Atomic Heartis primarily a shooter, but the game also offers a small selection of powers than can nicely complement your arsenal of guns and axes. While most of these powers are decent enough on their own, they often perform significantly better when combined with each other.
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Since Atomic Heart is a pretty short game and the number of upgrade materials you’ll find while running around Facility 3826 is limited, it’s a good idea to attempt to max out one or two powers instead of taking the jack-of-all-trades approach. Deciding which ones to focus on isn’t all that difficult once you realize that some of these powers are way better than others.
5Polymeric Shield
Atomic Heart encourages players to be offensive during combat, so it’s generally hard to justify filling a slot with defensive ability. Having said that, Polymeric Shield is by no means a useless ability. Indeed, this power can save your life in certain circumstances and is a good power to have at the ready when fightingHOG-7 Hedgieor other aggressive bosses. Just don’t expect to get much use out of it outside of that.
The biggest issue with Polymeric Shield is that it only lasts a few seconds. Sometimes that’s enough to protect you from a big attack; sometimes, it isn’t. You can’t use consumables or other abilities while the shield is up, meaning there’s no combo potential here. Polymeric Shield can be enhanced with some neat tricks like the ability to reflect damage or restore health, but even those upgrades aren’t enough to save it from taking up the bottom spot on this list.
4Polymeric Jet
In stark contrast to the Polymeric Shield, Polymeric Jet was designed with synergy in mind. In fact, it doesn’t do much of anything just by itself. The jet can slow enemy movement and bring down fliers with the proper upgrades, but that’s about it. The true value of Polymeric Jet lies in its ability to combo, not just with other powers but also with certain weapons. Once you lay down a jet of combat polymer, you can ignite, freeze or electrify it, allowing your elemental effects to do damage over time. But bear in mind that the polymer can end up hurting you as well.
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Strangely enough, Polymeric Jet cannot be combined with Energy weapons like the Dominator or the Electro, but it can be combined with ballistic weapons equipped with electric cartridges. This makes the ability a bit less useful than it could have been otherwise. Polymeric Jet is still a decent ability because you can always combine it with Shok, but your mileage will vary depending on the rest of your kit.
3Mass Telekinesis
Mass Telekinesis is arguably the most impressive-looking ability in Atomic Heart. Holding enemies helplessly in the air while you finish them off with your weapons is certainly an empowering feeling. Provided you don’t mind investing in a few perks, you can even end up lifting large enemies into the air, including bosses, albeit only for a very short amount of time. Mass Telekinesis can also be upgraded to restore energy and deal a small amount of damage over time while the effect lasts.
The main drawback of Mass Telekinesis is the cost of its perks. You’ll need to spend over 600 Neuropolymer to unlock the Energy Vampire perk, which means you’ll need to sacrifice a lot of materials just to upgrade a single ability. By comparison, you’re able to completely max out a couple of other upgrade trees for the same amount. Aside from that, though, Mass Telekinesis is very easy to recommend since you can do a lot of fun stuff with it. If you have Neuropolymer to spare, it certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea to have Mass Telekinesis as your primary ability.
2Frostbite
It goes without saying that the ability to temporarily freeze enemies and put them out of commission is very useful indeed. Especially when you consider that Frostbite can be used on enemies of all sizes. Targets take less damage while frozen but more damage once the effect ends, so it all evens out. Even better, the Absolute Zero perk causes frozen targets to take damage-over-time and, and unlike Mass Telekinesis, you don’t have to actively cast the ability to benefit from the effect. Once a target is frozen, it will take continuous damage while you focus on other enemies.
Even though you can use a weapon equipped with an Ice cartridge to achieve a similar effect, Frostbite is far more effective and convenient to use. Frostbite also has some interesting perks, like Careful Disassembly, which increases the loot dropped by frozen enemies. Meanwhile, the Drastic Measure perk allows you to keep firing Cryopolymer even after the usual reserves have been depleted. Granted, it will drain your health instead. Technically, Frostbite is meant to be used primarily against organic enemies, but since you can use it to freeze anything, including bosses, it’s a great ability to have in any situation.
Shok is the first ability you get access to, and it also happens to be the best. While other abilities require a significant investment of Neuropolymer before they can deal any damage, Shok deals damage right off the bat without any upgrades. In fact, it’s the only ability in Atomic Heart dedicated exclusively to dealing damage. It’s also the only ability that can’t be replaced, so you have access to it no matter what. And thanks to its very short cooldown, you’re able to use Shok more often than other abilities, even without any perks.
But if you do want to invest some Neuropolymer into Shok, which you should definitely do, there are some pretty interesting upgrades to choose from. For instance, you can transform a regular bolt of electricity into chain lightning, enabling you to hit multiple enemies at once. Meanwhile, another perk causes repeated attacks from Shok to break enemies into pieces. Having said all that, the main reason Shok is the best ability in Atomic Heart is because of how simple and reliable it is. You don’t even have to aim it to hit enemies because Shok seems to have a mind of its own.
