The Outer Worlds Skills Guide

In this The Outer Worlds Skills Guide, we will list all of the Skills that you have in the game. Skills allow you to unlock various abilities for your main character, making them stronger and better as the gameplay progresses.

Skills are branched into six main categories. These are your Melee, Ranged, Tech, Defense, Dialog, Leadership, and Stealth. Each of these Skill categories gives you special abilities that you can unlock. As you level up, these skills will upgrade giving you additional effects.

Below we have detailed all the Skills and the unlocks you get as you increase your player level.

Melee

The Skills in Melee are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
One-Handed Melee	This will increase the Critical Hit chance with all your one-handed melee weapons	Novice: Power and Sweep attacks are unlocked Competent: TTD Location hit effects are unlocked Adept: Reach of weapons increased by 30% Expert: TTD drain decreased by 50% Master: Power and Sweep Attacks have a 25% chance of stunning enemies.
Two-Handed Melee	This will increase the Critical Hit chance with all your two handed melee weapons	Novice: Power and Sweep attacks are unlocked Competent: TTD Location hit effects are unlocked Adept: Your two handed weapon attacks cannot be blocked Expert: TTD drain decreased by 50% Master: Power and Sweet attacks have a 25% chance of knocking enemies down.

Ranged

The Skills in Ranged are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Handguns	This skill increases critical hit chance of Handguns, and also decreases the weapon sway.	Novice: TTD location hit effects are unlocked Competent: Critical Damage of weapons is increased by 50% Adept: Minimum armor penetration damage increased by 10% Expert: Enemy critical chance is debuffed by 20% Master: Critical hits with Handguns will ignore 100% of the armor.
Long Guns	This skill increases critical hit chance of all Long Guns, and also decreases the weapon sway.	Novice: TTD location hit effects are unlocked Competent: Critical Damage of weapons is increased by 50% Adept: Headshot and weak spot damage is increased by 20% Expert: Deadly Focus unlocked, no weapon sway for 5 seconds after kill Master: Critical this ignore 100% of armor
Heavy Weapons	This skill increases critical hit chance of Heavy Weapons, and also decreases the weapon sway.	Novice: TTD location hit effects are unlocked Competent: Critical Damage of weapons is increased by 50% Adept: Reload speed increased by 50% Expert: Heavy Weapon Frenzy unlocked. Every critical hit increases rate of fire for 3 seconds. Master: Critical this ignore 100% of armor

Defense

The Skills in Defense are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Dodge	This will increase the distance of your dodge move and will reduce the duration of any harmful effects.	Novice: Leap ability unlocked Competent: Recovery speed of Dodge increased by 100% Adept: Dodge Protection gives you 30% increased in armor for 5 seconds after dodging Expert: Dodge Force unlocked. Melee attacks after dodge will have 50% additional damage. Master: Dodge Penetration unlocked. Weakshot hits have 50% to ignore armor for 5 seconds after dodge.
Block	This will allow you to perfect block attacks. and will provide you with additional armor protection when holding melee weapons.	Novice: Perfect Block unlocked. Perfectly block will stagger enemy. Competent: Durability loss from weapon blocking is decreased by 25% Adept: Moving speed while blocking is increased by 100% Expert: Weapon durability loss is decreased by 100% Master: Perfect block weaken enemies, and increase damage by 100% for 5 seconds

Dialog

The Skills in Dialog are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Persuade	Used in conversation to Cover when you first damage a human target	Novice: Human NPC have 20% chance to Cower after the first time you hit them Competent: Duration of Cower increased by 7 seconds. Adept: Cower target’s armor is decreased by half Expert: Human Cower Chance increased by 10% Master: You get 25% armor gain when a Human cowers.
Lie	This skill will increase your chance to inflict Scramble	Novice: Automechanicals have a 15% chance to attack other enemies for 17 seconds Competent: Scramble duration increased by 7 seconds Adept: Scrambled automechanicals attack at their normal speed Expert: Scramble Chance of Automechanicals is increased by 10% Master: Automechanical weakspot damage is increased by 30%.
Intimidate	This skill will allow you to inflict Terrify on nearby enemies.	Novice: This will have a 20% that Creatures will run away terrified after you kill one of them. Competent: Area of Effect is increased by 100% of your Terrify Adept: Movement speed of terrified creatures is reduced by 30% Expert: Chances of Creature Terrify is increased by 10% Master Creatures that are terrified will give 25% more Critical Damage.

