Nerdrager - the Nerd Ghoul Build

[oripash]

In a recent discussion on this thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/360671984102776581/

I asked about ideas for what started as a workaround to the VATS bug and became the Jetster - a super-bullet-time build (an excellent one that gives the game a far superior flow to VATS, I highly recommend it), and @e[A]rtist suggested 'the Nerdrager' - a build idea for a character that lives in a perma-79%-irradiated state but with some seriously different superpowers.

It's a delicate build, which synergises the benefits from a bunch of diverse corners of the game into something really unique... and, to my great delight stacks perfectly on top of my high-level jetster build.

Being already in L165 and having solid non-PA DR and health, I'm taking my Jetster straight into it, and figured I'd do a bit of research and ask what other people can do with it....

I won't over-rehash the Jetster build in detail (the link above has it all)... but it involves carrying effectively limitless home-made Jet (and water), maximal sneak, maximal chemist, sandman, ninja, and armor with 1 chameleon, 1 sleek, lots of shadowed, sprinter, biocommmesh etc, coupled with life on berry mentats and a lot of idiot savant, with all the required settlement infrastructure to support.

The second high-level phase of this build's life is ready. The Nerd Ghoul. Alternatively... or.. in homage to another loved S.P.E.C.I.A.L game... this is a Nosferatu :)

What we're doing is:
* Taking maximal advantages of all possible uber-bonus-on-super-low-health and uber-bonus-on-super-high-rads perks and legendary effects all at the same time. This means that while we will have very little health, we will have substantial damage soaking capability with the little we still have. So we ensuring we have enough health to be able to spend the rest of our life between zero a bit over a fifth of our health.

* If manually triggered, Jet will start nearly one real world minute of bullet-time, or near 1.5 real-world minutes with UJ/BJ/PJ. That's if you want all 5 gunner officers dead from facially aquired rapid fire before their bodies are done falling on the ground.

* Being ourselves hit even once will drive us immediately below 20%, triggers nerd rage bullet time for 15 seconds (if not already in-jet), a huge damage bonus, a good DR bonus, and triggers a heal-on-kill (and a kill is sure to follow), so it will re-trigger again when we get hit again.

Avoiding the build-killers:
* Do NOT take Solar Powered L2 - or the sun will heal your rads and this build will be unworkable.

Precautions:
* Ensuring a good DR. Toughness 5, Rooted 2, refractor, well modded armor, etc.
* As and when you have access to it, ballistic weave.
* Nerd rage 3.
* We'll be pretty well padded for ballistic and energy damage. What we should be concerned about is sudden explosions and radiation.

The radiation problem comes in two shapes - a bunch of atom cultists with gamma guns who can rad us down to zero in short order... and the more annoying constant fiddling with radiation levels to keep at 20% + 50HP.

The radiation enemies problem is rare, and mitigated with the Jet/NR bullet-time, four levels of rad resistance. Additional ways to avoid -
* ~200 Rad Resistance more from a carry-around supply of RAD-X, glowing blood packs and vegetable soup
* ~140 Rad Resistance from a secondary leaded BOS combat armor set and vault-suit.
* ... or a hazmat suit (but low DR)
* And if all else fails, Medic 4, a radaway and a stimpack.

The radiation from life in the commonwealth is another issue. You don't want to be re-tweaking rads each time you go for a swim (unavoidable in survival without fast travel) or fall back on dirty water for hydration.

To that effect
* A level in aquaboy/girl. No more rads from swimming.
* 3 levels in lead belly. No more rads from food/drink

Next, sudden single-hit trauma events (read: being blown up) should be avoided. Presumably you already have sneak 5, so mines and traps are a non-issue. The rest... is DR... and some dense armor perhaps, if you can spare the mod slots.

Next, what we want to happen the second damage comes in is we want our little health to heal as rapidly as possible.
We rely on:
* Life giver 3. Health regeneration.
* Nerd Rage 3. Per-kill health regeneration.
* Ghoulish 3. Health regenerates - because, you know, we are irradiated.
* There's an astoundingly awesome magazine that gives 1 health regeneration.
* Curie's companion-perk - when we drop to 10% health, a periodic +100HP kicks in. Despite seeming little, remember our health pool is 20% of the real one, so 100 is A LOT.


