Build guide and advice by Powerpuff

DRAFT --- WORK IN PROGRESS --- MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS UNTIL ITS DONE. :-)

This build advice is all about trying to Min-Max everything.

First of all it's important to understand what you want to do, what you want to achieve, what you want to be able to do with the build itself and most importantly if you're planning to play solo, with the team or a mix of those. So sit down for five minutes, relax, think and decide.

You got it yet? Have the idea? Good. Let's talk some more...

There are few locations you won't be able to solo even with the best build out there, but if you want to be more or less an independent individual who's able to do stuff on his own and enjoy 95% of the content even if you fail to social-interact with others, you might be in the right place now.

I'll present you how I treat and think of S.P.E.C.I.A.L:

1. You like spawning in the middle of enemy and taste their blood right away, no waiting, while you also exp fast and effectively? --- Here we are talking about low Perception and low Sequence. The lower sequence is, the closer to an enemy you gonna spawn. The downside of this is you only see few hexes far. One can get used to it.

2. Heard about Adrenaline Rush and its benefits? Do you enjoy carrying more stuff than the others, or are you gonna punch enemies with as much power as possible? Yea, going for enough Strength is then a must.

3. Tired of dying in one burst? Then check your Hit Points. The higher the Endurance, the higher your Resistances, and most importantly the higher is your maximum Hit Points.

4. Charisma is for ladies. You don't need to increase this skill. We are here to kill shit, not to end up in a bed with it (whatever breathes).

5. Intelligence requirements has to be checked in order to find out what level of IN is required for what perks.

6. Being agile is OK. Note that only even Agility numbers provide an actual Action Points benefit. But play smart. Continue reading.

7. Tricky question now, or not?... Would you be either Lucky or unlucky in anything that comes to your mind? ... ;)

Alright...

Now.. what exactly is MIN-MAX'ing? It's to get the best out of something considering and using all possible resources and knowledge.

Let me give you a fine example of typical big gunner (aka burster)... People (or at least I do) split bursters into three categories:

• The Crit-Burster (high crit chance in exchange of lower defense)
• The Standard Burster (high defense in exchange of lower crit chance)
• The Meta-Burster (mix of those - higher crit chance but not as high as what a crit burster would have and the same logic applies for defense vs. a burster)

There are typical, outlived builds that everybody or at least majority of players use or tend to use. I'm not going to talk about those, there is full forum, discord and even this wiki about those, so if you are interested in being just a regular, then search it up and end reading right here.

Wise choice buddy.

We start with 5 points in every statistic. So:

S - 5
P - 5
E - 5
C - 5
I - 5
A - 5
L - 5

(and we get +5 points as a gratis to use where we want)

Now, considering the fact you're going to fight a lot (PvE, PvP), you're going to be shot in your head often too. So Bonehead is one of the most viable Traits you can go for. This one lowers your Intelligence by 1. So we have to count with that from the start.

S - 5
P - 5
E - 5
C - 5
I - 4 (Bonehead)
A - 5
L - 5

(unused +5)

Here we go into deeper knowledge and understanding of what we going to use and do. We know drugs. Drugs are bad, they are bad but they helps. They helps winning fights and makes you stronger - of course I'm talking about this game only. I'm not encouraging anyone to take drugs irl. Don't be stupid.

Drugs we are going to use with this perfect min-max. burster are Psycho, Cigarettes, Nuka-Cola and Beer. Jet is for weak junkies and Buffout is not necessary (you will see why).

So Psycho, Cigarettes and Beer. Now what it gives (IN TERMS OF SPECIAL ONLY). Nuka-Cola gives +1 Agility, Psycho gives +1 Strength but -2 Perception, Cigarettes give +1 Perception but -1 Charisma and Beer gives -2 PE. To sum it up, you have to calculate with getting +1 ST boost but your PE will be lowered by final 3 points.

Your weapon is going to be an Avenger Minigun which has 35 hexes Range and now it's really up to you if you wanna see more than you can shoot from and at, or if you are happy with seeing only WHEN you can shoot. 35 Hexes equals 5 Perception so we need THAT. We only need 5 PE, lets get back to stats:

INCREASING Perception:

S - 5
P - 8 - considering the PE will be lowered by 3, we would end up with 2 here after applying all drugs. So we have to actually increase this to 8 in order to end up with 5. we take that from unused points for now.
E - 5
C - 5
I - 4 (Bonehead)
A - 5
L - 5

(unused +2)
_______________________

LOWERING Intelligence:

S - 5
P - 8
E - 5
C - 5
I - 1 (Bonehead) - after reading through all perks and knowing that 200% small guns is reachable within 29 Levels with Int set to 1 which grants you ability to pick "More Ranged Damage", we can lower it down to 1 and get +3 points back to our unused bucket.
A - 5
L - 5

(unused +5)
_______________________

LOWERING Charisma:

S - 5
P - 8
E - 5
C - 1 - Charisma is not important so we lower it down to 1 and get +4 additional stat points.
I - 1 (Bonehead)
A - 5
L - 5

(unused +9)
_______________________

INCREASING Agility:

S - 5
P - 8
E - 5
C - 1
I - 1 (Bonehead)
A - 9 - 9 Agility grants you 10 when you use Nuka-Cola so you get max. 10 Action Points fully drugged. This decreases our unused stat points bucket down to 5 again.
L - 5

(unused +5)
_______________________

INCREASING Endurance:

S - 5
P - 8
E - 10 - we want to get max. rad/Poison Resistances. as well as max. Hit Points. Simple as that.
C - 1
I - 1 (Bonehead)
A - 9
L - 5

(unused +0)

Now.. This leaves us with the following build/with drugs:

S - 5 - 6
P - 8 - 5
E - 10 - 10
C - 1 - 1
I - 1 - 1
A - 9 - 10
L - 5 - 5

Now it's time to re-think everything again and consider Implants...

Implants are available for each SPECIAL (+1 per each) so we have now additional 7 POINTS (almost) that we can incorporate before we hit the create button and log into the game. Implants can be used only after one reaches level 30 so a bit too late for influencing perk availability.

So..

Strength cannot be lowered because Adrenaline Rush (one of the best perks for bursters) requires 5, so lets leave it be. Perception can be lowered by 1 because we know we can implant +1 later and still get 5 PE after we use all Drugs. So let's do it. Endurance cannot be lowered unless we want to lose some HP. I don't. Charisma cannot be lowered because its already set to 1. Intelligence cannot be lowered because its already set to 1. Agility can be lowered by 1 because we know we can implant +1 later and get 9 which after drugs jumps up to 10 again. Luck is one happy statistic we are going to increase with all additional points we got from using Implants :-)

S - 5 > 6 with Strength implant
P - 7 > 8 with Perception implant
E - 10
C - 1 > 2 with Charisma implant
I - 1 > 2 with Intelligence implant
A - 8 > 9 with Agility implant
L - 7 > 8 with Luck implant

Congratulations, you've just min-maxed your SPECIAL.

PS: I do not personally like considering stat bonuses from items because items come and go and there is plenty of them with various usability, so I just calculate with something that cannot be changed / removed / unequipped.

PSS: this will be adjusted, better form, whatever. Read the first sentence noob ;-)