Fallout 4 Perks: Best Skills, Tips, and Tricks

With Fallout 4, Bethesda has delivered a valuable new part of the franchise. The wasteland is very extensive yet again, as is the Fallout 4 skill system.

Because with the well-known S.P.E.C.I.A.L system and perks, many different playstyles are possible. In our tips and tricks on the Fallout 4 perks, you’ll find everything you need to know about the best skills and perks in the game.

1) Fallout 4 Skills/Perks: A short overview

What are Perks in Fallout 4?

Perks are the ability system behind your character’s attributes, which you can improve as you progress through the game. Increasing your base stats (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) gives you access to Perks, which give you additional abilities.

How are Perks improved in Fallout 4?

You don’t have to do much more than simply play Bethesda’s end-time blockbuster as that’s how you collect EXP (experience points), which you use to increase your character level over time. When you level up, you can then increase your basic values (attributes). In addition, you can then also increase your Perks, which have a maximum of 5 ranks.

What are the Fallout 4 Perks good for?

With these abilities you get the possibility to open locked containers with hairpins – we have a separate guide on this topic – to carry more items or to deal more damage with certain weapons. In total, you will find 70 Perks in Fallout 4.

Fallout 4 Attributes

Each of your character’s attributes has a value between 1 and 10 and depending on the attribute and its level, you’ll get access to Perks. So, to use a special ability in Fallout 4, it may be necessary to increase the appropriate base value first.

2) The Skills at one glance

Fallout’s S.P.E.C.I.A.L. System

Every Fallout 4 character has certain basic values. These consist of Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. In the beginning, you can distribute some points to these values. In addition, you’ll have the possibility to improve them further as you level up.

Apart from leveling up, you can also improve your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. values with the legendary Bobbledheads, the wiggly dolls found in Fallout 4. This is because there is exactly one bobblehead for each basic value, which grants you a bonus of +1 to the respective attribute.

Strength

Strength is the basic value that modifies melee damage in both armed and unarmed combat. For each level in Strength, you get +10 percent damage.

In addition, the amount of Strength determines how much weight you can transport with your character through the wasteland. Thus, for every point invested in Strength, you gain 100 more points of carrying weight.

Perception

Perception is mainly about your attentiveness. You need it, for example, to successfully pick pockets or pick locks in the wasteland. Especially on high levels, this can be quite challenging. Perception is also important for the V.A.T.S. mode. Because it determines the precision with which you shoot your enemies.

Endurance

The value of Endurance is equal to your Health. Accordingly, Endurance increases your physical stamina, which in combination with the perks unlocked by it means damage resistance and more. Thus, high endurance helps you survive in the wasteland.

Charisma

The more charismatic your character is, the easier dialogues with other people will be. You can be more convincing and get more information or access to certain areas.

Likewise, with a high charisma value, your prices at the merchants improve. Accordingly, you’ll receive more bottlecaps in sales and pay less when you purchase items from them.

Hint: With a high value in Charisma, however, it is not only easier for you to manipulate NPCs; your yield of mission rewards is also higher.

Intelligence

Your character’s Intelligence defines their ability to navigate the wasteland as well as work scientifically. Accordingly, with a high intelligence value you can hack terminals as well as robots, improve your weapons or gain experience points faster.

Especially when hacking terminals, the effect of high intelligence becomes apparent. For every experience point you invest in the attribute, the number of words displayed increases.

So your chances of success increase significantly. In addition, the attribute gives you access to perks with advantages in medicine, weapons, or the power of fusion cores.

Agility

Agility determines your maximum action points in Fallout 4. Likewise, the attribute directly affects your ability to sneak undetected. As a result, the Commonwealth’s many inhabitants are less likely to get their hands on you.

The perks of the Agility attribute also allow you to handle weapons faster and more precisely, eliminate enemies in your sleep, or regenerate action points faster.

Luck

Luck is an attribute that often has a passive effect. For example, it determines your chance of finding special items in Fallout 4. Furthermore, a high Luck value makes you a lucky person in the wasteland. Finally, special events occur exclusively due to your luck.

But the Fallout 4 perks for the attribute also provide you with some advantages. For example, you’ll find more ammunition or a larger amount of bottlecaps. Your “fortune” also shows in combat. After all, with luck, you’ll be able to score critical hits much more often.

3) The best Fallout 4 skill for…

There are a lot of good character builds for Fallout 4, the following ideas are meant to serve as inspiration.

Melees

If you want to focus on melee combat in Fallout 4, you’ll find some interesting perks. One easy option is the “Tank”. That is, a melee fighter who can take a lot of damage and dish out a lot. In this respect, you mainly need the Strength attribute and should equip yourself with power armor as soon as possible.

The Strength attribute gives you perks like Iron Fist (+damage), First League (+damage, chance to decapitate), Brawler (+damage, chance to cripple and critical hit), Firmly Grown (+damage resistance, automatic disarm) or Down the Middle (ram enemies with the power armor and make them stagger).

Just as important as strength is stamina. This is because it provides you with valuable Fallout 4 perks for more vitality with Hardness (+damage resistance), Life Giver (+health) or Adamantium Skeleton (-head damage). In addition, you could go a completely new route with Cannibal (Eating corpses restores health) and Ghoulish (Regenerates health through radiation).

On the other hand, if you want a refreshing game experience with sneak attacks, Agility 7 and the Ninja perk would be an interesting goal. The latter grants you a decent damage multiplier when enemies don’t see you coming. In addition, Lightning Attack increases your melee range in V.A.T.S.

Finally, you should raise your luck to at least level 5 to benefit from the Island Endowment perk. This is because the lower your character’s intelligence, the more likely you are to receive triple EXP.

