It’s no secret that 7 Days to Die is a tough game, but with the right skills, you can survive the zombie apocalypse and build a thriving community.
To find out which are worth your time, our gamers have compiled the best skills to help you survive in the game.
What Are the Best Skills on 7 Days to Die?
If you want to play the indie zombie survival game 7 Days to Die efficiently, you should specialize in one skill. Each of the five skills governs the accompanying perks and the damage done with the corresponding weapons.
Strength
If you want to recreate civilization, intelligence is the way to go, but with Strength, you’ll have everything you need to get by without it.
It is the best skill for solo play, and it’s also not bad in groups. You’ll be able to carry more, use less stamina, and collect non-tech resources more effectively.
Your mid-to-close range fighting options are comprehensive and will support you from your first spawn to your days in the triple digits, covering shotguns, clubs, and sledgehammers—all of which are easy to locate and create.
Heavy Armor assures that you will outlive your opponents, and the amusingly called Sexual Tyrannosaurus perk ensures that you will have the stamina to crush skulls with your large, heavy weapons.
You also have the Master Chef perk as the Strength guy, which means you prepare the tastiest cuisine, and you and anyone who joins you will never leave hungry.
Intelligence
Intelligence is the domain of nerds and the builders of society, and one of the most essential skills in the game. It contains the abilities that unlock nearly all of the non-weapons technologies on 7 Days to Die, as well as all of the crafting benches required for those technologies.
You should go into Intelligence if you want elaborate base fortifications to fight off the gnarliest hordes. Unfortunately, Intelligence has some of the weakest combat benefits in the game because the weapons it governs are difficult to obtain and take hours of infrastructure-building.
However, once they’re up and running, they’re not too horrible. Stun batons are a novelty, best used by Intelligence-focused individuals.
Nonetheless, you have access to deployable turrets that, with good preparation, can mow down zombies [1]. These are also an excellent addition to any battle force.
If you want to make the most of your interactions with traders, motivate your allies to greatness, or travel the world in some snazzy vehicles—including flying machines.
You also create medication and pharmaceuticals so that you can perform at your peak when necessary and die less frequently.
Perception
Scavengers, trackers, and hunters all have sharp senses and a penchant for finding high-quality stuff. Perception, like Agility, interacts effectively with other skills.
But unlike Agility, it has a set of talents that are appropriate for a well-rounded and long-lived life on 7 Days to Die.
Scavenging perks give you access to more and better loot, whether it’s from stash room containers, buried riches, or salvaging electronic and mechanical resources.
Even if you can’t harvest or create the materials you need, you can always find them. Loot Stage, which affects the quality of your loot, is increased by Lucky Looter. Because the game applies the highest Loot Stage among all players in a party to everyone in the party, it’s beneficial for at least one person in a group to have Lucky Looter.
Perks for General Perception appear to be natural complements to other skills.
Lock Picking and Infiltrator work nicely with Agility- so you can break into locations and remove the good items from locked boxes- and Animal Tracker- so you can discover your prey, which you can then strip naked using the Fortitude tree’s The Huntsman perk.
Combat as a Perception expert is varied, with rifle specialty standing out. Javelins are an odd weapon because they deal the most damage when thrown, leaving you without a melee weapon.
Explosives can be exciting, but they are also dangerous. Just make sure you’re far enough away to avoid being blown up and that you’re using the proper explosives for the job. Look for entity damage to harm enemies and block damage to break open locations and safes.
Fortitude
Fortitude is the skill of the sturdy and prepared, specializing in living off the land, resisting the elements, and, most importantly, not dying.
This is the skill you have if you want to live like an outdoor survivalist. Fortitude has benefits that increase your gains from hunting, gathering, and farming. It also features Iron Gut, which slows the rate at which your thirst and hunger gauges empty, which means you’ll almost never go hungry if you go full-Fortitude.
Its combat perks revolve around fisticuffs, which are supplemented by knuckle weapons and machine guns, which allow you to shower down hordes in a hail of lead.
You can also outlast your opponents thanks to the Healing Factor perk, which helps you to heal rather quickly, acquiring a hit point every six seconds at peak rank.
If everything else fails, you can turn to Rule 1: Cardio, which allows you to regenerate stamina while sprinting, leaving everyone chasing you coughing up your dust as you retreat.
Agility
Agility is far from useless. In fact, it contains some of the strongest fighting and exploration perks in the game, especially if you like to move rapidly and softly.
Nonetheless, it is hindered by a complete absence of perks connected to technology, economy, or resource gathering. This skill is ideal for newcomers when it comes to weaponry, because it determines the damage for bows, bladed (non-axe) weapons, and pistols—the first and most common weapons you’ll encounter in the game.
The Agility playstyle also makes stamina management easy, which inexperienced players may struggle with.
This is due to the Light Armor perk, which strengthens your light armor so you don’t have to rely on stamina-depleting heavier armor, and Agility’s emphasis on light, one-handed weapons, which don’t drain stamina as much. The Stealth benefits also make this characteristic the safest to use at night, if you’re cautious.
In a group setting, a full-agility build allows you to be the designated fighter or the man who easily clears buildings. Still, in solitary play, you’ll most certainly find yourself living life on the edge as you struggle to gather resources quicker than you can burn them.
Therefore, it is preferable to use Agility as a secondary stat because many of its perks synergize well with other skills.
