If you’re looking to elevate your survival skills then going for the unarmed build in Fallout 4 is the best way to go. This build is totally unarmed based, so that means no weapons that are not considered unarmed.

This is a difficult build that requires a lot of knowledge of the game, so be aware that it is difficult.

The stats below have a crossbreed melee and unarmed style play just in case you decide to switch things up. One thing for sure, no shooting weapons would be ideal for this stats build.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L Stats

This is the starting stats that should go for.

S – 9  P – 1  E – 7  C – 1  I – 1  A – 6  L – 1

When you get to the registration form on the first screen. There are abilities to consider in order to have a successful unarmed/melee truck style player.

For strength, it is not recommended to go to ten. I’ll explain later. For strength, you only need 9 to begin.

Perception: that perk is meant for you to spot enemies. In the early game, when you come out of the vault, you are not going to run into trouble finding enemies. So, leave it at 1. You can improve it over time as you develop your own play style.

Endurance: This is really important. You’re going to take a lot of physical damage so you need to have a high endurance to get your high healthy points. Also, you’re going to be sprinting everywhere, therefore, it is going to important to have really high endurance. Put your endurance at 7.

Charisma: it’s about dialogue. You’re going to bartering with others. That’s not going to help you maximize your unarmed skills at all. So leave it at 1.

Intelligence: This does not help maximize your attack damage or protect in any way. In the early game at least. However, later in the game, there are some perks that might be useful. Depending on your playing style, of course.

Agility: The minimum is 6. The reason for 6 is mainly for the perk actions boy and moving targets. More details in down below.

This should leave you with two extra points. You can place where ever you want. If you want to have a little bit more charisma or a little bit more perception maybe, a little bit of luck it is entirely up to you.

Related Articles: Fallout 4 Best Legendary Armor

Onto the perk chart

Let’s go over and explain you want to place your stats mentioned earlier.

Strength:

Strength is the most critical line for you because it results is how much damage all of your attacks do.

9 is recommended and maybe you can potentially argue you’ve put 10. The reason for not going for 10 is because the part for 10 is about power armor. At the start of the game, you don’t have power armor. You can get power armor in the early but you not have many fusion cores.

It’s a waste of a point just to begin with depending your playstyle. You can use one of the spare points elsewhere more effect in the early game. Or you can put it to strength and not worry about getting it later if you have nowhere else to put it at.

A must-have perk is Rooted. While standing still you gain 25% damage resistance in melee and unarmed attacks do 25% more damage. Ultimately, if you’re standing still punching someone that’s the time where you maximize damage output.

Also, if someone is still shooting at you to be taking less damage. This is a great trait for an unarmed character. You will benefit from it right from the start.

You don’t want to be in melee range with people shooting at you taking a lot of damage because you need to kill that enemy down kill them as soon as possible. Which this gives you more damage and more damage resistant.

You’ll also notice in the strength line there are the first four I think you’re going to populate a lot

Iron Fists do more damage.

Big leagues do more damage with your melee weapons. In a case for any reason, you need to use a melee.

Armored just to improve your armor. You’re definitely going to take a lot of damage getting yourself into melee/unarmed range, so having the best armor you can is really important.

Blacksmith: How to improve melee weapons. You’re going to need that because you want to optimize your damage output.

The other traits not mentioned are redundant as they all about weapons.

Perception:

It’s recommended to ignore perk line. Perception is all about kind of pickpocketing, Rifleman, awareness, damage resistance in vats, locksmith, demolitions, and so on. Most of them are traits that you won’t use.

The only one that may be used is probably at level 7 is Refractor. It instantly gains 10 energy resistance. As mentioned earlier, you’re going to take damage getting into melee range so maybe you want this trait.

However, to get yourself up to level 7, that’s a lot of points that you need to put into that line so I’d probably ignore it. There are better perks in other lines better than perception for your melee build.

Endurance:

This trait line, you want to set to use level 7. Adamantium Skeleton is far the most useful in this line.

The level 7 Adamantium Skeleton basically your skeletons are fused with indestructible metal. Just like Wolverine, reducing limb damage by 30%.

You’ve got to consider that as you sprint into combat if someone fractures or breaks with your legs that’s it. You’re no longer sprinting so, therefore, you’re going to take more damage.

If someone breaks your arm while you’re punching them then you won’t be able to punch them any longer. The Adamantium trait is really important and probably the only play style the melee place targets this perk is really relevant. You need as much resistance as you can possibly can.

So choose level 7 endurance. The Endurance Training perk increases the amount of health you have. This is going to be important. It also reduces the number of action points that are drained from sprinting which is very important as well.

You want to sprint in and have as many action points as you can in facts to keep so you can punch people a lot.

The very last perks on the line you’ve got Solar Powered, Ghoulish, and Cannibal. These are very passive not particularly useless traits. You could probably use later on in the game.

Level 7 is where you want to put your points. It will definitely save your skin a lot.

The other ones in the lower level one like Toughness, you probably want this as well to increase your damage resistance.

Life Giver increases your overall health. If you’re not putting your point into level seven then you can put points into this perk whenever. Just general buffs up to your character,

Charisma:

Not recommended to put any points in Charisma. There’s literally nothing that is going to directly help you smash down enemies. That is what unarmed character is all about.

There are a lot of passive skills in here like Local Leader.

There are some perks in the Charisma that are useful but it would be later in the game. In the beginning, there is nothing that would improve or at least gives you a great start to your unarmed character.

Intelligence:

The same can be said for Intelligence. There’s nothing really it’s going to directly benefit an unarmed character in the early game.

Nerd Rage perk is really cool and super Op but as yeah he’s there’s no point taking level 10 in intelligence.

