Some of the most important decisions you will have to make as a low level character are which perk cards to choose and which SPECIAL points to increase each time you level up. Your perks will impact damage resistance, lethality in combat, how much ammo you use (and therefore how much you need to find or make) and certain quality of life issues, such as carry weight, how quickly you burn through Stimpaks and Radaway, and how often you must eat and drink.
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| Cooler - Usually Contains Food or Drink |
The game no longer has penalties for hunger and thirst, only buffs for being well fed and hydrated, but for my role-playing style, at least, hunger and thirst must still be managed. The buffs for being well fed and hydrated don't hurt either. There are many ways to acquire food in the game, one of which is by finding coolers.
EARLY LEVEL PERKS:
I recommend using Nukes and Dragons Fallout 76 Character Build Planner to decide which perks to choose. Keep a list beside you as you play with the next 3-5 levels plotted out so that decisions are quick and easy. Each SPECIAL point you add when you level up helps with some aspect of the game as well.
SPECIAL Categories and Perks:
Strength: Affects melee damage and carry weight. Early perks are Gladiator (Lvl 2, melee build), Traveling Pharmacy (Lvl 3), and Iron Fist (Lvl 5, melee build). In my view, the best perk in this set is Traveling Pharmacy, because it lowers carry weight for Stimpaks and Radaway (30% at Rank 1, up to 90% at Rank 3). These items are critical to survival, and if you collect an excess, they sell for better prices than many other items to vendors. However, I don't usually take this one until sometime between Levels 5 and 10.
Perception: Increases weapon accuracy in VATS and your perception of enemies nearby. Early perks are Concentrated Fire (Lvl 2), Butcher's Bounty (Lvl 3), Green Thumb (Lvl 4), and Picklock (Lvl 5). Concentrated Fire has some advantages, because it lets you choose the body part you want to target in VATS. Head shots do additional damage and leg shots can cripple an opponent more often, slowing them down. This works particularly well on Supermutants. But accuracy suffers with concentrated fire on anything other than the chest, and with low level weapons, the advantages of targeting a body part are less obvious.
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| Bloodleaf - Used to Make Healing Salve |
I would say Green Thumb is the most useful perk of this set at low level, because the ability to make your own adhesive is important in the early game, and Green thumb doubles the amount of mutfruit, corn, and tatoes you can collect. You can also collect random plants such as Soot Flower and Glowing Fungus to sell at vendors, doubling your haul from collecting. Finally, once you get the plan for making Healing Salve (after registering to be a Responder in Flatwoods) you can make your own from Bloodleaf (streamside in Flatwoods and elsewhere), Soot Flower (all over the forest) and boiled water. It only heals 20% of hit points, but is easy to make and doesn't use up your Purified Water. I recommend taking Green Thumb around Level 5-6.
Picklock will net you additional resources, but is not critical until you get to higher level areas with more difficult Level 1 locks, and when you begin undertaking quests that can be made easier by being able to pick certain locks. You might even wait until Picklock drops by random chance in a Perk Pack at levels 4, 6, 8, or 10. If you don't have picklock by Level 10, or you are running into a number of locks you can't pick each outing, then maybe take Picklock then. Locked boxes never seem to have anything special in them, such as legendary items or unique objects. You will mostly find junk, chems, ammo, and resources.
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| Pond Near Gilman Lumber Co. - An Early Source of Water |
Endurance: Increases hit points, sprint time before tiring, and disease resistance. Early perks are Lead Belly (Lvl 2), Dromedary (Lvl 3), Iron Stomach (Lvl 4), and Slow Metabolizer (Lvl 5). I would say that keeping hydrated is the biggest quality of life issue in the game, so if any of these were selected, I would choose Dromedary. But if you are careful to collect 20-30 dirty water every time you pass a water source, and then cook it up into boiled water for consumption whenever you encounter a cooking station, you should be fine without any of these in the early game. Some may come up randomly in Perk Packs, and you can use them when and if they do.
