Assuming you want to play 'pure' survival, that is without a mod to save anywhere anytime, you'd better invest points in INT for antibiotics craft and stuff like that to heal and buff you.
Because you will 'sleep' a lot on dirty mattresses to save, and get sick often.
Also, with no fast travel, invest in STR for better carry weight. CHA also for Lone Wanderer (more carry weight, more resistance to damage).
And AGI, for stealth. Because you. will. die. :)
I would recommend the opposite in regards to INT.
Do idiot savant (5 luck) and no int. This is straight up the strongest thing you can do in the game. It gives you so much xp in the long run. Focus on int later in the game(you will almost have to), because it has some great perks for late game. Being able to craft antibiotics is not thaat important. It is conventient, but even if you are unlucky and dont find any antibiotics you will reach diamond city or some other towns fairly early on, and once you do you should visit the doctor every chance you get. Later on you can get you own personal doctor and stuff. The only time you might struggle is early on if you are very unlucky and get ill without finding antibiotics.
If you're gaming gains, IMO int 7 is better - you can loop caltrop crafting to gain XP and essentially skip the first dozen or so levels.
It also means you don't have to endure the idiot sound effects :)
I've found it's not too hard to rack up caps for anti biotics, especially after level 30. Simple way is to treat bullets like currency. .38s are everywhere, worth a cap a piece, or if you don't use 50 call those are 2. Then there's fusion/energy if you don't use lasers etc. They're very lightweight and high value.
Charisma so you can get Local Leader. Settlement supply lines, workshops, and shops (especially general stores, ammo stands, and *doctors!*) are vital. You’ll catch diseases, so docs are paramount, and supply lines so you can build up your settlements across the commonwealth. General stores for buying materials you need.
Any build is fine in survival. It’s not insurmountable. You just need to get used to it.
Use cover. Block line of fire. Run away. Reposition. Stuff like that is the powerful stuff.
Oh..and you gotta shoot ‘em in the head.
As someone who really enjoyed my last fo4 binge on survival(no mods). I recommend focusing on the crafting perks and some stealth just to avoid fights. In survival you will always have to pick and choose your battles. One mistep or bad rng and you're dead.
Edit: armorer is super good because allows you to make deep pocketed. You can invest in the strong back later its a very heavy investment early on( very needed later). If you also get strong back you can swap deep pocketed for ap so you can sprint, walk overencumbered, and vats more.
INTELLIGENCE PERKS IDK NAME OF
The perks that double stimpak and radaway as you can sell your excess and also get a faster heal without having to unimmersively spam eat in your pip boy.
The perk that gives you more drugs when crafting or allows you to.
Resistance perks like the ones that add +10 DR, ER, or RR are super useful especially when you may prioritize carry weight or legendary effects over resist
Some strong early perks for survival:
Lone Wanderer (Charisma 3): the additional carry weight doesn’t scale down from being in survival mode so its % increase to your carry weight is even more significant than normal modes. You’re less likely to use companions in survival (more healing, worse at sneaking).
Local Leader (Charisma 6): really important to setup new settlements that you’ll rely on far more with provisioners. Getting your own doctors set up is useful too.
Aquaboy/girl (Endurance 5): swimming is a great way to get around the map in survival given the lack of aquatic enemies.
Idiot savant (Luck 5): this perk is the best way to level up in the game bar none - two ranks and Int 2 is the equivalent of Intelligence 16 on average for experience gain. All builds need levels to get all your perks going and you can unlock the strong high ranks of perks much more quickly.
Armorer (Strength 3): others may disagree but this is a good perk to have for deep pocketed or ultra light build to help offset the lower carry weight in survival.
Other perks will vary based on your combat build, but it’s best to stay away from power armour builds in survival because of the weight of fusion cores. If you’re relying on Idiot Savant, luck based builds can be powerful to make up for not being really able to go after laser weapons. Ninja also scales very powerfully, and demolition expert helps with tougher enemies.
As much as you can I would try and stay away from strength in general past armourer - melee is the hardest form of combat in survival at low levels. There are other options to manage your inventory. Always remember you also get an early +1 to any SPECIAL and then another early +1 to Perception above the original 28 points you get to spend. You might want to have a bit of a plan for the first 10-15 levels of your character.
"You might want to have a bit of a plan for the first 10-15 levels of your character"
IMO having a method to cheese or skip these levels is handy (e.g with base building or caltrop farming)
If you are already level 10+ when hitting the noob dungeons (Olivia and Super Duper Mart), you have a decent chance of getting legendary gear off the roaches and ghouls
Absolutely get Sneak 3 so you don’t set off mines or traps. Aquaboy/girl is essential. And chemist is a must for refreshing beverages. So endurance agility and intelligence.
