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Character Build: The Medic (FO4)

Tags: #Motty Build  #Character Build Melee  #Fallout 4 Build  #Character Build Chemist  #Character Build Sharpshooter 
  • Member
    September 1, 2017

    DeltaFox came up with an idea to build characters for Fallout 4 from the Team Fortress 2 cast. I was not super knowledgable of the series, but really connected with The Medic and offered to get the build started. What I ended up with was one of my favorite playthroughs to date, full of way more action than I originally thought would come from a 'support' character. 

    Character Customization

    Class: Support Healer & Combat Surgeon

    Known Weapons: Syringer (Pax), Bone Saw (The Harvester), scalpel (Pickman's blade), anything with “Bloodied” or "Crippling" legendary effect like Survivor’s special (more damage with less HP), Old Faithful (Double damage at full heath), and Last Minute (Cripping Gauss Rifle).

    Gear: Surgical Mask, Armored Doctor (lab) Coat and/or Armored Trilby Hat, Institute Lab Coat (red sleeves), black rim glasses

    Chems: BuffJet, PsychoJet, Overdrive, Jet Feul, Orange Mentats

    Companions: Being a "support" character means lots of followers, and more importantly, their perks.

    -Curie (Combat Medic Perk: +100 HP when health falls under 10%) 

    -Cait (Trigger Rush – AP regenerates faster when health is below 25%) 

    -MacCready (Though his Killshot Perk isn't really part of the build, we need to complete his quest The Long Road to get a Surgical Journal too.)

    -Strong (Berserk +20% melee when health below 25% stacks with Nerd Rage) 

    SPECIAL:  

    S 2 (4)  P 3 (5)  E 3 (4)  C 8 (9) I 9 (10 Special Book)  A 2 (4)  L 2 (3) 

    Special Notes: With some investment in Perception and added Orange Mentats, accuracy of surgical precision (to limbs) is achieved. Being a Doctor, the medic is highly intelligent taking Nerd Rage early by dropping the Special Book from Sanctuary into INT. Add Bobbleheads to S, P, E, C (you'll be there anyway), A, and L. Invest 1 in S, P and A. 

    PERKS (Level 50): 

    Big Leagues 5/5 - makes the Harvester totally devestating, adds pop to the scalpel (Pickman's blade)

    Inspirational 2/3 - a must for our support build

    Nerd Rage 3/3 - staacking the perk boosts and slow time effects with your hand crafted chems makes for plenty of DOT

    Medic 3/4 - RP yes, but also needed to build clinics at the hospital

    Local Leader 2/2 - 2 ranks neccesary to build clnics/surgery centers

    Life Giver 3/3 - the HP boost is nice and quite fitting for RP

    Bloody Mess 2/4 - RP and damage boosts...lots of blood needed (see ghoul + harvester video)!

    Chemist & Chem Resistant (full) - Damage Over Time stacking with bleed damage (Pickman's knife) and Nerd Rage

    Rifleman (5/5) - Put a stock on Old Faithful, upgrade to Last Minute and eliminate limbs with surgical precision. 

    Blacksmith (3/3) - to max out The Harvester

    *Armorer (optional) - With MODS you can add Ballistic Weave to the Dirty Lab Coat and even a Trilby hat or equivalent and raise the difiiculty level if you want. However, melee + chems is very powerful and I tested on Very Hard with only a level 2 BW hat and did just fine. 

    General Gameplay Strategy

    The name of the game is a mix of support you companions (with perks) and manipulate the battlefield with chems, slow time / damage over time, bleed damage, Nerd Rage and surgical precision to remove limbs. I actually found this strategy extremely powerful. When engaging hostiles, allow you companion to draw their attention as you pick apart their limbs with a ranged rifle. Then as things climax, rush in with the Harvester or Pickman's Blade to finish them off while under the influence of Jet-base chems. There are few enemies that will give you trouble using these simple but effective tactics. If you take damage upon close quarters approach, Nerd Rage will trigger to boost your stats, putting no doubt in the final result. As the game progresses, and your skill in surgically removing limbs from enemies improves, target extremities with you combined Surgical Journal Boost and Legendary Last Minute Gauss Rifle

    Getting Started: 
    Run to DC and buy a Syringer from Doc Sun. The only known spawn of a Ripper is at Westfield Everett Estates, which is occupied by Hammer and his Supermutant goons. I was able to get this around level 13. Of course, once you can survive Far Harbour, the Harvester is the only way to go. You can get a Lab Coat at Cambridge Polymer by picking the correct occupation. A surgical mask is found in Pickman’s Gallery, which is good enough reason to go ahead and get his blade (your scalpel) too. Sicko! 

    Combat:
    One of the overlooked skill of a combat medic is their ability to move in and among the fray without being harmed. With minimal armor, the Medic deftly slides in and out of trouble using close quarters weapons when needed, allowing companions to soak up damage and using Jet based chems, Nerd Rage and VATS to boost damage over time bleed effects. When facing nasty turrets or hard to reach bad guys, Old Faithful will do plenty of damage. Reserve some Pax syringes to avoid combat all together (I recommend reading my piece on the Syringer). It's very hard to simulate being a support character in FO4. We can't directly heal or buff our companions outside of giving them stimpaks and meds. Do this, but also take their perks, use their presence as positioning tactics and think ahead about how you might take down different locations. Do you need a tank, an infiltrator, a sniper? Pick you pal accordingly. I also kept my eyes open for "crippling" legendary weapons and actually scored a bolt action pipe sniper very early on. Targeting limbs semed like just a cool combat addition for our surgeon and it reall becomes powerful combining the Journal boost (+18%) with Last Minute, a Crippling Gauss Rifle accessed through Ronnie Shaw by completeing Old Guns. Lastly, I did look into MODS to see if there were any that added healing companions across all platforms, and came up sadly empty handed. The one helpful thing I found was I had an Autostim Legendary Metal Chest Piece fall to me (Far Harbor DLC). I equipped my companions with it (except Strong) and filled their inventory with Stimpaks. It actually worked quite well - keeping them upright constantly. 

