Best Skills to Unlock in Horizon Forbidden West - Skill Tree Guide - Horizon Forbidden West Guide - IGN (2024)

Horizon Forbidden West’s skill trees are a testament to the wide variety of play styles you can choose to tackle the many challenges ahead. This skills guide will help you decide the best skills to choose first in Horizon Forbidden West, and will suggest some of the best skills available.

Keep in mind, as suggested above, your playstyle will largely affect which skills appeal to you. If you never rely on traps, skills in the Trapper tree will likely not work well for you, for example. Regardless, here are some of the best skills to get early.

To get a grasp on how combat works and the importance of different damage types in Horizon Forbidden West, we suggest checking out the Beginner’s Guide - Basics and Features first.

Jump to:

• Best Skills to Get First
• How to Get Skill Points
• Can You Reset Skills or Unlock Every Skill?
• Skill Trees Explained

More Suggestions:

• Passive Skill Buffs
• Handy Active Skills
• Must-Have Weapon Techniques
• Suggested Valor Surges

Best Skills to Get First

Before we get into our suggested best essential skills, consider how you like to play Horizon. Stealthy archer? Close-up melee? Trapper? Luckily, the skill trees are neatly arranged loosely based on playstyle, but there are some skills here and there that will benefit everyone regardless. Just keep your own preferences in mind when reading this list!

• Resonator Blast (Warrior) - Often you won’t have a choice when up against other people, you’ll have to get up close and personal. The Resonator Blast is an extremely important skill to have when facing people. It "energizes" your spear, and then leaves your opponent with a weak spot you can shoot with a bow. You’ll also have to learn this to participate in the Melee Pit Challenges. The first is in Chainscrape, where you'll have to successfully perform a Resonator Blast.
• Melee Damage (Warrior) - This is a no-brainer. Whether you prefer relying on your spear or not, everyone uses it sometimes - and a passive damage buff is undeniably great. Suggesting this is also a bit of a cheat on our part, because you ‘’have’’ to unlock Block Breaker, a useful melee combo, in order to get to it. Want more passive Melee boosts? Continue the Warrior Skill Tree all the way on the right, and unlock Power Attack + and Burst Fire to reach another Melee Damage passive boost - which will buff your melee damage a whopping 70%! However, this is a bit of an investment, and melee isn’t the best to use against machines since they can't be relied on to tear off important resources, so maybe wait to upgrade this one for a while.
• Part Breaker (Machine Master)
  This Valor Surge, Part Breaker, makes it much easier to remove machine components, which are necessary to upgrade and purchase weapons and outfits. That’s not all, as when upgraded to Tier 3, Part Breaker makes it so the machine will be knocked down every time you tear off a component with it active. This skill pairs very well with Stealth Tear + - sneak up on your opponent, highlight the part you need with your Focus, activate Part Breaker, and knock components off in a flash. Then, while it’s knocked down, finish the kill with a critical strike! For tough bosses, this helps eliminate their heavy weapons fast, too!
• Stealth Tear + (Infiltrator) - For the same reasons above, any skills that help you gather machine components are winners in our book. Focus down the component you need while in stealth before inciting the chaos of battle.
• Stealth Ranged + (Infiltrator) If you like doing headshots (on humans, usually in Rebel Camps), this is the skill for you. Both of these Stealth skills are very cheap to unlock, too, as they’re at the very beginning of the Infiltrator tree.
  
• Potent Medicine (Survivor) - If you find yourself eating Medicinal Berries to recover in a pinch often, the very first skill in the Survivor line will serve you well. This passive boost makes Medicinal Berries provide 20% more healing and healing speed, saving ‘’you’’ and resources simultaneously.
• Valor Surge Master (Hunter) - This is a passive boost that lets you build valor faster, allowing you to perform more powerful Valor Surges more often! The two Concentration skills you need to unlock to get here, surprise surprise, also pairs well with Part Breaker.
• Quick Wire (Trapper) - Another mildly cheeky suggestion, but if you like traps, you definitely need this one.
  
  
  Quick Wire launches a Tripcaster’s Tripwire instantly, removing the need to manually put down both points yourself. Find this skill on the left side of the Trapper tree. On the way, you’ll have to unlock Quick Trapper, Skilled Salvager, and Trap Limit (which lets you place 3 traps or tripwires at a time instead of just 2), all essential skills for even the most basic trapper.

Those are plenty to get you started, but since the entirety of all Skill Trees are visible immediately, check them out and make a loose plan! Or, hold onto your Skill Points for a bit until you feel like you need a buff in a particular area. It will take a while to really figure out your favorite way to play, after all. Just keep in mind the Pit Challenges and the related Errand called The Enduring will require you to unlock certain Warrior skills to participate, but some Hunting Ground Trials will certainly benefit from skills on other trees, too.

With that said, here is even more information Horizon Forbidden West skills, explained.

How to Get Skill Points

Earn Skill Points by completing all variations of Side Quests, Main Quests, and pretty much all other activities from clearing Rebel Camps to climbing Tallnecks, or just by leveling up.

Can You Reset Skills or Unlock Every Skill?

As of the 1.14 Update in June 2022, it's possible to reset your Skills! Simply select a Skill Tree in the Skills menu, then press the Options button.

Resetting your Skills is completely free, allowing you to completely change Aloy's skill tree upgrades without consequence!

SPOILER WARNING: You can see the entirety of every Skill Tree in Horizon Forbidden West as soon as you finish the tutorial, but here's a warning just in case!

