I really want to, but I also want to play as a stealth melee and it seems a lot of the perks in luck have to do with criticals, but melee and crits don't mix well. So my question is, besides for the criticals and however those will work, do you think luck is trait that should be invested into?

I was planning to put 8 points into it - but I realise that's unusual.

The perks will swing it - TBC...

You can always spend a perk point to raise your SPECIALs. So it is not a matter of should I, but when will I. Besides critical which you will get by using VATS unless you one-shot everything, luck also affects loot. So with certain Luck perks, you can increase the amount of ammo, caps, and maybe rare items you get.

Who knows, man. Crits do wonders to eliminate enemies quickly, and hopefully with stealth, also silently.

For me, it greatly depends if Luck (or any of it's associated perks) directly effect critical chances any longer.

I'm gunna put 5 into it for my first playthrough, not really lucky but not unlucky either.

Again depends on perks.

Do it the Todd Howard way...

10 LUCK straight up

The real question is: Are forced crits from hitting a target while in stealth still a mechanic?

Based on the recent video about the perks list and on my own speculation I would say theirs at least 2 perks that have something to do with guns and enabling random crits.

In FONV I had a lot of fun with a sneaky luck/agility build picking up perks that increased crit etc.... Ratslayer became my steady companion on that build

Hoping to do a build like that in 4 eventually. But we'll have to see with the crit system overhaul how it will go.

I want bloody mess and better crits, so yes I will be putting a few starting points into luck.

I would gladly give up Strength (strong back) and invest 10 into Luck ...

Im putting no points into luck in order to rig the difficulty to be harder.

It looks like luck's highest perk is a dodge perk, which could synergy well with your agility build (since it also seems to have a dodge perk).

Luck also has grim reaper. Even though melee doesn't need vats as much as guns do, it can be very useful against run n' gun NPCs.

Better Criticals is hard to pass up if you are going for sneak attacks, especially if you put in the extra effort for melee sneak attacks.

Also, criticals could take the place of kill animations in Skyrim which can help to make the melee system feel more fluid.

As for the alternatives...

Strength is a good alternative, but it looks like luck has more powerful perks for a melee agility build (although S:9 and crafting could change things).

Also, Strength is often easy to buff in game and you only need 2 Strength for the melee perk or 4 w/ crafting.

Endurance looks fun as well, but if you are going to be really sneaky you probably don't need lots of Endurance.

One thing to consider with melee is many enemies do rad damage now, so you might want rad resistance with melee?

They should give you rarer loot and weapons with high luck... It would give more incentive to use it. I have always played my playthroughs with 1 luck and it hasn't affected me at all really. It needs to have more ups.

It will give you better loot according to the Luck video. It looks like there are at least two Luck perk branches devoted to loot (one with a guy searching through a container and the other with a guy using a metal detector)

Yes but I didn't see it in the perks chart yet. IF it is confirmed I will definitely be taking high luck. I love random loot systems like borderlands and think they should have a hybrid of fallout mixed with borderlands random loot. Luck should increase an enemy having a rare weapon or finding one in a bag by increments of 5% for each rank of a perk that handles that taken in my opinion.

Sure, I'm strongly considering making my first hero/heroine an average Joe/Jane at the beginning of the game. Just to get to get a feel for the game.

Fortune Finder (more caps in containers) is clearly available at Luck 1 and Scrounger (more ammo in containers) is clearly available at Luck 2. Luck 9 looks like some type of combat perk. Maybe getting drunk increases evasion similar to how the Drunken Fist is supposed to work. The only other Luck perk that seems to be non-combat related is Luck 5.

I like the ~idea~ of Luck. But in practice, it always felt like I was "lucky" to get 34 bottlecaps and two stimpacks instead of eight bottlecaps and one stimpack. Woo hoo?

And in combat, crits are nice, but they are also (by nature) unreliable. It could get frustrating to shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, and then FINALLY get a critical hit that does like 200 points of damage when the foe has like four hit points left.

I ~did~ notice the effect of high Luck at the New Vegas casino tables, although even there when I had, like, an 8 luck score there were still many hands / spins of the roulette wheel where I lost. Random chance and all that. Over time, of course, I won more than I lost but that's a pretty rarefied example of Luck's usefulness. ~Most~ times, all luck will do (it seems) is give you a token extra amount of loot and the rare (potentially 'wasted' or overkill) damage boost.

Of course if they ~did~ make Luck super valuable ---- instead of ten bottlecaps you find 10,000 and every other hit is insta-kill ---- then it would be foolish not to boost it. So they have to balance it, and in that balancing act, historically, it's always felt like it was balanced on the less-useful side.

Luck is always a big part in my character I am a vats shooter and luck raises critical hit damage.

Better Crits is 6 luck I think so put it around 4/5 and intense training it once or twice to get to that point although once the perks are more known that number could change.

All of the Luck perks look appealing to me. I'm thinking of starting as a lucky pistolero with a side of charisma.

I'm putting at least 3 into it so I can get Scrounger and Bloody Mess.

I plan to for Better Criticals and Grim Reaper's Sprint. I plan to have an energy weapon/VATS/stealth focused character for the first time around, and critical damage can be absolutely devastating with energy weapons. Put landing a sneak attack critical into the equation, its bound to be a heap of damage. There is also that Luck 5 perk that looks interesting based on the image, but we'll have to see what that is.

As for the rest, I have no interest in the random chance of getting better loot as I've never noticed a difference with it in previous games. Also never found any reason to take the "get more of x out of containers!" perks. The hoarder that I am, can I earn caps very quickly from simply selling stuff. Will perhaps make an exception for scrounger however because ammo is always nice.

However, Bloody Mess and Mysterious Stranger? Steering clear of those. If you're really into an absurd amount of gore, by all means take Bloody Mess if you want it that bad. I'm personally not interested in it and quite frankly, it should have remained as a trait (which once again seem absent from the game for whatever odd reason). Mysterious Stranger has always been an utterly useless perk from the original games to the newer ones and it still boggles my mind as to why it still exist, but Todd Howard loves his useless gimmicks.

Overall, I'd say Luck is a good investment if you're that interested in crits. If not, I would personally avoid it based on what we are able to determine. Perhaps some of the new perks are worth considering, or there have been some significant design changes done to old perks to make them better. Only time will tell.