What are the best skills in Flintlock The Siege of the Dawn? Like any good action RPG, you can customize the way you play. In Flintlock’s world, you have three paths to choose: powder, magic, and steel. In other words, you can invest in shooting, your magical companion Enki, or straight up brawn. This guide details every skill in the game along with some advice for what you should invest in.
The next most important resource in Flintlock The Siege of the Dawn are the health flasks and Inaya shrines, which will ensure Nor and Enki can see their quest through if you find all Flintlock health flask and Inaya shrine locations. After that, you’ll want to brush up on how to level up quickly by reading how to gain Flintlock reputation quickly.
All Flintlock Siege of Dawn skills
Flintlock features three different paths that blend into one another with a skill or two that dip into both. Early on, you won’t have much reputation to afford upgrading your weapons and purchasing skills, but by the end of the game you’ll likely have one whole tree finished with the other two about three-fourths of the way through. Below is detailed what each skill does.
Path of Powder
These skills improve your firearm and black powder abilities, including grenades. They’re colored orange on the skill tree.
- Power of Mobility: Unlocks special powder moves that enhance your dodging and aerial mobility.
- Destructive Descent: Unlocks a heavy aerial attack that consumes black powder.
- Charged Shot: Unlocks a powerful charged-up shot with your primary firearm.
- Improved Reload: Unlocks a longer window to execute a perfect reload.
- Extra Shot: Increases black powder charges by one.
- Poised Shot: Interrupt an enemy attack with any primary firearm by shooting just before it hits..
- Curse Shot: Firearm attacks inflict the curse of death.
- Chaos Vortex: You can equip a new Withering spell that pulls enemies in with a gravity vortex.
- Explosives Expert: 50% increase to all explosions.
- Powder Handling: When your black powder charges are empty, restore two charges instead of one.
- Piercing Shot: Ranged attacks pierce through enemy armor, reducing their damage resistance.
Path of Magic
These skills improve Enki’s abilities and increase your magic damage. These skills are purple.
- Curse Storm: You can equip a Withering spell that summons a magical energy field.
- Taunt: Enki passively taunts enemies when there are multiple opponents.
- Rend Spirit: Enki can suspend unarmed enemies.
- Shadow Partner: When you time your attack to hit an enemy at the same time as Enki, deal bonus melee damage.
- Restrain: Enki passively restrains armored enemies during combat.
- Curse Siphon: When you attack to hit an enemy at the same time as Enki, restore health equal to the number of curses on that enemy.
- Chain of Misfortune: When you perform a critical attack against a cursed enemy, a magical explosion passes the curse to all nearby enemies.
- Knockdown: Enki passively knocks down unarmored enemies.
- Curse Chain: When you curse an enemy with Enki, he attacks nearby enemies as well.
- Shadow Self: Enki automatically restores you to full health when defeated once per rest.
- Unleashing: Increase Enki’s charges and the speed at which they regenerate.
- Shadow Strike: Enki automatically attacks and curses enemies when you perfect dodge.
- Shadow Charge: Charge into enemies and interrupt their attacks using Enki charges.
Path of Steel
This skill tree improves your melee and defensive capabilities. It’s colored blue.
- Blocking Stance: Enter a blocking stance that prevents damage from melee attacks.
- Charged Attack: Perform a charged-up attack with your melee weapon.
- Dodge Attack: Perform a quick melee attack out of a dodge.
- Deflection: Deflect enemy projectiles back at them by blocking at the last moment.
- Shadow Slam: Perform a heavy attack while sprinting that creates a magical shockwave and consumes Enki charges.
- Momentum: Deal bonus damage if you input an attack at the same time the previous attack hits.
- Sapper’s Punch: Knock down an enemy by holding the block button and attacking.
- Rending Strike: Critical attacks against armored enemies deal damage on top of removing armor.
- Armored Poise: Increases the number of armor synergy bonuses you can gain from equipped armor.
- Hearty Fortitude: Increases the effectiveness of your healing flasks.
- Withering Cuts: Melee attacks build Enki’s Withering gauge.
- Arcane Cleave: You can equip a new Withering spell that discharges a blade of magical energy after each melee attack.
