There are three perks out there which are all pretty much bottom of the barrel and need reworked/buffed. I would like to point out that these and the endurance tree in general is designed to replace or significantly reduce your need to search for and use consumables. My changes are in line with promoting that Play style.
Of course these are just my suggestions, I do t necessarily care if Bethesda changes these verbatim but these perks and the endurance tree in general needs help.

End 2 - Lead Belly. Lots of people criticize this perk in general since there are so many consumables and radiation is easy to deal with. I still like the idea of this perk even if just from a role playing stand point. Currently though it's too much to dump 3 levels into it for a bit of convenience when roaming.

Change: it needs to have only ONE rank, which removes radiation from consumables and water.

End 6 Rad resistance. Easily the worst perk in the game. Even with a staggering three ranks of this perk you still only get 60, yes 60 resistance to Radiation, a single rad-X pill gives you 100. There are many suits that offer considerable rad resistance. And once again, radiation is still pretty easy to fix. There's no reason to put one, much less three, level points into this perk.

Change: rank 1 adds 50 rad resistance. Rank 2 adds 75 rad resistance and rank 3 adds 125 rad resistance. This would give you a respectable 250 total resistance.

End 9 Ghoulish. Sounds interesting but it's pretty lackluster perk - especially for being rank 9 in a fairly lackluster tree anyways. This perk feels rushed and poorly thought out. Also, one of the best parts of this perk rank 3 doesn't become available till pretty high level. One of the biggest problems with this perks is the negative synergy with the two previously mentioned perks as well as Aquaboy(since they all reduce or eliminate rad intake).

Change: Rank 1 small chance for feral ghouls to become friendly, radiation of 1-3 is CONVERTED into 1 health. Any existing radiation is removed at rate of 1. Also, this only applies if the radiation is from a continuous source.

Rank 2: There is a good chance Ferals will become friendly. Radiation of 4-6 is converted into 3 health and any existing radiation is removed at Rate of 3.

Rank 3. A leathal hit has a 50%chance to restore you to half health and emit an intense wave of radiation.

So basically if you are rank 2 ghoulish you get 3 health regen if you are standing in atleast 4 rads. Up to 6 rads you do not take radiation damage and are healed by it. You will also still be removing rads at a rate of three. Above that though, you are still getting healed but also taking on radiation.

So basically taking small doses of radiation/standing on the edge of irradiated areas are very beneficial but radiation will start adding up once you get to much of it at once. Also, since ghoulish would only work from Constant sources it would still allow lead belly to be useful and since you start gaining rads at higer concentrations it would synergize with Aquaboy since irradiated water is usually at 10+.

Mm, good thoughts. Also, as far as I've noticed, Aquagirl is rather overpowered on level 1. It both, removes the radiation from water which in itself is rather huge help, but also gives breathing underwater which pretty much make water exploration totally non issue. If the Lead Belly would be reduced in rank I say Aquagirl could use one additional rank.

Rank 1: Remove radiation from water

Rank 2: Ability to breath underwater

Rank 3: Whatever rank 2 is now, enemies not spotting when underwater I think.

Good thoughts here. Like most players, I've felt caught out by these perks: one of my characters has Goulish level 1, which is basically useless since your health is decimated by radiation before anything is recovered. Another of my characters has the Radiation resistence, which is again useless. Also, and counterinutitively, you can drink radioactive water while wearing a Hazmat suit and it removes the radioactive effect, which kills the value of Leadbelly.

I'm not sure whether these are the solutions to these perks, but they sure need fixing.

Changing rad resistance to give 250 rad resistance would be beyond broken. Even with all 5 ranks of the +energy resistance perks, a full upgraded vault suit, and a fully upgraded set of heavy synth armor(the best non power armor in terms of energy defense), I only have 232 energy resistance. No one perk should give more resistance then all of that combined. Getting it that higher also isn't going to reduce how many rads you take from 99% of sources since that's not how DR works in Fallout 4.

Also, ghoulish isn't supposed to "synergize" with previous ones. Not all perks in SPECIAL stat are meant to be used as the same time.

Well TBH I don't really know how radiation resistance works. What I can tell you is not to compare it to energy resistance or refractor. For one thing energy weapons are everywhere and come in a lesser range of damages. Also refractor come in the perception tree which grants a number of damage increasing attributes - endurance is the only tree that does not have perks that increase damage.

Radiation is rare and the damage is higher. Just look at my point that a single rad-x pill gives 100 resistance. Look at power armor it provides at least 2x as much rad resistance as energy (if that comparison means anything.

Perhaps my ranks are a tad high but Rad Resistant perk needs to provide at a minimum 2x as much per rank.

And as to ghoulish. Maybe it doesn't need to synergize just perfectly but that perk needs a definite rework - pretty broken as it stands now IMO.

Overall,

The entire damage system needs to be buffed up the amount of damage done and received. The enemies too of course should not be bullet spongey.

There is no reason why players that take less than a 4 END and no perks should ever be able to soak damage no matter what sort of armor they are using barring Power Armor of Course.

Taking damage without perks should always be a gamble, though most times it just isn't so.

The enemies leveling needs a greater range to allow for some more deadly encounters.

Players should feel forced to make do with a lot less than the amount of Aid items that we currently get like 75% less. In almost all cases instead of finding the aid item we should have found a part that is needed to craft the item. This way your forced to eat that moldy food and actually use the chemistry table.

The real issue is that for a true rebalance this is all just the tip of the iceburg and it takes time. More than players want to think.

Power Armor repair needs an overhaul to prevent ease of use.

