The Outer Worlds 2 has several Traits that you can choose at the beginning of your playthrough, honing your experience in specific ways. But which Traits are the best overall? This guide acts as a comprehensive breakdown of what we’ve found to be the best Traits in The Outer Worlds 2.
Best Traits to Pick
For a list of every option available to you in terms of Traits in The Outer Worlds 2, you can check out our dedicated All Traits page! With that being said, there’s inherent value to every single Trait in the game – especially when you factor in build diversity and role playing choices.
But there is a pretty undeniable combo of Traits that will (theoretically) be flexible across the widest amount of builds, and that is as follows:
Trait Selections
Description
BrilliantDuring skill selection, Specialize in 1 additional skill.
LuckyGain +5% critical hit chance; Certain opportunities become available to you.
Sickly-15% Base Health, -15 Toxicity Crash Threshold
OR
DumbDuring skill selection, lock 5 of the 12 available skills. These can never have points added to them.
Positive Traits
Brilliant
Brilliant is arguably de facto the best Trait in the game due to the inherent advantage it will provide you in designing your character. Being able to boost another skill by 2 points from the get-go is a real game changer not only (though especially) in the early game, but throughout the entirety of your playthrough.
Lucky
Lucky seems a little less inherently advantageous across builds, but the +5% Critical Chance is of course malleable regardless of your playstyle. The “certain opportunities” that Lucky can open up however is the real draw, because it’ll enable you to do things in the world or complete quest objectives in specific ways that you might not have been able to skill check your way through otherwise.
Negative Traits
This section is only relevant if you take 2 positive Traits, because negative traits are only required if you choose to take more than one positive.
Sickly
Sickly is almost always going to be the “best” of the negative Traits, because it’s the easiest to counteract. While the -15% Base Health can make initial combat encounters more difficult, and the -15 Toxicity Crash Threshold can stunt your healing capabilities, you can gain additional health, armor and clothing for more defense, and Primers with unique effects that make healing more effective in general.
Dumb
Dumb can be a scary negative Trait to pick because of how limiting it appears. Dont fret though, as the majority of builds in the game will see you funneling your skill points into only a handful of Skills (if that). As such, you can lock out 5 Skills that you know you aren’t aiming to become adept in with your character and you technically won’t have actually even lost anything with this Trait choice.
