ARC Raiders now has two very different ways to reset your skills: a straightforward skill tree refund that costs coins, and the long-running Expedition system that wipes your Raider and progression on a fixed schedule. Understanding how both work makes a huge difference to how you build characters and plan endgame runs.
ARC Raiders skill tree basics
Skills in ARC Raiders are split across three branches: Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival. As you level, you earn skill points and lock them into specific nodes on these trees. For a long time, those decisions were permanent unless you opted into an Expedition and effectively started over from level one.
With more recent updates, you can now undo those decisions directly on the skill screen by paying in-game currency, without touching your character level, gear, or stash.
How the new skill reset works
The direct skill reset is a coin sink that lets you undo past choices one point at a time instead of burning your whole character.
Cost model is simple: each point you refund costs 2,000 Coins. If you want to completely redo a 30-point build, you’re looking at 60,000 Coins. That’s not nothing, but it’s dramatically cheaper and less punishing than an Expedition wipe, which expects millions of Coins’ worth of value in your stash.
The reset is handled inside the skill tree UI. You highlight the node you want to undo, pay the Coin fee, and get that point back to spend elsewhere. There’s no time gate and no need to wait for a global window.
Functionally, that means:
- You can experiment with different routes in Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival without committing to a fresh Raider.
- You no longer need to hoard points out of fear of making a “wrong” pick early on.
- You can fix a single bad node instead of redoing an entire character.
Tip: because the fee is per point, it’s usually smarter to live with a few sub‑optimal nodes and only refund the truly wasted ones rather than wiping your whole tree constantly.
Expeditions: the old way to “respec” your skill tree
Before the coin-based reset existed, Expeditions were effectively the only way to reset your skills. They still exist, but they serve a different purpose now.
An Expedition is a prestige-style departure that sends your Raider “beyond the Rust Belt” and replaces them with a fresh level 1 Raider. It’s a soft account reset that affects much more than your skills.
Key properties of Expeditions:
- Unlock requirement: Expeditions appear once your Raider hits level 20.
- Project structure: you complete a multi-page Expedition Project under the Projects tab, turning in large amounts of materials and components over six stages.
- Timing: you can only actually depart during an Expedition window, which opens roughly every 60 days. Registration and timing are surfaced in-game and on the official ARC Raiders news hub at arcraiders.com/news.
- Scope: when you depart, your current Raider, level, items, stash contents, and skill allocations are wiped.
That wipe is what used to double as a “respec” — you’d start again from scratch and re-spend points as you leveled — but the impact reaches far beyond the skill tree.
What resets and what you keep in an Expedition
When you complete Expedition Page 6, Departure, and send your Raider away, your account is partially reset. Some progression carries over to your next Raider and some is lost.
| Category | Kept after Expedition | Lost / reset after Expedition |
|---|---|---|
| Maps & world | Unlocked maps, codex entries | — |
| Character | Cosmetics, achievements, leaderboards, Raider Decks progress, trials | Player level, current skill points, all skill allocations |
| Economy | Raider Tokens, Cred, permanent stash slots from prior Expeditions | Coins, inventory items, stash contents, stash upgrade progress |
| Crafting & base | Unlocked workshop stations themselves | Workshop upgrades, blueprints, Raider Den and workshop progress, quests |
| Expedition rewards | Bonus skill points (account-wide), Expedition outfits and icon | Temporary buffs expire at the next Expedition if you don’t depart again |
So you get a clean slate for builds and loot, but the meta-progression and cosmetics you’ve earned remain. That is what makes Expeditions feel more like prestige seasons than simple respecs.
How Expedition rewards and bonus skill points work
Expeditions are positioned as an endgame project with tangible long-term rewards. Besides cosmetics and stash space, they also add permanent account buffs that change how your next Raider plays.
The most important for skill trees is the bonus skill points you can earn. When your Raider departs, everything left in your stash is valued in Coins. For every 1,000,000 Coins worth of value (including Coins themselves), you get one extra skill point for your next Raider, up to a maximum of five.
