2025 Character Builds - Halp

[Utildayael]

Heyo!

It's been ages since I've played F76 but thinking of getting back into it and making a new character. My old character is a full health commando so figure something a little different but not sure whats good these days. Seems bloodied is still not dead, shocker.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Open to about anything. PA. No PA. Ranged. Melee. Whatever. Looking primarily for solo play other than popping into events.

Saw entire legendary system was overhauled so it's been that long. Oh and that whole ghoul thing.

Cheers

[Zylli]

You will need to narrow things down a little. The below summary can fill you in on the biggest changes, but getting into the details on an exact build will require you to make some decisions.

Bloodied is not dead, but a full-health build with Overkill (the new Furious legendary effect) can compete with it. Bloodied has the advantage of higher stats, but is incompatible with ghouls. Ghouls are for full health builds.

There is a "raid" which is extremely difficult to solo without cheese and/or the best equipment in the game. The 4-star legendary effects from it are powerful.

Melee got a boost with ghouls and the 4-star effect that stacks with Furious. It still is limited due to enemies which stay at range.

On ghouls, you really have to decide between melee or ranged. A melee ghoul has no accuracy, and a ranged ghoul loses out on a huge damage bonus.

I suggest you choose a weapon type, full health/low health, and PA or no PA. If you have questions about any of those choices, ask away.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Utildayael:

Heyo!

It's been ages since I've played F76 but thinking of getting back into it and making a new character. My old character is a full health commando so figure something a little different but not sure whats good these days. Seems bloodied is still not dead, shocker.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Open to about anything. PA. No PA. Ranged. Melee. Whatever. Looking primarily for solo play other than popping into events.

Saw entire legendary system was overhauled so it's been that long. Oh and that whole ghoul thing.

Cheers

Ghouls are immune to rads, so it's opened up a lot of non-PA adventuring options. Like you can just walk around in the nuke blast area without any clothes on at all.

But PA still works just fine, still.

And this game is still very bias in favor of ranged weapons. Not that melee can't work or be fun, but it definitely promotes the idea that ranged weapons are always superior. Which is probably related to how the subscription is mostly in favor of ranged weapons (since you don't need ammo for non-ranged weapons and the sub gives unlimited ammo storage).

[Papa Shekels]

Pistols recently got a big buff and are honestly rather decent now. I have seen a few people running around with the event reward gunther's big iron, and it feels pretty fun to use. More importantly, pistols don't burn your perk slots for damage anymore, so you can specialize in a build more while using them

[Zylli]

Originally posted by Papa Shekels:

Pistols recently got a big buff and are honestly rather decent now. I have seen a few people running around with the event reward gunther's big iron, and it feels pretty fun to use. More importantly, pistols don't burn your perk slots for damage anymore, so you can specialize in a build more while using them

From what I understand, the developers are reviewing other weapons soon. The Black Powder Rifle should be doing the same (if not more) damage as the pistol, but only the pistol got buffed. Expect more underperforming weapon buffs from the developers in upcoming patches.

[Phantom]

unyielding can very, very, VERY easily hit the exp cap right now

should be easy to do with a min/max int build without it too but it'll require food and other buffs

4,000 exp per supermutant is crazy
this weekends supermutant fest daily ops was a scoreboard killer 15 or so to 100 in no time flat

[Utildayael]

Originally posted by Zylli:

There is a "raid" which is extremely difficult to solo without cheese and/or the best equipment in the game. The 4-star legendary effects from it are powerful.

Ya that sort of thing would be the caveat to solo, mostly solo for story content. Still gotta blow off steam in events. :)

Melee got a boost with ghouls and the 4-star effect that stacks with Furious. It still is limited due to enemies which stay at range.

Some things never change. Melee was strong *if* you could get to them.

I suggest you choose a weapon type, full health/low health, and PA or no PA. If you have questions about any of those choices, ask away.

Probably start with human and can always switch later since I'm doing full quest lines anyway. So I'd say full health. PA optional. Ranged weapons ... which tbh I just pretty much described a commando again.

