Skip To...
Skills are incredibly important during a bank heist. You will gain a skill point every 2 levels and can use them to get a bunch of game-changing advantages. There is a varied selection of 17 categories to choose from, so we will tell you about the best skills to get first in Payday 3. You can level up your skills to match your playstyle to rob banks unnoticed or take them by force. Below, we’ve described a few of the best skills to start with, along with explanations of their utility.
Each of the 17 skill branches contains from 4 to 7 skills. In total, there are more than 80 of them. At the same time, it’s worth noting that we’ll specifically cover basic ones that you’ll need at the beginning to get comfortable and understand where to go next.
Quick Fingers
The first and probably one of the most important things you will have to do is lock picking. Without this skill, you will have to go through the mini-game with a lockpicker for about 5–15 seconds. Considering the number of locks you will need to deal with in a single mission, it certainly adds up.
Quick Fingers is here to help you. When active, during the Rush, picking locks takes only 1–3 seconds. This will be especially effective when you enter a vault with many deposit boxes to open.
Secure Loop
If you like hacking, this is the best skill for you in Payday 3. During the first few minutes of a robbery and later on, it is critical to perform certain actions quickly before you are noticed. Doing this under the cameras is not the best choice, so the best option is to hack them.
With Secure Loop, you can hack cameras to loop them.
Imagine, while you and your team are making noise in a room or simply sneaking into the vault, the cameras won’t see you because they are showing a view of the bank living a quiet life over and over again. So, just be sure to level up this skill from the Hacker branch to make robberies much easier.
Glitch Protocol
Next on our list is Glitch Protocol, which will help you get past guards unnoticed. Let’s say you need to get through one of the locations unseen to reach a certain room, but a bank guard is standing in your way.
With this skill, you can simply distract him by hacking the radio frequencies on his walkie-talkie. That way, you’ll have 5 seconds to sneak in wherever you need to. Also, this skill will be helpful if you are being escorted or about to be arrested.
Bagger
Now, let’s imagine that you have already taken all the necessary steps to rob a bank. The last thing left to do is pick up your loot and escape successfully, but there’s a problem: the bags are heavy, so you walk slowly. It’s pretty annoying and can result in a failed heist, but Bagger will help you.
When Rush, the basic skill of the Infiltrator branch, activated after picking a lock or killing with a throwing knife, and Bagger are active, your speed with loot bags will increase by 50%. This is a game-changer because you’ll have twice as much time to carry the loot and successfully escape.
Social Engineering
Social Engineering is one of the best skills for beginners in Payday 3, as it will allow you to safely make some mistakes and thus learn the game. The main advantage of this skill is that you can perform illegal actions in front of guards while Rush is active.
This way, you can easily move around the building to complete the initial tasks before taking action. The guards will ignore you, so you can do whatever you want. This skill will be especially useful if you have just started learning how to play in stealth mode.