» Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:48 pm Meet Sally
http://i.imgur.com/iBI14B5.png
Backstory:
Sally was once a loving wife and mother, before the bombs hit and her and her family were shoved inside Vault 111. She was no perfect housewife however; she was eccentric, quick tempered, witty, and took a direct approach to most issues. She loved to drink to relieve day to day stress and numb herself from issues she didn't want to face.
After witnessing her husband being killed and her child being stolen she was absolutely distraught heading into the destroyed Commonwealth. She quickly vowed to get revenge on the mysterious man who killed her husband and the shadowy force who stole her child. But, to no avail. She had no resources; she was in a very different time. She turned to alcohol and chems whenever she could get her hands on them. After a while she realized she had a knack for melee combat, and the added confidence and energy derived from the use of substances like alcohol and Psycho only added to her capabilities. She found pleasure in destroying the creatures of the wasteland that got in her way... or in some cases, the people.
Roleplay/Factions
Sally told the Minutemen to take a hike - she has her own problems, she doesn't give handouts - and realized that to get by in the wastes her best shot is to look out for herself first, last and everywhere in between. She turned to mercenary work, taking jobs from any barman, mayor or farmer she came across, no matter how dangerous or wacky... she has nothing to lose and little to gain, so why not? She can use the money to get more drugs and booze anyway.
Eventually, after gaining a great deal of combat experience and a formidable set of reliable equipment, she stumbled upon a transmission... from a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin. She gives Paladin Dance the assistance he was looking for in return for well-earned compensation. What she wasn't expecting was to be offered a place within the Brotherhood itself. She was hesitant at first; Sally is not one for taking orders, she's extremely independent and relies on nobody else. But with the promise of Power Armor she couldn't resist, so she enrolled as an Initiate and began taking jobs from Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys. She figures she can work her way up to getting some power armor and bail when it suits her, and the caps involved weren't at all shabby either.
As someone who is naturally curious, Sally tends to enter any building, settlement or subway station she sees to size up the possible employment opportunities or goodies, not particularly caring where she's going or where she'll end up. This leads her to bumping into Nick Valentine, a Synth detective who had been caught up with the Triggermen. After saving his ass they got talking, and Nick insisted on helping her find the scumbag who offed her husband. Finding out it is Kellogg, Sally relentlessly hunted him and eventually got her wish, splattering him across a wall... but before doing so he told her something very important. Her son, Shaun, is alive and well, and he's with the Institute.
Sally is even more furious than she was before, and with a new single minded determination she opted to do two things; find her son, and obliterate the Institute bastards who took him. After stepping outside of Fort Hagen, Sally is met with The Pryden... and soon comes to realize the Brotherhood is mustering all of its technology and military expertise into waging full-scale war on The Institute. A perfect opportunity to seize her new objective, come quite literally out of nowhere.
Level 50 S.P.E.C.I.A.L Stats
These are Sally's stats without any external aid, e.g chems or armor. It is including what Bobbleheads I have gathered, the Special book and any skill points I've allocated.
Strength - 10
Perception - 2
Endurance - 10
Charisma - 7
Intelligence - 1
Agility - 1
Luck - 5
Perks
Sally is going for maximum Strength and maximum Endurance, and general damage soak, within the parameters of her Special stats, with some extremely useful utility from Charisma and Idiot Savant from Luck to beef up her XP gains to absurd levels.
Strength
Big Leagues 5/5 - No brainer.
Armorer 4/4 - No brainer.
Blacksmith 3/3 - No brainer.
Rooted 2/3 - Great for taking out melee enemies. Last point isn't really worth it.
Pain Train 3/3 - Yes, Sally wears power armor for those rare occasions when taking on a Deathclaw or Legendary Assaultron is too risky otherwise (it usually isn't). it's also just... fun sending people flying, and Sally is all about fun.
Endurance
Toughness 4/5 - No reason for dropping the extra other than it's hard to squeeze in all the perks I want. Will pick it up later.
Life Giver 3/3 - The healing factor and added health is useful for survivability and also to save Stimpaks for when she really needs them. Playing on Survival makes this perk even more useful.
Chem Resistant 2/2 - No brainer, addictions are annoying and Sally as a long-term drug abuser has built up quite the resistance.
Adamantium Skeleton 3/3 - Sally eats her veg.
Ghoulish 2/3 - Very useful in survival mode, especially when stacked on top of the other two healing factors Sally will end up having. Fighting hordes of ferals who are radding you up? Pop a Radaway or two and watch as your raditation heals faster than they can increase it, and also as your health doesn't move because the ghouls themselves are healing you with their rads. It's also just useful for general survival but I can understand if anyone wanted to drop this perk. I just like it.
Solar Powered 2/3 - I like this perk because it will help increase Sally's strength and toughness to the ridiculous levels you will soon see, and the radiation and health healing is again, very useful for survivability and survival mode specifically. Medic isn't required when you have three sources of passive healing on top of your stimpak.
Charisma
Cap Collector 2/3 - Just took it for the money. Could be left out in theory but it is frankly agonizing to be broke in Fallout 4. Sally is no worse off for it.
Black Widow 3/3 - Of course Sally being the witty merc she is would take this tree. The 15% extra damage against all males, who make up the majority of human foes in the Commonwealth, isn't at all shabby.
Lone Wanderer 3/3 - Absurdly useful perk for those who don't want a companion, like Sally. 30% less damage taken, 100 extra carry weight, and a 25% damage boost all for three skill points and an empty follower slot. This along with her already immense strength means she has no issue carrying every piece of junk and power armor she comes across.
