Tip Guide 4: Levels 6-10

Vault 76 Poster About SPECIAL Skills and Associated Jobs

If you pursue a trajectory similar to the one followed by my character Tristan, you will probably hit Level 6 around the time you are exploring Flatwoods. Through Level 5, there have been 25 perk cards to choose from, and your character has been able to specifically select up to four different cards, and may have gained up to four more useful ones from the perk pack received at Level 4. To review, my advice for the first five levels were to select the following:  

 Level 2:  1 Agility Point and Pharma Farma from Luck

 Level 3:  1 Agility Point and Born Survivor from Agility

 Level 4:  1 Charisma Point and Lone Wanderer from Charisma

 Level 5:  1 Intelligence Point and Licensed Plumber from Intelligence 

Over the next five levels, there will be 41 or more perk cards to choose from that you haven't already included in your build. Many of these cards can also be ranked up to two or even three stars, adding to the number of choices you have for your character's build, but also increasing the number of decisions that have to be made at each level. 

The good news is that your character will earn another perk pack at Levels 6, 8, and 10, with the chance to obtain as many as 12 different random perk cards in total. A few of these will likely be duplicate cards, but by Level 10 you may be able to apply up to 16 different perk cards from the 49 total that are available (9 selected specifically and 7 random cards from perk packs). Still, deciding which cards to choose (and when) can be a challenge. Some of these decisions may depend on the build you are pursuing, but many of the decisions can be made without reference to a specific build. 

Let's review the options for each SPECIAL attribute.

Strength:  Each point of strength will add 5 pounds to carry weight and increase damage for melee builds by 5%. New perk cards from Levels 6-10 will be Slugger (Lvl 6), Pack Rat (Lvl 7) and Shotgunner (Lvl 10). At Rank 1, Slugger gives 10% bonus damage for 2-handed melee weapons, Pack Rat reduces carry weight of junk by 25%, and Shotgunner gives 10% bonus damage for shotguns. If your character is working toward a melee build, adding one or two SPECIAL points to Strength and choosing a damage-enhancing perk may be the right choice. By adding one point to strength and choosing Rank 1 of Slugger, for example, two-handed melee weapons will do an additional 15% damage. This is probably the best bonus around for a single SPECIAL point and a Rank 1 damage-enhancing perk card. 

Even so, the damage for the most common 2-handed melee weapons in the early game, such as Fire Axe or Baseball Bat, is so low that these bonuses may not make that much difference in kill speed. According to the Fallout 76 Weapon Damage Calculator, both of these weapons do about 37 points of damage per hit and 20 points of damage per second. Adding a point of Strength and the Slugger perk card would increase the damage per hit to about 43 points, but the damage per second would only increase by 3 points. It might be prudent to hold off on this perk card until you have a 2-handed melee weapon with a medium swing speed and a much higher damage per second. Something like a pitchfork at Level 15, or a legendary weapon with additional damage or a faster swing speed. See this link for 2-handed weapons, their swing speeds, and their damage per second at various levels.    

Shotguns are not as common in the early game as pistols or hunting rifles, and only Pump Action Shotguns can be used until Level 15. You can see the minimum level for each shotgun type on this page. A Level 5 Pump Action Shotgun with a standard receiver would max out at 55 points of damage, but the damage per second is an impressive 198 points if all shots and pellets hit. The Shotgunner perk would add 10% to these numbers, or 6 points per shot (62 total) and 20 points max per second (218 total). If you are sure that you want a shotgunner build, or you have a decent shotgun in hand for close up combat, then the Shotgunner perk might be an option. However, I would note that you can get double that increase in damage simply by modding the shotgun to have a hardened receiver. The same shotgun with a hardened receiver and no Shotgunner perk card would do 69 points of damage per shot and 248 points per second. The most effective way to increase damage in the early game is to mod guns for better firepower, fire rate, and accuracy, rather than chasing damage-enhancing perk cards. 

For everyone else not doing melee or shotgunner builds, Pack Rat is the best perk card of this set. It will allow your character to carry substantially more junk items before becoming encumbered, increasing the available resource supply and preserving action points in combat that would otherwise be lost if moving around while over the character's weight limit.

