Watch Dogs 2: The Best Skills and Upgrades to Unlock

The Best Hacking Skills and Upgrades

Watch Dogs 2 offers players a large skill tree with many different abilities that will improve your hacking abilities while also adding new techniques to your repertoire. If you’re a completionist, you’ll eventually find yourself garnering every single one, but if you’re one of those players who’s just looking to get through the story, though, you’re going to want to choose what you spend your points on wisely. Of course, what’s best will depend on your preferred playstyle, but there are some skills that everyone should own and utilize regularly under each tree. 

The Social Engineering tree offers up four really good skills and upgrades that all players should add to their arsenal (not counting the base one that has you creating distractions). The three skills you should go for are:

Improved Profiler – This is a passive ability that highlights anyone with a lot of transferable income with a blue box around them. This is a must have for anyone trying to fund their adventure, whether it be for buying weapons or appropriate outfits. Also, cars and boats can be really expensive, so every dollar counts.

Gang Attack – This is an expensive ability when it comes to using up your Botnets (the blue charges used to power hacks), but it can help out a lot. You summon a gang to come take out a target, which can result in a war wiping out all enemies in an area. We also recommend upgrading this one fully to Gang War so that you get a seemingly unstoppable gang force to show up and kill everything in its path.

APB: Suspect Located – Works like the gang attack only it has the chance to be non-lethal (really depends on what your target decides to do). While there is an upgrade, it isn’t really necessary. If your target starts shooting, that will call in better police anyway, so stick to the basic and save your points.

Massive Communication Disruption – This hack is a life saver in Watch Dogs 2. It triggers all distractions in your area and can support a quick getaway as everyone checks their phones and headsets.

The Best Vehicle/City/Robot Skills and Upgrades

City infrastructure, as well as all of the vehicles in the world, can be utilized in Watch Dogs 2 to stop, distract, or destroy your enemies. There are several options to choose from within the Vehicle Hacking, City Disruption, Remote CTRL trees.

Proximity Scanner (Remote CTRL) – No matter what playstyle you’re going for, it’s never a bad idea to be able to mark all NPCs on your map while also searching for other usable items. This passive upgrade allows the Quadcopter to do just that.

Massive System Crash + Blackout Upgrade (City Disruption) – This is a great skill to use when you’re being pursued by the police or another player. It turns off everything that can be hacked and, with the upgrade, shuts off all the lights as well. It gives you a few seconds to get away safely without being tracked or trapped.

Robot Exploits (City Disruption) – This skill is mainly for the love option, which turns robots into psychotic ramming machines.

Hijacking (Vehicle Hacking) – Let’s you instantly steal a car with no alarms and no drawn attention.

Chopper Retreat Exploit (Vehicle Hacking) – A must have if you like aggressive styles of play. Choppers will appear once your wanted level hits level three and they are persistent. They’ll track you where cars can’t, so being able to send them the other way is a great move.

Engine Override (Vehicle Hacking) – Gives every vehicle you drive a powerful speed boost. Perfect for winning races and just getting through the world.

The Best Combat Skills and Upgrades

Even if you don’t plan on being super aggressive while hacking your way through Watch Dogs 2, you’ll want a few combat skills to help you out of tight corners. These will fall under Marksmanship and Tinkering, granting you tools to cause mayhem as well as skills with various firearms.

Advanced Sleight of Hand (Marksmanship) – Increases the reload speed for all two-handed weapons, which includes shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and launchers. These are much better than pistols and you’ll want to be ready just in case shit hits the fan.

Target Weakness (Marksmanship) – This turns your shotgun in a shredder. You can tear through cars and armored enemies with ease.

Expert Tinkering (Tinkering) – Bombs in Watch Dogs 2 work on a recharge. This upgrade kicks that up a notch so you have more charges to use against your enemies.

Tweaked Blast (Tinkering) – Tweaked blast is another passive upgrade in Watch Dogs 2 that grants your devices a large area of effect. Perfect for setting traps and taking out multiple targets.