Party Girl 3/3 - Double effects of alcohol I can't get addicted to that adds 3+ Luck to boot? Sign me up. Cannot stress enough the benefits of this perk for alcohol-using characters, which I'll come onto later.
Luck
Idiot Savant 3/3 - Sally isn't bright. She's tough as nails and witty, but she isn't overly intelligent or academic. She learns things more slowly than others, and processes information... differently. But when she does "get it", she really gets it. In other words, the passive XP explosions from any given activity, including making a ton of chems and alcohol, killing enemies, and occasionally turning in quests, have allowed Sally to reach level 50 in just a couple of days of playtime with the main story only just being scratched now. Fantastic perk.
Weapons, Armor, Chems
For weapons, Sally favours melee. She excels at tearing through groups of ghouls or gunmen and can stand her ground against virtually any creature or machine. I'll provide a link to the kind of damage they do with some but not all of my Strength-boosting chems and perks factoring in, so a rough average. She uses the following:
- Sledgehammer with the Heavy mod for the devastating damage and crippling. Useful against big armored enemies, poor against quick ones. http://imgur.com/XiYOkX5
- Kremvh's Tooth. Fantastic damage, the bleeding and poison will often finish enemies for you and the greater swing speed than the Sledge gives better strike response against another melee character. http://imgur.com/SWtneQg
- Legendary Serrated Combat Knife with 50% extra damage against human targets. Very fast, usually used for picking off small annoying enemies but can also under the right circumstances tear apart groups of raiders or super mutants in short order. Great for combating fast melee enemies who barely give you a hit, such as unarmed fighters or Assaultrons. http://imgur.com/DvCACLs
- Fully modded automatic Assault Rifle with Long Night Vision Scope. Needed for picking off turrets and rooftop enemies. Does a great job even on survival difficulty with no points dedicated. http://imgur.com/quyTKu7
For Armor, Sally has the following:
- Armored Dirty Army Fatigues - With Ballistic Weave Mk5 this provides... insane protection to say the least. 110 ballistic and energy resist. The +1 to Strength and Agility is great. http://imgur.com/R0lv7Tq
- Black Ops Chest Piece - I believe this is the Sturdy variant of Combat Armor. It's not Heavy anyway, so it doesn't provide the best damage soak possible among it's set (I have another Heavy chest piece fully kitted out, though). I like this for the +1 STR and END it adds. The Pneumatic mod was a must to reduce the annoying melee stagger Sally and other close-ranged fighters of her kind are burdened with. http://imgur.com/eAl7SP9
- Commando Helmet - The 10% VATS action point reduction was the nicest trait I could find. Good helmet. http://imgur.com/4KGX9Wr
- Overseer's Left Armguard - Same as above, 10% reduction in VATs is nice. http://imgur.com/txIPsJE
- Overseer's Right Armguard - Essentially has the same benefit as the Rooted perk, reduces damage while standing still by 15%. http://imgur.com/cES1Tha
- Heavy Combat Armor for both Legs, with the Ultra-Light build mod for both. The increased AP and reduced weight is nice for sprinting, power attacks and carry weight. An argument could be made for custom fitted. Most other mods are redundant. http://imgur.com/3ANwd30
- Fashionable Glasses for +1 Charisma and the black/white aesthetic fits perfectly with the white polymer Combat Armor.
For chems and alcohol, Sally's usually runs:
- Psychobuff, the combined variant of Psycho and Buffout which provides a whopping +3 to Strength and Endurance, +65 Max HP and 25% more damage for 8 minutes. It also prompts Sally to scream "Expletive kill" or "Raaargh" before charging into combat.
- Dirty Wastelander, a probably horrible tasting alcoholic drink which drops Intelligence by 2, but adds a nice 3 to Strength and 1 to Charisma... until you take the perk Party Girl, which doubles it's effects. 6 Strength, 2 Charisma, -4 Intelligence. One would think the decreased intelligence is a big trade off for the utterly insane strength you're getting, however, with the Idiot Savant perk active it only increases Sally's chances of random XP gains.. not sure if the chances increase even into negative regions but if it does, hurray.
- Mysterious Serum... enough said? +5 Strength. +50 Damage Resistance. -10 radiation damage per second for 3600 seconds. Pretty godly and it lasts for a long, long time - I popped this and fast travelled from one corner of the map to the other and it was still active.
The Final S.P.E.C.I.A.L Stats...
With all equipment, chems, alcohol, perks and time of the day accounted for, here are Sally's level 50 Special stats out of power armor:
http://imgur.com/XWBKXPN
...yes, you read correctly. With all the correct substances and circumstances in place, Sally can reach 28 Strength. So:
Strength - 28
Perception - 2
Endurance - 16
Charisma - 10
Intelligence - -3 (LOL)
Agility - 2
Luck - 8
Add in Yao Guai Roast and the chem Fury whenever she can get her hands on them and it becomes overkill... though I don't count these as a core part of the build since I only find them on occasion.
The result? A few levels short of 50 Sally has, on survival difficulty, oneshotted Deathclaws in and out of power armor with her Sledgehammer. She has even twoshotted a Legendary Glowing Deathclaw in the Glowing Sea with it. Getting to level 50, on survival these types of enemies became a bit more difficult, especially off of chems... but they are still beatable without them, and with all of the chems Sally becomes what I set out for her to be: an unstoppable Juggernaut.
I hope you enjoyed reading the build, and thanks to anyone who made it this far. If you have any suggestions for what I could have done differently, or what I could do heading past level 50, let me know. Also let me know of any questions you have regarding Sally as either a build or a character.
