Arc Raiders Ultimate Skill Tree Guide 2026: Best Perks And Skills

Jan 1

Arc Raider’s skill tree is one of those things that sounds good on paper but often leaves you wondering, “Does this actually do anything?” The game doesn’t do the best job explaining what perks really do, and until recently — before respecs were added — you were basically stuck with your choices forever.

With the addition of respecing, now is the perfect time to figure out what skills are actually worth your precious points — and which ones you should skip. I spent hours testing these skills properly, including comparing footage and real in‑game results, so you can save time and build smarter.

Let’s break down the arc raiders skill tree in this guide so you know what to pick first and why.

It is recommended you pair this guide with the Arc Skill Tree Builder.

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Conditioning Skills — Strength & Utility

Conditioning focuses on hiking stamina, reducing penalties, and general combat utility. Some skills are surprisingly useful; others… not so much.

Worth Taking (Mid to High Value)

Used to the Weight: Reduces movement penalty from carrying heavy shields. It feels better in play and helps keep your movement less clunky when running good kits with shields. This perk also makes Heavy Shields much more viable.
Proficient Prior: Speeds up breaching doors and containers — saves real time across a raid. Especially since you are noisy and vulnerable while breaching.
Fight or Flight: Regains a bit of stamina when damaged — situational but decent.
Downed but Determined: Extends your time downed before collapse — huge in team play since it gives your team mates more time to pick you up when you are downed.
A Little Extra: Drops free crafting resources once you breach a container. Since this is only a single point and more loot is always better this is a good perk.

Situational / Lower Value

Blast: Reduces explosive ringing — often too small of a difference to matter in real combat.
Gentle Pressure: Slightly quieter breaching — barely noticeable.
Survivor Stamina: Slight stamina regen when hurt — rare to benefit.
Effortless Swing: More melee swings — but usually not impactful in actual combat. Melee fighting is situational at best
Unburdened Roll: Situationally useful, though it is useful. Gives you an extra roll when your shield is broken.
Turtle Crawl: Take less damage when downed, but not by enough to be generally useful.

No‑Go Skills

Sky Clearing Swing & Fly Sweater: Supposed melee buffs that just don’t pan out. Using melee, even against ARC, is just riskier and inefficient and not worth investing points into.
Back on Your Feet: Health regen after critical injury is too slow to ever help.

Mobility Skills — Speed, Movement & Stamina

Mobility is one of the strongest trees overall. It’s all about speed, stamina efficiency, and movement options. Moving farther faster is always crucial.

Top Tier Mobility

Marathon Runner & Youthful Lungs: Instant favorites — more stamina and longer sprinting feels great and makes you more survivable.
Effortless Roll: Dodge rolls cost less stamina — huge quality‑of‑life improvement.
Heroic Leap: Another good improvement to dodge rolls if you use them often, hard to notice, but it can make the difference in close quarters.
Calming Stroll: Great for traveling long distances or if you like to keep your stamina topped up.

Solid Picks

Nimble Climber: Faster climbing and vaulting; decent value even if not flashy. Anything that makes you faster is always good.
Carry the Momentum: After a sprint dodge, sprint without stamina cost for a bit — nice addition and worth 1 point.
Crawl Before You Walk: Faster crawl — feels okay in clutch downed situations. Good for team play to get to cover so your teammates can revive you.
Vigorous Vaulter: No slowed climbing/vaulting when exhausted — this is a big deal situationally.

Lower Tier / Skip

Slip and Slide: Too subtle to notice. The 5 points for this skill are not worth it even if you slide constantly.
Sturdy Ankles: Minor fall damage reduction. Can be useful, but probably not worth 5 points.
Off the Wall / Heroic Leap: Janky, tiny benefits that aren’t worth it alone.
Ready to Roll: Timing window extension feels useless. Not worth it.

Big Mobility Bonus

Vaults on Vaults (and Vault Spring after that): You’ve likely heard about this — improving your vaulting movement makes traversal feel smooth and fun. If you go deep into mobility, these are worth it for playstyle enjoyment. If you go to the top of mobility then these two perks are the reason why. If you don’t want them then put your points in another tree after the first half of the mobility tree.