Considering all of the Strength-based perk cards available by Level 10, I would likely take Traveling Pharmacy (Lvl 3) first and Pack Rat (Lvl 7) second, to substantially increase the amount of chems and junk that my character can carry. The damage perks would be third on my list if I planned to have a melee or shotgun build, or if I was switching to a shotgun for close up work. 

Tristan Outside the Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center

Perception:  Each point of perception will improve your accuracy in VATS and increase the radius at which you can perceive the presence of enemies (from 85 feet to a max of 253 feet). There seems to be some disagreement about the exact amount of VATS improvement per point, but my experience fits more with the suggestion of a 4-5% improvement to the base accuracy. If you are a heavy VATS user, this improvement can be helpful. Perception is particularly important for sniper builds because it lets you know when enemies are near before you can see them.

The new perks in the Perception category are mostly focused on damage improvement for ranged weapons. You will have access to Bow Before Me (Lvl 6), Crack Shot (Lvl 7), Rifleman (Lvl 8), Archer (Lvl 8) and Skeet Shooter (Lvl 10). If you plan to be an archer or crossbow user, then Bow Before Me will ignore 12% of an enemy's armor and give a 3% chance to stagger them per hit. That's about a 1 in 33 chance. Not very good odds. Archer gives a standard 10% bonus damage at Rank 1. Rifleman does the same for non-automatic rifles. Crack Shot increases the range and accuracy of pistols by 10%, while Skeet Shooter increases the accuracy and reduces the spread of shotgun pellets. This can be very helpful to increase the number of pellets that hit when using a shotgun.

The value of these perks depends mostly on your build. When choosing between the two archer perks, the damage-enhancing Archer perk is probably most valuable at low level. However, because damage benefits tend to be lower for weapons available at Level 10 and below, especially for weapons with lower damage per second like a bow, it might be best to focus on perks from the other SPECIAL categories that have more value, and then cycle back to these damage-enhancing perks once it becomes more clear which of your weapons are the strongest, and what kind of build you want the character to pursue. At Levels 6-10, my recommendation would be to use these Perception perks only if they appear in a perk pack and you have unused SPECIAL points to which you can assign them.

Considering all of the Perception perks available by Level 10, I would likely take Green Thumb (Lvl 4) first, because of how helpful it is for making adhesive for crafting, then Picklock (Lvl 5) second. Skeet Shooter would be good for shotgunners, but I would probably take the Shotgunner perk (Strength) first because it would probably have the larger effect, and both are available for the first time at Level 10.   

You may be tempted to rank up the damage-enhancing cards for Strength or Perception quickly to make the character more potent in combat. But keep in mind that the Rank 1 card has the biggest effect per perk point spent. The second and third ranks only add 5% to the base damage. At low levels, when your weapons do minimal damage, an extra 5% may not substantially increase the speed of your kills. For many low level weapons, an extra 5% damage may mean only 2-3 additional points. Possibly less when measured in damage per second (see discussion under Strength above). Perks that improve crafting or provide additional defense are probably much more useful in the early game.

Doghouse Beef Stew Dog Food - A Wasteland Staple!

Endurance:  Each point of endurance increases the character's hit points by five (5). Endurance also affects how long your character can run before tiring. The new perks for characters between Levels 6 and 10 are Thirst Quencher (Lvl 6), Good Doggy (Lvl 8), and Natural Resistance (Lvl 10). These are mostly quality-of-life perks, and since the Steel Dawn DLC, they are even less important. Thirst Quencher reduces the chances of disease from drinking contaminated water, Good Doggy triples the hunger-reducing effect from eating Canned Dog Food, and Natural Resistance reduces the probability of contracting diseases from the environment. Hunger and thirst no longer come with drawbacks in the game, and diseases will disappear on their own after a time, and are easily cured with a Disease Cure (which you can craft yourself from early on in the game) or Antibiotics. 

If you are role-playing and plan to manage your hunger and thirst as if they were still important to survival, then Good Doggy is probably the best of these perks. Canned Dog Food is fairly plentiful around the Wasteland, it satisfies 10% of your hunger, returns 25 hit points, and has low rads compared to many foods. It also doesn't spoil, and if you have the Good Doggy perk, you can get 30% of your hunger satisfied per can and 75 hit points back. That is a lot of hit points at low level. With this perk, 8-10 cans of dog food may last a whole gaming session, and you will often find more of them as you explore. You may also need fewer Stimpaks and Healing Salves if you use the dog food wisely to heal up after difficult battles. 

