Best Payday 3 stealth build: Weapons, skills & equipment

A good stealth build is ideal for Payday 3 players who prefer to take the quiet approach to heists, so here are the ideal skills to acquire for the best stealth build in the game.

The flexibility that Payday 3 allows players is one of the most beloved aspects of the game and wider franchise. You can either go in all guns blazing for an action-packed experience or take the silent approach and get the goods without alerting a single person.

Succeeding stealthily will largely depend on your build however, and the more stealth-based skills you have, the higher your chances of clearing the mission without being noticed will be.

Best Payday 3 stealth weapons

In terms of weapons and equipment, you’ll likely want to bring something light to help you move around quickly. That means taking the Standard Lining vest (unlocks at level 18) which reduces your armor but increases mobility. 

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For weapons, concealment isn’t a factor in this game like it was in Payday 2 so it doesn’t necessarily matter what we take as long as it’s suppressed. We’d suggest taking the starter weapons CAR-4 and Signature 40 pistol. Be sure to also unlock and attach silencers to them so you can shoot at things without alerting the entire map. Don’t bother with selecting an Overkill Weapon, these aren’t useful in stealth.

For your other slots, you’ll want to bring an Ammo Bag in your deployable slot and a Throwing Knife (unlocks at level 16) in your throwable.

In your tool slot, most of these items are very useful for your stealth builds. If you’re doing most of the objectives, we’d recommend taking an ECM Jammer (unlocks at level 20) which slows down cameras and radios for when you need to move about quickly. If you’re staying back and performing reconnaissance, however, then a MicroCam or Motion Sensor (unlocks at level 30) may be preferable.

Best Payday 3 stealth skills

Now we can move on to skills. In total, you’ll get 28 skill points once you hit the level cap.

If you’re looking for the best all-around stealth build that will help you pull off your big score, here are the skills we’d recommend investing your points in:

• Infiltrator tree
  • Infiltrator (basic): Whenever you successfully pick a lock, kill an enemy with a throwing knife, or pick up loose cash, gain or refresh RUSH.
• Manipulator tree
  • Manipulator (basic): You tie up and trade hostages 50% faster.
• Grifter tree
  • Grifter (basic): As long as you are masked off, if you are within 1 meter of a civilian or employee, gain RUSH.
  • Walk The Walk: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, cameras can’t detect you trespassing in private areas. (They will still detect you performing an illegal action.)
  • Social Engineering: As long as you’re unmasked and have RUSH, employees will ignore you performing illegal actions.
  • Slippery: After getting cuffed by a guard, you can break free by lockpicking the cuffs.
• Hacker tree
  • Hacker (basic): You can hack cameras to gain access to the area’s CCTV system. This functions as though you had accessed the heist’s security room. You gain one Runtime.
  • Hacker (aced): You can overload a device that already has an active Runtime. This will cause an electrical explosion that will stun anyone within range and destroy the device. You gain one additional Runtime.
  • Secure Loop: You can use one Runtime to make the security camera you’re controlling loop its footage. Cameras looping their footage cannot detect you or anything out of the ordinary. If the camera is destroyed, you regain your Runtime use. If you apply a new Runtime when you’re at max Runtimes, your oldest active one is removed.
  • Appliance Breach: You can activate lures from a distance, as long as you have a clear line of sight.
  • Routed Ping: You can spend a Runtime to make the hacked camera automatically mark any guards or law enforcement within its range. Targets stay marked for 5 seconds after leaving the camera’s view and do not count towards your maximum number of marked targets
  • Glitch Protocol: You can hack a guard’s radio to cause a disturbance, stopping and distracting them, pausing any action they are doing. You must have a line of sight to the guard to hack them. The guard is distracted for 5 seconds, after which they will go back to their previous action. If the guard was escorting a player, the guard will go back to patrolling. If the guard was about to detain a player, the guard will go into Search mode instead. Using this ability has a cooldown of 60 seconds.
  • Signal Catch: You can answer radios remotely if you have a line of sight to the guard’s body.
• Strategist tree
  • Strategist (Basic): You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer. 
  • Strategist (Aced): You can mark 1 additional target. Your marks last 20% longer.
• CQC Specialist tree
  • CQC Specialist (Basic): Whenever you grab a human shield, gain or refresh RUSH.
  • Groundskeeper: You perform takedowns 60% faster.
  • Cover-Up: Taking down a guard will automatically answer their radio if it wasn’t already answered.
• Transporter tree
  • Catapult: You throw bags 30% farther.
• Scrambler tree
  • Scrambler (basic): You can hack drones by spending one runtime. Stealth drones stop moving and are unable to detect you or your crewmates for 7 seconds, after which the stealth drone will continue working as normal and your runtime will be refunded to you. Combat drones will become indestructible for 6 seconds and fight on your side, after which they will self-destruct and your runtime will be refunded to you. You gain one runtime.
  • Extra Pockets: If you have a tool in your loadout, you start the heist with 50% more tools of that type, rounded up (minimum one additional tool).
  • Cam Distortion: Cameras within 0.5 meter of ECM Jammers you own are disabled. This effect starts when the ECM Jammer is placed and lasts until the ECM Jammer is removed or used up. Disabled cameras can’t be hacked and all active runtimes on them are refunded.
  • Full Recall: You can interact with placed gadgets you own to put them back in your inventory. Consumable gadgets can only be picked back up if they haven’t been used.
• Assassin tree
  • Assassin (basic): Whenever you kill an enemy with a suppressed weapon, gain RUSH.
  • Assassin (aced): Whenever you manually mark a guard or law enforcement, refresh RUSH.
  • Skimming the Ground: As long as you are wielding a suppressed weapon, your crouching movement speed is increased by 20%. This can’t let you move faster than your current armor speed penalty allows.

All of the above skills cost 26 points to obtain, leaving you with two more spare. You can either put these points into a bonus like Speed Aim from the Sharpshooter tree, which gives you increased speed with ADS.

On the other hand, there are two additional skills you may want to pick up depending on your playstyle, both found in the CQC Specialist deck: Savage Takedown, which intimidates any civilian within 5 meters of a takedown. You may only want to take this skill if you’re also doing crowd control, but if you’re avoiding alerting as many people as possible this isn’t worth taking.

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The other optional skill is Pressure Points, where corpses need to be examined by civilians and guards before they realize they are dead. Taking this skill will add a few seconds before someone tries calling the cops. However, if you’re already hiding the bodies to begin with this might become a wasted skill point.

Once you’re fully decked out with the best build, you’ll want to actually do some stealth heists so it’s a good idea to refer to our hub for completing all Payday 3 heists in stealth.

Be sure to also check out our list of the best heists to make some fast cash, and also details on how to play solo if you don’t want to play with other people.