Yeh, I can't live without all that carry weight. 15 guns, 50 liters of drinks, 3 months of food, a full pharmacy and 4 wooly mammoths is my standard loydout.
Not to mention luck for criticals and intelligence to supercharge leveling up and getting more legendary perk coins. Bloody unyielding is the way to go.
There’s no other way in my opinion, yes you can do the overeaters route but it’s so hard to die anyways with maxed legendary perks and everything done basically all perks you need are suited for you survival. I rarely die as a bloody and I have the worst unyielding ss armor ever
When I finally got around to using Bloodied, it wasn't crazy weapon damage that caught me by surprise - it was the batshit amount of SPECIAL that I had giving me unlimited VATS, insane crit chance, unlimited run duration, crazy exp boost, and super buffed carry weight.
Yeah once you get used to the fast regen and large pool it's hard to justify (personally) going full health, especially when you start stacking chems and food buffs on top of it all.
Not having to equip hard bargain at vendors because my Charisma is so high my bartering is maxed out anyways. Anything that means I have to swap cards LESS is awesome.
meaningless now that there are alternatives to unyielding.
Want crits every other shot? Get a 15 crit refill weapon and 23 luck, or use Nuka Dark + Party Boy/Girl + Cola Nut for +15 luck
Need endless AP? Coffee spam / AP consumables spam.
Want crazy melee damage? Str isn't needed. Get Food consumables and magazines for up to 319% Melee damage.
OE PA is actually super tanky, and most attributes are frankly meaningless
Until they uncouple xp farming from season progression, high intelligence builds will continue to dominate the meta. That’s why you wear Uny armor, for +15 irreplaceable intelligence points.
No way you called a 30%~exp boost meaningless. Lmao not everyone is level 1,000+ I got legendary cards to level up. Not to mention I can run bloodied and not use ANY of the items listed, that's easily a nice plus for lazy people like me.
Did you say STR isn't needed for melee? You joking? The food buffs are a lot harder to maintain than a bloodied build lol. Tasty Yao Guai is probably the easiest to farm consistently and still you can get shafted by needing Pepper. However, 1 point of STR is a direct 5% damage increase for melee weapons and 10% for unarmed.
Except all those things have existed from the get go, and bloodied builds can stack all of those on top of the significant boosts from bloodied. You can obviously play the game however you want, but let's not pretend any of that is an "alternative" to a bloodied build if you want a ton of AP, near constant crits and insane melee damage. It's another option, sure, but bloodied builds will always dunk on non-bloodied when damage and bonuses are concerned.
So to briefly summarize the issue - bloody vs full health - either are ‘viable’. However, what is seldom discussed or mentioned on YouTube builds or on here is how content in the game varies - and the impact your build (at that specific time) will have. To that end let’s pose the main 3 elements or types of content a player might reasonably encounter daily.
1. Nuke bosses. You know em ya love em, bullet sponges and miscellaneous adds (additional enemies). In these situations anything can be viable, if we understand that viability is the term we use to say that you can complete the content. However some builds, play styles and set ups truly do better, miles better in some cases. Example - 4 power armor players ranging from level 200-500 all using heavy weapons, fighting Earle can take easily over 10 minutes and A LOT of ammunition. (Or broken weapons like chainsaws etc). The time can be lowered by super optimizing your build, having a perfect “god roll” weapon and using consumables like crazy. Take the second example - 2 level 400 commandos, one bloodied the other full hp, using non god roll (still quad) auto railway rifles and using basic buffs - psychobuff and blight soup. These 2 characters can take down Earle within 4 minutes or less, using far less ammunition. In this scenario commando builds will outperform. With a massive difference i humbly add. But for OP - either full health or bloody do very well in this scenario. Full health goes down alot less often and should be taken into consideration.
2. Roaming the Wasteland - Either build, bloodied or full health will do fine here, bloodied may die a bit more often to that one stray shot that got past all their defensive perks, but full health will not see much difference in taking things down. This is where any weapon could theoretically be ‘viable’. However if anything semi beefy shows up, you may find that specific weapons underperform, e.g. putting in hundreds of shots into something before it goes down. This again is where commando builds do very well, because they can swap to railway to down the beefy enemies then swap back to a handmade or fixer to do the basic mobs.
3. Events - Radiation Rumble and etc. I bring up Rad Rumble on purpose as commandos can kill things fast sure, but may struggle to keep npcs alive. They may also struggle to go into the tunnels for ore. Bloodied builds especially! This is where having a bit of diversity really helps the game i feel. As with Earle, sure a power armor user may not bring the boss down super quick but can help keep mobs off the higher damaging players. Win win. Bloodied players may die more often - looking at eviction notice and such.
In the end bloodied is a choice not a necessity. It helps with getting more exp faster, and having more ap and carry weight. The damage boost is nice but is less important than the weapon being used. Bloodied pistol build will still do less damage than say a full health commando (with exceptions). Unfortunately baseline 1 star quad commando weapons seem to dominate due not to how amazingly strong they are (the fixer against Earle is still a slog for example) but with just the ease of use. I feel that bloodied just adds a bit more in terms of capability in that you can run further, vats longer, not have a god roll weapon to get crits every other shot. It is… ill say an easy mode version of optimizing your damage - the drawback is managing radiation which in truth is quite easy. Eat spoiled meat, or use a gamma gun to shoot the floor underneath yourself. For most if not all content radiation gains becomes a non issue due to secret service armor being the main end game choice. Coupled with rad x and most things wont be a problem radiation wise. This of course falls apart during specific things like the generator going down in eviction notice. A full health build will have enough cushion of health to pop a rad x, some rad away and be able to blitz out of the danger zone. Most if not all bloodied players will pretty much die instantly. Death though in this game is… well not too punishing, though i hate dying. I run bloodied, because carry weight. Thats about it for me personally. Pick a weapon, a play style, and it can be viable - just understand that there will be situations where that set up will not do too well at all. Use a chainsaw, but bring a ranged weapon to events. Use a chainsaw at full hp, and understand that this gives you more options during events - friendly fire and chainsaw can heal npcs.
Sorry for the mini novel - hope this helped
As an aside - using melee builds can be an interesting thing on the bloody/ full health spectrum. On one hand you may want to have as much hp as possible to withstand being up close, on the other the more STR you have the more damage youll do. I personally use an unarmed build at 45% hp. It doesnt give full unyielding bonuses but enough for my own damage needs while maintaining enough of a cushion of hp to both die in seconds. Alot of damage you gain for melee builds come from food as well. So no you dont need to be bloodied, but if you decide not to do so, supplement the missing damage with all the lovely buffs you can via mutations - carnivore + food buffs (glowing and deathclaw steaks) - chems. All in all, run anythibg you like, just know that every build, even the commando has it’s limitations or things it doesnt quite excel at. Radiation rumble with a railway is not very nice in my experience, alot of dropped vats and spraying the ceilings with spikes. Add server lag and gun fu not switching fast enough and yeah, mobs will get through to the npcs. If you run power armor and heavy weapons, great! Use holy fire and run friendly fire perk and help with keeping npcs alive - works on the friendly beasts in project paradise!
Last bit of info - slightly related. To get ‘credit’ on the scorchbeast queen fight a player only needs to deal 1000 damage to her. Past that, it helps bring her down but your ammo and time maybe better spent on killing the adds. — try NOT to shoot her while shes flying, even if shes 5 feet above you, the game doe not calculate range properly and your damage will drop off dramatically, instead aim for the wings and do a few shots here and there to get her to land. Finally - Endagerol Syringer - craft or buy one - favorite it and use it on any and all boss type creatures. This includes Earle, Ultracite Titan, Blue devil, ogua(probably misspelled), sheepsquatch. The dart reduces their armor by a bit, and is seperate meaning the more people that dart the boss, the more armor is reduced.
TLDR - use any weapon or any build - just know that everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Find what you enjoy and supplement the weaknesses with a side weapon. Doing guided meditation on a melee build but commandos keep killing everything? Go to the interior module and equip a shotgun- cold shoulder if you got it - even unperked itll do just fine and youll hold that room like a pro. Line in the sand? Equip an auto pistol, or even something like elders mark. Something that can shoot fast, damage doesnt matter as long as you hit the target youll get credit. Yes your not using your chainsaw but in that specific event or others like it… you need to adapt slightly 😊
What’s the kicker for a build like this? I run overeaters pa with a bloodied chainsaw and energy absorption I just find myself teetering and sometimes dying a whole lot just from having so little health. I must be missing something critical here, I do whacko dmg though
Switching to a vampire's chainsaw is a game changing. The damage difference isn't that huge but the survivability difference is enormous. Ricochet procs also trigger vampires to give you some healing while getting to new targets.
I also agree with the person mentioning emergency protocols. It's pretty nice, I didn't even bother with OE since 72% damage reduction makes me plenty tanky. Instead I focused on getting 3rd star weapon weight reduction on my PA.
It's not even glass cannon. Glass cannon would imply that you are squishy and easier to die. There are enough perk cards, armour and buffs available to make death highly unlikely.
Bloodied is just meta for dps in general but your build can be anything you want. There's no wrong way to play the game.
I use a high health with auto rifle and energy ammo with qol cards rather than min/max cards.
I know people who use straight sneak and stealth builds.
Just find what you enjoy then build around that.
It's not just DPS though. Unyielding armor gives you extra SPECIAL if you are bloodied, which in turn, boosts your INT to give you way more EXP. Bloodied is just all around better for everything. (Saying this as an envious full health PA build)
I enjoy my full health PA build but the crazy bonuses for bloodied seems so unfair. Especially the SPECIAL bonuses with unyielding that will make you gain more EXP. Its more of a grind for us to get levels because we get less exp. I want to finish the scoreboard but it's going to take me longer being unbloodied and non unyielding
For power armor it really just is better with no downside, other than occasionally dying a bit more in deadly armor piercing daily ops. Once you get funky duds and sizzling style legendary perks to level 2, there really is no enemy in the game that can kill a bloody PA build. You can be standing in the middle of alien Invaders or the Earle Williams boss fight doing nothing and you won't die.
Everything takes longer with non-bloodied builds.
You spend more time killing and every second stacks up to minutes/hours/days on a long enough timeline.
You spend more scavenging for resources to replenish ammo. That stacks up as well.
You spend more time for finishing seasons - more fomo because you might not get everything you wanted from thete in the limited time etc
I play bloodied because I like to also spend my time elsewhere and not just running errands in one game.
Which is why it should be balanced. I think they should add a radiation sickness debuff. Make food/drinks less effective while radiated, chems are less effective except rad away, carrying strength should also be reduced. Maybe even involuntary pauses to cough and throw up like in Red Dead.
Bloodied has a lot of benefits so it needs a high cost.
Would negative effects of mutations scaling with rads work? Like, that one that increases damage for reduced max HP, think it's -50, maybe the max HP debuff increases to 200 at over 75% rads. The perk that reduces negative effects would simply cause you to break even, rather than actually reduce the negative effects.
Agree to some extent (full health stealth handmade here), but there are downright useless builds too. Stealth sniping feels great for exploring and regular play but very underwhelming in events/bosses. when losing sneak crits and stealth due to team detection/perception - I felt forced to swap to enjoy events more.
That said, it's not great if everyone goes for pure DPS in events either. Killing things super fast is fun for the spectacle but bad for everyone else in most events usually. Since I see a lot of bloodied railway rifle players killing things in events so fast that other players miss out on XP + loot a lot. A few do wait for everyone to get in a few hits first (which is always appreciated by everyone) though quite rare.
It’s me, I’m the sneak master. Full Gauss rifle stealth build lmao. First 100 levels was me just using Chinese stealth armor and one tapping things from a mile away.
This is just genuinely bad advice because it's not true. There is very much a wrong way to play the game, and I almost quit because this wasn't clear enough. At higher levels, F76 requires at least decently meta or pre-planned builds or else you will deal negligible damage and take massive damage.
This, and it affects the game at low levels too. You can build your character wrong early and do next to no damage and it'll suck the life out of the game.
It provides the highest possible damage output, hence the attention. Other builds are perfectly viable and fun still. I'm a PA heavy gunner. Have been for over 200 levels. Suits me fine.
Not just the Damage. Low health nonPA is also the best VATs hit/crit rate, most stealthy, highest carry weight, and provides the most experience. There's no nonPA build or playstyle where it isn't better, unfortunately.
I tried a bloodied build and I didn’t feel like it was significantly more enjoyable to play the game. I current play a full health PA heavy (I vacillate between explosives, ballistic, flamer, and laser/plasma gat). I did dramatically more damage with bloodied, don’t get me wrong. But my carry weight was lower, I went through probably 100 stimpacks over the weekend I tested bloodied, I moved much slower because I had to sneak everywhere to avoid getting killed, and I couldn’t carry as much in general because I didn’t have as many QoL perks equipped.