Survival Skills — Looting, Sustain, & Carry Capacity

Survival specializes in efficiency and sustain: loot bonuses, stamina regen, and carry weight.

High Value Survival

Looter’s Instinct: Slightly faster looting — saves many seconds over many actions. Always good.
Broad Shoulders: More carry weight — massive asset to avoid encumbrance.
Looters Luck: Chance to reveal two loot items at once — fantastic time saved over many raids. Always good.
Good as New: Better stamina regen while healing — small but helpful. Worth 1 point.
Security Breach: Looting lockers — can be good but inconsistent. These lockers were nerfed so they aren’t as good, but more loot is more loot.

Decent or Situational

In‑Round Crafting & Traveling Tinkerer: In Round Crafting is fantastic to create bandages and shield rechargers in raid. Traveling Tinkerer gives you more options but they are rarely that useful. Not bad for a point or two.
Revitalizing Squat: Okay, but only if you make sure to crouch and hide when you are regenerating stamina. Can be useful for running from cover to cover.
Minesweeper: Great in theory but hard to use. When encountering traps in combat you generally don’t have the time to make use of this. Situationally useful.

Skip or Low Value

Agile Croucher: Crouching speed increase rarely needed unless you crouch walk a lot.
Silent Scavenger / Suffer in Silence: Negligible audio effects, not worth priority points. You can still be heard even if maxed out.
Stubborn Mule: Minor stamina benefits while encumbered. Generally it’s better to just not be encumbered, but if you are a lot this can be worth it.
One Raider Scraps: Doesn’t seem to produce meaningful loot.
Three Deep Breaths: I can’t even find a difference or know what an “ability” is.

Skill Tier Summary (Short Version)

If you just want the gist, here’s a quick feel of how each tree shapes up:

Mobility = Very Strong
Conditioning = Solid Support
Survival = Great for getting more loot and crafting in raid

Best Arc Raiders Skill Path — Leveling Order

Here’s a friendly suggested route for leveling up your skills in Arc Raiders. No tables — just easy prose and bullets:

Early Levels (1–11): Get Mobility Rolling

Start with Nimble Climber (1 point)
Pump all points into Marathon Runner (5 points) and Youthful Lungs (5 points)
- This gives you more stamina and better movement early — super noticeable in play.

Next Decisions (Level 12+)

Now you hit a fork in the road. You can push further in Conditioning or pivot into Survival.

If You Want Speed & Combat Fluidity First:

Head back into Conditioning
- Grab 1 Slip and Slide 1 Sturdy Ankles and Calming Stroll
- Get Effortless Roll and Heroic Leap
- 1 point in Crawl Before You Walk and then Vigorous Vaulter
- Put 5 more points into skills to get 36 total (up to you but, but maxing a skill is better than putting a few points in multiple)
- Get Vaults on Vaults on Vaults / Vault Spring

If You Prefer Carry / Loot Benefits Early:

Dive into Survival
- Go straight for In Round Crafting.
- Then max Looter’s Instincts.
- Agile Croucher or Revitalizing Squat to get the first two perks Suffer in Silence and Good as New
- Get Traveling Tinkerer since it is only 1 point
- Max Broad Shoulders with 5 points then Looters Luck
- Max Stubborn Mule and do whatever you want with the next 2 points
- Get Security Breach and Minesweeper
This is especially worth it if you’re looting and hauling tons every raid.

Get Conditioning Skills Last (or after getting the first tiers of other skills, it is up to you)

Max Used To The Weight or Proficient Pryer first before getting Unburdened Roll
On the second tier of the tree get A Little Extra and Loaded Arms before anything else

Deep Build Options (Mid‑Late Game)

Once early goals are met:

If you love movement, push Mobility up to unlock Vaults on Vaults and Vault Spring — these make traversal delightful.
If you want late‑game survival, get deeper skills like Security Breach and more crafting perks.

There’s no one perfect build, just trade‑offs. Do you want to zip around like a ghost, or carry everything with ease? Either path is valid — it’s about how you like to play.

Here is a recommended final build, but this is just one way to do it. While some choices are no brainers (like going mobility for the first 12 levels) there are plenty of options later on that depend on preference and play style. Have fun out there raider!