Horizon Zero Dawn: Best Skills

Best Skills in Horizon Zero Dawn

The best skills in Horizon Zero Down aren’t those that change stats or damage. These abilities change the common gameplay, give you bigger versatility in fights, and unlock new mechanics. I’ve tested all 44 skills and created the top list with the best Horizon Zero Dawn skills.

Silent Strike

This skill comes in three awesome variations and lets you quietly take down enemies who don’t see you coming. You’ve got the classic silent strike, plus the silent strikes from above and below. Throughout your adventure, this comes in handy for sneaky moves in a ton of different situations.

This skill is also great for saving your resources. Sometimes, you might be running low on supplies, or you need specific arrows to take down certain machines. In those moments, being able to silently take out enemies without using any resources is a huge plus.

Healer and Herbalist

In Horizon Zero Dawn is important to have enough healing items. Aloy doesn’t heal up on her own, so you’ll definitely need plenty of healing stuff as you play.

First up, the Herbalist skill doubles the space in your medicine bag. With this skill, you don’t have to be careful about when to use your healing items.

The Healer perk speeds up your healing (x3), which is important in situations when you need to quickly get your health back up. This way, you don’t risk getting knocked out and having to restart from a checkpoint.

With both Herbalist and Healer, you’ll feel a whole lot more confident taking on whatever the game throws at you.

Lure Call

In Horizon Zero Dawn, Lure Call is useful for messing with both machines and people. This skill allows you to get the attention of a single enemy in a direct line without alerting others nearby. When the enemies come, you can end it with the Silent Strike.

Basically, this skill is a whole part of the silent game’s strategy and deserves its spot. 

Fast Reload

Fast Reload helps you reload weapons while using Concentration very swiftly. In general, you could shoot only a few arrows during the Concentration. However, if you have a Fase Reload ability, their number grows a lot.

Concentration

Concentration is about slowing down time when you’re aiming with your bow. There are even extra perks that can make this slow-motion effect last longer.

This skill becomes important as you get further in the game. It’s perfect for shots where you need to hit a specific part of a machine or take down human enemies with a single shot.

Another cool thing about this skill is that it zooms in your view a bit. This makes it easier to see everything more clearly.

Tinker

One of the best skills in Horizon Zero Dawn is Tinker, which will make the early game easier. It allows you to remove and reuse Weapon Modification Coils and Outfit Weaves.

By the time you hit the middle of the game, you’ll have gathered a bunch of coils and weaves. This skill means that if you find better mods, you can swap them in without losing the ones you already have.

Precision

This skill in Horizon Zero Dawn changes how you fight with your spear. It’s got three levels: Precision, Precision+, and Knock Down.

They boost the damage you do with your spear and increase the chances of knocking off armor from enemies or even knocking them down completely.

It’s a very useful skill for close battles where you need to deal some serious damage quickly.

Horizon Zero Dawn Skills for Early Game

In Horizon Zero Dawn, picking the right skills early on can make a big difference, especially if you’re playing on a higher difficulty level. Based on my experience, here are some of the best skills from each tree that really helped me, particularly with the stealth aspects of the game.

• Hunter Reflexes: This skill slows down time when you aim during a jump or slide.
• Silent Strike: This is a classic. Sneak up behind enemies and press R1 (on PS) for a silent takedown. It’s great for quickly dealing with smaller foes and inflicting serious damage on larger machines.
• Concentration: This is my favorite. It allows you to slow down time while aiming with LT. This skill is very useful for targeting critical parts of machines.
• Gatherer: With this ability, you can collect more natural resources to craft arrows and other items. In the early game, you might not be used to picking up everything you see, so this skill offers extra convenience.
• Critical Hit: Knock an enemy down, then hit R1 to deliver a powerful ‘finishing move’ or at least a heavy hit. It’s straightforward and effective.

Best Skills for the Late Game

As you progress to the late game in Horizon Zero Dawn, you’ll find some skills that might not seem essential early on but become incredibly valuable later in the game. Here are four such skills that you may find immensely useful in the late stages of your adventure.

• Double and Triple Shot: These skills enable you to load two or three arrows on your bow. This helps take down the tougher machines or stealthily eliminate enemies from a distance without raising an alarm.
• Quiet Sprint: This skill allows you to sprint silently, drastically reducing the chance of alerting nearby enemies. In the late game, where foes are more formidable, Quiet Sprint lets you move quickly without sacrificing stealth.
• Disarm Traps: With the Disarm Traps skill, you can recover and reuse any traps you set up or come across. This ability is particularly handy during intense battles or when your hunting plans don’t go as expected.
• Ammo Crafter: This skill allows you to craft more ammo from the same amount of resources. Given that you’ll be using a lot more ammo in later stages, Ammo Crafter can save you both time and resources.

Horizon Zero Dawn Skills to Avoid

There are some skills in Horizon Zero Daws that aren’t as useful as others. They don’t seem worth the skill points, at least to me. However, everyone’s different, and it’s totally fine if you find these skills handy or fun to use in your game.

• Mount Repair: This skill lets you use metal shards to fix up your Strider or any other mount you’re using. The upgraded version, Mount Repair +, just speeds up the repair process and boosts the mount’s health a bit. I advise you not to use metal shards to repair the machines and just find another one.
• Machine Repair: This ability lets you fix any machine you’ve overridden. The same thing, better to find a new machine, than to fix yours.
• Fighting Back: Once your health is low, this skill boosts your heavy spear attacks. It is not so useful, as you rarely engage in close combat, as mid/long-range attacks are the best. Moreover, there are too many mechs and bandits using long-range attacks, and running in front of them on low health may be a bad idea.
• Heavy Lifter: This skill lets Aloy move faster when she’s carrying a heavy weapon. However, you still can’t run, jump, or dodge. This can be a bit of a problem, especially when you’re facing more than two enemies and can’t take them out quickly.