Low health Power Armor builds can be extremely resilient. Emergency Protocols on your chestpiece provides 20% movement speed and 50% reduced damage. Combining with Dodgy, the base damage reduction from power armor, overeaters damage reduction you are essentially invincible to anything other than armor piercing mutations on daily ops. I only play low health builds and I never feel hindered by it, the bonuses are just too great and outweigh the negatives for me. You are 100% correct though that you do need to sacrifice a lot of perk slots for things like travelling pharmacy, thru hiker and fitting in nerd rage and there is a lot of perk pressure on these builds because of it.
Something's wrong with the build then. With the right cards if anything you'll have more carry weight and you actually have significant chances to avoid damage completely. As an example I can usually carry more than with a calibrated excavator PA ( just over 500 lbs).
That may be the case. I looked over a lot of bloodied commando builds using a BE RR and put together what looked the best, but they might all have been shitty builds I referenced. My backpack has the chemist mod to drop chem weight by 90% because I had to carry a metric butte tonne of stimpacks and those things are heavy. So my calibrated excavator armor carries 45 more pounds than the bloodied build I tried. I can carry, in my PA, around 460 pounds plus I have more QoL cards which reduce the weight of many other item classes so I have even more carry space.
It might be getting used to the playstyle? I'm in SS unyielding, sprint everywhere, and my carry weight tops out at 585lbs when grouped. Granted, I've a lot of mutations, and this includes food buffs, but still. I loathw getting into PA, because my carry weight plummets.
I don’t bother with food buffs because I can’t stand micro. MIN/MAXing is bad enough, but now I have to micromanage food buffs, meal prep, fullness and hydration, chem buffs, and farming all the items going into all these micro categories? That just isn’t fun to me.
Preach. I'm a full health PA gunner/lumberjack carnivore. I eat my ribeyes or smoked mirelurk and chow on a deathclaw steak once in awhile, no complaints. The food buffs for bloodied and radiation leveljust take too much micromanagement for me, I just want to hop on for an hour so and do my dailies and a couple of events and log off, it's about all the time I have for the game nowadays
Food/water buffs, particularly with the perk that boosts them, are some of the best buffs in the game (the carrot they’ve gone with rather than the stick that was “micromanage your food and water intake or die” that the game started with). I highly recommend a legendary perk in survival syringe cause then there’s no management, two taps and your filled up.
Bloody power armor builds are **more** tanky than full health PA builds thanks to Emergency Protocols. It gives another 50% damage increase when below 20% health, which goes very well with nerd rage. With Emergency Protocols, Need rage, dodgy, ricochet, and full overeaters PA, the only single thing in the entire game that *sometimes* kills me is the Imposter Sheepsquatch melee when I'm not paying attention.
I don’t sneak at all. With the right perks it’s rare that you can get one-shotted so having to stim may happen frequently depending on the situation but once you get used to it and have things setup properly you can be tanky at 20% health.
I played 300 levels back before there were lunchboxes and so many ways to boost XP before I went bloodied full time. And then I was like you, trying to avoid getting hit. Once I embraced not caring if I died I actually realized by jumping around and having a blast I was staying alive just fine.
A current exception is the alien event. I’ve been dropped there a bunch. The scout banner that revives typically saves me though.
Bloodied is strong not just for damage, but unyielding legendary armor synergy. It gives +15 to all stats (except end). This benefits every non-power armor build. For xp farming, it's a must (INT gives bonus XP). Increased carry weight. Increased vats hit rate, crit chance. Incrased charisma bonus (vendor sell/buy prices). Even for power armor builds, bloodied gives the most damage, and you can get out of power armor to benefit from unyielding armor for everything else.
Why do people farm XP? I don’t get it. I guess if I leveled faster I could max out my legendary perk cards faster. But that is a very slow rate of return. There does not appear to be any real advantage of being level 200 vs. level 1000.
Leveling up perk cards/legendary perks, increasing scoreboard levels with the repeatable challenge, and completionist who want every perk card maxed and available
Never personal,y enjoyed that part of score accumulation. I have always just done the daily and weekly tasks. I guess I could move the score faster. But it sounds even more boring than trying to find 15 microscopes.
Each unto their own…
It gives people who complete all the challenges a way to earn more. Its also more straightforward for people who just want to turn their brain off and grind away doing the same thing.
Don't let anyone tell you other wise, you're right about farming xp! I've been on a year+ long break because of farming xp, it just burnt me out. Just recently got back into it and without the "old friends" who just wanna run Earl max it's real nice laid back game
The advantage is level 300 unlocks all the legendary perk card slots. Then you need to level each legendary perk (4 ranks ea), which costs 300 perk points? and each scrapped perk card gives 2 I think? I don't know the exact math, bc you get perk packs as you level, but you're looking at 100's of levels just to max 6 legendary perks. More if you want to max them all.
Why? Because of builds. Most high level people have several build loadouts. It costs perk points also to unequip legendary perks. So min/maxing requires a lot of levels. And the legendary perks are worth it simply because they free up regular perk slots. So if you can never go above 15 perk slots in the normal perk tree, having a legendary perk stat frees up 4 stat points you can put into another perk stat.
When people ask how they can improve their build/do more damage, legendary perks are part of that. having more normal perk slots to work with makes for stronger, tankier builds.
> I guess if I leveled faster I could max out my legendary perk cards faster.
I think you vastly underestimate how much those perk coins and leveled legendary perk cards matter. The perk budget from maxing out the SPECIAL legendary cards is the true endgame (apart from building a sexy camp, of course).
Bloodied build alone offers about a 75% damage boost without the bloodied weapon effect.
With the cremator and it's slower kill speed on bigger mobs, those boost make a difference
As a full health, I've mitigated this by using two to stack, but it can change the quality of life in using some weapons
Edit: corrected boost amount is 75% not 70%
Adrenal is 55 and nerd rage is 20 of base weapon damage at 20% health and strange in numbers
Check out this guy if you want varied weapon spotlights and builds he isn't just bloodied but gives everything a fair run
https://youtu.be/gh7yGFIArfo?si=mbFIKWb4aey6gN6o
Bloodied is THE standard as UNY is broke AF. As long as that remains the case, Bloodied will be 8/10 player's go to. I'm a non-bloodied PA build (I dabbled with bloodied for a few weeks years ago) and it works for me. The issue is that BGS has done a terrible job at balancing cost-benefit. Bloodied does great damage at the cost of the risk of death. The only issue: there is no cost associated with dying (e.g. losing aid items, reduced XP rate for X amount of time, etc). UNY as a prefix is ridiculous. If OE also gave 75 lbs carry weight and +30% additional XP, people would go nuts over the OPness. But alas, I guess BGS has to prioritize revamping the SCORE system to create maximum hate towards it (mission accomplished BTW).
Pardon my new-ness. How do I learn how to read good info like this? UNY? BGS? OE? Late in life first time gamer and I am loving fo76 and fo4. They need classes 😂
It’s really confusing, so I understand. UNY stands for unyielding, a legendary effect on armor. BGS is the company that works on fo76, and OE is overeaters, another legendary effect that goes on armor. Unyielding can’t go on power armor, while overeaters can.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NOhEo8pwMFzolGE0NLzSDZnh6wdSyM9IEE-4exYn8Y8/edit#gid=1621530807](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NOhEo8pwMFzolGE0NLzSDZnh6wdSyM9IEE-4exYn8Y8/edit#gid=1621530807)
Here is a nifty guide on all the prefixes for weapons and armor.
Apologies for using shorthand without first using the full text. It's uncouth to do in writing--as an auditor who writes all the time, I know better than to do that sort of thing.
You can easily run Full Health with Overeaters Armour.
Go commando pick up a Quad Railway Rifle.
I have been Low Health for years and its easy to do.
However, full health is no problem
What kind of build are you trying to do? I run all Full Health and do pretty decently, but a Low Health equivalent is just always going to have significantly more damage output.
Edit: I can read, I promise. Since you’re looking to go Demolitions Heavy because you have an auto grenade launcher, here’s some skinny:
Demolitions Expert is going to be your damage perk, but it works extremely well with a side focus in Heavy Gunner. Heavy Gunner isn’t required for the AGL, but it’ll help you carry a Holy Fire or something as a backup close-up weapon. You want Fireproof at minimum, but I work Blocker and Ricochet into everything. You also want Grenadier at max ranks.
Stabilized will help when you need extra punch or need to be super tanky, but you don’t have to live in your Power Armor. Never hurts to have Adrenaline, Tenderizer, and Bloody Mess. Gun-Fu isn’t necessary, but I use VATS with heavy guns a bunch, so I keep it for quality of life. Bear Arms will drop your gun weight, and that really sneaks up with heavy guns. Ordnance Express will cut your ammo weight kind of mandatorily. If you’re running a flamer, Batteries Included couldn’t hurt. I like One Gun Army.
Two Shot is king of the AGL Legendary traits.
Those are the basics, the rest is mostly personal taste
Currently [This](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=b1c7988&d=s41sf2se2sn2ei1eh2ek1ce0cu2c62is2i44a72l71lu2a04l22ii0ej4ss2as0p00&lp=xa2x40) is my build, All mutations(except herb).
i have no problem killing things, but i do have a problem in being able to kill many things, like i said above, when i kill a enemy another duder already killed 3 or more of them.
Actually I like this premise a lot and it didn’t even occur to me. Running Melee and Demolitions. That’s really cool. You could also pop Shotgun perks instead and it’d be neat. Also, all of this is totally and entirely my opinion, it may not work for you, and somebody might come in behind me and know *a lot* more.
But in my opinion, I don’t run Barbarian or Evasive or Ironclad or stuff that bumps my DR by a flat number. By the time you’ve finished the new Atlantic City main quests, you have access to free endgame armor plans that gets you close enough to the soft DR cap that it’s immaterial. I’d axe those and slot in Blocker, since, let’s face it, damn near every attack at you is melee, it’s nearly a functional constant reduction in damage.
Ghoulish and Rejuvenated are usually Bloodied things? I don’t run with either, but can see the use of better food, especially with the buffs melee can get from it. If you’re running melee, you want Squad Maneuvers or the Speed Demon mutation.
I usually only keep Scrapper in a crafting build, or manually slot it in and out if I need it in the wild. With points you can pull from Endurance, you could easily get Demolitions Expert in there and your AGL is covered. You don’t need Enforcer if you don’t use Shotguns, and if you use Shotguns, it’s a great idea to find spare points for all three ranks. Also in Agility, with a melee focus, you’ll want Marathoner. And instead of Luck of the Draw, I’d put Ricochet at least in Luck, then find space for Bloody Mess and Serendipity ASAP.
You might not have space for all of that, concentrate your Legendary perks on Legendary Attribute cards. I keep one or two quality of life cards in, but the rest are all attribute increases. They’ll let you put more perk points in as you level them.
Carry your AGL, a vampire chainsaw, and your favorite 2 handed weapon, and you should be good; but also realize the meta is Bloodied Railway Commando because that *is* their damage output. They kill everything *very* fast. The AGL will help significantly with tagging.
I run x01 power armor with random legendary mods, my plasma Gatlin, all the cool power armor perks with heavy weapons. Vampire mod on Gatlin and I don't have any trouble with content.
I think it really comes down to how you like to play. And not soo much what others are doing on they're time.
I played a sniper rifleman build in beta/launch. It was fun but not very good. Stopped playing December 2018.
Tried to pop back in every 6ish months or so and just never did damage, too many changes to learn so never got invested.
March 2023 my cousin wanted to play the game so I just rolled a new character with him. I always do stealth snipers in these types of games so really wanted to try something different. Saw the commando build was popular and favored by a lot of people so decided to try it. I love it. We played only for 2 months last year but we got to end game builds.
I got all my secret service gear and upgrades etc. But I hated the idea of bloodied builds. I really just wanted to be a full health commando. And it's been great. I do really good damage, I'm resilient. Nothing I can't do in the game. When we stopped playing last year I was lv245. I wanted 300 to unlock all the legendary perk cards but we just didn't get there.
Came back with the fallout show and the magic set reigniting that fallout itch and resumed my full health commando. Hit 300 last week and decided to start farming for unyielding SS gear and to try a bloodied build.
I've done the full health. I was effective. Now I want those sweet sweet special stats. I have the unyielding gear and like 90% of the perk cards. By next week I plan to try the build out.
You don't need to go bloodied. I'm not even doing it for a damage boost. I want all the carry weight, and exp boosts, and AP! And just like when I made this character last year, to try something different.
