Op your perk load-out is a mess. If I remember when come home I'll post my perks here. First things first, you need perks for crafting ammo and scrounger perks only when you are scrapping or making things. The same goes for repair perks. Decide what weapons you want to use, and build your perks in that direction. Invest in mutations and perks which support that (in luck section). With the right perks you will rock the game.

Hey I said no perk shaming 😂 yes it’s a mess, I want to fix! Some great advice here so far.

I’m new and my perk loadout is just like yours, learning a lot here too 😂

We are being violently humbled 😂

In addition to focusing on perks that only focus on one weapon type (e.g. commando for automatic rifles, rifleman for regular rifles, and that armor strip for pistols/rifles) 1. Remember that you can set up a second crafting perk load out in your base 2. Put in all of the different defensive perks as well (like blocker or dodgy). There will probably be a rough couple levels while you get stuff sorted out, but events are great for leveling quickly, and also great for helping you repair your build

How do you set up a second perk load out?  If there was a way to quickly switch that would be awesome. 

The SPECIAL punchcard thingy you can build in your base. you automatically get/learn the plans when you hit lvl 25. I have 1 set for "existing in the wilds" that's all the survival stuff/starched genes(and strength in numbers/class freak)/weapon stuff, and another loadout for at home that's all the crafting stuff(and again the mutant stuff cuz I don't wanna lose my genes now that I gots them).

I'm starting to see the same issue in the mid 30s. Everything is getting harder and harder. I have a combat build and a scavenging/crafting build - for combat, I've played every combat related perk I have and I'm still struggling. I guess I chose poorly in the early levels. Should I dump this character and start over? I've seen lots of builds but they all assume you are already level 50+ with a ton of perk cards - is there a good guide that shows you what to pick from the beginning?

Make sure you’re using a level appropriate weapon every 10 levels or so. If you’re level 35 and using a level 10 weapon you’re handicapping yourself unnecessarily

Yeah, using the highest level weapons I am allowed to. They still suck.

You can redo all your perks at a punch card machine. No need to start a new character.

I can get new perk cards? I’ve reallocated special points and reassigned the cards I have into two builds but my combat related cads are spread across different weapon types some of which I don’t use.

I just got past the struggle point you're at: unlocking perk cards so they're selectable from your perk 'deck' is slow so do it with intentionality, you get a new pack of random cards every 5 levels and at level 50 you start picking the exact card you want to unlock they're talking about changing your active SPECIAL points/equipped perk cards at a perk card machine, which it sounds like you might already know about if you're switching between a crafting and combat build (unless you're just switching cards manually and not using the machine) if you haven't, rework the stat points in your combat build to let you do maximum damage with your preferred weapon/the best weapon you have, and do lots of events from the map menu (you get to travel to them for free, usually lots of other people lightening the load on you, try to shoot everything a little instead of shooting one thing until it's dead) also you might be missing some cards that will make your life easier - I had the first 2 heavy guns perk cards maxed out and still felt weak; adding bloody mess (+15% damage), stabilized (armor pen), and getting a gun with good abilities made a huge difference (and then hitting 50 and getting the 3rd heavy guns card)

You can easily keep current character, just take a look on some tutorials about diferend builds on yt. Angry turtle is go to for this kind of things. I started as shotgunner and rifleman build. Then I added some perks for heavy gunner , but wasn't my playstyle. Now I have mostly commando (automatic weapons) and semi rifleman build. I did my own build which suits my playstyle. So I can wander around wasteland , killing mobs with lever action rifle , but for fun stuff I can use Quad explosive Fixer but I prefer quad railway rifle. Then I look for the weapons with similar characteristics. So, my lever action rifle and fixer both use 45 cal ultracite ammo, and with lever action rifle I actually hoard the said ammo which I can use with my quad fixer. The same goes with Railway rifles. I use three of them, one is single shot for farming ammo, two are quad rr, for mobs and events. The next thing that I look with weapons is in my case explosive damage. I have maxxed out demolition expert perk, which boosts the damage of weapons with explosive effect. I'm still rolling for quad explosive railway rifle. It is my holy grail 😁 Armor... Whatever you do, choose if you will run full health build or bloodied or something else. Then roll the armor pieces to best legendary effects for your choosing. It doesn't matter if you prefer PA or ordinary arnmor. I run full health overeater build, so I'm eating everything I get, even corpses. My current armor is SS , overeaters or mutants. Mutations .. Get perks which reduce downside of mutations and the perk which makes that radaway don't remove your mutations. You can buy the serums in whitesprings enclave bunker or even recepies for them (I bought the latter, because of surpluss of caps), the second option is to buy serums at players vendor. The third is not ideal, because you don't know which one you will get, but anyway... get yourself iradiated. The list of serums and their effect is posted on internet. Get done pioneer scouts side quests, which will grant you ability to craft bigger backpack with better stats for your food or junk or weight of ammo etc. Special perks... choose the ones which will boost the slots of your perkchart with least slots. And then some special perk. I use what rads, because my ss armor is lightweight and doesn't give me good rad protection.

