Watch Dogs – Which Skills are the Best?

If you put enough time into Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs, you’ll eventually level up enough to unlock all of the skills in the skill tree. For some people, they won’t need all of the skills. They just want to know which skills they should focus on, or at the very least, which skills they should unlock first. We compiled a list of the best skills to get you through the most intense moments in Watch Dogs, as well as some general “quality of life” skills. These are the skills that make everything easier.

Hacking – Everything

Whether you play Watch Dogs using stealth gameplay or run and gun style, you’ll need almost every ability in the hacking skill tree. Some missions you can’t complete by running and gunning, and many missions are made significantly easier if you have the proper hacking skills. Focus on everything here except the ATM Hack Boost, Extra Battery and Profiler Optimizer. These are also good to have, but they should be unlocked as late as possible.

Combat Skills – Focus

Focus gives your combat skills a huge boost. The ability to slow down time and take down enemies with ease makes almost any enemy engagement a breeze. It’s the one combat skill that is useful in almost any situation. Just about everything in the combat skill tree is aimed at making combat easier, but the focus skills are easily the most beneficial.

Crafted Items – IED

The IED is basically an explosive device with a remote trigger. You can litter them around and area, then set them off one at a time as enemies approach. These work especially well when you need to intercept and take down a convoy of vehicles. Get ahead of the convoy and setup a few IEDs, then wait for the vehicles to approach and set off the explosives accordingly.

Crafted Items – Frag Grenade

Frag grenades are your basic explosive device. In some instances they’re better than IEDs because they explode immediately. If you’re in the middle of a firefight, you want to have a few frag grenades on-hand, especially against enemies with heavy armor. If you have a few of these and some IEDs, you’re basically ready for any combat situation.

Crafted Items – Jam Comms

Jam comms come in handy more often than you might think. If you throw someone out of their vehicle to take it as your own, chances are they’ll call the police. You can use a jam comm to stop the call and avoid police detection. The same goes for enemies calling for backup during the heat of battle. Activate a jam comm and their call gets intercepted.

Driving Skills – Defensive Driver

There are quite a few car chases in Watch Dogs. Sometimes you’re the one getting chased, other times you’re doing the chasing. Either way, collisions happen during these chases and the last thing you need is to have to switch vehicles because the one you were in is too damaged. The defensive driver skill allows your vehicle to take more damage. Think of it as additional armor for your vehicle.

Driving Skills – Car Unlock

Once you have enough money, you can basically buy any car you want. However, until that time comes, or if you simply want to save your money, you’ll need to rely on cars on the street to get from point A to point B. If you do not have the car unlock skill, you’ll have to smash windows and draw attention to yourself. You may even get the police called on you. With the car unlock skill, there’s nothing to worry about. No alarms go off and no attention is drawn to you. It’s like getting in a vehicle that already belongs to you.