Best Skills to Unlock First in ARC Raiders: Essential Early Game Progression

ARC Raiders features an extensive skill tree system that can feel overwhelming when you’re first starting out. With three distinct branches and roughly 50 total skills to choose from, making the wrong early investments can set your progression back significantly. Unlike equipment that you can swap freely, skill points represent permanent character development choices that shape your playstyle.

This guide identifies the most impactful early-game skills that provide immediate benefits, helping you survive longer raids, loot more efficiently, and establish a solid foundation for whatever specialized build you eventually pursue.

Understanding the Skill Tree System

Before diving into specific recommendations, let’s clarify how skill progression works in ARC Raiders:

Earning Skill Points: You gain skill points by leveling up your Raider through various activities—looting, combat, extraction, and survival. Consistent play naturally accumulates these points over time.

Skill Point Investment: Most skills cost one point to unlock initially, but you can invest up to 5 additional points into many skills to increase their effectiveness. This scaling system rewards specialization.

Accessing Skills: Navigate to the Raider section from the main menu (using RB/R1), then select the leftmost icon beneath your character to open the Skill Tree interface.

Three distinct branches: Each branch serves different playstyles, and you’ll need to unlock prerequisite skills before accessing deeper-tier abilities.

Now let’s break down each branch and identify the priority unlocks.

The Three Skill Branches Explained

Conditioning Branch: Survival Foundation

Primary focus: Health, stamina, and combat survivability

Best for: Players who engage in frequent combat, PvP-focused Raiders, and those learning the game’s mechanics

Philosophy: This branch emphasizes raw survivability—making sure you can take hits, recover from damage, and maintain stamina during extended engagements. If you find yourself dying frequently or running out of stamina mid-fight, Conditioning addresses these weaknesses directly.

Mobility Branch: Speed and Efficiency

Primary focus: Movement speed, stamina efficiency, and traversal

Best for: Farmers, speedrunners, players prioritizing loot routes over combat, and those who prefer evasion over confrontation

Philosophy: Mobility skills let you cover more ground faster, escape dangerous situations, and maintain stamina for prolonged movement. If your strategy revolves around hitting high-value loot locations quickly and extracting before encountering enemies, this branch supports that approach.

Survival Branch: Stealth and Utility

Primary focus: Quiet movement, looting efficiency, field crafting, and stealth mechanics

Best for: Solo players, stealth-focused Raiders, and players who want maximum looting efficiency

Philosophy: Survival skills help you avoid detection, loot faster and quieter, and unlock unique utilities like field crafting. This branch is particularly valuable for solo players who can’t rely on teammates to watch their backs.

Best Early Game Skills: Priority Unlocks

Here are the essential skills you should prioritize during your first 10-20 hours of gameplay, organized by branch with detailed explanations of why they matter.

Conditioning Branch: Essential Combat Skills

Gentle Pressure (Traversal Sub-category)

What it does: Reduces the noise your character makes while breaching doors and containers

Why it’s essential: Breaching creates audio cues that alert nearby players to your location. With Gentle Pressure, you become significantly harder to track by sound alone. This gives you critical extra seconds to prepare for combat or escape before enemies converge on your position.

Investment recommendation: Unlock immediately, then invest 2-3 additional points to maximize noise reduction. The difference between being heard from 50 meters versus 20 meters is life-or-death in contested areas.

Proficient Pryer (Traversal Sub-category)

What it does: Decreases the time required to breach doors and containers

Why it’s essential: Time is your most valuable resource in ARC Raiders. Every second spent breaching is a second you’re vulnerable and stationary. Proficient Pryer lets you clear buildings faster, loot more efficiently, and minimize exposure during the breaching animation.

Investment recommendation: Unlock early and invest 3-4 points. Combined with Gentle Pressure, you become a looting machine that operates quickly and quietly. If you’re following coin farming routes, this skill directly increases your coins-per-hour by reducing time per loot interaction.

Fight or Flight (Combat Sub-category)

What it does: Grants a fixed amount of stamina when you take damage in combat

Why it’s essential: This is your panic button skill. When ambushed by enemies, Fight or Flight gives you the stamina burst needed to either sprint to cover or reposition aggressively for a counter-attack. For new players still learning PvP mechanics, this skill has saved countless lives by providing escape options when caught off-guard.

