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Character Build: The Wolverine (FO4)

Tags: #Character Build Unarmed  #Fallout 4 Build  #Character Build Enhanced  #Character Build Infiltrator 
  • Member
    November 21, 2016

    "I'm the best there is at what I do...

    ...but what I do best isn't very nice."

    Character Build: The Wolverine (FO4)

    Introduction:
    The idea for this build stemmed from being bored with the sneak/VATS way of running melee builds. I mean it's effective and a handy tool to have, but I wanted options. I had yet to touch on the Luck perks at all, so this seemed like a good way to combine the two. Obviously I couldn't recreate the comic book version of Wolverine to the letter without mods, so consider this more inspired by the comics and my attempt to capture the spirit of the Wolverine character. Namely, vicious claws and health regeneration.

    Backstory:
    Formerly Special Forces for the Canadian military, he was granted certain “enhanced” abilities through a super-soldier program known only as Weapon X. The specific of this project, as well as Logan’s actions during his time in the service, is highly classified. It is unknown how he ended up living in Massachusetts.

    Perks:

    Major Skills

    • Iron Fist - You punch. You need this.
    • Blacksmith - To make the claws. You only need to take 1 rank of this perk.
    • Lifegiver - Only health regeneration available before level 50.
    • Adamantium Skeleton - Pretty obvious, and pretty useful too.
    • Solar Powered - The Holy Grail for this build.
    • Sneak/Ninja - Increasing damage output is the name of the game. Heavily relied on until you beef up a bit.
    • Better Criticals - Unleash brutal critical attacks, which can lead to the coolest kill cams in the game.
    • Critical Banker - What's better than a more powerful critical attack? Multiple more powerful critical attacks.

    Minor Skills

    • Armorer - Your defense comes primarily from ballistic weave modifications.
    • Toughness - You'll want to focus on offense first, but this perk will help with the lack of armor
    • Action Boy - Helping you ensure you're never more than a few seconds away from unleashing another critical attack
    • Moving Target - Who doesn't enjoy sprinting towards you enemy and punching their head off?
    • Bloody Mess - You don't need the 4th rank, but ranks 1-3 increase your damage output.
    • Idiot Savant - Probably the most important minor skill. The low intelligence level could make this an extremely long play through otherwise. Note, I did not do the save/reload trick to maximize what you can get out of this perk, I just took the extra XP as it naturally came.

     

     

    "Like Ben Franklin said, bub... only two things certain in life... an' this ain't taxes."

    Gear: Battered fedora, Greaser jacket and jeans, leather legs. Both the fedora and outfit can be modified with the ballistic weave, and your luck will be increased by 3. The critical meter fills in no time. Since the leg slots are free I put leather armor there that helped with sneaking, muffled, or gave additional AP. The fedoras are found everywhere when you're looking for Nick Valentine, and the jacket and jeans outfit is on the first floor of Faneuil Hall. Be ready for a fight in there though. Before you're ready, you can wear the Undershirt and jeans outfit with a full suit of leather armor.

    Weapons: Bladed Knuckles. You can loot a few knuckles on your first trip to Concord.

    (Optional: Puncturing Knuckles. Early on, synths and their armor can be a problem. You might want to create a set of these for one or two early missions, you won't need them after level 10.)

    Faction: Railroad. Aside from needing the ballistic weave, he can fully understand being persecuted and hunted by sentient robots.

    Followers: He works alone

    Settlement: He doesn’t hang his hat much at all. You don’t have to do much crafting so other than a water purifier in Sanctuary you don’t need much of a reason for storage.

    Bobbleheads: Endurance is the only necessary bobblehead, the other SPECIAL bobbleheads are more nice to have. Melee, Sneak, and Unarmed bobbleheads are a good idea as well.

     

    "Go ahead. Reload. Take all the time you want. I'm still gonna kill every last one of you."

    Gameplay

    This build broke down into 3 parts: early, mid, and late levels. Since I'm not fancy with Photoshop I'll breakdown skill selection in this part as well.

    Early Levels (1-10):

    Skills: Iron Fist 1-2, Blacksmith 1, Adamantium Skeleton 1, Sneak 1, Ninja 1, Idiot Savant 1, Better Criticals 1, Critical Banker 1

    For the first few levels, just play as you would any other character. Out of the Vault head to Sanctuary, pick up the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. magazine and choose Endurance, follow Codsworth, head to Concord. When you fight the Deathclaw in Concord use the power armor, you don't stand a chance otherwise. It's the only time I used power armor in the game. Head back to Sanctuary and do the settlement tutorial mission. You get a water purifier for early healing supply and enough XP for a level. You should be level 3 by that point so you can get your knuckles and never look back. You should still pick up every piece of ammo you find. Every bullet is worth at least one bottle cap, and they are all over the place. You'll be rich in no time and can buy shipments of junk when you need it, meaning you can fly through missions and ignore anything that isn't going to make you some money.

    As you can see by the perk selection, sneaking is heavily relied on during this portion of the play-through. Avoid super mutants and going too far south or east for now.

