God of War Ragnarok has improved on the Skill system in God of War 2018. Earlier players had to use XP to level up their skills and this, after some point, felt extremely mechanical and cumbersome, especially when these Skills required a ton of XP to level up. God of War Ragnarok retains the same mechanic but also improves upon it to make the system more organic and natural- at least for our main character Kratos.
Skill System in God of War Explained
The Skill System in God of War Ragnarok largely remains the same. Each weapon has 3 Skill Trees:
- Technique
- Ranged
- Melee
To unlock all of the weapon’s skills, you’ll need to first level up the weapon to Level 6. While this does unlock all your weapon skills, the weapon is still far from its maximum potential.
In God of War Ragnarok, Kratos’s weapons now have the Skill Labours feature which is a counter that tracks your usage of a particular skill. The more you use a particular skill the more powerful it gets after reaching certain required thresholds. Your side characters don’t have this feature so you don’t need to grind for their Skill Trees.
The Skill Labour counter has three stages: Bronze, Silver and Gold and as you keep grinding you’ll reach the Gold tier of that particular skill after which you can enhance it to give it one of three buffs for a small amount of XP (1000).
These are called Skill Mod Tokens and you can change them for a different one at any time. Thankfully, once you’ve paid for the enhancement using your precious XP, there’s no need to pay again.
Using a skill over and over will quickly help you level up these Skill Labour counters. Additionally, Skills that improve other skills don’t need to be further laboured for. As long as you have the first form of a particular skill unlocked, you can start grinding its Skill Labour.
To cap it off with an example, here are some of the famous Leviathan Axe’s Skills and here are the 3 buffs you can give them once you level these Skills up to the Gold tier:
- Frozen Breach: Stun, Element or Momentum
- Serpent’s Snare: Damage, Element or Protection
- Leviathan’s Fury: Damage, Stun or Protection
- Vengeful Sickle I: Damage, Stun or Element
Note that you can only choose one of the three buffs depending on your playstyle. Even though you’ll have the option to change it, you can only be using one of the above buffs for each of these skills.
XP Changes
An additional feature in God of War Ragnarok is that XP can now be used for more than just Skills and Runic Attacks. In Ragnarok, you can now use XP to even upgrade your Spartan Rage and Relics. Each Spartan Rage mode and each Relic now also have two additional levels to unlock.
It’s safe to say that overall the Skill and XP system has been improved and this allows players to play, grind and explore the game more for maxing their abilities. This offers the game a bit more longevity and allows players to have more flexible playstyles which can all be improved on and refined until they become a force to be reckoned with.