Last, the cherries on the cake.
* According to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3x62lt/detailed_legendary_weapon_effects/
Two-shot is no longer your weapon legendary effect of choice.
Bloodied is. (... unless.... you're brave enough to willingly addict yourself to all substances possible and other than jet and mentats be in perpetual withdrawal. Then a junkie weapon would destroy anything else...).
+5% Damage per 5% Health missing. You're missing 80%. A-yep.
And... it should stack with the Nerd Rage 40% damage increase, and preston's 20%-when-outnumbered... or the lone wanderer 25%.
* Armor with the Unyielding legendary effect will permanently buff all stats but endurance by 3.
* Armor with the 'Rad Powered' legendary effect will make you STR scale with HP (read: it'll be a bigger bonus at level 100, bigger still at 150 and bigger still at 250. Someone on a forum reported +8, I'll know more when I find one :)) ).
* The Inquisitor Cowl scales with INT, though I'd sacrifice INT and get +10% to speed with the Captain's Hat - running faster means clipping more enemies in my 3-real-world-minutes-of-idiot-savant-3 and gives far more XP than an INT increase.
* Strong's Companion perk adds 20% Melee Damage. Which is nice for in-Jet-mode close quarters hotkey-switchover if you just so happened to have put 5 perks into melee, 2 perks into nuclear scientist, and stumbled into an irradiated ripper. Or not a nuclear scientist, but just happen to be carrying around a wounding ripper.
* Piezonucleic Lining legendary effect will increase AP refresh substantially due to low health. I find my AP largely irrelevant to this build - with 10 in AGI and END already.. so not the best choice for me.
* For just plain DR, any piece of Bolstering Armor used will offer a healthy DR bonus.

* Hancock's companion perk 'Isodoped' will be adding 20% to your critical bar because you will be permanently over 250 rads - completely unused in this build, but still worth a mention.

Tweaking radiation would be done by an initial dose - go somewhere highly radiated and sit there for a while. Fine-tuning can be done with Refreshing Beverages (-100) and Mutant Hound Chops (-5).

That's everything I was able to come up with.
Any other ideas to tweak this up further?

[Mithrals]

Ive done this build 2 times, one on Very hard and one on Survival. Both times it was severly overkill. Enemies has way too little HP to prove any real challenge. Incredibly fun tho.

I found me playstyle to be very Rambo. Run in, get hit, then everything dies. Completely different from the classical sneak and snipe gameplay that fallout usally caters to.

Youre right on the money, Bloodied is good, Junkies is way better. (Like it always is).
But all in all youll have many good options for weapon affixes. Two-Shot affix is still incredibly strong and will decimate everything once you trigger nerdrage.

I think rad powered only scales up to +4, but dont quote me on that.
Unyielding seems to be the way to go for legendary affix on armor.
I used water to stack irradiation, if youre taking aquaboy you might want to consider starlight drivein as a base of operations so you have easy access to high radiation levels.

Never found any use for medic perks tho, may be personal preference.

If you are already playing with jet you may know theres a bug, if you have a slow time effect and trigger another, they both cancel out. Be vary of this. You cant run into combat with a jet effect and then trigger nerd rage. That also means you cant have "too" much healing so you trigger nerdrage too often.

This build has 2 major weaknesses.

1-The Glow
2-Far Harbour

Everything else is easymode.
Can be done from the very start of the game as soon as you have access to power armor.

Glad you like the build.

As a sidenote this build forces you to constantly tweak your radiation. It is not as easy as to just get irradiated and then you can start questing. youll need to bring your mutant hound chops with you and be prapared to find irradiation sources to fine tune it as you go. (Talking survival here). So be prepared for that.
Also mines, rockets, grenades and poison are things to be vary of.
Drugs are a must use.
Last tip is to use Buffout as a source of instant healing. Hotkey it and dont use it until youre almost dying. The extra health you gain from the drug and the endurance points will be instantly added to your life bar, so its great as an oh ♥♥♥♥ button. Specially if youre taking poison damage. The downside is that it will bring your health levls above your radiation levls (seems a bit buggy), so only use it when you have to since you wont be able to trigger nerdrage for a while after.

[oripash]

Originally posted by eArtist:

Youre right on the money, Bloodied is good, Junkies is way better. (Like it always is).

