Payday 3: All Skills Overview

Payday 3 has finally been released, offering players an opportunity to delve deep into the criminal world and participate in all sorts of heists. Besides this, the new chapter also introduced new skills that you can incorporate into your build. In this guide, we walk you through all the skills that are available in the game, from which you can choose those that suit your playstyle the best.

Introducing Skill Lines

In the new installments, the devs introduced a slightly revamped skill system. In this game, the traditional Payday 3 skill tree is replaced with a skill line. Every line begins with a core skill, unlocked via ‘research’ during heists. Once you’ve activated this base node, you’re free to choose from any of the upgrade nodes within that skill line to further refine its capabilities. Each line culminates in a Mastery Node. While this node is less potent than its counterparts in the line, it offers the flexibility of being added to your build without the need for its base node.

Collectively, the game boasts a comprehensive array of 105 Payday 3 skills spread across these skill lines and 17 master nodes. Here’s the list of them:

Engineer skill line – AP Turret, Cooling System, Detonation, Spin Cycle, Dual Sentries, Targeted Fire
Medic skill line – Steady Hands, Extra Charge, Combat Medic, Code Blue, Triage, Field Surgery
Ammo Specialist skill line – Scrounger, Fully Loaded, Plate Up, High Grain, Mag Throw, Top Up
Mower skill line – Recoil Handling, Suppressive Fire, Ammo Funnel, Replenish, Sprint Loaded
Infiltrator skill line – Quick Fingers, Retriever, Bagger, Blade Bouncer, Frugal Thrower
Tank skill line – Hardy, Extra Plates, Armor Up, Last Man Standing, Disengage
Sharpshooter skill line – Collateral Control, Long Shot, Precision Shot, Cutting Shot, Speed Aim
Escapist skill line – Balanced, Move and Cover, Slide Tackle, Battering Ram, Swift
Demolitionist skill line – Cooker, Shell Shock, Blowback, Blast Shield, Overcooked, Extra Munitions
Enforcer skill line – Quick Reload, Face To Face, Solid, Combat Reload, Shock and Awe
Manipulator skill line – Overbearing, Silver Tongue, Negotiator, Menacing, Stockholm Syndrome, Master Trader
Gunslinger skill line – From The Hip, Heavy Hipfire, Finisher, Quick Draw
Grifter skill line – Walk The Walk, Social Engineering, Open Mic, Slippery
Hacker skill line – Secure Loop, Appliance Breach, Routed Ping, Signal Catch
Tactician skill line – Crowd Control, Coup De Grace, Discombobulate, Expose, Scramble
Strategist skill line – Combat Marking, Threat Assessment, Misdirect, Marked For Death
CQC Specialist skill line – Soft Assets, Groundskeeper, Pin Puller, Savage Takedown, Pressure Points, Cover-Up

But knowing their name isn’t enough, as you need to also know how each of these skills can benefit you and fit into your unique build. Luckily for you, in this comprehensive guide, you can learn all of this and make an informative decision. So, let’s get straight to it.

Engineer Skill Line

This one is focused on turrets.

Basic: By unlocking this skill, you gain the Sentry Turret equipment, which can be added to your loadout’s equipment slot. This turret targets and fires at non-mechanical foes until they’re either eliminated or out of its sight. However, as it fires, it accumulates heat. When it hits its heat limit, it ceases to operate. Turret owners can retrieve and redeploy it to reset its heat level. Activating this skill boosts your turret’s heat threshold by 20%.
Aced: Further enhances your Sentry Turret’s heat capacity by an additional 20%.
AP Turret: Increase armor penetration of Sentry Turrets you deploy by 1.
Cooling System: Reduce heat build-up from damage, electrical explosions or hack attempts by 30% for all turrets.
Detonation: Whenever your turret overheats, it will cause an explosion that damages NPCs in an area.
Spin Cycle: Your Sentry Turret can now rotate 360 degrees to acquire its targets.
Dual Sentries: You can now deploy a second Sentry Turret, but all your turrets build heat 50% faster while shooting.
Targeted Fire (Master Node): Your turrets will switch targets to whichever enemy you mark manually if it’s within line of sight. If you mark multiple enemies, it will prioritize the last one you marked.

Medic Skill Line

The line focuses on healing yourself and bringing your teammates back to life.

Basic: Allows you to revive teammates 20% faster. Medic Bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
Aced: Reviving a teammate grants you GRIT (-10% damage taken). As long as you have GRIT, you take 15% less damage when reviving a teammate.
Steady Hands: Medic Bags heal you for an additional 20% of your max health.
Extra Charge: Medic Bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
Combat Medic: If you have GRIT, successfully reviving your teammate will give both you and that teammate damage immunity for 3 seconds.
Code Blue: Whenever a teammate is downed or disabled, you gain or refresh RUSH (movement speed increased).
Triage: Interacting with a Medic Bag or First Aid Kit will consume active EDGE (+10% damage dealt), GRIT, and RUSH and heal you for an additional 15% for each.
Field Surgery (Master Node): Interacting with a Medic Bag will restore an additional 10% of your max health and restore 1 “down”.