Investment recommendation: Unlock within your first 5-10 skill points, then invest 2 additional points to increase the stamina granted. This becomes less critical as you improve at combat positioning, but it’s invaluable while learning.

Mobility Branch: Stamina Management Core

Calming Stroll

What it does: Stamina regenerates at standing-still rates even while walking

Why it’s essential: Normally, stamina regeneration is significantly slower while moving. Calming Stroll eliminates that penalty for walking, meaning you never have to come to a complete stop to recover stamina. You maintain momentum while regenerating, which is crucial during extended traversal or when repositioning mid-combat.

Investment recommendation: Unlock this as your first or second Mobility skill, then invest 3-5 points. Fully upgraded, this skill transforms stamina management from a constant frustration into something you barely think about.

Marathon Runner

What it does: Reduces stamina cost for movement actions (sprinting, climbing, etc.)

Why it’s essential: Stamina depletion is one of the most common causes of death in ARC Raiders. Running out of stamina mid-escape or while chasing enemies leaves you vulnerable. Marathon Runner extends how long you can sprint before exhaustion, letting you cover larger distances and maintain aggressive positioning.

Investment recommendation: Unlock early and invest 4-5 points. This skill synergizes perfectly with Calming Stroll and Youthful Lungs to create a comprehensive stamina management system.

Youthful Lungs

What it does: Increases your maximum stamina bar capacity

Why it’s essential: A larger stamina pool means more consecutive sprints, more climbing before exhaustion, and greater overall mobility. Combined with Marathon Runner’s reduced costs and Calming Stroll’s improved regeneration, Youthful Lungs completes the holy trinity of stamina skills.

Investment recommendation: Unlock after Marathon Runner and Calming Stroll, then invest 4-5 points. These three skills working together eliminate stamina as a limiting factor in your gameplay.

The Mobility Trinity: Marathon Runner, Youthful Lungs, and Calming Stroll form an interconnected system. Individually they’re good; together they’re transformative. Prioritize unlocking all three within your first 15-20 skill points for maximum impact.

Survival Branch: Game-Changing Utilities

Revitalizing Squad

What it does: Increases stamina regeneration rate while crouching

Why it’s essential: Crouching already provides faster stamina regeneration than walking or standing, but Revitalizing Squad amplifies this significantly. When you’re in stealth mode, scouting locations, or camping a position, you’ll regenerate stamina incredibly quickly. This lets you burst into action from stealth positions without the typical stamina deficit.

Investment recommendation: Unlock if pursuing a stealth-focused playstyle, then invest 2-3 points. This synergizes well with the Mobility stamina skills for complete stamina dominance.

In-Round Crafting ⭐ HIGHEST PRIORITY

What it does: Unlocks the ability to craft items while on raid, using materials you’ve collected in the field

Why it’s essential: This is arguably the single most valuable skill in the entire tree for early-game players. Here’s why:

• Emergency shield restoration: Ran out of Shield Rechargers mid-raid? Craft more on the spot if you have components
• Medical supply creation: Same principle applies to health items
• Resource efficiency: Convert raw materials into finished products without returning to Speranza
• Reduced loadout dependency: You don’t need to carry as many consumables from base since you can craft replacements

The flexibility In-Round Crafting provides cannot be overstated. It transforms how you approach risk management and resource allocation.

Investment recommendation: Unlock this as soon as possible—ideally within your first 10-15 skill points. No additional investment needed; the unlock itself provides full functionality. This skill alone justifies investing in the Survival tree even if you’re primarily focused on Conditioning or Mobility.

For players who frequently forget to stock up on shield recharge items, In-Round Crafting is an absolute lifesaver.

Recommended Skill Progression Path (First 20 Points)

Here’s an optimized unlock sequence that provides immediate benefits while building toward stronger late-game skills:

Points 1-5:

1. In-Round Crafting (Survival) – Immediate utility
2. Marathon Runner (Mobility) – Stamina efficiency
3. Proficient Pryer (Conditioning) – Faster looting
4. Gentle Pressure (Conditioning) – Quieter looting
5. Calming Stroll (Mobility) – Stamina regeneration

Points 6-10: 6. Youthful Lungs (Mobility) – Stamina capacity 7-9. Invest 3 additional points into Marathon Runner (max effectiveness) 10. Fight or Flight (Conditioning) – Combat escape option

Points 11-20: 11-13. Invest 3 additional points into Calming Stroll (max effectiveness) 14-16. Invest 3 additional points into Proficient Pryer (max looting speed) 17-18. Invest 2 additional points into Fight or Flight 19-20. Invest 2 additional points into Youthful Lungs

This progression gives you:

• Complete stamina management system
• Efficient and quiet looting
• Field crafting capability
• Emergency combat survival tool

From point 21 onward, branch into whatever specialization suits your playstyle—deeper Conditioning for combat focus, more Survival for stealth mechanics, or additional Mobility for peak efficiency.

