Your sims now become even more powerful the more they build skills.
I think everyone can agree that Businesses and Hobbies is pretty light on the word “hobbies” when looking at the features of the pack. However, one of the best inclusions surrounding hobbies is the Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks. These are powerful traits that your sims can gain as they develop their skills or have passed onto them by the elders in their lives.
Guide to The Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks
Gaining Perks
There are a few ways that you can earn The Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks throughout the game.
Earn Them
The perks your sims develop are not fully in the players control but are based on what the sim spends a majority of their time doing. For instance, if a sim spends a majority of their time at the gym, the player could be asked if they want their sim to gain the Second Wind perk. There are a total of eighteen different mastery perks in the game, and a sim is able to have four at a time. You can check what perks your sim has at any time by looking above their list of skills.
Inherit Them
One of the most interesting aspects about Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks is that they’re most often granted to elder sims. This is a minor, and much appreciated, little detail that helps to make elders feel more unique from the other adult age stages.
Elders are also able to pass down their Skill Mastery Perks to other sims. So, if they have a perk that’s a particular favorite of yours, you can have them pass it to any of your sims without needing to earn it every time.
Buy Them
For the less inclined simmer, you’re also able to buy a Mastery Perk Bestower from the Satisfaction Reward Store for 8,000 satisfaction points. This magical drink allows the player to choose any one of the mastery skills to instantly gain for their sim. There is also a Mastery Perk Remover for 100 points that allows you to remove a perk of your choice, so you’re never locked into the perks you choose and can change them whenever.
Cheat Them
Finally, for those who don’t mind cheating in their games, there’s a cheat to add each individual perk to your sim.
Read up on how to cheat Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks onto your sims in our The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies Cheats Guide.
List of Skill Mastery Perks
The Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks and their effects are listed in the screenshot below with more detail to follow.
Active Aura / Creative Aura / Mental Aura
For this group of mastery perks, your sim is able to exude a different type of aura that affects all sims around them. Depending which flavor of this perk that you’re using, it will increase the speed at which other sims develop that type of skill.
To activate this perk, you need to click on your sim and it’s an option under the Mastery Perk bubble. The aura lasts for 4 hours, and you’ll know if it’s still active based on a moodlet that your sim will have. Your sim will also exude an aura visually when the perk is active, but you have the ability to turn off this visual effect in the same place you activate it.
Inspirational Creator / Inspiration Thinker
Each of these perks allow your sims to earn satisfaction points when they’re taking part in activities of different types. Inspiration Thinker only requires your sim to be doing the activity while Inspiration Creator only gives your sims the satisfaction points after they create an excellent item.
Inspiration Creator gives satisfaction points for excellently crafted items from the following skills: Baking, Mixology, DJ Mixing, Flower Arranging, Gourmet Cooking, Guitar, Cooking, Knitting, Painting, Photography, Piano, Pipe Organ, Pottery, Singing, Tattooing, Violin, Writing, Juice Fizzing, Media Production, Creativity, Cross-Stitch, and Imagination.
Inspiration Thinker awards satisfaction points when doing these activities: Archaeology, Fabrication, Fishing, Gardening, Handiness, Herbalism, Logic, Programming, Research & Debate, Robotics, Rocket Science, Veterinarian, Video Gaming, Medium, Mental, and Vampire Lore.
Final Touch / Secret Spice
Final Touch allows your sim to increase the quality of crafted objects by one stage. For instance, you could increase a vase from good quality to excellent quality instantly.
Secret Spice does the same thing, but with any prepared food item.
In the Zone
In the Zone freezes all of your sim’s needs for four hours when they are working on a skill. This effect happens randomly, so it won’t activate every single time your sim starts working on a skill.
Mental Muscles
Mental Muscles is a really interesting perk because it allows your sim to develop muscle definition just by taking part in mental activities. No more gym required for the brainiacs. If the sim goes too long without working on a mental type skill, they’ll start to lose that muscle definition.