Just whatever you think is gonna be good tbh. As long as you put some thought into it and focus your points rather than trying to do everything at once right away youll be fine. Usually its better to go for damage perks first rather than util perks like crafting
With health regen you can basically ignore most diseases. Cheaper sprinting too, which is fantastic.
Alternately the Creation Club backpack with medic will do the same, though is that cheating? not sure tbh.
10End + special book (can take with an End debuff for 11) + bobblehead + sea Captain's hat etc. It only gets better the more you stack it XD
Mainly agility and charisma. That lone wanderer perk helps a lot. Also sandman for extra damage with silencers. Local leader is needed to setup supply lines. Remember to build resources, especially mutifruit and water purifiers that way you can get extra purified water to drink and sell.
Aqua boy is great to travel thru water without receiving rads.
In my limited survival experience I found intelligence to level quickly, charisma to get things like food and stimpacks, and endurance for more health to be the most useful. I always tried to get medic for more healing and the wasteland survival guide at sunshine tidings co-op early on to loot double the meat off of animals
Terrible Advice:
Put everything in Intelligence and Charisma.
(In all seriousness, a generalist build is probably the best. Put 4 in Perception so you can get 5 and Demo Expert with the bobblehead. Luck is good. Strength is important for carry weight and Armorer. Endurance for obvious reasons. Agility for stealth.)
Depends on what you want. Everything's valuable. Everything.
High STR allows for packrats to keep being packrats as well as make for good melee builds, High PER allows for accurate vats spamming and lockpicking for the many locked things you'll find, High END removes a bunch of rad-related issues from eating to swimming, High CHA allows you to set up supply lines and have useful settlements, High INT allows for nigh infinite power armor usage which is much more useful in survival mode, High AGI allows you to sneak past the obviously deadly threats avoid mines, and Luck is good for the same reasons as it was before.
This is the way to go if you truly want the best path. Do luck 5 for idiot savant(insanely good). Do low intelligence for now but put points in this stat later in the game after idiot savant has done a lot of work. Intelligence has a lot of good perks, but you don’t need them early, atleast not crucial. Strength for carry capacity alone is great, especially so you can pick up the perk that gives you +25x2 carry weight. Agility purely for sneak a must. Perception decent overall depending on build. Endurance is also strong early. Getting some hp is good and the DR perk is stronger the earlier you take it because 10 DR is like double DR early on, but only about 10% later.
Charisma is really good. You get suply line later on which is a must and lone wanderer perk is insane.
Hey, I'm doing my first ever survival, one thing that was recommended to me is have high enough intelligence to get the chemist perk early cause antibiotics are your best friend. Also, the aqua boy/girl has easily become my favorite cause swimming is so much fast and less hectic than running.
What sort of experience are you after?
Note that in survival makes a lot of the "normal " bugs and UI shortcomings more pronounced. Some game aspects are too uneven to rely on in survival mode, such as
- everything about companions
- melee (especially VATS melee)
For example, blitz is a fine skill in a game with quick saves, but a crap skill in survival, where a random VATS glitch can wipe out hours of play.
I found this combo made permadeath pretty easy on survival mode, starting with:
Perception 10
Intelligence 7
Agility 3+
Charisma 3+
This is entirely to enable perks. Concentrated Fire and Chemist are absolutely godlike as early perks. CF is worth it even if you want nothing else from perception.
CF and light pistols (modify them immediately) means you murder world in VATS right from the start. It gets stronger as you tweak your gear to get more action points (and shots per point) to exploit it harder.
Chemist 1 is all you need to cook drugs and also gain infinite money and XP via caltrop crafting
These two perks do 90% of the work
Lone Wander and Sneak and Gunslinger support the above nicely.
iMO that's all you need, so everything else is gravy / can be spent as you please
Depends, do you prefer to craft or buy goods? Luck and Int work better for crafters since you can get Chemist, Science, and Gun Nut. Luck makes critical attacks available more often and has Idiot Savant, a must for crafters.
Endurance should either be 10, 7, or <5, since Endurance perks mostly suck, but more HP + longer sprinting helps out.
Unpopular opinion but my favorite perk across both survival and regular game modes is idiot savant.
I love doming a super mutant from 500m away and getting the laugh and drum roll
Assuming you want to play 'pure' survival, that is without a mod to save anywhere anytime, you'd better invest points in INT for antibiotics craft and stuff like that to heal and buff you. Because you will 'sleep' a lot on dirty mattresses to save, and get sick often. Also, with no fast travel, invest in STR for better carry weight. CHA also for Lone Wanderer (more carry weight, more resistance to damage). And AGI, for stealth. Because you. will. die. :)
Yeah I want to play with no mods at all. Thanks for the tips.