Obviously depends on what legendary drops you get.
Junkie is a big tradeoff. Alcohol is blocked for me (I stupidly took the anti-alcohol addiction perk), Jet and Mentats I live on so no withdrawal effects to get the 15% damage increase, and psycho gives a bigger damage bonus if eaten than if its withdrawal is used for a perma-15% damage increase on a weapon.
... leaving, according to the wiki here - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Addiction - 8 addiction effects. At 15% damage increase each, that's 120% damage increase, to go with a bizzarre penalty of 4STR, 5PER, 3END, 2INT, 4AGI, 2LCK and subsequent 40 carry weight and 6% XP penalty and a fall from grace when it comes maintaining a sprint for extended periods of time. A single unyielding or rad-resistant piece of armor can cancel out the bulk of this evil though. So far, the only faster-than-sniper-rifle thing I have that's a junkie is an institute rifle. Not worth the bother unless I find something nicer.. a junkie AR or CR at least. Or maybe a Junkie gauss, given that it's (in contrast to what some forums claim) is, in the hands of a carefully crafted uberjunkie, the most powerful 1-shot weapon in the game.

Originally posted by eArtist:

>> Never found any use for medic perks tho, may be personal preference.
...
Last tip is to use Buffout as a source of instant healing. Hotkey it and dont use it until youre almost dying. The extra health you gain from the drug and the endurance points will be instantly added to your life bar, so its great as an oh ♥♥♥♥ button. Specially if youre taking poison damage.

Not just buffout. I actually rely on buffout least, because I keep using it to upgrade Jet.
Instead, I have a carry-around stash of
- bourbon (+2END, and associated immediate health increase)
- food paste (+1END, same)
- mirelurk queen steak (+2END, same)
- Buffjet (+3END, but you cannot apply it if time is already slowed).
- X-Cell
The nice thing is that all the above stack, so if I'm in a real pickle, If I can get the pip-boy up, I can give my health an immediate once-off kick.

Medic is good because it makes stimpacks work faster. Still not as immediate as the above.

Originally posted by eArtist:

Also mines, rockets, grenades and poison are things to be vary of.

Sneak makes you not set off mines... unless of course someone other than you triggers it.
Yep to the rest.

Originally posted by eArtist:

... so only use it when you have to since you wont be able to trigger nerdrage for a while after.

Not a problem at all if rad levels go out of whack, as there's the alternative Jet method which my build already has developed and down pat.

I'm actually thinking of a slight variant - Rather than try to constantly keep it at a bit over 79.9% radiation damage, use a range instead and not bother medicating while in this range.
Radiate yourself down to 75% intead (so all the benefits kick in) and go adventuring, without needing to tweak stuff. Use Jet for combat during this phase. Over time, radiation will approach 80%. As you get close to it (and dip below when hit), Nerd Rage will start triggering. Once you're over 80%, pop a refreshing beverage which will presumably take you back to around 75% and start adventuring again. I need to fiddle with this, but it so seems that virtually no tweaking will be required. Also, with some added rad resistance (RAD-X, glowing blood pack, noodle soup @ chemist 4 + biocommmesh) and/or highly rad-resistant armor, Glow/FH should be easier.

Originally posted by eArtist:

Unyielding seems to be the way to go for legendary affix on armor.

I was thinking Bolstering or Sentinel. If I ever find a sentinel helmet, I'll have a full 7-piece set :)

Current gear plan:
Head: Captain's Hat (+10% speed) (when I get it :)), destroyer's helm + Shadowed until then.
Leg1(light): Destroyer's (+10% speed), shadowed, sleek
Leg2(sturdy): Destroyer's (+10% speed), shadowed, ULW for weight reduction for better sneak.. and because bonuses from 2 sleek pieces don't stack.
Torso: Chameleon (stealth boy effect when standing), shadowed, biocommmesh
Arm1: [undecided - Unyielding/Bolstering/Sentinel/Rad-Powered], Shadowed, stabilized
Arm2: [undecided - Unyielding/Bolstering/Sentinel/Rad-Powered], Shadowed, stabilized
For the arms I have a decent sentinel for each, and a bolstering piece for one. I also have a chameleon but I have a chameleon on my torso and no alternative useful item for torso... so will use chameleon on torso. Two chameleons don't do anything useful.

No unyielding or rad-powered for arms sadly.

I'm still not sure... why unyielding? Turns out it doesn't even boost END. So... for the 9%XP and 30 carry weight?

Also, you (or someone else) mentioned previously a fourth movement speed increasing item in FH... was that a legendary drop or a unique?

