I'm planning a melee build for my second playthrough and find that a lot of high level perks would be really helpful, such as Blacksmith (to make them weapons), Demolition Expert (to soften up the victims), Nerd Rage, Blitz and Ricochet.

That means I'd need a SPECIAL of:

S: 4 (Higher would be better for that DMG)

P: 5 (this could be a 1 I guess, since demolition isn't technically necessary)

E: 4 (for Lifegiver and Chem Resistant since I anticipate a lot of Buffout and Jet)

C: not important, so probably a 2 just for the Lady Killer perk, or 3 for Lone Wanderer

I: 10 (for Nerd Rage) or at least 7 for Chemist

A: 9 (for Blitz and Ninja)

L: 10 (for Ricochet) < I'm very doubtful of the whole Luck tree and may actually just do a 1 here, but it could be fun with Grim Reaper's Sprint and Four Leaf Clover

So that's 43 total. Not exactly a low number of perks to invest in SPECIAL since we only start with 28. Melee characters seem to be extremely SPECIAL intensive, which means less fun perks.

Does anyone have a good recipe, or input on the above?

Edit: Should mention that I will not be using power armor, but going for a sneaky approach.

You're just being way too greedy, you don't need 10 luck on a Melee build, 5 at most for idiot savant.


10 intelligence is a waste, nerd rage is a lackluster perk and only semi useful on frail character builds, investing 10 points in a Melee build for it is a waste.


9 agility for a blitz build is worth it, but don't use ninja unless you plan on doing stealth.


You don't need a single point in perception for a Melee build.



Strength and Endurance are the most important specials in a Melee build, I'd recommend dropping down intelligence to 1 or 2, getting 5 luck for idiot savant, keeping 9 agility for blitz, and investing the rest in strength and endurance.

In regular armor you can eventually get a perk like nerd rage on the armor. While either can save you neither are particularly unique to a melee build. It does give you strength though which makes it more a melee thing. You may not get extra strength from the armor version. And I dont think ricochet or luck is necessary. You could do the hard to hit one in the agility tree along with blitz should get you into the fight before getting shot up too much. With high intelligence should give you 30% more perks in the same amount of time, so at lvl 50 you get 13 more or something. idiot's get like an averaged 50% more someone calculated so you dont have to feel bad using points.

Ricochet is pretty crap, only procs at 40% hp or less than 100, by that time you've already killed them anyway.

Strength, Endurance, and Agility, the rest are unnecesary.

If your planning on only getting by with sneak melees all you really need is love.. I mean blitz and sneak. As said you certainly do not need ricochet with stealth as if enemies are shooting at you in first place, you are doing something wrong.

This reads like a WoW spec thread...

Currently running a melee build with zero crafting skills. I can tell you from experience that Blacksmith is not really needed at all, you don't make weapons, you only mod them and the choices are far more limited than firearms. Most of the time it's only 1 mod slot, and you can get by waiting for a weapon with that mod to drop, or show up in vendors. Take Armorer instead. Much more useful and I have never seen armored clothing drop higher than mk1, which anyone can make.

No need for int or perception. Remember to build for vats, real-time melee is terrible.

You don't even need Endurance, honestly, as the game loves to throw tons of meat upon you and stimpaks to keep yourself healed up at all times, even in Survival mode, damage is more important than health.

best way to this is:

S:9

P:3

E:1

C:2

I:2

A:8

L:3

Basically, level up Luck to 5 ASAP, get idiot Savant, then use the book to nudge Intelligence up by one, level it up again by one, level up charisma by one, level up Agility by one, and grab the Perception Bobblehead early in the game, what you get for early game is:

S:9

P:4

E:1

C:3

I:4

A:9

L:5

Which is basically the best starter for Melee builds. You have access to the hacker/picklocking perk, Lone Wanderer makes you an incredible tank without dumping so much into Endurance, 9 Agility is for the obviously broken Blitz/Rooted combo, and Luck of 5 is for the easy proccing of the Idiot Savant perk. Later on, try to nudge your Strength up by 1 point before you grab the bobblehead for 100% maximum damage effectiveness without the use of chems or alcohol.

And if you're playing Unarmed, don't even bother grabbing the Blacksmith perk, as the most damaging weapon doesn't need it. Just travel in the north eastern side of the map where you get out of Vault 111, avoid Boomer and his raider base and you're bound to find the most powerful Unarmed weapon in the game for free. Happy trails.