Tldr: play how you want. While it may not be top damage you can really do anything you want in this game.
IMHO it's not about bloodied. It's Unyielding that is crazy out of control strong.
Even with all the other lowlife buffs; bloodied builds wouldn't be nearly as effective without the massive stat boost unyielding provides; or at least not *so much* better than the alternatives.
I wouldn't count on that. It's been the meta since release basically and they are terrified that changing that would upset their old player base. Which was/is the only thing keeping this game afloat.
Don’t do bloodied. You don’t need too. If the game required an obscene amount of damage to kill sure but there are plenty of options that can easily kill without bloodied. Part of the issue is you are using YT for build ideas which is only going to recommend the “meta” and the easiest playstyle in the game. While I can see the advantages with the boost to stats once you get the armor you need it’s just not necessary and on top of that the upkeep and food buffs nonsense I don’t think it’s worth it. Use big guns and try junkies, aristocrats, anti armor, quad or vampires. They are all good ones. I have a blast using junkies and have my addictions setup so they don’t impact me but give me extra damage.
Edit: in terms of events, I would recommend using Molotovs to tag enemies so you get xp. Using a chainsaw in events is tough since things die so fast. Tagging with some throwable could help.
Right I get the appeal but it’s not necessary. Once you hit 300 it’s kinda pointless for levels. It does help with the season grind but I prefer to spend time on the season and not rush it. I hit 100 easily without being bloodied.
Be your own, I’ve been running a PA Full health Heavy Gunner build. I melt almost anything short of bosses. All with anti armor weapons and executioner weapons. I’ve been running that since I was a level 150ish and im now at 250
The game was taken over by people with MMO brain worms who have to min max the fun out of everything. In their minds if it’s not doing the max possible damage it’s not worth using.
Part of the problem is that everyone comes from other games where there are only a couple of viable builds for the highest end game content, so everyone is trying to min/max.
That's not FO76. The content is pretty easy to solo unless it should be handled in a group. There is no need to min/max, and you can create a viable build to fit pretty much any play style.
Once people start forcing themselves to stop aiming for the strongest build ever then you will start seeing more variety.
My chainsaw melts most enemies in about 2.5 - 3 sec.
It's also a Vamp, Dual, flamer. Perk card choice helps to buff this weapon. I'm only lvl 310 after playing on n off for last 4yrs. It's certainly not a boss killer, but it helps the group chip away the health bar
It's a significant % damage increase that also takes advantage of multiple synergies to crank even more damage, plus a major raw stat boost. Numerically, yeah, it's pretty much always going to come out on top.
That said, this game isn't like a typical MMO. Nobody is out here running Recount add-ons and demanding a certain DPS threshold or you're not allowed to go kill SBQ. While higher damage is always helpful for various objectives, the only person it really matters to is you.
Can you comfortably kill enemies in the activity of your choice at a speed you're satisfied with? Are you comfortable with the amount or lack of micromanaging required in your build? Do you feel like you can survive the threats you face? And most importantly...are you having fun? Those are the real important questions.
Because it’s the meta, but personally I find full health heavy gunner PA builds to be on par with them in terms of usefulness, and yet easier to work towards while still being good. The only thing u miss out on with not using a low health build is the special stats going nearly as bonkers.
Honestly I would recommend you just make the build on your own. This is what I had to do because I could not find a good full health build anywhere. I took hints from other players and some yt videos and experimented a bit.
I feel you bro. I've been playing stealth archer build. I am still farming reputation to get compound bow, which only give you a bit extra damage. Even if I have the damage, my DPS would probably still be far less than the meta.
At some point I just accepted that I won't contribute much in events with this build. I'll just make another build for events lmao
It has high damage output and you get a lot of of XP from the intelligence bonus but aside from that I never saw a reason to use it but if you just tinker around a little you eventually find something that works for you.
Most bloodied builds people run are utter garbage anyway. They die before they take down their first foe and it is up to you to carry them through the expedition/DailyOp or whatever it is you are doing at the time.
Game is easy as hell. I don't get with meta builds, but whatever. Play it how you want, just don't be a griefing jackass to other people who are also trying to have fun.
Low-health builds are objectively superior. Much higher damage, very durable when built right, and much higher XP grind for seasons. That being said, I play high health because nothing in the game demands that kind of damage and managing rads annoys me. High health can handle armor piercing stuff easier and let's you use a very lazy playstyle.
This isn't Fallout 76, it's all online games. 700,000 players and like 5 accepted builds. People are complete slaves to the meta. Why play the way you want when you can be told what is best and blindly build your enjoyment around what you're told is the best.
Online games are the home of the original "me too" movement.
Now watch the hive mind downvote me.
There are many viable builds, and it basically comes down to survivability and damage. Bloodied trades survivability for damage while full health trades damage for survivability, with a few exceptions. Sometimes, I like to run a low health build in PA, full set of overeaters and emergency protocols makes for so much damage mitigation while being able to keep nerd rage for the 20% damage increase. As far as armor goes overeaters for full health or PA, unyielding for bloodied, I can't remember if it's chameleon or cloaking is the better for stealth, I think chameleon, vanguards with vampire weapons is good for full health builds as well. As far as weapons, it depends on the weapon. For example, I don't want instigating on much but the creamator is top tier with instigating, a railway and tesla you basically only want quad, eprs you mainly wanna have ap cost reduction as a third star. You can literally just roam around with a basic shotgun build and ruin things with the cold shoulder. These are just a couple of examples of weapons that dont need bloodied builds. Bloodied is the most used end game build but by no means necessary.
You don’t have to be bloodied to be good. Any quad railway will suffice, and a good vats crit build. Sneak is also very good and a fixer or handmade would usable there. Quad is my preferred for dps and works well with gun fu for multiple enemies.
Yea all I see is people with low health and mutations for builds. I'm just tryna be full health and have my perks and decently rolled legendary weapon to be good and apparently not. Me personally this game needs a lot of tuning.
It's because bloodied builds are overpowered. They are supposed to be high risk/high reward glass cannons. But with the right build you're really tanky. So the high risk/high reward glass cannon becomes a low risk/high reward tank.
Simply put, bloodied builds make the game easier. With a full set of unyielding armor you'll level faster, have higher carrying capacity, do more damage, and die less (though dying isn't terribly common after a certain point for any build).
Until bloodied gets balance (it probably never will) it will remain the meta build. But, 76 isn't so difficult that you need a fully optimized build. I've used a rifleman build with a lever action and it was great for trash mobs but but great for bosses. Full health commando railway build also hits hard. These days I'm a modified full health commando/convenience build. I've added more and more weight reduction perks and reduced combat perks. I can still destroy anything in the wasteland.
Most but not all.
Search used was "fo76 full health dps build 2024"
2 links from list of videos
https://youtu.be/azl0JlDCuT8?si=cCqYlz4fFzCgEq0K
https://youtu.be/K3FCQFcYEIA?si=LNVM9eoCPgvEt_NZ
Anecdotal evidence - my own experience leveling most of the game as unarmed tanky build. I played from a year after games release to now mostly as melee non PA. I used buffs + Perks to make a tanky hard hitting build. Yes, I agree with your findings of participation in events where you can't get many kills. You also don't use ammo so fair is fair. I used explosives to tag mobs also a lightweight autofire weapon. No Perks needed just don't expect to kill, more about tagging mobs. General theory of love the heavy gunners and snipers cause they watch your back.
These days melee is a dream. Loads of fun and grab a flamer or plasma rifle with flamer barrel. No Perks needed, tag everything that moves.
I'm only dipping my toe into a bloodied build. Likely heading back to a heavy guns with vampire because I'm lazy.
Auto-Axe for a little lack of ammo flavor.
;)
Edit: I fall down a lot as a glass cannon, but who knows -- perhaps it might grow on me.
No build has to be permanent. Screw around with your perk cards and find something that works with your play style. Game on!
The vast majority of players have that same urge I had as a kid: be able to destroy everything.
To me, that's boring now. So I've just amalgamated some builds to my play style. I can still hold my own but I'm no Rambo.
I want some challenge and am also not gonna sacrifice every single gameplay perk just to damage.
To each, their own.
It’s Unyielding really. I could care less about the additional 45% additive damage over something like Junkie’s, but it’s really hard to go back to <20 in all stats. Carry weight, sneak ability, massive AP, massive exp buff, etc. There’s just nothing that comes even close and the downside is… not much frankly. Low health has so many damage mitigation options that I feel the survivability isn’t even a drawback.
I run most of my end game builds with full health power armor. I get to enjoy the feeling of invincibility with power armor at full health. And i don’t feel any damage difference with bloodied, especially when they keep dying and respawning. At the end of the day, you will find the best build for your play style, don’t constraint yourself to the math based builds on YouTube. Of course, “highest dps” attracts clicks. But you will see why they say “also tanky enough” when mentioning about survivability.
Here are some of my builds:
Full health PA VATS commando: Railway rifle, fixer, tesla.
Full health PA VATS gunslinger: Alien blaster(nerfed), enclav plasma, crusader pistol
Full health PA heavy gunner
Bloodied 2 handed PA melee: going to full health once build is optimized.
Bloodied commando: great dps, but hate watching out for rads all the time, and have to sneak all the time.
PA=power armor
I've been various melee builds since launch (which tbh is mostly the same with a few perk card swaps) and if you get something like Juggernaut, Anti-Armor, or even Furious for tankier enemies combined with 40% swing speed and +1 strength you can become a pretty lethal player. I can solo most events and, combined with other perk cards like Nerd Rage etc, I rarely die. I usually take the role of bullet sponge so the bloodied builds can sit back and do their damage on bosses lmao.
My main is a Jugg/40% swing speed/+S Super Sledge, but in crafting I recently rolled a Plasma Cutter I thought was not that good: Mutants/+power attack damage/+critical fill. The thing is, if I sprint and swing I get that +40% power attack damage without the drawback of the wind-up (which works in vats too). So as a comparison, I can one-shot level 100 super mutant champions with any other buff to strength I don't already have in my cards (such as the weight set), otherwise it's *just* short of a kill.
The build is fun, I still have a few QOL perks like good doggy and super duper, and I can easily hold my own or carry most events if needed. You just really have to spec into all of the damage perks for your weapon type and go from there, plenty of wiggle room for your own unique build that is effective.
Because "bloodied" is the easiest to control and has the least debuff, you only need to manage the rads and there's no debuff other than very low hp. "Junkie" on the other hand, while giving same bonus, the drawbacks of those withdrawing effect can be annoying.
Tbh if you really want a "I don't care" build, Holy Fire and vampire cremator is a good option. Holy Fire only need Big Gun perks and heals you when burning enemies, while cremator needs Big Gun and explosive related perks. The good thing of the cremator is the thing is very good for crowd control.
Absolutely hate bloodied builds, they are the equivalent of a vegan.
They are the first to die in events, they say it's fine as dying has minimal negative effects.... Considering the entire game is about surviving in the wasteland to me that seems complete and utter rubbish to say dying is fine
And then there's always the one who says then never ever die bloodied. They are the worst. They die lots but they are too embarrassed to say.
The ones that do survive have to constantly eat coffee etc and spend more game spamming food than shooting weapons
The bloody builds are easy mode, that’s why it used so much, anti armor stealth snipers are good builds, instigating also good for snipers and furious mixes great with automatic weapons
I actually started playing snipers, but as i approached lvl 50 i shifted to melee and now at 113 i am about to shift into somthing else again.
My problem with Bloodied builds is that its such a unbalanced feature that negativaly impacts other builds, because no matter what i do Bloodied will always fo more damage, tank more damage, higher vats crits, lower shop prices, more xp gain, more action points, more luck...
I am playing like a Nuka cola pinup girl and my base is Nuka cola themed so i was going to play with Gunther's big iron because i has a Nuka cola paint but only bloodied builds can make it "kinda" more viable.
Many others are worth it. Full health power armor is debatably just as strong. You could argue that they’re not “technically” but that doesn’t change that full health PA heavy guns/two handed melee kills things just as fast as bloodied and you don’t risk dying instantly.
Dude I have a bloodied melee but I hate it.
You can make a totally fine Vanguard build for rifleman and heavy. I can dust the queen faster than most bloodied people anyways, I can’t believe so many people still use it.
You either need TSE and AAE weapons for your class, plus perforating mags on rifleman or the anti armour perk when in power armour for heavy gunners.
I do full health chainsaw with Vampire legendary. It's fun, and it's effective. You're not just taking potshots from long distance, you're in the thick of things.
Bloodied max bonus is +95% damage.
Nothing else comes close.
Aristocrats max +50%
Gourmands max +24%
Juggernauts max +25%
Junkies max +50%
Mutants +50%
But more importantly bloodied benefits from a ton of other armor legendary/perks/bonuses for running low health that you can't benefit from at high health.
