Dying Light: The Beast’s skill tree works slightly differently from how it played in Dying Light 2. The game itself has removed the combat and parkour XP and instead, replaced it with a classic level up system with skill points earned as you go. There are three different skill trees, featuring survival, parkour and combat skills, with a fourth skill tree for the Beast options. With a fair bit of choice, it’s easy to go down a route that is not too great, especially with no respec ability in the game. We are here to help you with choosing the best early game skills in Dying Light: The Beast.

Best Early Game Skills¶

For those early skill points, I strongly recommend grabbing the following skills:

1. Active Landing
2. Dash
3. Stealth Expert

I think these skills are pretty non-negotiable regardless of build or playstyle.

After that, you can choose your preference. You can go down the power tree for the Drop Kick and the Bow modifier. You may also consider getting Enemy Jump in the agility tree to make parkour even easier from vaulting over enemy heads.

1. Agility - Active Landing¶

Active Landing is a stepping stone to getting what you really need, the second skill. I won’t lie to you, with how heavy the parkour physics are moving in from Dying Light 2, you’re probably going to fall fairly often learning parkour again. This skill will mitigate some of the damage you take, and let you fall a little higher before damage kicks in. It’s extremely handy for exploring a lot of the cliffside or taller buildings around Castor Woods.

As for using it tactically, one of the best Volatile chase ending experiences we have is getting Volatiles into rooftop chases, and then deliberately jumping down off the building. This skill helps you keep momentum at the cost of some health and duking Volatiles very well. Without this skill, you just fly down to the floor and crash, losing all momentum. That’s the main reason why it’s useful in a gameplay sense, rather than just a parkour improvement.

2. Agility - Dash¶

While you have stamina, the Dash skill allows you to activate the run button again to activate a sprint, which will slowly drain your remaining stamina bar. You’ll get a bit of a speed boost for doing so, but not a great deal.

However, this is absolutely necessary for nighttime evasions. Volatiles and Virals will chase you at speed, and this extra bit of speed for those tight chases really does make a difference. Nighttime especially with Volatile chases taking place. It can be the difference between outpacing a Volatile dive, making it to the safe zone, or managing to get into that hiding spot just out of sight from one. This skill is mandatory for improving your odds at night. Many of the side missions and main story will make it so you end up playing at night, or you’ll be out of time and night will sneak up on you.

3. Survival - Stealth Expert¶

The first perk in the survival tree lets you sneak up on enemies much better. This is very good for several reasons. Dark Zones are back, and being able to sneak much better is very good for avoiding awkward close range fights. The other is assassinating zombies without using weapons is also very strong.

The best situation we’ve found this in is clearing out Large Convoys to get to the armored military biters that drop the keycard. And again, Dark Zone looting becomes a lot cleaner with this skill too. It’s very worth grabbing for the exploration/combat side of things.

4. Power - Dropkick¶

Now we are onto the classics. The Drop Kick is one of the skills that is a core of the franchise. Simply jump and use the relevant button and voilà, you’ve punted a zombie. It’s a solid kick for bowling enemies into each other and scattering hordes. Or launching an enemy off a rooftop into the depths below. Many such uses to get out of jail or have some fun with it.

5. Power - Power Shot¶

Power Shot is very good in this game, with the increased damage you get. Most special enemies like the Spitters and Virals tend to be really flimsy. Using a strong bow and then this skill will pretty much one-shot those enemies. Again, this is very handy for the silent assassin gameplay and taking out key threats from afar.

I will say that the bow, even with this skill, won’t one-shot most other tougher biters, except the thinner version, armored guys, or the more tanky specials. It just gives you more room to take silent ranged shots and open opportunities that may have not been there otherwise.

The reason we recommend this so late is because Feathers are sort of hard to come by. You tend to get them from the store in the Town Hall the most. There are also signs that you get more feathers from loot and world pickups in the National Park too, so, by the time you get the skill point to get this, you should have enough room to make more use of a bow.