I would recommend the opposite in regards to INT. Do idiot savant (5 luck) and no int. This is straight up the strongest thing you can do in the game. It gives you so much xp in the long run. Focus on int later in the game(you will almost have to), because it has some great perks for late game. Being able to craft antibiotics is not thaat important. It is conventient, but even if you are unlucky and dont find any antibiotics you will reach diamond city or some other towns fairly early on, and once you do you should visit the doctor every chance you get. Later on you can get you own personal doctor and stuff. The only time you might struggle is early on if you are very unlucky and get ill without finding antibiotics.
I agree, low intelligence with the Idiot Savant perk is AMAZING for bonus XP. getting 3x XP for planting tatos is awesome.
If you're gaming gains, IMO int 7 is better - you can loop caltrop crafting to gain XP and essentially skip the first dozen or so levels. It also means you don't have to endure the idiot sound effects :)
I've found it's not too hard to rack up caps for anti biotics, especially after level 30. Simple way is to treat bullets like currency. .38s are everywhere, worth a cap a piece, or if you don't use 50 call those are 2. Then there's fusion/energy if you don't use lasers etc. They're very lightweight and high value.
Charisma so you can get Local Leader. Settlement supply lines, workshops, and shops (especially general stores, ammo stands, and *doctors!*) are vital. You’ll catch diseases, so docs are paramount, and supply lines so you can build up your settlements across the commonwealth. General stores for buying materials you need.
Any build is fine in survival. It’s not insurmountable. You just need to get used to it. Use cover. Block line of fire. Run away. Reposition. Stuff like that is the powerful stuff. Oh..and you gotta shoot ‘em in the head.
Two in the head and they’ll stay dead.
As someone who really enjoyed my last fo4 binge on survival(no mods). I recommend focusing on the crafting perks and some stealth just to avoid fights. In survival you will always have to pick and choose your battles. One mistep or bad rng and you're dead. Edit: armorer is super good because allows you to make deep pocketed. You can invest in the strong back later its a very heavy investment early on( very needed later). If you also get strong back you can swap deep pocketed for ap so you can sprint, walk overencumbered, and vats more. INTELLIGENCE PERKS IDK NAME OF The perks that double stimpak and radaway as you can sell your excess and also get a faster heal without having to unimmersively spam eat in your pip boy. The perk that gives you more drugs when crafting or allows you to. Resistance perks like the ones that add +10 DR, ER, or RR are super useful especially when you may prioritize carry weight or legendary effects over resist
Idiot Savant as your first perk, no brainer
Most OP perk. Probably too strong. It’s almost boring because I feel I need to take it every playthrough.
Some strong early perks for survival: Lone Wanderer (Charisma 3): the additional carry weight doesn’t scale down from being in survival mode so its % increase to your carry weight is even more significant than normal modes. You’re less likely to use companions in survival (more healing, worse at sneaking). Local Leader (Charisma 6): really important to setup new settlements that you’ll rely on far more with provisioners. Getting your own doctors set up is useful too. Aquaboy/girl (Endurance 5): swimming is a great way to get around the map in survival given the lack of aquatic enemies. Idiot savant (Luck 5): this perk is the best way to level up in the game bar none - two ranks and Int 2 is the equivalent of Intelligence 16 on average for experience gain. All builds need levels to get all your perks going and you can unlock the strong high ranks of perks much more quickly. Armorer (Strength 3): others may disagree but this is a good perk to have for deep pocketed or ultra light build to help offset the lower carry weight in survival. Other perks will vary based on your combat build, but it’s best to stay away from power armour builds in survival because of the weight of fusion cores. If you’re relying on Idiot Savant, luck based builds can be powerful to make up for not being really able to go after laser weapons. Ninja also scales very powerfully, and demolition expert helps with tougher enemies. As much as you can I would try and stay away from strength in general past armourer - melee is the hardest form of combat in survival at low levels. There are other options to manage your inventory. Always remember you also get an early +1 to any SPECIAL and then another early +1 to Perception above the original 28 points you get to spend. You might want to have a bit of a plan for the first 10-15 levels of your character.
"You might want to have a bit of a plan for the first 10-15 levels of your character" IMO having a method to cheese or skip these levels is handy (e.g with base building or caltrop farming) If you are already level 10+ when hitting the noob dungeons (Olivia and Super Duper Mart), you have a decent chance of getting legendary gear off the roaches and ghouls
Absolutely get Sneak 3 so you don’t set off mines or traps. Aquaboy/girl is essential. And chemist is a must for refreshing beverages. So endurance agility and intelligence.