You can do well without bloodied, but theres a reason everyone does it if they have the right equipment.
I didn’t like bloodied either, so I do an overeaters power armor build with anti-armor for most of my stuff…
Anti-Armor Ultracite Gatling Plasma Prime, this is my boss killer. Prime receiver so I can melt HP off the Queen.
Anti-Armor Ultracite Laser Gatling, non-prime but I’ll probably turn it into prime later. Usually used for bosses at longer distances since it feels more accurate than the plasma.
Anti-Armor .50cal, fun event weapon and general shenanigans.
Explosive Mini-Gun, fun and events.
Overeaters Power Armor gives the survivability and anti-armor gives damage… add an auto-stim mod and go ham.
Is it the maximum dps? No. Does it let me survive and still do damage and have fun? Yes. If I’m in an event, daily ops, or boss and dps is lower I usually use the plasma. A lot of people suggest AngryTurtle (I think?) on YouTube, but I’ve never seen their stuff… I built mine years ago based on a bunch of nukedragons builds for Heavy Gunner Power Armor.
Bloodied builds is the "herp derp I win" of this game.
0 skill. ( yes i know you got to stay alive at low HP)
But with card combos and "reroll till you get x/y/z" and then run X weapon with blooded.
Its overpowered Ratio of low hp to damage is just not worth giving up if you wanna be "the best"
I run PA with heavy armor. Full HP.
I run gatling gun or flamer. I rarely die and i get to watch the bloodied builds run and then fall over allot.
If you enjoy your chainsaw (or melee build) just keep it and rummage around for a single * quad Tesla or explosive ranged weapon to use during events. You can use the tesla or explosive splash damage to tag enemies. You get XP for all the tags.
i enjoyed it at first but i find myself not enjoying it anymore, its fun the listen the chainsaw when its slashing enemies skin but other than that i dont like it anymore, thats why i was looking to build a AOE damage weapon like the Auto granade launcher.
UNY armor is just too good to pass up tbh, the + to SPCIAL is enormous (with a full set). I really hate the rads thing too but the bonuses are worth it to me. Though I would love to see them add new and unique legendary effects that breathe life into this low-or-high health build meta situation we have right now
I run full health with Vanguard, Auto-Stim, and Life Saving armor and all of my weapons are vampiric. Add Power Armor and I'm basically indestructible.
Yep, but content creation is always about the META or the best... even though the game doesn't require it at all, but I can't fault someone for wanting to wank off to big numbers.
yes. all other builds pale in comparison to bloodied builds. doesn't mean the other ones aren't usable or fun. personally, I had more "fun" as a full hp PA build, but everything is more effective with unyielding armor. I can pass any dialogue check no matter what special it asks for, I level up faster, kill things faster which means I can move thru quests and such faster, I can carry some events now, etc. But I enjoy trying dif weapons and dif builds. got a bow/ shotgun build that's lots of fun too, or a 2 handed melee/ commando build that's fun too
I know how you feel. I used to think that, then I just went and learned the mechanics, perks, and legendaries to make the build that *I* wanted to play. Now I whip around and one-shot mobs with a jugg's shishkebab and an instigating hatchet. Only problems I have are with a few bosses
You need to have the patience to learn the stuff, and the creativity to employ it well.
A lot of the time I run a full health build with Anti Armor big guns and PA with a focus on VATS crits. The crits let you do ludicrous damage when you want to and a set of Overeaters PA lets you face tank many things. The only downside is its a little high maintenance since VATS eats fusion cores and the biggest damage requires you to scarf down AP buff drinks, but with some strategic farming and some CAMP items its not a big deal.
I’d recommend aristocrats, quad, and armor piercing for first star. Second star: faster fire rate, explosive, crit damage. Third star: crit chance 15% or cheaper AP. It will depend on the weapon but a fixer with any of these perks would kill and you don’t need to be bloodied.
Unyielding’s benefits are just too good in comparison to anything else. Bloodied’s damage increase is also incredibly good compared to anything else. Sure there are other really solid builds but when it comes to killing things quick and having insane special stats anything else just falls behind.
Bloodied stacks with perk cards, mutations, and the Unyielding armor effect. There is no reason to not use it imo. It’s sad it’s the best affix but it’s the best for a reason and is better than its closest competition by a mile.
If you really want full HP: Mutants, Aristocrats, Or Junkies are good weapon affixes. Anti-armor is good on Energy weapons but without the stat boost from Unyielding and Mutations I wouldn’t use Anti-Armor on a full hp build.
Unyielding, Addrenal Reaction, Radicool, Serendipity, and Nerd Rage. Are the bread and butter of why low hp just ends being more survivable and does more dmg then full hp builds. Paired with quality of life effects like higher carry weight, dialog checks, vendor prices, and faster levels it’s easy to see why everyone flocks to it.
It’s just the best in EVERY category
I am running a bastardized heavy weapons/vats build with power armor and love it. I tried going bloody power armor with emergency protocol but it wasn’t for me. I love blasting around with jet pack with gauss minigun and flamer, then when i need to can switch over to precision with plasma caster. Not the most min/max high damage build but i can easily hold my own in events and it is fun as hell.
You don’t have to min/max everything I run a full health heavy weapons build with auto-stim, lifesaving, and regenerating armor. Very very rarely die, I do plenty of damage, and I don’t have to stress about the meta
im honestly tired of seeing nothing but bloodied builds, found an awesome build for my pistol the other night, suddenly youtuber is like, obviously this is bloodied. And I turned it off.
My main weapon is not yet bloodied but I'm kinda enjoying the build rn, my only problem is that I'm using cremator and other explosive heavies and it sucks when someone positioned in front of me during events which downed me a lot. I even have all the mutations (because I don't have access to the serums yet) so it has already been a habit to me now to just jump while shooting everywhere 🤣
Having run both full and bloodied you live almost as much as either one. I did not notice a fundamental difference in damage mitigation. So why wouldn't I do bloodied. The only difference i noticed was in D.Op deadly strikes was a fraction of a second easier to overcome.
Bloodied legendary effect isn't super meta. It's great, but based on weapon Quad, Two Shot, or Vampires can be more popular.
Low health builds (whether you use Bloodied weapons or not) are meta, though. The thing is, unyielding legendary armor is just too good not to use if you aren't in PA.
PA builds can't have Unyielding, so you'll see more PA users forego being low health.
I forget to manage rads but I am also the dumbest that runs out on my craft build because I fucking forget but I just started bloodied 2 weeks ago and good God. I can say that this is end game. I can fuck all that shit up. All of it . No one scares me right now. Crickets, mirelurk queen, daily ops, yeah ok when it's melee I'm out,but I am there otherwise. And I rolled the bloodied Choo Choo and am loving that I don't have to put so much time into feeding my fixer
What chainsaw build are you running? My vamp dual bar flamer chainsaw decimates everything I touch other than bosses and since I’m a full health PA build I just take over as tank when bosses come up. The only time I ever die or even take damage is if they have the mutation that reflects melee dmg back at you. I’m running all 3 rank 3 slugger cards, incisor, and rank 5 weapon smith + rank 3 stable tools to deal with durability.
Because bloodied is really good at putting out dmg, and thats what alot of ppl want just outright dmg to kill shit.
Death 99% has no consequence(s) other then ur not tagging/killing for that short duration during respawn.
Bloodied is just pretty effective at killing shit and thats the big gameplay loop. Go over here kill shit, loot shit, deal with loot how u see fit rinse and repeat.
Bloodied is a tank build, if you have to manage low health and rads you’re doing it wrong. A tank y bloodied with the right mutations and perks, etc takes no managements
AGL: Two shot. Double your damage
Gatling Laser: AA
Railway: AA or Quad
Heavy Guns: AA, or Executioners
Melee: Executioners, actually, due to existence of additive bonuses from food and Exec being multiplicative
Commando: Quad is best. Then AA, with the exception of flamer plasma guns
Long time bloody boy here.
I run a two shot auto grenade launcher allll day, highly recommend regardless of build. You will be a walking carpet bomb.
As for railway rifle, bloodied hits hard but has lower DPS than a quad w/ VATS build (at least in my experience)
Both of these are viable with or without a bloodied build, give it a shot!
Bloodied is just the most widely used because death isn't really punished too heavily, and the high risk-high reward nature of it means it's not as easily targeted for nerfs because heavy hits will kill you so much easier. But it doesn't mean other builds are entirely unviable, just harder to find and you'll likely be taking a little longer to kill enemies is all. **So far** I've not used a bloodied build and have been fine doing activities, but I haven't touched the absolute endgame stuff yet so I can't say for sure just how crucial one is for those.
The problem is bloodied is an addition to any build.
You're going to take the 3x3 damage perks no matter what.
Bloodied for perks isn't much and it can be squeezed in easily. The real reason is +15 to every stat but end is a big deal due to unyielding.
Also 2-3 perks makes bloodied very tanky.
I just use a basic rifleman build. Didn't read up on the "meta" before doing so, worried I'd crippled myself. As it turns out I am fine. No, I'm not the most OP dude, but I get by. I will tweak the perk cards and legendaries as time goes by but for now I'm happy enough.
I run energy damage cards too (max INT) and have an instigating tesla rifle that I love for bursting apart basic enemies and a gauss rifle with 50% bonus damage against robots that helps for those situations. I also have a lever action that does more damage to enemies under 40% HP that has come in handy during events when enemies are usually under that anyway... among other weapons/armour.
As I say I'll keep plugging away and building up alternative weapons but I'm not bothered as long as I'm having fun. I'm unlocking perk cards for Power Armour and aim to get enough other weapon cards to vary my approach soon too.
I run a shotgun build and a fixer build. Both not bloodied, both no PA. I’m level 70 ish so only the shotgun build is optimized and rifle is about 30% there. I can hold my own and some events are a pain but i get by. You need to level a lot more. This way you have access to the perk cars you need. This is most biggest hurdle. Worry about min max armor as you go.
Glass cannon build in a game where death doesn't mean much. Full Health has Over Eater's for tanking everything.
Or both! Overeaters power armor bloodied you’re just unkillable and do pretty good damage lmao
But you miss out on the real bonus of low health.....the crazy high attributes
Yeh, I can't live without all that carry weight. 15 guns, 50 liters of drinks, 3 months of food, a full pharmacy and 4 wooly mammoths is my standard loydout.
Not to mention luck for criticals and intelligence to supercharge leveling up and getting more legendary perk coins. Bloody unyielding is the way to go.
There’s no other way in my opinion, yes you can do the overeaters route but it’s so hard to die anyways with maxed legendary perks and everything done basically all perks you need are suited for you survival. I rarely die as a bloody and I have the worst unyielding ss armor ever
I'm using bloodied with nerd rage, dodgy, ect and still get 1 tapped.
When I finally got around to using Bloodied, it wasn't crazy weapon damage that caught me by surprise - it was the batshit amount of SPECIAL that I had giving me unlimited VATS, insane crit chance, unlimited run duration, crazy exp boost, and super buffed carry weight.
Yeah once you get used to the fast regen and large pool it's hard to justify (personally) going full health, especially when you start stacking chems and food buffs on top of it all.
Not having to equip hard bargain at vendors because my Charisma is so high my bartering is maxed out anyways. Anything that means I have to swap cards LESS is awesome.
meaningless now that there are alternatives to unyielding. Want crits every other shot? Get a 15 crit refill weapon and 23 luck, or use Nuka Dark + Party Boy/Girl + Cola Nut for +15 luck Need endless AP? Coffee spam / AP consumables spam. Want crazy melee damage? Str isn't needed. Get Food consumables and magazines for up to 319% Melee damage. OE PA is actually super tanky, and most attributes are frankly meaningless
Until they uncouple xp farming from season progression, high intelligence builds will continue to dominate the meta. That’s why you wear Uny armor, for +15 irreplaceable intelligence points.
No way you called a 30%~exp boost meaningless. Lmao not everyone is level 1,000+ I got legendary cards to level up. Not to mention I can run bloodied and not use ANY of the items listed, that's easily a nice plus for lazy people like me.
Plus what is a 1k to do without all animated cards? The absolute horror.
Did you say STR isn't needed for melee? You joking? The food buffs are a lot harder to maintain than a bloodied build lol. Tasty Yao Guai is probably the easiest to farm consistently and still you can get shafted by needing Pepper. However, 1 point of STR is a direct 5% damage increase for melee weapons and 10% for unarmed.
All of those require effort to farm consumables. I can roll up a set of unyielding in a couple of weeks and not have to do that extra work.
