Having finished Elex for the first time as a Berserker, I'd like to share some facts and thoughts about the character skills. There are some other skills guides out there but either they just mention the descriptions from the game's skills menu or they give information that's no longer accurate due to December 2017's patch.

Each skill name is followed by a number between brackets. That's the amount of ranks the skill has.

A piece of advice: plan ahead. Make a plan for how you want to develop your character's attributes with regard to the skills you want to learn and the weapons you want to be able to equip.

Someday, I'll play the game as an Outlaw and a Cleric, and complete the guide. That won't be any time soon, though, so feel free to contact me if you want to help complete these two sections from your experiences. You will get full credit, of course.

Each rank of this skill increases your melee weapon damage by 10%. If you plan on using melee weapons, this is an essential skill. But, since it's a percentage-based bonus, the effects for a low level character are minimal. So it's a skill that can wait a bit until you actually have a weapon that deals decent damage.



Each rank of this skill increases your ranged weapon damage by 10%. If you plan on using ranged weapons, this is an essential skill. But, since it's a percentage-based bonus, the effects for a low level character are minimal. So it's a skill that can wait a bit until you actually have a weapon that deals decent damage.



Each rank of this skill increases your heavy weapon damage by 10%. If you plan on using heavy weapons, this is an essential skill. But, since it's a percentage-based bonus, the effects for a low level character are minimal. So it's a skill that can wait a bit until you actually have a weapon that deals decent damage.



Each rank of this skill increases your melee attack strength by 10 points. An increased attack strength means you'll stagger your opponents more often, which is a good thing. This skill isn't a top priority but if you have a point to spare and already have learned all your top priority skills, you should consider learning Attack Strength next.



Each rank of this skill increases your parry strength by 10 points. This means you'll get staggered less often, which is a good thing. It also reduces the amount of stamina needed to block with a shield. The problem with parry strength is that its effect seems minimal. So I suggest learning this skill, especially for a melee build, but only if you have learning points to spare.



Increases the power of the 'Heavy Punch attack'. This is the attack you can unleash when the melee gauge in the corner of the screen has filled up by performing a well-timed series of regular attacks. The damage increase is about 25% so this is a very useful skill, but only if you actually use the Heavy Punch attack in your build, of course.



Each rank of this skill increases the damage you deal with hand grenades by 10%. If you incorporate a lot of grenade throwing in your playstyle, this is a skill for you. But do keep in mind it only affects hand grenades. To increase damage done by grenades you shoot with a grenade launcher, you need to upgrade the Heavy Weapons skill.



A very strong melee attack. Use your jetpack to fly up and then press the 'attack' button to perform a Jet Pack Attack. People speak very highly of this skill because it IS a strong attack, but I didn't like it because as soon as you use your jetpack in melee combat, all your opponents switch to their ranged attack, which means they deal a lot more damage to you.



With this skill, you'll deal an additional 20% damage to mutants. This is a must-have skill, although it's no top priority. But learn it as soon as you have a point to spare and have learned all your top priority skills.



With this skill, you'll deal an additional 20% damage to machines. This is a must-have skill for the last part of the game when you'll be fighting a lot of machines. So learn this skill when you have a point to spare and have learned all other skills on your wishlist.

Each rank of this skill grants a 12.5% resistance to radiation. This is a useful skill, although it's not a top priority.



Each rank of this skill grants a 12.5% resistance to fire. Resistances are always useful, although you won't be dealt fire damage very often. So put it on your wishlist but at the lowest priority.



Each rank of this skill grants a 12.5% resistance to cold. Resistances are always useful, although you won't be dealt cold damage very often. So put it on your wishlist but at the lowest priority.



Each rank of this skill grants a 12.5% resistance to poison. This is a useful skill, although it's not a top priority.



Each rank of this skill adds 5 points to your armor value. This is a very good skill and you'll want to learn it as soon as you can.



Each rank of this skill allows you to take more and more valuable trophies from slain opponents. With this skill, you'll always have plenty of cash to buy anything you need. And you'll also get your hands on all the ingredients you need for crafting food, potions and stims, and for upgrading and enchanting weapons. So this skill is a must-have and you should make it a top priority, even if it means upgrading an ability that's not a priority for your class and build.



