Improve & Customize

As a Portal Master, one of your primary tasks is improving your Skylanders so they can stand up to their enemies throughout the Skylands. This chapter covers the many facets and methods of improving and customizing your Skylanders.

Leveling

Whenever you defeat an enemy, they leave behind tiny XP orbs. There are other means of acquiring XP orbs, such as finding Story Scrolls, but enemies are your Skylander’s primary source. When your Skylanders absorb these orbs, they gain experience and get closer to leveling up. You can see how close your Skylander is to leveling up by examining the XP Bar just below their health.

Stats

Each Skylander has five Stats: Max Health, Speed, Armor, Critical Hit, and Elemental Power. Max Health is the only stat that increases when your Skylander gains a level. Elemental Power increases when you add Skylanders of the same Elemental type to your collection.

Max Health

This is your Skylander’s most important statistic. Whenever their health reaches zero, they are knocked out and you must place another Skylander on the portal.

Speed

This is how fast your Skylander can move around.

Armor

Whenever a Skylander is hit by an enemy attack, it has a chance to be completely deflected by their armor. This stat reflects that chance. For every six points of armor your Skylander has, they have a 1% chance of deflecting an enemy attack. So, a Skylander with 90 Armor has a 15% chance to deflect an attack.

Critical Hit

This stat determines the chance a Skylander will score a Critical Hit or “crit.” A crit scores 150% regular damage of an attack. For every five points in Critical Hit, the chance to score a crit increases by 1%. So a Skylander with 50 Critical Hit has a 10% chance of scoring a crit.

Elemental Power

Throughout the Skylands, certain zones have favored elements. If you are using a Skylander of that element in one of these zones, they get bonus damage based on how high their Elemental Power is. Each point adds 1% to the bonus damage, so a Skylander with 100 Elemental Power will get 100% bonus damage in their favored zone.

Powers & Upgrades

Each Skylander starts out with two Powers. For more details on what powers your Skylanders start out with, check out the chapter entitled “Meet The Skylanders.” In addition to these starting powers, each Skylander can also unlock additional abilities, but you must purchase them from Persephone. Power Upgrades are also purchased from Persephone, who appears at Skylanders Academy and at one location during each adventure chapter.

Upgrade Paths

Skylanders must also choose a Path. This Path is a specialty the Skylander takes in choosing to develop one power or ability over another. Most Skylanders must permanently commit to one path once they have unlocked their first four power upgrades.

The exceptions to this rule are the Series 2, 3, and 4 figures. These Skylanders may switch paths by speaking with Persephone.

Soul Gem Ability

All the characters introduced in Skylanders Trap Team must find their Soul Gem before they can purchase their Soul Gem Ability. The walkthrough contains more information on where to find each Soul Gem, or check out The Skylanders section of the guide. Skylanders from the previous games purchase their Soul Gem Power without the need to find a Soul Gem.

Wow-Pow Powers

Series 2, 3, and 4 Skylanders have new Wow-Pow powers that are expensive, but significantly improve an existing power. For more details on Wow Pow powers, check out the Skylanders’ individual chapters.

Hats & Trinkets

Each Skylander can wear one magic Hat, and one Trinket at a time. Hats and Trinkets are available for purchase from Auric, and found throughout the adventure. Hats provide bonuses to stats, while Trinkets are purely cosmetic. You can change your Skylander’s Hat at any time via the Skylanders Outfit menu.

Once you find a Hat or Trinket, you can put it on as many Skylanders as you like. There are 99 Hats available in Skylanders Trap Team, and the game tracks Hats you bring in from other Skylanders games in slots 100-245 of your Hats inventory screen. There are 33 trinkets in Skylanders Trap Team.