The best skills in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

summation

• Prioritize evasion, health management, and melee weapon skills to enhance your survival and combat abilities. Choose wisely!
• The Tailoring skill will help your Janggi character create powerful armor, while the Device skill will allow you to open doors and disarm traps.
• Health care increases your healing rate after treating a wound, which is very important for survival in the early game.

Cataclysm: The Dark Ages Ahead (CDDA) is a turn-based survival horror roguelike game. Released in 2013, CDDA It currently receives regular community updates and is available as a free download from GitHub. The game sees players jump into a world devastated by simultaneous apocalypses. All kinds of monsters can be found in this terrifying world, from aliens to hordes of zombies to eldritch horrors. The only goal is survival and death is guaranteed.

Skills are essential to help players survive the apocalypse, enhancing their combat abilities, crafting know-how, and giving them the ability to interact with the world. Choose carefully when creating your character. It really can be the difference between life and death.

8 evasion

No hit, no damage

• Evasion chance increases.

A character's evasion skill refers to their ability to avoid incoming damage, such as from enemy attacks, traps, or environmental hazards. This technique also increases the success rate and efficiency of acrobatic movements such as parkour.

In dodging, it is essential to start with a few levels. Even basic zombies pose a serious threat to the survival of new characters, as most have poor weaponry and little to no armor. Remember, pain can be disabling quickly! Using evasion significantly reduces incoming damage, allowing the new character to withstand many simple enemies. Later in the game, high evasion allows players to face off against evolved monsters and avoid their lethal attacks.

7 food handling

Food Efficiency, Now and Always

• More and better crafting recipes.

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

Although not strictly necessary for new characters, assigning a level or two at character creation can make early game exploration more efficient, allowing players to create more nutritious and satisfying food from the resources they plunder. In long games, almost all naturally generated food will rot away, making this an important skill. Food preservation is also important to help players prevent starvation during the winter months when natural food is scarce.

6 Melee Weapon Skills

kill first

• Increases skills for certain weapon types.

At character creation, players can choose from three melee weapon skills: Bashing, Cutting, and Piercing. Each weapon type has its own advantages and disadvantages, and improving these skills increases your character's accuracy and damage based on that weapon type.

It is recommended that new players start with two levels in one of these skills, as they are weak and have trouble landing blows, especially when using makeshift weapons like kitchen knives. In the long run, having a high skill in the chosen weapon type will greatly improve a player's chances of survival, especially against evolved enemies.

5 health care

Heal faster and survive longer

• Healing speed increases after wound treatment.
• Medical procedure failure rates are reduced.

Healthcare increases the effectiveness of medical treatments such as bandages and preservatives, and reduces the failure rate of procedures such as insertion of compact bionic modules (CBM).

In the early game, wounds heal faster even when using healing items with poor health management levels. For new characters who are underequipped, heavily armored, and often getting beaten up, increased healing greatly increases their chances of survival. It also allows players to stock up on high-quality healing items for when they really need them. Long-term high health management will allow players to get back into action quickly. It also makes experiments using CBM much less lethal.

4 device

survival optimization

• Increases lock picking speed.
• Increases the chance of successfully disarming a trap.

Device skills determine the speed and success with which players can interact with security devices and traps, including picking locks and disarming traps. Although not critical for survival in the early game, higher device levels will improve the survivability of new characters, giving players access to high-quality loot that can be found in locked doors, showcases, and more.

Behind this lock can be a number of powerful weapons and armor. Being able to reliably disarm traps is a huge advantage regardless of whether your character has been alive for a year or five. There is often wealth behind such traps, and failure to disarm them often ends in death.

3 computer

Robots are not (as) lethal

• Improved accessibility to the terminal.
• The probability of successful hacking increases.

Computer Skills measures a character's ability to navigate computers and technology, allowing players to hack terminals and even robots at higher levels. Like device skills, computer skills are optional for the survival of new or long-term characters. However, it greatly improves your chances of survival.

For new characters, successfully hacking the terminal grants access to an impenetrable metal door and the plentiful loot inside. Over the long term, reliably hacking terminals will allow players to disable security systems, making access to robot-infested scientific facilities much less dangerous. High-level characters can even hack robots!

2 tailoring

survival through crafting

• You have access to better and better clothing recipes.

Tailoring is a skill that measures a character's ability to craft and repair various clothing and fabrics. Crafting higher level items requires a separate skill level, but higher sewing skills are directly related to the amount and variety of clothing a character can craft.

Early in the game, your character should have a few levels in Tailoring to be able to keep his clothing and armor in good condition. Particularly if your armor breaks during combat, it can result in instant death. For longer games, advanced tailoring is essential to produce and maintain defensive armor in a world full of evolved monsters. Strong armor can be looted, but doing so is often fatal.

1 Pistol or Rifle Skills

Gain the upper hand in the apocalypse

• Improves skills for certain gun types.

Pistol and rifle skills provide players with greater accuracy, faster aiming, and better gun customization. Depending on availability, location, and enemy type, early game players may want to specialize in a single gun type.

Although not essential for survival, it is helpful to start or train with two levels of either Pistol or Rifle during the first week of the apocalypse. This is doubly helpful if the player wants to rely on such weapons in combat. Guns don't make very good melee weapons, so leaving your new character to fight enemies up close and personal can lead to them dying quickly. In the long run, pistols and rifles are important tools to help players fight against more powerful evolutions.