FudgeMuppet does a "Is perk X worth it?" segment and I thought it might be beneficial to have a similar topic placed in the forums for those players that are on the fence about investing in a perk. To some degree this topic is very subjective, but if you wouldn't mind sharing some of your personal experiences with certain perks and ultimately (in your opinion) if the perk is worth the investment.

Life Giver:

I was pleasantly surprised by the changes to this perk, specifically the last rank. While stims are in no shortage, I do not prefer carrying more than 3-5 for realism. Having the ability to regain health (ala Wolverine) is worth the investment it takes to max out this perk, especially if you find it unrealistic to jam stims in your body.

Haven't tried that one yet, as my stealth char usually doesn't need a lot of healing, and usually has plenty of time to eat something when he needs to top off. Got to admit the regenerating health thing sounds attractive, though. How long does it take to regen to fuill health, from, say, half health? Is it pretty quick? Or slower to where you don't really notice for a while?

Interestingly enough, I took that perk in my first run through and found it incredibly helpful. So much so that in my second run through, I refuse to take it because I want to have a need to actually use the food I cook.

Chem Resistant

It's incredibly helpful on survival mode where drugs play a more important role to give you an edge, but it has value in lower difficulties too: it can help you max out affinity quickly with some NPCs without having to worry about addiction.

Aquaboy/Aquagirl

The first rank of this perk is so good. It's well worth getting your END to 5 if you can swing it.

I never timed it, but it's an awesome recovery perk. You'll be at full health for your next fire fight; just don't expect it to sustain you during combat.

Idiot savant for my second playthrough...

Even with INT at 6 (I think) to get the science perks, it goes off plenty...if I had to guess, I'd say I'm at least 5 or 6 lvls ahead of my first playthrough (lvl 26) in the same amount of time...

It reminded me of the heal rate from Solar Powered from Fallout 3, perhaps a bit quicker.

The sounds kills my immersion and I start laughing.

I find the first 3 levels of Locksmith and Hacker are worth it (much better than having Cait or Valentine handle those for you), Scounger is also kind of worth it if you are trying to keep ammo up for your rare guns.

@#%! Totally forgot that perk! Scrounger is absolutely worth it. Why? Fusion cores are considered ammo. There has been plenty of times where I pop open a container to find 3 to 5 fusion cores just sitting there.

Lock pick + scrounger has got to be one of the best perk synergies in the game. Strongly recommend that if you get one Get both. Reason being locked cases usually have lots of ammo. Also, since my character is focused on big guns there is further synergy since big gun ammo tends to be more rare/expensive.

As to life giver the actual HP increase isn't all that impressive. What is handy though is that it instantly adds health. Early on with my character I kept a saved perk point just to that if I was ever very close to death I could bring up pip boy and instantly boost health. Used it once.

Artmonkey is right about Aquaboy. It's not a glamorous perk but it sure does make life easier. I took that one as soon as I could.

first perk i take is toughness than lock pick, third is aquagirl. that perk is so mega. glad to be able to get it so early in the game.

Idiot savant is my favorite perk (sporting only 4 int so I get alot of bonuses and it is great).

I think this has some degree devolved into perks people take. I'd like some explanation as to the utility of the perk and why it is useful to you or your character build.

It all depends on the character you want, and what is priority to you. If your into crafting, going to want armorer, science, gun but etc. If you want to run and gun then you'll want toughness and the gun related perks. I could go on, but you get the picture. Before launch I was skeptical of the skills being removed, but now that I have about 70 hours in I'm convinced the system in 4 is far superior. At 70 hours I have a ton of perks I still want to get, and every level I struggle to decide on getting a new one, adding another level to one, or increasing a special. At 70 hours in FO3, I was pretty near god mode and was only using skill points and choosing perks cause I had to

Some of the odd things. Commando, rifleman obviously worth it. For weird stuff. Nerd Rage has saved me on more than one occasion. It's like a free jet when you didn't realize you were about to die. Don't get too cocky, you can still die in slo-mo. It doesn't seem once a day but it doesn't happen over and over either. Another odd one was scrapper. I think you can do without that one but idk maybe i'd be more hard up for materials without it. Early guns dont have any good mats in them anyway and later guns could be sold. I scrap some nice guns for 12 aluminum sometimes. I could sell it for 200 caps, then for 1000 caps buy 50 aluminum. It kind of evens out and you get some other junk with it but i have enough junk and I could buy 3 aluminum in a dinner tray for 3 caps. If it added materials to regular junk that might make it better. Other stuff is fairly normal, explosives, big guns.

Yeah I understand that concept, but the issue is some perks just do not equate out like you think they would.

interesting, I am back and forth on the scrapper perk.

Weapon mod perks can easily be avoided if you are pro active in removing mods from weapons and then scrapping or selling them. You can get every mod available via dropped guns, and most from armours. It's much harder to get what you want for melee weapons.

