Starfield skills
Make sure you select the best Starfield skills on your playthrough, with our complete list of Starfield skills and how to get them.
Starfield skills are the building blocks for your character. While your equipment, faction allegiance, and weapon choices will have a significant impact on gameplay and the story, the biggest changes you can make to your character are through the skills you select at the start of the game and when you level up.
Each skill has four ranks which require skill points to unlock. You can unlock the Rank 1 of any skill with a skill point, but you’ll need to complete a rank up challenge in order to advance the skill to Rank 2 or higher.
Here is a list of every Starfield skill:
There are 82 Starfield skills in total split between five categories: Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech. You get your first three skills at the beginning of the Starfield story by selecting a Starfield background during character creation.
As you earn experience from adventuring, you will earn enough to level up. On levelling up, you will earn skill points which you can use to upgrade existing skills or purchase new skills.
Each Starfield skill tree is divided into four tiers, with higher tiers requiring a set amount of skill points to be spent on lower tier skills within that skill tree.
What are the best Starfield skills?
Your choice of Starfield skills will ultimately depend on how you choose to play the game, but there are certainly some options that are more widely useful than others.
The Ballistics skill is especially useful as an early pick, since so many of the weapons you pick up in the game’s first act are likely to deal ballistics damage. Persuasion is another Starfield skill that’s useful in a wide variety of situations, and will often save you from difficult combat encounters or time-consuming extra steps in Starfield missions.
Wellness and Medicine are also some of the best Starfield skills to choose early on, since extra health is always useful.
What are the best Starfield skills for my build?
If you’re looking for which specific skills you need to harness to achieve the build of your dreams, we’ve got you covered. Below you can find advice on which of the various skills to opt for across a selection of builds. Just keep in mind, you can eventually unlock all the skills through various New Game Plus playthroughs, but it’s still a good idea to prioritize certain skills to get your build off the ground before the main quest becomes too daunting.
Stealth builds – For stealth builds, you should prioritize skills like Theft, Security, Persuasion, Scavenging, Stealth, and Fitness. These five are a great place to start as they give you access to digipicking and pickpocketing, while also making it more likely for you to get through tricky conversations without things evolving into a gunfight.
Social builds – Social builds are all about human interaction, so the Diplomacy, Commerce, Persuasion, Deception, and Manipulation skills all come into play. If you’re particularly combat averse, Instigation and Intimidation also help to turn enemies against each other or force them to flee.
Melee builds – If you’re opting for the hands-on approach to combat, the important skills are Martial Arts, Crippling, Dueling, Boxing, and Neurostrikes. It’s also a good idea to pick up the Pain Tolerance and Wellness skills early on to keep you fighting against enemies with high HP.
Samurai build – While the necessary Ronin background gives you access to skills such as Dueling, Scavenging, and Stealth, the ideal samurai also needs to be equipped with Wellness, Gymnastics, Pain Tolerance, and Martial Arts.