Firearms---> Your skill and damage dealing ability with weapons. Stamina----> your survivability and ability to absorb damage (along with Armor stat on gear). Electronics-----> power/ damage dealing ability of your abilities and devices, as well as how long their cooldowns are. Unless you are a very advanced player...or one who is running with a set fireteam where there are very clearly defined roles...I would go with a "balanced" build. So if you're want to do your damage mainly with weapons then I'd invest mainly in Firearms and Stamina. If you want to do your damage mainly with devices/abilities....or you want to act as a team healer...then I'd invest mainly in Stamina and Electronics. But this is mainly end-game advice. As a Level 8 you're probably doing a lot of solo play, and you need to focus on survivability. So your instinct to invest in Stamina is right....and I'd invest in Firearms as well for right now. If you decide you want to run a "skill build" once you're level 30 and into the end-game, you can still do that. But without a DPS (Firearms/Stamina) build...you're going to find making it through the campaign and side missions tediously difficult. Let your desired play style guide your builds. When I play I typically either play as a DPS player or a DPS/support player. As a pure DPS player running story missions...I usually run a Classified Striker Gear set. With an AR(H&K G36) and an LMG or SMG. SMG for close, indoor fighting. LMG for outdoor fighting at range. I build mainly around Firearms and Stamina. As a support player I play what I call an LMG/Support build. I run a Reclaimer gear set which allows me to combine all the powers of the various healing stations into one box...then I use an LMG for long range crowd control. The box is helpful because it acts as a Healer for the fire team....plus you tend to draw a lot of agro from snipers and tanks....so it allows you to withstand all that directed fire. When running this build I try to invest equally in Firearms, Stamina and Electronics. I rarely play PVP....but when I do I'm usually just running bounties in the Dark Zone to earn gear caches....and get forced into it by another player going Rogue. So I'm running a survivability build. The goal is allow me to take up what are often multiple elite and veteran AI enemies at the same time without support.....or if another player goes Rogue to be able to survive long enough to either get away.....or to prolong the fight so that other players and AI can make his life miserable. So I usually run the Defense gear set which allows you to use a riot shield but use an SMG rather than just a sidearm. Then I carry RPK-74 (as opposed to an M-60) LMG as my secondary weapon....and I invest HEAVILY in Stamina. This makes surviving in PVE in the DZ easier...and makes me a very unappetizing target for gankers in the DZ. But this is just scratching the surface of the number of builds that are available in The Division. So I recommend that you fire YouTube and watch some of the videos that get into the theorycrafting part of the game. Because--as an RPG---this game is MUCH deeper and offers TONS more "build-variety" than Destiny does.