Hello everybody, let me start by saying I'm very new to the forums and F4 is the only fallout I've played so far.

With that being said, I have maybe 10 different characters that I play on F4 and each one I pick a different companion (of course based on the play style of the particular character) so this time I made a minigun/nuke launcher only gameplay and I'm loving the mass destruction and chaos so far.

My main question is: I'm a bit torn between which companions to pick, I've looked at the perks for each and none seem too promising for me so far, so I've stuck to Codsworth and he's boss status, probably my favorite so far. The problem is I always seem to kill my companions more than the enemy does, with all the missles and nukes and such I was just curious is there a companion that fits a "heavy weapons" play style? Or am I destined to nuke my companions for the rest of the game?

Danse with his power armor, high durability, and perception will have no problem tanking everything while standing in one spot with a mini gun or gatling gun. You don't need to maintain his power armor and he has the best armor in the game. He also has really high accuracy in general and high strength which means that he demolishes anything with a minigun bashing once the enemies come close to him. He was made specifically to be a tank and frontal combat. If you want a companion that focuses on combat and can tank pretty much anything, it would be him, but he's a goody-two-shoes so if you plan on playing an evil character, he may get mad and leave you.

Curie is the worst companion to bring to a fight, she has really buggy AI that may make her do more melee than firefight and may even change her weapons to punching the enemies.

Piper is not suited for combat in general.

Codsworth is pretty useless since he requires short range most of the time and may get in the range of fire.

Strong is also durable, but not as durable as Danse, and he also prefers more melee combat.

Nick is good as well, he has high endurance, but his aim is pretty terrible.

MacCready is a bit too weak to tank anything, he's more of a range attackers.

X6 is also a good frontal attacker, he has high accuracy, and high durability, but not as durable as Danse, but he's better for an evil playthrough since Danse gets annoyed whenever you do something evil.

Cait, Deacon, Preston are pretty much around the same range.

Basically, the top 3 people to use for frontal attacks are:

1. Danse

2. X6

3. Cait/Deacon/Preston

I'd suggest maybe using Danse. He's probably more likely to stay ranged with his laser rifle than the others, and he actually manages to hit what he's aiming at a significant portion of the time.

Danse is a tank. He can take a mininuke to the face and keep going. I've had him around for about 300 hours now and he's hit the floor less than 10 times. Also, he'll kill whatever you miss.

Edit: answered the wrong question

You could take the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Inspirational perk but you'd need 8 CHA and wouldn't see the main benefit until level 19+ when you could take the 2nd level of the perk.

As mentioned, the only obvious choice is Paladin Danse, but once you join Brotherhood of Steel, that becomes apparent.

It seems like Danse is the best option, I think I will have to give him a try. Oddly enough I never used him as a companion so I figured I should give it a shot. Also I never really looked at CHA perks in depth but I noticed one was no friendly fire for companions....I had no idea this was even a thing but it seems like it would solve all my problems about slaying my homies.


Now are there any companion perks that help heavy weps specificaly or should I just choose a guy with high durability?

It seems like Danse is the best option, I think I will have to give him a try. Oddly enough I never used him as a companion so I figured I should give it a shot. Also I never really looked at CHA perks in depth but I noticed one was no friendly fire for companions....I had no idea this was even a thing but it seems like it would solve all my problems about slaying my homies.


Now are there any companion perks that help heavy weps specificaly or should I just choose a guy with high durability?

Danse has really high accuracy and high durability which is all you need for a companion. Companions themselves don't have perks to help with weapons specifically, but if you want a frontal assault character, there is no one better than Danse. Pretty much any battle people pit him against any other companions, he demolishes them. Try to max of his affinity as well, he gives you 20% permanent damage increase against almost all the enemies in the game.

A word of warning

DO NOT CHANGE DANSE"S POWER ARMOR

The pieces he uses are impossible to interact with, and have their weight ignored when on the chassis, if you put other power armor pieces on his frame they get put in his inventory and cannot be removed or put back on the frame.

He has a default carry weight of 210, if you modify his armor the old pieces permanently reduce this to as low as 125, which cripples him, and the new pieces don't give him enough durability advantage to matter, as the best armor in the game only provides relative protection from the most powerful weapons buffed by the player's perks, and only if you don't have the friendly fire perk, everything else the difference does not matter because of diminished returns.

This warning is useful, but the question of whether or not to remove his PA should be answered depending on what you want from him. I take him out of his PA at some point in every playthrough and it doesn't cripple him or hurt his ability to back me up. He carries an amount I find useful and he doesn't hit the ground all that much more than he did with it (although the PA does make a difference here. I consider him basically indestructible in the PA). I don't want him in PA because it's giant and clanky and I sneak a lot in game.

Taking him out of his suit is a completely different matter.

I am talking about changing the pieces on the suit itself, the arms, legs, and torso. Changing these causes huge issues for him.

Invisible 15 weight objects clogging his inventory and weighing him down irreversibly is a disaster if you want to carry anything.

Sorry, misinterpreted the use of the word, "change." Didn't even catch it after carefully reading what you'd written.

Only reason why I sometimes have Curie, she seems to be one of the companions who collects most weapons players not see/miss. Several times I see legendary weapons in her inventory. But I do agree, Danse would be the best fighter - one problem, you may not take him downtown where BoS are, they will shoot Danse on sight (if player have done his personal quest). Now I just going alone, since kills some of mine companions do, not give any XP.

Cheers,

-Klevs

All companions special stats.

fixed

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3vm4ng/fallout_4_companion_information/

Thanks for the info, I had no idea about the PA thing with Danse I would've ruined him lol. I'll give him a go, and then I'll try Strong because I think he'll look cool with the death claw gauntlets.

Also thanks for posting that table, I never considered that they had different "specials", I just assumed they were all the same.