So what are your favorite/best perks you've tried and what's the worst?


Solar Powered rank 2 (heals radiation damage) has to be my favorite so far. Mysterious Stranger would be except it's been pretty buggy - could just be buggy with melee...


Worst is Scrapper. I wasted 2 perk points on this. You are better off just selling weapons and using the profits to buy junk that has those parts.

Depends on what we are talking about. Favorite and best are two *really* different things.

DMG perks The straight up damage % perks are almost mandatory if you play on survival. Yet they are also by far the most boring perks imaginable.

Intimidate - Really not useful in the slightest. However its *really* fun to have a pet raider. I am just waiting for a mod that allows me to keep them. (Same goes with the whisperer and etc perks)

Scrounger - again its not an exciting perk. However if you love building towns that perk is a goldmine.

As for worst perks,

Water breathing ones. Not seen anything worth diving for, so unless your rp'ing the creature from the black lagoon.. there is no reason for it.

I'm loving the strong back perk line.

I think one of the worst perks is "Aqua Boy", the ability to breath underwater. It's obviously useful with all the water in the game, but it just feels more like a cheat than a perk. I shouldn't be able to breath under water. Immersion breaking for me. (Then again, I shouldn't be able to swim in combat armor carrying 10 guns with ammo, or plate armor and 12 swords, ect)

I'll always love bloody mess and mysterious stranger <3

Also +1 on Aqua boy as the worst.

I'm going to have to partially disagree about Aquaboy. The underwater breathing isn't useful - huge missed opportunity here since there isn't anything to pick up in the ocean floor.


The advantage though is that it does take rad damage away from water. I feel like it gives me on alot of freedom for traversing the map.


Still haven't taken rank 2 of Aqua Boyer but that could be useful too for stealth characters.

Never found myself swimming too much and maybe that's the issue. I think I've seen people say that there was cut underwater content, so maybe that was the perk's original intent?

But as things stand it would probably be the last perk to be leveled up if I ever managed to reach max level

for me..

Best: Idiot Savant

Worst: last perks in Lockpicking, and Hacking

I used to think Aqua boy/girl was useless until I got it at a later level...was kinda nice to just swim across open water and not worry about rads, or drowning, instead of walking around..basically IMO it's probably not worth it early on, but later it could be if you don't have much else to spent perk points on..

you are so wrong about scrapper 2. not only is the highlight indispensable but the extra rare mats you get from breaking down weapons becomes the biggest source.


def one of the best.

best perks:

-idiot savant because duh


-strong back 3+4 essentially give you inf carry weight.


-partyboy rank 3 allows you to boost luck by over 60 points.


-lone wanderer is essential


-aquaboy +increased swim speed mag +2x sprinting boots = fun


-medic is op as shizz



and now for terrible perks


-ricochet top rank perk that triggers once every 5 hours with max luck.


-cannibal only heals 50 hp max and takes 5 seconds, or 1.2% of my total. stimpac takes 2 seconds heals 100%.


-adamantium skeleton rank 3 doesn't prevent crippled limbs


-fortune finder rank 4 caps explosion is only 20 caps

I love the second rank of chem resistant! Drugs are fun, especially Jet. Love the slow motion.


Also Lone Wander is good, since I don't use companions.


Worse is VANS. Terrible perk

Aquaboy at least provides convenience and some minor tactical advantages, that alone makes it much better than VANS, cannibal, rank 4 in lockpick/hacker, leadbelly along with several others that, at best, do next to nothing.

But my top pick for worst would be rank 5 of big hitter, which provides nothing but a huge nerf to your character.

For best, i'll toss the second rank of sniper into the ring due to it being game breakingly OP if you have half a clue how to use it.

After a while I started to regret heavily investing in medic. If you're going to have 300 stimpaks all the time anyway, what's the point?

Explosives 2. My new guy is doing a Commando run and I have to take all the 'find more ammo' perks I can.

Ghoulish seems like a waste. Radiation will heal your missing health, but simultaneously temporarily reduces your maximum health since you still take Radiation damage. I think you are better off taking the Radiation Resistance perk. The Scrapper perk seems like it would be useful, but from what I have read you only get the uncommon / rare components from scrapping weapons and armor with mods attached. Normal weapons and armor don't yield uncommon / rare components. If true, that is a shame given the amount of normal weapons and armor I have stored in the Sanctuary Workshop. The Lone Wanderer perk would be very useful if you plan on going solo or primarily travelling with Dogmeat, since apparently Dogmeat is not counted as a Companion for that perk. I don't know if that was intentional or an oversight that will be eventually patched.

Honestly, depends on the build. I am doing something of a stealth build (former criminal (start-mid 20s) turned morally ambiguous scavenger (25-50) turned wasteland hero (50 up).) and for me, the best perks are the stealth perks, and the worst perks are the ones that aid survivability outside of endurance +health.

Hmmm... Well, I've never taken any of the perks that I would assume would be bad, so I can't weigh in on those.

The only bad perk I acquired was "killshot," but that is likely to be fixed in the next patch, so here's hoping.

The ones I found myself surprised at how good or useful they were:

Explosives Level 2: My experience is that explosives are virtually useless without this perk. Level 2 probably needs to be near the top of any "best perks" list because of how much of a game-changer it is (especially when you factor in items like Artillery Smoke Grenades or Institute Grenades.)

