With hundreds of skills to choose from in Starfield, it can be overwhelming to figure out which ones to focus on for your character build. As a seasoned Starfield player with over 100 hours invested, I‘ve experimented extensively to determine the skills that offer the biggest advantages.
In this guide, I‘ll share the 12 best skills in Starfield and explain why they‘re so useful. I‘ll cover top skills across categories like combat, science, and tech to help optimize different character archetypes.
How the Skill System Works
Before jumping into the best skills, it‘s important to understand Starfield‘s skill system. There are 5 main skill trees, each with 16-17 skills arranged into 4 tiers:
- Physical – Improves physique, stealth, and exploration
- Social – Enhances dialogue, bartering, relationships
- Combat – Boosts weapon damage and critical hits
- Science – Increases research, healing, and spacesuit mods
- Tech – Allows better piloting, hacking, and ship upgrades
You earn a skill point each time your character levels up. Spending points unlocks new ranks of a skill, with more powerful effects. Higher tiers have attribute requirements before you can invest points.
With over 300 potential skill points available, you won‘t max out every skill. That‘s why it‘s crucial to choose skills strategically based on your playstyle.
12 Best Skills in Starfield
Based on my extensive playtesting, these are the most useful skills to prioritize for different character builds:
For Any Build:
Fitness (Physical): Increases oxygen capacity for longer sprinting and exploration. Extremely handy skill that improves mobility.
Commerce (Social): Allows buying items for less and selling items for more. Saves money on gear.
Piloting (Tech): Unlocks better thruster control and ship handling. Necessary for accessing higher class ships.
For Combat Focused:
Marksmanship (Combat): Boosts headshot damage and critical chance with semi-auto weapons like assault/plasma rifles.
Pain Tolerance (Physical): Reduces incoming physical damage from enemy gunfire and explosions. Great survivability boost.
Weapon Specialist (Combat): Enhances damage with your preferred weapon type such as handguns, heavy guns, or energy weapons.
For Stealth Focused:
Stealth (Physical): Makes sneaking easier and increases damage when attacking undetected enemies. Perfect for stealthy approaches.
Silent Blast (Combat): Suppresses sound from your ranged weapons, allowing stealthier gunplay. Works very well with Stealth skill.
Evasion (Physical): Increases your chance to dodge incoming melee and ranged attacks. Useful for hit-and-run tactics.
For Science/Engineering Focused:
Astrophysics (Science): Extends scanner range for probing planets and identifying resources from orbit. Helps efficient exploration and mining.
Engineering (Tech): Boosts damage and critical chance for technical weapons like the grenade launcher and bolt caster. Improves tech builds.
Special Projects (Science): Enables crafting of unique, powerful items from workbenches in your headquarters. Useful for gear upgrades.
Skill Synergies for Powerful Builds
Choosing complementary skills that enhance each other is key to creating truly formidable character builds.
For example, the Stealth and Silent Blast skills combine to make sneaky sniper or infiltration builds extremely deadly. Marksmanship and Evasion pair together nicely as well for tough-to-hit gunslingers.
Here are two of my favorite skill combinations in Starfield that lead to potent character builds:
Juggernaut Tank Build
- Marksmanship – Boosts assault rifle damage
- Pain Tolerance – Reduces incoming damage
- Fitness – More oxygen for repositioning
- Leadership – Improves allies‘ health and carry weight for support
This build focuses on resilience and team support. You soak up damage efficiently while dishing it out with your assault rifle. Leadership helps keep your companions in the fight too.
Covert Operative Build
- Stealth – Enhances sneak attacks
- Silent Blast – Quieter gunshots
- Evasion – More dodging
- Engineering – Stronger technical weapons like grenade launcher
With this setup, you can slice through enemies before they even detect you. If things get dicey, boosted dodging and engineering weapons provide an escape plan. It‘s the ultimate infiltration toolkit.
As you can see, choosing complementary skills pays dividends. Test out different combinations that cater to your preferred playstyle!
General Tips for Skill Progression
When planning your skill selections, keep these tips in mind:
- Analyze weapon choices first – Pick weapon-boosting skills like Marksmanship for your favorite gun types
- Ensure you meet attribute requirements before skill tiers – Take perks when leveling up accordingly
- Focus on 4-6 key skills early on – No need to spread yourself thin trying to unlock everything
- Save some skill points for higher levels – Important skills open up later that are worth investing in
- Respec your skills freely while onboard your ship – Experiment until your build feels just right
Following this advice will help you identify impactful skills for your playstyle and avoid wasting points on unnecessary skills.
Feel free to respec and tweak your build until it aligns with your preferences. That freedom lets you try out different approaches without permanently gimping your character.
Closing Thoughts on Starfield‘s Best Skills
Mastering Starfield‘s elaborate skill system takes time but allows immense customization. Hopefully this guide has helped narrow down to the most critical skills worthy of your investment for different character archetypes.
Choosing those 12 skills listed will go a long way towards crafting a formidable character build suited to your preferred playstyle. And cleverly combining complementary skills together using the example builds pushes effectiveness even further.
Let me know in the comments if you have any other skill combinations or character builds you think are noteworthy! I‘m always trying out new ideas and would enjoy discussing top-tier skill synergies with fellow Starfield enthusiasts.
Thanks for reading and happy skill hunting! Be sure to check back as I‘ll provide future skill updates after continued end-game experimentation.
