Best skills in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Summary

• Prioritize evasion, health care and melee weapon skills to improve survival and combat skills. Choose wisely!
• Tailoring skills help long-term characters craft powerful armor, while the Gadgets skill allows unlocking doors and disarming traps.
• Health Care increases healing speed after wound treatment, which is important for survival in the early game.

Cataclysm: Dark days ahead (CDDA) is a turn-based survival horror roguelike. Published in 2013, CDDA continues to receive regular community updates to this day and can be downloaded for free on GitHub. In this game, players immerse themselves in a world destroyed by simultaneous apocalypses. From aliens to zombie hordes to eldritch horrors, all manner of monstrosities abound in this frightening world. The only goal is survival, and death is guaranteed.

Skills are essential to helping players stay alive in the apocalypse, improving their combat power, crafting knowledge, and ability to interact with the world. Choose carefully when creating your character. It really can make the difference between life and death.

8 Evade

No hits, no damage

• Increases the chance of dodging.

A character's evasion ability determines their ability to avoid incoming damage, whether from enemy attacks, traps, or environmental hazards. This ability also increases the success rate and effectiveness of acrobatic actions such as parkour.

It's a must to start with a few levels in dodging. Even basic zombies pose a significant threat to the survival of new characters, as most have poor weapons and little to no armor. Remember, pain can quickly make you incapacitated! Evasion allows new characters to withstand many easy enemies by significantly reducing damage taken. By using high evasion late in the game, players can take on evolved monstrosities and avoid their deadly hits.

7 Handling food

Food efficiency, now and always

• Offers more and better recipes for crafting.

Food handling increases the number and complexity of satisfying food recipes players can create. It also makes slaughter more efficient and allows for food preservation at higher levels.

While not crucial for new characters, assigning a level or two at character creation will help make early-game exploration more efficient and allow players to obtain more nutritious and filling food from looted resources to produce. In longer games, almost all naturally occurring food is rotten, making this an important skill. Food preservation is also crucial to help players avoid famine during the winter when natural foods are scarce.

6 A melee weapon ability

Kill them first

• Increases proficiency with a specific weapon type.

During character creation, players are given three different melee weapon abilities to choose from: Striking, Cutting, and Piercing. Each weapon type has its strengths and drawbacks, and improving these skills increases a character's accuracy and damage with the corresponding weapon type.

It's recommended to start with a few levels in one of these skills, as new players are weak and have difficulty landing hits, especially when using makeshift weapons like kitchen knives. In the long term, high skill in a selected weapon type will significantly improve the player's survivability – especially against more advanced enemies.

5 Healthcare

Heal faster, survive longer

• Increases the healing rate after wound treatment.
• Reduced error rate in medical procedures.

Healthcare increases the effectiveness of medical treatments such as dressings and antiseptics and reduces the failure rate of procedures such as Compact Bionic Module (CBM) insertion.

In the early stages of the game, healthcare levels provide faster wound healing, even when using items with poor healing. For poorly equipped and armored new characters who take frequent hits, increased healing greatly increases their chances of survival. It also allows players to store high-quality healing items for when they really need them. Long-term, high health coverage will allow players to return to action quickly. It also makes experiments with CBMs far less deadly.

4 Devices

Optimize survival

• Increases the speed of opening locks.
• Better chance of successfully defusing the trap.

The Devices skill determines the speed and success with which a player can interact with security devices and traps, including picking locks and disarming traps. Although not essential to survival in the early game, a high equipment level improves a new character's chances of survival by giving players access to higher quality loot found behind locked doors, display cases, and more.

A whole range of powerful weapons and armor can be hidden behind these locks. The ability to reliably disarm traps is also a huge boon, whether it's the character's first or fifth year of survival. There are often riches behind such traps, and failure to disarm a trap often results in death.

3 computer

Robots are not (that) deadly

• Better access to terminals.
• Higher chance of successful hacking.

The Computer Skill measures a character's ability to use computers and technology, and allows players to hack terminals and even robots at higher levels. Like the Gadgets skill, the Computers skill is optional for survival in new or long-term characters. However, it does provide a significant increase in survivability.

For new characters, successfully hacking a terminal can provide access to otherwise impenetrable metal doors and the rich loot within. Long-term, reliable terminal hacking allows players to disable security systems, making access to robot-infested scientific facilities significantly less dangerous. High level characters can even hack robots!

2 Tailoring

Survival through craftsmanship

• Provides access to more and better clothing recipes.

Tailoring is a skill that measures a character's ability to create and repair various clothing and textiles. A higher level of tailoring skill is directly related to the amount and variety of clothing a character can craft, although separate skills are required to craft high-level items.

At the start of the game, characters should have several levels of tailoring to ensure they can keep their clothing and armor in good condition. Breaking armor, especially in combat, can quickly result in death. In longer games, high tailoring is crucial to crafting and maintaining defensive armor in a world full of evolved monstrosities. Strong armor can be looted, but this is often fatal.

1 A handgun or rifle skill

Get a head start in the apocalypse

• Increases proficiency with a specific weapon type.

The Hand Cannon and Rifle skills offer players greater accuracy, faster aiming, and better weapon customization. Based on availability, location, and enemy type, it is recommended that players specialize in a single weapon type at the start of the game.

While not essential for survival, it's helpful to start with or train a few levels in handguns or rifles in the first few weeks of the apocalypse – especially if players plan to rely on such weapons in combat. New characters can die quickly if they have to fight their enemies up close, as guns are poor melee weapons. In the long term, handguns and rifles are important tools to help players combat increasingly powerful evolutions.