Explained ARC Raiders Skill Tree
The progression in ARC Raiders is defined by two key elements: your scavenging skills and your character's permanent abilities. Our ultimate guide provides a comprehensive breakdown of the entire ARC Raiders Skills Tree, an essential system that allows players to shape their Raider's playstyle permanently.
This overview covers all three major skill branches – Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival – detailing every single ability and explaining the mechanics of how to acquire and upgrade these critical perks. Master your skills to master the surface and ensure successful extractions in every raid.
Explained: The Structure of the ARC Raiders Skills Tree
While extraction shooters typically focus on the weapon arsenal, the ARC Raiders Skills Tree is just as vital to a Raider’s identity as their gear. This skill tree is a permanent fixture of progress – unlike temporary weapons, allocated points persist between raids, shaping your fundamental strategy.
The skill tree is quite extensive, featuring approximately 45 total skills divided into three distinct categories. Allocating points here rewards different gameplay approaches, from logistics to stealth.
The Three Pillars of Raider Progression
The ARC Raiders Skills Tree is segmented into three primary branches, each focused on improving specific attributes critical for surface survival.
- Conditioning: This branch focuses on physical endurance and logistics. Skills here boost stamina, strength, carry weight, and general endurance. Key skills include Youthful Lungs (increases max stamina) and Broad Shoulders (increases carry weight capacity for hauling more loot).
- Mobility: This branch is crucial for efficient traversal and enemy evasion. It focuses on movement stamina efficiency, speed, and traversal fluidity. Essential skills like Marathon Runner (reduces stamina cost for moving) and Nimble Climber (increases climbing and vaulting speed) are prerequisites for a dynamic movement range.
- Survival: This branch contains some of the most creative in-game perks, enhancing looting and enabling stealth approaches. Investment here can unlock the ability to craft items during a raid or breach special security lockers for better loot. For example, Looter's Instincts and Silent Scavenger boost looting efficiency and stealth.
Pillar 1: ARC Raiders Skills – Conditioning Tree
The Conditioning Tree focuses entirely on your Raider's physical strength, endurance, and logistical support. Investing here directly improves stamina recovery and mitigation of environmental drawbacks like heavy shields or injuries. This makes the Conditioning skills essential for tanky builds and persistent raiders who prioritize brute strength and maximum uptime in combat.
| Skill Name | Description | Impacted Stat |
|---|---|---|
| Used To The Weight | Heavy shields result in a lower movement penalty | Movement Speed |
| Blast-Born | Reduces the impact of explosions on your ability to hear | Hearing Enhancement |
| Gentle Pressure | Generates less noise when forcing open containers or doors | Noise Reduction |
| Fight Or Flight | Recover a fixed amount of stamina after taking damage in a fight (has a cooldown) | Stamina Regeneration |
| Proficient Pryer | The time required to breach doors and containers is reduced | Breach Time Reduction |
| Survivor's Stamina | Stamina regenerates at a faster rate when your health is critically low | Stamina Regeneration |
| Unburdened Roll | Your immediate dodge roll after a shield breaks will not cost stamina | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Downed But Determined | Increases the time you remain active after being downed before you collapse entirely | Max Downtime |
| A Little Extra | You generate materials when successfully breaching objects | Loot Find Chance |
| Effortless Swing | Melee attacks and abilities require less stamina to execute | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Turtle Crawl | Reduces the amount of damage you take while you are in the downed state | Downtime Damage Reduction |
| Loaded Arms | The weight of your currently equipped weapon has a reduced effect on your total encumbrance | Encumbrance Reduction |
| Sky-Clearing Swing | Increases the damage dealt by your melee attacks to airborne drones | Melee Damage |
| Back On Your Feet | Your health automatically regenerates up to a specific limit when you are critically injured | Health Regeneration |
| Flyswatter | Allows your single melee attack to instantly destroy small ARC units (Tick, Pop, Wasp, and Turret) | Melee Damage |
Pillar 2: ARC Raiders Skills – Mobility Tree
The Mobility Tree is arguably the most critical for all playstyles, as efficient movement is key to avoiding deadly ARC encounters and reaching extraction points quickly. These skills prioritize stamina efficiency during traversal, ensuring you can run further, dodge more, and navigate vertical spaces with ease.
| Skill Name | Description | Impacted Stat |
|---|---|---|
| Nimble Climber | Increases the speed at which you climb and vault over obstacles | Climb and Vault Speed |
| Marathon Runner | Reduces the stamina cost incurred when moving around the map | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Slip and Slide | Allows you to execute slides that cover a greater distance and are faster | Movement Speed |
| Youthful Lungs | Permanently increases your total maximum stamina capacity | Max Stamina |
| Sturdy Ankles | Reduces the damage sustained from falls that are not immediately lethal | Fall Damage Reduction |
| Carry The Momentum | Sprinting briefly costs no stamina immediately following a Sprint Dodge Roll | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Calming Stroll | Your stamina recovers as quickly as if you were standing still, even while walking | Stamina Regeneration |
| Effortless Roll | Reduces the stamina cost required to perform Dodge Rolls | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Off The Wall | Increases the distance you can cover when performing a Wall Leap | Wall Leap Distance |
| Heroic Leap | Increases the overall distance covered by your Dodge Rolls | Roll Distance |
| Vigorous Vaulter | Vaulting speed is no longer reduced when your Raider is exhausted | Climb and Vault Speed |
| Ready To Roll | Increases the timing window for performing a Recovery Roll when landing from a fall | Recover Roll Window |
| Vaults on Vaults on Vaults | Vaulting over obstacles will no longer drain your stamina | Stamina Cost Reduction |
| Vault Spring | Allows you to perform a jump immediately after completing a vault | Vault Jump |
Pillar 3: ARC Raiders Skills – Survival Tree
The Survival Tree focuses on logistics, stealth, and resource management, offering quality-of-life improvements vital for successful looting and high-value extractions. These skills enhance your ability to move quietly, locate loot faster, and carry more resources out of dangerous zones.
