In Kenshi, mastering character skills and stats is crucial, but grinding through all the levels can be time-consuming. If you prefer playing without mods like me, don’t worry! I’ve noticed that certain skills are especially beneficial in combat situations. To simplify things, I’ve classified my squad’s combatants into four main classes: Heavy, Medium/Swordsman, Ranger, and Stealth/Infiltration.
The Heavy class serves as the tank, soaking up all the damage and drawing enemies’ attention towards them. Meanwhile, the Medium/Swordsman is a versatile combatant, agile enough to move swiftly and strike frequently. The Ranger, as the name suggests, excels at ranged combat. Lastly, the Stealth/Infiltration class remains out of direct combat and handles stealing or breakout missions.
I’ve saved considerable amount of time by focusing only on the most effective skills for each class. No more wasting effort on less useful abilities! If you’re seeking a more streamlined training approach to maximize combat effectiveness, this guide is here to help.
Essential Skills
If you want your character to be a top-notch soldier in Kenshi in an effective way without wasting time grinding every skills, here’s what you need to focus on:
First of all, for all classes, prioritize these skills as a must-have foundation for survival and a fighting chance in combat:
Melee Attack: Improves their close combat abilities.
Toughness: Increases overall durability.
Always look for the opportunity to level up these two skills in a safe manner ofc.
Note: Skills written in bold will help your class the most, the other is a bonus. Those other skills are not really as important as the ones written in bold but it might help if you feel like your squad is not going to win a battle.
Combat Classes
- Strength: To wield heavy weapons and armor effectively.
- Melee Defense: Mitigates the slow attack rate of their heavy weapons.
- Dexterity: Boosts damage output.
- Dodge: Helps them evade hits with lighter armor.
- Defense: A bonus skill.
- Athletics: Enables faster movement if they can’t finish off enemies.
- Dexterity: Speeds up bow reloading and firing.
- Perception: Reduces friendly fire incidents.
- Crossbow/Turret: Proficiency in their chosen ranged weapon is crucial.
- Athletics and Dodge: For quick repositioning when rushed by enemies.
- Stealth: Staying undetected is vital for these characters.
- Dodge: Helps them avoid being hit.
- Assassination: Obviously important for sneaky kills.
- Lockpicking: Essential for getting into places discreetly.
- Martial Arts: Handy when captured by enemies.
- Athletics: Useful in various situations.
Other Skills
“What about the weapon type skills? they increase the damage”
For that I stick to one main weapon type for each fighter, and sort them into the four classes – Heavies mainly uses hackers, sabers and blunts, Medium/Swordsmans uses mostly katanas, Rangers, well… they use ranged weapons, but crossbows skills and turrets skill benefits each different respectable weapon types so choose accordingly. Stealth/Infiltration can use anything but I suggest using light weapons like the wakizashis and the likes.
Concentrating on a single weapon and making your crew really good at using it is the way to go. your peeps will naturally get better with specific weapon types as they improve their Melee Attack skill and Defense skills. So, no worries about missing out!
Now for how to level each type of skills mentioned in this guide you can just play the game or grind, but I kinda hate grinding and that is why I made this guide.
And that’s it. I wrote this guide also because I had multiple friends asking me how do I play this game and their problem was they don’t level up relevant skills for their troops so they keep getting their butts kicked by a lot of things.