Those extra points sit on top of the normal level curve, so over multiple Expeditions you can end up with meaningfully larger and more flexible builds than a brand‑new account. You also permanently unlock:
- Patchwork Raider outfit
- Scrappy Janitor Cap
- Expeditions Indicator icon
- +12 stash space
On top of that, you receive temporary account buffs such as faster repairs, an XP bonus, and higher material yields from Scrappy. These last until the next Expedition departure window. If you send another Raider out in that window, the buffs scale up for several cycles. If you skip, they drop off.
None of this is required to respec now that the coin-based refund exists, but it still matters if you want the most flexible possible builds over the long term.
Skill reset vs Expedition: which should you use?
With both systems live, you effectively choose between a surgical, paid reset and a slow, seasonal wipe, depending on what you’re trying to fix.
| Use case | Coin skill reset | Expedition |
|---|---|---|
| Fixing a handful of bad nodes | Best option, cheap and immediate | Overkill, wipes all progress |
| Trying a completely different build at same level | Viable, but can get expensive for many points | Only if you also want a fresh level curve |
| Chasing long-term account buffs | No effect | Required to earn bonus skill points and stash space |
| Starting over after “finishing” a season | Not relevant | Primary path, turns the game into a new run |
For most players, the coin reset is now the default answer to “I messed up my skill tree.” Expeditions are better viewed as an optional prestige layer for people who enjoy rebuilding from zero while carrying over some power.
Note: Expedition Projects still demand substantial resources. The final departure also effectively donates whatever you left in your stash to the project, which is why there has been pushback from players who were saving purely to respec and now feel that incentive has moved to the cheaper skill reset.
How to reset your skills with coins
On a practical level, respec’ing a few nodes is straightforward once you understand the costs. The exact button prompts will vary by platform, but the flow is the same on PC and console.
Step 1: Open the Raider menu and move to the Skills or Skill Tree screen for the Raider you want to adjust.
Step 2: Highlight a node that currently has at least one point invested. You will see an option to refund or reset that skill, along with the Coin cost per point (2,000 Coins).
Step 3: Confirm the refund. The Coins are removed from your balance and one point is taken out of the node and returned to your unspent pool.
Step 4: Repeat the refund process on any other nodes you want to change, then reassign your freed points into new skills across Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival.
Step 5: Back out of the menu to ensure everything is saved, then run a mission or two to feel out the new build before spending even more Coins on further tweaks.
Tip: prioritize refunding big-ticket passives that don’t match your current weapons or playstyle, rather than small quality-of-life perks. Mobility passives like Nimble climber, Marathon runner, and Youthful lungs are generally safe investments that feel good on almost any build.
How to prepare for an Expedition if you still want a full wipe
If you’re planning to use Expeditions as a hard reset on your Raider and skills, the preparation phase matters more than the departure itself.
Step 1: Level a Raider to at least 20 so the Expedition Project unlocks on the Projects tab of the Raider screen.
Step 2: Open the Expedition Project and review each of the six pages. Foundation, Core Systems, Framework, Outfitting, Load Stage, and finally Departure all demand specific materials and components, often in large quantities.
Step 3: Route your regular play sessions through activities that drop the components you still need. Recycling extra weapons, looting topside, and breaking down ARC or old world items all contribute to the pool.
Step 4: Watch for the next Expedition window. Registration and timing are surfaced both in-game and via ARC Raiders’ official channels. You can continue filling project requirements outside the window, but you can only actually depart during those dates.
Step 5: Before you confirm Departure on Page 6, top up your stash and Coin balance as much as possible. Everything left is valued toward bonus skill points, up to the five‑point cap.
Step 6: Commit to the wipe. Your Raider leaves, your level and items reset, and your next Raider spawns into the Rust Belt with permanent account buffs, any earned bonus skill points, and the Expedition cosmetics you unlocked.
After that, your new skill tree run starts from scratch, but with more room to experiment thanks to the extra points and the safety net of the coin-based respec if you misstep again.
With both systems in place, ARC Raiders finally lets you correct individual mistakes without burning your entire character, while still keeping Expeditions as a high-commitment loop for players who want to prestige their accounts. Spend Coins when you need a surgical fix, and save the Expedition for when you’re ready to leave the Rust Belt behind and start over on your own terms.
