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Payday 3 encourages a variety of playstyles, allowing you to perform heists with stealth or chaotic aggression. With such a diverse skill set, you can select any playstyle you want to ensure that each heist is carried out with utmost accuracy and execution. Following the phenomenal success of the title’s closed beta, the gaming community is abuzz with excitement for its official release.
This article gives a comprehensive overview of Payday 3's skill set so that you can have a keen understanding of the system before the official game release.
Full list of Payday 3 skills
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Payday 3 has a massive skill collection of 105. Every skill is organized into a line hierarchy. Each line consists of a core skill.
You can advance through the skill line after unlocking the basic node, concluding in the Mastery Node. The Mastery Nodes are weaker, but they won't require players to equip any upgrades or base nodes.
Here are some important terms to remember:
- GRIT= You take 10% less damage
- RUSH= Movement speed increased
- EDGE= +10% damage dealt
Below are all the skills that will be available in Payday 3, which will officially arrive on September 21, 2023.
1) Medic
Basic: You revive teammates 20% faster. Medic bags you deploy have two additional charges.
Aced: When you start reviving a teammate in Payday 3, you gain GRIT. As long as you have GRIT, you take 15% less damage when reviving a teammate.
- Steady Hands: Interacting with Medic Bags heals you for an additional 20% of your max health.
- Extra Charge: Medic Bgs deploy have two additional charges.
- Combat Medic: If you have GRIT, successfully reviving your teammate will give both you and that teammate damage immunity for three seconds.
- Code Blue: Whenever a teammate is downed or disabled, you gain or refresh RUSH (movement speed increased).
- Triage: Interacting with a Medic Bag or First Aid Kit will consume active EDGE, GRIT, and RUSH and heal you for an additional 15% for each.
- Field Surgery (Mastery Node): Interacting with a Medic Bag will restore an additional 10% of your max health and restore one “down.”
2) Ammo Specialist
Basic: Your reserve ammo capacity is increased by 20%. The ammo bags you deploy have two additional charges.
Aced: Whenever you pick up ammo in Payday 3 and if your current weapon’s magazine is full, you gain EDGE if you don’t have it.
- Scrounger: As long as you have EDGE, ammo drops have a 10% chance of replenishing one of your throwables.
- Fully Loaded: The ammo bags you deploy have two additional charges.
- Plate Up: As long as you have GRIT, ammo drops will instantly regenerate your current armor chunk.
- High Grain: After interacting with an ammo bag, you get 20% more damage for 10 seconds or until you swap weapons. This bonus does not stack with itself.
- Mag Throw: As long as you have RUSH, any ammo drops you pick up are also given to crew members within 10 meters. This won’t trigger the Mag Throw skill of other players.
- Top Up (Mastery Node): Interacting with any ammo bag will restore an additional 20% of ammo and fully restock your throwables.
3) Mower
Basic: Every 35 bullets you shoot in Payday 3, gain EDGE.
Aced: Whenever you reload a weapon with an empty magazine, refresh EDGE.
- Recoil Handling: As long as you have EDGE, your weapon recoil is reduced.
- Suppressive Fire: As long as you have EDGE, every shot from your weapon has a chance to inflict a heavy stagger.
- Ammo Funnel: As long as you have EDGE, the ammo you pick up is directly added to your equipped weapon’s magazine. If your magazine is full, it’s added to your reserves instead.
- Replenish: As long as you have EDGE, you automatically pick up ammo dropped by enemies you have killed.
- Sprint Loaded (Mastery Node): You can reload while sprinting.
4) Infiltrator
Basic: Whenever you successfully pick a lock or kill an enemy with a throwing knife, gain or refresh RUSH.
Aced: Whenever a guard begins to detect you, gain RUSH.
- Quick Fingers: As long as you have RUSH, a successful lockpick jiggle will immediately pick the lock.
- Retriever: Your throwing knives won’t break on impact with the environment.