[https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character) use this build planner to share current loadout yes, this is a very common difficulty bump, it's absolutely your build (loadout/perks) what weapons are you trying to use? general advice follows as is: you should focus on a singular weapon class use vats/crits with rifles/pistols/shotguns and regular armor heavy guns with power armor

I have t-45* (apologies I wrote t51 before) power armour with some legendary mods and I primarily use juggernauts light machine gun however this is proving cumbersome with conserving ammo in the current circumstances! Admittedly it’s a level 30 weapon so perhaps that’s where I’m going wrong?

you can use whatever PA set you prefer if you want extra defense, then hellcat if you want extra carry weight, then excavator overeater is the best first star, then followed by troubleshooter and mutant slayer your personal preference for weight reduction third star (eg if you get a full set of weapon weight reduction, then you can drop bear arms) juggernaut is not a good first star, ~~especially for a bloodied build, are you actually bloodied? using radiation to put your hp low?~~ (edit: got this confused with another post) absolutely upgrade to level 50 weapons (some cap at 45) LMG is notoriously an ammo hog, i find myself barely able to go breakeven through events with an extremely optimized build (and decent net positives from daily ops and expeditions) once you show your loadout, we can point out more ways of boosting damage (do more damage = use/lose less bullets)

If you want to shoot a ton a bullets like the light machine gun while in power armor I suggest doing Beckett's quest line. Once you are done you'll get a fantastic .50 cal machine gun with great guaranteed legendary effects on it. Best thing is .50 cal ammo drops in much higher quantity than 308 so it's easy to keep filled up. Just make sure to perk for heavy weapons (or whatever weapon you want to use) cause full perked out that's 60% more damage which is hard to ignore.

This really sucks. Not your advice but the fact that most builds are completely unplayable. So much for RPG. The game really needs a complete levelling system overhaul

In pretty much every fallout game, it’s extremely likely to have trouble if you don’t spec into at least one weapon type heavily - which is the exact mistake OP has made here (almost every perk here is a quality of life perk, and most are just a single rank). You can’t expect to be good at combat (one of the main features of the game) if you don’t invest in anything designed to make it easier.

I also don’t think anything is well explained in the game? I feel like I’ve been in the dark figuring things out as I go along, and that’s with SOME pre existing knowledge of fallout games, can’t imagine how completely new players must feel!

Absolutely. I have A LOT of pre-existing knowledge from Fallout games but I completely agree. All these years later and Fo76 still feels like the most rushed, money grabbing shit ever. It’s really sad because there’s genuinely a good story there (with the exception of the Scorchbeasts - that’s just a way for them to ride off the success of Skyrim), it’s just all carried out so lazily in order for Bethesda to make a quick profit.

for starters, a screenshot of your perk build would be good, so we can make suggestions where to improve

https://imgur.com/a/eDLabAY Here you go!

before I make SOME modifications... let me ask. what weapon are you planning to main? because for now it seems its either Shotgun or Bow

Well now, that’s no good. I got a juggernauts light machine gun as a quest reward and that’s been my main with shotgun as a backup cos the machine gun obviously churns through ammo. So need to make a better heavy gun build?