However, if you make sure to collect dirty water every time you pass by a source, and hold onto enough packaged food and animal meat when you kill animals in the game, you probably won't need any of these perks. They are generally a waste of perk cards unless they are random draws from a perk pack and you don't have anything better to place in an open SPECIAL slot.

Considering all of the Endurance perk cards available by Level 10, Good Doggy (Lvl 8) is probably the most useful because your character will probably almost never have to worry about finding additional food, and the buff to healing is quite helpful, especially in the early game. Dromedary (Lvl 3) would be my second choice because it reduces the need to carry as much water as would otherwise be prudent. I tend to carry 15 or 20 boiled water for each play session, but with Dromedary I could probably get away with 12-15. Each boiled water weighs a little less than 1 pound, unless you have the Thru-Hiker perk or a piece of legendary armor that reduces food and drink weights, so the ability to carry fewer can be helpful. However, one point of strength or a pocketed mod on a single piece of armor would account for the weight of about six (6) boiled waters, so it might be better to save your perk card points for something even more useful and use modding to make up for this water weight instead. 

Responder Vendor Bot at Flatwoods Church

Charisma:  Each point of charisma reduces the cost of goods from vendors and increases the caps a vendor will pay for the items that you sell. Otherwise, this SPECIAL attribute has more benefits for team players than for the solo player, although with the relatively new public teams, a player can run around and do their own thing while still benefitting somewhat from being on a team, through sharing perk cards and gaining caps from team members completing quests.

The new perks for Levels 6 through 10 are Hard Bargain (Lvl 7) and EMT (Lvl 9). Hard Bargain improves the selling and buying prices at vendors. According to some testing discussed here, each rank of the Hard Bargain perk affects prices as if the character's charisma were three points higher. Each point of Charisma appears to improve vendor buying prices by a little less than 1% on average, and Rank 1 of Hard Bargain should improve their buying prices by perhaps 3%. The effect appears to be greatest at the lowest charisma levels. This perk is probably not one to have as part of the build all the time. It can be swapped in when visiting a vendor, then swapped back out with something more useful for regular activities. It becomes more valuable at higher levels when selling more expensive loot.

The EMT perk is meant for players who work together in teams. When you revive a player, that player comes back with the ability to regenerate health for 15 seconds. This seems like a perk that would be used only rarely, unless you are a player who spends most of your time in boss fights with a group of other players. That's not very likely at low level. The card has no real benefit to the player themselves, but might be useful for a Medic Build.

Considering all of the Charisma perk cards available by Level 10, the best one for solo players is Lone Wanderer for the 10% damage reduction and the 10% AP regeneration. If already taken by Levels 6-10, then adding another Rank to this card is probably more valuable than taking any of the other Charisma cards available. One nice thing about Lone Wanderer is that it doubles the AP regeneration to 20% and increases damage reduction to 15% at Rank 2, and then to 30% and 20% respectively at Rank 3. The card improves both offense and defense, and is probably among the best in the game.

Intelligence:  According to this page, each point of Intelligence increases the durability of crafted armor and weapons by 5% per point, and the amount of materials produced from scrapping increases by 20% at the lowest level, but only 1% at the highest. Improved durability means weapons and armor break more slowly and will function longer in the field.

The largest effect on item durability is between Rank 1 and Rank 2 of Intelligence, and the improvement is only 1% per point of Intelligence from Rank 10 onward. At an Intelligence of 8, which is often the target for my characters, crafted items have 40% more durability and scrapping produces 56% more resources. Intelligence also increases the experience points earned while playing the game. The amount is not clear, but I've seen players estimating between 2% and 4% per point of intelligence based on personal testing. 

The new perks for Levels 6 through 10 are Pharmacist (Lvl 6), Makeshift Warrior (Lvl 9) and Demolition Expert (Lvl 10). With the Pharmacist perk, Radaway removes 30% more radiation. Pharmacist is also needed to craft certain chems at chemistry workbenches, such as Antibiotics, Water Filters, and Disease Cures. Makeshift Warrior allows Tier 1 melee weapons to be crafted and reduces the rate of damage to melee weapons used in combat by 10%. It has five ranks possible. It is probably the best choice at 9th level for characters with melee builds. Demolition Expert can be a very important perk, but probably not unless you use explosive weapons, which are not commonly available until higher levels. Aside from Makeshift Warrior for melee builds, I would not recommend any of these unless they are random draws from a perk pack and you have a spare SPECIAL point to allocate.

