I’m loving the Rifleman perk. With my 45 combat rifle, I can one-shot (including body shots) most ghouls and raiders.
Never ending .50 sniper rifle with marksman stock and long ported barrel one shots most.
I have the most problems with bloodbugs. Why are they soooo hard to kill?!?! Anyone have an idea for one or have you figured out how to get a legendary drop with the exterminator perk?
Flamers have been otherwise useless, IMO, but they are helpful in dealing with with bugs.
Oh, and I don’t know if anyone else has experienced differently (and if you have, give me hope) but the intimidation perks are junk in my experience and a waste of points.
Just keep a shotgun handy. Bloodbugs don’t have a lot of hitpoints and they have to get up close to attack. Can’t comment on flamers because I have low strength and those things weigh a ton.
The longer I play the more impressed I am with the modular crafting system and how it integrates with the perk system. The same gun can be modified to key off of an entirely different set of perks. You can have an assault rifle with a single-shot receiver and scope to key off of rifleman and sniper, or you can go an entirely different route for commando/moving target spray n’ pray.
There are a couple spots on the map where swarms of bugs lurk waiting to mob the unwary adventurer. The flamer does extremely well in one of those running-screaming-flailing-spraying situations. As noted, bugs don’t have a lot of HP so you can just trigger off the sprayer and wave it around without really needing to aim with any care at all. Once you light them on fire, they drop quickly. If you spot them in advance, they can also be cleared with molotov cocktails or grenades, of course.
Protip: going into VATS mode by holding down the button rather than tapping it (the same way you activate the VANS perk) will highlight enemies aren’t otherwise targetable. It’s a good way to actively scout as you move through the wilderness.
Interesting. That still works? It was my standard “gotta spot the stealthy enemies” hack in FO3 and FO NV. (Nothing pisses off a Chinese Crimson Dragoon stealth assassin then being spotted in stealth and having a grenade thrown at his feet by me, an even more stealthy assassin.)
The living creature targeting mod on my power armor is the bestest.
My only complaint is the npc look terrible all glowing red lines through them.
One of the flavored varieties of mentats does the same thing.
I’m level 26 and haven’t advanced the main plot very far (haven’t entered the Glowing Sea yet). Rifleman, Scrapper, Lone Wanderer and Sneak have been my “best” so far. I’m playing a female so Black Widow is nice free damage although it’s less useful as Lady Killer since there’s fewer opportunities to use it. A point or two of Inspirational may be useful if you use companions although I haven’t had many friendly fire incidents (and I’m less worried about THEM getting hit and taking a knee for a moment when they walk in front of me).
Lockpick and Hacking probably inflated in value although I always take them regardless. Most safes have junk in them and the good ones generally have a terminal you can hack instead so you only need one or the other. Lockpicking is nice when you can open a locked door right near the entrance and skip crawling through radioactive, mirelurk infested pipes to reach it from the back end but most people I assume clear a building regardless so you’re still going through the same pipes. I should really stop taking them both and leveling them up but I can’t help myself.
Gunslinger was a wasted point since I only ever use rifles. Between my sniper, combat shotgun and combat rifle I never use a pistol except to waste 10mm ammo on mirelurk babies and mole rats.
The Pacify perks are, as I mentioned a few posts up, garbage and a waste of my points. Anything below my level that I’d pacify, I can just shoot. You have to keep your weapon trained on them so it’s clumsy to use and not very gratifying.
I haven’t taken Sniper because it looks disappointing compared to the other weapon skills (and rifleman is your base skill for increasing damage anyway)
Leadbelly is junk. Supposedly cannibalism is weak in this game, you’ll never use alcohol enough to make Party Boy/Girl worth it, I never melee with my gun so Basher is pointless.
Of course, play style matters. I never wear my power armor so Sneak is very useful for me. If you tromp around everywhere like a tank, it probably matters less. Lone Wanderer is great if it’s you and the dog, less great if you always have a companion, etc.
The armorer, gun nut, science, and blacksmith perks are all worthwhile. For better or worse, crafting is a hefty part of this game and those perks let you make your own good equipment rather than just waiting to luck into some. Really great stuff is a matter of lucking into something special and then modding it too. I don’t think there is going to be anything like Ratslayer in this game that you can just pluck out of a chest and break the game.
Do you ever feel like the game is out to get you? I was doing a fetch quest, fast traveled to the closest point I could get to, then started walking. Ran into super mutants, died, restarted. Went a slightly different way to avoid the mutants and ran right into an alpha deathclaw. Managed to kill it, got to where I was going, took out a few bugs, got the object, and on my way out ran into two mirelurk hunters. Dead again. Luckily I had saved after killing the deathclaw. Got the object again and realized I was technically on the main map and could fast travel back from where I was.
I feel like the armorer/blacksmith/gun nut perks are significantly lessened in value since you can move mods from one gun to another without the perks. You’re going to run across most mods on common weapons pretty soon, so if you just save them you’ll have your choice of whatever you want on that fancy new legendary you just got without investing a single point in any modding skill.
You can wait to find stuff, but the perks let you have good stuff right now. It’s a value judgement. I get greater utility from the improved equipment at early levels than I would from the other available perks.
To honest, my combined six or eight points in lockpicking and hacking would probably be better spent in Gun Nut and Armorer.
But I can’t help myself. I NEED to know about the six caps, shot of Jet and the pipe pistol in that Expert tier safe 
The last couple ranks of both seem particularly worthless. I am awash in bobby pins, so I don’t worry about breaking them. Getting locked out of terminals is a complete non-issue in game, so why take a perk to avoid it?
Oh, yeah, I only went as far as I needed for Master level openings but my bobby pin count is 99+ as well. And they removed even the need to save-scum terminals since a lock out is only ten seconds. Agreed that the final levels seem pointless.
One thing I realized… I’ve never bothered using a stealth boy the entire game.
Stealth seems easier in general than in previous games. Except for those pervy laser-eyed robots, avoiding just about everything seems rather easy. I put a couple points into stealth and I’m pretty sure they were wasted.