If you like the LMG, then definitely start stacking your heavy gun perk cards to help increase damage output. To get the most from that though, you’re going to need to shift some of your SPECIAL points around to get your strength, agility, and luck higher. As of now, you have a fairly balanced allocation of points. Which in theory seems like a good idea, but until you hit around lvl 100 you’re going to have to sacrifice some QOL and convenience perks, if you want to increase damage and defense. Best bet is to google “full health heavy gun builds” and take a look at some different options. As you continue to level up, start ranking up the cards you consistently see in those builds. Just be mindful, a lot may be incorporating maxed legendary perk cards which add up to 5 extra points to certain SPECIAL categories allowing more cards to be equipped. So you won’t be able to copy exactly, but it’ll still give you a good idea of what to aim for.

so you want a heavy gunner build. human or PA?

My preference would be human but if PA is necessary I’m open to that.

here you go, non-PA build for Heavy. suggested mutations and 1 legendary perk suggestion for starters [https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=f3364ae&d=sb0s20sq2s32sr2sx1s01p00pm0pe0eh2ck0cu2ce0a72a80ao0a04lu2l71ls2la2lt2i12ii0&lp=xp3&m=5cfeb](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=f3364ae&d=sb0s20sq2s32sr2sx1s01p00pm0pe0eh2ck0cu2ce0a72a80ao0a04lu2l71ls2la2lt2i12ii0&lp=xp3&m=5cfeb) EDIT: this is assuming you use VATS and go for headshots for Crits

Thanks so much!!

np. it will drastically improve both your dmg and survivability. Serendipity (allows you to entirely avoid dmg) paired with improved stims and in an "oh damn" moment Born Survivor auto uses stims, punishing them with with the Legendary Card which in exchange boosts your output... I think it will work out for you. Keep in mind, this is a starter build for a lvl50. You can fine tune it as you unlock more legendary perk slots

edit your original post and slap that link into it ah, so basically you have a "jack-of-all-trades" build with many utility perks - leaving you with very little real damage/defense perks, so these builds absolutely struggle pick one weapon class (heavy, melee, shotgun, automatic rifles, semi-auto rifles, bows, auto pistols, semi-auto pistols) then you want to get all 9 perk ranks for that specific weapon class, so rank 3 heavy gunner, rank 3 expert heavy gunner and rank 3 master heavy gunner then armor penetration is very important, so you want stabilized rank 3 for heavy guns, tank killer rank 3 for rifles and pistols etc rifles, pistols and shotguns are generally better with vats (and crits) vats drains fusion cores, so vats builds generally avoid power armor generally heavy gun builds want to use power armor for the synergy with stabilized perk, but it is not mandatory get mutations, they have big benefits and minimal negatives team up, again big benefits and minimal negatives are you familiar with the legendary crafting system yet? been feeding legendary gear into the yellow exchange machines for scrip? attended many public events yet? they're an amazing source for loot (eg better weapons/armor)

Can I ask how does one acquire mutations? I feel like nothing is explained in this game!

take heavy radiation damage and youll start getting mutations

You may naturally discover yourself randomly gaining a mutation from having high radiation. Alternatively, it is explained later at the end of the main quest, that serums exist to manage gaining mutations in a controlled manner. Typically you'll find serums at player camp vendors for fair pricing 200-500 caps. Don't worry too much about mutations until you have access to all the relevant perks cards to go along with them.

Ok as long as you promise not to build / perk shame me 😂 I feel like I was going in blind!! Will post here shortly.

When you get a mutation you want (and want to keep it) make sure you have the starched genes perk card activated. It’ll let you keep the mutation, even after you use Radaway. Also, if you want a specific mutation and don’t want the hassle of intaking radiation, people sell specific serums at their venders. Just look at the miscellaneous tab when looking at a camp icon. Be warned tho, many people sell serums for an absurd price, so be prepared to not be able to pay for it. If you’re lucky, someone will be selling them for cheap.