The Good Eater skill doubles the healing values (but not the other buffs' values) of all food. For example, with Good Eater, the Strong Bone Marrow Soup heals 340 HP instead of 170, but it still only adds 10 armor bonus. This is an absolutely essential skill and you know you want it as soon as possible!



This skill makes all the inactive teleporters appear on the map. This is an absolutely useless skill. If you're curious to see where all the teleporters are, look up a map of Magellan on the internet. Or save your game, learn the skill, have a look and then reload the game.



This skill makes opponents appear as red dots on the radar, even when they haven't spotted you yet. Whether or not this is a useful skill is subjective and depends on personal preferences. If you want to know what the effect of this skill is, find a pair of High-tech Sunglasses and wear those for a while.



This skill increases your maximum hit points by 10. If you know you start out with 50 HP and get 5 HP with each level up, 10 HP isn't all that much in the long run, but it could make your early life on Magellan a lot more comfortable. So I suggest you treat yourself to this skill early on in the game.



Each rank of this skill increases your stamina by 20 points. For a melee fighter, stamina is the most important thing so you need to make this skill an absolute priority. You start the game with 100 stamina and stamina doesn't increase by leveling up, so besides brewing potions that permanently increase your stamina (which require very rare ingredients), this is the only way to add to that essential stamina pool.

Each rank of this skill allows you to pick increasingly difficult locks. Let's be honest: you know you could never live with the idea of not unlocking any of the many, many locked chests you'll come across on Magellan. So you want to learn at least the first level of this skill. The question is, is it worth it to invest more than one point in Lock Picking? Actually, no. Very early in the game, you'll find an Adventurer's Amulet that increases your Lock Picking by 1. So after spending one point in Lock Picking and having collected the Adventurer's Amulet, you can unlock all but the highest tier chests and there are only about a dozen of those in the entire game. Later on, when you have points to spare, you can decide to invest a second point in Lock Picking, which will allow you to unlock all the chests you come across if you equip the Adventurer's Amulet. Because of that amulet, you never need to spend three points on this skill.



With this skill, lockpicks will never break. This skill is useless. You'll have plenty of lockpicks. Also, you can save before trying to pick a locked chest. If you break too many lockpicks, simply reload and start over.



The first rank of this skill allows you to pickpocket NPCs. The second and third rank reduce the chance you're caught pickpocketing. Spending a single point in the Pickpocket skill early on is certainly worth it. Almost every NPC in the game can be pickpocketed, and you can steal an average of 50 shards from each NPC, so that amounts to a considerable pile of shards in the end. But spending more than one point on this skill is definitely not worth it. Just save before attempting to pickpocket an NPC and if you get caught, reload.



This skill allows you to take two items during one single pickpocket attempt. This is a completely useless skill. If you want to steal two items from an NPC, just pickpocket him twice. Most NPCs only have one interesting item on them anyway (elexit).



This skill allows you to upgrade weapons. That means you can turn an Axe into an Axe I, then into an Axe II and finally into an Axe III. With each tier, the weapon deals more damage but it also requires more strength, dexterity and/or constitution to equip. You can preview the next tier of the weapon with its requirements via the workbench interaction screen. This is an essential skill, although you won't be upgrading weapons in the early stages of the game, so it's not a top priority.



This skill allows you to craft jewelry. The jewelry you can craft isn't any better than the jewelry you'll find by questing and exploring, so I call this skill useless. Feel free to check the list of craftable jewelry and decide for yourself:

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331138999



This skill allows you to slot gemstones into weapons if they have a free gemstone socket. It also allows you to combine gemstones into a more powerful version. The bonuses aren't very impressive (+3 damage and the likes) but still nice to have, so I advise you to learn this skill when you have a point to spare and have learned all your priority skills. Also, don't forget you can slot 3 gemstones in your Adjutor as soon as you have this skill!



This skill allows you to create potions and chems. An absolute must-have skill, although not a top priority for the early stages of the game.