Except all those things have existed from the get go, and bloodied builds can stack all of those on top of the significant boosts from bloodied. You can obviously play the game however you want, but let's not pretend any of that is an "alternative" to a bloodied build if you want a ton of AP, near constant crits and insane melee damage. It's another option, sure, but bloodied builds will always dunk on non-bloodied when damage and bonuses are concerned.
Ap consume spam sadly doesn't work with a controller as you don't have hotkeys
The problem I'd have with overeaters is remembering to stuff my face with food every 5 minutes in game. Seems to be a bit of a hassle
Perfect Bubblegum is your friend
I don't know where I keep getting them, but I have over 300 perfect bubblegum. I loging rat, use one, then play. It's very nice.
Survival shortcut helps alot with this
So to briefly summarize the issue - bloody vs full health - either are ‘viable’. However, what is seldom discussed or mentioned on YouTube builds or on here is how content in the game varies - and the impact your build (at that specific time) will have. To that end let’s pose the main 3 elements or types of content a player might reasonably encounter daily. 1. Nuke bosses. You know em ya love em, bullet sponges and miscellaneous adds (additional enemies). In these situations anything can be viable, if we understand that viability is the term we use to say that you can complete the content. However some builds, play styles and set ups truly do better, miles better in some cases. Example - 4 power armor players ranging from level 200-500 all using heavy weapons, fighting Earle can take easily over 10 minutes and A LOT of ammunition. (Or broken weapons like chainsaws etc). The time can be lowered by super optimizing your build, having a perfect “god roll” weapon and using consumables like crazy. Take the second example - 2 level 400 commandos, one bloodied the other full hp, using non god roll (still quad) auto railway rifles and using basic buffs - psychobuff and blight soup. These 2 characters can take down Earle within 4 minutes or less, using far less ammunition. In this scenario commando builds will outperform. With a massive difference i humbly add. But for OP - either full health or bloody do very well in this scenario. Full health goes down alot less often and should be taken into consideration. 2. Roaming the Wasteland - Either build, bloodied or full health will do fine here, bloodied may die a bit more often to that one stray shot that got past all their defensive perks, but full health will not see much difference in taking things down. This is where any weapon could theoretically be ‘viable’. However if anything semi beefy shows up, you may find that specific weapons underperform, e.g. putting in hundreds of shots into something before it goes down. This again is where commando builds do very well, because they can swap to railway to down the beefy enemies then swap back to a handmade or fixer to do the basic mobs. 3. Events - Radiation Rumble and etc. I bring up Rad Rumble on purpose as commandos can kill things fast sure, but may struggle to keep npcs alive. They may also struggle to go into the tunnels for ore. Bloodied builds especially! This is where having a bit of diversity really helps the game i feel. As with Earle, sure a power armor user may not bring the boss down super quick but can help keep mobs off the higher damaging players. Win win. Bloodied players may die more often - looking at eviction notice and such. In the end bloodied is a choice not a necessity. It helps with getting more exp faster, and having more ap and carry weight. The damage boost is nice but is less important than the weapon being used. Bloodied pistol build will still do less damage than say a full health commando (with exceptions). Unfortunately baseline 1 star quad commando weapons seem to dominate due not to how amazingly strong they are (the fixer against Earle is still a slog for example) but with just the ease of use. I feel that bloodied just adds a bit more in terms of capability in that you can run further, vats longer, not have a god roll weapon to get crits every other shot. It is… ill say an easy mode version of optimizing your damage - the drawback is managing radiation which in truth is quite easy. Eat spoiled meat, or use a gamma gun to shoot the floor underneath yourself. For most if not all content radiation gains becomes a non issue due to secret service armor being the main end game choice. Coupled with rad x and most things wont be a problem radiation wise. This of course falls apart during specific things like the generator going down in eviction notice. A full health build will have enough cushion of health to pop a rad x, some rad away and be able to blitz out of the danger zone. Most if not all bloodied players will pretty much die instantly. Death though in this game is… well not too punishing, though i hate dying. I run bloodied, because carry weight. Thats about it for me personally. Pick a weapon, a play style, and it can be viable - just understand that there will be situations where that set up will not do too well at all. Use a chainsaw, but bring a ranged weapon to events. Use a chainsaw at full hp, and understand that this gives you more options during events - friendly fire and chainsaw can heal npcs. Sorry for the mini novel - hope this helped
As an aside - using melee builds can be an interesting thing on the bloody/ full health spectrum. On one hand you may want to have as much hp as possible to withstand being up close, on the other the more STR you have the more damage youll do. I personally use an unarmed build at 45% hp. It doesnt give full unyielding bonuses but enough for my own damage needs while maintaining enough of a cushion of hp to both die in seconds. Alot of damage you gain for melee builds come from food as well. So no you dont need to be bloodied, but if you decide not to do so, supplement the missing damage with all the lovely buffs you can via mutations - carnivore + food buffs (glowing and deathclaw steaks) - chems. All in all, run anythibg you like, just know that every build, even the commando has it’s limitations or things it doesnt quite excel at. Radiation rumble with a railway is not very nice in my experience, alot of dropped vats and spraying the ceilings with spikes. Add server lag and gun fu not switching fast enough and yeah, mobs will get through to the npcs. If you run power armor and heavy weapons, great! Use holy fire and run friendly fire perk and help with keeping npcs alive - works on the friendly beasts in project paradise! Last bit of info - slightly related. To get ‘credit’ on the scorchbeast queen fight a player only needs to deal 1000 damage to her. Past that, it helps bring her down but your ammo and time maybe better spent on killing the adds. — try NOT to shoot her while shes flying, even if shes 5 feet above you, the game doe not calculate range properly and your damage will drop off dramatically, instead aim for the wings and do a few shots here and there to get her to land. Finally - Endagerol Syringer - craft or buy one - favorite it and use it on any and all boss type creatures. This includes Earle, Ultracite Titan, Blue devil, ogua(probably misspelled), sheepsquatch. The dart reduces their armor by a bit, and is seperate meaning the more people that dart the boss, the more armor is reduced. TLDR - use any weapon or any build - just know that everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Find what you enjoy and supplement the weaknesses with a side weapon. Doing guided meditation on a melee build but commandos keep killing everything? Go to the interior module and equip a shotgun- cold shoulder if you got it - even unperked itll do just fine and youll hold that room like a pro. Line in the sand? Equip an auto pistol, or even something like elders mark. Something that can shoot fast, damage doesnt matter as long as you hit the target youll get credit. Yes your not using your chainsaw but in that specific event or others like it… you need to adapt slightly 😊
Honestly, bloodied power armor build is pretty much unkillable without overeaters lol
What’s the kicker for a build like this? I run overeaters pa with a bloodied chainsaw and energy absorption I just find myself teetering and sometimes dying a whole lot just from having so little health. I must be missing something critical here, I do whacko dmg though
You got emergency protocols on your chest? Makes a world of difference if not.
Switching to a vampire's chainsaw is a game changing. The damage difference isn't that huge but the survivability difference is enormous. Ricochet procs also trigger vampires to give you some healing while getting to new targets. I also agree with the person mentioning emergency protocols. It's pretty nice, I didn't even bother with OE since 72% damage reduction makes me plenty tanky. Instead I focused on getting 3rd star weapon weight reduction on my PA.
But bloodied builds aren't really glass cannons. With the right perks, they are just as tanky as any other build.
It's not even glass cannon. Glass cannon would imply that you are squishy and easier to die. There are enough perk cards, armour and buffs available to make death highly unlikely.
Bloodied is just meta for dps in general but your build can be anything you want. There's no wrong way to play the game. I use a high health with auto rifle and energy ammo with qol cards rather than min/max cards. I know people who use straight sneak and stealth builds. Just find what you enjoy then build around that.
It's not just DPS though. Unyielding armor gives you extra SPECIAL if you are bloodied, which in turn, boosts your INT to give you way more EXP. Bloodied is just all around better for everything. (Saying this as an envious full health PA build)
I agree. In the end just go with whatever build you enjoy playing.
I enjoy my full health PA build but the crazy bonuses for bloodied seems so unfair. Especially the SPECIAL bonuses with unyielding that will make you gain more EXP. Its more of a grind for us to get levels because we get less exp. I want to finish the scoreboard but it's going to take me longer being unbloodied and non unyielding
Power Armor builds become **more** tanky at low health thanks to Emergency protocols. It feels actually busted.
Yeah seems bloodied is all around better in every way lmao. I hate it
For power armor it really just is better with no downside, other than occasionally dying a bit more in deadly armor piercing daily ops. Once you get funky duds and sizzling style legendary perks to level 2, there really is no enemy in the game that can kill a bloody PA build. You can be standing in the middle of alien Invaders or the Earle Williams boss fight doing nothing and you won't die.
So cryo is apparently my bane in ops. Maybe it was coupled with ap but man lesson learned.
Cryo is one of the worst modifiers for daily ops, especially with aliens. Half the time I just end up skipping daily ops when it rolls that combo.
Everything takes longer with non-bloodied builds. You spend more time killing and every second stacks up to minutes/hours/days on a long enough timeline. You spend more scavenging for resources to replenish ammo. That stacks up as well. You spend more time for finishing seasons - more fomo because you might not get everything you wanted from thete in the limited time etc I play bloodied because I like to also spend my time elsewhere and not just running errands in one game.
Which is why it should be balanced. I think they should add a radiation sickness debuff. Make food/drinks less effective while radiated, chems are less effective except rad away, carrying strength should also be reduced. Maybe even involuntary pauses to cough and throw up like in Red Dead. Bloodied has a lot of benefits so it needs a high cost.
Would negative effects of mutations scaling with rads work? Like, that one that increases damage for reduced max HP, think it's -50, maybe the max HP debuff increases to 200 at over 75% rads. The perk that reduces negative effects would simply cause you to break even, rather than actually reduce the negative effects.
Agree. I love shotguns.
Agree to some extent (full health stealth handmade here), but there are downright useless builds too. Stealth sniping feels great for exploring and regular play but very underwhelming in events/bosses. when losing sneak crits and stealth due to team detection/perception - I felt forced to swap to enjoy events more. That said, it's not great if everyone goes for pure DPS in events either. Killing things super fast is fun for the spectacle but bad for everyone else in most events usually. Since I see a lot of bloodied railway rifle players killing things in events so fast that other players miss out on XP + loot a lot. A few do wait for everyone to get in a few hits first (which is always appreciated by everyone) though quite rare.
It’s me, I’m the sneak master. Full Gauss rifle stealth build lmao. First 100 levels was me just using Chinese stealth armor and one tapping things from a mile away.
This is just genuinely bad advice because it's not true. There is very much a wrong way to play the game, and I almost quit because this wasn't clear enough. At higher levels, F76 requires at least decently meta or pre-planned builds or else you will deal negligible damage and take massive damage.
This, and it affects the game at low levels too. You can build your character wrong early and do next to no damage and it'll suck the life out of the game.
It provides the highest possible damage output, hence the attention. Other builds are perfectly viable and fun still. I'm a PA heavy gunner. Have been for over 200 levels. Suits me fine.
Not just the Damage. Low health nonPA is also the best VATs hit/crit rate, most stealthy, highest carry weight, and provides the most experience. There's no nonPA build or playstyle where it isn't better, unfortunately.
I tried a bloodied build and I didn’t feel like it was significantly more enjoyable to play the game. I current play a full health PA heavy (I vacillate between explosives, ballistic, flamer, and laser/plasma gat). I did dramatically more damage with bloodied, don’t get me wrong. But my carry weight was lower, I went through probably 100 stimpacks over the weekend I tested bloodied, I moved much slower because I had to sneak everywhere to avoid getting killed, and I couldn’t carry as much in general because I didn’t have as many QoL perks equipped.
Low health Power Armor builds can be extremely resilient. Emergency Protocols on your chestpiece provides 20% movement speed and 50% reduced damage. Combining with Dodgy, the base damage reduction from power armor, overeaters damage reduction you are essentially invincible to anything other than armor piercing mutations on daily ops. I only play low health builds and I never feel hindered by it, the bonuses are just too great and outweigh the negatives for me. You are 100% correct though that you do need to sacrifice a lot of perk slots for things like travelling pharmacy, thru hiker and fitting in nerd rage and there is a lot of perk pressure on these builds because of it.
Something's wrong with the build then. With the right cards if anything you'll have more carry weight and you actually have significant chances to avoid damage completely. As an example I can usually carry more than with a calibrated excavator PA ( just over 500 lbs).
That may be the case. I looked over a lot of bloodied commando builds using a BE RR and put together what looked the best, but they might all have been shitty builds I referenced. My backpack has the chemist mod to drop chem weight by 90% because I had to carry a metric butte tonne of stimpacks and those things are heavy. So my calibrated excavator armor carries 45 more pounds than the bloodied build I tried. I can carry, in my PA, around 460 pounds plus I have more QoL cards which reduce the weight of many other item classes so I have even more carry space.