One important thing to keep in mind is that Purified Water is a precious commodity in the early game, because it is necessary for making adhesive, and you may not have plans that allow you to build a machine that will purify water early on. You may have to rely on random finds of this item. So try to avoid drinking your Purified Water if at all possible. Save it for crafting adhesive that you can use in modding and repairing armor and weapons.
Charisma: Allows sharing of perk card benefits with teammates (one Rank 1 card for each three points of charisma, or a Rank 2 card at 6 points, or a Rank 3 card at 9 points). It also affects prices at vendors. Early perks are Inspirational (Lvl 2, team-oriented), Happy Camper (Lvl 3), Lone Wanderer (Lvl 4), and Bodyguards (Lvl 5, team-oriented).
For a role-player running solo, Lone Wanderer is the obvious choice. You need two SPECIAL points to choose this one, but it affords 10% less damage when gaming solo, and 10% faster Action Point regeneration. Ten percent (10%) less damage means fewer Stimpaks needed and a higher probability of surviving encounters, especially with tougher opponents. Action Points (AP) can be important in the early game, especially if you use VATS a lot, or use a run and hide strategy when facing tougher opponents. Each additional rank (up to 3) gives you an extra 5% damage resistance and 10% AP regeneration.
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| Pipe Pistols - Surprisingly Effective in the Early Game |
Intelligence: Increases experience points earned from each activity, and is also important in crafting, especially of weapons and armor. It also influences how easy it is to hack terminals. Early perks are First Aid (Lvl 2), Hacker (Lvl 4), and Licensed Plumber (Lvl 5).
Licensed Plumber may be the best perk for non-melee builds at the earliest levels (no, really, hear me out!). First Aid would be my second choice.
Licensed Plumber (Lvl 5) makes pipe weapons cheaper to repair and helps them last 20% longer before breaking. That means fewer repairs and less use of adhesive. In my second iteration of the game, I went straight for the higher quality weapons such as hunting rifles, combat shotguns, and 44 pistols as soon as I could because I recognized that these were better weapons in terms of damage per shot. But many of these weapons are few and far between, which means that you cannot find and scrap as many, which means that you learn mods for them more slowly. Also, many of the mods require Rank 2 or Rank 3 of Gunsmith. You can't even get the Gunsmith perk card until Level 11. The basic Pipe Pistol has an advantage in the early game, because it is fast-firing, and even though its damage per shot is lower, the damage per second is usually higher, at least until certain mods come into play.
If you play around with the Fallout 76 Weapon Damage Calculator you can easily see the difference. Comparing a Level 5 unmodded 44 Pistol, Hunting Rifle, Pipe Revolver and Pipe Pistol for damage, on low level enemies with damage, energy, and rad resistances of 10, we see the following:
44 Pistol 33 34.6 0.6
Hunting Rifle 39 11.7 0.3
Pipe Revolver 23 11.7 0.5
Pipe Pistol 07 42.9 6.0
The Pipe Pistol is clearly the best weapon against low level enemies like those you will face at the start of the game. Also, they are common drops from enemies, so you can scrap them and learn a lot of new mods quickly, and a majority of these mods don't require the Gunsmith perk to make. Many more of the mods for the other weapons mentioned require Gunsmith, and often Rank 2 or higher.
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| Weapons Workbench at Wixon Homestead |
One of the best mods, Suppressor (a type of silencer), may be accessible for the Pipe Pistol as early as Level 11 with Rank 1 of the Gunsmith perk, so long as it has come up as a learned mod while scrapping pipe weapons. Pipe Pistols also use 38 ammo, one of the most common types in the early game. Given the firepower and mod-ability of pipe guns in the early game, the Licensed Plumber perk card can make a lot of sense for low level players eyeing ballistic builds.
Why not First Aid first? Regular stimpaks can heal 60% of a player's health, rather than a set number of points. First Aid increases the hit points healed from Stimpaks by 15% at Rank 1 (so 69% of total health), and up to 45% at Rank 3 (87% of total health). However, I try not to let my character get below 50% health whenever possible while roleplaying, so the added percentage is often overkill. The extra 15% healing is much more useful, in my opinion, once you find the plan for making diluted Stimpaks. But that may take some time. Diluted Stimpaks heal 30%, and the extra healing from the First Aid card can push that up to 35% at Rank 1, 39% at Rank 2, and 44% at Rank 3 (if my math is correct). The downside is that Diluted Stimpaks require Purified Water, which is more important, in my opinion, for making adhesive in the early game so that you can mod and repair weapons and armor.
