This page is all about the best Skills in Saints Row - the Skills we ended up using most frequently, and why they’re so good.
There are thirteen active Skills in Saints Row (2022) and only four Skills slots to equip them to, and while you can swap out Skills on a whim (assuming you’re safe enough to fiddle around with your phone, anyways), some Skills ended up with a regular spot on our 
Tough Mother¶
When you use this ability, your red segmented health bar will be replaced by a solid yellow bar, which will absorb any damage you sustain before your actual health starts being depleted again. It also prevents you from being staggered. Using this before you take damage is, in many cases, going to keep you alive better than relying on Tranfusion to regain health, although the two can be used in tandem if you find yourself in a trouble spot. The amount of protection this gives is significant, and all in all it’s probably our most-used skill.
While not the most powerful Skill, being able to toss a frag grenade for one unit of Flow is regularly useful, especially if you toss several of them in succession!
Frag Out¶
You may have noticed that you don’t have grenades in Saints Row (2022). At least, not the way you used to - you used to treat grenades like any other type of munition, they had ammo, you could swap between several distinct types of grenades, and when you used them up, you went to Friendly FIre and bought more.
Not anymore.
In Saints Row (2022) most of your needs for explosive ordinance is covered by various Skills. On the plus side this means they’re functionally unlimited as long as you have enough Flow to keep using the various Skills that have replaced grenades. On the down side, you’re limited by your Flow, so you functionally can’t buy yourself a full stock of grenades in preparation for a fight.
Of the “grenade” skills you have Smoke Screen (level 3) Proximity Mine (level 4) and Frag Out (level 7), and while Proximity Mine has some utility in setting up traps and Smoke Screen can help you shed aggro (albeit, incredibly briefly), Frag Out is a no-frills fragmentation grenade that you can toss at the expense of only one unit of Flow. Its damage isn’t great, but it’s cheap enough that you should be able to throw a few at a time. When the enemy is clustered up, or there’s a tantalizing batch of vehicles, or there’s just an annoying enemy that is in cover or otherwise difficult to hit with conventional gunfire, tossing out a frag or two (or three) can give you great results for the Flow spent.
Sure, it’s not the most powerful, doesn’t have a tremendous radius, and the fuse can be a bit on the long side, but its general purpose utility ensures you’re almost always getting good… bang for your buck.
Transfusion can provide you some much-needed supplemental healing.
Transfusion¶
[Takedowns] are a good way of recovering lost Health in battle, but sometimes they’re just not frequent enough to keep us alive, and sure, we could git gud or turn the difficulty down… but we could also just keep the Transfusion Skill handy. Expend two units of Flow to activate this Skill and damage you deal to enemies for a generous period of time will heal you. The healing is minor, at best, and while it won’t allow you to face-tank some of the game’s meaner foes, it can cause you to regain a significant amount of health if you pick your targets well. Even if you only manage to score a bit of health per use, if it allows you to recover a lost Health segment, it was worth your time.
It’s worth noting that you regain Health when you deal damage to just about anything while using Transfusion, even enemy vehicles. Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to ignore enemies and work on shooting up a vehicle - it’s an easier target and has a lot of Health, hence it’ll heal you a good bit, and it’ll explode when you destroy it, perhaps taking out some of the enemies nearby!
(1 of 2) Overscope will give you temporary access to a powerful sniper rifle.
Overscope will give you temporary access to a powerful sniper rifle. (left), Three shots and its gone, but headshots cause enemies to explode! (right)
Overscope¶
While some rifles will allow you to participate in ranged combat, sometimes you just want the comfort of a proper sniper rifle at the press of a button. Equip this Skill and for two Flow you can have it. When you use Overscope you’ll take out a sniper rifle with a powerful scope with which you can pick off enemies from afar. Not only is it a fine long range weapon, but you get three rounds and it deals heavy damage to anything it hits. Kill an enemy with a headshot and they’ll explode for more damage. Sometimes you just want to toss out some frag grenades on a whim, other times you just want to pop somebody’s head at 100 meters. Frag Out will cover the former, Overscope the latter.
Berserker¶
A very fringe skill, it doesn’t really last long enough to make it to the top, but it’s powerful while it lasts. If you find yourself needing to perform melee kills on enemies, either as part of some Challenge or to unlock a weapon’s Signature Ability, Berserker can really make your life a lot easier. Worth mentioning, even if it doesn’t get a permanent spot on our list.
Sometimes you just need to provide the enemy with more targets, and at this Intercession works just fine.
Intercession¶
When you’re catching too much heat, sometimes you just need to shed aggro. Smoke Screen is designed for the same task, but its poor coverage and short duration leaves much to be desired. Intercession, on the other hand, summons two Saints to assist you in combat. They’re reasonably durable and they’ll stick around a long time, and while you can’t control them and you shouldn’t rely on them to actually kill much of anything, they can provide a decent distraction when you need it.
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