I see a lot of contradiction when people discuss the best perks

[genesiset]

I tried to find what the best perks in the game are, but everything seems contradictory.

Half the people highly recommend lockpicking, scrapping, and hacking, while the other half claims these are not necessary by any means, and some even call them weak or useless.

Similar question for Bloody Mess. I thought it would be fun to make enemies explode into pieces, and some people really love it, but others say it does more harm than good. Huh?

The same goes for Aquaboy/Aquagirl.
I guess to each their own, but what should a clueless new player pick? It's frustrating that I can't reset the perks if I make the wrong choices.

[DANEDANGER]

Game has no level cap, you can simply play on and end up with all perks. Trough that time and proces you wil notice what perk you like and dislike. Simply remember them and make a second char with the perks you most like and leave out those you do not want at all

For me personally the perks that allow me to build my clothing weaponry and suits are a must have Scrapper is to compliment these skills, same goes for the hacker and lockpick skills, you cant play the game propper without the ability to pul open ever box you find. You never know whats in there, 90% its bad to mediocre stuff but every now and then.... its something powerfull you dont want to mis out on.

There are a lot of perks and these can allow you to build a specific char with certain skills to make the game more entertaining as you then put up some limits on your build.

Game can be as fun or difficult as you choose it to be, all you need is time to find out how to build that game you want

*Edit* You may just want to test things at this point. Its actually easy todo without ruining your chance for achievements. Once you have more then 1 char in the load save screen wil be a extra button to choose between chars. This avoids you scrolling to hunderds of saves in a long list. You can make a new char and use this command in the console CGF Game. AddPerkPoints 50 With that command you can fill up the entire perks list and test things out before dedicating to a char

[wtiger27]

Bloody Mess is a good perk for the extra damage. Once I get the 15% buff to damage, I stop. No interest in the last rank.

The Best Perks depends on how you want to play and your play style.

[socialmediaaddress3]

Different people have different playstyles.
They will gravitate to perks that support this.

I like a good shootout but without at least one level of lockpick one level of hacking one level of caps collector you are locked out of some content.
At higher levels even 2 of each is advisable or you may not get into a certain base, unless u have a companion like Nick who will hack or lock pick for you (i prefer to play without companion)

As for combat related perks I usually wind out rifleman and "commado" and "steady Aim" (as soon as I have the STR for it)

Its best not to spread your perk points for combat into all 4 weapons categories.
Pick two and build them up,
Heavy weapons is not as valuable in this game as in other fallouts so I usually leave that one alone and save the perk points.
Commando is good since the game favors auto weapons, but ammo is not plentiful enough to use them all the time, so i find rifleman useful.

I never put anything into Melee or Iron fist even though those are actually powerful playstyles, because in a world with firearms thats just not plausible so I ignore them.

Cheers.
EDIT: I forgot about Aquaboy since I always run waternorads.esp . but its a powerful early game perk.

[Lucus]

lockpicking/hacking are optional but having them is convenient. every terminal/lock relevant to quests has ether a password note or key somewhere for the player to find. alternatively ordinary terminals/locks at expert or lower have a really high chance of being able to be opened by companions that have hacking or lockpicking skills.

scrapping perk lets you scrap weapons/armor and get both rare components and more common components which can make it less tedious to gather resources.

bloody mess boosts damage but the fact it makes corpses explode can complicate looting if you kill a few npcs and they all explode with various meat chunks all over the place.

Aquaboy/Aquagirl can be convenient at least the first rank. the only sources of radiation that will hurt you with aquaboy/aquagirl is from incidental sources (radioactive barrels) consuming irradiated food, radiation weapons or the glowing sea. some may claim it's useless because you can take ghoulish.

but how much use of the last rank of ghoulish will you actually get use out of? the last rank requires level 50 to heal radiation damage. personally aquaboy/aquagirl + solar powered rank 2 will let you ignore almost all trival radiation sources while more serious ones can be cured with radaway or with a decon arch.

personally there are no useless perks. it's down to what exactly you want and whether it's worth the point investment to you.

i.e lead belly reduces/eliminates rads from irradiated food but requires 3 points to eliminate rads entirely is not worth it to me, personally i just sell irradiated food or use PA's rad scrubbers.