Agility: Affects the number of action points (AP), including number of attacks in VATS, how long you can sprint, and the effectiveness of sneaking. Early perks are Action Boy/Girl (Lvl 2), Born Survivor (Lvl 3), Gun Runner (Lvl 4), and Moving Target (Lvl 5). Agility is one of the more important SPECIAL categories to grow in the early game because of the benefits of extra action points in combat and while sprinting around the Wasteland.
The best among these perks is almost certainly Born Survivor. If your health falls below 20% at Rank 1, you will automatically use a Stimpak, even while engaged in combat. Rank 2 triggers at below 30% and Rank 3 triggers at below 40%. This perk is very important if you are role-playing a limited number of deaths as I am (9 lives).
Action Boy/Girl would be my second choice, because it may give an extra shot in VATS before your AP must refresh, and it allows you to sprint further before tiring when running away from danger, or running to an important destination. Gun Runner increases speed if a pistol is equipped, but only by 10% and Moving Target gives bonus protection but only while running, which may be a small portion of your playtime.
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| A Chem Box Containing Healing-Related Items |
Luck: Affects item condition and durability when found and increases the recharge rate for the critical meter in VATS. Early perks are Pharma Farma (Lvl 2), Scrounger (Lvl 3), and Serendipity (Lvl 5).
I think Pharma Farma is the best perk of this set and is usually the first one I take before leaving the vault. Stimpaks and Radaway are critical items early in the game, and when you do not yet have the ability to make them, finding them is crucial to success. With Pharma Farma, I usually end up with a surplus I can sell and I don't have to worry too much about rationing them while injured. You can learn to make Healing Salve fairly early in the game (see Intelligence above), and can milk Brahmin to heal your rads, but simply finding the chems is much easier.
Scrounger is worth using if you have an extra point in Luck and it pops up from a perk pack, or if you keep finding you are running low on your favored ammo and you aren't finding enough lead and gunpowder to feed the habit. Serendipity can help keep you alive at low HP, but I think Born Survivor is much better, and the percentage chance of avoiding damage for Serendipity is low at Rank 1. I try to spend as little time as possible below 30% health.
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| Important Items (Left to Right) - Adhesive, Rad-X, and a Chem Box |
Leveling Up & Choosing Perks:
My approach to the first five levels would be as follows:
Level 2 (Still in the Vault) - Add 1 point to Agility and choose the Pharma Farma perk for Luck - this will increase your action points and your chances of finding healing chems from the start.
Level 3 - Add 1 point to Agility and choose Born Survivor Perk - More action points and an automatic Stimpack if you fall below 20% health. You have five Stimpaks when you exit the vault.
Level 4 - Check the Perk Pack, distribute cards where there are available points, then choose Charisma and Lone Wanderer. Provides extra protection and faster AP regeneration. You need two points of charisma to choose this perk.
Level 5 - Add 1 point to Intelligence and Choose the Licensed Plumber Perk (for ballistic builds). Will slightly increase your experience point gain and make your pipe weapons last longer before breaking and cheaper to repair when they do.
That's it for this tip guide. In summary, the best perks for the first five levels for each SPECIAL category are probably Pharma Farma (LCK), Born Survivor (AGI), Lone Wanderer (CHA), Licensed Plumber (INT), Green Thumb (PER), Traveling Pharmacy (STR), and Dromedary (END), and in roughly that order.
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| A Common Type of Cooking Station |
Adhesive, Purified Water, and chems such as Stimpaks and Radaway are critical early level resources that should be managed carefully. And dirty water should be collected whenever water is encountered and then boiled at a cooking station for consumption and cooking. And if you are a long-time player just starting a fresh character, don't discount the value of Pipe Pistols in the early stages of the game. They have low damage per shot, but high damage per second and are very moddable early on.
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