Skills help

[Yuna]

What skills are important and useful that I should prioritising first?

[Guitarist with Osteoarthritis]

Lockpicking, Explosives, Nerd Stuff, and Mechanics being the ones you see more often. Then it's Explosives, First Aid, Hard Ass, and Kiss Ass. Weird Science to a less degree, but still important. Everything else is how you see fit.

[Yuna]

Originally posted by Guitarist with Osteoarthritis:

Lockpicking, Explosives, Nerd Stuff, and Mechanics being the ones you see more often. Then it's Explosives, First Aid, Hard Ass, and Kiss Ass. Weird Science to a less degree, but still important. Everything else is how you see fit.

ty

[Heau]

Lockpicking and mechanics definitely my top 2. Explosives you can actually delay but it is somewhat miserable especially on a blind playthrough. I had a game with the +2 skill check where I skipped it until lvl 14 or 15 in order to get skills for chat options earlier on but then i had to return to all starting areas to get the demining exp and loot which was very inconvenient.

Mechanics you want on a high mobility character to deal with the generators in combat.

I personally find nerd stuff low priority until having to retrieve tapes from the bizarre bunker I wanna say around lvl 12-14? The loot from the safe in the gardens is pretty insignificant and can be retrieved later.

If you play without +2 skill check, you can just hoard points and quick save regularly so that you can reload before a specific chat encounter and pick up the skill you needed if you wanted to see the differing outcome. With the +2 skill check you very much have to accept you won't hit all the marks so hoarding isn't as viable.

[Yuna]

Originally posted by Heau:

Lockpicking and mechanics definitely my top 2. Explosives you can actually delay but it is somewhat miserable especially on a blind playthrough. I had a game with the +2 skill check where I skipped it until lvl 14 or 15 in order to get skills for chat options earlier on but then i had to return to all starting areas to get the demining exp and loot which was very inconvenient.

Mechanics you want on a high mobility character to deal with the generators in combat.

I personally find nerd stuff low priority until having to retrieve tapes from the bizarre bunker I wanna say around lvl 12-14? The loot from the safe in the gardens is pretty insignificant and can be retrieved later.

If you play without +2 skill check, you can just hoard points and quick save regularly so that you can reload before a specific chat encounter and pick up the skill you needed if you wanted to see the differing outcome. With the +2 skill check you very much have to accept you won't hit all the marks so hoarding isn't as viable.

I really enjoy mechanics I been trying hard to make a leader, mechanic,nerd and first aid class but its hard just not enough points for it all to start with It seems though that leader you need the last kill though and only lvl 3 seems worth it

[Yuna]

I also do wish you could keep animals that are hostile

[Jivebot]

Remember you got a 4-man team to customize as you see fit.

I make a Heavy Gunner/Brawler, who also provides my Hard Ass, Mechanics, and Explosives and Leadership(The Commander/Demoloitionist)

I make a Automatic Weapons/Blades who also provides my Kiss Ass, Barter, Lock Picking, and Sneaky Sh*t...a sort of Spy/Operative of the team.

My Sniper/Small Arms handles First Aid, Survival, Animal Whispering, and Toaster Repair, A sort of Naturist type of character who's a hunter/folk healer-type

Then a Sniper/Automatic to do my Nerd Stuff, Weird Science, Weapon Modding and Armor Modding. The tech head handling all my brainy crap lol

That covers most everything I need in the wastelands and Companions round it out a bit further where/when needed

[ubik]

As a suggestion, make sure everyone in your group has at least level 1 First Aid, so they have full ability to self-heal and revive. This is particular has helped me avoid wiping the group, because occasionally it gets down to 1 character left standing and this is how you avoid a wipe.

[Yuna]

Originally posted by Señor Droolcup:

As a suggestion, make sure everyone in your group has at least level 1 First Aid, so they have full ability to self-heal and revive. This is particular has helped me avoid wiping the group, because occasionally it gets down to 1 character left standing and this is how you avoid a wipe.

Does someone with first aid skill heal someone more with med kits or is it just revive bonus?

[ubik]

Level 1 First Aid unlocks healing items, so you can't use healing items without it.

[Radiac]

My team had the following:

Guy 1: Automatic Weapons (Or Small Arms, your choice), Lock Picking, Leadership. This guy can max out Lock Picking early on and just take enough points in Leadership to get Rally, then ignore it for a while. You're going to use Rally on round one of like every combat, so you want him to have a gun that uses a fairly low number of Action Points to shoot. I also ended up giving him like level 7 of Mechanics so he could deploy turrets and do Mechanics things before Jodie Bell came online.