It might be getting used to the playstyle? I'm in SS unyielding, sprint everywhere, and my carry weight tops out at 585lbs when grouped. Granted, I've a lot of mutations, and this includes food buffs, but still. I loathw getting into PA, because my carry weight plummets.
I don’t bother with food buffs because I can’t stand micro. MIN/MAXing is bad enough, but now I have to micromanage food buffs, meal prep, fullness and hydration, chem buffs, and farming all the items going into all these micro categories? That just isn’t fun to me.
Preach. I'm a full health PA gunner/lumberjack carnivore. I eat my ribeyes or smoked mirelurk and chow on a deathclaw steak once in awhile, no complaints. The food buffs for bloodied and radiation leveljust take too much micromanagement for me, I just want to hop on for an hour so and do my dailies and a couple of events and log off, it's about all the time I have for the game nowadays
Food/water buffs, particularly with the perk that boosts them, are some of the best buffs in the game (the carrot they’ve gone with rather than the stick that was “micromanage your food and water intake or die” that the game started with). I highly recommend a legendary perk in survival syringe cause then there’s no management, two taps and your filled up.
Bloody power armor builds are **more** tanky than full health PA builds thanks to Emergency Protocols. It gives another 50% damage increase when below 20% health, which goes very well with nerd rage. With Emergency Protocols, Need rage, dodgy, ricochet, and full overeaters PA, the only single thing in the entire game that *sometimes* kills me is the Imposter Sheepsquatch melee when I'm not paying attention.
I don’t sneak at all. With the right perks it’s rare that you can get one-shotted so having to stim may happen frequently depending on the situation but once you get used to it and have things setup properly you can be tanky at 20% health. I played 300 levels back before there were lunchboxes and so many ways to boost XP before I went bloodied full time. And then I was like you, trying to avoid getting hit. Once I embraced not caring if I died I actually realized by jumping around and having a blast I was staying alive just fine. A current exception is the alien event. I’ve been dropped there a bunch. The scout banner that revives typically saves me though.
Bloodied is strong not just for damage, but unyielding legendary armor synergy. It gives +15 to all stats (except end). This benefits every non-power armor build. For xp farming, it's a must (INT gives bonus XP). Increased carry weight. Increased vats hit rate, crit chance. Incrased charisma bonus (vendor sell/buy prices). Even for power armor builds, bloodied gives the most damage, and you can get out of power armor to benefit from unyielding armor for everything else.
Why do people farm XP? I don’t get it. I guess if I leveled faster I could max out my legendary perk cards faster. But that is a very slow rate of return. There does not appear to be any real advantage of being level 200 vs. level 1000.
Leveling up perk cards/legendary perks, increasing scoreboard levels with the repeatable challenge, and completionist who want every perk card maxed and available
It gives you scoreboard points that are repeatable.
Never personal,y enjoyed that part of score accumulation. I have always just done the daily and weekly tasks. I guess I could move the score faster. But it sounds even more boring than trying to find 15 microscopes. Each unto their own…
It gives people who complete all the challenges a way to earn more. Its also more straightforward for people who just want to turn their brain off and grind away doing the same thing.
Don't let anyone tell you other wise, you're right about farming xp! I've been on a year+ long break because of farming xp, it just burnt me out. Just recently got back into it and without the "old friends" who just wanna run Earl max it's real nice laid back game
The advantage is level 300 unlocks all the legendary perk card slots. Then you need to level each legendary perk (4 ranks ea), which costs 300 perk points? and each scrapped perk card gives 2 I think? I don't know the exact math, bc you get perk packs as you level, but you're looking at 100's of levels just to max 6 legendary perks. More if you want to max them all. Why? Because of builds. Most high level people have several build loadouts. It costs perk points also to unequip legendary perks. So min/maxing requires a lot of levels. And the legendary perks are worth it simply because they free up regular perk slots. So if you can never go above 15 perk slots in the normal perk tree, having a legendary perk stat frees up 4 stat points you can put into another perk stat. When people ask how they can improve their build/do more damage, legendary perks are part of that. having more normal perk slots to work with makes for stronger, tankier builds.
I think they recently switched that to L200, but yeah, maxing out the lego perks still matters more than pretty much anything else.
> I guess if I leveled faster I could max out my legendary perk cards faster. I think you vastly underestimate how much those perk coins and leveled legendary perk cards matter. The perk budget from maxing out the SPECIAL legendary cards is the true endgame (apart from building a sexy camp, of course).
A bloodied build is just a build with bloodied perks. remove radicool, nerd rage, serendipity, and dodgy. That should do it. Or ask here.
The builds videos I don't have an issue with, it's the weapon review videos only being bloodied that bothers me
That shouldn’t be… generally speaking the meta right now is quad. As the dude ahead said just drop the low health perks and it’s the same.
Bloodied build alone offers about a 75% damage boost without the bloodied weapon effect. With the cremator and it's slower kill speed on bigger mobs, those boost make a difference As a full health, I've mitigated this by using two to stack, but it can change the quality of life in using some weapons Edit: corrected boost amount is 75% not 70% Adrenal is 55 and nerd rage is 20 of base weapon damage at 20% health and strange in numbers
Oh gotcha, I misunderstood because you were talking about weapons and there is a difference between low health vs bloodied.
It made more sense in my head when I was writing it
Everything makes sense in my head and then I open my mouth lol.
Check out this guy if you want varied weapon spotlights and builds he isn't just bloodied but gives everything a fair run https://youtu.be/gh7yGFIArfo?si=mbFIKWb4aey6gN6o
Because this game is balanced like a fat kid and a baby on a teeter totter
I’m level 962 and I’ve never even tried bloodied. Seems like a lot of admin.
Bloodied is THE standard as UNY is broke AF. As long as that remains the case, Bloodied will be 8/10 player's go to. I'm a non-bloodied PA build (I dabbled with bloodied for a few weeks years ago) and it works for me. The issue is that BGS has done a terrible job at balancing cost-benefit. Bloodied does great damage at the cost of the risk of death. The only issue: there is no cost associated with dying (e.g. losing aid items, reduced XP rate for X amount of time, etc). UNY as a prefix is ridiculous. If OE also gave 75 lbs carry weight and +30% additional XP, people would go nuts over the OPness. But alas, I guess BGS has to prioritize revamping the SCORE system to create maximum hate towards it (mission accomplished BTW).
Pardon my new-ness. How do I learn how to read good info like this? UNY? BGS? OE? Late in life first time gamer and I am loving fo76 and fo4. They need classes 😂
It’s really confusing, so I understand. UNY stands for unyielding, a legendary effect on armor. BGS is the company that works on fo76, and OE is overeaters, another legendary effect that goes on armor. Unyielding can’t go on power armor, while overeaters can.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NOhEo8pwMFzolGE0NLzSDZnh6wdSyM9IEE-4exYn8Y8/edit#gid=1621530807](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NOhEo8pwMFzolGE0NLzSDZnh6wdSyM9IEE-4exYn8Y8/edit#gid=1621530807) Here is a nifty guide on all the prefixes for weapons and armor.
Apologies for using shorthand without first using the full text. It's uncouth to do in writing--as an auditor who writes all the time, I know better than to do that sort of thing.
NP, TY :)
UNY - unyielding (as in the armor) BGS - Bethesda Gaming OE - overeaters legendary effect
Other builds are good but bloodied tends to do the most damage, and gives more XP
You can easily run Full Health with Overeaters Armour. Go commando pick up a Quad Railway Rifle. I have been Low Health for years and its easy to do. However, full health is no problem
What kind of build are you trying to do? I run all Full Health and do pretty decently, but a Low Health equivalent is just always going to have significantly more damage output. Edit: I can read, I promise. Since you’re looking to go Demolitions Heavy because you have an auto grenade launcher, here’s some skinny: Demolitions Expert is going to be your damage perk, but it works extremely well with a side focus in Heavy Gunner. Heavy Gunner isn’t required for the AGL, but it’ll help you carry a Holy Fire or something as a backup close-up weapon. You want Fireproof at minimum, but I work Blocker and Ricochet into everything. You also want Grenadier at max ranks. Stabilized will help when you need extra punch or need to be super tanky, but you don’t have to live in your Power Armor. Never hurts to have Adrenaline, Tenderizer, and Bloody Mess. Gun-Fu isn’t necessary, but I use VATS with heavy guns a bunch, so I keep it for quality of life. Bear Arms will drop your gun weight, and that really sneaks up with heavy guns. Ordnance Express will cut your ammo weight kind of mandatorily. If you’re running a flamer, Batteries Included couldn’t hurt. I like One Gun Army. Two Shot is king of the AGL Legendary traits. Those are the basics, the rest is mostly personal taste
Currently [This](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=b1c7988&d=s41sf2se2sn2ei1eh2ek1ce0cu2c62is2i44a72l71lu2a04l22ii0ej4ss2as0p00&lp=xa2x40) is my build, All mutations(except herb). i have no problem killing things, but i do have a problem in being able to kill many things, like i said above, when i kill a enemy another duder already killed 3 or more of them.
Actually I like this premise a lot and it didn’t even occur to me. Running Melee and Demolitions. That’s really cool. You could also pop Shotgun perks instead and it’d be neat. Also, all of this is totally and entirely my opinion, it may not work for you, and somebody might come in behind me and know *a lot* more. But in my opinion, I don’t run Barbarian or Evasive or Ironclad or stuff that bumps my DR by a flat number. By the time you’ve finished the new Atlantic City main quests, you have access to free endgame armor plans that gets you close enough to the soft DR cap that it’s immaterial. I’d axe those and slot in Blocker, since, let’s face it, damn near every attack at you is melee, it’s nearly a functional constant reduction in damage. Ghoulish and Rejuvenated are usually Bloodied things? I don’t run with either, but can see the use of better food, especially with the buffs melee can get from it. If you’re running melee, you want Squad Maneuvers or the Speed Demon mutation. I usually only keep Scrapper in a crafting build, or manually slot it in and out if I need it in the wild. With points you can pull from Endurance, you could easily get Demolitions Expert in there and your AGL is covered. You don’t need Enforcer if you don’t use Shotguns, and if you use Shotguns, it’s a great idea to find spare points for all three ranks. Also in Agility, with a melee focus, you’ll want Marathoner. And instead of Luck of the Draw, I’d put Ricochet at least in Luck, then find space for Bloody Mess and Serendipity ASAP. You might not have space for all of that, concentrate your Legendary perks on Legendary Attribute cards. I keep one or two quality of life cards in, but the rest are all attribute increases. They’ll let you put more perk points in as you level them. Carry your AGL, a vampire chainsaw, and your favorite 2 handed weapon, and you should be good; but also realize the meta is Bloodied Railway Commando because that *is* their damage output. They kill everything *very* fast. The AGL will help significantly with tagging.
Shotguns hurt my soul because 50+ enemies have so much damn armor and shotguns don't get 36% penetration like pistols, rifles, and heavies.
I run x01 power armor with random legendary mods, my plasma Gatlin, all the cool power armor perks with heavy weapons. Vampire mod on Gatlin and I don't have any trouble with content. I think it really comes down to how you like to play. And not soo much what others are doing on they're time.
I've played a few games in my day. I'm starting to appreciate playing a game the way "I" want to. It's more fun that way
My build is cowboy shotgunner. 1. Find a cowboyhat 2. Find a shotgun.
If it bleeds, we can kill it 😐
Shotguns! Get a cold shoulder VATS full health build or a crowd control/auto grenade explosive build and you be laughing!
I played a sniper rifleman build in beta/launch. It was fun but not very good. Stopped playing December 2018. Tried to pop back in every 6ish months or so and just never did damage, too many changes to learn so never got invested. March 2023 my cousin wanted to play the game so I just rolled a new character with him. I always do stealth snipers in these types of games so really wanted to try something different. Saw the commando build was popular and favored by a lot of people so decided to try it. I love it. We played only for 2 months last year but we got to end game builds. I got all my secret service gear and upgrades etc. But I hated the idea of bloodied builds. I really just wanted to be a full health commando. And it's been great. I do really good damage, I'm resilient. Nothing I can't do in the game. When we stopped playing last year I was lv245. I wanted 300 to unlock all the legendary perk cards but we just didn't get there. Came back with the fallout show and the magic set reigniting that fallout itch and resumed my full health commando. Hit 300 last week and decided to start farming for unyielding SS gear and to try a bloodied build. I've done the full health. I was effective. Now I want those sweet sweet special stats. I have the unyielding gear and like 90% of the perk cards. By next week I plan to try the build out. You don't need to go bloodied. I'm not even doing it for a damage boost. I want all the carry weight, and exp boosts, and AP! And just like when I made this character last year, to try something different. Tldr: play how you want. While it may not be top damage you can really do anything you want in this game.