Snipers

For the sniper, on the other hand, other perks are important. So your focus is mainly on agility, on the one hand to be able to hide better from enemies and on the other hand to have more action points in V.A.T.S.. The perks Sneak (harder to detect), Action Boy/Girl (action points regenerate faster) and Peng Fu (V.A.T.S. targets receive more damage) help here.

Perception, on the other hand, gives you access to more gun damage via the Rifleman perk. Likewise, Sniper provides the perfect support for the build. Massed Fire, on the other hand, increases your accuracy with every shot you take in V.A.T.S.

With luck or intelligence, you’re free to choose which path you’d rather take. Intelligence, for example, provides access to scientific perks in addition to the actual focus on taking out your targets over long distances. Luck, on the other hand, boosts your chance to make critical attacks. Here, too, you can benefit from the Island Talent perk. As a result, you need less intelligence, which in turn lets you improve your agility and perception.

The same applies to Charisma and Strength. Generally, neither of them are crucial for a sniper build. Nevertheless, they help you to manage your settlements or just to transport more through the Commonwealth.

4) Best Fallout 4 Skills for the start

Regardless of the character build, however, there are crucial perks that not only make your life easier. Much more, they allow you to access a variety of features that you wouldn’t have without them.

Strength 6: Strong Back

It’s essential in the Wasteland to be able to carry all the wonderful items you’ve taken from your enemies to the nearest merchant. That’s why you should use the Strong Back perk, which allows you to carry more.

Later, at higher ranks, you can not only carry more but also fast travel when you are overloaded. Avoid getting overburdened by precious loot by simply using the “unlimited carry weight” cheat included in the PLITCH trainer.

Perception 2 and 4: Rifleman, Lockpicking

If you increase Perception to level 2, you get the Fallout 4 perk Rifleman. This is a skill that not only gives you real added value at the beginning of Fallout 4 but also toward the end.

After all, rifles are usually part of the standard equipment, since they can be found very often in the wasteland. If you also use non-automatic variants, you can increase the damage considerably with the perk.

As we already showed you in our Fallout 4 Lockpicking Guide, there’s a lot to discover in the Wasteland. However, some things are protected from the access of strangers.

To be able to open boxes, doors, safes, cabinets, and more, you also need the Lockpicking perk in addition to the appropriate hairpins. If you don’t choose this, you’ll lose a lot of items as well as miss out on interesting places.

Intelligence 3, 4 and 5: Weapon Freak, Hacker, Recycler

At Intelligence 3, you get the Weapon Freak perk. Afterwards, you can modify rifles as well as pistols at the workbench to deal more damage. In Fallout 4, this is not only a practical function for recycling items. It also gives you access to more efficient weapons.

Intelligence 4, on the other hand, doesn’t let you pick classic locks, but it does let you bypass digital locks. With the Hacker perk you can gain access to various computer terminals.

Intelligence 5, on the other hand, lets you extract rare materials from the armor and weapons you collect. These include aluminum, but also screws or later fiber optics and circuits. In addition, when you search for components, items containing them will be marked for you.

5) Other Fallout 4 Perks & Tricks

The comic series “Grognak the Barbarian”

Already in Fallout 3 you could improve your skills with skill magazines. In Fallout 4, this feature has now been expanded once again. So, in addition to Living and Loving, Wasteland Survival Guide, Incredibly Overwhelming Stories and a few others, there is also the Hubris Comics series Grognak the Barbarian. This consists of 10 issues that can be found in the Wasteland.

With each comic of the series found, your character receives +5 percent critical damage on both unarmed and armed melee combat. So, if you find all 10 issues, you’ll get a maximum of +50 percent.

Interesting facts: If you find Grognak the Barbarian issue 9 in Hyde Park, you’ll have an edition in your hand that has the same cover as the comic books in Fallout 3 and Fallout Las Vegas.

Level cap in Fallout 4?

As communicated quite early by the developers to the fans, there is no level cap in Fallout 4. This means that you can continue to play and develop your character even after completing the main story. However, this is only partially true.

There is no official level cap anymore. However, the game can technically only “handle” a maximum level of 65,535. However, since this requires 161,062,092,801 EXP, reaching it without cheats is not possible.

Pay attention to the playstyle when leveling!

Although there are no more level limits in Fallout 4, you should still make sure to always choose the attributes and perks that are beneficial for your build.

Since skills also have ranks, it makes sense to think about the direction you want your character to take just before you start playing.

6) Resetting Skills

It’s not possible to reset initially selected attributes and the associated Fallout 4 perks. However, there is a difference between Fallout 3 or especially Fallout New Vegas. In the latter, the decisions made at the beginning were quickly a reason to start the game over.

This is no longer necessary in the current installment thanks to the lack of a level limit. Since there is no limit, you can decide to change your Fallout 4 skills at any time. Accordingly, you can make up for initial mistakes with enough playtime.

Get your Fallout 4 perks faster with PLITCH!

We have already shown you which Fallout 4 perks can be interesting to start with. However, in the end, the choice depends on you and your play style. For example, you could play a ghoul who heals itself in radiation, eats corpses, and hunts Behemoth with a sniper rifle – it’s up to you!

To progress quickly in the game and, above all, to be able to make full use of your Fallout 4 perks quickly, PLITCH’s Fallout 4 cheats will help you. With them, you get free perk points so that you can perfectly expand your abilities. Our premium cheats also provide you with experience, level-ups, terminal passwords, invisibility, Godmode, and much more.

Furthermore, we also offer you a Fallout 4 hardcore cheat. With this, you can lower your character level by one for each use. This makes Bethesda’s role-playing game the ultimate challenge.

Happy Gaming!