- Bagger: As long as you have RUSH, you bag loot 50% faster.
- Blade Bouncer: Your throwing knives will ricochet off the environment up to two times. The throwing knife will do extra damage for each bounce.
- Frugal Thrower (Mastery Node): The throwables you use have a 20% chance of being replenished after they are destroyed.
5) Tank
Basic: Increases the regeneration speed of your armor chunks by 20%. Your armor bag has two additional charges in Payday 3.
Aced: Whenever one of your armor chunks breaks, gain or refresh GRIT.
- Hardy: As long as you have at least one armor chunk, any flashbang, stagger, or stun effect duration you suffer is lowered by 50%.
- Extra Plates: Your armor bag has two additional charges.
- Armor Up: Interacting with any armor bag will restore an additional chunk.
- Last Man Standing: If damage would normally down you, you can instead consume available GRIT to stay on your feet and become immune to damage for 10 seconds. After this effect has been applied, you can’t gain GRIT until you heal using a Medic Bag or First Aid Kit or until you’re downed.
- Disengage (Mastery Node): Once per heist, you can free yourself from a Cloaker or Zapper, after which you can’t be disabled by them again for five seconds.
6) Sharpshooter
Basic: Stand still for 1.5 seconds while aiming down sights or scopes and gain EDGE.
Aced: Performing a headshot while aiming down sight will refresh your EDGE in Payday 3.
- Collateral Control: If you destroy a Special enemy’s weak point, like the Zapper’s batter or the Nader’s belt, the explosion will only affect enemies.
- Long Shot: As long as you have EDGE and are aiming down sights, distance penalties do not apply to headshot multipliers.
- Precision Shot: When aiming down a scope, your shot will consume any EDGE you have. When this happens, your shot will do extra damage based on your scope magnification.
- Cutting Shot: As long as you have EDGE, your armor penetration is increased.
- Speed Aim (Master Node): Once per heist, you can free yourself from a Cloaker or Zapper, after which you can’t be disabled by them again for 5 seconds.
7) Escapist
Basic: Whenever you sprint for at least three seconds in Payday 3, gain RUSH.
Aced: If you have RUSH available and slide, it’s consumed, and you gain or refresh EDGE.
- Balanced: As long as you have RUSH and an enemy or effect would stagger you, instead consume RUSH and ignore the stagger.
- Move and Cover: If you have EDGE available and vault or mantle, it’s consumed, and you gain or refresh GRIT.
- Slide Tackle: If you have GRIT and slide into one or more non-Special enemies, you consume GRIT and stagger those enemies.
- Battering Ram: As long as you have EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH, you can sprint through doors to breach them as though you had shot the lock. Only effective on doors that can be shot open.
- Swift (Mastery Node): Your base sprinting speed when masked on is increased by 10%.
8) Demolitionists
Basic: Explosions caused by your shots or throwables have their area of effect increased by 20%.
Aced: Whenever you cause an explosion in Payday 3, gain or refresh RUSH.
- Cooker: Whenever you hold a throwable for at least
- 1.5 seconds before throwing it, gain GRIT.
- Shell Shock: Non-special enemies damaged by your explosions get a permanent penalty of 10% to accuracy. This effect can only be applied once.
- Blowback: As long as you have RUSH, non-special enemies damaged by your explosions lose all armor.
- Blast Shield: Available GRIT is consumed to negate any damage you would normally receive from explosions caused by you.
- Overcooked: Any throwable or weapon that you use that has an explosive component will no longer run on a timer but will immediately explode on impact with the environment or an NPC.
- Extra Munitions (Mastery Node): Your throwable capacity is increased by 2.
9) Enforcer
Basic: Whenever you kill two enemies within four seconds that are within five meters of you in Payday 3, you gain GRIT.
Aced: Whenever you kill one enemy within a fivemeter range, if you have GRIT, gain EDGE.
- Quick Reload: As long as you have both GRIT and EDGE, you have increased reload speed.
