The skills in Dying Light: The Beast are abilities that Kyle Crane can unlock and upgrade through different skill trees. To earn Skill Points, you must gain XP from combat, parkour, or stealth. Surviving Harran isn’t just about swinging weapons — it’s about smart upgrades.
In this guide, you’ll discover the best abilities to gain early, from parkour lifesavers like Landing and Dash to combat favorites like Power Shot and Charged Kick. We’ll also show you how to activate Beast Mode with the Beast Controlled skill for maximum zombie destruction.
What are Skills in Dying Light: The Beast
Skills
Dying Light: The Beast features a wide range of skills, each serving a unique purpose in gameplay. There are 35 skills in total, and players can earn two types of skill points. The first are normal Skill Points, which you gain by earning XP through gameplay and leveling up.
The second are Beast Points, which are tied to the story. After defeating a Chimera, you can extract GSB from its blood to enhance Kyle’s abilities. Choose abilities that fit your playstyle—such as Dash for speed-focused players or Power Shot for ranged builds—to maintain control of the battlefield.
How Skills Work
- Skill Types: Skills are divided into Power, Agility, Survival, and Beast.
- Power Skills: Improve melee attacks, ranged attacks, finishing moves, damage, and weapon durability.
- Agility Skills: Enhance movement, traversal, and overall mobility.
- Survival Skills: Focus on stealth, crafting, vehicle use, gear durability, and overall survivability.
- Beast Skills: Get Beast Mode mechanics, including transformation, crowd control, and powerful attacks.
- Beast Points: Required to get Beast Skills, obtained by defeating Chimeras.
- Examples of Beast Skills: Charged Smash, Furious Charge, Heavy Lift, Beast Controlled, and Beast Conquered.
Best Agility Skills
The Agility skills improve your parkour abilities, allowing you to move faster and making it much harder for enemies to catch you. Here are the best abilities to get first to help you survive the roofs and streets full of zombies.
Active Landing
Active Landing
Active Landing reduces fall damage while maintaining momentum. During exploration, you’ll often encounter situations where jumping from great heights is unavoidable, making this skill essential for survival.
How to use Active Landing
- Skill Cost: Requires 1 Skill Point to unlock.
- Agility Focus: A crucial Agility skill for navigating the rooftop-heavy environment.
- Activation: Press B / Circle just before hitting the ground while escaping a chase.
- XP Preservation: Helps you save XP when moving toward a quest objective.
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Traversal Tip: Always use this skill when leaping from roof to roof to avoid fall damage.
Dash
Dash
The Dash ability lets you move faster while running, making it essential for both escaping enemies and covering large distances quickly. Since enemies will constantly chase you, this skill can often be the key to survival.
How to Use Dash
- Grants Sprint Ability: Gives you the ability to sprint for faster movement.
- Stamina Usage: Sprinting consumes stamina and lasts only as long as your stamina bar.
- Activation: Press and hold L3 while running to move at a faster speed.
- Stamina Management: Keep an eye on your stamina while dashing; wait for it to regenerate before sprinting again.
- Nighttime Utility: Essential when alerted to a Volatile, giving you the speed needed to escape chases.
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Survivability Boost: Greatly improves mobility and escape potential, making it a skill worth unlocking early in the game.
Enemy Jump
Enemy Jump
The Enemy Jump agility skill lets you leap onto and over larger enemies, giving you a quick way to evade attacks and avoid taking damage. It is also great to do counter-damage from leaping over and behind.
How to Use Enemy Jump
- Enemy Jump Ability: Allows you to jump off enemies while rushing toward them.
- Activation: Press RB to use this skill.
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Best Use Case: Particularly useful when there are no objects or buildings nearby to dodge enemies.
Best Power Skills in Dying Light: The Beast
The Power skills enhance your overall damage output and new combat techniques, giving you more effective ways to take down enemies.
Charged Kick
Charged Kick
First, get the Dropkick ability to gain access to the Charged Kick, a powerful parkour-combat ability that lets you deal increased damage and knock enemies back even farther by holding down the kick button.
How to Use Charged Kick
- Increased Damage & Pushback: Use this skill to deal extra damage and push enemies back.
- Activation: Hold A / X to perform the move when overwhelmed.
- Stamina Efficiency: Charged Kick consumes less stamina than Dropkick, while being more effective.
- Crowd Control: Useful for clearing space when surrounded by enemies.
- Dropkick Drawback: Using Dropkick leaves you on the ground, costing extra time to recover.
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Mobility Boost: Helps you escape tough situations quickly by knocking enemies away and creating distance.
Advanced Reload
Advanced Reload
The Advanced Reload power skill lets you deal bonus damage right after reloading. This ability also allows you to reload firearms while sprinting, keeping your momentum in fast-paced combat.
