How Do Skills Work in Umamusume

In Umamusume: Pretty Derby's Career Mode, raising a successful horse girl (uma) involves a delicate balance of energy management, stat training, and acquiring Skill Points (SP) through races. While collecting SP from races takes time that could be spent on raw stat increases, the impact of skills on race outcomes is undeniable. Skills act as force multipliers, significantly influencing performance. This guide will delve into how skills function, how to acquire them, their different types and levels, and strategic considerations for investing your SP.

Umamusume: How Do Skills Work

Skills in Umamusume: Pretty Derby typically activate by triggering a Wit check when your Umamusume meets specific conditions. For example, a skill like 'Pace Chaser Corners' will initiate a Wit check if your Umamusume is using the Pace Chaser running style and reaches a corner on the track. If the Wit check is successful, the skill's effect will activate. The primary exceptions to this activation rule are passive skills and most unique skills, which generally activate automatically or under specific, guaranteed conditions.

How To Get Skills

Every Umamusume possesses an innate unique skill and a few other normal skills that can be learned with SP. You can unlock more innate skills by increasing your Umamusume’s potential level. The majority of additional skills are unlocked by obtaining skill hints. Once a hint is acquired, the skill becomes learnable using SP.Skill hints can be gained through several methods:

• Support Card "!" events: Training a stat that shows a red "!" icon indicates that a Support Card in your deck will provide a skill hint. The skill will be one listed on that Support Card's skill tab.
• Scenario events: Specific events that occur during the Career Mode scenario can also reward skill hints.
• Legacies' sparks of inspiration (inheritance): When starting a new career, the chosen Legacy Umamusume can pass down skill hints through their "Green Sparks."
• Regular Support Card events: Some Support Card events, accessible via the "Events" tab on a Support Card (look for non-grayed-out "i" icons), can also unlock skills. These often include rare (gold-bordered) skills that might not appear on the Support Card's main skill tab.

Each hint you receive for a specific skill provides a 10% discount on its SP cost. This discount stacks, reaching a 20% discount for two hints and capping at a 40% discount for four or more duplicate hints. This makes collecting multiple hints for desired skills highly efficient.

Types of Skills

Skills in Umamusume: Pretty Derby can be broadly categorized into four types, identifiable by their icon color:

• Standard (Yellow): These skills primarily increase speed and maneuverability during a race.
• Recovery (Blue): These skills replenish stamina or reduce fatigue, crucial for maintaining pace throughout longer races.
• Passive (Green): These skills provide static, passive bonuses to your Umamusume's statsif their specific conditions are met (e.g., a certain stat value, trackcondition). Their icon art often represents the stat they boost.
• Debuff (Red): When activated, these skills apply negative effects or debuffs to other racers, hindering their performance.

There's also a fifth "type" related to Career events: Purple "skills". These appear as temporary debuffs during Career events and can be removed by spending SP. After removal, spending additional SP can transform them into a positive passive (Green) skill, essentially converting a negative into a beneficial effect.

Levels of Skills

Skills also come in different levels, impacting their effectiveness:

• Normal: The most common skill type, Normal skills have four sub-levels indicating their potency:
  • Slightly Increases
  • Moderately Increases
  • Increases
  • Greatly Increases
• Rare: These skills are distinguished by their golden borders. They are among the most powerful skills and are often upgraded versions of "Slightly Increases" Normal skills, offering a stronger effect. Rare skills also have the added value of being able to become "colorlesssparks" that can be passed on to a new trainee through the Legacysystem.
• Unique: These are powerful skills that belong exclusively to a particular Umamusume, identified by their prismatic background. They can be upgraded by increasing the Umamusume’s star level and bymeeting specific fan count thresholds during a career. Unlike otherskills, unique skills typically have a guaranteed activation if theirconditions are met, making them incredibly reliable.

Upgrading Skills

Some skills display a single circle (○) in front of their icon, indicating they can be upgraded after being learned. Their upgraded version will then feature a double-O (◎). Upgrading such skills typically enhances their effect, for example,changing them from "Slightly Increases" or "Moderately Increases" to"Increases."

Here's a breakdown of the typical numerical effects of different skill levels:

Skill Type	Slightly Increases	Moderately Increases	Increases	Greatly Increases
Standard (Yellow)	x0.15 (15%)	x0.25 (25%)	x0.35 (35%)	x0.45 (45%)
Recovery (Blue)	x0.15 (15%)	N/A	x0.55 (55%)	N/A
Passive (Green)	N/A	+40 attribute	+60 attribute	+80 attribute
Debuff (Red)	x0.15 (15%)	x0.2 (20%)	N/A	N/A

Strategic Takeaways for Skill Investment

• Stamina-replenishing (Blue) skills are exceptionally strong. They can dramatically extend your Umamusume's effective stamina. For instance, a skill like 'Swinging Maestro' can replenish a significant portion of stamina during a race. If activated optimally, an Umamusume with 300 Stamina could effectively function as if she had 455 Stamina (300 + 300 * 0.55). This makes themcrucial for longer races.
• Investing SP in higher-level Blue or Yellow skills provides greater value. This is particularly true for stamina-replenishing skills, where thejump from 'Slightly Increases' to 'Increases' (0.15 to 0.55) offers asubstantial boost. While the level gap in standard (Yellow) skills isless pronounced, opting for higher tiers still yields better efficiency.
• Upgrading Green (Passive) skills isn't always worth the SP. While Green skills can be cheap to learn, upgrading one from"Moderately Increases" (+40 attribute) to "Increases" (+60 attribute)provides only a 50% increase in the attribute bonus for a potentiallysimilar SP cost as learning a new, diverse skill. It's often morebeneficial to diversify your skillset with different Green skills rather than investing heavily in upgrading the same one.
• Spending SP on a few lower-level skills can mitigate bad luck. Skill activation relies on Wit checks and meeting specific race conditions. If a single high-cost velocity skill triggers at an inopportune moment(e.g., an 'End Closer' skill activating on the first corner), it can bewasted. Conversely, having two "Slightly Increases" velocity skillsoffers a better chance that at least one will activate when it's mosteffective. This provides a more robust, albeit less individuallypowerful, skillset.
• Investing in expensive Yellow skills that activate in the final stretch is a reliable strategy. An acceleration skill activating in the middle of a crowded race mightbe ineffective. However, skills like 'Beeline Burst' and 'Speed Star',which are designed to activate in the crucial final straight, provideguaranteed, dramatic speed boosts when your Umamusume has ample space to break away from the pack. While expensive, their reliable activation in the decisive moment makes them a solid investment.
• Level up Wit for a skill-heavy build. If your Umamusume heavily relies on skills to compensate for lower base stats, a Wit stat of 400+ is generally recommended to ensure most skills consistently triggerduring races. The inherent randomness (RNG) involved in skill activation is precisely what makes guaranteed-activation unique skills so powerful and reliable, regardless of your Wit stat.

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