Stealth

The Skills in Stealth are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Sneak	This skill reduces your detection range when you are crouching, and increases NPC awareness decay. It also unlocks Pickpocket and Sneak skills	Novice: Unlock Sneak Attack Competent: Unlock Pickpocket that allows you to sneak and steal from humans Adept: Crouch speed is increased by 25% Expert: Sneak attack weakshot damage is increased by 20% Master: Sneak attack will ignore 50% of the enemy’s armor.
Hack	This skill reduces the hacking time and reduces shunts needed for hacking. It also allows you to hack Automechanicals.	Novice: You can sell goods to Vending Machines Competent: Restricted Items can now be accessed in Vending Machines Adept: Automechanicals can be hacked and turned off for 10 seconds. Expert: Detection range of Automechanicals is reduced by 30% Master: Distance of hacking Automechanicals is increased to 5m
Lockpick	This skill reduces the time you spend on unlock. It also reduces the number of Mag-Picks needed to pick locks.	Novice: Doors and Containers require no Mag-picks to unlock Competent: Increased number of Bits in Containers by 25% Adept: See what is inside the containers before unlocking Expert: Lockpicking speed is increased Master: chances of finding a Pristine Item is increased by 100%

Tech

The Skills in Tech are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Medical	This skill increases the heal amount you get from the Inhaler and increases the durations of the heal effects.	Novice: additional drug mixing slot available in Inhaler Competent: additional drug mixing slot available in Inhaler (3 Slots) Adept: Hostile Effect duration on targets is increased by 50% Expert: additional drug mixing slot available in Inhaler (4 slots) Master: Damage bonus against humans is increased by 20%
Science	Damage of Plasma and Shock weapons is increased. Science Weapons are improved	Novice: Tinker Unlocked, which allows you to improve weapons and armor in Workbench Competent: tinkering will cost 50% less Adept: N-ray and Corrosion damage are both increased 25% Expert: tinkering cost reduced by 90% Master: Science weapon have no weight and magazine slots are maxed
Engineering	Reduced cost of resources needed to repair and mod armor and weapons.	Novice: Unlock Field Repair, which allows you to repair armor and weapons Competent: 20% increased chances of finding basic mods when dismantling weapons and armor Adept: 20% increased chances of a repair becoming Pristine Expert: 10% increased chance of finding a Rare mod when dismantling weapons and armor Master: Damage to Automechanicals is increased by 20%

Leadership

The Skills in Leadership are listed below, with their details and the Skill Unlocks.

Skill Name	Details	Skill Unlocks
Inspiration	Damage dealt by companions is increased	Novice: unlock Companion Abilities, allow you to order Companions for special attacks Competent: 20% armor rating increased of Companion armor Adept: companion skill Bonus to Player Skills is increased by 100% Expert: Unlock Inspired Precision, which allows 20% increased Critical Hit Chance for 5 seconds when Companion kills an enemy. Master: All companion ability cooldowns are reduced 20% when companions get kills
Determination	Health of Stranger and companions is increased to max	Novice: Inhaler heals you and companions, but get only 30% of the healing effect Competent: Critical Damage of Companions is increased by 20% Adept: Inhaler healing effect of Companion is increased by 25% Expert: Unlock Resolve, which allows you to gain 50% party armor when a companion is down Master: Gain 50% health when Companions get a kill.

The Outer Worlds Skills Guide – Best Skills, Increase Character Ability