Value of certain items increased and probability of appearing at venders randomized and reduced further.

Settlement resource needs for building altered while forcing the player to be unable to create massive factories so quickly in the game perhaps by gating the creation of certain facilities behind added key items which most be found at random in the world. At the same time steps need to be taken to rework just how available certain resources are as they are too annoying to find and should be plentiful like wood resource for building structures.

Of course perks in Endurance need an overhaul but that shouldn't just be done without also having a serious look at everything else tied into how the player survives.

Players heavily invested into Endurance and its Perks should be the only ones shrugging off damage and running into battle without a care in the world.

It works the same way all damage resistance works in Fallout 4. Unlike in past games, damage resistance in Fallout 4 is based on ratios instead of a flat 1 DR = 1% damage removed.

Getting more DR does little to further reduce small amounts of damage that were already mostly negated, but does a lot to reduce damage from more more damaging attacks.

Rad Resistance doesn't go up that high because radiation sources are almost universally small, even in the glowing sea, and getting more isn't going to reduce it further. Pushing it up to 250 isn't going to do anything beyond maybe take a source of +5 rads a sec down to +4.

You can read all about it here

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_Resistance#Fallout_4

Ah I just finished reading about that table.

Its good news really seems better than Skyrims method for sure.

Damage might not have to be buffed by very much. I was just thinking if it turns out that in the Geck we can just flip on Crits at random out of Vats, well it might encourage players to dodge more, use that overturned desk for cover, and value their aid items much more. Plus consider purchasing more end perks.

Trust me, Ghoulish is fine. The health regen I've had just from the first rank has saved my butt when I found myself in a pinch and out of stimpaks - just went over to a pile of radioactive barrels and squatted for a bit. I imagine at the third rank the regen is insane. It's for moments when your health is really low and the max health reduction isn't so big a deal.

Lead Belly could use a buff, too. If the first rank nixed all radiation, and the next ranks increased the magnitude/duration of food's additional effects, it would be a great perk.

Rad Resistance, I dunno. Radiation damage is still different from ordinary damage in that 100 Rads is always 10% of your max health, although the resistance formulas are still the same. Maybe Rad Resistance should just be a flat percentage reduction, instead of adding to numerical radiation resistance. Adding an effect like "rads slowly disappear over time" at the last rank would work pretty well too.

Yes, this is a legitimate complaint. Although I only play on default difficulty, there have been times when I have just been standing there in the open firing away under the mistaken impression that I am in full armour, only to find out later that I forgot to change out of my speech-check costume or hazmat suit. There can be a moment's anxiety popping stimpaks like tictacs, but then you find that your total number goes up as soon as you loot. And, believe me, I'm a very mediocre player.

That's actually why I find the radiation mechanic irritating: restoring health is so trivial that the chore of reducing radiation sickness seems punitive by contrast. Also, sources of radiation seem too unconnected with reasonable jeopardy: a radiation storm can hit you anywhere and it does more significant damage than virtually anything else in the game!

Ehhh, the amount of damage taken/received is a matter of taste. Generally, having spongier enemies and player characters is typical to RPGs - if fights last longer, there's greater opportunities for your RPG stats to matter on a more granular level. What's the difference between 2 END and 3, or +20% damage and +40%, if everyone goes down in a realistic two to three shots anyway?

Then again, everyone generally dying faster adds more tension to combat as an action game. Action RPGs have to find a balance that works.

Tell that to luck which is just amazing at synergy.

Lead Belly at just 3 ENDURANCE is bad ass. I don't know why you're trippin. Level up and quit whining.

Ghoulish rank 2 synergize pretty well with solar power rank 3 during a rad storm since it seems they only happen during the day

I'd like to see a respec option, like in Borderlands 2, even if it costs caps or a Perk point.

It seems most endurance perks aren't supposed to be used at all.

I think Lead Belly is fine, Rad Res is ok, could be upped a bit maybe. Ghoulish disappointed me, if you have no missing health beside radiation you just take rad damage normally. Of course if it healed radiation as you were irradiated you'd become flat out immune to rads so they can't do that (or they could not like you can't be OP anyway) so what I'd do is play up the friendly ferals part. Make it like:

Rank 1-> rads slowly heal and there's a small chance ferals become friendly

Rank 2-> rads heal faster and there's a greater chance ferals become friendly

Rank 3-> rads heal a lot and ferals are always friendly

Also I'd give the equivalent of Rad Absorption from FO3 to the last rank of Rad Res, or add a 4th rank to it which does that.

The point of Ghoulish isn't to give you any edge against radiation damage, only add a buff to it so that you can use getting irradiated to your advantage. It's... situational, but extremely helpful in those situations.

It's actually completely worthless, like most of the endurance perks. You'll have 100's of stimpacks, purified water, and no-rad food.

There shouldn't be such a crappy tree were everything is "but but....it's situation!" at best. Even Life-Giver ends up being worse than just putting a point in Endurance SPECIAL.

I hope modders do their best.

Going to have to disagree with you hard there about lead belly. Three level ups are expended just so you don't take a minor amount of rads? You are better off just potting those points into medic so you can more easily rid yourself of rads.

Ghoulish being 'situational'. Really guys, every other level 9 perks BLOWS ghoulish out of the water - and they are all in much better more synergistic trees that also include perks that increase damage.

Endurance is supposed to be the 'tanky' and 'survivalist' tree but your far better off investing elsewhere. The resistances/benefits added with endurance perks are minimal/situational/lackluster and often easily substituted through consumables/wearables. END is pretty much a waste after 5.