Hi all

I have easily finished the game multiple times on survival mode and wanted to share my tips and character build. I can finish off legendary deathclaws quite easily in survival mode at relatively low levels with very few bullets using this build and play style which I will describe below.

Warning: this build and tips will make survival mode too easy to play and may ruin the game for you. There is no cheating or console commands involved in this play style.

Let's jump into it and I'll then explain the reasoning behind this build:

So let's begin with the starting stats:

Perception 5
Agility 10
Luck 7
everything else 1

Perks:

Only focus on the following perks and in this order:

Rifleman

Gun nut (to level 3)

Science (to level 3)

Max out Perception

Better Criticals

Critical banker

Armorer (to level 3)

Demolition expert

Penetrator

Action boy/girl

So when you have spare perks, invest them in the highest available item on the list above.

For combat wear items that increase your perception and agility - so patrolman glasses (+1 per), military cap (+1 per) , military fatigues (+2 agi)

When you are able to craft ballistic armor (I won't explain how to do this as it may constitute a spoiler) mod the military fatigues and your favorite hat to give you upwards of 250 damage protection.

The reasoning behind this build:

The game mechanics all revolve around commodities. And the build should take advantage of the most important commodity. It's not money, it's not guns or armor or even bullets.

The most important commodity is "effective damage per second"/"cost" or "kill rate per second"/"cost".

For example, you could find a gun and bullet combo that could one-shot kill a deathclaw. But the cost of the gun and bullet might be too expensive for it to be a sustainable weapon. Some guns can shoot very quickly, such as automatics or certain legendary/unique handguns and therefore lay down a lot of damage per second but the amount of bullets used would be extremely expensive overall.

So the aim is to be able to kill your enemy with the least expenditure of resources. So less bullets, less healing your own wounds, less bombs etc.

The best way to do this, by far, is VATS. So your build should focus on the 3.5 key components of VATS.

1 - Amount of DAMAGE possible before running out of VATS

2 - Accuracy - the best shots are to the head and in some cases the limbs but unless the accuracy is more than 80% it is a massive waste of your VATS charge to miss a shot in VATS

3 - Critical shots - AKA magic bullets

3.5 - VATS recharge rate - this can be improved with armor

So let's talk about these components

1 - Amount of DAMAGE possible before running out of VATS

There are two issues here - damage and amount of shots possible in VATS

Damage is based on perks and your weapon. So let's talk about weapons and then the perks.

If you play survival then unless you are really good at killing enemies at minimum cost then you will have to avoid combat altogether for the most part because unless you have the right build, enemies will be bullet sponges. You could shoot 50 bullets into someone and they then kill you in less than a handful of shots within seconds.

Let's talk about some common perks that you could avoid without damaging your Fallout 4 experience.

Character/Hacking and lockpicking would probavbly be the perks that would have some people torn over what to prioritise. The thing is, you can have a completely fullfilling game without any of these perks. Hacking and lockpicking - they only get you loot. Loot is only good for one thing - as a commodity to get you what you really want. The thing is, every enemy you kill has loot. And the world is filled with loot. As long as you loot properly (I'll talk about this below), you will quickly become very wealthy.

Also, one of your companions can hack any terminal for you, so if you choose that companion then it becomes redundant to invest in the hacking perk.

Character - unless you want to focus on settlement building, this perk is only useful in a handful of conversations in the game. It is useful when trading but only to a small extent. And the thing is that you can artifically raise your character level by wearing certain items - ie black rimmed glasses, some hats, and a clean suit - those 3 items will raise your character by 4 points. Then there are chems - orange mentants raise your character by 5. Dirty Wastlander (a craftable drink) raises it by 1. Day Tripper raises it by 3. So you can have a low character build and when you really need that character level to be very high for a key point in a quest then you can artificially raise it by wearing the right clothes and taking the right chems.

TIP - Looting and Bartering

Every enemy has loot. The world has loot. The problem is you have limited carrying capacity. So my advice is to only loot items with a 10/1 wealth-to-weight ratio - ie a pipe pistol might weigh about 3 KG and be worth 30 caps. Most enemies carry a pipe gun, knuckles and at least one clothing/armor item which would meet and exceed this ratio.

As soon as you complete a quest, head on to the nearest town (or place with multiple merchants) and sell. All merchants will be any of your items. So sell your guns to a doctor, your chems to an arms dealer etc. The prices will be the same. Just remember to always wear your "character" gear when bartering - clean suit, hat (such as the militia hat, newsboy cap, pomadour wig, etc), and black rim glasses - these items will improve your prices.

Thoughts on other S.P.E.C.I.A.L. abilities

Strength is only really good for melee builds, carrying capacity and the armorer perk.

Melee builds sound fun but are just not feasible in survival mode, due to the ease with which an enemy can kill you. Since most enemies use projectiles, by the time you reach the enemy you will be dead. And stealth can work on a one-on-one situation but with multiple enemies, and especially if you are ambushed, you will likely die very quickly.

So strength is only useful for the armorer perk but in survival mode, where you can be killed in a few shots, this perk is only useful at later levels and only to create "ultra light" items which give you more VATS points and weigh less therefore giving you more carrying capacity.

Strength does allow you to carry more but it is only 10KG per point which is really a wasteful way to spend your perk points.