When you look at it, gun nut, blacksmith and armorer are useless, since you can get all the mods from drops, wendors. Just have to buy them and remove the mods. Only armorer is usefull because of the ballistic weave, since i'm not sure you can get it anywhere else. The thing with those 3 crafting perks is that you can get the mods earlier and have more freedom crafting. But again everyone has his playstyle

Lockpick is an absolute must for me. Not only for the extra loot but the extra XP adds up - in one building you may find 5 doors to pick which in turn each lead to an extra container to pick netting you a couple of hundred extra XP - plus it makes getting certain companions to affinity much, much easier. Same applies to hacking but slightly lesser, I always have lockpick and hacking at a maximum for all my fallout playthroughs - they are probably the only 2 perks/skills which I always max across all playthroughs of all games simply because I wan to explore everything and maximise my xp gains.

Scrounger is a fantastic perk, negates any need to ever buy ammo at level 2.

I agree with the points about Gun Nut, Armourer etc and if points were limited I would say to avoid but with unlimited points I think it's worth taking them and building the mods yourself for the extra XP and affinity plus you can arm yourself with good gear much earlier and easier.

Aquaboy, I couldn't imagine not taking this perk or why anyone would not take it? Again if points were limited I guess you could manage without it but with no cap I see no reason not to take this.

I like critical bankers. I have it at level 2 and even though they mostly just sit there banked it is always reassuring to know that if I get jumped unaware by something monstrous I have 3 (2 banked plus a full bar) crits to unload - coupled with a lucky shotgun it can be a real lifesaver. I haven't bothered with better criticals, grim reapers or the lucky clover whatever its called but you could become an absolute VATS beast using the luck tree.

Overall actually I think the luck tree has the best and most enjoyable perks to play around with, and for me personally Strength has the worst - anyone agree or disagree?

Sniper, Penetrator, Concentrated fire, Ninja, Mr Sandman, Better Criticals, Critical Banker and Four Leaf clover = Very high accuracy and vats critical sneak head shots with scoped weapons which enemies cannot take cover from. Or to put it more simply, 1 hit kill mode.

I can see Luck being useful for VATS, just never really dabble with it or critical hits for that matter - I kind of don't like how it is now something you execute, I prefer the randomness.

I would have to vote for Gun Nut for my most enjoyable perk. Being able to craft your own weapons just the way you like it - priceless.

Sure you can buy gun mods or take it from other weapons, but I prefer the easy way, to have all the mods I desire right there from the start without looking for them at vendors or other guns. Gun nut worked well with Scrapper cause I needed materials. Also, scrounger for early game was a life saver, when bullets were scarce and money to buy bullets were even scarcer.

Another one I like is sneak, being able to take down enemies without not knowing what hit them - priceless, and not to mention the sneak damage multiplier that makes most enemies a 1-2, sometimes 3 hit kill, at survival difficulty. Rifleman perk adds to that damage just right. Rifles/shotguns that shoot an additional projectile are best in my opinion, double damage to all enemies. Best if suppressed and I can clear out an entire enemy base killing everyone with sneak attacks, without being even scratched in the process. High agility for sneak is welcomed. Not to mention that Sneak level 2 renders enemy's mines, traps and the likes completely useless.

At levels 20-30 Science perk started to shine as I moved from ballistic weapons to energy ones, plasma rifles especially, the perk is like a Gun nut for energy weapons. Energy weapons are way more accurate and have better range. Though I haven't found a plasma gun that fires an additional projectile yet so I'm still sticking to my .50 rifle that fires that second bullet.

As for my vats playstyle, aside from maximizing agility and perception, I've found Action boy lvl 2 good for action point regeneration, Concentrated fire for massive increase in accuracy in vats with each shot to the same body part, then Grim Reaper to get a good chance to instantly restore action points, followed by Critical Banker to have more criticals available, Four Leaf Clover to instantly recharge critical bar, then Better Criticals to more than double the damage with criticals. To get this perks I needed to invest points in luck, witch also helped with the recharge rate of critical bar.

I was more of a glass cannon if rushed by multiple enemies, but since I got the best power armor in the game at level 28 and added some mods to it I could care less if I'm rushed by 10 enemies at once. The X-01 makes Toughness, Refactor or any damage resistant perks look like good jokes.

Now I'm gonna invest in more dps perks and watch those legendaries die in a single round of vats.

Combined with Chemist, it's awesome. Jet and Psycho are both extremely common and can be combined to create Psycho Jet, which gives you 15 seconds of bullet time and a 25% damage bonus. Ranks of Chemist increase the duration of chems so that by 16th level that can be doubled to 30 seconds. Create about 30 of them and hotkey it's use and it puts VATS to shame.