Slashing and Blasting your way through the robotic enemies with just weapons in Atomic Hearts won’t suffice for long, and you will need good Skills to upgrade your fighting capabilities.
There are a variety of different skills in Atomic Hearts with a diverse range of effects on your character, allowing you to transform your playstyle greatly. Not all of these Skills, however, will be extremely useful.
You will be able to find a flirtatious fridge in the initial stages of the game that gives you access to Skill upgrades. You will need to find Neuropolymer around the world to upgrade the skills you have.
Some of the skills offer better effects than others, and you will be able to unlock more and more of them and upgrade them as you progress through the game. There is a selected set of Skills that offer you a huge advantage, and are a must-have in the early game.
The thing to note here is that you are going to be respecing a lot throughout the game. This is because the more you advance in a skill tree, the more abilities you are going to access that warrant replacing earlier upgrades.
Best skills to unlock first in Atomic Heart
The Atomic Hearts Skills are divided into different categories in the Skill Tree. They are grouped depending on the type of effect they produce. You will find seven different skill trees in total.
Some of these may be Character Skills, Energy Management Skills, Shok Skills, etc. Only some of the skills in these trees hold the potential to be the best skills to buy early in the game though. Given below is a list of the top ten skills to unlock first in Atomic Heart.
| Skill | Skill Tree |
|---|---|
| Second Wind | Character |
| Wild Boar/Athlete/Musclehead | Character |
| Morning Exercise | Character |
| Juggler | Character |
| Neuro-Compression Tactical Backpack | Character |
| Energy Density | Energy Management |
| Power Amplifier | Shok |
| Chain Lightening | Shok |
| Increased Power | Mass Telekinesis |
| Sponge Effect | Polymeric Shield |
Second Wind
Skills that directly affect your character’s personal traits like its HP, mobility, etc. are classified into the Character Skill Tree. The Second Wind is one of the best Character skills serving a vital role in the early stages of the game.
Although it’s better to have a lot of HP to survive for longer (which we’ll come to later), it’s also better to have good evasive skills to escape enemy attacks. This is especially true if you are surrounded by multiple enemies and want to reposition yourself.
The Second Wind gives you an additional Dash charge, which you can use to swiftly propel towards a direction of your choosing, separating a lot of distance from your enemies.
This skill will be most effective in melee builds – which will be most of your builds in the early game. The double Dash that you get with this skill allows you to reposition swiftly according to the situation and execute an effective kite attack.
Wild Boar / Athlete / Musclehead
Now for the skills that help you boost your HP levels, you have a couple of them like the Wild Boar, Athlete, and Musclehead Skills. All of these skills work in a similar fashion to produce somewhat of the same effect – which is increased HP levels.
Although dodging at all is great to get away from enemy attacks, sometimes you may make some mistakes, or are completely surrounded by enemies with no place to dodge to.
In that case, the increased HP levels will play a vital role in keeping you alive. This allows you to tank more damage and survive for longer in battle, giving you the chance to finish off your enemies before they kill you.
Morning Exercise
The Morning Exercise is another Character Skill that gives you superior mobility, going well with the dodges from the Second Wind Skill. Although this skill doesn’t affect dodges directly, it increases your overall movement speed.
Although the increase in movement speed may not seem like much, the extra speed definitely helps in getting around with ease. This is backed up by the fact that you cannot sprint in this game, so the overall constant slow movement speed will feel very annoying in the late stages of the game.
Buying this skill early on in the game has an added benefit though. Your fights will become more easier as you will be able to get out of the dodge and reposition quickly and efficiently. Moreover, you will also save a lot of time moving swiftly throughout the world.
Juggler
Knowing when to heal and when to attack is one of the most vital combat skills that determines whether you’ll live to see another day. This is especially true in the case of Atomic Heart, where your character uses both of their hands to heal with the Neuromeds.
Using both hands temporarily disables you from attacking or defending yourself. This is where the Juggler Character Skill comes in, which allows you to use one hand to heal yourself.
This will grant you a few benefits. You will now be able to attack as well as defend yourself more efficiently. With this skill available, you can use single-handed weapons to attack your opponents whilst you are using the other hand to heal up.
This is one of the best Character skills there is allowing you to dodge and resist attacks effectively – the importance of which is mostly overlooked.
Neuro-Compression Tactical Backpack
The early stages of Atomic Heart involve a lot of looting and collecting items to upgrade your equipment and skills. You do have a limited inventory though, which can be hard to manage, especially in the late stages of the game.
You will often run into important items but won’t have any inventory space to take the item, and will then have to decide which item to pick over the other. But all of those problems can be solved with the Neuro-Compression Tactical Backpack Character Skill.
As you would have guessed, this skill increases your inventory space, allowing you to carry more items like weapons and healing items, etc. This makes a heavy impact on your overall ease of gameplay.
Energy Density
Moving on to the Energy Management Skill Tree, the only skill that would be best to buy first in this tree would be the Energy Density Skill. This skill can make a significant role in the efficiency of your weapons.
Some of the weapons you have like the Dominator, Electro, or the Railgun use your suit to obtain power. Your suit is powered by the recirculation chamber which has a Power Cell.
With the help of this skill, you will be able to use an additional Power Cell to give your energy weapons more juice.
Power Amplifier
Moving on to the skills from the Shok Skill Tree, the Power Amplifier is one of the best skills to unlock first in this tree. It increases your Shok damage.
Along with that, you will also be able to push them further back. This is especially useful if you are being hoarded by a lot of enemies, as it offers greater crowd control.
Chain Lightning
The Chain Lightening Skill is another skill of the Shok Skill Tree that makes a huge impact. Normally, you have to target each individual enemy with the Shok in order to electrocute them.
With this skill equipped, you will be able to chain this lightning to affect up to three different enemies from a single use of the Shok. This makes it very efficient as you can deal more damage to a greater number of enemies.
You can even combine this with the former ability to make it even more potent in damage.
Increased Power
Perhaps the best skill to unlock first in the Mass Telekinesis is the Increased Power Skill. This particular skill increases the overall strength and range of your Telekinesis abilities.
At first, you are only able to lift small to medium-weight enemies, but with this skill equipped you can even lift heavy enemies as well. This will allow you greater crowd control, as you can lift almost all of the enemies in front of you.
Sponge Effect
The only best skill you will need to unlock in the Polymeric Shield Skill Tree is the Spong Effect Skill. This skill holds the potential to be the best skill on this list.
Previously, we discussed the importance of dodging and evading enemy attacks with the help of the Second Wind and Morning Exercise skills. But what if you didn’t even need to dodge them?
The Spong Effect can help you with that. This skill allows your Polymer Glove to create a circular shield that covers you, negating any damage that comes your way.
Additionally, with every hit received on this shield, you will also recharge your suit to a certain extent, which makes this skill even more useful. You can use this skill best in situations where you cannot dodge effectively against hordes of enemies – or just heavy enemy attacks in general.
