Choosing the right perks in Fallout 4 can significantly impact your gameplay experience. With a vast array of options, it’s crucial to understand which perks are truly beneficial and which might be better skipped. This guide dives deep into a selection of Fallout 4 perks, offering a detailed analysis to help you optimize your character build.
Adamantium Skeleton: The Adamantium Skeleton perk, which reduces limb damage, might seem appealing at first glance. However, in practice, its usefulness is limited. Stimpaks in Fallout 4 are incredibly effective at healing all limbs simultaneously, diminishing the need for damage reduction. This perk leans more towards convenience or role-playing preferences. It can be somewhat more practical if you frequently use explosives, as you might find yourself caught in your own blasts, but even then, it’s not a game-changer.
Cannibal: Similar to Adamantium Skeleton, Cannibal, which allows you to regain health by consuming human corpses, falls into the niche category. While it offers a unique role-playing element, Stimpaks again provide a more efficient and readily available healing method. Unless you’re specifically aiming for a cannibalistic playthrough, the perk’s practical benefits are minimal.
Ghoulish: The concept of healing from radiation damage with the Ghoulish perk sounds intriguing, but its effectiveness is questionable. While you might regenerate health in radioactive environments, you’re still accumulating radiation, which reduces your maximum health pool. This creates a dilemma: use a Stimpak to heal or RadAway to remove radiation. Given the abundance of Stimpaks, Ghoulish becomes less appealing. The third rank, offering a chance to become immune to ghouls, could be situationally helpful due to the prevalence of feral ghouls, but it’s not a top-tier perk overall.
Solar Powered: Solar Powered stands out as a strong perk, particularly for unarmed or melee-focused builds. The Strength boost during the day significantly enhances melee damage, and the radiation healing aspect is a valuable bonus. If you prefer a more aggressive, close-quarters combat style, Solar Powered is highly recommended.
Cap Collector: For most Fallout 4 character builds, Caps (in-game currency) are generally not a major concern. However, there are specific scenarios where Cap Collector, which improves vendor prices, becomes worthwhile. These situations include: frequently purchasing expensive and rare ammunition types like cryo cells, 2mm EC, or plasma cartridges; engaging in extensive crafting and settlement building requiring purchased components; or wanting to acquire unique weapons and armor from vendors, such as Big Boy from Arturo. If none of these apply to you, Cap Collector can be skipped. Among money-making perks, Cap Collector is arguably the most effective, followed by Scrounger and Fortune Finder.
Lady Killer/Black Widow: These perks, offering bonus damage and dialogue options against the opposite gender, are slightly more effective for female characters due to a higher proportion of male enemies and characters in Fallout 4. They are decent perks, but fall into a second-tier category.
Lone Wanderer: If you prefer playing without companions, Lone Wanderer is exceptionally valuable. Currently, Dogmeat, the canine companion, does not negate the perk’s benefits, making it even more attractive. The increased carry weight and damage resistance are substantial advantages for solo players.
Attack Dog: Attack Dog is only justifiable if you are committed to a Lone Wanderer build and consistently use Dogmeat as your companion. Otherwise, its utility is limited.
Animal Friend: Animal Friend, which can pacify certain animals, is quite niche. It only works on “animals” like molerats, dogs, and bears. If you are pursuing a pacification-focused playstyle, prioritizing a high Charisma stat (10) and acquiring Wasteland Whisperer and Intimidation perks first to handle a broader range of enemies is more effective.
Local Leader: Local Leader is essential if you plan to engage with settlement building in Fallout 4. Even the first rank is incredibly useful for crafters, as it allows you to link settlements and share crafting components. If you intend to build extensive settlements or require multiple Power Armor workbenches, Local Leader is a must-have. If settlement building is not your focus, you can skip this perk.
Party Boy/Girl: Party Boy/Girl can be a surprisingly effective perk for melee or unarmed builds. The Strength bonus from alcohol consumption significantly boosts melee damage output. Otherwise, it’s primarily a role-playing perk with limited practical combat benefits.
Inspirational: Inspirational, which enhances companion combat effectiveness, appears underwhelming. Companions in Fallout 4 are generally resilient and don’t suffer permanent death, and managing their inventory is easily done between quests. While not entirely useless, there are more impactful perks to invest in.
Wasteland Whisperer: Wasteland Whisperer, allowing you to pacify wasteland creatures, is a decent perk but pushes you towards a specific “pacify” build. A significant drawback is its level dependency. Success is determined by comparing your level to the enemy’s level, making it unreliable at lower levels (below 20). Activating it mid-combat can also be challenging due to NPC movement. Therefore, do not rely on it as a primary combat replacement. If pacification fails, you will aggro all nearby enemies. To activate, you must aim down your weapon sights. It works on “exotic” non-human enemies like feral ghouls and super mutants.