Each rank of this skill allows you to hack safes with increasingly difficult electronic locks. The usefulness of this skill is debatable. There are only about 20 safes that require the Hack skill to open (*). And in order to open all of them, you'd have to spend 3 learning points. That's exorbitant and not worth it. But there are some gemstones in those locked safes, so completionists will feel obligated to max out the Hack skill, after all. But if your OCD can handle it, skip the Hack skill completely :D

(*) Some safes can be hacked without any points in the Hack skill. More importantly, you'll often find the code to open a safe written on the wall or in a note in the same building.



This skill gives you more time to hack into safes.This skill is useless. Not only because I argued the Hack skill is already pretty useless to begin with, but also because time is not a problem when hacking, especially since you can save the game before attempting a hack and reload if you fail.



Each rank of this skill increases the amount of nuggets gained from mining nodes (elexit, gold, ore, sulfur). This is a useless skill because you'll have a lot more nuggets and elexit than you'll ever need anyway.

Each rank of this skill gives you 10 attribute points. This isn't extremely useful, especially considering it eventually takes 5 points to raise an attribute's value by one. But if you have a point to spare, 1 LP for 10 AP is not a bad trade so you shouldn't feel like you're wasting a point here. Keep in mind you can drink and create Elex potions to increase your LP and AP anyway, so if you want an AP boost early on and have an LP to spare, go for it!



This skill adds a 5% bonus to all XP from kills. Someone did the math and this skill translates to one whole extra level by the end of the game. So you get your 'investment' of 1 LP back and you get 10 AP to boot. Isn't that nice? Well... no, it isn't. The problem with all 3 XP boost skills is that you need to invest in them very early in the game, which is exactly when you don't have LP to spend on non-essential skills. The reward is just too small to warrant spending an LP to learn this skill early on (and possibly spending AP on Intelligence and Cunning just for the purpose of this skill) so skip it.



This skill adds a 5% bonus to all XP from reading books. Someone did the math and this skill translates to one whole extra level by the end of the game. So you get your 'investment' of 1 LP back and you get 10 AP to boot. Isn't that nice? Well... no, it isn't. The problem with all 3 XP boost skills is that you need to invest in them very early in the game, which is exactly when you don't have LP to spend on non-essential skills. The reward is just too small to warrant spending an LP to learn this skill early on (and possibly spending AP on Intelligence and Cunning just for the purpose of this skill) so skip it.



This skill adds a 5% bonus to all XP from quests. Someone did the math and this skill translates to one whole extra level by the end of the game. So you get your 'investment' of 1 LP back and you get 10 AP to boot. Isn't that nice? Well... no, it isn't. The problem with all 3 XP boost skills is that you need to invest in them very early in the game, which is exactly when you don't have LP to spend on non-essential skills. The reward is just too small to warrant spending an LP to learn this skill early on (and possibly spending AP on Intelligence and Cunning just for the purpose of this skill) so skip it.



Each rank of this skill reduces merchant's prices by 5%. This sounds nice but if you max out the Animal Trophies skill, which you should (see Survival Skills), you'll have plenty of cash. Also, there is a bug that causes some ammo to disappear from merchant NPCs because its price goes below 1 elexit a piece due to the Haggler skill. So for that reason alone, I stayed away from the Haggler skill altogether.



In conversation with an NPC, you sometimes see an option with a skill check. For example, in the conversation below, you need 4 Charisma to be able to select 'You must have something to offer apart from shards':



Your charisma value depends on how many skill points you've invested in the Personality Skills and is figured between brackets right after the word 'Personality' in the skills screen:



The problem with all four of the 'Skills' skills (see below; one for each of the character skill trees) is that such conversation options are both rare and always extremely unrewarding. So you should never spend a skill point to upgrade your Skills values.



See 'Combat Skills'. Summarized: absolutely useless skill.



See 'Combat Skills'. Summarized: absolutely useless skill.



See 'Combat Skills'. Summarized: absolutely useless skill.



Each rank of this skill increases the damage your companions deal. I have yet to find the exact percentage of the increase, but it's most likely +10% as all the skills that increase the protagonist's damage are +10%. Whether the Group skill is useful or not has been debated on various forums. Some people say they notice no difference and other people say they notice a huge difference. It has been speculated that it depends on the weapon the companion has, for which a random factor comes into play, and even that some companion weapons are bugged, which results in things like Duras one-shotting trolls and such. I'm afraid I can't add any information from personal experience as I prefer playing without a companion.



