Are you thinking hard about the best skills in The Outer Worlds 2? Your character can specialize in certain actions or functions. Ideally, your decisions should fit your intended playstyle for the rest of the campaign. As such, it’s imperative to fine-tune your build accordingly, lest you make mistakes down the line.

The Outer Worlds 2 skills tier list

There are 12 skills in the game. Here’s a brief summary on what you can expect:

• In alphabetical order, the skills are: Engineering, Explosives, Guns, Hack, Leadership, Lockpick, Melee, Medical, Observation, Science, Sneak, and Speech.
• By default, you can specialize in two skills. These have higher points compared to others, and you can raise them faster as you level up. Meanwhile, a certain character trait, Brilliant, lets you specialize in three skills.
• Skills grant an effect that continues to increase/improve the more points are invested.
• Every two level-ups, you can select a perk. The available perks are dependent on a variety of factors, including the rank of a prerequisite skill.
• You have to be mindful of your point allocations. That’s because you cannot respec your character outside of one particular instance after the prologue.

In any case, our The Outer Worlds 2 best skills tier list is organized based on these categories: S-tier, A-tier, B-tier, and C-tier. These are based on our experience playing through the campaign. Of course, it’s up to you to make the necessary changes to fit your playstyle.

S-tier: Lockpick

• Effects: You can open locks with a difficulty at or below your skill level. Gain +1% evasion chance
• Tip: Lockpick is definitely one of the best skills in The Outer Worlds 2. There are so many locked doors and containers in the game, that trying to play without improving this quirk means that you’d miss out on so much loot. Moreover, its perks allow you to pickpocket NPCs, both friendlies and hostiles alike. If you want goodies without eliminating a target, then stealing from someone is a good idea.

S-tier: Hack

• Effects: Hack checks equal to or lower than your skill level can be overcome. Gain +5% damage to automechanicals.
• Tip: Hacking is basically the computer/tech-based equivalent of the Lockpick skill. With the sheer number of terminals scattered in several regions, you’re bound to gain access to new opportunities. The bonus damage against mechs is just icing on the cake, since these lumbering constructs tend to be some of the toughest targets in enemy bases.

S-tier: Speech

• Effect: Speech checks with a difficulty at or below your skill level can be selected. Gain +5% damage against humans.
• Tip: Finally, Speech rounds out our top picks among S-tier skills in The Outer Worlds 2. Think of this as the equivalent to dialogue choices and checks when conversing with human NPCs. Hack and Speech also complement each other well enough, as they offer bonus damage against mechs and humanoids, respectively.

A-tier: Guns

• Effect: Gain +10% ranged damage and +1% armor penetration.
• Tip: You’re going to spend most of the game running into packs of hostiles, whether they’re human, mechanical, or rabid animals. More often than not, you’re going to end up shooting them anyway.

A-tier: Science

• Effect: +7 gadget energy max and +10% more stacks of non-physical damage side effects.
• Tip: Among the best skills in The Outer Worlds 2, Science is one of those that truly complements your playstyle if you like dealing damage from a distance. If you’re already improving Guns, then you might as well increase your rank in Science to gain boons when hitting foes with elemental effects–i.e. shock, plasma/incendiary, corrosive, and bleed.

A-tier: Leadership

• Effect: +8% companion damage and +4% companion health.
• Tip: Leadership is a quirk that we really loved in our playthrough, given that we usually go on adventures with various recruitable companions. While our character still carried the day in most encounters, we still found ourselves relying on companion abilities, especially those that have been bolstered via level-ups and mod kits.

B-tier: Melee

• Effect: +10% melee damage and -2% damage taken while blocking.
• Tip: The Melee skill isn’t necessarily “bad.” It just takes a backseat when you already have options like the Guns and Science skills. The reason for this is because you’ll often be engaged in medium-range firefights. Enemies are unlikely to reach you unless you’re caught unaware. Additionally, recruitable companions like Niles and Tristan have taunt abilities to help distract opponents.

B-tier: Medical

• Effect: +7% toxicity crash threshold and +5% damage to creatures.
• Tip: The Medical skill doesn’t really offer a lot to write home about. There’s an abundance of food and drink to restore your health, along with companion abilities–i.e. those used by Valerie or Inez–that improve survivability.

C-tier: Explosives

• Effect: +10% explosives damage and +1% damage resistance against explosives.
• Tip: The Explosives skill is something that you should only consider if you like chucking grenades or dropping mines often. Even its resistance boost becomes negligible once you equip certain unique armors/outfits, such as the Bomb Suit.

C-tier: Engineering

• Effect: Mechanical systems with a difficulty at or below your level can be fixed. Also grants +1% damage resistance.
• Tip: Engineering is an okay skill for the most part, but only if you didn’t invest points into Hack or Lockpick. At best, you could level it up so you can force open jammed doorways, but that’s about it.

C-tier: Sneak

• Effect: Gain +35% sneak attack damage and -2% NPC awareness detection rate.
• Tip: We really wanted to like the Sneak skill. In fact, during our initial playthrough, we wanted to focus on a stealthy route when engaging hostiles. There’s just one glaring problem: If you’re unable to kill a target in a single hit–i.e. their level or health is too high–then you won’t be able to do a sneak attack action. This means you have to select certain perks or find better weapons, which can be an issue as early as the first open-world area in the campaign.

C-tier: Observation

• Effect: Hidden objects with a difficulty at or below your skill level can be found. Gain +15% weakspot damage.
• Tip: There’s no need to take the Observation skill at all. For the most part, you can reveal and highlight passageways and objects if you’re close enough to them. One companion, Tristan, even has a trait that grants a chance to discover these things if your level is too low.

That does it for our guide on the best skills in The Outer Worlds 2. We hope these tips aid you as you finalize your character. If you need more suggestions, we’ve also got a best traits guide and best flaws guide.