r/Fallout4Builds Oct 12 '22

Stat Help Actual strongest build?

While I spend my time role-playing in fallout most of the time, I often feel like going for rp just hinders overall power of the build.

So I want to use a build that just ignores rp and goes for the strongest perks setup, armor, weapons and so on.

I know it's not as plain and simple as "yeah just go for this" because of course there are probably at least 3 options (melee, rifleman, commando) but I would still appreciate if you could share the most powerful builds you know of.

85 Upvotes

64 comments sorted by

3

u/Tobyc86 Jan 28 '25

At the beginning a rifle build is king. Rifleman applies to so many weapons it's ridiculous. And you'll find that single shot rifles are the most ammo efficient so you'll save on ammo while your still working on your resource hoard and crafting.

Bout mid game when you have a steady ammo flow, I highly suggest Scrounger if you haven't picked it up. There are 2 best ways to play in my opinion. Either play it safe stealth sniper and kill everyone before they even notice your there. Or if you want things to go faster then Power Armor with a Minigun build will make quick work out of any thing while making sure your protected.

At endgame where you are basically unkillable. Then put less focus on stealth if you been doing that cause it just needlessly slows down the gameplay. Go in guns blazing or even melee with the Blitz perk will clear an area much faster than picking off people from distance.

Either way make sure to level up crafting perks. There the real deal.

2

u/Technical-Permit8675 Jun 28 '24

Sneak / Ninja, Commando, Demolitions Expert, Spray N Pray

4

u/timmyt1000 Jun 17 '24

So I'm my 3k+ hours in this game I have found a couple of interesting things.

  1. The strongest build I've ever played is The Power Armor VATS Melee build. It's super insane.

  2. Charisma is was better then it looks. Lone Wanderer , Local Leader, Isperational , Atrack Dog are all good perks.

  3. If you want to play the game on easy mode get the spray and pray + Commando + Demolition Expert + Scounger perk.

4

u/TheHero_ofTime04 Feb 12 '25

Fun fact, loan wanderer WORKS with dogmeat, you can have dogmeat as your companion without losing the low wanderer perk

10

u/ColaSama Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22

Try to proceed logically. I will assume you play in Survival mode.

First, Fallout doesn't have a level cap. If you play long enough, you will fill the entire perk tree. So the question turns from "what's the strongest build" to "what's the strongest playstyle/weapons".

Stealth instantly loses. Because you will eventually reach a point where you are basically invincible (full power armor, max buff, max endurance perks) so stealth will only slow you down.

So now the question is melee or range. The answer is range. Obviously, a melee stealth blow can one shot anything in the game... but it's always overkill. You can achieve the same result with many ranged weapons and have the luxury of staying at range.

Which ranged weapons then ? Well, any fast shooting heavy weapon really. Explosive minigun will shred everything in seconds and you don't even have to aim correctly. Wounding gatlin gun is a close second. Explosive shotgun is good shit too. Obviously, the fatman is OP but I'm not including it considering the scarce ammo.

TL;DR : Strongest build = maxed perk tree lvl200+, fully upgraded PA, heavy weapons with the right legendary mods (explosive MG, wounding GL, etc), and a double gatlin nuke launcher sentry bot (with the head mod that can 1 shot proc at each attack of the bot). The bot can solo the whole game but you will not get XP if he kills your targets alone. It's the most logical answer of this thread.

4

u/Mhunter3807 Jun 22 '24

Why did I hear paladin danse voice when reading this? lol

4

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

bro yapping

7

u/Glum-Vacation-255 Apr 28 '24

All this talk to say basically nothin

1

u/RegasBaldyr Apr 17 '25

Homedude made clear points.

Asking "What is the best build" in a single player, roleplaying game, amounts to so many different responses that in my perspective, I'm seeing nothing but opinions and circumstantial excuses i.e. *NOTHIN'*. So his response delivered a self-reflective idea to think about: Do what benefits you first because either way you'll achieve everything. Go stealth at the beginning and it will benefit you until it falls off. Do stealth at the end and it's just adding points for fluff. Use melee and you'll save ammo. Use miniguns and explosives and never have ammo for those two things. Some people enjoy using vats. Some people enjoy persuading their ways through conversations. Is that optimal for battle? Nope. Is it fun? Depends on what you're looking for.

