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Are you building up your ninja loadout and looking to pick the best skills for a stealth build in Payday 3? Our guide can help you by highlighting the skills to look out for.
There are many ways to approach heists in Payday 3. You can go in all guns blazing, take advantage of hostages, mix up the two, or go full stealth mode, to name but a few. Arguably, the stealthy way of doing things is the most complex and ultimately satisfying way to play the game. However, there is a lot to keep track of and many dangers threatening to expose you. A good loadout of skills can vastly improve your chances of success. For that reason, we’re going to offer our suggestions for the best stealth build skills to add to your Payday 3 loadout.
Best Skills for a Stealth Build Loadout in Payday 3
For a stealthy approach to the game, we recommend picking skills that help you navigate the private and restricted areas during heists. This includes skills that accentuate movement, obfuscate, manipulate tech, and focus on silent takedowns. Make sure to get XP to unlock as many skill points as you can and prioritize the following skills for research.
| Skill name | Skill effect |
|---|---|
| Infiltrator (Major skill) | 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. |
| Bagger | As long as you have RUSH, you bag loot 50% faster. |
| Escapist (Major skill) | Basic: Whenever you sprint for at least 3 seconds gain RUSH. Aced: If you have RUSH available and slide, it’s consumed, and you gain or refresh EDGE. |
| Grifter (Major skill) | Basic: As long as you’re masked off, if you are within 1 meter of a civilian or employee, gain RUSH. Aced: When you mask 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 in 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 | After getting cuffed by a guard, you can break free by lockpicking the cuffs. |
| Hacker (Major skill) | Basic: You can hack cameras to gain access to the area’s CCTV system. This functions as though you had 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 of marked targets. |
| Glitch Protocol | You can hack a guard’s radio to cause a disturbance, stopping and distracting them, pausing any action they are doing. You must have a line of sight to the guard to hack them. The guard is distracted for 5 seconds, after which they will go back to their previous action. If the guard was escorting a player, the guard will go back to patrolling. If the guard was about to detain a player, the guard will go into Search mode instead. Using this ability has a cooldown of 60 seconds. |
| Strategist (Major skill) | Basic: You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer. Aced: You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer. |
| CQC Specialist (Major skill) | Basic: Whenever you perform a takedown, gain or refresh RUSH. Aced: Whenever you grab a human shield, gain or refresh GRIT. |
| Groundskeeper | You perform takedowns 20% faster. |
| Savage Takedown | Whenever you perform a takedown, any civilian within 5 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 | Taking down a guard will immediately also answer the radio. |
This loadout of skills uses 21 skill points for 20 skills. Note that you’ll want to have Infiltrator Aced with that extra point. Any extra skill points that you get over this number can be put at your discretion.
The selected array of skills provides you with the best tools for a stealthy approach to heists. This loadout relies on using RUSH for extra movement speed and manoeuvrability. That is why we dip into Escapist as well, to get an easy way to trigger RUSH when no other sources are nearby. It also relies heavily on hacking as the best way to control the playing field through tech. Speaking of control, takedowns and intimidation are your fall-back solutions when situations threaten to escalate.
In terms of gearing up with this skill loadout, consider taking the following along with you:
- Armor Lining: Pick Standard Lining for the biggest move speed boost.
- Weapons: Equip both of your weapons with silencer mods.
- Throwables: Throwing knives are the best pick for stealth approach.
- Tools: Microcam or Motion Sensor. They provide the best utility, though you can also consider an ECM Jammer for some heists.
With such a stealth-focused loadout and some practice, you’ll become a veritable ninja of Payday 3. Of course, that requires your crew to play with a similar approach, otherwise you’ll find yourself in an unsavoury position pretty fast.
For more guides about Payday 3, check out more N4G Unlocked coverage, like What is the best heist to get money in Payday 3 and Does Payday 3 Have a Campaign.