Abilities in Atomic Heart determine your combat strength, and players must focus on the best abilities they can find in the game. You can unlock several skills for your Polymer Glove but some are better and more effective than others.
You will need to invest in some Atomic Heart glove upgrades as soon as possible to defeat challenging enemies in each chapter.
To upgrade your glove, you must meet Nora, the robot, and spend the Neuropolymer for the upgrades. Here we will list all of the best abilities you can pick for your gloves in Atomic Heart.
Best glove abilities and upgrades in Atomic Heart
You can choose different abilities and upgrades for your AI partner Char-les. The talking Glove allows you to perform specific actions that can prove to be very resourceful during your Atomic Heart playthrough.
There are a total of 6 abilities you can unlock for your Glove, but the best one allows you to be more efficient in making your foes immobilize and help you contain the impact of enemies.
Energy Management
Energy management is essential in Atomic Heart as you need to use your energy most efficiently to keep using your weapons and abilities.
Your energy will drain slowly, making you powerful and an advantage over your foes. It means your shots can deal more damage during combat, and you can kill enemies more quickly.
When it comes to the best upgrades for Energy Management, Energy Density, and Greedy Guts are up to the mark.
You can double your stored energy amount by having Energy Densitry, and you need to get it early in the game to allow maximum benefits to your abilities and weapon.
Greedy Guts are best used in combination with Energy Density. This ability allows you to decrease the slowdown time for all the energy abilities.
Combining these two upgrades allows you to deal double the damage at half the cost of the ordinary cooldown. You should get this skill tree first, as you can benefit from this due to its knock-out effect on all the other glove upgrades in Atomic Heart.
Shok
Shok is one of the first glove abilities in Atomic Heart. This ability takes up only two ability slots, freeing your third ability slot. You get it for free, and it is the third ability you unlock.
The ability allows you to release blasts of electrical energy. These can damage enemies and activate environmental devices, enabling you to activate some traps during your fight. Shok is so versatile that it becomes a vital part of your arsenal as you go through the game.
The best upgrades for Shok’s ability are Chain Lightning and Extended Topology.
You get the much-needed AOE damage potential by equipping these upgrades. Your weapon will deal maximum damage to multiple enemies present within a specific radius. Additionally, your hits will deal bonus damage during your interaction with robots.
This is crucial as most of your campaign in Atomic Heart includes combat with the robots, so having Shok is essential in the game.
Frostbite
The Frostbite ability allows you to freeze your enemies where they stand. The ability is excellent for crowd control and can make a massive difference in fights where enemies are swarming you.
Although this ability seems only useful against organic enemies, it can be frozen. But Frostbite’s ability is also an excellent counter to robots. You cannot completely freeze them, but you can almost completely slow down robots with Frostbite.
Absolute Zero and Careful Disassembly are two upgrades that are the best for Frostbite.
The Absolute Zero upgrades allow you to freeze down your enemies and damage them simultaneously. You get the opportunity to perform free attacks to land maximum damage on the stuck-up foes.
Careful Disassembly is also essential for Frostbite. It allows you to gather bonus items from the enemies that fall under your frostbite effect. So you can get additional items to gain several useful updates for your gear.
Character
Character skill works on improving the physical skill of the user. It offers increased resistance, increased mobility, increased health, and even increased carry capacity. It turns you into a buff ninja from a scrawny turtle.
The ability doesn’t seem very powerful but provides excellent utility overall. All your physical aspects are improved. You take reduced damage, move faster, and always carry more items on you.
You must unlock several upgrades to make it viable, including Morning Exercise, Parkour, Avatar, Bulwark, Neuro Compression Tactical Backpack, Athlete, and Wild Boar.
All these upgrades together make up the character ability, one of the best abilities you can get to increase your effectiveness on the battlefield.
Mass Telekinesis
Mass Telekinesis is the best crowd-control ability in the entire game. The ability allows you to move your enemies and objects around telekinetically.
You can lift your enemies and throw them to deal damage or throw things toward your enemies to hit them. You can also use the ability to levitate multiple enemies at once and then retreat or attack stronger enemies once they are left open.
Consider getting Forced Fall Acceleration and Increased Power when unlocking Mass Telekinesis upgrades.
Forced Fall Acceleration allows you to slam down your enemies, dealing additional damage. Increased Power will enable you to lift heavier objects and enemies so you can throw or slam them.
You can use this ability even on high-level bosses. This ability provides you with the most pleasing animation, and you can break down your robotic foes using the Increased Power upgrade in Atomic Heart.
Polymeric Shield
While other abilities in Atomic Heart we have listed focus on increasing your effectiveness in combat, this ability follows your defense in any fight.
Polymeric Shield does as the name indicates and provides a mobile shield to use whenever you need to deflect or avoid damage.
Polymeric Shield can absorb most of the damage thrown your way, and with proper upgrades, you can make your Polymeric Shield ability even stronger.
The best upgrade you can get for Polymeric Shield is Kinetic Reflector Upgrade, which allows you to reflect all enemy attacks on a parry.
You can also get Med Unit Feedback and Sponge Attack that will enable you to convert your enemy attacks into valuable resources and absorb the attacks, increasing your health rather than taking damage.
These are the best abilities that you can choose from in Atomic Heart. You can always change them depending on your need or even opt for a different ability if it suits you. Other upgrades for these abilities can also be thrown into the mix to make better matchups.
