Skills

	This article is about the list of skills in general. For hints on using skills and example builds, see Builds.

Skills are a means of unlocking new equipment, abilities or basic statistic improvements in PAYDAY 2. They are divided among five skill trees: Mastermind, Enforcer, Technician, Ghost, and Fugitive; often described as classes. Players are free to distribute skill points however they choose across the five skill trees.

General

Skill points

One skill point is awarded each time the player gains a Reputation level, plus an additional 2 points at every level divisible by 10 (meaning that instead of just 1 skill point, 3 skill points will be granted at levels 10, 20, 30, 40 etc). Thus, once the player reaches the maximum Reputation level of 100, the player will have a total of 120 skill points.

Because the total skill points needed to unlock Basic and Ace for every skill in a single tree totals 145 points, it is impossible to Ace every skill in even a single tree (and furthermore, there are five separate trees in total). Because of this, it is advisable to only spend points on specific skills you truly need and want, and to spread skill points over multiple trees if necessary. In fact, each skill tree has highly desirable utility skills in tier 1 that only require a handful of skill points to obtain, thus it is expedient to obtain many of these low tier entry-level skills. Planning your build can be done with this skills, perks, and weapon calculator.

Skill tree structure

For each class, there are six tiers, unlocked by spending a minimum total number of points in that skill tree:

tier 1 is unlocked by spending 1 skill point,
tier 2 is unlocked by spending 5,
tier 3 by spending 10,
tier 4 by spending 20,
tier 5 by spending 30,
tier 6 by spending 40.

These numbers can be reduced to 1, 5, 9, 18, 27, and 36 points respectively by investing an infamy point in the appropriate tree.

For each tier, there are three skills. Each skill, after the Basic is obtained, can be Aced for further benefit. Skills in tiers 1 to 3 cost one skill point to unlock Basic and three skill points to Ace, whereas skills in tiers 4 to 6 cost four skill points to unlock Basic and eight skill points to Ace.

Skill interactions

Party bonuses do not stack with the identical bonus coming from other players in the party that have the identical skill (thus it is somewhat sub-optimal for multiple players to get the same party-benefit skills, if you always play with the same team of players). All other bonuses stack, unless stated otherwise, including bonuses from Basic and Aced versions of the skill.

Re-specifying skill trees

You can drop all skills from a skill tree by choosing the "respec this skill tree" option from the bottom of the screen while that skill tree is selected. This will return all of the skill points to you as skill points that can be spent again anywhere, as well as returning half the cash you paid to unlock those skills. Clicking on the option will bring up a dialog box telling you how much money you'll get back and giving you the option to drop the skills or not; this can be used to see how much money you would get back without actually dropping the skill points.

Skill trees in which you don't have a lot invested (i.e., you've unlocked only a few lower-level skills) are relatively cheap to rebuild. This can be used in two ways:

At low levels you can take advantage of some skills that are useful early on but that you don't need later.
For example, cash is usually relatively scarce below level 60. If you're not planning on investing heavily in the Ghost tree, picking up Dead Presidents can quickly pay off both the skill purchase itself and the cost of a respec of the Ghost tree. If you have only taken Sprinter from the Ghost tree, you only need to collect $288k in instant cash to pay off a respec - this is only marginally more than one ATM on Overkill difficulty, which can be easily and quickly looted on Four Stores.
At higher levels, re-specifying can let you make temporary use of skill points that would otherwise be unused while you're saving skill points for a large unlock in another tree. Allocate these points to low-level skills in your least developed skill tree(s), and when you've leveled up enough you can cheaply re-specify these less-developed trees to free up the additional skill points you need for your large unlock.

Multi Skill Builds

With the introduction of Multi Skill Builds in Update #49 you are now allowed to switch between various builds without paying the re-spec cost. Each Multi Skill Build is setup as normal: skill point costs, skill purchase costs and Infamy bonus all apply as normal. Re-speccing one build does not affect others.

This allows players to rapidly switch between builds without continually buying new skills and re-speccing trees, allowing more flexibility of playstyles for different heists. For example, this allows you to easily switch between stealth and combat builds depending on which is required.

Skill sets also have a perk deck selection associated, hence switching skill set will switch perk deck as well, although perk deck progress is universal across skill sets.

The skill set used is selected from the skill screen, meaning that it can be selected from the main menu or while in the lobby screen of a Crime.Net server. As using Crime.Net Offline bypasses the lobby screen, players cannot switch sets in light of the heists which appear. Similarly it is not possible to change skill set between days of a multiday heist.

The skill sets are unlocked as follows :

The starting skill set, available from the outset.
Available for unlock once you reach level 50.
Available for purchase once you reach level 75, costs $1M of Offshore money.
Available for purchase once you reach level 100, costs $10M of Offshore money.
Available for purchase once you reach level 100, requires the Tabula Rasa achievement and costs $20M of Offshore money.

When resetting your level by going infamous, the skill sets unlocked remain unlocked and therefore can be used immediately afterwards.

Mastermind

The Mastermind is a manipulative leader who excels in situational control.

Spending the first point in the Mastermind skill tree unlocks the ability to place the doctor bag deployable. The doctor bag can be used to regain health and reset the bleedout counter.

The doctor bag has 2 charges in its basic state.