Agility:

This is a really important trait line for your unarmed/melee character. So, there are two ways you can play your melee/unarmed character.

You could play barbarian style, just charging straight into battle. You’re just going to bounce into combat sprinting and just punch people relentlessly. In that case, agility isn’t as important for you.

For that style, you want to focus out on endurance and strength more. However, there are things in agility that you do need to consider.

You can ignore Gunslinger, you can ignore Commando, if you’re the charging style melee player then you can ignore Sneak and Sandman.

You shouldn’t ignore Action Boy. Your action points regenerate 25% faster. The unarmed/melee character has such a demand on action points above any other because you are sprinting and then you’re going to vat.

For instance, a sniper, they sneak in they’ve got their action points of maximum and then they start sniping, once the action points are exhausted. They can still carry on sniping because you know that you can just aim down sight and off you shoot.

Whereas an unarmed though you sprint in and therefore when you’re sprinting in your reducing reaction points. You want them to regenerate as fast as possible because once you put an enemy down, you will need to sprint to the next guy. Having your reaction points at the maximum all the time is really important therefore Action Boy at the level 5 Agility skill is going to be really good.

Level 6 it is recommended you get up to from the start. Moving Target; they can’t hurt where they can’t hit gain 25 damages it’s 25 energy distance when sprinting. You become much harder to kill while you’re sprinting into combat.

No need to explain any traits than the ones mentioned for agility. However, the other style of play is you’re sneaky then the ninja perk would be useful. You’re the kung fu master who sneaks into combat and does the one-finger punch death move.

If you’re that guy, then Ninja at level 7 is probably where you want for that extra point. You get 4 times normal damage. If you’re going to sneak attack then this for you. It does insane damage, however, I will suggest that in order to get there.

If you’re playing a game at a significantly high level you’re going to need a lot of points in sneak because sneaking into melee range is virtually impossible. Unless you’ve got lots and lots of points in sneak.

You might want to consider that. you kind of unlock it anyway as you get into in turn Ninja so yes that’s that’s something to consider as well ad Blitz; find the gap and make a tackle! Melee distance is increasing difficulty that’s going to be really useful to you.

You can actually use vats a lot earlier on than you know would but yes that’s level 9 which you probably don’t need straight away.

I’d recommend you get things like moving target and action boy first get those specs. Maybe ninja that can be useful depending on your playstyle.

Luck

Luck is just a general buff in the game.

In lucky, there’s nothing that’s going to directly benefit your unarmed playstyle. I say directly benefit I mean as a tangible increase in your damage output or damage resistance.

Straight away there’s obviously things like Bloody Mess which increases your bonus damage but it doesn’t really matter. You can you can add to this as you want better criticals. Add to this as you want as it depends on what you want to do.

Maybe you want to have a bit more random play style or do you want to try and put more points to that amount and skip it entirely up to you.

Unarmed Weapons

Fallout 4 has a huge weapon arsenal for any build you want. However, for unarmed comes in short. There are about 4 weapons in the entire game that Fallout categorizes it as an unarmed weapon.

Here are the top unarmed weapons you should stick with if you’re planning to stay loyal to the build.

Power Fist

There are multiple locations for the Power Fist can be found. Mid-level merchants carry this weapon. You can buy it from merchants such as Arturo Rodriguez and Cricket.

If you want to get the legendary version, “Furious Power Fist”, then can be found on Swan’s body at Swan’s Pond.

Later in the game, the Power Fist can be found at the Hubris Comics Tower. It should be at the top of the tower.

If you plan to become stronger then weapons modifications are a must.

Puncturing is a mod for the Power Fist. The mod is for armor piercing and upgraded damage. It does add a bit of weight to your character but weight shouldn’t be an issue to an unarmed build.

Heating Coil mod adds energy damage. Another must-have mod especially for the late game.

Going back for to stats, Rooted works really well with the Power Fist due to your lack of movement while punching someone. You should always take advantage of the perk by hitting your enemies while standing.

Iron Fist is another perk that comes in and provides more damage to your Power Fist. The Iron Fist gives you +5 damage output.

If you continue to upgrade your stats, you should deal with a lot more damage if you stick with the power fist.

Deathclaw gauntlet

The Deathclaw is the second best-unarmed weapon in the game. The damage output is insane. For an unarmed build, this weapon is a must in your arsenal.

This Deathclaw is sold by a merchant in level 20. Specifically, they are at Drumlin Diner and sold by Trud.

A quest “The Devil’s Due” gives you the Death gauntlet if you decide to bring back the egg to the nest. The gauntlets should be right next to the nest.

The raiders in Lynn Woods also drop the Deathclaw but it is really rare.

The Deathclaw only has one mod upgrade but a really powerful one. The Extra Claw adds more damage and provides a chance to disarm.

The Boxing Gloves and the Knuckles are low damage unarmed weapons. Yes, you can upgrade them but they can’t be compared to a fully modded Deathclaw and Power Fist. They are not recommended to stick with throughout the game.

Maybe in the early game while you are in the hunt for the Power Fist and the Deathclaw.

Unarmed Armor

Power armor can be used for this build. If you want a good defense then that is the way to go.

The only downturn in power armor is that you cannot use any unarmed weapons.

Otherwise, stick with non-power armor and make sure to upgrade them as much as you can.

Unarmed build in Fallout 4 is extremely difficult. The build requires strategies and skills in order to make the best of it. If you want a challenge then, the unarmed build is the way to go.

The article Best Legendary Armors in Fallout 4 goes over some of the armors that are not power armors that might suit the unarmed play style. Read more to find out what armors might help you out.

If any other strategies or anything to add to this build then leave in the comments below.