Considering all of the Intelligence perk cards available by Level 10, I would say Licensed Plumber (Lvl 5) is most important if you use pipe weapons a lot, or Makeshift Warrior for melee builds. The next most important would be either Hacker (Lvl 4) or possibly First Aid (Lvl 2) if you find yourself frequently down below 50% health. An argument could be made for Demolition Expert (Lvl 10) as the most important perk, if you are the type of player who uses a lot of thrown explosives and likes to set a lot of mines to kill mobs. I tend to injure myself too often with these things, so don't use them very often.

Pistol User's Have Two Relevant Perks for Agility from Levels 6-10

Agility:  Agility determines how many action points your character has, the rate that those points are refreshed while resting, and the probability of success while sneaking. According to this page, each point of agility gives the character an extra 10 action points. It also gives the character an additional five points of "sneak rating bonus", but I haven't been able to find out what percentage of the base sneak rating that would be, nor how these points interact with the Sneak perk card. So it seems there is steady improvement in sneaking ability with each point of agility, but what that means is not completely clear.

The new Agility perks for Levels 6 through 10 are Gunslinger (Lvl 6), Thru-Hiker (Lvl 7), Dead Man Sprinting (Lvl 8), Packin' Light (Lvl 9) and Guerrilla (Lvl 10). Gunslinger improves pistol damage by 10%, like most of the other damage-enhancing perks, Thru-Hiker decreases food and drink weights by 30%, Dead Man Sprinting is a situational card that increases running speed by 10% but only when below 40% health and at a cost of AP.  It seems like a worthless perk to me. Packin' Light will make your already fairly light pistols weigh 25% less, and Guerrilla is a damage-enhancing perk for automatic pistols. Automatic pistols are probably not a good primary weapon at this early stage in the game because they burn through ammo quite quickly.

Thru-Hiker is my favorite perk in this set. It has 3 ranks and if maximized would reduce food and drink weights by 90%! There are pieces of legendary armor that reduce food and drink weights by 20%, so presumably you could use a Rank 2 card for 60% and an armor piece to push it up to 80%. The max weight reduction appears to be 90%. With that, you can almost carry around an unlimited supply of these items with minimal impact on carry weight. Unless you are ignoring hunger and thirst, this perk card is one of the best ways to manage weight in the game. It allows you to carry a healthy supply of water to stay hydrated, to use in crafting, or for sale, and it allows a variety of foods with different beneficial characteristics to be carried or sold as well. This perk, and Traveling Pharmacy under Strength, are probably the two most effective weight management perks in the game.

Considering all of the Agility perk cards available by Level 10, I would say Born Survivor (Lvl 3) is the most valuable for cheating death, followed by Thru-Hiker (Lvl 7) and then Action Boy/Girl (Lvl 2). It is worth pushing Born Survivor up to Rank 2 so that a Stimpak is automatically used at below 30% health, and you might push Thru-Hiker to Rank 2 as well if carry weight tends to be a problem, though I wouldn't do that before engaging at least Rank 1 of Traveling Pharmacy (Lvl 3) under Strength. And if you tend to carry more chems than food and drink, you might rank up Traveling Pharmacy before Thru-Hiker.

The "Can Do!" Perk Increases the Chances of Canned Food in Food Containers

Luck:  This attribute sets parameters for the condition of looted items in the game, and determines how quickly the critical bar fills in VATS. According to this page, the condition of a looted item has a range that is determined by the number of Luck points, but the exact condition within that range seems to be randomly determined. So a character with a Luck of 1 will find guns and armor at between 15% and 65% of mint condition. The min/max range is always 50%. At higher Luck levels, it is possible to find items that are better than new condition (overrepaired). This is indicated by a little yellow bar within the normal condition bar. Because the condition of looted items affects their value when sold, a higher luck can mean faster acquisition of caps. 

As for how Luck affects the critical meter, a character with a Luck of 1 would fill about 6.5% of the critical meter with each successful hit in VATS. Each additional Luck point would fill the meter 1.5% more.  So a character with a Luck of 2 would fill the meter by 8% per successful shot, and a character with a Luck of 3 would fill the meter by 9.5% per hit. Thus, it would take 11 successful hits to fill the meter at a Luck of 3. At a luck of 15, the critical meter would be filled every fourth successful hit. There are, of course, Luck Perks that can improve the fill rate of the critical meter even more.

