Luck/Agility based build is overpowered!.

[Matiati]

I've 200 hours into the game and I've tried a couple of different characters with different perk setups... I've always played the survival difficulty. And I can say that it was very easy.

So far I can say that some perk setups are overwhelmingly overpowered.

The factors that I consider important in a good build is:

1: The rate at witch you can dispatch enemies.
2: Survivability
3: Ability to experience game content (max lockpicking, hacking, charisma checks etc.)

By game content I mean the quest content. At level 46 I've toyed enough with settlement building as well. But really it gets tiresome and uninteresting after some point.

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The best I've tried so far (and I've finished the game at lvl46 with it) is the luck (primary) agility (secondary) perception (tertiary) VATS gunnery/stealth build. My starting SPECIALs are:

S:1
P:5
E:1
C:3
I:4
A:7
L:7

I've started this as a stealth build with sneak, ninja and mister sandman. These are awesome perks but in the later game I've realized that stealth talents are very situational. They are certainly good for mid to long range encounters but arguably weak in close range encounters. So it may actually be better to skip them and just focus on luck perks.

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The best perks to go for this build is:

Rifleman, Action Boy/Girl, Better Criticals, Critical Banker, Scrounger, Lone Wanderer

Rifleman: From my viewpoint is the best weaponry perk. Big weapon damage is what kills in this game due to how Damage Reduction (DR) is handled. Plus the perk adds damage reduction. Combine this with Gauss Rifle and you can 2 shot power armored paladins (even legendaries), 1 shot deathclaws in the belly and oneshot/snipe almost all the remaining targets. Rifleman conserves ammo. And it affects all non-automatic rifles including plasma, laser rifles, sniper rifles and even shotguns. Unique Rifles like the Authority quickly charges up your crit meter for overwhelming crits.

Automatic weapons and handguns are useless. The former wastes too much ammunition and has very weak damage. The latter has low AP costs but valid only at close ranges. Plus the low damage compared to rifles creates issues with damage reduction at late game. Though a Deliverer build may be valid.

Big weapons are useless as well. Fatman is very situational and ammo is hard to find. Missile Launchers have weak damage compared to Gauss Rifle. Throw the minigun to the thrash its damage is non-existant against armored targets. Gattling laser is the only heavy weapon that you can use but you find it at late game.

Gauss Rifle however is simply overpowered.

Action Boy/Girl: Charges up your AP... Awesome for a VAT build.

Better Criticals & Criticial Banker: Bread and butter of the build.

Lone Wanderer: Awesome damage reduction, awesome carry weight and %25 more damage at third level. Works with dogmeat. The only disadvantage is that you may not experience full game content with it as you cannot bring companions with you. Completely removes the need to take endurance perks like toughness or life giver.

I've not tried it (because my original intention was stealth build) but possibly Grim Reaper's Sprint and Four Leaf Clover would be awesome... These may keep you in VATs for the entire game....

The best stat in the game I think is luck because it both increases the rate at which your crit meter charges and almost all perks in the luck tree are awesome...

Over the average perks are:

Ninja, Mr. Sandman

Utility perks are:

Hacking and Locksmith if you are going Lone Wanderer.

Scrounger to find sufficient ammunition.

Gun Nut in the early game.

Skip Armorer. As you'll find plenty of armor mods in late game. And honestly I've not used a single piece of late game armor. Just stack +1 Agi +1 Perception legendary pieces on your armor. You'll find many of them as you kill legendary enemies. When I finished the game I still had the same leather chest piece which I acquired at lvl10 from Diamond City.

This is another bad part of the game... After I've found +1 agi and +1 perception gear there really was no incentive to wear late game armor because no matter how much DR they provide they are inferior to my starting gear due to stat bonusses. So I always had to walk with a custom gear that looks like s..t but works like a charm.

Get Intelligence bobblehead and put some points to Science for upgrading power armors in late game. Very useful in brotherhood encounters.

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The worst I've tried is the strength/endurance based melee tank build. You take tremendous damage in this build as you become an open target and it takes hell a lot time to dispatch multiple enemies as you need to run from one enemy to another. Perhaps useful at the late game but definitely weak at start. And in survival difficulty going melee without a power armor is just suicide even if you've maxed out toughness.

Especially Endurance... I think it is the worst stat in the game. The tree only has life giver and toughness as useful perks but lone wanderer in charisma tree already beats them alone. When I finished the game my endurance was still 1. I was too lazy to raise it to 2 with a bobblehead even.

[Alkei]

Gream reaper's sprint is a must for such build. I'm using it myself and I'm leaving VATS only for diversity when bored.
Also VATS compatible legendaries are imo better then +AGI.

[Bad_Marduk]

or you could do a no vats buind and just murder everything with a wounding auto laser rifle.

[Andarvi]

Hey, I'm having a great time with a Luck/Agility pistolero built. Practically every hit is a critical and my AP pool is always full (between the perks and Kellog's gun)

[ImHelping]

I've been turbo murdering things with 9 Intelligence and 4/5 in most everything else. My only combat perk (unless you count crafting) is rifleman.

I mean yeah, obviously it would have made my life easier if I went onto the crit banker sandman a gogo train or something.

But "I got all of the best perks specifically meant for killing people." shouldn't leave you surprised you are great at killing people. Especially if your mindset is legendary centric.

