Atomic Heart: Best Skills & Upgrades

Atomic Heart has an in-depth skill upgrade tree for all the skills available in the game, and it is crucial to select and invest in the best ones from the start if you don’t want to get in trouble during late-game encounters. The skills in this game are divided into two types: Active and Passive. Shock, Character, and Energy Management are passive skills, while Frostbite, Mass Telekinesis, Polymeric Jet, and Polymeric Shield are active skills.

A quick comparison between all the best Skills & Upgrades: 

Shock

Shock is a passive skill, that allows you to shoot off electromagnetic discharge from your gloves. It deals electric damage to enemies. Shock is a skill you’ll be using, both inside and outside of combat, so it is better to start focusing on it if you don’t want the flying robots or cameras to give you excessive trouble.

Electrization

Electrization will be the first skill upgrade you can unlock from the Shock skill tree. Even if you don’t use shock a lot, consider unlocking this upgrade, as its utility in gameplay cannot be overstated. Its effect on robotic enemies and the reliance of other skill upgrades on electrization makes it one of the game’s most important and best skill upgrades.

Neuro-Polymer Accelerator

Neuro-Polymer Accelerator decreases the cooldown of the Shock skill. This one is a no-brainer; considering how many robots you can encounter at a given time, you don’t want to waste your ammo on them, and destroying them with your axe can be a hassle at times. So, having a lower cooldown for Shock can increase the number of times you can electrify robots during combat.

Resistor Malfunction

Resistor Malfunction allows you to deal extra damage to electrified targets. Robots in Atomic Heart don’t die easily unless you headshot them, and when in a situation where you have to deal with multiple humanoids and flying robots at the same time, the extra damage done due to this skill can be a lifesaver.

Amplified Modulator

One thing you’ll have to look out for a lot during your playthrough is cameras, which initiate an alarm and notify all the robots in the vicinity of your presence. To avoid this issue,, you must stay out of their range, shock them, and take them out.

The Amplified Modulator’s extra range can help in this regard, allowing you to maintain a safe distance and disable any cameras. Additionally, its effectiveness also applies to combat encounters, where you can electrify the flying robots at a distance much more easily.

Chain Lightning

For the most part, the robots you’ll have to deal with in combat encounters will be in groups and don’t come at you individually. This means that they are mostly in close range of one another, which makes Chain Lightning an effective skill upgrade. With this skill upgrade unlocked, part of your discharge bounces and deals additional damage to a nearby enemy. 

Character

The character skill tree is related to your character traits. Meaning stuff like health, resistance, parkour ability, medicine intake, guarding, dodging and more can be upgraded from here. Among all the skills in the game, Character has the largest skill tree.

Like Shock, it is also a passive skill, where the upgrades are permanent and can aid you in the long run. So make sure to invest heavily in the Character skill tree in order to boost your physical capabilities.

Juggler

Getting your health low during combat encounters is not completely unheard of, indicating that you have healed up unless you want to die. Neuromeds allow you to heal your character, but the catch is that you can’t shoot and have made yourself completely vulnerable during that process.

Juggler allows you to heal yourself using only one hand, so you can have your weapon in one hand and attack enemies while using your other hand to heal yourself. The healing animation itself is not that long, but players who like to play aggressively will dig the ability to remain in combat and not run away to heal yourself.

Born Marksman

Born Marksman increases the accuracy of your unaimed shooting. As someone who likes to shoot without using aim-down sight a lot, Born Marksman was a very welcome addition. The skill is subjective because if you mostly shoot using aim-down sight, this may not be very valuable to you, but if you don’t like using aim-down sight a lot, Born Marksman is a must-have skill upgrade.

Wild Boar

Wild Boar increases the maximum health of your character. While Wild Boar is not the only skill that can do it, it is one of the first ones you can unlock. Playing the game on normal difficulty settings, I didn’t feel any need to upgrade my health any further, as Wild Boar was sufficient for me for my entire playthrough.

