. When you use Bandages or other healing items, you simultaneously recover stamina faster, letting you quickly return to full combat effectiveness.

Three Deep Breaths (Survival) - Varies

Three Deep Breaths helps you recover stamina more quickly after performing actions that drain it.

Why you need this: This is one of the best stamina improvements in the entire skill tree. Combined with Marathon Runner, Youthful Lungs, and Calming Stroll from Mobility, Three Deep Breaths creates a full stamina management suite that allows sustained mobility across entire raids.

Drawback: Requires substantial point investment to reach, making it a mid-to-late game acquisition.

Recommended Skill Tree Path for Squad Players

This progression optimizes for squad play, where downed-state skills provide significant value. The path balances early stamina improvements with looting efficiency and eventually incorporates squad-focused survival skills.

Why This Works for Squads

The first 11 skill points establish movement capabilities that affect every moment of gameplay. After this foundation, immediately shift to the Survival tree to unlock In-Round Crafting and establish your looting efficiency. The progression through Survival focuses on reaching Broad Shoulders while picking up valuable utilities like Traveling Tinkerer along the way.

The Conditioning phase prioritizes Used to the Weight (needed for shield management) before pushing deep into the tree to unlock Downed but Determined and Loaded Arms, both critical for squad survival and efficiency. The focus on downed-state skills (Downed but Determined, Crawl Before You Walk) reflects the squad-focused nature of this path.

Finally, return to Mobility to unlock the keystone abilities Calming Stroll and Carry the Momentum, then max out Effortless Roll for complete movement mastery.

Recommended Skill Tree Path for Solo Players

Solo players should avoid downed-state skills since they provide minimal value without teammates to perform revives. This path redistributes those points into mobility and utility skills that improve solo survival.

Why This Works for Solo

The solo path follows the same stamina foundation as the squad path but makes strategic differences. After establishing Survival efficiency, it prioritizes reaching advanced Mobility skills much earlier than the squad path. Solo players benefit more from mobility since they can't rely on teammates for support. Superior movement is their primary defensive tool.

Notice the redistribution of points away from Downed but Determined and Crawl Before You Walk into maxing Silent Scavenger, Nimble Climber, and Fight or Flight. This creates a more mobility-focused build while maintaining core looting and weight management utilities.

The path results in an even 75-point distribution across all three branches, creating a well-rounded character capable of handling solo raid challenges.

Why Not Focus on Final-Tier Skills?

Each branch has powerful final-tier skills that require 36 points invested in that tree to unlock. While these abilities are strong, reaching them requires sacrificing too many valuable skills from the other branches.

The math doesn't work: To unlock any final-tier skill, you must invest over half your total 75 skill points (36 out of 75) into a single branch. This forces you to leave behind numerous high-value skills from the other two trees. None of the final-tier abilities are impactful enough to justify this trade-off.

Better approach: Distributing points more evenly across all three branches provides a more versatile and effective character. You gain important abilities from each tree rather than maximizing one at the expense of the others.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Adapting Your Build to Your Playstyle

The recommended paths provide optimized progressions, but Arc Raiders allows for personalization based on your preferences.

Aggressive PvP players: Consider prioritizing Effortless Roll earlier to improve combat mobility. Being able to dodge roll more frequently provides significant advantages in player-versus-player engagements.

Loot-focused players: Accelerate your progression through the Survival tree to reach Broad Shoulders and Security Breach faster. More carrying capacity and access to premium loot containers directly increase your extraction value.

Cautious players: Invest more heavily into Conditioning skills that help you survive dangerous situations. Skills like Survivor's Stamina and Unburdened Roll provide insurance when situations go wrong.

Quest-focused players: Maximize stamina improvements early to make long-distance travel between objectives more efficient. Calming Stroll becomes particularly valuable for players who spend significant time traversing maps.

Final Thoughts on Skill Progression

The skill tree in Arc Raiders provides meaningful progression that sticks around through the inevitable loot losses that come with extraction shooters. Unlike games where losing your equipment means losing all progress, your skill investments stay permanent (until you optionally participate in Expeditions).

The 75-point limitation requires strategic planning but also makes sure that skill choices remain meaningful throughout your progression. You can't just "max everything." You must prioritize abilities that match your playstyle.

For new players, here's the most important takeaway: establish your stamina foundation immediately, unlock In-Round Crafting as soon as possible, then branch out based on whether you prefer solo or squad play. These early decisions create a solid foundation that makes every subsequent raid more manageable and successful.

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