Skill Trees Explained

Passive Skill Buffs

The following are all passive skills, meaning they are always active and provide buffs.

Resource, Valor, and Health Boosts

• Ammo Expert (Hunter) - This allows you to craft more ammunition from the same amount of resources, which is incredibly helpful for saving on supplies and will greatly reduce your need to restock as frequently.
• Medicine Capacity (Survivor) - Increases the amount of Medicine that you can carry on you.
• Potent Medicine / Potion Proficiency (Survivor) - Improves the amount and speed of healing medicine/potions.
• Plant Forager (Survivor) - Lets you gather more resources from plants, especially helpful for healing medicine or saving up for dyes.
• Valor on Impact (Survivor) Gives you Valor when you're hit by an enemy, which will help make the most out of any mistakes you make.

Stealth and Concentration Boosts

• Concentration +, Deep Concentration and Concentration Regen (Hunter) - Lengthens the duration you can slow down time with Concentration. It is a must for any archer as it makes it easier to hit machine components or land headshots.
• Silent Strike + (Infiltrator) - Increases the damage dealt by a Silent Strike, making it more likely that it will kill the target (as indicated by the skull icon in the Silent Strike button prompt)
• Stealth Tear + (Hunter) Increases your Tear Damage by a certain percentage. In tandem with Concentration, you can more easily kill a machine by sniping the right components this way.
• Stealth Ranged + (Infiltrator) - Passively deal more Impact Damage when using a bow in stealth, which is very helpful when trying to headshot human opponents in a stealth run.
• Low Profile and Quiet Movement (Infiltrator)- Passively reduces Aloy's visibility/noise. This is useful for any build as it lets you more easily skulk around the battlefield to scope things out, covertly lay traps, tail enemies, and position yourself to attack at the right time and place.

Combat Boosts

• Critical Strike + (Warrior) - When you've knocked an enemy (or a boss) down, dealing more damage with a Critical Strike can be very useful.
• Melee Damage - You fight human enemies with melee a lot, so passive buffs are always helpful in taking them down quickly.

Handy Active Skills

• Resonator Blast (Warrior Skill Tree) - The first skill in the Warrior Skill tree is a must-unlock, even for those that prefer to use their bow. With the right combo, the Resonator Blast allows you to build up energy on your spear, and when fully charged, it can be used to energize your opponent. When shooting the energy marked on your opponent with your bow, you’ll deal a large amount of damage, which can be increased via a passive boost further down the Skill Tree.
• The Destroyer (Warrior) - While it's expensive to drill down to, this is a *very* fast melee combo and is great at quickly tearing down enemy health.

Must-Have Weapon Techniques

• Quick Wire (Trapper) - If you're a Tripcaster user, this ability instantly fires a complete length, great for in the heat of battle.
• Triple Notch (Hunter) - If you focus more on impact damage, this is great for quickly dealing more damage with Hunter Bows. Is also great on resilient machine components like on Apex machines. Alternatively, the Double Notch (Infiltrator) is a great option for those that specialize in long-range Sharpshot Bows.
• Focused Shot (Infiltrator) - Increases the zoom on your next Sharpshot Bow shot and increases the damage, which is very useful in shooting resilient components and/or hitting targets across long distances.
• Knockdown Shot (Hunter) - Lets your next Hunter Bow shot knock down enemies, meaning it pairs really well with Critical Strike +.
• Sticky Bomb (Survivor) - Lets you stick multiple Blastsling bombs to a target. Notably, sticking several bombs to an enemy at once will deal more total damage than if you were to fire them all normally, making it great on enemies with a lot of health.
• Override Subroutines (Machine Master) - Lets you set a machine to Aggressive Behaviour. Use this on a machine at the start of a battle and they'll attack everyone else, making for a great distraction.

Suggested Valor Surges

• Part Breaker Level 3 (Machine Master) - Already highly recommended above, but as a reminder, Part Breaker makes it significantly easier to break off machine parts, which are needed to upgrade outfits and weapons. It also makes the damage you deal greater overall.
• Overshield (Survivor) - Replicates the original Shield-Weaver effect by making a shield that absorbs damage instead of Aloy, eliminating knockback. Upgraded versions deal a bit of damage to the attacker, while the Level 3 version will have the shield explode when it's depleted, great for enemies using melee attacks.
• Stealth Stalker Level 3 (Infiltrator) - Stealth Stalker turns Aloy invisible for a set period of time. The Level 3 version restores Valor for each stealth kill, allowing for stealth kill chains to be more easily achieved so long as your kills don't alert nearby enemies.
• Powershots (Hunter) - Lets your next few shots deal more damage and, with the upgraded versions, restores Concentration, making it great for fast sniping shots. Works with Bows, Boltblasters, Ropecasters and Spike Throwers.
• Trap Specialist (Trapper) - While rather situational at first, the Level 3 version of this Valor Surge launches hovering mines around Aloy which will blow up enemies when they get too close, making it great when taking on opponents who focus on melee attacks.
• Chain Burst (Machine Master) - Dealing damage to an enemy will also deal some damage to nearby enemies. If you're overpowered, this is especially great when attacking herd machines like deer, or when fighting human enemies close together. The Level 3 version will have the damage chain a second time!
• Radial Burst (Infiltrator) - Releases a powerful shockwave that damages all enemies in the vicinity, making it great as a crowd control move when you're being overwhelmed.

See the How to Unlock and Use Valor Surges page for suggested Valor Surges