BREAKDOWN
How Traits, Ultimates, vehicle abilities, and the Agent Skill system fit together.
In HEAT, every loadout starts with an Agent. Each Agent comes with a passive Trait, a signature Ultimate, and up to two vehicles that bring their own abilities into battle. On top of that, the Agent Skill system is what you grow with Agent XP and can configure before each match.
This article walks through what comes with each Agent, what changes with your vehicle, and how Agent Skills fit into your build. For ability detail per Agent and vehicle, head to the hangar or the Game Guide.
An Agent is built from four parts:
Trait and Ultimate live on the Agent. Vehicle abilities live on the vehicle. The same Agent driving a different vehicle keeps the same Trait and Ultimate, but plays with a different set of vehicle abilities.
Traits are passive effects. You never push a button to activate one. They apply automatically when their condition is met.
Some Traits are tied to position. Chopper's Stubborn grants persistent damage mitigation at low HP and stacks extra protection while holding or contesting an objective. The Trait activates on its own, but where you choose to fight changes how often it does.
Other Traits respond to active play. Twister's Daredevil rewards aggressive movement: faster reloading while boosting, drifting that charges boost, and reduced fall damage. Boosting is a manual action, but the Trait's effects apply automatically while you're boosting.
Traits are best understood as conditional passives. They never need a direct input, but you still decide whether and how often they activate.
You can review the full Trait description for any Agent in the hangar, or open the kit info screen during a match (F1 on PC; D-Pad Up plus Y or Triangle on controller).
Each Agent has exactly one Ultimate. It is the signature ability of the kit and is designed to swing a fight.
Unlike a Trait, an Ultimate is manually activated. To make it available, you charge Ultimate Energy. Ultimate Energy also regenerates slowly over time, so your Ultimate will eventually charge on its own. Combat charges it much faster: deal damage, destroy enemy vehicles, contribute to objectives, and more.
When fully charged, the Ultimate is ready to be activated. Use it in a key moment: breaking a defensive line, securing an objective, or covering a teammate's push. As with Traits, full Ultimate detail is available in the hangar and through the kit info screen during a match.
An Agent's vehicles bring their own abilities into the match. These abilities belong to the vehicle, not the Agent.
For example:
The Trait and Ultimate carry over with the Agent. Abilities change with the vehicle.
HSTV-L: Recon Probe and MK19 Auto-Turret
M551A1: Canister Volley and Manual Emergency APS
The Agent Skill system is the customization layer on top of the kit. It lets you upgrade parts of the kit and decide when those upgrades activate during a match.
Playing as an Agent earns Agent XP, which raises your Agent Level. Some level-ups award an Agent Skill Point you can spend on the Agent's Skills; other levels reward in-game currencies in varying amounts.
Agent Skill Points are spent in the hangar to unlock that Agent's Skills. Once spent, they stay invested in that Agent.
Agent Skills are organized into tiers. You start with Tier 1 unlocked and one Agent Skill Point to invest. Higher tiers unlock as the Agent levels, and they generally offer stronger or more specialized options. Higher tiers do not always replace lower tiers; the choice is about fit, not strict upgrades.
You can equip up to four Skills at once. Each equipped Skill goes into one of four slots. Skills come from four categories:
You can equip at most one Skill per category, so a complete loadout has one Trait Skill, one Ability Skill, one Attribute Skill, and one Ultimate Skill. Aside from the slot-tier limit covered below, any Skill can go in any slot.
Equipped Skills do not all activate at once. They activate in battle as you accumulate enough Skill Activation Points to reach their activation cost. You earn Skill Activation Points by playing actively: destroying enemies, capturing objectives, blocking damage, and other game actions.
Each slot caps the tier of Skill it can hold. Slot 1 takes a Tier 1 Skill, Slot 2 takes Tier 1 or Tier 2, Slot 3 goes up to Tier 3, and Slot 4 goes up to Tier 4. Right now, only Tier 1 and Tier 2 Skills are in the game; higher tiers are coming.
Each Skill has its own activation cost:
Your loadout's total activation threshold depends on which Skills you bring and which slots they fill. Four Tier 1 Skills require 1,200 Skill Activation Points in total to fully activate. Equipping Tier 2 Skills in eligible slots raises that total.
You can change your loadout in the hangar between matches by uninstalling and re-installing your Skills.
Skill Activation Points and Ultimate Energy are separate. Both fill through active play, and many of the same actions feed both, but they are not the same meter:
Keep an eye on both during a match.
