Help with a max strength build

[Your English Teacher]

Just looking for some thoughts and opinions. I am level 82 I think. I have gotten this far with two handed swinging melee weapons. I have all of my perks targeted for damage increase on two handed weapons. I'm not tanky at all though.

I have seen there are defensive perks that seem like they would make me more tanky. I feel like I need to invest in those, but that means dropping the damage bonus perks I have invested in.

I have also never used a non-melee weapon. I have recently found that being melee, but not tanky, and unranged, doesn't work well with my friends that want to go out and fight legendary scorchbeasts etc. So I am going to try out a broadsider, and eventually maybe a tesla cannon when I find plans. That might be hard without investing in making those weapons weigh less and their ammo weigh less however, which is more investing for a secondary weapon.

Thanks for any thoughts. I'm not sure what direction to go in right now. :)

[Zylli]

If you want to be tanky and use two-handed weapons to deal maximum damage, there are a couple things to consider.

Do you want to use Power Armor? Compared to regular armor, PA gets 10 strength from equipping it now. Under-armor gives 4 strength, which can't be used in PA. So that's a potential difference of 6 strength. In addition, wearing PA gives you 42% damage reduction on top of the damage resistances being very high.

Do you want to be a ghoul? The perk Radioactive Strength seems to be a multiplicative bonus, making power attacks hit ridiculously hard. In addition, having the extra health bar makes you twice as hard to kill. Using Toxic Goo to heal your glow bar is faster and more effective than stims.

If you do go the ghoul route, going full feral increases your melee damage by 150%, but makes your accuracy so bad you can't hit anything with ranged weapons. You really have to commit to maximizing melee damage, or sacrifice using ranged weapons. I think you're better off focusing on one or the other, and making a new character if you want to try the other gameplay style.

Here is a youtube video of someone who made a 2-handed ghoul build in PA. I would make some changes to it, but it is a good starting point if you need ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQdhs6-byO4

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Your English Teacher:

Just looking for some thoughts and opinions. I am level 82 I think. I have gotten this far with two handed swinging melee weapons. I have all of my perks targeted for damage increase on two handed weapons. I'm not tanky at all though.

I have seen there are defensive perks that seem like they would make me more tanky. I feel like I need to invest in those, but that means dropping the damage bonus perks I have invested in.

I have also never used a non-melee weapon. I have recently found that being melee, but not tanky, and unranged, doesn't work well with my friends that want to go out and fight legendary scorchbeasts etc. So I am going to try out a broadsider, and eventually maybe a tesla cannon when I find plans. That might be hard without investing in making those weapons weigh less and their ammo weigh less however, which is more investing for a secondary weapon.

Thanks for any thoughts. I'm not sure what direction to go in right now. :)

This game is bias against melee/unarmed players. I play melee and have fun, but you are always going to have to watch the non-melee players do way more damage with way less effort in events.

Regarding plans and such, do events to get legendary items, find the legendary exchange vending machines (at every railroad station), and then go to the rusty pick to get new random weapons/armor until you are satisfied.

You can go the plan route, but it'll take a lot longer and many of the plans are random drops or seasonal.

[Mooman]

The first rank of damage increase cards gives 10% bonus damage. Ranks 2 and 3 only give 5% each.

Using each slugger card at rank 1 (slugger, expert, master) will give 30% bonus damage for only 3 points. The other 6 ranks will only give another 30%.

Use those 6 points for blocker and maybe barbarian. These will make you more tanky.

Strength will look something this: 3 points damage cards, 3 points martial artist, 3 points incisor, 3 points blocker, 3 points for QoL perks.

[Your English Teacher]

No plans to ghoul yet. We did go do the mission unlocking it last night.

No power armor plans yet.

That last 3x5 build looks interesting. I'll have to look at what cards I have. That might take some serious planning. Trying to use my next four or five levels to get the broadsider up and running with some mods. I haven't used blocker or inciser yet, but maybe I have copies of them already. Sounds like a plan though. I just found a chainsaw at a new location last night and bought two mods for it. Excited to use it and to inflict bleed and burn. :)