Intimidation: Intimidation mirrors Wasteland Whisperer but targets human enemies. It shares the same level dependency and activation method.
V.A.N.S. V.A.N.S., which highlights the path to your quest objective in VATS, is similar to the Awareness perk in terms of limited usefulness. While there might be occasional situations where it offers a slightly clearer path than the standard quest marker, its overall impact is minimal. The second rank provides +2 Perception, so if you were planning to increase your Perception by 2 points anyway, taking V.A.N.S. and getting the first rank “for free” could be considered.
Medic: Medic is a fantastic defensive perk. Two ranks are sufficient for most builds, and levels 3 or 4 can make you virtually invincible outside of extreme damage sources like nuclear explosions.
Gun Nut: Gun Nut is essential for any build utilizing non-energy firearms. It enables weapon mod crafting. However, it, along with Science! and Armorer, encourages a “packrat” playstyle, as you’ll need to collect materials to craft mods. Be mindful of inventory management.
Hacker: Hacker, for terminal hacking, is analogous to Locksmith for lockpicking. However, Hacker is arguably less crucial than Locksmith in general gameplay. You can also use Nick Valentine as a companion to bypass some hacking needs.
Scrapper: Scrapper is an okay perk if you are heavily invested in crafting. It’s only moderately useful until rank two. You can acquire most crafting materials through questing by tagging desired components for search. Additionally, weapons and armor, which you scrap for components, are heavier than raw junk, quickly encumbering you and your companion. At max rank, it provides valuable components, but it’s not exceptionally strong until then.
Science!: Science! is vital for crafting builds, particularly for energy weapon modifications. Similar to Gun Nut, it necessitates resource gathering.
Chemist: Chemist is a great perk if your character frequently uses chems. Otherwise, it can be skipped.
Robotics Expert: Robotics Expert, allowing you to hack robots, is hampered by its short range. You need to approach robots stealthily or enter melee range to activate it. It’s not terrible, given the danger of Assaultrons and Sentry Bots, but situational.
Nuclear Physicist: Nuclear Physicist is indispensable for Power Armor builds, extending fusion core duration. Outside of Power Armor builds, it is less relevant. Radiation weapons are uncommon, and many enemies like Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls have radiation resistance or immunity.
Nerd Rage!: Nerd Rage!, which triggers a damage and damage resistance boost at low health (below 20%), is risky. If you’re at 20% health, you are highly vulnerable to being one-shot killed. Using a Stimpak is generally a safer and more reliable approach. It’s a niche perk with questionable practical value compared to proactive health management or using chems like Jet for damage mitigation.
Gunslinger: Gunslinger is the pistol counterpart to Rifleman, enhancing pistol damage. It’s a strong perk for pistol-focused builds.
Commando: Commando is the automatic weapon counterpart to Rifleman, boosting automatic weapon damage. It’s a powerful perk but necessitates Scrounger due to high ammunition consumption.
Sneak: Sneak is a very effective perk, especially when combined with Ninja and Mister Sandman for a stealth-based build. While you can sneak without the perk, investing in all ranks of Sneak significantly improves stealth effectiveness.
Mister Sandman: Mister Sandman synergizes well with suppressed weapons and Sneak builds, providing bonus sneak attack damage with silenced weapons.
Action Boy/Girl: Action Boy/Girl is almost mandatory for VATS-focused builds, as it accelerates Action Point regeneration. It’s also beneficial for any build that frequently utilizes VATS.
Moving Target: Moving Target is situationally useful for unarmed or melee builds that rely on sprinting towards enemies. It can also be beneficial for low-Endurance, non-stealth builds that frequently sprint to evade enemies. It’s a second-tier perk.
Ninja: Ninja is crucial for Sneak builds, providing substantial sneak attack damage multipliers. It’s also a decent damage boost for occasional stealth attacks.
Quick Hands: Quick Hands’ first rank offers a minor but noticeable improvement to weapon reloading speed. It’s particularly helpful if you frequently use the Laser Musket, as it significantly speeds up the charging animation.
Blitz: Blitz is a powerful perk specifically for unarmed and melee VATS builds, enabling long-range melee attacks in VATS. It’s less relevant for other builds.
Gun Fu: Gun Fu is a fun but situational perk. Pistols, with their lower VATS cost, are more likely to trigger the perk’s multi-target bonus than rifles. This encourages pairing it with Gunslinger rather than Rifleman. The situations where you face three or more visible opponents simultaneously are relatively infrequent.
Fortune Finder: Fortune Finder, which increases Cap drops from containers, is inferior to Scrounger. Scrounger provides ammunition, which can be directly used or sold for Caps. Cap Collector is a more efficient perk for maximizing Cap gains. Fortune Finder typically yields around 5-15 Caps per container, resulting in approximately 200-300 Caps per explored building, which is not particularly impressive.