How to Use Advanced Reload
- Requirement: Costs 2 Skill Points to get from the Power Tree.
- Damage Boost: Grants the ability to deal more damage while reloading, making it vital for defeating enemies.
- Reload on the Move: Allows you to reload while sprinting, whether charging toward enemies or retreating.
- Weapon Synergy: Use melee weapons against infected and bosses, while keeping firearms ready.
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Best Pairing: Combine with Advanced Reload to maximize efficiency and dominate enemies.
Power Shot
The Power Shot skill enhances your bow attacks, allowing them to deal bonus damage and pierce through enemies. Since firearms often run out of ammo, the bow becomes a reliable weapon, making this skill invaluable for survival.
How to Use Power Shot
- Bow Synergy: Pair the bow with Power Shot to deal massive damage to enemies.
- Base Damage: The bow deals decent damage even without this skill, but Power Shot makes it far stronger.
- Timing Bonus: Perfectly time your shot to gain bonus damage.
- Silent Takedowns: Use this ability to silently eliminate enemies without alerting nearby foes.
- High Ground Advantage: Most effective when used from high ground, allowing for precise, powerful shots.
Efficient Fighting
Efficient Fighting
This skill increases weapon durability, allowing your weapons to last longer before breaking and ensuring you stay combat-ready without constantly replacing gear.
How to Use Efficient Fighting
- Unlock Requirement: Costs 2 Skill Points from the Power Skill tree.
- Effect: Increases melee weapon durability, reducing the rate at which it drops with use.
- Combat Advantage: Helps weapons last longer, making it easier to defeat large groups of enemies without constant repairs or replacements.
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Usage Tip: Activate this skill whenever you expect to face multiple enemies at once, ensuring your weapons stay reliable in extended fights.
Best Beast Skills in Dying Light: The Beast
The following Beast skills unlock powerful abilities that give you new ways to dominate and crush enemies while in Beast Mode.
Beast Controlled
Beast Controlled
The Beast Controlled skill lets you activate Beast Mode manually instead of waiting for it to trigger automatically, giving you full control over when to unleash your most powerful form.
How to Use Beast Controlled
- Activation Trigger: Beast Mode activates automatically when the Beast Mode meter is full.
- Meter Replenish: Fill the meter by parrying attacks, performing perfect dodges, or taking damage.
- Manual Activation: Press both joysticks or Z + X (KBM) to activate Beast Mode.
- Timing Tip: Wait for the meter to fill before activating for maximum effect.
- Apex Predator Upgrade: Unlocking Apex Predator allows you to activate Beast Mode before the meter is full.
- Combat Utility: Use Beast Mode to dominate clusters of enemies and gain an edge in tough fights.
- Meter Decline: Once active, the Beast Mode meter gradually declines over time.
Best Survival Skills
The Survival skills grant access to extra blueprints, improve your stealth abilities, and even enhance your driving skills, making you more versatile both in combat and exploration.
Stealth Expert
Stealth Expert
The Stealth Expert skill activates stealth mode, making it much harder for enemies to detect you. This ability is especially useful in scenarios where you need to bypass enemies silently without engaging in combat.
How to Use Stealth Expert
- Requirement: Requires Skill Points in the Survival tree.
- Effect: Enhances stealth capabilities, making it harder for enemies to detect you.
- Combat Advantage: Perform silent takedowns to save weapon durability and avoid detection.
- Best Situations to Use:
- Crucial stealth takedowns when ammo is scarce.
- Sneaking past enemies when you’re low on healing items.
- Escaping enemies, as detection time is slowed.
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Tip: Stealth is vital in avoiding clusters of zombies lurking around every corner—use this skill to bypass threats instead of fighting every battle.
Grenade Launcher
Grenade Launcher
This Survival skill allows you to craft a Grenade Launcher, giving you a powerful ranged weapon to eliminate enemies from a safe distance. While the Grenade Launcher excels at long-range combat, the Flamethrower remains more effective for close-range encounters.
How to Use Grenade Launcher
- Requirement: Use 2 Skill Points to get it from the Survival tree.
- Effect: Grants the ability to craft and use UV Grenades, keeping Volatiles and groups of enemies at a safe distance.
- Combat Advantage:
- Clear hordes quickly with explosive damage.
- Maintain distance from the infected without risking close combat.
- Best Situations to Use:
- Against clusters of zombies for crowd control.
- Keeping Volatiles at bay during nighttime encounters.
- Limitations:
- Less effective against boss enemies, who rely on fast-paced attacks and dashes.
- Tip: Always keep a few UV Grenades crafted—perfect for emergencies when surrounded.
