Mastering Resident Evil 6: A Comprehensive Guide to Skill Point Usage

Resident Evil 6, a game known for its action-packed gameplay and cooperative experience, introduces a unique character progression system centered around Skill Points (SP). These points, earned through various in-game actions, allow players to purchase and upgrade skills, significantly impacting their character’s effectiveness and playstyle. Understanding how to effectively utilize Skill Points is crucial to surviving the horrors that await. This comprehensive guide will delve into the intricacies of the SP system, providing detailed steps, instructions, and strategies to help you master Resident Evil 6.

Understanding Skill Points and How to Acquire Them

Before we delve into spending them, let’s first understand what Skill Points are and how to get your hands on them. Skill Points are the currency used to purchase and upgrade skills for all playable characters in Resident Evil 6. They are not character-specific, meaning the SP you earn can be used on any character you choose to play.

There are several ways to acquire Skill Points:

• Enemy Defeat: The most common way to earn SP is by defeating enemies. More challenging enemies and bosses typically grant higher SP rewards. The amount of SP also seems to be influenced by the kill method used; for instance, performing a melee finisher or a critical headshot often leads to a higher reward.
• Chapter Completion: At the end of each chapter in the main campaigns, you receive a lump sum of Skill Points. This reward is usually substantial and directly related to the chapter’s difficulty and length.
• Bonus Points from Difficulty: Playing on higher difficulty settings awards you with a multiplier that increases the amount of SP earned through enemy defeats and chapter completions. Higher difficulties such as Professional will give you the most SP per kill but this will result in significantly harder gameplay.
• Skill Point Boosters: Some unlockable skills or purchasable items will enhance the SP you earn from defeated enemies. Investing in these boosts early in the game can dramatically speed up your character progression in the later stages.
• Mercenaries Mode: This unlockable mode is great for farming SP and refining your combat skills. Successful runs can yield a lot of SP, especially when using a variety of combos, and killing enemies quickly.
• Online Events: Periodically, Capcom may hold special online events or campaigns that give bonus SP upon completion of certain objectives or game modes.

The Skill Menu and Its Structure

The Skill menu is accessible from the pause menu and is where you’ll spend the Skill Points you’ve accumulated. The menu is broadly divided into categories, each containing skills that affect a different aspect of your gameplay. Understanding these categories is crucial for effective skill selection. The categories are:

• Combat Skills: These skills primarily enhance your character’s offensive capabilities. This category includes skills that boost damage with different weapons, melee abilities, and special attacks.
• Defense Skills: This category focuses on enhancing your character’s survivability. Skills here increase your maximum health, improve your defensive capabilities, allow you to take less damage, and make your character harder to kill,
• Mobility Skills: Skills under this section affect your character’s movement speed, agility, and ability to navigate the environment.
• Partner Skills: These skills offer benefits to you and your partner during co-op play. They focus on things such as increased support and improved healing and revival speeds.
• Item Skills: These skills revolve around the use of items and their effects, such as increasing the quantity of item drops and the power and duration of special items.
• Special Skills: This is often considered the most diverse skill tree, featuring unique character-specific skills. They affect things such as ammo capacity, reload speed, and various buffs during combat.
• Universal Skills: These skills have effects that can benefit all characters, regardless of playstyle, and include SP bonus increases.

Each skill within these categories is represented by a hexagon icon and has a specific SP cost to purchase or upgrade. Furthermore, many skills have multiple levels, which increase the effect they provide. This means that a particular skill can be purchased multiple times in order to increase its overall effectiveness. Each level is typically more expensive than the last and will require a greater investment of Skill Points.

Detailed Steps and Instructions for Spending Skill Points

Now that you’re familiar with the basics, let’s break down how to spend Skill Points effectively. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Access the Skill Menu: During gameplay, press the pause button (start on console, ESC on PC) to bring up the menu. Navigate to the ‘Skills’ option and press the interact button to open the Skills menu. This will show all the available skills you can currently purchase for each of your characters.
2. Browse Skill Categories: Use the directional buttons or keyboard/mouse to navigate between the different skill categories. Take your time to examine each category to understand the range of options available to you.
3. Select a Skill: Once you’ve found a skill you’re interested in, use the appropriate navigation to highlight it. You will be shown a description of what each individual skill does, and at its various levels. Check what the current level of that skill is, if any.
4. Purchase or Upgrade: If you have enough SP, press the purchase or upgrade button (usually A/X on consoles, or Enter/Click on PC) to confirm the action. A window will usually appear, asking for confirmation before the purchase is finalized.
5. Confirm Your Choices: You can then use the back or cancel button to exit the current skill and return to the skill category, where you can select and upgrade other skills. Take the time to experiment with different combinations of skills and different levels to see what best fits your playstyle.
6. Experiment and Respec: Don’t be afraid to experiment with different skills, especially in the early game. If you find a skill doesn’t match your play style, you can ‘respec’ by removing any SP spent from the skill tree at the cost of a few thousand SP and then reassign them to skills that you will use.

