ARC Raiders: Best Skills to Unlock First Before the Frozen Trail Update
ARC Raiders rewards early investment in Mobility above everything else. Here are the specific skills worth your points now, and how the October 8 Frozen Trail update changes the tree for good.
A Raider takes cover from a towering ARC unit, the kind of encounter the skill tree is built to help you survive. Image: Embark Studios.
ARC Raiders throws you into Speranza with a rifle, a backpack and almost nothing else. Everything you actually survive with, how fast you climb, how much stamina you burn sprinting past an ARC Bastion, how much loot you can carry out of a raid, comes from the skill tree. Spend points in the wrong order early and you will spend your first ten hours getting caught in the open by machines you could have simply outrun.
How the skill tree actually works
Skill points come from three places: gaining XP inside a raid, leveling up your Raider rank, and finishing raids alive rather than getting wiped. The tree itself is split into three branches, Conditioning, Mobility and Survival, and each branch runs through a Core tier, a Branch tier and a Specialization tier, with the specializations at the top locking you into a more defined playstyle. You can check your current build against the official skill tree on the ARC Raiders site or from the main menu at any time, so nothing here is a guess you have to commit to blind.
Mobility first, almost every time
Start in Mobility. It has the fastest payoff of the three branches because ARC Raiders is a game about outrunning things, not tanking them. Marathon Runner cuts your stamina drain while moving, which matters more than any weapon upgrade in your first fifteen levels because stamina is what lets you disengage from a fight you are losing. Youthful Lungs raises your maximum stamina pool on top of that. Nimble Climber speeds up vaulting and climbing, the difference between clearing a wall before a Wasp drone clips you and eating a full burst mid-climb. Slip and Slide extends your slide distance for cutting corners around cover during a firefight.
Put three to four points into this branch before you touch anything else. None of it costs much and all of it pays back on literally every raid, not just the ones where you get into a fight.
The Survival and Conditioning skills worth the points
Once Mobility is covered, split the rest between Survival and Conditioning depending on how you play. In-Round Crafting is the single most efficient skill in the Survival branch, three points let you craft bandages and shield rechargers while you are still topside, instead of burning your only ones early and running dry before extraction. Broad Shoulders raises your carry capacity, which turns marginal raids into profitable ones once you start hauling components out instead of leaving them behind. In Conditioning, Fight or Flight restores stamina when you take damage, and Proficient Pryer cuts the time it takes to breach a locked door or container, which matters when an ARC unit is closing in and you are stuck fumbling with a lock.
Solo builds versus squad builds
Playing solo changes what is worth prioritizing. Looter's Instincts and Silent Scavenger both push toward moving fast, staying quiet and grabbing loot efficiently without backup to cover you, and Effortless Roll gives you a cheaper dodge for breaking contact alone. In a squad, survivability skills pull more weight: Downed But Determined keeps you fighting a little longer after you go down so your team has time to reach you, Turtle Crawl lets you crawl faster while downed, and Heroic Leap rewards aggressive repositioning when you have teammates backing you up. Pick the set that matches how you actually queue, not the one a highlight reel makes look exciting.
What the Frozen Trail update changes on October 8
None of this stays fixed for long. Embark Studios is shipping the Frozen Trail update, which the studio calls its biggest since launch, on October 8. The headline change is a full skill tree rework: some existing abilities are being removed, new ones are being added, and a number of skills will become mutually exclusive rather than eventually unlockable by everyone. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal has said the current tree does not create enough meaningful difference between builds, since players could largely walk through it without making hard choices. The update also adds a new map called Shani built around verticality and exploration, two new ARC enemy types, and a new Raider Outpost base.
That means the skill order above is a snapshot of the game as it plays right now, not a permanent plan. Budget your points as if a respec is coming, because for anyone active past October 8, one basically is.
Quick build checklist
- Three to four points into Mobility first: Marathon Runner, Youthful Lungs, Nimble Climber
- In-Round Crafting as soon as you can afford three points in Survival
- Broad Shoulders once you are regularly filling your bag on raids
- Fight or Flight and Proficient Pryer from Conditioning for close calls
- Solo: Looter's Instincts, Silent Scavenger, Effortless Roll. Squad: Downed But Determined, Turtle Crawl, Heroic Leap
ARC Raiders is on Steam for PC and on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a full skill breakdown kept current on the Arc Raiders Wiki and background on the game at Wikipedia.