[Goblin King Jareth]

Originally posted by Lucus:

lockpicking/hacking are optional but having them is convenient. every terminal/lock relevant to quests has ether a password note or key somewhere for the player to find. alternatively ordinary terminals/locks at expert or lower have a really high chance of being able to be opened by companions that have hacking or lockpicking skills.

scrapping perk lets you scrap weapons/armor and get both rare components and more common components which can make it less tedious to gather resources.

bloody mess boosts damage but the fact it makes corpses explode can complicate looting if you kill a few npcs and they all explode with various meat chunks all over the place.

Aquaboy/Aquagirl can be convenient at least the first rank. the only sources of radiation that will hurt you with aquaboy/aquagirl is from incidental sources (radioactive barrels) consuming irradiated food, radiation weapons or the glowing sea. some may claim it's useless because you can take ghoulish.

but how much use of the last rank of ghoulish will you actually get use out of? the last rank requires level 50 to heal radiation damage. personally aquaboy/aquagirl + solar powered rank 2 will let you ignore almost all trival radiation sources while more serious ones can be cured with radaway or with a decon arch.

personally there are no useless perks. it's down to what exactly you want and whether it's worth the point investment to you.

i.e lead belly reduces/eliminates rads from irradiated food but requires 3 points to eliminate rads entirely is not worth it to me, personally i just sell irradiated food or use PA's rad scrubbers.

You can live on stims and water alone in very hard, but you can't in Survival so lead belly starts to look better. I'm running a Kenshiro play with str/end and it's a rough start with not eating so I'm probably going to get it, even though I never touch food on Very Hard Tony Stark lol. Even if I wasn't intending to skip PA I don't think I could survive to get the PA built to the rad scrub level in the first place on Survival, or it'd be so tedious I wouldn't care anymore.

[TemplarGR]

There are no best perks, only playstyles. The only guideline is to pick at least one of the 4 basic damage perks (iron fist, big leagues, gunslinger, rifleman) and max it out ASAP. Other than that, just pick what you fancy.

[Empukris]

Similar like combat skill you need to have either maxed lockpick or hacking. Many quest dont really required anything higher than advance but that only if you know how to unlock and getting the password.

1 combat skill related is a must otherwise you dont deal enough damage, unless you play on lower difficulty.

[clixor]

Originally posted by Empukris:

Similar like combat skill you need to have either maxed lockpick or hacking. Many quest dont really required anything higher than advance but that only if you know how to unlock and getting the password.

1 combat skill related is a must otherwise you dont deal enough damage, unless you play on lower difficulty.

Quests are designed so that regardless of lockpick of hacking there is a way around it. In some cases it's just more convenient. Personally i did prioritize lockpicking because it's just hard to remember all the master/expert locks out there (although there probably is a list somewhere), now when i clear a location, including safes, i know i'm done there.

[Empukris]

Originally posted by clixor:

Originally posted by Empukris:

Similar like combat skill you need to have either maxed lockpick or hacking. Many quest dont really required anything higher than advance but that only if you know how to unlock and getting the password.

1 combat skill related is a must otherwise you dont deal enough damage, unless you play on lower difficulty.

Quests are designed so that regardless of lockpick of hacking there is a way around it. In some cases it's just more convenient. Personally i did prioritize lockpicking because it's just hard to remember all the master/expert locks out there (although there probably is a list somewhere), now when i clear a location, including safes, i know i'm done there.

Some key or password is not located in an obvious location. You will be wasting time exploring every single corner and reading every single terminals and notes. You can bring companion to complement skill that you are lacking but most people like you said prioritise lockpick. Mainly because some items behind lockdoor or storage give you good loots. From power armor to unique like cryolator. I still suggest you pick 1 skill. It is only 3 perks anyway. This is not las vegas, eventually you will maxed out your build around level 50 or even earlier anyway. No reason to make your own life so difficult.