This skill reduces the cost of fines you need to pay when you're caught committing crimes. This is a completely useless skill. If you get caught stealing, simply reload. Even if you don't want to do that, you often don't get fined anyway (if people become aggressive, just run away until things calm down) and if you are, the fines aren't very steep so the skill is still useless, especially since it costs 500 Elexit to learn in the first place.



With this skill, weak animals won't attack you on sight. This skill is pretty useless. Those weak animals are easily killed and are a good source of income if you have the Animal Trophies skill, which you should learn (see Survival Skills).



With the Attribute skill, you'll get an extra attribute point each time you level up (so 11 AP instead of 10). This is a very good skill but only if you take it early on, of course. And that can be a problem because you need 50 intelligence to unlock the skill.



With this skill you get a bonus on magic, PSI and stim duration if your cold value stays between 0 and 20. Getting your cold that low is hard and will take the better part of the game. Then there is the matter of keeping your cold that low. I don't think it's worth the bother but your mileage may vary.



With this skill you get a bonus to melee damage if your cold value stays between 40 and 60. This sounds like a good skill for a melee build, but it's hard to keep your cold value between 40 and 60 the whole game.



With this skill you get a bonus to ranged damage if your cold value stays between 80 and 100. This sounds like a very good skill for a ranged build, but getting your cold that high is hard and will take the better part of the game. It also means playing through the whole game as an indifferent sob, which will have its consequences, of course (it's an RPG!).

Note: you learn Berserker skills from Caldrim in Goliet after you've joined the Berserkers.


Each rank of this skill increases the damage or the duration of Berserker spells by 20%. This is an important skill if you're planning on using magic a lot.



Each rank of this skill increases your maximum mana by 10 points. This is an important skill if you're planning on using magic a lot.



This skill allows you to enchant certain melee weapons with Fire, Ice or Poison. This is an absolute must-have skill if you plan on using melee weapons at all. After all, the fire/ice/poison is an additional effect. Fire and poison put a DoT (damage over time) effect on your opponents. Ice slows down your opponents' attack speed a bit.

Notes:

• Fire damage is the best choice because there are a lot less opponents who are resistant to fire (Mountain Trolls & Desert Devils being the only noteworthy ones, it seems) as opposed to poison.
  
• Each type of melee weapon belongs to a faction, meaning you can only enchant 'Berserker weapons' with fire, ice or poison. I refer to this guide http://game-maps.com/ELEX/ELEX-Weapons.asp. Only the weapons marked 'PIF' in the column 'DMG1' are 'Berserker weapons'.

This skill unlocks an additional firing mode for your bows that allows you to fire 5 arrows with a single shot. The five arrows fan out from your bow on a horizontal plane. Let me show you:



I've read a lot of people saying this is a great skill, and while I respect those opinions I have to disagree. You're wasting a lot of arrows using this firing mode unless you're fighting multiple opponents who are lined up next to each other in front of you, which rarely happens. In theory, Scatter Shot is also useful when fighting large opponents up close... but that sort of defeats the purpose of a bow, doesn't it? So my advice is to skip this skill.



This skill unlocks an additional firing mode for your bows that allows you to place a marker on up to three targets while aiming, which will make the bow track the opponent(s) until you fire. I couldn't get this to work, even after reading about how it's supposed to work on several forums. I did catch the bottom line, though: everyone says it's a useless firing mode and therefore a waste of a learning point.

I'll copypaste a post by 'Spocks Toupee' from the Steam forums, explaining in full how Seeker Shot works, but I could never get the 'hint' to pop up no matter how close I was to the target, and I could never mark any targets.

Originally posted by Spocks Toupee:

You have to get close enough to the mob(s) in order for it to function, once you've targeted something a HINT should pop up telling you to MARK the target with the middle mouse button, and then a red arrow will appear over the target, you can target up to three targets.
Once they are MARKED you can just fire your bow and the arrow will find the target(s).

When trying out a new skill I always save the game BEFORE getting the skill, then I try it out.
I tried out Seeker shot, and it would be worth it if you could mark your targets from farther away, because once you're close enough to mark your targets, they're going to run at you and force you into melee or into running away, which will unmark them again.