Recommended Skills and Effective Strategies

While the best skills for you will depend on your personal preferences and playstyle, here are some recommendations and strategies for optimizing your skill point usage:

Early Game Skills

• Combat Skills:
• Firearm Damage Boost: Increasing the damage of your primary weapon is always a solid early investment.
• Melee Attack Boost: Boosting melee capabilities is extremely helpful for conserving ammunition in the early game.
• Quick Shot: This increases the speed at which you can aim and fire a gun, allowing for more aggressive combat tactics.
• Defense Skills:
• Vitality Increase: Increasing your health is never a bad idea. This gives you more room for error in combat and allows you to survive longer.
• Defense Up: Reduces the damage that you take. At higher levels, this skill can make you extremely tanky.
• Recovery: Increases the speed at which you recover from damage. This can often mean the difference between life and death in intense battles.
• Mobility Skills:
• Agility: Increases your speed, allowing you to move around the battlefield faster and get out of trouble more efficiently.
• Evasion: This makes your dodge better, allowing you to evade enemy attacks with much more ease.
• Item Skills:
• Item Drop Increase: Increases the number of items that drop from enemies. This can be extremely helpful for conserving ammo and other resources in the early game.
• Herb Effect+: Increases the healing power of green herbs.
• Universal Skills:
• SP Boost: The single best skill in the entire game. The quicker you can acquire this skill, the faster your overall SP progression will be.

Mid-Game Skills

• Combat Skills:
• Specific Weapon Damage Boosts: By this point in the game you are likely to be using specific weapons a lot. Increasing the power of these specific weapons is a very good way to significantly improve your damage.
• Critical Hit Rate Boost: Increases the chances of scoring a critical hit, leading to higher damage and more efficient kills.
• Defense Skills:
• Enhanced Defense: Further increases your ability to resist damage.
• Last Stand: Allows you to survive attacks that would normally kill you.
• Mobility Skills:
• Advanced Agility: Further increases your movement and evasion capabilities
• Quick Turn: Allows you to turn around instantly and deal with threats that might have been flanking you.
• Partner Skills:
• Revive Speed Boost: Allows you to quickly revive a downed partner.
• Team Healing: Allows you to also heal your partner while using items.
• Item Skills:
• Ammo Increase: Increases the amount of ammo you can carry.
• Special Skills:
• Character Specific Skills: Some character specific skills are very powerful and are worth investing in once you get used to how your character is played.

Late Game Skills

• Combat Skills:
• All Weapon Damage Boost: This is the final ultimate offensive skill that is universally applicable.
• Defense Skills:
• Ultimate Defense: This maximizes the amount of damage you are able to block or resist
• Mobility Skills:
• Ultimate Agility: Provides the final boost to your overall movement capabilities.
• Item Skills:
• Item Duration Increase: Increases the effectiveness of special items such as grenades, explosives, and unique character skills.

Character-Specific Considerations

While the general advice above applies to all characters, each character in Resident Evil 6 has unique strengths and weaknesses that might influence your skill choices:

• Leon S. Kennedy: Leon benefits greatly from skills that improve his overall combat effectiveness, such as Firearm damage, Melee boosts, and critical hit chance.
• Helena Harper: Helena benefits a lot from evasion and mobility skills, allowing her to be a more nimble and tactical fighter. Her overall damage output is lower than Leon, meaning she might need a bit more SP investment to get her going.
• Chris Redfield: Chris, with his emphasis on heavy weapons, should focus on weapon-specific damage boosts and survivability skills to get the most out of his heavy combat style.
• Piers Nivans: Piers excels with sniper rifles, so prioritize skills that improve firearm and critical hit damage. Evasion and mobility also play an important part in his style.
• Jake Muller: Jake is a melee-focused fighter, so focusing on skills that boost his melee attacks and defense is critical. He also gets a lot of mileage from items that enhance the effect of melee strikes.
• Sherry Birkin: Sherry benefits from using a combination of weapon, item, and support skills. Her unique healing abilities also make her a good candidate for partner support.
• Ada Wong: Ada is a more technical character that relies on her unique items and special attacks, so prioritize those and skills that boost her stealth and mobility.

Strategies for Different Playstyles

The way you choose to play the game will also affect the skills that are best for you. Here are some suggested focuses based on various playstyles:

• Offensive Focus: If you like to be aggressive and dish out as much damage as possible, focus on firearm, melee, and critical hit rate boosts.
• Defensive Focus: If you prefer to be a tank that can absorb a lot of damage, focus on health boosts, defense, and healing.
• Support Focus (Co-op): If you play primarily in co-op mode and enjoy supporting your partner, focus on healing boosts, revival speed, and partner support skills.
• Item Focus: If you tend to make use of a lot of items, focus on item drop rates, and the duration and power of specific items.
• Balanced Focus: If you like to balance offense and defense, focus on a combination of skills from both categories that best suit your playstyle.

Respecing and Reassigning Skill Points

If you find that your skill choices aren’t working for you, Resident Evil 6 allows you to respec and reassign skill points. To do this, go to the Skill Menu and select the ‘Respec’ option. This will reset all of your currently purchased skill points at the cost of a few thousand SP, allowing you to reassign them as you like. This makes it safe to experiment and explore different builds without being punished.

Advanced Tips and Tricks

• Prioritize SP Boost: This skill dramatically speeds up your ability to unlock additional skills, making it an absolute must have.
• Combine Skill Types: Don’t focus solely on one category. Try to combine skills from different categories for a well-rounded character.
• Test Skills: Don’t just buy skills blindly. Test them in different combat scenarios and see if they work well for you.
• Match Skills to your Partner: If playing in co-op, match your skills to your partner’s skills for the best results. This allows you to get full synergy out of your combined skill choices.
• Consider Future Playthroughs: In your first playthrough, focus on skills that will get you through the story. In subsequent playthroughs, focus on skills that you enjoy playing with the most.

Conclusion

Mastering the skill point system is crucial for achieving success in Resident Evil 6. By understanding the different categories, experimenting with various skill combinations, and adapting your build to your play style, you can significantly enhance your character’s effectiveness and enjoy a more rewarding gameplay experience. Remember to prioritize the SP boost early on, and don’t hesitate to respec if you want to experiment with different skill sets. Happy gaming and good luck surviving the horrors that await you!