Ammo Specialist Skill Line

As you can guess from its name, this skill line is all about collecting the ammo. And here are skill based perks available for this line.

Basic: The amount of reserve ammo capacity is increased by 20%. Deployed ammo bags have 2 additional charges.
Aced: When your current weapon’s magazine is full and you pick up ammo, you gain EDGE if you don’t have it.
Scrounger: As long as you have EDGE, ammo drops have a 10% chance of replenishing one of your throwables.
Fully Loaded: Ammo bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
Plate Up. As long as you have GRIT, ammo drops will instantly regenerate your current armor chunk.
High Grain: After interacting with an ammo bag, you get 20% more damage for 10 seconds or until you swap weapons. This bonus does not stack with itself.
Mag Throw: As long as you have RUSH, any ammo drops you pick up are also given to crew members within 10 meters. This won’t trigger the Mag Throw skill of other players.
Top Up (Master Node): Interacting with any ammo bag will restore an additional 20% ammo and fully restock your throwables.

Mower Skill Line

With this line, you can increase damage via EDGE.

Basic: Every 35 bullets you shoot, gain EDGE.
Aced: Whenever you reload a weapon with an empty magazine, EDGE refreshes.
Recoil Handling: As long as you have EDGE, your weapon recoil is reduced.
Suppressive Fire: As long as you have EDGE, every shot from your weapon has a chance to inflict a heavy stagger.
Ammo Funnel: As long as you have EDGE, picked ammo is directly added to your equipped weapon’s magazine. If your magazine is full, it’s added to your reserves instead.
Replenish: As long as you have EDGE, you automatically pick up ammo dropped by enemies you have killed.
Sprint Loaded (Master Node): You can reload while sprinting.

Infiltrator Skill Line

Choose this skill line to excel at lockpicking and knife throwing.

Basic: When you successfully pick a lock or kill an enemy with a throwing knife, RUSH is gained or refreshed.
Aced: Whenever a guard begins to detect you, RUSH is gained.
Quick Fingers: As long as you have RUSH, a successful lockpick jiggle will immediately pick the lock.
Retriever: Your throwing knives won’t break on impact with the environment.
Bagger: As long as you have RUSH, you bag loot 50% faster.
Blade Bouncer: Your throwing knives will ricochet off the environment up to two times. The throwing knife will do extra damage for each bounce.
Frugal Thrower (Master Node): Throwables you use have a 20% chance to be replenished after they are destroyed.

Tank Skill Line

The line is focused on resilience and armor strength.

Basic: Increases the regeneration speed of your armor chunks by 20%. Your armor bag has 2 additional charges.
Aced: Whenever one of your armor chunks breaks, gain or refresh GRIT.
Hardy: As long as you have at least one armor chunk, any flashbang, stagger, or stun effect duration you suffer is lowered by 50%.
Extra Plates: Your armor bag has 2 additional charges.
Armor Up: Interacting with any armor bag will restore an additional chunk.
Last Man Standing: If damage would normally down you, you can instead consume available GRIT to stay on your feet and become immune to damage for 10 seconds. After this effect has been applied, you can’t gain GRIT until you heal using a Medic Bag or First Aid Kit, or until you’re downed.
Disengage (Master Node): Once per heist, you can free yourself from a Cloaker or Zapper, after which you can’t be disabled by them again for 5 seconds.

Sharpshooter Skill Line

This one is all about accuracy and precision.

Basic: Standing still for 1.5 seconds while aiming down sights or scopes gains EDGE.
Aced: Performing a headshot while aiming down sight will refresh your EDGE.
Collateral Control: If you destroy a Special enemy’s weak point, like the Zapper’s batter or the Nader’s belt, the explosion will only affect enemies.
Long Shot: As long as you have EDGE and are aiming down sights, distance penalties do not apply to headshot multipliers.
Precision Shot: When aiming down a scope, your shot will consume any EDGE you have. When this happens, your shot will do extra damage based on your scope magnification.
Cutting Shot: As long as you have EDGE, your armor penetration is increased.
Speed Aim (Master Node): Once per heist, you can free yourself from a Cloaker or Zapper, after which you can’t be disabled by them again for 5 seconds.

Escapist Skill Line

This skill line can help you avoid foes.