The problem is, you have to get so close, that you aggro the mob anyway.

This spell makes it harder for opponents to see you. That means you can get closer to them before they start attacking you. Sometimes you can even get a sneaky hit in before the target begins its attack animation. The spell lasts for 40 seconds + an additional 8 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. This spell may come in handy in the early stages of the game, when you can hardly beat anything and have to avoid most opponents. But by the time you can learn the spell, you don't need to avoid most monsters anymore. Also, you can find (or craft) an Amulet of Deception that grants the wearer both a permanent camouflage spell and the Friends of Beasts perk (see Personality Skills). So there's no need to spend a LP to learn the spell, which consumes mana and only works for a short time.



This spell adds 20 points to your armor value for 90 seconds + 18 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. If you know that the best Berserker armor offers 30 points of protection (+9 from the pants and +8 from the helmet), a +20 armor boost is significant. So this is a very good spell to cast before a fight if you know you're about to take a couple of hits anyway.



This spell adds 50 damage to your melee attacks for 45 seconds + 9 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. For a melee build, this is a very good spell, of course. By the time you'll get it, you won't need it that often anymore but still, it's a very useful spell to cast before the more difficult fights.



When casting the Blood Transfer spell, you gain a large amount of mana but you lose a moderate amount of hit points. By itself, this isn't very useful. Since the spell damages you, you're better off drinking a mana potion or finding a place to sleep to replenish your mana. However, this spell may be useful in combination with the Healing spell (see below): by using the Blood Transfer Spell to replenish mana and then using the Healing spell to replenish your HP, you can always keep both bars at about 90% outside of combat without it costing you any potions or food.



This spell summons a spirit wolf to fight at your side for 100 seconds + an additional 20 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. The wolf does very little damage but it can distract opponents a bit while you pick them off from a distance. Sometimes, the wolf will stagger the opponent (same effect your melee attacks sometimes have). This may sound nice but all things considered, this spell isn't worth it. It costs way too much mana to cast for what little use the wolf actually has.



This spell highlights living things around you (people, animals, mutants and plants), i.e. the same effect wearing a pair of Classic Sunglasses has. The spell lasts for 40 seconds + an additional 8 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. This spell is worthless. If you want to see living things more clearly, wear a pair of Classic Sunglasses.



This spell creates a poisonous aura around you that damages opponents who come close to you. The spell lasts for 10 seconds + an additional 2 seconds for each rank you have in the Magic skill. This is way too short to be useful, and opponents need to be extremely close to you to get damaged by the aura anyway, which is something you want to avoid. So skip this spell.



This spell replenishes your HP at the cost of some mana. Together with the Blood Transfer Spell (see above), this spell may have its use. But because the Healing spell is yet another way to heal yourself (next to potions, food and places to sleep), it may not be worth increasing your Cunning to 60 to be able to learn the Healing spell, as Cunning above 50 has very little other uses.

Note: you learn Outlaw skills from William in The Fort after you've joined the Outlaws.


This skill allows you to disassemble weapons at a workbench to acquire parts. The skill is useless because you get more money if you sell the weapon than you'd get for the parts. And most of the parts you get are the stuff you'll have more than enough of anyway. So even if you'd like more parts, you're better off selling weapons and using the cash to buy the parts you want, leaving you with cash to spare.



This skill allows you to craft all sorts of ammunition at a workbench. I read on forums that the skill is pretty useless as you can buy all the ammo you need. I don't know because I haven't played as an Outlaw myself, but I'd think the skill would be useful for crafting the special ammo, at least. I refer to this guide, which contains a list of all craftable ammo and the ingredients you need, to help you decide for yourself.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331138999



Each rank of this skill increases the effect and duration of stims. This would be an essential skill for any Outlaw.



This skill allows you to add Bleeding or Radiation effect to certain melee weapons. This is an absolute must-have skill if you plan on using melee weapons at all. After all, the bleeding or radiation effect is an additional effect. Bleeding puts a DoT (damage over time) effect on your opponents. Strangely enough, it also affects machines (they bleed oil, I suppose? :D). There is no consensus about what radiation does, exactly. It's clear it puts a debuff on your target, but people don't agree whether that debuff reduces stamina, armor value or attack power of the affected target. So I'd stick with bleeding.