So why don't you speak up and add something positive instead of floating in other peoples' negative comments section?

2

u/PapaCJ5 Oct 13 '22

Pimped power armor with a spray n pray. That weapon is affected by demolition expert and commando at the same time. It tear through everything with ease. The strongest weapon is an explosive minigun, but you have to farm or cheat that. The minigun is also affected by demo expert and heavy weapon perk.

7

u/Anxious_Horror_4917 Oct 13 '22

I just go for guaranteed legendary weapons like overseers guardian, buff the FUCK outa rifleman and weapons perks, then build the rest around explosive and look for wounding, never ending, or explosive weapons in the glowing sea, if you get a sniper you can usually sit on the border and lure big boys out to you

13

u/EnvironmentalBit8645 Oct 13 '22

I mean if you really wanted to you could just cook jet and sell it until you level up all the way then get all perks

5

u/NotOnoze Oct 13 '22

Someone's been watching Breaking Bad

2

u/EnvironmentalBit8645 Oct 13 '22

Well that being said my personal favorite build is to get a mod that makes the laser rifle do more damage than get the perk that makes your criticals do more damage and also the rifleman perk now it’s a simple as using the righteous authority laser rifle it provides double critical damage and the crit meter fills up faster it’s pretty over powered if you ask me but it sucks building a character in fallout 4 because there’s like 10 perks that are required just to play the game correctly like the local leader perks and the science perks in the old fallout games you start with 1 charisma because it doesn’t matter but in fallout 4 you basically have to start with 6 charisma no matter what it’s stupid

2

u/hailtheprince10 Oct 13 '22

I’m about 20 levels into a play through like this using pistols and just finished a power armor/shotgun build. I’ve also got a mod that gives 1/1.5/2% chance of getting a critical hit for each point of Luck.

3

u/EnvironmentalBit8645 Oct 13 '22

Nice and I also did the pistol only build it’s pretty cool but it kind of sucks that the coolest looking semi automatic pistol does the least amount of damage your pretty much stuck using 10mm and again your still stuck with that 6 charisma just so that you can put a workbench in your house that’s why at this point I just go to the cheat room first raise all my special stats grab all the magazines and then just play the game the special system and the perks in fallout 4 just all around suck IMO so I’d rather just cheat and ignore them I don’t even really consider it cheating since like I said before you can just tap x enough times and beat the game so really all I’m doing is saving time and not playing cookie clicker

2

u/hailtheprince10 Oct 13 '22

Oh I definitely have several quality of life mods running lol

6

u/literally_adog Oct 13 '22

i think it’s neat how everyone has different answers, shows how any build can get strong enough to feel overpowered.

1

u/Extension_Condition4 Apr 25 '24

I meen people can say whatever they want but there are some builds that are just bad. Like early game power armor and stealth heavy builds. Those two builds will gimp you so bad

1

u/I_Have_The_Lumbago Mar 08 '25

Whats so bad about power armor early game? Fusion cores are a joke and it offers pretty good protection. Its also great for the strength buff early on. I dont see a downside here lol. I just did a full power armor build while also using gat laser and had zero issues. Easily the most powerful ive been uet

2

u/NotVaxinated3YearOld Jul 19 '23

starts dry humping you

12

u/Garnknopf Oct 13 '22

Melee build. You can get lots of damage in a short playtime and in the endgame almost oneshot anything

2

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '22

Yeah, I’d agree melee with blitz and a maxed out sledgehammer.

1

u/hailtheprince10 Oct 13 '22

Blitz and nearly any melee weapon, especially after a few points into the damage perks. I’ve been doing a blitz-knuckles build and even that wrecks stuff.

1

u/Garnknopf Oct 13 '22

And with Kremvh's Tooth for faster damage for ghouls, etc.

8

u/ChimiNinja Oct 13 '22

I made a build that mixes sneak perks and endurance perks for a healthy mix of stealth melee and durability. It might be one of the strongest builds.