Second Wind

This skill allows you to perform an additional dash using the dodge button. Dodging is one of the most important mechanics of Atomic Heart, and obviously, there is a limit to how many times you can dodge in succession. The additional dash gained due to this upgrade can be a lifesaver in many scenarios because you never know when an additional dash can save you from a devastating hit.

Parkour

This skill upgrade allows you to tuck and roll in order to avoid taking any fall damage. This can be done by pressing the jump right before landing. This a great skill to have under your belt if you want to enhance your maneuverability and traversal capabilities.

Sleazeball

Sleazeball basically gives you invincibility frames or I-Frames during your dashes. If you like to play aggressively and keep your distance close to your enemies without breaking the flow of combat, Sleazeball is a highly recommended skill for you.

Avatar

Avatar gives your character resistance to elemental damage. Elemental damage can be one of the most annoying things you could face in Atomic Heart, as it is able to affect some of your other character traits on top of your health. While Elemental Damage may not be a problem early on, make sure to keep this upgrade on your radar for mid to late-game.

Frostbite (Cryo Jet)

Frostbite basically allows you to inflict a freezing effect upon enemies using Crypolymer. Enemies that get inflicted with this status cannot move and become vulnerable to all types of attacks. Organic Enemies, in comparison to robots are more vulnerable to this effect. 

High Pressure

After unlocking Frostbite, one of the first things you will notice about this skill is its short range. While being a very powerful skill, it’s of no use if you can’t reach your enemies, in which case unlocking High Pressure should be your top priority as it increases the range of your attack.

Forced Defrost

Forced Defrost allows you to damage enemies more even after the freezing effect has ended. You may freeze more than one enemy while firing your crypolymer, and it may not be possible to take all of them out while they remain frozen.

That is where Frozen Defrost comes in and lets you deal additional damage to all those previously frozen enemies. Additionally, this effect can also be used to deal additional damage to the game’s elite enemies and bosses.

Neuro-Polymer Accelerator

It decreases the cooldown of your Frostbite skill and allows you to use Frostbite in combat more times than you normally can. The effect of having less cooldown is self-explanatory, and if you plan on using this skill a lot, unlocking Neuro-Polymer Accelerator is a no-brainer.

Diffuse Spray Head

Diffuse spray head allows you to fire crypolymer in a cone-shaped area. It may be difficult to understand its effect on paper, but this makes a great addition to your arsenal in actual gameplay. With Diffuse Spray Head, you drastically increase the number of enemies you can hit with your crypolymer, making a great skill upgrade if you want more crowd control.

Increased Polymer Generation

Increased Polymer Generation complements the previous skill by allowing you to use the Cryo jet for far longer than you normally can. Frostbite itself is a very overpowered skill, especially against normal mob-type enemies, and being in a situation where you cannot use this skill for very long is not ideal.

Mass Telekinesis

Mass Telekinesis you grip a number of enemies in an area of effect and lift them up in the air. The targets fall on the ground if the effect is ended or interrupted. Mass Telekinesis functions just as you would expect from a telekinetic ability in video games. If you like controlling enemies and lifting them up in the air, consider investing in Mass Telekinesis.

Forced Acceleration Fall

If you plan on using Mass Telekinesis as one of your main two skills, unlocking Forced Acceleration Fall should be your top priority. Without this skill upgrade, the rest of the upgrades and the ability may not work as intended. With Forced Acceleration Fall unlocked, enemies take damage when they fall on the ground. 

Increased Power

Having the ability to lift enemies up into the ground and not being able to do so can be a very annoying experience since it just defeats the point of having that ability. This situation can occur when you try to lift heavyweight enemies. Increased Power greatly boosts your Mass Telekinesis skill and lets you lift heavyweight enemies up in the air as well.

Neuro-Polymer Accelerator

Neuro-Polymer Accelerator reduces the cooldown of Mass Telekinesis. This increases your chances to use this ability more often in combat and deal AoE damage to huge groups of enemies.

Barotrauma

Barotrauma increases the per second damage dealt by Mass Telekinesis. Simply put, it increases the damage done by this skill, whose effect becomes more and more visible as you progress through the game.