Pigeonholed (Active Skills, Creative Skills, Social Skills, or Mental Skills)
These four are the same perk in different flavors. They allow your sim to build skills faster in any that fall under the umbrella term of whichever perk you chose. The caveat is that they will develop any skills outside of that type slower. If you want to specialize your sim in a grouping of skills, this is the perk for you.
Active Skills: Fitness, Horse Riding, Rock Climbing, Skiing, Snowboarding, Wellness, Dancing, Bowling, Motor
Creative Skills: Baking, Mixology, DJ Mixing, Flower Arranging, Gourmet Cooking, Guitar, Cooking, Knitting, Painting, Photography, Piano, Pipe Organ, Pottery, Singing, Tattooing, Violin, Writing, Juice Fizzing, Media Production, Creativity, Cross-Stitch, Imagination
Social Skills: Charisma, Comedy, Mischief, Parenting, Romance, Selvadoradian Culture, Social, Communication
Mental Skills: Archaeology, Fabrication, Fishing, Gardening, Handiness, Herbalism, Logic, Programming, Research & Debate, Robotics, Rocket Science, Veterinarian, Video Gaming, Medium, Mental, and Vampire Lore.
Powerful Performer
Powerful Performer is a wonderful perk for sims who may not be the most naturally social because of being too focused on their skills or goals. With this perk, any time a sim is doing some type of performance, whether it be singing or comedy routines, their audience will build friendship with them. If anyone in the audience is in a negative mood, watching your sim will also fix that and make them happier.
Second Wind
Second Wind activates whenever your sim works out. A little ways into the workout, your sim’s sleep, bathroom, hygiene, and hunger needs will be filled to the max. This is an incredibly powerful perk for anyone that wants a quick way of filling their sim’s needs without spending time on all of the different activities required to do so.
Even better, if your sim has any traits or likes involved with fitness, they’ll also be filling their fun need when exercising. On top of that, if your sim is working out around other sims, they could be filling their social need at the same time. Theoretically, all of your sim’s needs could be filled during a single workout.
Skillful Sleep
Skillful Sleep creates an astral projection of your sim when they are sleeping which will allow them to build skills even in their sleep. This was the perk I was most excited to see when the expansion trailer dropped. I gotta say, I’m pretty disappointed in it.
When your sim is tired and ready for bed, you can choose to take a skillful sleep instead of a normal sleep. A ghost version of your sim will spawn and wander around your house interacting with random skill objects. You don’t have any control over this projection, and you can’t tell them what skills to build. Every in-game half hour or so the projection will move on to a different skill object, so it’s very scattered in its approach to building skill.
The projection also does not focus on skills that your sim is already working towards, it will use whatever objects exist in the house. In the screenshot, my sim’s projection started using the sound production setup, which resides in the house for her husband. She’s never interacted with it herself, but it was the first item her projection started interacting with.
This lack of control over the projection, and how often it changes the skill it’s building really disappoints me and makes me feel it’s not worth the mastery perk slot.
Spacebender
Spacebender is another way for sims to teleport much like Vampires, Spellcasters, Ghosts, and sims with high Wellness skill. Anytime you click somewhere on the ground, your sim will have the option to spacebend there. It’s much faster than regular traversal and looks super cool as well.
Stellar Stamina
Stellar Stamina does two important things. The first is that it slows the rate at which your sim’s exhaustion drops so they won’t need to sleep as often. The second is that it prevents a sim from getting the Dangerously Tired moodlet. This means that your elder sims are protected from dying from exhaustion. Therefore, grandpa won’t keel over after woohooing too many times in a row with this perk.
The Sims 4 Skill Mastery Perks are one of my favorite new additions to the game and I love that elders have the ability to pass them down to other sims. I lovingly accept any and all new elder gameplay that the team provides for us, and this is one of the best in recent years.
I enjoy how much work it takes for a sim to naturally develop mastery perks. I appreciate seeing my sims grow and change throughout their lives, and this is another example of a well-lived life.
