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The best skills to unlock first in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Nor fights a Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn boss with her gun.
Kepler Interactive

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn promises pulse-pounding action as you make your way through the world of Kian as your character, Nor Vanek. As you encounter deadly denizens, from vicious undead to heavily armored knights, you’re certain to make use of various abilities at your disposal. Here’s our guide on the best skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn to help you choose the right perks for the campaign.

The best skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

When talking about the best skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, it’s worth noting that you should try to amass as much Reputation as possible. Reputation is a basic currency akin to souls or runes in other Soulslike games. Increasing your multiplier by performing moves and avoiding enemy hits allows you to earn more of this resource so you can unlock additional skills.

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The skill tree and skill reset mechanic

An image showing the skill tree panel in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
Kepler Interactive

There are three skill trees in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn:

  • Powder: Grants additional moves in conjunction with the use of firearms.
  • Magic: Adds new abilities when using Enki’s attacks.
  • Steel: Improves your prowess when wielding melee weapons.

Unlocking more skills that belong to a particular category also increases the type of damage that you deal. Alo, certain perks require you to unlock adjacent nodes before they can be purchased.

Note that you can unlearn skills at any point in time. However, you only receive a partial refund — i.e., a skill that costs 7,000 Reputation will only refund 5,600 Reputation when reset. Lastly, it’s possible to unlearn low-tier skills without resetting high-tier options that are adjacent to that node.

Best Powder skills

An image that shows the player using a Powder-type skill in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
Kepler Interactive

Below are our suggestions with regard to the best Powder skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. Remember that you still need to unlock certain prerequisite nodes to learn some of these:

  • Destructive Descent: Allows you to perform a heavy aerial attack that consumes black powder charges. This is done by holding the left mouse button as you plunge to the ground, which then causes a shockwave that knocks back foes. The damage is increased if you fall from a greater height. Given that this is akin to a ground pound or aerial smash, you should get this so you can eliminate enemies down below.
  • Countershot and Poised Shot: Both abilities blast your target in the face. The former can be triggered by right-clicking after you parry and it doesn’t expend a black powder charge. The latter, meanwhile, can be done by right-clicking before an enemy’s attack lands, allowing you to follow up with a counter. Think of it as an alternative means of parrying a blow.
  • Piercing Shot: Ranged attacks pierce through enemy armor by 50%. Simply put, you deal more damage against armored targets (i.e., those with silver health bars).
  • Powder Handling: When your black powder charges are empty, you restore two charges instead of one. Given that you need to strike a hostile four times to gain a single charge, obtaining double that amount can be a lifesaver.

Best Magic skills

An image that shows the player using a Magic-type skill in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
Kepler Interactive

Some of the best skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn can be found in this tree. These greatly boost the use of Enki’s abilities in combat, as well as passive actions:

  • Taunt: Enki will sometimes distract enemies. We’ve seen this happen a few times, and the AI does get addled to the point that we were able to get a few hits in.
  • Restrain: Enki will sometimes restrain armored enemies, priming them in the process. This can be quite a game changer since Enki can disrupt your opponent’s attack sequences completely.
  • Knockdown: Enki will sometimes knock down a foe, which usually happens when you’re in grave danger. This is similar to Restrain in that it can interrupt most attack sequences, giving you a clear opening.
  • Curse Chain and Chain of Misfortune: Both of these high-tier options are amazing to behold. The former causes Enki’s curse to spread to nearby hostiles, and the latter triggers an explosion when you perform a critical attack against a cursed target — which also inflicts a curse on others in the blast radius.
  • Unleashing: Adds +2 Enki charges and speeds up the rate at which they regenerate. Needless to say, you’re going to need more charges if you want to keep spamming Enki’s curse-infused attacks.

Best Steel skills

An image that shows the player using a Steel-type skill in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
Kepler Interactive

There are a few decent options that you can take advantage of among those that are available in the Steel skill tree:

  • Charged Attack: Hold the left mouse button to unleash a heavy attack. This is pretty good to have since there are weapon types that have additional effects when you perform a heavy attack.
  • Momentum: Landing a strike and initiating your next blow allows you to attack faster and deal bonus damage. Essentially, this is like speeding up your combo string.
  • Armored Poise: You gain extra armor synergy bonuses. When two matching armor pieces are equipped, you also gain the bonus from the third piece from a different set. We recommend having the two-piece bonus from the Warlock’s set active, especially for Magic-focused builds. Now, imagine having the third gear piece from the Sunderer’s set equipped, and getting the bonus that causes your dodges to teleport you for a short distance as well.

That does it for our guide on the best skills in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. Keep in mind that these are just our recommendations, so feel free to try what suits your playstyle. If you want to continue improving Nor’s survivability, we encourage you to check our Inaya Shrines/health upgrades guide.

Jason Rodriguez
Jason Rodriguez is a freelance reviewer and guides writer from the Philippines. It’s a country in Southeast Asia, where…
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