Basic: Whenever you sprint for at least 3 seconds, you gain RUSH.
Aced: If you have RUSH available and slide, it’s consumed, and you gain or refresh EDGE.
Balanced: As long as you have RUSH and a foe or effect would stagger you, consume RUSH instead and ignore the stagger.
Move and Cover: If you have EDGE available and vault or mantle, it’s consumed, and you gain or refresh GRIT.
Slide Tackle: If you have GRIT and slide into one or more non-Special enemies, you consume GRIT and stagger those enemies.
Battering Ram: With EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH, you can run right through locked doors as if you’d shot the lock. Only effective on doors that can be shot open.
Swift (Master Node): Your base sprinting speed, when masked on, is increased by 10%.

Demolitionist Skill Line

The line is focused on explosives.

Basic: Explosions caused by your shots or throwables have their area of effect increased by 20%.
Aced: Whenever you cause an explosion, RUSH is gained or refreshed.
Cooker: Whenever you hold a throwable for at least
1.5 seconds before throwing it, gain GRIT.
Shell Shock: Non-special enemies damaged by your explosions get a permanent penalty of 10% to accuracy. This effect can only be applied once.
Blowback: As long as you have RUSH, non-special enemies damaged by your explosions lose all armor.
Blast Shield: Available GRIT is consumed to negate any damage you would normally receive from explosions caused by you.
Overcooked: Any throwable or weapon that you use that has an explosive component will no longer run on a timer but will immediately explode on impact with the environment or an NPC.
Extra Munitions (Master Node): Your throwable capacity is increased by 2.

Enforcer Skill Line

It’s focused on gunfights at close range.

Basic: Whenever you kill 2 enemies that are within 5 meters of you within 4 seconds, you gain GRIT.
Aced: Whenever you kill 1 enemy within 5 meters range and if you have GRIT, you gain EDGE.
Quick Reload: As long as you have both GRIT and EDGE, you have increased reload speed.
Face To Face: As long as you have both EDGE and GRIT, you deal 10% extra damage to targets within 5 meters of you.
Solid: As long as you have both EDGE and GRIT, you’re immune to stagger effects.
Combat Reload: Whenever you reload a weapon while the magazine still has ammo, EDGE and GRIT are refreshed.
Shock and Awe (Master Node): Killing an enemy within 8 meters of you has a chance to stagger all non-Special enemies within 5 meters of you.

Manipulator Skill Line

The line will help you with hostage interactions.

Basic: You tie up and trade hostages 50% faster.
Aced: Whenever you trade a hostage, they count as one additional hostage.
Overbearing: Your shout range for intimidating civilians is increased by 20%. Civilians stay down 50% longer after being shouted down.
Silver Tongue: Trading Employees, Guards, or Law Enforcement counts as trading an additional hostage.
Negotiator: Trading hostages for First Aid now yields 1 additional First Aid pack.
Menacing: You can shout at guards, SWAT, or Heavy SWAT within 5 meters of you to force them to surrender. As long as you’re aiming at them, they will go down on their knees to drop their weapon. Any damage dealt to them or taking your aim off of them interrupts this process. Once fully surrendered, the SWAT obeys all the rules of a civilian, including any penalties for killing them. You can’t have more than one SWAT as a hostage at any time.
Stockholm Syndrome: When you’re downed, you can shout at a tied-down or cowering hostage within range to try and reach you and revive you.
Master Trader (Master Node): Every hostage you trade between assault waves reduces the player’s time in custody by 20 seconds; the minimum time spent in custody is capped at 10 seconds. This time reduction resets after any player has been taken into custody.

Gunslinger Skill Line

The Gunslinger skill line is all about secondary weapons. And here’s the list of talents:

Basic: Whenever you switch to your secondary weapon, you gain EDGE. ADSing or switching weapons will end any EDGE you have active.
Aced: Performing headshots with your weapon in hip fire will refresh any EDGE you have.
From The Hip: As long as you have EDGE, your hip fire spread is decreased.
Heavy Hipfire: As long as you have EDGE, hipfire shots will cause heavy stagger.
Finisher: If you have EDGE, the last shot of your magazine will consume it to deal 200% more damage.
Quick Draw (Master Node): Increase your weapon swap speed.

Grifter Skill Line

This one is focused on casing mode.

Basic: As long as you are masked off, if you are within 1 meter of a civilian or employee, gain RUSH.
Aced: When your mask is on, any civilians and employees within 10 meters that can see you will become intimidated.
Walk The Walk: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, cameras can’t detect you trespassing into private areas. (They will still detect you performing an illegal action.)
Social Engineering: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, employees will ignore you performing illegal actions.
Open Mic: You answer radios 50% faster.
Slippery (Master Node): After getting cuffed by a guard, you can break free by lockpicking the cuffs.