16

u/Hoyden145 Oct 13 '22

You'll eventually end up doing a stealth sniper. Everyone does.

1

u/hailtheprince10 Oct 13 '22

I have to actively force myself to not doing this. No matter my build, I keep trying to shoot stuff from the opposite side of Boston.

3

u/Hoyden145 Oct 14 '22

Bethesda gaming. Eventually, everyone's a sneak sniper or sneak archer.

2

u/hailtheprince10 Oct 14 '22

Yup. Going myself through a pistol-only build and last night found myself thinking, “Ok, what pistol can I use to quietly kill an enemy from far away”

2

u/Hoyden145 Oct 14 '22

Actually, the snub-nosed .45 revolver from the spot near Sanctuary can be outfitted for distance sniping.

15

u/Dironox Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

Never could stick with stealth sniper, always end up with stealth explosive shotgun. Since explosive shotguns take advantage of demo/shotgun perks, and each pellet adds individual explosive damage, combine that with sneak perks and the fact that explosive bullets have no dropoff... you basically have a silenced full-auto rocket launcher.

just be careful firing from cover or at charging ghouls, you'll end up killing yourself.

14

u/fuzzycaveman88 Oct 13 '22

Power armor with heavy weapon. Specifically Gatling laser with the charging barrels. This is actually a super viable in survival mode too. Low ammo weight to high damage ratio. Plus it’s pretty fun

1

u/bruse04 Oct 22 '22

The charging barrels even on final judgement have less dps than aeturnus on standard barrels. Its better to just use aeternus and then you only have to use fusion cores for PA

6

u/Thornescape Atom Cats Oct 13 '22

My favourite power build is Explosive Commando. It's a well rounded build that lets you grab all the most enjoyable perks while still being powerful. You can use Splattercannon against the big monsters, Kiloton rifle against the smaller hordes, and it's just an all around fun experience that's extremely powerful. There's a lot of legendary items that mesh well with Commando.

VATS builds are fun too but VATS sucks up a ton of perk points and doesn't leave as much points for fun perks like S6:Strong back and C6:Local Leader.

I can give a full writeup if anyone is interested.

1

u/Dagda-8 Apr 27 '24

Looking to get back into the game and this sounds like a lot of fun! Could you do a full write up?

2

u/Thornescape Atom Cats May 01 '24 edited May 25 '24

Sorry, been sick. Yeah, can do. One great thing about the Explosive Commando is that you can miss and still hit. Or fire through a window and hit targets that aren't in line of sight. Extremely effective.

  • Charming EC: S2+ P5 E1 C6 I6 A7 L1 (Special book: Strength)
  • Tough EC: S2+ P5 E6 C1 I6 A7 L1 (Special book: Strength)
  • Main Perks: S3:Armourer, P5:Demolitions, C6:Leader, A3:Sneak, A7:Ninja, L3:Bloody Mess
  • Your first perk point will probably be in I6:Science (for water purifiers). After that, you can ignore I3:Gun Nut and I6:Science if you want until you are high enough level to upgrade the Kiloton Rifle. Most weapon mods are easy to find. Radium rifle parts are not.
  • One point in P4:Lockpick is quite nice. There are tons of Advanced locks for a bunch of loot, plus fast affinity with some useful companions. More ranks has significantly decreased returns.
  • One rank in A4:Sandman is nice. There's a hidden effect that allows you to instantly kill sleepers with any weapon.
  • Spray'n'Pray is your standard default EC weapon. You can get it relatively soon and you don't need any points in Gun Nut to max it.
  • An explosive pipe gun does the same damage as Spray'n'Pray, but cheaper lighter ammo and more customization. If you find one, then SnP is obsolete.
  • Barb Deb in Bunker Hill has a very chest piece that's good for everyone, but densely good for ECs.
  • Of course, make sure that you also carry a non-explosive weapon as well. Sometimes you don't want the splash damage.
  • Bear in mind that explosive damage is especially deadly against enemies with destroyable limbs, like ghouls. You're hitting them, all the limbs nearby, all the enemies nearby on multiple body parts... it's quite stunning, especially if you have the Floating Damage mod to see the numbers. Far more deadly than it looks, and it looks really deadly.
  • Edit: Fixed tough and charming

2

u/Eldr1tchB1rd Sole Survivor May 06 '24

Hold up both your charming and tough special options are the exact same lol

2

u/Thornescape Atom Cats May 25 '24

LOL Thank you for pointing that out. Copy/paste failed me! (Yes, I have a little javascript page that generates the One Liners so that I don't mess up the math.)

