The Outer Worlds 2 - Skills
The 12 core skills and representative signature perks of The Outer Worlds 2. Core skills gate dozens of perks (89 total) that define combat, dialogue, stealth, and crafting builds.
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of 20 entries
· updated 2026-09-03
| Name | Type | Description | Tree | Cost | Prerequisite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guns | Core Skill | Increases damage dealt with firearms. Investing here unlocks ranged-combat perks that improve criticals, reload speed, and gun-specific damage. | Combat | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Melee | Core Skill | Increases damage dealt with melee weapons. | Combat | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Sneak | Core Skill | Improves stealth, making you harder to detect and enabling sneak attack bonuses. | Stealth | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Lockpick | Core Skill | Grants access to locked containers, doors, and safes, opening alternate routes and bonus loot across Arcadia. | Utility | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Engineering | Core Skill | Increases the effectiveness of all armor, granting inherent damage reduction, and aids crafting. | Utility | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Explosives | Core Skill | Improves grenades and explosive weaponry, increasing blast damage, radius, and related perks for ordnance-heavy builds. | Combat | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Hack | Core Skill | Allows the Commander to override terminals, turrets, and security systems, opening technological paths and turning enemy hardware against them. | Utility | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Medical | Core Skill | Improves the use of inhaler cures and healing items, boosting health restoration and the potency of consumables in combat. | Support | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Science! | Core Skill | Improves the effectiveness of the game's Science weapons and certain experiments, unlocking the full potential of the series' absurd rule-bending tech. | Utility | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Observation | Core Skill | Sharpens the Commander's ability to notice environmental details, item locations, and dialogue cues, unlocking extra information and rewards. | Utility | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Speech | Core Skill | Improves dialogue success rates, opening persuasion, intimidation, and deception dialogue options that can bypass combat entirely. | Social | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Leadership | Core Skill | Improves the Commander's effectiveness in leading companions, boosting their combat performance and opening companion-specific dialogue. | Social | 1 skill point per level | None |
| Bulletshield | Perk | Grants a bonus to damage resistance and max health, but enemies become more likely to target you over your companions. | Defense | 1 perk point | None |
| Ninja | Perk | While sprinting or sliding, incoming attacks have an increased chance to be avoided. | Stealth | 1 perk point | None |
| Trophy Hunter | Perk | Grants bonus critical chance with all weapons, increased further against strong enemies such as leaders and bosses that aren't heavily damaged. | Combat | 1 perk point | None |
| Psychopath | Perk | Deal bonus damage against any faction with which you have negative reputation; the worse your standing, the greater the damage bonus (up to +40%). | Combat | 1 perk point | None |
| Serial Killer | Perk | After killing a human, gain a chance to automatically harvest their heart, each granting permanent max health. | Combat | 1 perk point | Perk: Psychopath |
| Scrapper | Perk | Automechanicals (robot enemies and allies) drop additional crafting materials when defeated. | Crafting | 1 perk point | Engineering 1 |
| Tinkerer | Perk | Your modded weapons deal bonus damage that scales with your Engineering skill. | Crafting | 1 perk point | Engineering 5 |
| Brand Enthusiast | Perk | While all equipped armor and weapons share the same manufacturer brand, gain bonus damage and armor. | Combat | 1 perk point | None |
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