It's like all the people surprised wearing power armor makes them harder to kill.

[Tearfulstab]

agility/perception/luck, full pistol, 2 rifle for sniper range, sandman,sneak,ninja, lone wanderer,

have armorer, and lockpick but dont really need any "crafting skills as you can remove every mod from weapons and armors, full either leather or combat armor with muffled and shadowed on as many parts as possible, 1 part chameleon to help sneak.

weapons i use the deliverer, and a legendary 44 bull with exploding shots, a 50. sniper with recon to mark baddies, and a backstap modded legendary 25%damage combat knife that kills everything with 1 attack without any melee points

i normaly use dogmeat i like him, or any companion with a full power armor who takes aggro while i backstab and sneak around killing everything.

i never run out of Ap when using pistols, even without action boy.

can clear a room or camp just with my knife in vats if they are within sight, (longer melee perk)

i am having a blast with this so far. lvl 38

[Einherjar]

Going full sneak in cunning shadowed leather armor works fine in melee.. I sneaked the entire Gunner HQ with that Kremlin Tooth on survival

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Einherjar:

Going full sneak in cunning shadowed leather armor works fine in melee.. I sneaked the entire Gunner HQ with that Kremlin Tooth on survival

Well, yes. Things tend to go well when you use what is likely one of the best melee weapons in the game.

Not that I'm dissing you, because **** gunners holed up in vaults and such. overkill them as hard as possible.

The rare occasions a Gunner Commander spawns as a legendary, are the most durable things I ever see in this game outside of behemoths and mirelurks. I shoot a fatman at them, and they survive it. Good thing they are usually armed with basic laser pistols even at level 43, but such a slog.

[Firall]

Using a 10mm pistol at level 44, sneaking and all the relevant perks, I've had no issues killing anything on survival. Buy ammo any time I'm in town, because what the hell else would I use caps for, and wearing The Slver Shroud stuff because I like the look of it.

The only issues I had were when two factions were fighting each other and I couldn't get my "sneak crits" off. Made those fights last longer than normal.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is the game is pretty easy in general. Especially if you sneak.

[siztem]

Originally posted by Raptor:

The best I've tried so far (and I've finished the game at lvl46 with it) is the luck (primary) agility (secondary) perception (tertiary) VATS gunnery/stealth build. My starting SPECIALs are:

S:1
P:5
E:1
C:3
A:7
L:7

You forgot your intelligence

*snort.*

[Matiati]

Originally posted by siztem:

Originally posted by Raptor:

The best I've tried so far (and I've finished the game at lvl46 with it) is the luck (primary) agility (secondary) perception (tertiary) VATS gunnery/stealth build. My starting SPECIALs are:

S:1
P:5
E:1
C:3
A:7
L:7

You forgot your intelligence

*snort.*

Ahh yeah my Intelligence is 4 :D...

You can use the SPECIAL book to make it 5. And 1 more from the bobble head to get science... But science is useful at mid to late game I think.

[Matiati]

Originally posted by I'm Helping!:

Originally posted by Einherjar:

Going full sneak in cunning shadowed leather armor works fine in melee.. I sneaked the entire Gunner HQ with that Kremlin Tooth on survival

Well, yes. Things tend to go well when you use what is likely one of the best melee weapons in the game.

Not that I'm dissing you, because **** gunners holed up in vaults and such. overkill them as hard as possible.

The rare occasions a Gunner Commander spawns as a legendary, are the most durable things I ever see in this game outside of behemoths and mirelurks. I shoot a fatman at them, and they survive it. Good thing they are usually armed with basic laser pistols even at level 43, but such a slog.

Well yeah that is doable...

But how long does it take?

[Alkei]

crit/agi is not the only viable build, but I believe it's the only one that allows to oneshot mirelurk qween on survival.

[TesLaisme]

Yes VATS builds are pretty much very OP in this game. But considering Bethesda has always been favoring console players, this could be easily understandable.
I myself don't build VATS-rely character though. And i'm pretty enjoy it, as non-VATS battle are fun and hard enough to play with.

Originally posted by Raptor:

Especially Endurance... I think it is the worst stat in the game. The tree only has life giver and toughness as useful perks but lone wanderer in charisma tree already beats them alone. When I finished the game my endurance was still 1. I was too lazy to raise it to 2 with a bobblehead even.

Choosing Lone Wanderer means you will not play with alot of companions, leading to missing alot of the game contents that go with them. Do you really want to trade off this with that perk ?

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by I'm Helping!:

The rare occasions a Gunner Commander spawns as a legendary, are the most durable things I ever see in this game outside of behemoths and mirelurks. I shoot a fatman at them, and they survive it. Good thing they are usually armed with basic laser pistols even at level 43, but such a slog.

By some coincidence I fought a legendary gunner commander who was armed with a legendary fatman last night. And he was using it. That was...fun.

[Sugam]

no surprise. the game was allready very easy where I have end and luck at 1. I only put a few points into str to carry more stuff, int and agi. Agi perks got a little out of control I felt. Neak attack with the sludge hammer was silly. I have not met anything I could not one shot if I got in close enough to sneak attack with that. I kind of expected it though. These kind of games, like elder scrolls, have always been way to easy. I really wish they would put some real thought into these games.