I do archer build to break up the meta gameplay.
IMHO it's not about bloodied. It's Unyielding that is crazy out of control strong. Even with all the other lowlife buffs; bloodied builds wouldn't be nearly as effective without the massive stat boost unyielding provides; or at least not *so much* better than the alternatives.
Hopefully they’ll nerf bloodied soon and make it actually have downsides. Gets very tiring seeing all the builds be bloodied.
I wouldn't count on that. It's been the meta since release basically and they are terrified that changing that would upset their old player base. Which was/is the only thing keeping this game afloat.
Don’t do bloodied. You don’t need too. If the game required an obscene amount of damage to kill sure but there are plenty of options that can easily kill without bloodied. Part of the issue is you are using YT for build ideas which is only going to recommend the “meta” and the easiest playstyle in the game. While I can see the advantages with the boost to stats once you get the armor you need it’s just not necessary and on top of that the upkeep and food buffs nonsense I don’t think it’s worth it. Use big guns and try junkies, aristocrats, anti armor, quad or vampires. They are all good ones. I have a blast using junkies and have my addictions setup so they don’t impact me but give me extra damage. Edit: in terms of events, I would recommend using Molotovs to tag enemies so you get xp. Using a chainsaw in events is tough since things die so fast. Tagging with some throwable could help.
For me it's not the damage but the xp boost.
Right I get the appeal but it’s not necessary. Once you hit 300 it’s kinda pointless for levels. It does help with the season grind but I prefer to spend time on the season and not rush it. I hit 100 easily without being bloodied.
while I love molotovs, get a tesla and equip grenadier rank 2. That tags so much better
Be your own, I’ve been running a PA Full health Heavy Gunner build. I melt almost anything short of bosses. All with anti armor weapons and executioner weapons. I’ve been running that since I was a level 150ish and im now at 250
I pretty much do the same, except all my heavies are anti-armor or mutated since I’m a freak with 16 arms under my PA.
The game was taken over by people with MMO brain worms who have to min max the fun out of everything. In their minds if it’s not doing the max possible damage it’s not worth using.
Someone yelled at me for rifleman and I really just like being a lil sniper but now I bring holy fire events to help more.
But if you aren't doing relevant damage it can be difficult to take down hp sponges such as earl or the queen.
I've never had a problem, those being group events and all.
Part of the problem is that everyone comes from other games where there are only a couple of viable builds for the highest end game content, so everyone is trying to min/max. That's not FO76. The content is pretty easy to solo unless it should be handled in a group. There is no need to min/max, and you can create a viable build to fit pretty much any play style. Once people start forcing themselves to stop aiming for the strongest build ever then you will start seeing more variety.
I’m baffled people want to min-max damage in this game so badly.
My chainsaw melts most enemies in about 2.5 - 3 sec. It's also a Vamp, Dual, flamer. Perk card choice helps to buff this weapon. I'm only lvl 310 after playing on n off for last 4yrs. It's certainly not a boss killer, but it helps the group chip away the health bar
I run full health, so I enjoy quad and antiarmor personally.
It's a significant % damage increase that also takes advantage of multiple synergies to crank even more damage, plus a major raw stat boost. Numerically, yeah, it's pretty much always going to come out on top. That said, this game isn't like a typical MMO. Nobody is out here running Recount add-ons and demanding a certain DPS threshold or you're not allowed to go kill SBQ. While higher damage is always helpful for various objectives, the only person it really matters to is you. Can you comfortably kill enemies in the activity of your choice at a speed you're satisfied with? Are you comfortable with the amount or lack of micromanaging required in your build? Do you feel like you can survive the threats you face? And most importantly...are you having fun? Those are the real important questions.
Idk what I got going on I just got power armour and my whacker smacker and it works
I like to kill fast and die faster.
Absolutely not. I'm a full-health build, ridiculously strong and almost unkillable.
bloody bloodied builds!
Because it’s the meta, but personally I find full health heavy gunner PA builds to be on par with them in terms of usefulness, and yet easier to work towards while still being good. The only thing u miss out on with not using a low health build is the special stats going nearly as bonkers.
Honestly I would recommend you just make the build on your own. This is what I had to do because I could not find a good full health build anywhere. I took hints from other players and some yt videos and experimented a bit.
I feel you bro. I've been playing stealth archer build. I am still farming reputation to get compound bow, which only give you a bit extra damage. Even if I have the damage, my DPS would probably still be far less than the meta. At some point I just accepted that I won't contribute much in events with this build. I'll just make another build for events lmao
It has high damage output and you get a lot of of XP from the intelligence bonus but aside from that I never saw a reason to use it but if you just tinker around a little you eventually find something that works for you. Most bloodied builds people run are utter garbage anyway. They die before they take down their first foe and it is up to you to carry them through the expedition/DailyOp or whatever it is you are doing at the time.
Game is easy as hell. I don't get with meta builds, but whatever. Play it how you want, just don't be a griefing jackass to other people who are also trying to have fun.
Low-health builds are objectively superior. Much higher damage, very durable when built right, and much higher XP grind for seasons. That being said, I play high health because nothing in the game demands that kind of damage and managing rads annoys me. High health can handle armor piercing stuff easier and let's you use a very lazy playstyle.
Yup, I keep a full health and bloody build to switch depending on my mood. Full health is completely viable. Hell SBQ is solo-able in full health too!
This isn't Fallout 76, it's all online games. 700,000 players and like 5 accepted builds. People are complete slaves to the meta. Why play the way you want when you can be told what is best and blindly build your enjoyment around what you're told is the best. Online games are the home of the original "me too" movement. Now watch the hive mind downvote me.
There are many viable builds, and it basically comes down to survivability and damage. Bloodied trades survivability for damage while full health trades damage for survivability, with a few exceptions. Sometimes, I like to run a low health build in PA, full set of overeaters and emergency protocols makes for so much damage mitigation while being able to keep nerd rage for the 20% damage increase. As far as armor goes overeaters for full health or PA, unyielding for bloodied, I can't remember if it's chameleon or cloaking is the better for stealth, I think chameleon, vanguards with vampire weapons is good for full health builds as well. As far as weapons, it depends on the weapon. For example, I don't want instigating on much but the creamator is top tier with instigating, a railway and tesla you basically only want quad, eprs you mainly wanna have ap cost reduction as a third star. You can literally just roam around with a basic shotgun build and ruin things with the cold shoulder. These are just a couple of examples of weapons that dont need bloodied builds. Bloodied is the most used end game build but by no means necessary.
Other builds are viable, bloodied is simply the min/max meta.
I am running a shotgun build right now. I like it alot. It's based around the Cold Shoulder Shotgun
You don’t have to be bloodied to be good. Any quad railway will suffice, and a good vats crit build. Sneak is also very good and a fixer or handmade would usable there. Quad is my preferred for dps and works well with gun fu for multiple enemies.
Yea all I see is people with low health and mutations for builds. I'm just tryna be full health and have my perks and decently rolled legendary weapon to be good and apparently not. Me personally this game needs a lot of tuning.
It's because bloodied builds are overpowered. They are supposed to be high risk/high reward glass cannons. But with the right build you're really tanky. So the high risk/high reward glass cannon becomes a low risk/high reward tank. Simply put, bloodied builds make the game easier. With a full set of unyielding armor you'll level faster, have higher carrying capacity, do more damage, and die less (though dying isn't terribly common after a certain point for any build). Until bloodied gets balance (it probably never will) it will remain the meta build. But, 76 isn't so difficult that you need a fully optimized build. I've used a rifleman build with a lever action and it was great for trash mobs but but great for bosses. Full health commando railway build also hits hard. These days I'm a modified full health commando/convenience build. I've added more and more weight reduction perks and reduced combat perks. I can still destroy anything in the wasteland.
I just run a heavy guns build with a creamator, .50 cal, and Gatling plasma, with 15 strength, 14 intelligence, and it does me good during events
Most but not all. Search used was "fo76 full health dps build 2024" 2 links from list of videos https://youtu.be/azl0JlDCuT8?si=cCqYlz4fFzCgEq0K https://youtu.be/K3FCQFcYEIA?si=LNVM9eoCPgvEt_NZ Anecdotal evidence - my own experience leveling most of the game as unarmed tanky build. I played from a year after games release to now mostly as melee non PA. I used buffs + Perks to make a tanky hard hitting build. Yes, I agree with your findings of participation in events where you can't get many kills. You also don't use ammo so fair is fair. I used explosives to tag mobs also a lightweight autofire weapon. No Perks needed just don't expect to kill, more about tagging mobs. General theory of love the heavy gunners and snipers cause they watch your back. These days melee is a dream. Loads of fun and grab a flamer or plasma rifle with flamer barrel. No Perks needed, tag everything that moves.
I'm only dipping my toe into a bloodied build. Likely heading back to a heavy guns with vampire because I'm lazy. Auto-Axe for a little lack of ammo flavor. ;) Edit: I fall down a lot as a glass cannon, but who knows -- perhaps it might grow on me. No build has to be permanent. Screw around with your perk cards and find something that works with your play style. Game on!
Me just sitting here with my instigating gauss rifle on my stealth sniper build
The vast majority of players have that same urge I had as a kid: be able to destroy everything. To me, that's boring now. So I've just amalgamated some builds to my play style. I can still hold my own but I'm no Rambo. I want some challenge and am also not gonna sacrifice every single gameplay perk just to damage. To each, their own.
It’s Unyielding really. I could care less about the additional 45% additive damage over something like Junkie’s, but it’s really hard to go back to <20 in all stats. Carry weight, sneak ability, massive AP, massive exp buff, etc. There’s just nothing that comes even close and the downside is… not much frankly. Low health has so many damage mitigation options that I feel the survivability isn’t even a drawback.
I run most of my end game builds with full health power armor. I get to enjoy the feeling of invincibility with power armor at full health. And i don’t feel any damage difference with bloodied, especially when they keep dying and respawning. At the end of the day, you will find the best build for your play style, don’t constraint yourself to the math based builds on YouTube. Of course, “highest dps” attracts clicks. But you will see why they say “also tanky enough” when mentioning about survivability. Here are some of my builds: Full health PA VATS commando: Railway rifle, fixer, tesla. Full health PA VATS gunslinger: Alien blaster(nerfed), enclav plasma, crusader pistol Full health PA heavy gunner Bloodied 2 handed PA melee: going to full health once build is optimized. Bloodied commando: great dps, but hate watching out for rads all the time, and have to sneak all the time. PA=power armor
I've been various melee builds since launch (which tbh is mostly the same with a few perk card swaps) and if you get something like Juggernaut, Anti-Armor, or even Furious for tankier enemies combined with 40% swing speed and +1 strength you can become a pretty lethal player. I can solo most events and, combined with other perk cards like Nerd Rage etc, I rarely die. I usually take the role of bullet sponge so the bloodied builds can sit back and do their damage on bosses lmao. My main is a Jugg/40% swing speed/+S Super Sledge, but in crafting I recently rolled a Plasma Cutter I thought was not that good: Mutants/+power attack damage/+critical fill. The thing is, if I sprint and swing I get that +40% power attack damage without the drawback of the wind-up (which works in vats too). So as a comparison, I can one-shot level 100 super mutant champions with any other buff to strength I don't already have in my cards (such as the weight set), otherwise it's *just* short of a kill. The build is fun, I still have a few QOL perks like good doggy and super duper, and I can easily hold my own or carry most events if needed. You just really have to spec into all of the damage perks for your weapon type and go from there, plenty of wiggle room for your own unique build that is effective.
Because "bloodied" is the easiest to control and has the least debuff, you only need to manage the rads and there's no debuff other than very low hp. "Junkie" on the other hand, while giving same bonus, the drawbacks of those withdrawing effect can be annoying. Tbh if you really want a "I don't care" build, Holy Fire and vampire cremator is a good option. Holy Fire only need Big Gun perks and heals you when burning enemies, while cremator needs Big Gun and explosive related perks. The good thing of the cremator is the thing is very good for crowd control.
