Why is power armor so weak?

[The Last Monke]

They don't protect me from damage, really. How does the armor system work in Fallout 4 anyway?

[Prime_Zero]

Do you not have any armor on the frame? Because even the lowest armor type is pretty OP not counting Raider's. Im always feeling like a tank with it on and though I have fully upgraded my armor. If you have zero upgrades that could be the issue.

[EchoSON]

I never take any damage on my 'very hard' playthrough character.
I wish enemies did any damage to me, but even if im naked they do pretty much nothing.

Power armour is insanely strong

[kdodds]

The lack of protection is less troubling than the lack of durability to me. Seems like PA in FO4 needs more repairing than anything else in prior games.

[EchoSON]

As an example, I walked over a frag mine, I took about 40 damage, maybe less.
Which regenerated because of life giver in a couple of seconds.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by kdodds:

The lack of protection is less troubling than the lack of durability to me. Seems like PA in FO4 needs more repairing than anything else in prior games.

Pretty much this. T60 and X01 armor will prevent you from taking any noticeable damage from most enemies on Very Hard. When fully upgraded and with enough HP between Endurance or simply HP via level gains... and you can survive nukes.

[kdodds]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by kdodds:

The lack of protection is less troubling than the lack of durability to me. Seems like PA in FO4 needs more repairing than anything else in prior games.

Pretty much this. T60 and X01 armor will prevent you from taking any noticeable damage from most enemies on Very Hard. When fully upgraded and with enough HP between Endurance or simply HP via level gains... and you can survive nukes.

Yeah, this is why, even in Survival, I don't take health/heal buff perks. Once you're a god, it's no longer meaningful to be engaged in a "heated" battle, or to use your sneaky sniper stealth skills, or to even plan an attack. You can just bull rush into anything. To each his/her own, but not my idea of fun.

[Tyrant]

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/7584

makes it protect you.. untill it falls apart.

however it goes bothways so the enemy will also have that benefit.

[pike]

it's weak because it's made by stoner hippie's , they sell the good metal to get their chems and weed . you just cant trust a hippie to do good work , all they want is their rock music and free love ,,,, and brownies

[Gavener]

Stock Power Armor at lower level will get wrecked, that Deathclaw in Concord busted me up Larm and Torso was all that was left, then later i get into melee with a dathclaw with no armor just combat and did pretty well, not sure myself, sometimes i will deck out a suit and just walk into a hot zone shotting everything

[danconnors]

Depends on where you go, and what mode you play. You'd be amazed how fast the Mechanists robots fried me in his inner sanctum while I was wearing X-01VI power armor. I was amazed, anyway. I ended up bringing along about 20 jets to give me time to fry the robots before they incinerated me. This was on unmodded survival mode.

[algarrinang2]

the higher your level the weaker it gets vanilla hard at 150+ enemies become bullet sponges while they do more dmg to you. no longer makes sense to wear power armor as seeking cover provides more protection. power armor gets obliterated in a heavy fight and slows you down.

[Iron Knights]

There is a fine point, but doubt it's what the OP is talking about. PA does not STOP damage. It reduces damage instead so if the shooter does only 1hp damage, you take 1hp damage, but if he does 100hp damage, you take 1hp damage (depending on armor), he doesn't see that.

[Skarmo]

Compared to the previous Fallout titles, I like the power armor because it really feels and sounds heavy, like it should. But these are the reasons why I don't really use it (just for the glowing sea because of its radiation protection).

My complaints were its low durability and the missing weight carrying support. I corrected this via small, simple mods you can find on Nexus. Now I am fine with the power armor. Though I don't really use it.

[Anvil_Phoenix]

According to the Wiki, entering a Power Armor will NEGATE all other Armor you're currently wearing underneath.
As far as i understand it, the game will calculate your damage as if you are naked under that thing (only pervs woud do that right?).
If yor PA is junk tier, like Raider Power or basic T45 with no upgrades, you might be better off NOT wearing PA at all and rely on the protection of your actual armor instad.

[Silent_Shadow]

I like using the T-45 as scouting armor on survival because you can repair most of it at the various non-settlement PA jacks using just the steel found laying around (you can carry some circuitry to be able to repair the torso too, but its health is so high compared to the limbs that you really need not bother).