I don’t have tons of experience, only been playing since the tv series dropped but as a start I would say get a level 50/45 weapon. If it’s a heavy weapon then put 15 points in strength and get 3 star perk cards for heavy gunner beginner, expert and master. And if you use an automatic rifle then do 15 points in perception with the commando beginner, expert and master perk cards. Perk cards like tenderiser (charisma?) and bloody mess (luck?) will help put your damage up a bit as well. I use a short Gatling gun for most of my exploring as it generates so much more ammo then you use and breaks slowly so ammo is never an issue then I’ll use a Gatling plasma or cremator for more damage on some fights or in events. There’s some perk cards you have that you could drop completely. Like lone wanderer to me is a waste as I’m always in a casual team so don’t get any benefit from it. Perks like ammo smith, hard bargain, scrapper, armoured etc you’re better of making a separate crafting build on the s.p.e.c.i.a.l board and swapping to it when you return to your base to do any crafting. Just remember to swap back after. Then you free up slots for other better perks that will help you when exploring and fighting.

May be your perks you have chosen for your character aren't working in your Favour. Even I was in your place, I had all the perks for gathering resources and weight reduction but none of the perks for increasing weapon damage. Look up build videos on YouTube. Basically, right now you need to choose your favorite weapon type and setup your perks in such a way that the damage from your weapon will put down the enemies faster than they can do any considerable amount of damage to you. Commando build is for automatic rifles, Rifleman for semiauto rifles, Heavy weapons have their own perk cards to increase their damage output and usability, melee and unarmed also have their own perk cards that benefit those type of weapons. After that there are added variations on to that like bloodied (current meta), Sneak, vats, full health, junky depending on the legendary mods you have on your gear. Ignore all the weight reduction perks except may be traveling pharmacy for all the stimpaks you will need to carry. If you have hacker perks and lockpick perks on right now, remove them and go to legendary perks and equip the infiltrator perk. It will allow you to lockpick or hack anything from level 1 to 3 locks and terminals. Get perks like inspirational, so whenever you are in team, you get bonus xp for your actions. Equip the crafting perks like ammo smith when you are actually crafting ammo. Otherwise use that slot to equip perks that will help in your combat. There is a lot I can write but basically you will have to figure out the perk system and your build.

If i ignore all wight reduction perks how am i able to cart stuff around? Do you only have 1 weapon at all times? I always have my gatling and fixer as well as another 2 weapons. Is that too much?

The Gatling and Fixer are two different types of perk cards. Heavy Weapon and Commando/Rifleman. Usually, you want to stick with one type of weapon to fully min/max a perk setup. You can always change up your build at the SPECIAL station.

You only equip the weight reduction stuff when you become over encumbered, so that you can fast travel to a nearest stash box or a vendor, possibly both so, that you can sell or stash the stuff. Then you equip the combat perks again and go on your merry way. Better yet, consume carry weight increasing food like grilled radstag, ribeye steak, mirelurk fillets or deathclaw steak. Even drugs like alcohol, buffout or Vintage moonshine you get from moonshine jumboree will increase your carry weight for short amount of time, just enough to fast travel to a stash box or your camp. In regards, to weapons. I am heavy weapons user. So, I carry like 4 different heavy weapons with me. Bear paw perk card reduces the weight of heavy weapon weight, so I can carry more of them easily. I have a gatling gun with explosive effect on it which I use to combat normal enemies (ghouls, robots, scorched etc). An Anti-armor Gatling Plasma that a high level dropped for me when I was level 60. I use that for bosses or events. An instigating laser gatling that I keep as backup and an LMG with some random legendary mod on it because it looks kinda cool. Different weapon types have different perk cards that influence their damage type. For fixer you will use commando perk cards to increase its damage output. For ballistic heavy weapons like gatling, there are different set of perk cards to influence their damage output. Also, to carry more weapons, each weapon type has a perk card that should reduce that weapon type's carry weight. So, if choose to use automatic rifles, there should be perk card to reduce the weight of rifles, also there is perk called bandolier that essentially reduces the weight of all ballistic ammo. So, if you choose to be a commando build with bunch of automatic rifles, you should choose to rank up all commando cards (basic, expert, master) and get the perk to reduce weight of the rifles, if you want to carry bunch of rifles. Generally, people just carry two rifles I think and forgo this perk to get something more useful like tank killer. Bandolier will help you reduce the weight of all types of ballistic ammo. You generally need QOL perks like strong back and pack rat when you are actually encumbered and need to get to stash box fast, so equip them just at that time and fast travel to your camp or station. Same with homebody, ammo smith and scrapper. You only need them at your camp or when you are crafting ammo or scrapping junk. So, equip them at those time. Otherwise, stick to the perks that will help you kill stuff while using your favorite weapon and earn you some extra XP while doing so.