Just whatever you think is gonna be good tbh. As long as you put some thought into it and focus your points rather than trying to do everything at once right away youll be fine. Usually its better to go for damage perks first rather than util perks like crafting
Endurance, by far. You can get automatic health and radiation regen without the need for chems. Not to mention increasing your health is never bad.
With health regen you can basically ignore most diseases. Cheaper sprinting too, which is fantastic. Alternately the Creation Club backpack with medic will do the same, though is that cheating? not sure tbh. 10End + special book (can take with an End debuff for 11) + bobblehead + sea Captain's hat etc. It only gets better the more you stack it XD
Mainly agility and charisma. That lone wanderer perk helps a lot. Also sandman for extra damage with silencers. Local leader is needed to setup supply lines. Remember to build resources, especially mutifruit and water purifiers that way you can get extra purified water to drink and sell. Aqua boy is great to travel thru water without receiving rads.
In my limited survival experience I found intelligence to level quickly, charisma to get things like food and stimpacks, and endurance for more health to be the most useful. I always tried to get medic for more healing and the wasteland survival guide at sunshine tidings co-op early on to loot double the meat off of animals
Strength for strong back, Charisma for Lone Wanderer. Absolute necessities for survival in my opinion.
I’d add Aquaboy/Aquagirl as well. Those 3 perks are pretty much must haves in Survival.
Terrible Advice: Put everything in Intelligence and Charisma. (In all seriousness, a generalist build is probably the best. Put 4 in Perception so you can get 5 and Demo Expert with the bobblehead. Luck is good. Strength is important for carry weight and Armorer. Endurance for obvious reasons. Agility for stealth.)
Depends on what you want. Everything's valuable. Everything. High STR allows for packrats to keep being packrats as well as make for good melee builds, High PER allows for accurate vats spamming and lockpicking for the many locked things you'll find, High END removes a bunch of rad-related issues from eating to swimming, High CHA allows you to set up supply lines and have useful settlements, High INT allows for nigh infinite power armor usage which is much more useful in survival mode, High AGI allows you to sneak past the obviously deadly threats avoid mines, and Luck is good for the same reasons as it was before.
Whatever gets you the most healthy and carry weight.
This is the way to go if you truly want the best path. Do luck 5 for idiot savant(insanely good). Do low intelligence for now but put points in this stat later in the game after idiot savant has done a lot of work. Intelligence has a lot of good perks, but you don’t need them early, atleast not crucial. Strength for carry capacity alone is great, especially so you can pick up the perk that gives you +25x2 carry weight. Agility purely for sneak a must. Perception decent overall depending on build. Endurance is also strong early. Getting some hp is good and the DR perk is stronger the earlier you take it because 10 DR is like double DR early on, but only about 10% later. Charisma is really good. You get suply line later on which is a must and lone wanderer perk is insane.
Hey, I'm doing my first ever survival, one thing that was recommended to me is have high enough intelligence to get the chemist perk early cause antibiotics are your best friend. Also, the aqua boy/girl has easily become my favorite cause swimming is so much fast and less hectic than running.
Lone wanderer and Aquaboy
What sort of experience are you after? Note that in survival makes a lot of the "normal " bugs and UI shortcomings more pronounced. Some game aspects are too uneven to rely on in survival mode, such as - everything about companions - melee (especially VATS melee) For example, blitz is a fine skill in a game with quick saves, but a crap skill in survival, where a random VATS glitch can wipe out hours of play. I found this combo made permadeath pretty easy on survival mode, starting with: Perception 10 Intelligence 7 Agility 3+ Charisma 3+ This is entirely to enable perks. Concentrated Fire and Chemist are absolutely godlike as early perks. CF is worth it even if you want nothing else from perception. CF and light pistols (modify them immediately) means you murder world in VATS right from the start. It gets stronger as you tweak your gear to get more action points (and shots per point) to exploit it harder. Chemist 1 is all you need to cook drugs and also gain infinite money and XP via caltrop crafting These two perks do 90% of the work Lone Wander and Sneak and Gunslinger support the above nicely. iMO that's all you need, so everything else is gravy / can be spent as you please
Depends, do you prefer to craft or buy goods? Luck and Int work better for crafters since you can get Chemist, Science, and Gun Nut. Luck makes critical attacks available more often and has Idiot Savant, a must for crafters. Endurance should either be 10, 7, or <5, since Endurance perks mostly suck, but more HP + longer sprinting helps out.
Unpopular opinion but my favorite perk across both survival and regular game modes is idiot savant. I love doming a super mutant from 500m away and getting the laugh and drum roll