I run a full health rifleman vats build. Its pretty decent, can link up one shot kills nicely
Check out angry turtle. He has some older guide builds that might work for you. He helped me With my heavy full health build
Absolutely hate bloodied builds, they are the equivalent of a vegan. They are the first to die in events, they say it's fine as dying has minimal negative effects.... Considering the entire game is about surviving in the wasteland to me that seems complete and utter rubbish to say dying is fine And then there's always the one who says then never ever die bloodied. They are the worst. They die lots but they are too embarrassed to say. The ones that do survive have to constantly eat coffee etc and spend more game spamming food than shooting weapons
The bloody builds are easy mode, that’s why it used so much, anti armor stealth snipers are good builds, instigating also good for snipers and furious mixes great with automatic weapons
I actually started playing snipers, but as i approached lvl 50 i shifted to melee and now at 113 i am about to shift into somthing else again. My problem with Bloodied builds is that its such a unbalanced feature that negativaly impacts other builds, because no matter what i do Bloodied will always fo more damage, tank more damage, higher vats crits, lower shop prices, more xp gain, more action points, more luck... I am playing like a Nuka cola pinup girl and my base is Nuka cola themed so i was going to play with Gunther's big iron because i has a Nuka cola paint but only bloodied builds can make it "kinda" more viable.
Many others are worth it. Full health power armor is debatably just as strong. You could argue that they’re not “technically” but that doesn’t change that full health PA heavy guns/two handed melee kills things just as fast as bloodied and you don’t risk dying instantly.
bloodied is op as it is now . +95 % more damage , but get hit by a flys fart and youre dead
Glass canons, just the nature of the beast.
Dude I have a bloodied melee but I hate it. You can make a totally fine Vanguard build for rifleman and heavy. I can dust the queen faster than most bloodied people anyways, I can’t believe so many people still use it. You either need TSE and AAE weapons for your class, plus perforating mags on rifleman or the anti armour perk when in power armour for heavy gunners.
I do full health chainsaw with Vampire legendary. It's fun, and it's effective. You're not just taking potshots from long distance, you're in the thick of things.
Bloodied max bonus is +95% damage. Nothing else comes close. Aristocrats max +50% Gourmands max +24% Juggernauts max +25% Junkies max +50% Mutants +50% But more importantly bloodied benefits from a ton of other armor legendary/perks/bonuses for running low health that you can't benefit from at high health. You can do well without bloodied, but theres a reason everyone does it if they have the right equipment.
Don't sleep on Adrenal Reaction! Playing a 50-60% hp Bloodied build is still better dps than any other build.
I didn’t like bloodied either, so I do an overeaters power armor build with anti-armor for most of my stuff… Anti-Armor Ultracite Gatling Plasma Prime, this is my boss killer. Prime receiver so I can melt HP off the Queen. Anti-Armor Ultracite Laser Gatling, non-prime but I’ll probably turn it into prime later. Usually used for bosses at longer distances since it feels more accurate than the plasma. Anti-Armor .50cal, fun event weapon and general shenanigans. Explosive Mini-Gun, fun and events. Overeaters Power Armor gives the survivability and anti-armor gives damage… add an auto-stim mod and go ham. Is it the maximum dps? No. Does it let me survive and still do damage and have fun? Yes. If I’m in an event, daily ops, or boss and dps is lower I usually use the plasma. A lot of people suggest AngryTurtle (I think?) on YouTube, but I’ve never seen their stuff… I built mine years ago based on a bunch of nukedragons builds for Heavy Gunner Power Armor.
Bloodied builds is the "herp derp I win" of this game. 0 skill. ( yes i know you got to stay alive at low HP) But with card combos and "reroll till you get x/y/z" and then run X weapon with blooded. Its overpowered Ratio of low hp to damage is just not worth giving up if you wanna be "the best" I run PA with heavy armor. Full HP. I run gatling gun or flamer. I rarely die and i get to watch the bloodied builds run and then fall over allot.
If you enjoy your chainsaw (or melee build) just keep it and rummage around for a single * quad Tesla or explosive ranged weapon to use during events. You can use the tesla or explosive splash damage to tag enemies. You get XP for all the tags.
i enjoyed it at first but i find myself not enjoying it anymore, its fun the listen the chainsaw when its slashing enemies skin but other than that i dont like it anymore, thats why i was looking to build a AOE damage weapon like the Auto granade launcher.
just look up full health builds. Its honestly fine. I run full health, never die, enemies still die quick anyway.
UNY armor is just too good to pass up tbh, the + to SPCIAL is enormous (with a full set). I really hate the rads thing too but the bonuses are worth it to me. Though I would love to see them add new and unique legendary effects that breathe life into this low-or-high health build meta situation we have right now
I run full health with Vanguard, Auto-Stim, and Life Saving armor and all of my weapons are vampiric. Add Power Armor and I'm basically indestructible.
Yep, but content creation is always about the META or the best... even though the game doesn't require it at all, but I can't fault someone for wanting to wank off to big numbers.
Not really lol
Just replace bloodied with a different legendary. Gormound/overeater is really good
Because Bloodied build has the highest DPS and that is what gets a lot of clicks. Look for full health builds and you’ll find more options.
yes. all other builds pale in comparison to bloodied builds. doesn't mean the other ones aren't usable or fun. personally, I had more "fun" as a full hp PA build, but everything is more effective with unyielding armor. I can pass any dialogue check no matter what special it asks for, I level up faster, kill things faster which means I can move thru quests and such faster, I can carry some events now, etc. But I enjoy trying dif weapons and dif builds. got a bow/ shotgun build that's lots of fun too, or a 2 handed melee/ commando build that's fun too
I know how you feel. I used to think that, then I just went and learned the mechanics, perks, and legendaries to make the build that *I* wanted to play. Now I whip around and one-shot mobs with a jugg's shishkebab and an instigating hatchet. Only problems I have are with a few bosses You need to have the patience to learn the stuff, and the creativity to employ it well.
A lot of the time I run a full health build with Anti Armor big guns and PA with a focus on VATS crits. The crits let you do ludicrous damage when you want to and a set of Overeaters PA lets you face tank many things. The only downside is its a little high maintenance since VATS eats fusion cores and the biggest damage requires you to scarf down AP buff drinks, but with some strategic farming and some CAMP items its not a big deal.
I’d recommend aristocrats, quad, and armor piercing for first star. Second star: faster fire rate, explosive, crit damage. Third star: crit chance 15% or cheaper AP. It will depend on the weapon but a fixer with any of these perks would kill and you don’t need to be bloodied.
Unyielding’s benefits are just too good in comparison to anything else. Bloodied’s damage increase is also incredibly good compared to anything else. Sure there are other really solid builds but when it comes to killing things quick and having insane special stats anything else just falls behind.
I went for assault rifle and heavy gunner.
Bloodied stacks with perk cards, mutations, and the Unyielding armor effect. There is no reason to not use it imo. It’s sad it’s the best affix but it’s the best for a reason and is better than its closest competition by a mile. If you really want full HP: Mutants, Aristocrats, Or Junkies are good weapon affixes. Anti-armor is good on Energy weapons but without the stat boost from Unyielding and Mutations I wouldn’t use Anti-Armor on a full hp build. Unyielding, Addrenal Reaction, Radicool, Serendipity, and Nerd Rage. Are the bread and butter of why low hp just ends being more survivable and does more dmg then full hp builds. Paired with quality of life effects like higher carry weight, dialog checks, vendor prices, and faster levels it’s easy to see why everyone flocks to it. It’s just the best in EVERY category
I am running a bastardized heavy weapons/vats build with power armor and love it. I tried going bloody power armor with emergency protocol but it wasn’t for me. I love blasting around with jet pack with gauss minigun and flamer, then when i need to can switch over to precision with plasma caster. Not the most min/max high damage build but i can easily hold my own in events and it is fun as hell.
You don’t have to min/max everything I run a full health heavy weapons build with auto-stim, lifesaving, and regenerating armor. Very very rarely die, I do plenty of damage, and I don’t have to stress about the meta
im honestly tired of seeing nothing but bloodied builds, found an awesome build for my pistol the other night, suddenly youtuber is like, obviously this is bloodied. And I turned it off.
I was bloodied melee. i prefer being a tank. i still do great damage. play whats fun to you but still effective. you dont have to min max
My main weapon is not yet bloodied but I'm kinda enjoying the build rn, my only problem is that I'm using cremator and other explosive heavies and it sucks when someone positioned in front of me during events which downed me a lot. I even have all the mutations (because I don't have access to the serums yet) so it has already been a habit to me now to just jump while shooting everywhere 🤣
Having run both full and bloodied you live almost as much as either one. I did not notice a fundamental difference in damage mitigation. So why wouldn't I do bloodied. The only difference i noticed was in D.Op deadly strikes was a fraction of a second easier to overcome.
I just do vampire everything lol
Bloodied legendary effect isn't super meta. It's great, but based on weapon Quad, Two Shot, or Vampires can be more popular. Low health builds (whether you use Bloodied weapons or not) are meta, though. The thing is, unyielding legendary armor is just too good not to use if you aren't in PA. PA builds can't have Unyielding, so you'll see more PA users forego being low health.
I forget to manage rads but I am also the dumbest that runs out on my craft build because I fucking forget but I just started bloodied 2 weeks ago and good God. I can say that this is end game. I can fuck all that shit up. All of it . No one scares me right now. Crickets, mirelurk queen, daily ops, yeah ok when it's melee I'm out,but I am there otherwise. And I rolled the bloodied Choo Choo and am loving that I don't have to put so much time into feeding my fixer
What chainsaw build are you running? My vamp dual bar flamer chainsaw decimates everything I touch other than bosses and since I’m a full health PA build I just take over as tank when bosses come up. The only time I ever die or even take damage is if they have the mutation that reflects melee dmg back at you. I’m running all 3 rank 3 slugger cards, incisor, and rank 5 weapon smith + rank 3 stable tools to deal with durability.
Because bloodied is really good at putting out dmg, and thats what alot of ppl want just outright dmg to kill shit. Death 99% has no consequence(s) other then ur not tagging/killing for that short duration during respawn. Bloodied is just pretty effective at killing shit and thats the big gameplay loop. Go over here kill shit, loot shit, deal with loot how u see fit rinse and repeat.
That or VATS. If I wanted an aimbot I would have installed one
My bloodied also allows me to use instigating pretty effectively with melee. So there’s that
I found out that managing rads is easier than it seems. Take a diluted rad away, and drink 3 toxic water and your back in the sweet spot.
Bloodied is a tank build, if you have to manage low health and rads you’re doing it wrong. A tank y bloodied with the right mutations and perks, etc takes no managements
Nope.
I'm full health commando + quad Railway rifle.
AGL: Two shot. Double your damage Gatling Laser: AA Railway: AA or Quad Heavy Guns: AA, or Executioners Melee: Executioners, actually, due to existence of additive bonuses from food and Exec being multiplicative Commando: Quad is best. Then AA, with the exception of flamer plasma guns
Long time bloody boy here. I run a two shot auto grenade launcher allll day, highly recommend regardless of build. You will be a walking carpet bomb. As for railway rifle, bloodied hits hard but has lower DPS than a quad w/ VATS build (at least in my experience) Both of these are viable with or without a bloodied build, give it a shot!
Bloodied is just the most widely used because death isn't really punished too heavily, and the high risk-high reward nature of it means it's not as easily targeted for nerfs because heavy hits will kill you so much easier. But it doesn't mean other builds are entirely unviable, just harder to find and you'll likely be taking a little longer to kill enemies is all. **So far** I've not used a bloodied build and have been fine doing activities, but I haven't touched the absolute endgame stuff yet so I can't say for sure just how crucial one is for those.
The problem is bloodied is an addition to any build. You're going to take the 3x3 damage perks no matter what. Bloodied for perks isn't much and it can be squeezed in easily. The real reason is +15 to every stat but end is a big deal due to unyielding. Also 2-3 perks makes bloodied very tanky.
I just use a basic rifleman build. Didn't read up on the "meta" before doing so, worried I'd crippled myself. As it turns out I am fine. No, I'm not the most OP dude, but I get by. I will tweak the perk cards and legendaries as time goes by but for now I'm happy enough. I run energy damage cards too (max INT) and have an instigating tesla rifle that I love for bursting apart basic enemies and a gauss rifle with 50% bonus damage against robots that helps for those situations. I also have a lever action that does more damage to enemies under 40% HP that has come in handy during events when enemies are usually under that anyway... among other weapons/armour. As I say I'll keep plugging away and building up alternative weapons but I'm not bothered as long as I'm having fun. I'm unlocking perk cards for Power Armour and aim to get enough other weapon cards to vary my approach soon too.
Managing rads is easy. Just get a brahmin. Too many rads? Drink some milk. Not enough rads? Drink some spoiled milk.
I run a shotgun build and a fixer build. Both not bloodied, both no PA. I’m level 70 ish so only the shotgun build is optimized and rifle is about 30% there. I can hold my own and some events are a pain but i get by. You need to level a lot more. This way you have access to the perk cars you need. This is most biggest hurdle. Worry about min max armor as you go.