Mass Effect: Andromeda - Best Skills for the Best Build
In Mass Effect: Andromeda, there's a huge variety of skills that you can dedicate your skill points to. The amount of skills, choices, and freedom in how you shape your Pathfinder's combat style can be initially overwhelming, especially when you have to prioritize three skills at a time with a specific profile.
If the profile system is a bit perplexing to you, we've already got a page detailing that system in full - be sure to give that a read. If you want to switch up your skills and combat style, you'll have to switch between your Favorites -- sets of a profile and accompanying skills. In this guide, we're going to recommend the top skills that you should aim to level up.
Want more Mass Effect: Andromeda help? Be sure to check out our hub - it's full of quest walkthroughs, tips, tricks, system explanations and more.
Mass Effect: Andromeda - The Best Skills to Unlock
Skills in this game are separated into three sections: Combat, Biotics, and Tech. We're going to list four skills in each section that we feel are vital for you to level up right away. Be sure to match your skills to the rest of your build - your profile, your armor and your weapons will all impact your build. Carrying many weapons will lend you more to a combat-driven class, but a pure biotic will be able to rip enemies apart with almost their mind alone.
Don't forget, too - if you go wrong, you can respec your character and reset your skill points to spend them again.
Combat Skills
Barricade - Upon using this skill, you'll deploy an energy barricade that will boost the shield regeneration rate of anyone who takes cover behind it, along with other bonuses when upgraded. It's a useful skill to have in your arsenal, especially in dicey situations where it's hard to find a place for cover. There will be at least one moment in the story in which you'll have to hack a terminal for data and stay within range in order to progress the hack. Barricade is extremely handy in this type of situation, providing cover for you and your allies. Every time you use it will deplete your limited Power Cell supply by one, so use it wisely if you're in for a long battle.
Combat Fitness - Intense physical and survival training designed to improve a combatant’s stamina and versatility in battle. This skill will increase your max health, shields, weapon loadout size, consummable effectiveness, and health regeneration. It's one of the ideal skills to inevest your first few points in so that your Ryder is an overall more effective and strong fighter.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.
Concussive Shot - This will fire a high-impact round that will knock down any unshielded, unarmored, and normal sized enemies. It can cause a significant deal of damage even if the target is armored or has strong shields, and it's another way of detonating combo primers. This is one of the most powerful combat skills in the game that you'll be happy to use against a variety of enemies.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.
Pistols/Assault Rifles/Shotguns/Sniper Rifles - Focus on leveling up the gun type that you use the most first. Leveling up the skill for your gun of choice will greatly improve its strength and is undoubtedly a passive skill that you want to upgrade early on.
Biotic Skills
Barrier - In every Mass Effect game, you have a barrier/shield that is depleted upon taking damage before your actual health bar. This is the skill dedicated to the strength and reneration of your shields. Needless to say, it's to your benefit to level up this skill as soon as you can so that you can have better defenses in the battlefield.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.
Charge - This skill lets you launch yourself at opponents and is a great way of detonating combo primers on targets. It's a powerful skill and it also allows you to get out of a troubling situation. If you're surrounded by enemies and are in danger of losing your health, you can Charge to an enemy far from where you are to move across the map with the push of a button. If you level up this skill in a certain way, you can restore part of your shields, which will be incredibly useful for your defenses - especially if the cooldown time for this skill is short.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.
Offensive Biotics - This skill will increase the strength of your offensive biotic skills. While each skill can be leveled up with a strenghened level of power damage in mind, this will further amplify the force of your biotic attacks.
Throw - This skill allows you to throw a gravity field projectile to throw unarmored and unshielded targets away. It's also a great way of detonating combo primers. For example, if you were to use Flamethrower on an enemy and then Throw them, you'd set off a deadly Fire combo. It doesn't do a huge amount of damage, but it's useful in how it hurls an enemy away from where they previously were, distracting them from the actual battle.
Tech Skills
Cryo Beam or Flamethrower - You don't need to get both of these skills, but definitely invest in getting one. Flamethrower has a chance of burning your target, which will make it easier to kill them off faster. Cryo Beam has a chance of freezing your target, so it both stops them from moving and inflicting any damage upon you or your squad members and makes it easier for you to kill them. Either ability is a must to have in your arsenal because they're great combo primers. There's few things as satisfying as freezing a target, using Charge on them, and watching them explode into frozen bits.
Overload - Whereas biotics won't do the trick on synthetic enemies like the Remnant, your Overload ability will certainly help you take them out. Overload will unleash an electrostatic discharge upon a target. It's also a fantastic skill to use on enemies with shields so that you don't spend time and energy slowly chipping away at their additional defenses. If you hold the button that is assigned to this power, you can charge Overload, which causes it to chain to two additional targets.
Tactical Cloak - It's easily one of the most useful skills in the game -- and in all of Mass Effect. While this skill was limited to the Infiltration class in the original trilogy, that won't be a problem here. Tactical Cloak will render your character invisible, which is extremely handy when trying to get out of a tough situation. Use it to move to cover without getting spotted, get away from a bunch of enemies, and revive a team member without worrying over being shot at. This ability does come at the cost of shield and health regeneration and while your abilities gain a damage bonus while you're cloaked, using any of your abilities, firing your gun, or doing a melee attack will break the cloaking effect.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.
Team Support - This skill will be useful because it improves defenses and support for your whole squad. From increasing your team's power restoration and defense to increasing their power damage, this one skill will serve to benefit your entire team in a variety of ways. If you don't strengthen their defense, this will certainly make a difference; if you make sure to level up your squad members' individual support skills, this will provide a nice boost to their defenses and offenses.
*You're going to need to invest at least nine skills points in order to unlock this power.