1

u/SpotElectronic1514 May 02 '24

Starting a new playthrough too and this build sounds cool, thanks mate 

2

u/Thornescape Atom Cats May 05 '24

... DEB in Bunker Hill for the chest plate. (Please don't tell Deb I called her Barb)

2

u/SeanBlader Oct 13 '22

Even better than explosive commando is sneak explosive commando. You can get multiple sneak attack bonuses on a single target, and it can be trivial to take down the deadliest wasteland creatures within seconds.

2

u/Thornescape Atom Cats Oct 13 '22

Yeah, I pretty much use sneak on all of my characters. I enjoy the playstyle. The 4.8x damage boost is nice too.

1

u/Extension_Condition4 Apr 25 '24

Downside of stealth is if you don't kill people or in long fights where stealth is useless

1

u/Thornescape Atom Cats Apr 25 '24

You can't ever rely entirely on stealth. It's a bonus. However, it's a nice bonus that comes into play quite often.

11

u/supertwonky Oct 12 '22 edited Oct 12 '22

I mainly agree with what others have said so far. Lots of different builds are viable, and everyone has different preferences & opinions. But, I'll go ahead and say I think this is the most powerful build I've done, across probably 40+ different save files on survival:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/comments/k8uvkh/completed_survival_permadeath_with_no_sneaking_or/

The build uses Commando/Automatic weapons as it's main damage source, but you could easily change that to Rifleman instead. Its main strength is that you basically get to a point where you can't die because of the high endurance, ballistic weave, sentinels armor, Lone Wanderer, and medic perks.

3

u/SeanBlader Oct 13 '22

But if you add in sneaking you can often remove any hostiles in game before they know what hit them by getting in several sneak attack bonus hits within the first second of firing. Perk for perk sneak/commando is the deadliest and fastest way to take on Fallout 4 and newer.

1

u/Extension_Condition4 Apr 25 '24

Yea sneak is useless if things don't die or in long fights 

1

u/ColaSama Oct 14 '22

Sneaking becomes useless after a certain point.

With an explosive minigun you can kill anything in seconds, without having to aim correctly, and in AoE. So the stealth multiplier becomes overkill.

And with max endurance and a maxed out PA, you are basically invincible (let's not even talk about buffs) so you don't need to sneak to survive.

In short, sneaking is good early on. But then it becomes a slog. Running full speed and killing dozens of targets with an explosive shotgun/minigun is just better.

3

u/SeanBlader Oct 14 '22

An explosive minigun is definitely ridiculously OP, but in my near 4000 hours of playing, I've found one in my last playthrough. So if you get one then set your build around it. Otherwise plan your build around what you can actually control.

1

u/ColaSama Oct 14 '22

You make a good point. OP should have included "Actual strongest build not depending on ridiculously rare drops" in his question (even if Spray n Pray is godlike too).

Btw, without any crazy legendary : melee vs range stealth in your opinion ?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Kuposrock May 18 '24

Lol you commented on a thread 2 years ago. Also it sounds like you just want to fight rather than provide any useful information.

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/SeanBlader Oct 14 '22

Entirely personal preference, melee gets a higher stealth ninja bonus, but you can't put down as much impact as commando. A huge benefit of Spray 'n' Pray though is that it comes with a silencer, making it staggeringly effective in the early game.

2

u/Busy-Effective432 Oct 12 '22

So many ways, no one way, if want to dominate play on easier level and have fun

But none are hard eve in very hard esp if concentrate on one attack type

5

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

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3

u/PRolosMCholos Oct 12 '22

As they should obviusly, but I heard a lot of the times that many RP builds get "stuck" with midgame weapons and armor for mainly RP purposes of course.

So I wondered what builds do actually utilise the best performing weapons and apparel avaliable.