Fallout 4: Mastering FO4 Survival: Blitz Melee Build

In survival mode, combat can be difficult. If it is too difficult the game is not fun. The idea for this build is to use all or most perks and starting SPECIALs to win fights. Looking at it from another angle, any perk point spent purely for quality of life will be at the expense of combat power.

Additionally, we want all all of our chosen perks to work together. For example, there are perks to make rifles, pistols, and melee more effective. If perks were unlimited, we could put perks in all three. But since perks are limited for a given level, it might be smarter to concentrate your perks in one damage mode and use that for most combats.

This build (obviously from the name) uses the blitz perk, which is pretty far down the agility tree. Blitz uses VATS, and VATS benefits from luck, with the best perks also being pretty far down the luck tree. We also want to craft a rocket bat, which requires science from the intelligence tree. High intelligence helps with level progression, which is another reason to invest starting SPECIAL points there. So, this build requires substantial investments in agility, intelligence, and luck. We will have to skimp on everything else. How do we minimize the impact.

How do we get away with low strength? Melee damage scales with strength, but if power armor is worn, character strength is ignored and damage is calculated using the power armor’s strength, which has a base of 10. Some perks in the strength tree will be needed (big leagues, armorer, blacksmith) will be needed, so we can get to these by spending a few perk points on increasing strength.

How do we get away with low perception? Perception governs VATS hit chance, and we will use VATS a lot. Melee nearly always hits targets in range. The VATS hit chance always shows as 95. What about shooting? When shooting in VATS, we will always use criticals. Critical shots always hit even if VATS is showing a low percentage. So, if we have to shoot and do not have a crit to burn, we will aim down the sights.

When shooting with criticals, we will prefer head shots at long range. Our sneak will be handicapped by wearing power armor and not putting points into sneak. Even so, sneak will usually be effective at long range. These shots will benefit from using a high damage weapon (early on, a hunting rifle works), head shots, a sneak multiplier and a critical multiplier, often resulting in one shot kills.

How do we get away with low charisma? The need for charisma in this game is mostly situational. We will manage charisma with gear and consumables, as described in my farming and resource guide.

In my mind, endurance is necessary in the mid and late game for having higher health points, but does not help you much in the early game. Health points, hit points, whatever you want to call it, depends both on level and endurance. At level 1, your hit points will be low regardless of endurance. At high level, high endurance results in a huge health pool, which is very helpful. Hence, starting with low endurance and adding points to it as you progress is viable.

S 1
P 1
E 1
C 3 (for access to lone wanderer
I 6 (for access to science and for level progression)
A 9 (for access to blitz)
L 7 (for access to better criticals and critical banker)

I put the SPECIAL book into intelligence for level progression, but put it anywhere you please.

2 science (to help get the water farm going, see the farm guide, but this will be needed later for other reasons.

After getting started on the water farm, I went to rescue Preston. See the guide on that. After rescuing Preston, I prioritized going to places near Sanctuary to get power cores.

3 lone wanderer (for carry weight and survivability)
4 critical banker
5 blitz
7 strength (for access to big leagues)
8 big leagues (after all, most of our damage will come from hitting things with a ball bat)
9 big leagues

By this time I was running low on power cores, but had water to sell. I took Preston to Diamond City. The standard quests in Diamond City, with reasonable dialog choices, are a good way to raise Preston’s affinity, and Arutro always has cores to sell. Also, Moe sells the Rockville Slugger, which is a VATS enhanced legendary bat, and will be the build’s main weapon for the rest of the playthrough.

9 endurance
10 strength (for access to armorer)
11 armorer
13 strength (for access to blacksmith later)
14 armorer

Now we can upgrade the power armor from A to D for better protection. This will require a bit of aluminum and adhesive to upgrade all pieces. I skipped C to save on materials.

14 blacksmith (can now convert your bat to aluminum when you have the mats, for more damage, and maybe pick another upgrade to use before you get rocket bat)
15 chemist (did this mainly for ability to make antibotics at chem stations, but this also helps combat by making drugs last longer)
16 blacksmith
17 science (can now make the Rockville Slugger into a rocket bat. also, I suggest explosive shielding for all pieces of your power armor when you can get the mats. finally this opens up calibrated shocks for your power armor legs, for additional carry weight, when you have the mats)
18 critical banker
19 lone wanderer
20 better criticals
21 big leagues
22 endurance
23 endurance
24 endurance
25 armorer

At this point you need to think about getting better power armor. T-45D is too squishy to go much further. I took the T-45D to level 29, resulting in multiple broken pieces after every mission. With the latest patch, Hellfire armor is easy to get. Just select the Pyro mission, kill him and bring his armor back. It will take quite a bit of mats to put on all the mods that you will probably want. Hopefully you have loot and water stockpiled and some grape mentats. You will likely have to buy shipments to get all the mats.

At this point you can start working toward getting out of power armor or chose to remain in it for the playthrough. If you want get out of power armor, you will need ballistic weave from the railroad. Start working their quest line if you have not been. Will need to put lots of points into strength and endurance, as well as acquiring legendary armor items to boost these. Deb and Lucas sell some nice items if you have the caps. You will also want to train sneak and ninja.

For either power armor or no power armor, you will eventually want to put a couple of more points into luck, and spec into grim reaper’s sprint and four leaf clover. You could choose to postpone a couple of the endurance points that I have suggested above to do that sooner.

I hope this has been helpful. Comments appreciated.