Skills to Avoid Early

Not all skills provide equal value in the early game. Here are some common pitfall investments:

Deep Survival tree skills: Beyond In-Round Crafting and basic looting improvements, many Survival skills cater to advanced stealth tactics that aren’t necessary when learning the game.

Security Breach: While eventually necessary for accessing Security Lockers, this requires 36+ prerequisite points in Survival. That’s a massive investment that delays more immediately impactful skills. Save this for mid-to-late game.

Highly specialized combat skills: Some Conditioning skills cater to very specific weapon types or combat scenarios. These become valuable later but don’t provide broad enough benefits for early investment.

Diminishing returns investments: Dumping all 5 possible points into a single skill immediately provides less total benefit than spreading those points across multiple foundational skills first.

Playstyle-Specific Recommendations

For PvP-Focused Players

Priority order:

1. Fight or Flight (combat escape)
2. Marathon Runner (chase/flee capability)
3. Youthful Lungs (sustained combat stamina)
4. Gentle Pressure (ambush setup)
5. In-Round Crafting (mid-combat supply crafting)

For Solo Farmers

Priority order:

1. In-Round Crafting (self-sufficiency)
2. Proficient Pryer (loot efficiency)
3. Gentle Pressure (avoiding detection)
4. Marathon Runner (covering farming routes)
5. Calming Stroll (constant movement)

For Squad Support Players

Priority order:

1. In-Round Crafting (supplying teammates)
2. Youthful Lungs (keeping pace with team)
3. Revitalizing Squad (quick recovery between fights)
4. Fight or Flight (staying alive to support)
5. Marathon Runner (repositioning for support roles)

Maximizing Your Overall Progression

Skills work best when combined with proper gear and knowledge:

• Storage management: Ensure you have adequate stash and backpack space to hold the extra loot your efficient looting skills help you gather
• Performance: Keep your game running smoothly with our PC optimization settings
• Team coordination: Skills like In-Round Crafting become even more valuable when playing with friends who can share resources
• Free bonuses: Supplement your progression with Twitch Drops rewards

Long-Term Skill Planning

After establishing your foundation with the recommended early skills, plan your mid-to-late game progression:

Levels 20-30: Begin specializing based on your preferred playstyle. If you love PvP, dive deeper into Conditioning combat skills. If you prefer farming, invest in advanced Mobility and Survival utilities.

Levels 30-40: Work toward major unlocks like Security Breach (if desired) or high-tier combat abilities. By this point, you should have a clear sense of what playstyle suits you.

Level 40+: Min-max your build with the final tier skills and maximize investment in your core abilities. You’ll have enough points to create a truly specialized character.

Respec and Mistakes

Currently, ARC Raiders doesn’t appear to offer skill respeccing (resets), so choose your investments carefully. That said, don’t be paralyzed by fear of mistakes—the skills recommended in this guide provide broad utility that benefits any playstyle.

Even if you eventually shift from solo farming to aggressive PvP, skills like In-Round Crafting, Marathon Runner, and Proficient Pryer remain valuable. The core recommendations avoid hyper-specialized skills that only work for narrow playstyles.

Final Thoughts

The skill tree in ARC Raiders offers extensive customization, but smart early investments make the biggest difference to your immediate experience. Prioritize In-Round Crafting, establish a robust stamina management system through the Mobility trinity, and enhance your looting efficiency with Conditioning traversal skills.

These foundational abilities improve every aspect of gameplay—survival, looting, combat, and economy—while leaving you flexible to specialize later. Avoid the temptation to immediately pursue high-tier unlocks like Security Breach; build your foundation first, and the advanced content will come naturally.

External Resources:

• Official ARC Raiders Website
• ARC Raiders on PlayStation Store
• ARC Raiders on Xbox Store

Invest wisely, level smartly, and dominate the battlefield!