Highly useful for any playstyle

• Educated
  
• Jury Rigging

Highly useful

• Intense Training (10)
  
• Comprehension
  
• Toughness (2)
  
• Rad Absorption

Highly useful for certain playstyles

• Demolition Expert
  
• Shotgun Surgeon
  
• Super Slam
  
• Finesse
  
• Plasma Spaz
  
• Piercing Strike
  
• Pyromaniac
  
• Silent Running
  
• Splash Damage
  
• Better Criticals
  
• Paralyzing Palm
  
• Explorer
  
• Ninja
  
• Laser Commander

Moderately useful

• Rad Child
  
• Bloody Mess
  
• Lead Belly
  
• Strong Back
  
• Animal Friend (2)
  
• Math Wrath
  
• Nerd Rage
  
• Life Giver
  
• Long Haul
  
• Sniper
  
• Adamantium Skeleton
  
• Light Step
  
• Action Boy/Action Girl
  
• Tag!
  
• Concentrated Fire
  
• Nerves of Steel
  
• Grim Reaper's Sprint

Moderately useful for certain playstyles

• Gunslinger
  
• Run 'n Gun
  
• Rapid Reload
  
• The Professional
  
• Vigilant Recycler
  
• Stonewall
  
• Robotics Expert
  
• Unstoppable Force
  
• Purifier
  
• Meltdown
  
• Weapon Handling
  
• Solar Powered
  
• Nuka Chemist
  
• Slayer

Less useful or only useful for certain playstyles

• Travel Light
  
• Black Widow/Lady Killer
  
• Cherez La Femme/Confirmed Bachelor
  
• Heave, Ho!
  
• Retention
  
• Swift Learner
  
• Cannibal
  
• Ferocious Loyalty
  
• Quick Draw
  
• Rad Resistance
  
• Scrounger
  
• Terrifying Presence
  
• Here and Now
  
• Miss Fortunate
  
• Mister Sandman
  
• Mysterious Stranger
  
• Night Person
  
• Fast Metabolism
  
• Ghastly Scavenger
  
• Hit the Deck
  
• Hunter
  
• Entomologist
  
• Center of Mass
  
• Chemist
  
• Chem Resistant
  
• Computer Whiz
  
• Infiltrator
  
• Spray 'n Pray

TL;DR I made a perk rankings list for fun after I just finished my playthrough of the game, these are based on my experiences in the game, I myself chose some pretty bad perks during my gameplay and I put alot of thought into what I could have done better. This is the result. In no way am I saying my opinion is worth more than anyone elses, all of these perks are useful to some degree and I'm not saying you've picked a bad perk by choosing one of the lower ranked perks for your own characters.

ahh. "certain playstyles". It's a little nebulous. one could say using VATs at all is a "certain playstyle". Not a bad list though. You rate training too high though.

Thank you for the insight and the compliment. hopefully this list helps someone

And yes, by saying certain playstyles I am intentionally being very broad.

As for Intense Training, where would you yourself rank it and for what reason?

Everyone is different, but I do not agree with the ratings of some of the perks.

Please take a look at my build thread.

I have a specialist long range sniper build posted up, and what should be a beast of a melee build.

None of them use I.T, and some of the perks I picked are listed as low or medium.

But YMMV, greatly.

Your list is a bit odd. Things seem kinda out of order.

For example you have Plasma Spaz at Highly useful for certain builds yet Math Wrath at Moderately useful. When Math Wrath does the same thing as Plasma Spaz except for all weapons not just plasma weapons.

TBH He got his Groupings in the wrong order It should be Highly useful then Moderately useful then the for certain builds high etc then Less useful or only useful for certain playstyles.

Math Wrath should be in Highly useful for certain playstyles, and Plasma Spaz should be in the Less useful or only useful for certain playstyles one.

Also Intense Training is not as good as you think it only really useful if you want high stats in more than 1 special (given theres +1 for each stat item in game it even less important).

you forgot cowboy perk, which is awesome!

I would personally move "Scrounger" up a little bit, I often take that perk when I am playing a Small Guns character in FO3 and I took it in this game and the extra ammunition is really noticeable and helpful, you'll save caps on having to buy it from vendors as well.

Also, haven't they nerfed Toughness a lot? There are two ranks and you only get a +3, whereas in FO3 it was one rank and you gained a +10. Imo, there is always going to be a better choice than spending two perk slots on these two.

You can't really compare the FO3 Toughness to the NV one. In FO3, it was +10% to damage resistances, while here, it's a +3 to damage threshold. FO3 Toughness could protect you from more damage from higher level weapons, but NV Toughness can block more damage off of weaker ones

They compeltely changed how dmage is calculated - just because the numbers are lower doesn't mean its less effective.

Toughness is fantastic. Without considering Nerd Rage, it's possible to spend 3 perks and 8000 chips to get permanent, no-need-to-repair DT of 10, 15 vs melee. That's the equivalent of an additional suit of Combat Armor against close combat attacks, and provides near-immunity to small arms fire.

I haven't tried it personally yet, but people have vouched for Rad Child as highly effective. Certainly, with a high enough DT regeneration becomes very attractive.