Lone Wanderer: I liked the roleplaying with companions, and found a lot of it rewarding. Then, after I acquired all their perks during my completionist first playthrough, I left them at home and went adventuring for real with several ranks in Lone Wanderer. Suddenly, all those perks I spent on stealth actually worked!

Ninja: Speaking of stealth, I got a lot use out of this one. I was playing a hybrid melee/sniper ninja (same concept as every other Fallout I've played, but more difficult to make work in this one.) Plenty of opportunities to make use of the damage bonus for firearms, although I didn't discover the joys of the melee bonus until later in my character's development.

But the super-secret grand-daddy absurd game-breaking super-powered perk I took of them all?

Blitz

My gawd the ridiculously hilarious OPness of Blitz. Both levels, of course. With 10x sneak damage from Ninja. And Pickman's Blade (or anything of your choice, really.) If you haven't tried it, you should dedicate at least one playthrough to giving it a shot. It is ridiculously overpowered, but hilarious. Hard to describe if you haven't seen it for yourself, but trust me... you will love it. Probably not as spectacular on a non-stealth character, but still hilariously over-powered from the 5 levels of Melee damage alone.

Worst:

VANS

Lead Belly (does anyone actually eat those old food things?)

Nerd Rage

Cannibal

Ghoulish

Attack Dog (should be a companion perk for Dogmeat, instead of a player perk)

Awareness (altho I could see its use for new players)

Best:

The rest, according to build desire. (altho some could use some re-tuning and rework)

Best

Aqua Girl-thanks to this perk i reach the Atom Cats Garage at level 2 O_O

Rifleman-Search your feelings, you know it to be true

Armorer-The only defense against the world is thorough knowledge of it

Nuclear Physicist-Unfortunately ,duty and fear often follow the same path.We must follow the one,and conquer the other

Science-Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Babe

Worst

Lead Belly

Cannibal

Ghoulish

Vans

Ghoulish is a terrible waste of a perk....same with Robotics Expert.

My best one is Chemist to make drugs last a really long time, and Chem Resistant because you can take all the drugs you want with no addiction.

The rest are okay...I guess Strong Back and Sneak perks are my next favorites.

Just to change things up, I just chose Mysterious Stranger for laughs.

I love Aquaboy. It's not about finding epic new stuff underwater, it's about having the freedom to just jump in without worrying about radiation or drowning. And with the second rank, you can jump in a lake to evade any enemies chasing you. I think.

My most "essential" perks: Scrounger and Life Giver. I take those on pretty much every character I've rolled so far.

My least favorite perks: VANS, by a longshot. Lead Belly and Rad Resistance are also pretty underwhelming, too.

My most favorite: Solar Powered, second rank is great and last rank is amazing. Critical Banker is pretty great, too.

Favourite so far: Idiot Savant.

Worst so far: Mysterious Stranger, it goes off so rarely I forget I have it most of the time, it hasn't gone off for who knows how many hours.

rad resistance is more important than you think. As far as damage goes rad defense is the hardest stat to boost. Id say it's worth more than toughness or reflective.

The "best" perks can vary based on play style. Some of the chem perks can be considered the "best" perks for one character simply because of how powerful chems can make them with no downsides because of said perks. I'd say the only perks that are undeniably the best are the perks that just increase damage with your weapons. Rifleman, Gunslinger, that sort of thing. Those also vary depending on the kind of weapon your character uses. Me personally, the likes of Better Criticals, Critical Banker, Grim Reaper's Sprint, Four Leaf Clover, Gun Fu, and any perk that contributes to more sneak damage is the best for my character.

With that said, I find it easier to name the worst perks because for a good amount of them, they're just flat out useless for any character. Anyway, in no particular order:

1. Awareness. A convenience at best, a pointless convenience at worst.

Basically sums it up:

2. Lead Belly. Why are you eating junk food and drinking water?

3. Almost every Endurance perk. I admit, my personal bias against Endurance is showing here, but the over abundance of stimpaks and radaway found throughout the game world (of every Fallout game) negate a majority of these perks and the attribute itself. Leveling up gives you all of the health you need.

4. V.A.N.S. If you actually need this perk, you have much bigger issues to be concerned about than getting lost in the game.

5. Medic. The over abundance of stimpaks and radaway found throughout the game can negate this. Although this could be of use in Survival. Curious about how effective it is on that difficulty.

6. Scrapper. You shouldn't have too much issues getting the materials you need in the first place so long as you're marking them. Plus, its more weight to lug around if you're picking up every weapon and armor to scrap at a chance of not getting the material you're looking for in the first place.

7. Nerd Rage! Despite fun, you shouldn't be aiming to get your health so low in the first place. Seems far more efficient to just use Jet and go for the chem perks and it comes without the risk with such low health.

8. Fortune Finder. It's never hard to make caps in Fallout.

I love strong back. Mysterious stranger always seems to pop up when I least expect. I like the caravan stands, but cap collector 3 is a little bit of a waste, as money is not an issue once you get a few shops set up.


Night person 1 is great, level 2 is horrible. Just try sneaking in the institute and you'll be blind. Everything gets super washed out, it has to be noon to not go into night vision. Nothing like the kajiit night sight I thought I was going to get.

Bloody mess can be a hassle just trying to find the parts to loot.

This.