Fallout 4 showcases a big open world packed with a plethora of activities and complex RPG mechanics. The sheer number of weapons and build variations you’ll encounter will overwhelm even the veteran players. So I have created this guide that’ll cover Fallout 4 best-starting stats and recommend some builds to help you in your journey.
Key Takeaways
Strength, Perception, Endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck are all abbreviated as S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
- Strength impacts carry capacity and melee damage.
- Perception improves weapon accuracy and V.A.T.S. targeting.
- Endurance makes you more resilient.
- Charisma enhances persuasion and negotiation.
- Intelligence boosts XP gains.
- Agility raises action points (A.P.) and sneaking ability.
- Luck affects critical hit recharge.
For simplicity, consider these recommended builds:
- Melee Build
- Stealth Sniper Build
- Demolisher Build
Among them, the Melee Build is highly recommended.
With a love for Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, Waleed has dedicated more than 100 hours to Fallout 4, so you can easily trust his information related to the game.
To ease your journey through the wastelands, we’ve created this guide. It will cover the fallout 4 best starting stats, perks to choose, and builds to make. So without further ado, let’s get started by discussing the S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats.
The SPECIAL Stat Chart
In the game, the acronym S.P.E.C.I.A.L stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. You start with a total of 21 points that you can allocate to these attributes. Here’s a brief overview of each stat to help you decide how to distribute your points:
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Strength: Determines your damage output and carrying capacity.
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Perception: Improves weapon accuracy in V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System), allowing you to target specific enemy limbs.
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Endurance: Increases your durability and reduces AP consumption when sprinting.
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Charisma: Enhances persuasion and bartering abilities in dialogue.
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Intelligence: Boosts XP gains.
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Agility: Increases AP points and enhances sneaking ability.
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Luck: Affects critical hit recharge rate and overall good fortune.
These values decide what perks you’ll have access to and adjust the personality and characteristics of your avatar. So let’s briefly understand the stats one by one before deciding which ones to spec into.
You can spec a maximum of 10 points per attribute. Considering you are provided with only 21 points, try to spec into stats that are more suited to your playstyle.
Best Perks in Fallout 4
After investing in the stats that reflect your playstyle, each stat will fill further unlock different perks. These perks are special abilities that give your character a powerful edge.
Some of these perks are also helpful in the survival mode. So, Let’s discover some of the most powerful perks from each fallout 4 best starting stats.
Strength
- Heavy Gunner: This enables your heavy weapons to dish out more damage
- Strong Back: Let’s you carry additional weight
- Steady Aim: Gives you better hip-fire accuracy
- Iron Fist: Punching damage increases +20%
- Big Leagues: You can do 40% extra melee damage and get a chance to disarm enemies
- Armorer: Gain access to armor mods for protection
- Pain Train: Running into enemies while in your power armor causes severe damage and make them stagger
Perception
- Rifleman: This enables your heavy weapons to dish out more damage
- Awareness: Shows your enemies’ resistances through V.A.T.S
- Demolition Expert: Your character will do more explosive damage
- Sniper: You’ll be able to hold breath for longer while using a sniper scope
- Concentrated Fire: V.A.T.S damage stack
- Penetrator: Allows targeting enemies behind covers with V.A.T.S
Endurance
- Toughness: Gain additional 10-50% damage resistance
- Lead Belly: Take little to no radiation from consuming radiated food or drinks from the wasteland
- Aqua Boy/Girl: You’ll be able to swim in radioactive water without taking damage. You’ll also be able to breathe under it and become undetectable by hostiles while submerged
- Rad Resistant: Gain additional 10-50% resistance to radiation from all sources
- Solar Powered: Instantly gain +2 endurance and strength between 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Charisma
- Cap Collector: You get better deals at vendors for both buying and selling
- Lady Killer: Men/Women suffer additional +10% damage in combat and are easier to persuade in dialog
- Lone Wanderer: You’ll take 30% less damage and 100 more weight when traveling without a partner
- Local Leader: You’ll be able to build workshops and supply lines between settlements
- Wasteland Whisperer: By pointing your weapon at an enemy (non-human), there’s a chance you’ll be able to pacify it.
Intelligence
- Gun Nut: Unlock more advanced mods for weapons
- Science: You’ll unlock more advanced energy weapon mods
- Nuclear Physicist: Increased radiation weapon damage
- Scrapper: You can salvage more rare components from deconstructions
- Medic: Stim packs heal 40% of your health and remove 40% of radiation. That said, it completely heals you and removes radiation at max level.