[Utildayael]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

And this game is still very bias in favor of ranged weapons. Not that melee can't work or be fun, but it definitely promotes the idea that ranged weapons are always superior. Which is probably related to how the subscription is mostly in favor of ranged weapons (since you don't need ammo for non-ranged weapons and the sub gives unlimited ammo storage).

My ammo box from being F1 is very very heavy due to this. Was one of the things I never super liked about F76, the storage but is what it is. I'm a hoarder anyway.

I'm glad to hear legendaries changed at least because I was capping out on scrip constantly and thusly my storage and that was even with F1. Oy.

[Zylli]

Here is a solid starting point:
https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=2&cd=0k0000000000&ef=M5MaMf&l=x&s=2f115ac&p=lb2lg1lk3lu3lv3ad3ai1ak1af1ic5l71po3pp3pg3ph3pi3sz2&swp=&ars=&lp=&wp=w50&wm=w17w24&n=

The goal of the build is to deal crits every other shot. There are a few ways to do this. The first is to have 33 Luck. The second is to have 24 Luck plus the Lucky 3-star legendary effect on your weapon. Other ways require 4-star armor effects.

You can get up to 10 Luck from 2-star armor effects. You can also increase your luck by 5 by equipping the Legendary Luck perk card. There are CAMP buff items; one increases luck by 2 for 30 minutes. If you're willing to join casual teams, you can use the Herd Mentality mutation plus Strange In Numbers charisma perk card for 3 to all stats.

Herbivore is mandatory because food buffs for carnivore don't provide crit damage. Blight Soup gives +100% critical damage. With Strange In Numbers, that increases to 125%.

[Utildayael]

Originally posted by Zylli:

The goal of the build is to deal crits every other shot. There are a few ways to do this. The first is to have 33 Luck. The second is to have 24 Luck plus the Lucky 3-star legendary effect on your weapon. Other ways require 4-star armor effects.

Link went to a blank planner. I get the gist tho sans some bits. High luck. High crits. Guessing some form of ranged weapon?

[JeffJaqq]

Originally posted by Utildayael:

Heyo!

It's been ages since I've played F76 but thinking of getting back into it and making a new character. My old character is a full health commando so figure something a little different but not sure whats good these days. Seems bloodied is still not dead, shocker.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Open to about anything. PA. No PA. Ranged. Melee. Whatever. Looking primarily for solo play other than popping into events.

Saw entire legendary system was overhauled so it's been that long. Oh and that whole ghoul thing.

Cheers

Two times that I restarted I went in with an open mind, nothing predetermined to limit my game, and just winged it to see where it lead. VERY FUN! First time at lvl 300 I then started over. Now Im at 216, the game has been very different and is still fun!
My thought was "well at least try it once and see how it goes.."

[Utildayael]

That's pretty much where my full health commando went. I ef'd around with whatever until I got to higher levels and started actually thinking more on optimization.

Just was mostly curious what the current meta is and it seems mostly the same as it was a year+ ago unless you do a ghoul build.

I've done commando. I've done melee. PA. No PA. Kind of hoping for inspiration too.

War never changes. :)

[Zylli]

Originally posted by Utildayael:

Originally posted by Zylli:

The goal of the build is to deal crits every other shot. There are a few ways to do this. The first is to have 33 Luck. The second is to have 24 Luck plus the Lucky 3-star legendary effect on your weapon. Other ways require 4-star armor effects.

Link went to a blank planner. I get the gist tho sans some bits. High luck. High crits. Guessing some form of ranged weapon?

Copy and paste the link text. Steam's forums broke the clickable link.

The handmade rifle is still a popular choice for VATS because of the low AP per shot. The railway rifle got nerfed a bit, but I'm sure it can work if you really want to use it.

The meta hasn't changed much. For anything outside the raid, the developers have made more options work well. Single-shot rifles are useful again. Melee was in a rough spot for a while, but ghouls can do great melee damage. Full health builds are competitive with low health builds in terms of damage now, due to Onslaught mechanics.

[Utildayael]

Ah that worked. Had tried on phone and well, ya.

Appreciate the info. I'm kind of excited to get back into it. I'm way behind on content and its kind of nice to do the story quests once in awhile and pretend I have a new Fallout game since its best we're gonna have for... quite awhile.

[or play F3/NV/4 for the 500th time]

Cheers