- Face To Face: As long as you have both EDGE and GRIT, you deal 10% extra damage to targets within 5 meters of you.
- Solid: As long as you have both EDGE and GRIT, you’re immune to stagger effects.
- Combat Reload: Whenever you reload a weapon while the magazine still has ammo, refresh EDGE and GRIT.
- Shock and Awe (Mastery Node): Killing an enemy within 8 meters of you has a chance to stagger all non-Special enemies within 5 meters of you.
10) Manipulator
Basic: You tie up and trade hostages 50% faster in Payday 3.
Aced: Whenever you trade a hostage, they count as one additional hostage.
- Overbearing: Your shout range for intimidating civilians is increased by 20%. Civilians stay down 50% longer after being shouted down.
- Silver Tongue: Trading Employees, Guards, or Law Enforcement counts as trading an additional hostage.
- Negotiator: Trading hostages for First Aid now yields 1 additional First Aid pack.
- Menacing: You can shout at guards, SWAT, or Heavy SWAT within <Skills1>5</> meters of you to force them to surrender. As long as you’re aiming at them, they will go down on their knees to drop their weapon. Any damage dealt to them or taking your aim off of them interrupts this process. Once fully surrendered, the SWAT obeys all the rules of a civilian, including any penalties for killing them. You can’t have more than one SWAT as a hostage at any time.
- Stockholm Syndrome: When you’re downed, you can shout at a tied-down or cowering hostage within range to try and reach you and revive you.
- Master Trader (Mastery Node): Every hostage you trade between assault waves reduces the player’s time in custody by 20 seconds; the minimum time spent in custody is capped at 10 seconds. This time reduction resets after any player has been taken into custody.
11) Engineer
Basic: Unlocking this skill gives you access to the Sentry Turret equipment. This turret can be equipped in the equipment slot of your loadout. The turret will shoot any non-mechanical enemies it sees until the enemies are dead or no longer within sight. As it shoots, it will build up heat until it reaches max heat.
Once the sentry is at max heat, it will stop functioning. The owner of the turret can pick up the turret at any point to reset the heat to 0 and redeploy it. Equipping this skill increases the max heat build-up of your turret by 20%.
Aced: Increases the max heat build-up of your sentry turret by another 20% in Payday 3.
- AP Turret: Increase armor penetration of sentry turrets you deploy by 1.
- Cooling System: Reduce heat build-up from damage, electrical explosions, or hack attempts by 30% for all turrets.
- Detonation: Whenever your turret overheats, it will cause an explosion that damages NPCs in an area.
- Spin Cycle: Your sentry turret can now rotate 360 degrees to acquire its targets.
- Dual Sentries: You can now deploy a second sentry turret, but all your turrets build heat 50% faster while shooting.
- Targeted Fire (Mastery Node): Your turrets will switch targets to whichever enemy you mark manually if it’s within line of sight. If you mark multiple enemies, it will prioritize the last one you marked.
12) Gunslinger
Basic: Whenever you switch to your secondary weapon, you gain EDGE. ADSing or switching weapons will end any EDGE you have active.
Aced: Performing headshots with your weapon in hip fire will refresh any EDGE you have.
- From The Hip: As long as you have EDGE, your hip fire spread is decreased.
- Heavy Hipfire: As long as you have EDGE, hipfire shots will cause heavy stagger.
- Finisher: If you have EDGE, the last shot of your magazine will consume it to deal 200% more damage.
- Quick Draw (Mastery Node): Increase your weapon swap speed.
13) Grifter
Basic: As long as you are masked off, if you are within 1 meter of a civilian or employee, gain RUSH.
Aced: When your mask is on, any civilians and employees within 10 meters that can see you will become intimidated.
- Walk The Walk: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, cameras can’t detect you trespassing into private areas. (They will still detect you performing an illegal action.)
- Social Engineering: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, employees will ignore you performing illegal actions.
- Open Mic: You answer radios 50% faster.
