Perks & Skills Advice

[Meanie]

What are the "Gotta Have" & "Waste of Time" perks & skills? Just looking for some general ideas on the subject. I know that some of them weigh heavily on whether you want to go bow heavy or rifle & such. Touch'em all if ya wish. If there is a guide, point me to it as I couldn't find one.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

For Skills, this is my go-to Spot and Stalk build as it allows me to carry 23kg without any packs, making me as stealthy as possible while being able to carry a tent with me:

~Stalker~

3/3 Locate Tracks
3/3 Track Knowledge
2/2 I'm Only Happy When It Rains
2/2 Soft Feet
1/1 Improvised Blind
1/1 Endurance


~Ambusher~

2/4 Scent Tinkerer
3/3 Spotting Knowledge
1/1 Dazed And Confused
1/1 Sight Spotting
2/2 Fatal Attraction
1/1 Pack Mule



For Perks, these allow me to be as proficient as possible with rifles and bows. I don't waste points on "Activated" skills like Zeroing, Windage or Ranger. They're crutch skills that personal skill and other equipment (such as rangefinders) compensate for:

~Rifles~

2/2 Muscle Memory
3/3 Breath Control
2/2 Steady Hands


~Handguns~

1/1 Sprint & Load


~Shotguns~

1/2 Both Eyes Open
2/2 Fast Shouldering


~Archery~

3/3 Full Draw
1/1 Move & Shoot
2/2 Increased Confidence
1/1 Like A Pro
2/2 Recycle
2/2 Pumping Iron

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Zeroing is very useful though, my shot accuracy improved pretty dramatically after I started using it.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

Zeroing is very useful though, my shot accuracy improved pretty dramatically after I started using it.

Useful but still a crutch. Once you learn to compensate for bullet drop, it's not that big of a deal to go without it. Plus, I rarely engage from beyond 200m with a rifle anyways and within 40m for bows.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Handgun and Shotgun perks are hardly worth anything beyond Sprint and Load and 1/2 Both Eyes Open, 2/2 fast Shouldering so most people usually go for rifle and bow with rifle first since rifles are lot easier to use for beginner then bows.
Stalker is also best to open first over Ambusher with very crucial tracking and stealth skills.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

This is currently my plan:

Stalker:
Locate Tracks 3/3
Track Knowledge 3/3
Soft Feet 2/2
Connect the Dots 1/1
Improvised Blind 1/1
Innate Triangulation 2/2
Endurance 1/1

Ambusher:
Scent Tinkerer 2/4
Spotting Knowledge 3/3
Dazed and Confused 1/1
Sight Spotting 1/1
Fatal Attraction 2/2
Pack Mule 1/1

Rifle:
Muscle Memory 2/2
Breath Control 3/3
Steady Hands 2/2
Zeroing 2/2
Focused Shot 1/1

Handgun:
Sprint & Load 1/1

Shotgun:
Both Eyes Open 1/2
Fast Shouldering 2/2

Archery:
Full Draw 1/3
Move n` Shoot 1/1
Increased Confidence 2/2
Recycle 1/2
Like a Pro 1/1
Pumping Iron 2/2

[Geronimo]

Dont bother with the spotting knowledge trophy score option because it has not been changed to meet the new trurac numbers and doesnt give accurate numbers. and due to the ambigious data and performance issues of scent eliminator any perk you can get that assist with eliminatinf your exposure is a necessioty.

[CaptainNebulous]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

Dont bother with the spotting knowledge trophy score option because it has not been changed to meet the new trurac numbers and doesnt give accurate numbers. and due to the ambigious data and performance issues of scent eliminator any perk you can get that assist with eliminatinf your exposure is a necessioty.

As for the scent eliminator, it works fine for me. It lasts for 30 IRL minutes and seems to reduce the distance of scent your scent traveling downwind by 25% to 50%, depending on how strong the wind is.

Seems like you need to re-use it though after dying or fast traveling of any kind.

That being said I would still not take points out of those "exposure skills" because they are still very useful and you don't always want the scent eliminator taking up space in your inventory anyway. Animals running because of scent only becomes a big problem for people who aren't careful enough to begin with. They are spooked by your smell far less than by hearing or seeing you.

[yogisgoat]

I don't buy the "crutch" argument, but only because if you look at it that way than ALL of skills and perks are crutches.

For my style of playing the least useful skill/perk is Sprint & Load. I've been playing this game since the beginning and the only time I ever run is when I'm side-stepping a charging buffalo. If I can't drop it with 5 rounds in the .454 then I deserve to die before I can reload.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by CaptainNebulous:

Originally posted by Geronimo:

Dont bother with the spotting knowledge trophy score option because it has not been changed to meet the new trurac numbers and doesnt give accurate numbers. and due to the ambigious data and performance issues of scent eliminator any perk you can get that assist with eliminatinf your exposure is a necessioty.

As for the scent eliminator, it works fine for me. It lasts for 30 IRL minutes and seems to reduce the distance of scent your scent traveling downwind by 25% to 50%, depending on how strong the wind is.

Seems like you need to re-use it though after dying or fast traveling of any kind.