Best Flintlock Siege of the Dawn skills
As you can refund your skills in the skill tree menu, we spent some time creating the best build possible for Nor and Enki on our journey to contain the dead. Do note that during the story you’ll unlock Power of Mobility, Curse Storm, and Blocking Stance automatically. Furthermore, you won’t be able to unlock certain skills unless you purchase a skill attached to it first, so keep that in mind while you’re trying to reach the best skills in the game.
The best skills to build toward are:
- Extra Charge (Powder)
- Poised Shot (Powder)
- Curse Shot (Powder)
- Taunt (Magic)
- Shadow Partner (Magic)
- Chain of Misfortune (Magic)
- Unleashing (Magic)
- Shadow Strike (Magic)
- Dodge Attack (Melee)
- Momentum (Melee)
Extra Charge (5500 reputation)
The most valuable tool you have at your disposal is your primary firearm. It can interrupt foes attacking from afar, stop unblockable break attacks, and pick-off enemies low on health quickly. There’s a catch: black powder charges are limited and required to fire your weapon of choice. Therefore, even though this skill only offers one extra charge, we highly recommend taking it at the first opportunity.
Poised Shot (5500 reputation)
Believe it or not, this midtier powder skill is one of the best in the game as it absolutely wrecks the unblockable break attacks of bosses, allowing you to hit them frequently and build massive amounts of curse effects on them. While it’s better to dodge out of the way of regular enemies, alternating between a regular parry and Poised Shot is a viable strategy throughout the entire game.
Curse Shot (11250 reputation)
Enki’s curse of death when applied to enemies helps build the prime status effect, which effectively stuns enemies and allows you to critically strike them. This means each shot you fire of your primary weapon inflicts curse, making it easier to stun them when you close in for the kill.
Taunt (3750 reputation)
Taunt is pretty straightforward and very powerful in the early game – consider prioritizing it if you’re having trouble facing multiple enemies at once. This skill allows Enki to draw some attention away from you. If you back off as multiple enemies approach, Enki will almost always draw one away.
Shadow Partner (3750 reputation)
This skill turns Flintlock almost into a rhythm game. By pressing Enki’s attack button the same time your own melee attacks land, you’ll deal an extra 25% damage. That’s a lot when each combo weapon combo is 3 – 4 attacks. You will have to memorize the timing for each melee weapon you use, but once you do, you won’t regret it.
Chain of Misfortune (16250 reputation)
Chain of Misfortune is the best crowd-clearing tool in the game – it even outpaces grenades. By building up prime status on a single enemy, you can critically strike them and cause an explosion that spreads the prime status onto nearby enemies, which in turns allows you to critically strike them. This creates a chain reaction of critical strikes that clears out weaker foes quickly.
Unleashing (16250 reputation)
To curse enemies repeatedly and get the most out of skills like Shadow Partner, you need more Enki charges. The best way to get them is to take the Unleashing skill, which gives you two more charges to work with. It also speeds up the recharge time on Enki’s chargers.
Shadow Strike (11000 reputation)
You dodge a lot in Flintlock, and when you dodge at the last moment, this skill builds Enki’s curse of death on the attacking enemy. This will allow you to build the prime status to stagger them more quickly. Combined with Chain of Misfortune, this further makes you a potent, crowd-clearing threat.
Dodge Attack (2500 reputation)
This is a great skill in both the early and late game, as you’ll want to get in as many attacks as possible. Given Nor has to dodge quite a bit, taking the Dodge Attack skill to give you a quick follow up attack is a great choice to take right away and in the late came it can help you build the curse of death further.
Momentum (7000 reputation)
Momentum does just that: by attacking right when one of your melee attacks land, you’ll do 10% more damage. When combined with Shadow Partner, this increases your damage output to 35% total as long as you time your attacks with Enki correctly. This adds up incredibly quickly, even against armored enemies and bosses.
And there you have it – the best skills to aim for in Flintlock Siege of Dawn. You’ll have to take a lot of other skills to reach them, but what you choose will entirely depend on your build. And while I didn’t include it in the best skills, consider taking the Shadow Self skill in the Magic tree to give you an extra life against those tough bosses, much like how Sekiro Shadows Die Twice works. If you’ve finished Flintlock and want more action-RPG goodness, take a peek at our guide on the best action-adventure games on PC.