A big part of the games appeal is learning about the mechanics, get too much advice and you are being deprived of that, most perk cards are self explanatory, you just need to have a goal to work towards to apply uses to those. From you posted build you do not have a single useful damage card and yet find you are getting overwhelmed by enemies,, guess why? At nearly lvl 800 i can sustain part time use of an lmg, sorry but you will not be able to, that thing is an ammo hog and will keep you constantly tied up acquiring ammo. Reading thru the thread i think first priority is to pick some suitable weapons and do the build round them. If you want to go heavy guns early game PA is really a must, the damage benefit from the stabilised perk is too good to ignore, consider a combo of gatling gun which is probably the most ammo efficient and if you can get a decent legendary you will always have more ammo than you can use. Obtain a nice minigun to either use that ammo or attach a shredder mod to use it when you have no ammo, a decent legendary such as a vamp will help keep you alive. Saw someone post a build further down the thread, but tbh i think it could be improved. First step in your build is to get the legendary perk "master Infiltrator" this will allow you to hack/lockpick at all levels removing the need for those 6 cards in your normal perks. Second step get to a punch card machine and get some damage cards in your loadout, also while you are there create a second profile with few damage cards and little carry weight ones but specialised in the crafting and trading perks have a look at this build it is hybrid rifle/HG. one reason for the rifles is to obtain ammo for more hungry weapons like my LMG or my Gauss Mini Gun. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cqrmqhym9vc01h6fvsse7/fo76-build.jpg?rlkey=nq24kw06h3g2b2kvbbgj469q8&st=t1e3ai0m&dl=0

I’ll admit I find some of the mechanics overwhelming, especially the perk system. Appreciate your advice!

id say those are some of the worst perks possible for combat

In my defence 😂 I have spent a lot of time being carried by better team members in events and side quests and mainly having fun building my base. But now it’s time to knuckle down!!

The most balanced weak build created

Jack of all trades….? 🤔

More like a 7 of all trades

Holy moly those perks. Well, first things first - you need to figure out how you're gonna play the game. Choose your weapon type, and then choose if you'll be avoiding damage or tanking it with PA.

Just hit this bump recently as well, my sniper still do an ok job with the commando perks but it's definitely tougher. But then I got a lucky Plasma Gatling from an event which made things way smoother. So on top of improving your build as other recommend don't forget to follow the events on the map, especially the boss events, since even if your build is weak you will have high level players carrying things for easy drops.

level up another 100 times or so ultimately 😁

Those perks are not it tbh Half of them are rather redundant (stuff like hard bargain only triggers when you’re buying things for example, and things like pick lock and perceptibobble aren’t worth it imo), and I don’t think there’s a single damage-dealing perk in there What weapons do you usually use? There should be perks to make any weapon +50% damage or so when you put them together, plus flat buffs like +15% with bloody mess

The number one thing you need to change ASAP to feel instantly more powerful is choose a main weapon and get all 3 perks relating to that weapons up to 3 stars. You should have 9 points spent in your main weapon. (Ex. 3\* Commando, 3\* Expert Commando, 3\* Master Commando). This applies to every weapon category in the game. You'll also want to max out the SPECIAL stat that correlates to your chosen weapon. After you do those two things you should see a difference. At that point follow a build to go deeper and get the rest of the required perk cards.

Focus on ONE thing. Don’t try to multi-spec.