    2 more notes on the early levels: 1, on the way to Diamond City stop in Greygarden for all your homemade adhesive needs. 2, start the railroad quests as soon as you can, you need to unlock the ballistic weave.

    Mid Levels (11-30):

    Skills: Iron Fist 3, Armorer 1-3, Endurance +1, Life Giver 1-3, Adamantium Skeleton 2-3, Solar Powered 1-2, Sneak 2-3, Moving Target 1-2, Ninja 2, Idiot Savant 2, Better Criticals 2, Critical Banker 2

    This is where you can start really having some fun. First off, during these levels I got all of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. increasing bobble-heads with the exception of intelligence. I also got the melee, sneak, and unarmed bobble-heads, and the Grognak and US Covert Ops mags for good measure. However even with the 2 perk increases in Endurance, you're going to have to use a level up to reach level 10 and unlock Solar Powered.

    You'll notice that little by little you'll be using VATS less and less. You will still use it to either bank or unleash a critical attack, but the rest of the time you’re popping a psycho/buffout combo and trading blows with a deathclaw. Nothing felt more Wolverine like to me than getting picked up by a deathclaw, slammed back to earth, then getting up to shrug it off and punch the thing in the face some more.

    Late Levels (31-50):

    Skills: Iron Fist 4-5, Armorer 4, Toughness 1-5, Solar Powered 3, Sneak 4-5, Action Boy 1-2, Ninja 3, Bloody Mess 1-3, Idiot Savant 3, Better Criticals 3, Critical Banker 3

    More of the same here really. Maxing your key perks, plus some new ones to increase damage, defense, and AP recovery rate. This is a good time to finish up a faction quest line or just explore the Commonwealth. At this point you may want to start carrying a healthy supply of whiskey. With such low intelligence getting enough XP to level up is a lengthy process. The alcohol will lower your intelligence to 0, which increases your chances of Idiot Savant kicking in. The strength boost doesn’t hurt, either. Between the alcohol and the drugs you’ll be visiting doctors fairly often to get rid of your addictions, but since you’ll never need ammo and that’s all over the wasteland you should never be short on caps.


    Roleplay:
    I played this as a smart ass, but overall good guy. In conversations I very rarely chose either the top or bottom choices, mostly left with a little right mixed in depending on the options. Also I see him as very sympathetic to the Railroad and their cause, to the point that he would side against his own son. That’s really the extent of my roleplay, I was content with punching.

     

    "There ain't no redemption for me... but there is revenge. There is revenge."

    Beyond 50

    There is still a lot to be done after getting Solar Powered, and I plan on running this some more. Chem resist is useful and readily available, as well as some other Endurance perks. If you got the Luck bobble-head Grim Repear is available, and you only need one more level in Luck for 4 Leaf Clover. I also plan on going after Rooted, Lone Wanderer, and Blitz. And last but not least Party Boy. You know how those Canadians love their beer.

    Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy the build as much as I did. I am open to criticism, constructive or otherwise.

     

  • Member
    November 21, 2016

    Looks good! Glad you got it back up.

  • Member
    November 22, 2016
    Thanks. I don't know what happened, the site didn't like the pictures. I had to take screenshots of the pictures and save them as new files, and then I was able to upload those. Very strange
  • Member
    November 22, 2016

    Chunk said: Thanks. I don't know what happened, the site didn't like the pictures. I had to take screenshots of the pictures and save them as new files, and then I was able to upload those. Very strange
    Social Engine doesn't show pictures in .bmp format.

  • Member
    November 22, 2016
    I tried a few different formats, but I originally saved them in mspaint as bmp so that's likely it. Thanks for the like!
  • Member
    March 12, 2017

    This looks AWESOME! Somehow I missed it when it was first posted, but I am glad the unarmed spotlight pointed me back to it. I actually remember you picking the Wolverine as your entry and immediately thinking "this is gonna be good". You have exceeded my expectations for a Wolverine build, fantastic job!

  • Member
    March 12, 2017

    Duuuuude, I saw Logan last week. It's the kind of movie that only gets better as time passes. I hope many vault dwellers get to see your build and start playing it right away! :D

  • Member
    March 12, 2017
    New life, awesome! Thanks guys. I actually recently tried this build on survivor, since I made this guy before that mode existed. It's incredibly hard. I found a decent route that let me sneak all the way to RR HQ, but one of the ghouls spawned as legendary. I think it might be playable on survivor once you get ballistic weave, but holy shit until then!
  • February 23, 2018

    I recently picked FO4 up again and decided I should try something besides my usual infiltrator pistol or sniper build. I very seldom play melee in any games, and this build has been a lot of fun! I've diverged very slightly based on a couple of personal preferences, but this build has made my current playthrough really different and fun.

  • Member
    February 27, 2018
    Awesome, glad you enjoyed it! I’ve kinda had a Fallout itch lately, maybe I’ll try to finish up my survivor run with this guy. Just curious, what did you do differently? Like perks and equipment, or more play style/rp stuff?