Guy 2: Sniper Rifle, Hard Ass, and Sneaky ♥♥♥♥. I gave this guy Hard Ass because it has the most ways to get levels in it without spending points. There's a Utility item, an Armor, and a skill book for Hard Ass. This saves skill points and I used those on the secret skill you can unlock called Combat Shooting, unlocked by getting all of the heads that Gary "NaCl" Wolfe asks for, and for avoiding taking any cyborg upgrades from Vivisecto RN in the Machine Commune.

Guy3: Big Guns, Weird Science, Nerd Stuff. There's a decent, if ammo-expensive Energy Big Gun you can get for free fairly early on the Argon Lance in the Sans Luxe toaster, plus Weird Science causes you to get more damage out of Flamethrowers, plus there are these mods called Linkages that can convert the damage type of a gun, so throw a Plasma or Energy Linkage on a Minigun and go nuts.

Guy4: Automatic Weapons, Explosives, Kiss Ass. The best Automatic weapon in the game is the PDW-01 sub machine gun, which does Explosive damage (not regular bullet damage). You won't find it until later in the game, but there are some good ones you can use in the meantime (and again, there are linkages that will convert, say, a Ripper SMG to Explosive Damage).

Then the NPCs I use are:
Jodie Bell: Sniper, Mechanics, First Aid, and the remaining late game points into Animal Whisperer, which I don't really use much.
Lucia Wesson: Small Arms, Barter, Survival, and just enough points in Weapon Modding to get the Powder Packer Perk, plus enough points in Brawling to be able to use the Foam Finger, plus the rest into First Aid, as I use her for that a lot too. I only use Lucia to shoot stuff if something is within range of her shotgun or pistol, and if that shot would probably end the combat. Otherwise I use her as a roving First Aid delivery system and skill person.

In addition to this, I also give everyone at least one point in First Aid, or more if I have the points to spend in the late game. That way everyone can heal everyone, including themselves.

Some people will give everyone a point or three in Animal Whisperer and travel with a ton of pets, but I find they get underfoot and make combat take more time, and it harder to move around in the more confined maps.

Also, I usually make a 7th guy who stays in the HQ mostly, and he gets Toaster Repair, Armor Modding, and Weapon Modding. I pull him out when I'm back at the HQ to do crafting, apply mods to stuff, and then maybe take him for a ride top go open toasters with him after I have cleared the maps of bad guys with the real team. In this game, unlike Wasteland 2, the toasters mostly contain individual pieces of different sets of items you need to make a full item. So like, you find different parts of the Golden Toaster, or different crap you can trade to give to Saul to get stuff you might actually use, etc As such, you can just wait until you have level 3 rad shielding on the kodiak then go get like all of the toasters in one tour de toaster then do all the toaster things after that. Personally, I find it more useful to just sell the golden toaster parts to someone and then use that money early on for things you need. Even if you DO want that golden toaster, which I don't, you'll have the money to buy those parts back later when you can assemble the thing.

[Heau]

you can use the self injectors red thing for 50% heal without FA1. You need FA1 for medipacks that do ~35% per turn for 3 turns including application.

You don't necessarily need it on all 6 if you manage your healing items but it's nice to have a few because it lets you heal others not just yourself.

[red255]

start the game on normal and just press buttons. If game doesn't explain stuff its not meant to be explained first playthru.

Stat wise, know that STR is Constitution in most games every 2 points of strength increases the HP you get per level.

game seems more forgiving than wasteland 2 since I seem to get more skill points and Stat points as I go thru it.

but you should be fine on normal regardless of what you do.

I would give a point of first aid to everyone, cuz I gave a point of doctor to everyone so everyone could use the revive kits to restore people in wasteland 2. and it seems like wasteland 3 has merged the two skills.

I would not stress it, just try to keep your skills diversified over the squad of 7 you do get.

seems like I only get AP from Coord in wasteland 3. God knows, not going to stress it.

Pick a weapon type, get 2 secondary skills, once that is done move to a new thing.

but they merged safecracking and lockpicking into lockpicking, and Doctor and first aid into first aid, so you should be doing things alot easier.

if the game gives you an option to use the skill during the tutorial, its probably a good skill to give to one of your squadmates. early on.

[Baraz]

TIP : as you do not have enough skill points the first 10 level to have everything, you can create a 5th character that stays in the HQ and is focused on Armor/Weapon modding (the downside being you might want to travel back to HQ more often).

I also created a 6th HQ ranger for Toaster Repair. The downside is I travel sometimes just to fetch toasters.

Finally, Jodie (companion) has Animal Whisperer, which I rarely use except when needed for special cases...

Important : the first 4 custom rangers are free, but afterwards cost 300+ dollars, so make sure to create your full 4 A-team beforehand (not to be confused with NPC companions). I made the mistake and had to farm 300$ to make the real team I wanted. :P