    Roleplay: 
    Healer, supporter, "good" doctor with a German Accent, a little crazy and lost his medical license over some suspect practices. That doesn't mean he's not good, but maybe not exactly 100% ethical. Thus the constant flow of chems and penchant for bloodshed and hacking or blowing off people's limbs. Visit all of the known Doctors and Hospitals in the Commonwealth. Build you own medical facility in Sanctuary (or locale of choice). Collect all issues of the Massachusetts Surgical Journal for a nice addition to your office and healthy +18% boost to limb damage. I really got into building the clinic in Sanctuary. I collected bone saws, scalpels, surgical trays, syringers, microscopes, etc and made a waiting room, lab, office and surgical room. Take a look at the video for an overview.

    The Medic's Residency (aka Hospitals and Doctors to visit):

    To round out the massive potential of roleplay, I've contructed a notable list of hospitals and doctors to visit. I'm calling this the MEDIC'S RESIDENCY, and you can also add perk control to this RP (See Hub Discussion by PCTY on Perk Pilgrimages for further explanation).

    Notable Docs (for the full Wiki list, check Docs):
    Dr. Sun / Dr. Crocker - Diamond City (Quest - Dissapearing Act)
    Dr. Anderson - Roving Caravan (recruit for your level 3 clinic once you hit 20 settlers)
    Curie - Vault 81 (Hole in the Wall / Emergent Behavior), make her your companion, then assign her to your settlement clinic

    Notable Locations:
    Mass Bay Medical Center - One fo the biggest, coolest locations with a bunch of Gunners a crashed Vertibird in the top floor. Must explore!
    Med-Tek - gain enough affinity with MacCready to access this location and it's Surgical Journal.
    Hallucigen - lots of chem fun to be had here!
    Greater Mass Blood Clinic - load up on blood packs and other supplies along with a Syringer Rifle

    Doctor Friendly Questing: 
    Hole in the Wall --> Emergent Behavior: Making Curie a Synth felt like the way to go, especially after her loyal service to her former docs. I actually decided to romance her as well. Roleplay in that sort of silly, but sort of explainable comic-book way.
    Special Delivery - required to grab 2 of the Surgical Journals
    Long Road Ahead - MAcCready's companion quest to access another Surgical Journal, also quite RP fitting as you track down a Cure called "Prevent" for a rare disease. Nice work doc!
    Benign Intervention - Cure Cait...you're a doctor dammit!
    Old Guns - Access to Ronnie Shaw and Last Minute, you favorite surgical tool :D
    Diamond City Blues - with high charisma and a penchant for chems, you can stock up on a huge supply pretty easily with this neat side quest. 
    Virgil's Cure - Pursue the Main Quest (Minutemen side), if for no other reason than a great feeling RP quest like this. 

    Final Thoughts:

    Shoutout to DeltaFox for the concept and all the feedback in the workshop from Paws, Legion, RC, & Noodles. Check out all of my Fallout 4 Builds using the Motty Tag

  • September 1, 2017

    Been following this for a few weeks now Motty and I'm glad to see it finished, the build looks pretty good in the end and I like the general Evil Doctor sort of vibe...or murderous Doctor perhaps, yeah that works better. Either way, cool build :D

  • Member
    September 1, 2017

    Dragonborn1921 said:

    Been following this for a few weeks now Motty and I'm glad to see it finished, the build looks pretty good in the end and I like the general Evil Doctor sort of vibe...or murderous Doctor perhaps, yeah that works better. Either way, cool build :D

    Thanks DB! Yeah...he's a healer and a hacker...that's kind of how it goes in the Commonwealth. :D

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    Finaly finished! Been waiting a long time for this build. The RP section is the most interesting with areas and people to visit and building your own hospital. Great first addition to the project.

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    Oooh this one's out! :D Let me read it!

  • September 2, 2017

    Next time I load up Fallout, Imma give this a spin. It looks too cool not to. The German accent was a big sell and I don't even know why. I think it's just a unique trait for a Boston-based doctor. 

    +1

    +2 if I could, but I can't

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    Nice, nice! :D Now do the Pyro next!! Do you believe in maaaagic, in a young girl's heart...

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    Noodles said:

    Nice, nice! :D Now do the Pyro next!! Do you believe in maaaagic, in a young girl's heart...

    bro "I don't want to set the world on Fire" or "I'm a Barbie Girl" also

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    Noodles said:

    Nice, nice! :D Now do the Pyro next!! Do you believe in maaaagic, in a young girl's heart...

    Leaning toward the Spy - Double Agent style with lots of steath boys, gulper slurry and film noir vibe. But an Ashmaker/Seargent Ash/Molotov could be fun. 

  • Member
    September 2, 2017

    I loved what i little im able to read atm (bit busy) but if you didnt know there is actually a way to heal companions outside of stimpaks/meds (distributed by any weapon with the legendary effect Medic's unless for some reason this doesn't work on companions or was removed from the game) 

    Anyways I'll check it out completely later! +1 from me

    (Update) It is said to be a super rare legend effect though so, if the quicksave/reload method still works, going to NGTY should result in it (or mods/consol commands if you dont want to grind) (National Guard training Yard for any that dont know the abbreviation)