- Slippery (Mastery Node): After getting cuffed by a guard, you can break free by lockpicking the cuffs.
14) Hacker
Basic: You can hack cameras to gain access to the area’s CCTV system. This functions as though you accessed the heist’s security room. You gain one Runtime.
Aced: You can overload a device that already has an active Runtime. This will cause an electrical explosion that will stun anyone within range and destroy the device. You gain one additional Runtime.
- Secure Loop: You can use one Runtime to make the security camera you’re controlling loop its footage. Cameras looping their footage cannot detect you or anything out of the ordinary. If the camera is destroyed, you regain your Runtime use. If you apply a new Runtime when you’re at max Runtimes, your oldest active one is removed.
- Appliance Breach: You can activate lures from a distance as long as you have a clear line of sight.
- Routed Ping: You can spend a Runtime to make the hacked camera automatically mark any guards or law enforcement within its range. Targets stay marked for 5 seconds after leaving the camera’s view and do not count towards your maximum number of marked targets.
- Glitch Protocol: You can hack a guard’s radio to cause a disturbance, stopping and distracting them while pausing any action they are doing. You must have a line of sight to the guard to hack them. The guard is distracted for five seconds, after which they will go back to their previous action. If the guard was escorting a player, they will go back to patrolling. If the guard was about to detain a player, they will go into Search mode instead. Using this ability has a cooldown of 60 seconds.
- Signal Catch (Mastery Node): You can answer radios remotely if you have a line of sight to the guard’s body.
15) Tactician
Basic: Whenever you stun or stagger an enemy, gain EDGE.
Aced: Your flashbang and smoke grenade area of effect is increased by 20%.
- Crowd Control: Civilians affected by your flashbang will cower for a duration that is twice as long as if you had shouted them down. Civilians affected by your smoke grenade will stop moving unless you order them to follow you.
- Coup De Grace: If you have EDGE, you will deal 5% more damage when you shoot a staggered or stunned enemy.
- Discombobulate: Enemies affected by your flashbangs suffer a 40% damage debuff for the duration of the stun and for five seconds after it wears off. Enemies affected by your smoke grenade suffer a 40% damage debuff while in the smoke, and it has a duration of five seconds after they have escaped the smoke.
- Expose: Shots fired at enemies affected by your flashbang will ignore armor for as long as they are stunned.
- Scramble (Mastery Node): Any stun effects you apply last 20% longer.
16) Strategist
Basic: You can mark one additional target. Your marks last 20% longer.
Aced: You can mark one additional target. Your marks last 20% longer.
- Combat Marking: As long as you have EDGE, you deal an extra 10% damage against any marked target.
- Threat Assessment: As long as you have GRIT, you take 10% less damage from any marked target.
- Misdirect: As long as you have RUSH, any marked Cloaker or Zapper that tries to disable you will instead suffer a heavy stagger.
- Marked For Death (Mastery Node): Whenever you are downed or disabled by an enemy, that enemy and up to five enemies within five meters of you are marked.
17) CQC Specialist
Basic: Whenever you perform a takedown, gain, or refresh RUSH.
Aced: Whenever you grab a human shield, gain or refresh GRIT.
- Soft Assets: When you shove away a SWAT you’re using as a human shield, gain extra ammo. You move 5% faster while holding a human shield.
- Groundskeeper: You perform takedowns 20% faster.
- Pin Puller: If you have GRIT and shove a SWAT you held as a human shield, GRIT is consumed, and the SWAT’s smoke grenade is triggered when they land. Only one grenade per SWAT can be triggered. You move % faster while holding a human shield.
- Savage Takedown: Whenever you perform a takedown, any civilian within five meters will immediately become intimidated.
- Pressure Points: Corpses you’ve left after performing a takedown need to be examined in detail before civilians and guards realize they are dead.
- Cover-up (Mastery Node): Taking down a guard will immediately also answer the radio.
This is everything that players need to know about the skills that are available in Payday 3.
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