[oripash]

Also, re radiation-driven (rad-powered/inquisitor's cowl).
Wiki says the latter is capped at +4, but forums say former tested at higher. I suspect it may have to do with the level (and subsequent HP and total radiation capacity) of the tester. I'll find out for sure when I get to it.

Regardless, if the inquisitor's cowl is capped at +4INT it's inferior to a combination of the captain's hat (+10% movement speed, +2INT) and Liam's Glasses (+2INT, -1CHA).

[Mithrals]

Yeah, found out unyealding is bugged sadly. But i found a mod to fix it so yeah.
Sure, if you dont use mods bolstering may be up your alley, but then you might aswell go full power armor so you can have a jetpack or the chest mod that gives bonuses on low life (cant remember the specifics). I remember i had 2 x01 chest pieces each on its own hotkey to swap between low life bonus and jetpack as i saw fit. Added bonus to have very high rad resist to make my life easier.

Ofcourse movement speed will always be a solid choice. Probably the best choice overall if you dont bugfix unyielding.

I tried your way at first too. To stay at higher rads and let my adventuring take care of the details, but never really got it to work properly since i usally was high on jet already when nerdrage kicked in. So i found it far more efficent to just tank it down to +3/5 hp over the limit.
Since i was always carrying mutant hound chops it wasnt that hard to keep it at 79,9%. Took some getting used to tho and with aquaboy it would have been much harder.
You may have more luck with it tho.

[oripash]

My usual non-PA armor set with nothing on right arm -> 458HP went down to 372 from one shot of a gamma at the floor (only after which NR triggered)
Putting a sentinel piece of armor on that arm with a DR of 11, 458 health went down to 384 health after taking the same hit. Also, the sentinel boost is situational, only when standing.
Putting a bolstering piece of combat armor that gave DR 16(+28 from bolstering at my 80% irradiated health level)=44, 458 health went down to 424 health after the same hit, DR went up another 4 points from bolstering to 48, and it's not situational when perma-irradiated. It's all the time.

So bolstering wins by a mile, and maybe I'll start carrying a 7-piece set of ULW sentinel armor when I find all 7 pieces.

[oripash]

Findings so far:
I don't like radding health down to 20%, endurance-affecting things like exhaustion and over-encumberance keep triggering nerd rage when it isn't needed. Instead, I rad it down to 25%, giving a buffer.what I've found very useful so far:

- life giver 3 (health regen). Super Convenient.
- aqua boy/girl means your radiation levels are stable throughout the commonwealth.
- whatever radiation resistance you can get out of gear makes in-game radiation a non issue. With one chameleon legendary armor piece, you don't need shadowed (they can't see you when you're crouching anyway), and adding bos to all my combat armor got me to over 300 rad resistance before radx, glowing packs and veg soup buffs. I can stroll through the glow and my rad levels barely move.
- raid the blood bank every once in a while to keep a stash of refreshing beverages, and another of X-111. when you start hearing heartbeat while fully healed it means your rads are over 80% and it's time to pop one.
- Curie's companion perk. Is good.
- Beyond one sleek, one biocommmesh and two stabilized, it's polished dense if metal, or leaded BOS if combat.
- this way, you still rely on the superior 1-minute-long jet bullet time which you can extend perpetually by taking more, rather than the shorter 15 second nerd rage ones.
- nerd rage triggering when already on jet doesn't trigger the double-slowdown cancellation bug. It just adds the 40% damage and dr as it should. I had the bug trigger only once when i went outside while on jet and the endurance bump from solar powered triggered nerd rage.. somehow it skipped the game's don't double up bullet time logic then. It's not disruptive to gameplay. The game does a 99% good job of avoiding slow-down double up. (When this does happen you get normal speed and jet doesn't work until nerd rage is over), so real time play for 15 seconds.

Ultimately, the bits that mattered were:
When under 25%
- bolstering armor will add 28dr a piece
- bloodied weapons will do 75% more damage
- unyielding armor will add 3 to all stats except endurance.
- rad powered armor gives a stupid str increase. Note that while you can't sprint overweight, the movement speed armor does affect you, so with all four pieces (destroyer/sprinter legs, marine arm and captains hat) your run +40% is faster than huge-str-boosted not-over encumbered build wearing all rad powered. Best combo being 4 spring items and rad powered for the other three to run around with lots of weight.



When under 20%, 40% more damage, 40% more dr.