Agility
- Gunslinger: Semi-Auto pistols do 20% increased damage
- Commando: Automatic weapons do 20% increased damage
- Quick Hands: Reloading all guns will become significantly faster
- Sneak: Your character becomes 20-50% harder to detect
- Action Boy/Girl: Action points (AP) regenerate 25-75% faster
Luck
- Scrounger: You’ll find more ammo in containers
- Bloody Mess: Enemies will pulverize into a gooey red mush (ew!)
- Idiot Savant: You’ll randomly receive 3X amplified XP for doing simple actions
- Better Criticals: The critical hits will do +50-250% increased damage
- Four Leaf Clover: Each hit by V.A.T.S has a chance to fill the critical gauge
- Ricochet: An enemy’s ranged attack has a chance to ricochet back and kill them instantly
Recommended Fallout 4 Builds
If you don’t want to get overwhelmed by all the nitty-gritty of stat bonuses and perks, here are some of the recommendations for your build.
Fallout 4 Starting Stats
- Strength > 3 Points
- Perception > 7 Points
- Endurance > 8 Points
- Charisma > 1 Point
- Intelligence > 1 Point
- Agility > 7 Points
- Luck > 1 Point
Recommended Perks: Toughness, Lead belly, Aqua boy/girl, Rad Resistant and Sneak
This is a nice beginner’s build that emphasis HP and resistance to dangers in the wastelands. With a decent amount of points spec’d into perception, you’ll be good with ranged weapons. This means you’ll dish out decent damage from a distance. And if an enemy gets too close, you’ll have enough health to deal with it.
Melee Build
- Strength > 10 Points
- Perception > 3 Points
- Endurance > 4 Points
- Charisma > 2 Points
- Intelligence > 2 Points
- Agility > 7 Points
- Luck > 5 Points
Recommended Perks: Iron Fist (for punching), Big Leagues (for melee weapons), Blacksmith, Armorer, and The Pain Train.
If you like to play up ‘close and personal’ and hit enemies right in the face, these are the stats and perks for you. If you want to go all out, then blindly dump 10 points into strength. You’ll be knocking the living daylights out of super mutants like it’s nothing.
Since you’ll be playing in the close quarters, it’s recommended to spec a decent amount of points into endurance as well. This will give you nice survivability as well.
Stealth Sniper Build
- Strength > 3 Points
- Perception > 8 Points
- Endurance > 3 Points
- Charisma > 1 Point
- Intelligence > 3 Points
- Agility > 7 Points
- Luck > 3 Points
Recommended Perks: Rifleman, Sniper, Awareness, Sneak, Gun Nut, Bloody Mess
This is one of my favourite builds to run in Fallout 4. Taking out an entire enemy camp at a safe distance is one of the most stratifying things about this build. With high perception and agility, you’ll have more bullets to shoot and high accuracy using V.A.T.S.
With high agility combined with Sneak perk, you’ll be virtually undetectable by your enemies. Increased damage from Rifleman combined with sniper, you’ll be hitting every shot with pinpoint accuracy. Awareness is a cherry on top that can help you analyze the different weaknesses of your enemies so you can plan out your approach.
Demolisher Build
- Strength > 5 Points
- Perception > 4 Points
- Endurance > 3 Points
- Charisma > 3 Points
- Intelligence > 9 Points
- Agility > 1 Points
- Luck > 3 Points
Recommended Perks: Demolition Expert, Heavy Gunner, Cap Collector, Gun Nut, Scrounger, Bloody Mess, Nuclear Physicist, Science, and Toughness.
You’ll become a killing machine, laying everything to waste in its path. This build heavily focuses on running and gunning playstyle. The Heavy Gunner and Demolition Expert will greatly increase the damage of explosive weapons like “Fatman” and missile launchers.
Be warned, though, since this is a build more focused towards DPS, you’ll have to watch out for your HP bar. On top of the explosive damage, you’ll also be turning your enemies to dust. It’s a build you can just put on and go on a rampage without any major consequences.
Final Thoughts
Fallout 4 starting stats, perks and build combinations are endless, and I’ve only just scratched the surface. All the builds discussed above are templates for you. You can tailor them to your playstyle however you like and dominate the wastelands. Have fun, survivor!
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I’m an avid gamer turned content writer, my hobbies include but are not limited to different forms of content creation. Not a complicated person, I play games and write about them. Currently attending university for Data Sciences. My favorite past-time is trying to different challange runs of Soulsborne and Souls-like games in the goofiest way possible for my own amusement. You can check my Gaming Profile on Steam And Xbox!