That being said I would still not take points out of those "exposure skills" because they are still very useful and you don't always want the scent eliminator taking up space in your inventory anyway. Animals running because of scent only becomes a big problem for people who aren't careful enough to begin with. They are spooked by your smell far less than by hearing or seeing you.

yeah nubby, i wish the devs would do something to be more definitive about the time and dynamics. i often wonder whether i am wasting it when i think i have to respray it after fast travel or death. i cud see after time passage but not fast travel. same with rain, does it wash off even?

to be clear Devs,

scent eliminator- 30 ingame minutes or 1830 ingame seconds, not 300, which is the five minutes we get with scent lures.

And to be sure scent eliminator and scent lures are two different things.

Scent lure attracts.

scent eliminator masks the hiunters scentw with no attraction benefit.

Although, the scent lures should last longer than 5 minutes, and IRL spraying urine scents on a hunter is also considered a masking benefit as well.

as for being spooked by smell, i would be surprised if someone with as many hours as u have in hasnt experienced a time when you couldnot get an animals within rasnge because iot was smelling you, but thats another argument thread lol.

However i think u misread what i said about exposure perks, i said they are a necessity in last setntence. probably should have restrcutured the sentence.

also on the scent eliminator, i find it does not last for no 30 mins like its supposed to and its easy to see that if your in s stand and they ate suddenly fleeing for no other reason after just a few minutes or not wanting to come any closer, and then suddenly when you reapply they come trotting in as though you just let them off a leash. lol

thats my observation anyway, iw ould estimate maybe five minutes, which i always wonder has a dev mistaken the numders of minutes in haldf and hour or thought that the 300 seconds of thje scent lure is the same for the eliminator and just hasnt realized the difference.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

I don't buy the "crutch" argument, but only because if you look at it that way than ALL of skills and perks are crutches.

For my style of playing the least useful skill/perk is Sprint & Load. I've been playing this game since the beginning and the only time I ever run is when I'm side-stepping a charging buffalo. If I can't drop it with 5 rounds in the .454 then I deserve to die before I can reload.

Now replace that 454 with a single shot weapon, be it a break action or bolt action.

By crutch, I mean it's a skill that allows you to play better by replicating skill or a piece of equipment.

Zeroing, for example, is just taking the bullet drop calculation out of the equation when you shoot. You can, with practice, learn to shoot an animal beyond 150m without zeroing.

The ranger skill allows you to estimate an animal's distance from you. That's kinda hard to do visually as terrain can throw off your estimation. But a range finder and/or marker placed on the animal after spotting it can give you that range.

In comparison to, say, the stealth skills that lower your visibility and sound you make. No amount of personal skill will lower it as much as those skills do unless you're always crawling at the slowest speed..

Or endurance. No amount of personal skill will affect the speed at which your heartrate increases or decreases.

[Meanie]

Hey! Thanks for all the info. Quite a bit to take in. Everyone is different so what works for one may not for another. As far as zeroing being a crutch, I don't buy that at all. When I am shooting in RL I know how many clicks to adjust my scope for different ranges. Zeroing is a real life skill obtained by knowing your weapon. Thanks again, everybody. I'll find a template that works best for me and add it to this thread on a later date. Happy Hunting, M8s!

[Fractured_Skull]

I will never use the zeroing ability, I use my points elsewhere. Every weapon you use will shoot flat to certain ranges, use the test range that's what it's for! I have shot out past 300m with no problems. I use a simple method of charting my bows on a notebook pad to memorize ranges for each arrow/bolt weight, pinpoint accuracy. I am not debating this, it is a personal preference. If you like switching on the fly to zero with the skill, by all means do it.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Fractured_Skull:

I am not debating this, it is a personal preference. If you like switching on the fly to zero with the skill, by all means do it.

Yeah, this is what I meant also, when I made my suggestion. It's a personal opinion on what I felt was useless.To me, they're not needed, and a waste as I can do it by myself. And, to be frank, it's far more satisfying to hit an animal at 300m away without zeroing than to just click a button once to go into EZ-mode. I've not made a shot that far as my longest is 235m to a vital organ hit but it was satisfying to know I did it without the game's help.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

I dont really see this as a game`s help, this is exactly what you do in real life if you use the scope, adjust it to the range you are shooting at so you would not need to arbitrarily guess the drop.
This is what those two dials on the scope are for, one for the range and one for the wind.
Only time when guessing the drop is useful in real life is when you dont use the scope and are just shooting by iron sights.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

I dont really see this as a game`s help, this is exactly what you do in real life if you use the scope, adjust it to the range you are shooting at so you would not need to arbitrarily guess the drop.
This is what those two dials on the scope are for, one for the range and one for the wind.
Only time when guessing the drop is useful in real life is when you dont use the scope and are just shooting by iron sights.

Or you use a scope with a christmas tree reticle. It's what I use and rarely touch the dials. It's faster to use the christmas tree than it is to reach up and twist the knob(s), for me at least.

That being said, I'd love new scope reticles in game.

Something like this: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/414q9jFIupL._SX355_.jpg