Intelligence allows you to level up quicker but this can be a problem. When you level up 2 important things happen -

1 - you get the ability to improve your character relative to the world

2 - the world becomes tougher. Enemies are more powerful, quicker etc

So you are in a race every time you level up. And should spend your perk points in a way that will give you the best advantage over the world that has just become tougher.

So spending points on intelligence, or the idiot savant perk, simply to level up faster actually hurts you because you throw away valuable perk points in order to make you weaker compared to the world around you.

Endurance

This is really a waste to spend perks on in survival mode. No matter how tough you are, in a protracted fight you will die. It's that simple. You get to a point where the enemy is just too fast, with every hit of theirs taking a massive toll on your health. Healing is so easy in fallout 4 that you really don't need any endurance perks. Find any unowned bed and sleep in it for instant full health. And so many of your enemies are edible. The downside is rads but you can turn the meat into rad free food at any cooking station. Mutt Chops are my favorite! And even if you eat lots of rads, a doctor will take all your radiation damage for 45 bottle caps.

Critical shots - AKA magic bullets

TIP

Here's a little known tip - a critical shot in VATS is the most powerful shot you can make in Fallout 4 for 2 reasons -

1 it gives more damage than a regular shot, and the damage multipler can be increased using the "critical hits" perk in the luck section.

2 - It ignores accuracy limitations. That's right, if you have a 1% chance of hitting the enemies head, but then you do a critical shot, it will always hit!!! Combine this with the Penetrator perk and you can pretty much headshot any enemy in the game in any situation at any distance.

At level 19, you can have level 2 critical banker perk. That means in the one VATS cycle, you can do 3 critical shots on someone consecutively. So using "the last minute" gun, within 2 seconds you can lay down 2430 of damage plus have another 2 shots left over for another 972 of damage in the following 2 seconds from regular shots to limbs. That's 3402 of damage within a few seconds. Keep in mind that the cost of the ammo for this gun is 30 caps per bullet. So that's 3402 of damage at a cost of 150 caps. And the number of enemies that require this amount of firepower are extremely few. A glowing deathclaw won't by alive for the fifth shot anyway.

Combat tactics

VATS versus regular shots - The only time you should ever fire outside of VATS, is if your next shot will be in vats. Ie you sneak shot an enemy to the head and they are not dead yet so you immediately go nto VATS. Time slows down as they turn their head and raise their gun. Before they fire their first shot you have already executed the VATS system and are alredy shooting them. But you got a free shot before you entered VATS. So by the time your VATS runs out you have used an extra shot as if it had been fired within VATS as well.

The only time it makes sense to not use VATS is if you won't go into combat (ie using a silenced sniper gun while in stealth). But the problem here is that sniper guns are heavy and so limit your carrying capacity, they usually require expensive ammo which could be sold for better commodities such as better ammo and let's face it - sniping is fun but it gets boring. I prefer to take down a room full of enemies by tossing a grenade from around the corner and then leaning around the corner and killing a bunch of people in slow motion.

This brings me to the next tip - when fighting an enemy with a gun or an enemy that throws projectiles such as bombs or poison, always, always ALWAYS fire from cover. In survival mode enemies are deadly accurate. They can kill you with a pipe pistol from down the street. If you can't kill them while in VATS then you need to make sure they don't kill you while your VATS is recharging.

When you are near a corner, you can "lean" out of it while aiming your gun. But did you know that you can lean out and then go into VATS? So only your head is exposed while you can see all of your enemies.

If you face an enemy that is very fast but doesn't often use projectiles, such as a deathclaw (they very rarely use proejectiles) or "glowing one" goul or even an assaultron, then you can pretty much guarrantee that they will travel the shortest path towards you. So law some mines out. It is best to lay a cluster of mines together especially when you don't have much room/time to retreat. This will, at the least, massively slow them down by crippling them.

Weapon tactics

The best loadout early game

Modded Pipe Rifle - cheap to use, kills mole rats and rad roaches in one shot, kills early game gouls in a handful of shots

10mm gun - better per shot damage, harder-to-find ammo

double barrel shotgun - this, when modded properly, is a monster. Get close enough to a enemy (hell, just sprint up to them around a corner) and enter VATS. Now you can easily target their head. One to two shots to the head with a modded shotgun will kill almost every enemy in the early and mid game. If you don't have enough shotgun ammo then just buy some. Until you get the 2 best weapons of the game that I mentioned earlier, shot gun shells should be the most sought after commodity for you.

Mid and late game

The 2 best weapons in the game are actually very easy to get

1. Righteous Authority - this is a laser rifle acquired for free in an early, relatively easy quest. However this weapon becomes most useful in your mid game, after you can craft level 2 science mods, because you can increase damage per shot to over 60 even without any damage perks. This rifle also charges your critical meter more quickly and best of all provides DOUBLE damage with critical hits. With the rifleman perk you get over 200 damage per critical hit. The "critical banker" + rifleman + "better criticals" perks turns this weapon into the second best in the game.
2. The Last Minute - the most powerful weapon in the game - very easy to get (you can google it, I don't want to have any spoilers in this thread so I won't mention how to get this gun). With the "critical banker" + rifleman + "better criticals" perks this weapon, when modded will provide over 810 damage per critical hit to a limb - (324 base for modded gun * double damage criticals + 324 base * 50% extra limb damage).

I have a few more tips to share and will do so later.

If you like my tips and want to post them yourself please credit me with the tips.