[dtt.scanner]

The reason people say different things are important is that there is more than one way to accomplish nearly every goal. The game promotes completely different play styles. I tend to mod my own gear, so I take armorer and gun nut, but other people just strip the mods they want off of other weapons and armor, and don't use the perks there at all. Scrapping is only important if you build colonies and mod your own gear. If you don't care about colonies, and just explore and strip off mods, then you never really need scrap for anything, and can surely go the entire game without it. Some people are compulsive scavengers, while others simply want the FPS adventure. Some people want to snipe and ninja, while others want to brawl. All of these require focus in different areas. The only perk that I would really recommend everyone take regardless of their build is Scrounger (luck 2, I think), which gives you extra ammo in containers... which can also give you extra fusion cores. Even that isn't really needed if you play a brawler... but selling the extra ammo is probably more lucrative than finding extra caps with caps collector.

For point distribution I would start with INT 10 and put the rest where you think you need it for your specific playstyle. That gives you around a 30% experience boost for the whole game, and fast leveling, which lets you increase your other stats quickly to where you want them. (33% exp boost if you put the SPECIAL book on INT as well). You can then add 4 more points with power armor mods (since you already have science unlocked... easy to perk when you get the level) and white paint with the new X-02 armor, for a pretty easy 45% experience bonus by the time you hit level 20. Then you have the other exp bonuses (well rested, lover's comfort, squirrel soup, Piper, etc) that will make the levels fly by with over 50% bonus exp.

Hacking and Lockpicking just gets you extra loot, and sometimes rare items... but not compulsory for completing quests. Like others have said, you can bypass that with the right companions as well (Cait is good for lockpicking, and somehow Dogmeat can even bypass some locks to fetch you things. I'm not sure who does the hacking... maybe Deacon?) I prefer lone wandering once the companion perks are unlocked, so I like to be able to do things myself. I do like Dogmeat though. I wish Lone Wanderer still worked with Dogmeat as a companion.

[Bobby Digital™]

you can reset them via the console

in the end it's not that big of a deal... just do enough damage and have enough defense or health to not get wrekt all the time. besides that, get perks that complement your play style or build you are using, followed by quality of life perks that would make things you do often less tedious.

[NecroMaster]

The most fun way to play this game is to invent characters and give them
Perks that suit their personality.

In my opinion no perks are more or less fun than any other.

Yeah some perks can be more useful than others but being meta isn’t always being fun.

[talemore]

Agility 7 is the most useful with Ninja.

Endurance 5 Aquaboy/girl is worth having.

If you played fallout New Vegas the key cap where you can go is endurance. Diving into a radiated vault demand health to survive radiation and it works the same way here. Endurance has little impact in combat.

Charisma is 8, 10 or 1

Strength 2 doesn't matter if melee build or not. Agility and Ninja is what melee builds need. The dog help in melee.

Intelligence whatever you want. Can't say I missing anything from the tree.

Perception is for weapon range but you will be able to shot beyond their line of sight regardless, it has higher impact on short range weapons as example shotgun.

[Neo]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

Bloody Mess is a good perk for the extra damage. Once I get the 15% buff to damage, I stop. No interest in the last rank.

The Best Perks depends on how you want to play and your play style.

Correct, bloody mess is a straight up damage boost for any build. I also stop before the last perk in that too.

[Makeithappen]

Well it really comes down to what you want in your game. It sounds like you enjoy bloody mess as a perk. I say used it.

It sounds like you on conflicted on what is useful and you want to have useful perks but are unsure what to pick. I say pick whatever you think is useful. Make up your own mind about it and then take action and start testing them out for yourself.

I could give you a good rundown of perks that are more practical than others. Ones that are more useful to you in the early game. Perks that compliment a build you are going for, etc. But I think it is best for you to discover for yourself what you want. Don't rely on the comments of others. No matter how insane or helpful they are. Figure it out for yourself.

Making your own builds has its own reward. Later on when you think you have a handle on the game you are probably okay to start making comparisons and improving your build based upon the experience of others.

But if you rely entirely on someone elses' experience in a game, you suck the joy out of it. You are super efficient and OP in game and have no idea why. In fact the game isn't challenging you in any way and you plateau so fast you'll be looking for something new very soon.