Polymeric Jet

PolymericJet, an amplification skill, pairs with frostbite, fire, and electrification for high damage. Unlocked and equipped, it shoots combat polymer at enemies, amplifying damage when combined with the mentioned effects. Though seemingly straightforward, achieving optimal synergy requires constant elemental damage skill charging. Practice enables a satisfying and rewarding combat experience.

High Pressure

High Pressure increases the range of combat polymer and allows you to hit targets from a moderate distance. This upgrade is especially useful against flying enemies as those are the ones that can be the hardest to pin down. So, having an extended range can let you use this ability on far-away and air-borne enemies more effectively.

Neuro-Polymer Air Defence

Neuro-Polymer Air Defence increases the viscosity of combat polymer. This increase in viscosity allows you to slow down the rotors of airborne enemies upon using Polymeric Jet. Due to decreased rotor speed the air-borne enemies fall to the ground and become vulnerable to all types of attacks.

Mixture Efficiency

Mixture Efficiency further amplifies the damage dealt by this skill. It enhances the combat polymer so that the chemical reactions with fire and electrification are further enhanced, which in turn increases the damage done by these attacks.

Polymeric Shield

Polymeric shield allows you to surround yourself with a shield made of polymer. This shield protects you from melee and ranged attacks and redirects part of the projectiles’ energy into the recirculation chamber. In layman’s words, this skill functions the way you would normally expect from a standard shield i.e guarding yourself against oncoming assault and retaliating with your weapons.

Overload & Destabilize

Deploying the polymeric shield at full capacity and then retracting it allows you to shower your enemies with combat polymer, which can be later combined with effects like fire or electrization to deal tremendous damage. However, this cannot be spammed all the time since this skill has a cooldown and should only be used when the number of enemies in attack range is as high as possible.

Kinetic Reflector

Up until this skill, you can mostly use Polymeric Shield as a means to guard yourself against damage, but with Kinetic Reflector, you can retaliate against enemy attacks using the shield too. Kinetic Reflector doubles the damage dealt to your shield and then reflects it back to the enemy.

Neuro-Polymer Reflector

Neuro-Polymer Reflector allows you to reflect ranged attacks back to the enemy. With Kinetic Reflector and Neuro-Polymer unlocked you can use Polymeric Shield not only to guard yourself against damage but also to counter enemy attacks immediately.

Increased Polymer Generation

Building your playstyle around Polymeric Shield has a fair share of consequences. If you are out of charge and unable to deflect melee and parry attacks, you will be in a lot of trouble as you won’t be used to dodging as much as you would be to blocking and reflecting. So, to minimize the probability of such scenarios, make sure to unlock Increased Polymer Generation to increase the use duration of Polymeric Shield.

Energy Management/Density

Energy Management is the final skill tree, which gives you all sorts of passive buffs like recycling lost health into energy and decreasing the consumption of energy of your ranged attacks. Investing in this skill tree basically balances your energy consumption and optimizes it for combat encounters.

Thrift

Thrift optimizes your energy intake and decreases the amount of energy your ranged attacks use. A must-have skill if you want to keep using your range attacks for far longer in combat without them consuming too much of your energy.

ATP Recycling

Any health lost in combat is recycled into usable energy. This is one of the best skills you can unlock for the Energy Management skill tree since any health lost during combat encounters does not go wasted.

Greedy Guts

Atomic Heart puts an equal amount of emphasis on melee combat as it does on ranged attacks. With Greedy Guts unlock, you have the incentive to use melee weapons even more, as this skill upgrade allows you to recharge energy using melee attacks.

Conclusion

The best skills in Atomic Heart may differ for everyone since every player has his own playstyle and will unlock upgrades that further enhance it. So it’s possible that not all of these skills will click with everyone, but some will definitely do. For a full list of skills and skill upgrades in Atomic Heart, kindly refer to our Atomic Heart Skill Tree guide and learn about all the skills you can unlock in this game.

This concludes our guide on the best skills and upgrades in Atomic Heart. Let us know the most intriguing skills in the comments below.

Next:

• Atomic Heart Review
• Atomic Heart: All Trophies