This is how I spent my points:

S 10

P 1

E 1

C 1

I 1

A 9

L 5

The upside is that I hit like a truck. I started out using a Combat Knife (eventually Pickman's Blade) and I can pretty much wreck everything in VATS. A Deathclaw got the jump on me (I'm only level 20) and I ruined his day with a knife.

The downside is I sometimes need to fall back on well-modded guns when things go south. I carry a suppressed bolt-action pipe rifle, a suppressed 10mm, and a combat shotgun for when things get loud.

Depending On what you want to do you really don't need lockpick or hacking. If you had to choose one I'd go with lock pick. Still the only real advantage(besides the fun of shortcuts) is more ammo from containers and locked areas - you don't exactly need that for melee build.


Also, the more you level up intelligence the more you diminish idiot savant.


I'd say 1 in INT and PER. STR is really important because each level of STR increases me lee/in armed by 10%.


Blitz is the most useful perk for melee if you are going to use vats.

Yeah, probably dropping Luck all together. I have no interest in Idiot Savant, I already level way faster than I want to.

Yeah, good point.

True, there's not much to modding melee weapons, but I love crafting. Since S is going to be up there, and perks are plentiful, it wouldn't be bad to throw one or two in to blacksmith I think. Armorer for sure.

This is what I'm worried about. It wasn't great in Skyrim, and it doesn't look like it's any better here.

What I wanna know is: Can we do the power slide that I've seen some Raiders do??

But but but, I can't leave a lock unpicked! lol. No, seriously, I HAVE to open all locks!

I think I'll throw all those Luck points in Int. I'm also trying to make a somewhat realistic character, not min-max to the bone.

If you're going to put those points in INT then take 7 INT and go for chemist if you want to roleplay as a druggie

Yeah, I never really use Chems, but they seem perfect for a melee character so Chemist would probably be good.

Chemist also lets you make Fury and Overdrive which are incredible damage boosts.

Neat!

So starting with:

S:8

P:1

E:4

C:2

I:7

A:9

L:1

Dammit, still 4 points short, lol.

9 STR highest damage

1 PER not usefull

9 END solar powered after bobblehead

3 CHR lone wanderer

2 INT medic

all remaining points AGL only for running

1 LUK I don't use VATS


I don't know why nobody else uses solar powered, I find +2 STR & END very useful during the day and radiation goes down very fast with level 2 so I don't need Rad away unless their are a lot of ghouls

We know this, the idea of lockpicking and hacking is to get through the bullcrap that the game sometimes throws at you such as a terminal in a bunker that can disable a powerful laser turret that can kill you in a heartbeat, even with high Endurance and Lone Wanderer. INT of 4 is not enough to diminish Idiot Savant's perk proc, at least for me, as it can proc easily several times in outright firefights, it only becomes a huge notice when Intelligence is at 5 or above.

Lockpicking is again used for getting out of boring situations, loot, and gaining profit for armor pieces that merchants sell. If you really wanted to, you can put Perception up to 10 in late-game for the Concentrated Fire perk, as it grants all melee weapons the legendary affix that is on the Fury Power Fist, but I suggest doing this only uber late-tier. later on, once you acquire all the melee/damage perks and perks you feel are necessary, boost Intelligence up to 7 for the Chemist perk, This is just to grab the recipe Overdrive and Fury, which make Melee combat from broken to pure 'lulz'.

If you are going to focus on melee, the armorer perk is a must besides the other obvious ones. I assume you want to wear some power armor and a good melee weapon and go crack some super mutant skulls.

Well I see it two ways:

7LCK You could get idiot savant, better criticals, critical banker.


Or


7INT Chemist, hacker etc.


The damage boost you get from chemist related stuff is probably comparable to damage boosts of critical banker/better criticals.


It just depends on your play style though. Also, don't forget that some companions can ha k/locpick for you. Guess that's a bit of a spoiler but I won't tell who!

No power armor. Don't like it.

Yeah I could leave it to companions, but i usually fly solo.

So more than half of you keep mentioning Idiot Savant. Why is everyone so hooked on that? To me it ruins the experience of lower level fun, and there's plenty of XP to go around, so it's really just a matter of time. I enjoy the lower levels much more than the higher one, so I'm in no hurry to get there.

You are talking about leveling up a lot of extra SPECIAL points. Up to you how quickly you want to get there.


Also, if you get high INT like your talking about you l'll level up pretty quick due to INT bonus.

INT is one thing, but blowing a perk point on a perk that does nothing more than level you up faster seems redundant.