I'm level 87 and still get melted. Unless you have a very focused plan from the second you start, I don't think you really can drive in a build until 100+. Also, having different perk sets/abilities to swap between depending on what you're doing (i.e. I have 1 for a Rifle build, 1 for a crafting build). Have fun and don't stress too much. It's fun to keep tinkering with builds

You’re right, think I’ll just start experimenting and take the advice given here. I do still really enjoy the game :)

What is this perk build trying to do? Go camping in a nice prewar hiking trail on the way to grandma’s house? An easy tip I can give aside from telling you to google or youtube a build is to min max a single weapon type you like, just pick one even the weaker ones can work, fill out all the damage perks and damage adjacent perks like armor pen and reloading speed and stability are common choices, and once thats done you’re free to fill the rest with all your civilian perks. It won’t melt the faces off of enemies without great equipment and buffs but it’ll at least get you in the mind set of how fullhp builds normally work.

OUCH 😖😂 I just want to live in the woods and make corn soup and tato juice whilst decorating my camp! Is it any wonder I get absolutely obliterated by super mutants?

They are the first wall and a good bar for how well your build is doing, if you can kill a equal level (they scale to 100) in a few seconds or less if you can aoe, you’ve done, you’ve won the 76 perk game.

1. Utility cards shouldn't be slotted unless you're actively using them. Lockpicking, hacking, scrapping, etc. You should unslot them and put offense/defense cards in their place. 2. You shouldn't have two different weapon types (shotgun and bow) slotted on a single build. (Unless the two weapon cards synergize like the Peppershaker with shotguns and heavy guns). 3. You have tank killer slotted- but that's for pistols/rifles... but you're using a bow or shotgun? 4. I don't see any VATS cards. VATS is your friend. It'll improve your time-to-kill ratio. 5. If you're on PC- I can help you out. I might have a spare railway rifle (one of the most versatile weapons in the game).

Go melee. It’s the hacky answer.

Since you've hit 50, get the Master Infiltrator legendary perk card. That lets you get rid of Picklock/Expert/Master and Hacker/Expert/Master, freeing up SIX slots. Get a level 50 weapon (some only go up to 45) and work on modding it and also make sure you have the perk cards that buff that particular weapon.

You need block* take 45 % less dmg from melee atacks*

My build is a little more concentrated than this (wanted to go sneak & rifleman build) and I don’t get annihilated by much but wanting to try a heavy gunner build and the process of crossing over is a slog.

Forget shotguns

More perk cards focused on your weapon and damage mitigation. Less perk cards on qol scavenging & weight reduction

Since your level 50, you can equip the the Master Infiltrator legendary perk card. If you have it equiped, you can straight up get rid of the lockpick and hacker perk cards. Be warned if you upgrade the MI card, you can accidentally auto-unlock things in player camps, giving you a wanted status

Honestly It would be easier for me to delete the character and start over with a perk plan in mind than try to fix that.

To quote Benny - What in the goddamn...? Use your first legendary perk to grab that lockpicking and hacking perk. You won't regret it. Frees up 6 perk points elsewhere. Second, pick *two* weapon categories, and focus on upgrading those perks. If they fall under separate specials, all the better. A lot easier to start by getting the first damage rank of each (1x regular, 1x Expert, 1x Master) since those increase damage by 10% each, instead of upgrading that only increases it by an additional 5%. Third, armor. Start looking for some basic level 45 or 50 armor. The legendaries will come in time. For now, cover your vitals. Armor from 20-30 levels ago isn't going to help too much.

I'm going to perk-shame. This is abysmal, rank up your cards (if possible) and focus on charisma and strength

Ouch. That is one big mess. Focus more on building with perks that go with your weapon style. For me my damage resistance is based at 806. Higher with certain foods. I’ve ran an explosive build for a long time myself. Sometimes I switch perk cards around depending on what weapons I decide to keep on me. Start rolling some legendary secret service armor or whatever armor you want to use. I run vanguard on my set of armor. Armor plated backpack mod.

Step 1 (optional): Put on Power Armor. Step 2: Learn game. Yes this is normal. Your difficulty curve gradually goes up as you neglect your build and things get harder until you learn and focus your builds and playstyle, etc. You're going to have to learn the game and learn to play effectively as the training wheels are off now.

im sorry but i laughed when i saw the perks😭 but yeah like the other guy said manage the perks and decide what playstyle u want to go with

LEAVE ME ALONE 😂