Note: each type of melee weapon belongs to a faction, meaning you can only add bleeding or radiation to 'Outlaw weapons'. I refer to this guide http://game-maps.com/ELEX/ELEX-Weapons.asp. Only the weapons marked 'LRF' in the column 'DMG1' are 'Outlaw weapons'. The author of the guide is mistaken, though, it should have been 'LRB' (B for Bleeding instead of F for Fire).



Each rank of this skill increases the total amount of stims you can have active at the same time. A powerful skill, but only for the second half of the game when you'll actually come across battles that are challenging enough to warrant consuming several stims together.



This skill allows you to craft Lifeblood stims. These stims heal 100 HP over 25 seconds. That's a nice heal but creating the stim takes one Natural Elex each, and there are a lot better uses for Natural Elex, especially since you can have plenty of food and potions to heal you. So skip this one.



This skill allows you to craft Steel Skin stims. These stims offer 25 fire, frost, poison and radiation resistance for 90 seconds. They're okay, but having played as a Berserker I always had enough resistance-boosting items on me (rings, food and different stims) so I don't think you actually need this skill to make more resistance-boosters.



This skill allows you to craft Pick-Me-Up stims. These stims increase your attack speed for 45 seconds. This is a very nice stim and I used it from time to time as a Berserker, too (you get some as a quest reward).



This skill allows you to craft Scrap Scanner stims. These stims give you the 'Sense Items' perk for 45 seconds. This is the perk you get permanently while wearing a pair of Sunglasses, so get a pair of those instead.



This skill allows you to craft Immune Booster stims. These stims offer 100 fire, frost, poison and radiation resistance for 30 seconds. 100 points means full immunity, so these stims are very nice but they do require precious Natural Elex to craft.



This skill allows you to craft Tough Guy stims. These stims decrease all damage taken by 50% for 45 seconds. A powerful stim to pop before any difficult fight when you're sure you're about to take some hits. Again, on the downside, crafting this stim does require Natural Elex.



This skill allows you to craft Mind Changer stims. These stims cause you to deal double damage for 45 seconds, making them the most powerful stim in the game.



This skill allows you to craft Animal Lover stims. These stims grant you the Animal Lover perk, which causes weak animals to not attack you on sight. This is pretty useless. Those weak animals are easily killed and are a good source of income if you have the Animal Trophies skill, which you should learn (see Survival Skills). Also, crafting Animal Lover stims requires precious Natural Elex, making this even more of a stay-away skill.

Note: you learn Cleric skills from Balder in The Hort. He's in the building across from The Cathedral and will only teach you after you've joined the Clerics and asked Reinhold about your duties as an acolyte.


Each rank of this skill increases the damage or the duration of your PSI abilities. This is an essential skill if you plan on using PSI abilities a lot.



Each rank of this skill increases your mental energy by 10 points. A very useful skill if you plan on using PSI abilities a lot.



This skill allows you to enchant certain melee weapons with an Energy, PSI or Stasis effect. This is an absolute must-have skill if you plan on using melee weapons at all. After all, the Energy, PSI or Stasis is an additional effect. Energy puts a DoT (damage over time) effect on your opponents and increases damage dealt to machines. Stasis prevents the opponent from regenerating stamina. I'm not sure what PSI does as people don't agree on that. But the consensus is that it's a pretty weak effect, and Energy is the best choice.

Note: each type of melee weapon belongs to a faction, meaning you can only enchant 'Cleric weapons' with an Energy, PSI or Stasis effect. I refer to this guide http://game-maps.com/ELEX/ELEX-Weapons.asp. Only the weapons marked 'SQE' in the column 'DMG1' are 'Cleric weapons'.



This skill increases the damage you deal when you don't have a companion with you. I've yet to find the exact percentage of the increase but it's most likely 10%, like all the other skills that increase damage. Anyway, definitely a must-have skill if you prefer travelling without a companion, of course.



This skill allows you to select special options in conversations with NPCs. These occasions are way too rare, though, and the small rewards aren't worth spending a learning point. So I'd skip this skill.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.



PSI ability - no idea, sorry.