The new Luck perks for Levels 6 through 10 are Can Do! (Lvl 6), Good With Salt (Lvl 9) and Junk Shield (Lvl 10). Can Do! increases the probability of finding canned food in food containers by 40%. Coupled with Good Doggy (Endurance, Lvl 8), this might solve most of your food needs. However, there is generally plenty of food available in the Wasteland, if you are careful to harvest meat from animals and pick up packaged foods, so this card would not normally be a priority. Good With Salt might have more value. It makes food in your inventory spoil 30% more slowly, and can be ranked up twice to a 90% slower spoil rate. Not a critical perk, but it does improve quality of life and allows characters to make use of some of the buffs from prepared foods more easily because those foods last longer. That way, you can save these food items until the right conditions come along to use them. Junk Shield provides some defensive protection, but it is only a maximum of 10 points, presumably depending on how much junk is being carried, and there are many other perks that guarantee 10 points or more.

One Type of Chem Box Impacted by the Pharma Farma Perk

Considering all of the Luck perks available by Level 10, I would say that Pharma Farma (Lvl 2) is most valuable, but it does not need to be ranked up beyond Rank 1. Scrounger would be the second most valuable for rifle and pistol builds, particularly if ammo (or the materials to craft it) always seem to be in short supply. If that is not the case, then Good With Salt at Rank 1 might be a good choice.

Leveling Up and Choosing Perks

My role-playing build up to Level 5 has the following SPECIAL points and perk cards:

SPECIAL Points:  S = 1, P = 1, E = 1, C = 2, I = 2, A = 3, L = 1

Perks (excluding perk pack drops):  Pharma Farma (LCK), Born Survivor (AGI), Lone Wanderer (CHA), Licensed Plumber (INT). 

I recommend continuing the build this way. These can, of course, be moved around depending on how game-play is going, and would be a little different for a melee build or shotgunner build.

Level 6:  Add 1 point of Perception (if needed) and choose Green Thumb (PER, Lvl 4). This perk will help greatly with crafting adhesive from garden plants.

You will get a perk pack of four cards at this level as well. Check to see if you have any empty slots that can be filled by them.

Level 7:  Add 1 point of Strength (if needed) and choose Traveling Pharmacy (STR, Lvl 3) for weight reduction.

Level 8:  Add 1 point of Intelligence (if Agility has an extra point) and choose Thru-Hiker (AGI, Lvl 7) for weight reduction.

You will get a perk pack of four cards again at this level. Check to see if you have any empty slots that can be filled by them, and don't forget that you can rank up certain cards. However, the decision to rank up is irreversible, so keep that in mind.

Level 9:  Add 1 point of Charisma and add Rank 2 of Lone Wanderer (CHA, Lvl 4) 

Level 10:  Add 1 point to Luck if a Scrounger card (LCK, Lvl 3) is available from a perk pack, if you are a ballistic weapon build, or if you are often running low on ammo. If the Scrounger card is not available, then consider taking Scrounger here. A secondary option would be to add a point of Agility (though you may already have an extra one from earlier) and add another rank to Born Survivor, or a Charisma point and rank up Lone Wanderer. Ranking up weight reduction perks is also an option. 

If none of those suggestions appeal, take a damage-enhancing perk card that will boost the damage by 10% or more on the weapon you favor the most. This could be Gladiator, Slugger, or Shotgunner under Strength, Crackshot, Rifleman, or Archer under Perception, or Gunslinger or Guerilla under Agility. 

Note that you will again receive a perk pack of four cards at Level 10, and should have at least 16 random cards that could potentially be distributed among the SPECIAL points not already filled by direct selection of perk cards. 

At Level 10, my SPECIAL distribution will most likely be:  S = 2, P = 2, E = 1, C = 3, I = 3, A = 3, L = 2.  My individually selected Perk cards would be Traveling Pharmacy (STR), Green Thumb (PER), Lone Wanderer (Rank 2, CHA), Licensed Plumber (INT), Born Survivor & Thru-Hiker (AGI), and Farma Pharma & Scrounger (LCK).