| Skill Name | Description | Impacted Stat |
|---|---|---|
| Agile Croucher | Increases your overall movement speed while you are in a crouching position | Movement Speed |
| Looter's Instincts | The time it takes for loot to be revealed after searching a container is reduced | Loot Speed |
| Revitalizing Squat | Increases the rate at which your stamina regenerates while you are crouching | Stamina Regeneration |
| Silent Scavenger | Reduces the amount of noise you generate while searching for loot | Noise Reduction |
| In-Round Crafting | Grants the ability to craft basic items while you are still topside (in the raid) | Crafting in-game |
| Suffer in Silence | Your movement generates less noise when your health is critically low | Noise Reduction |
| Good As New | Increases your stamina regeneration rate when you are currently benefiting from a healing effect | Stamina Regeneration |
| Broad Shoulders | Increases the maximum limit of weight that your Raider can carry | Max Encumbrance |
| Traveling Tinkerer | Unlocks access to additional items that can be crafted while in the field | Field Crafting |
| Stubborn Mule | Your stamina regeneration is less negatively impacted by being overencumbered | Stamina Regeneration |
| Looter's Luck | Grants a chance to reveal double the amount of items when you are actively looting | Loot Find Chance |
| One Raider's Scraps | Increases the chance of finding extra crafted items when looting containers left by other Raiders | Loot Find Chance |
| Three Deep Breaths | Your stamina recovers more quickly after an ability has caused it to drain | Stamina Regeneration |
| Security Breach | Unlocks the ability to breach special Security Lockers for better loot | Loot Option |
| Minesweeper | Mines and other explosive deployables can be disarmed when you are near them | Explosive Defuse |
How to Navigate and Upgrade the ARC Raiders Skills Tree
Unlike simply acquiring loot, progression through the ARC Raiders Skills Tree is a dedicated process that requires both experience and strategic investment. To advance your Raider and unlock new abilities, players must first gather sufficient experience points (XP).
Acquiring and Allocating Skill Points
Each time you successfully complete a level, you are rewarded with a Skill Point. These points are the currency for unlocking perks within the Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival trees. The majority of standard skills require an investment of 5 Skill Points to fully acquire the perk.
The allocation process is straightforward: players must navigate to their profile, select a desired skill, and spend 1 Skill Point to acquire it.
Unlocking Advanced and Major Skills
The structure of the skill tree is hierarchical, meaning skills cannot be unlocked immediately.
- New skills only become available after you have unlocked one of the skills positioned directly below them in the respective tree.
- Major skills – which are potent, high-impact abilities – only require 1 Skill Point for acquisition, but they have prerequisites. Some major skills require specific point investments within that category before they become available for unlock.
The Expedition Project: Resetting Your Skills
Commitment to a build is flexible in ARC Raiders. Players have the option to reset their allocated skills through the voluntary ARC Raiders wipe, which occurs every eight weeks via the Expedition Project. This provides Raiders with scheduled opportunities to completely re-specialize their character build based on new meta strategies or playstyles.
Conclusion
The ARC Raiders Skills Tree is the permanent backbone of your Raider's identity, offering crucial advantages in logistics, movement, and survival that persist across every raid. We have established that the three branches – Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival – each offer unique perks necessary for overcoming the relentless ARC threat and ensuring high-value extractions.
The core takeaway is that strategic point allocation is more important than simply grinding levels. Experts recommend distributing your initial 15–20 Skill Points across all three trees to build a solid foundation in movement efficiency and endurance before specializing. Investing early in Mobility skills like Marathon Runner and Conditioning skills like Youthful Lungs will significantly reduce the friction of early raids.
Remember that full build flexibility is available every eight weeks through the Expedition Project wipe. Use this opportunity to refine your ARC Raiders Skills loadout and adapt to new meta strategies for success on the surface.
For players who want to bypass the resource grind or quickly secure a fully leveled legendary arsenal, utilizing an ARC Raiders Weapons Boost service can provide immediate access to powerful, optimized gear.
FAQ
Yes, skill allocations are permanent and transfer across all raids. However, players can reset their allocated points during the voluntary ARC Raiders wipe, which occurs every eight weeks via the Expedition Project.
The tree is split into three main categories: Conditioning (Stamina and Endurance), Mobility (Traversal Speed and Stamina Efficiency), and Survival (Looting, Stealth, and Crafting).
Must-have early investments include Youthful Lungs (max stamina), Proper Breathing (faster stamina regeneration), and Broad Shoulders (increased carry weight), as stamina and capacity are primary challenges in the early game.
Change Log
- 02.11.2025 - Explained ARC Raiders Skill Tree published.