Hacker Skill Line

As you can guess, this one enhances your hacking skills.

Basic: You can hack cameras to gain access to the area’s CCTV system. This functions as though you accessed the heist’s security room. You gain one Runtime.
Aced: You can overload a device that already has an active Runtime. This will cause an electrical explosion that will stun anyone within range and destroy the device. You gain one additional Runtime.
Secure Loop: You can use one Runtime to make the security camera you’re controlling loop its footage. Cameras looping their footage cannot detect you or anything out of the ordinary. If the camera is destroyed, you regain your Runtime use. If you apply a new Runtime when you’re at max Runtimes, your oldest active one is removed.
Appliance Breach: You can activate lures from a distance as long as you have a clear line of sight.
Routed Ping: You can spend a Runtime to make the hacked camera automatically mark any guards or law enforcement within its range. Targets stay marked for 5 seconds after leaving the camera’s view and do not count towards your maximum number of marked targets.
Glitch Protocol: YGlitch Protocol: You can hack a guard’s radio to cause a disturbance, stopping and distracting them and pausing any action they are doing. You must have a line of sight to the guard to hack them. The guard is distracted for 5 seconds, after which they will go back to their previous action. If the guard is escorting a player, the guard will go back to patrolling. If the guard is about to detain a player, the guard will go into Search mode instead. Using this ability has a cooldown of 60 seconds.
Signal Catch (Master Node): You can answer radios remotely if you have a line of sight to the guard’s body.

Tactician Skill Line

The line is targeted at stunning foes.

Basic: Whenever you stun or stagger an enemy, gain EDGE.
Aced: Your flashbang and smoke grenade area of effect is increased by 20%.
Crowd Control: Civilians affected by your flashbang will cower for a duration that is twice as long as if you had shouted them down. Civilians affected by your smoke grenade will stop moving unless you order them to follow you.
Coup De Grace: If you have EDGE, you will deal 5% more damage when you shoot a staggered or stunned enemy.
Discombobulate: Enemies affected by your flashbangs suffer a 40% damage debuff for the duration of the stun and for 5 seconds after it wears off. Enemies affected by your smoke grenade suffer a 40% damage debuff while in the smoke, and it has a duration of 5 seconds after they have escaped the smoke.
Expose: Shots fired at enemies affected by your flashbang will ignore armor for as long as they are stunned.
Scramble (Master Node): Any stun effects you apply last 20% longer.

Strategist Skill Line

The skill line helps you with marking targets.

Basic: You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer.
Aced: You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer.
Combat Marking: As long as you have EDGE, you deal an extra 10% damage against any marked target.
Threat Assessment: As long as you have GRIT, you take 10% less damage from any marked target.
Misdirect: As long as you have RUSH, any marked Cloaker or Zapper that tries to disable you will instead suffer a heavy stagger.
Marked For Death (Master Node): Whenever you are downed or disabled by an enemy, that enemy and up to 5 enemies within 5 meters of you are marked.

CQC Specialist Skill Line

This one is focused on human shields and close combat.

Basic: Whenever you perform a takedown, gain, or refresh RUSH.
Aced: Whenever you grab a human shield, gain or refresh GRIT.
Soft Assets: When you shove away a SWAT you’re using as a human shield, gain extra ammo. You move 5% faster while holding a human shield.
Groundskeeper: You perform takedowns 20% faster.
Pin Puller: If you have GRIT and shove a SWAT you held as a human shield, GRIT is consumed, and the SWAT’s smoke grenade is triggered when they land. Only one grenade per SWAT can be triggered. You move % faster while holding a human shield.
Savage Takedown: Whenever you perform a takedown, any civilian within 5 meters will immediately become intimidated.
Pressure Points: Corpses you’ve left after performing a takedown need to be examined in detail before civilians and guards realize they are dead.
Cover-up (Master Node): Taking down a guard will immediately also answer the radio.

This is a complete list of skills from which you can choose the ones that fit your unique build and play style. If you’d like to learn more or discuss them with other players, you can do so on Payday 3 skills Reddit page.

Make Sure Your Every Heist is a Success

The world of Payday3 is vast, challenging, and filled with opportunities for those daring enough to seize them. With the introduction of skill lines, players are given a fresh and strategic approach to customize their gameplay. Whether you’re laying down suppressive fire with an enhanced Sentry Turret or sneaking past guards undetected, the right skills can make all the difference. As you dive deeper into the game, remember that mastering these skills is the key to becoming a legendary heister.

And LFCarry is here to help you with that. Whether you need to level up or earn skill points fast to become an elusive master of heist, we have you covered. Just go to LFCarry.com now, pick the offer that suits you the best, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Let’s make your Payday 3 experience an unforgettable one together!

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