If you're like me you probably ignored Luck on your first playthrough because who wants to hope for random chance to save you?

Well, it might surprise you considering the name but Luck in Fallout 4 is very consistent in its effects. Once you put enough points in to the crit & VATS related abilities you will become a whirlwind of death, constantly refueling your Action Points and Crit Charges while your enemies turn in to dust one by one.

Don't believe me? Allow me to change your mind:

The two early perks (Fortune Finder and Scrounger) might not be the most exciting things in the world but it would be foolish to ignore the benefits of increased ammo drops from containers. Even a single point in Scrounger will solve almost all of your ammo issues for the entire game.

And if that wasn't enough Scrounger also has one more attribute you might like, it increases the chances for fusion cores (yes, PLURAL) to appear in ammo boxes. So if you're a fan of using the Power Armor put a few points in to Scrounger and you'll only have to take it off when going to the toilet... or at least I hope you will.

Bloody mess on the other hand is a fairly mediocre perk. When maxed out it gives you +15% damage and a chance for a killed enemy to start off a chain reaction of explosions which is silly to watch but since it becomes available really late in the game (level 47) so you won't get to enjoy it much.

Next up is the Mysterious Stranger, an excellent perk to take, even if you decide to have it as a one-off. What it does is it occasionally summons a, well, mysterious stranger to help you out if you're shooting at someone with VATS. And when I say he help out I mean kill with a single magnum shot. It doesn't matter who you were targeting or if they were a boss or not, if the stranger shows up your target is gone.

And if you put all 3 points in to Mysterious Stranger (as you should) you will also fairly often get a crit recharge after he dispatches a target allowing you to then instantly kill another unlucky guy, this time by actually getting your own hands dirty.

Chair and lamp not included

Idiot Savant, much like Luck, is one of those things that sound a lot worse than they actually are. You obviously have to sacrifice any and all benefits from Intelligence but you weren't using that nonsense anyway. What you get in return is an impressive boost in experience gain allowing you to power level a character if you are so inclined, simply combine Idiot Savant with the rested exp bonus from sleeping in a bed and watch those perk points roll in.

And now we come to the real powerhouse perks, the crit based ones. First one on the list is Better Criticals, a straightforward perk that increases the damage of your crits. When maxed out it gives you a whopping 2.5x boost to your crit damage ensuring that when you crit someone, they don't get up, ever.

Critical Banker goes hand in hand with Better Criticals. It allows you to store up to 3 critical shots which, as you would imagine, come in quite handy if you ever find yourself ambushed. Oh and if you needed more crits the last level has a chance when you bank crits to give you another crit shot. That's almost as many crits as in this paragraph, which is a lot.

So at this point you might be thinking how in the world are you going to get enough AP to even fire all of those crits in a row? Grim Reaper's Sprint is there to help you out, what it does is it gives you a 15/25/35% chance per kill to restore all of your AP as well as a free crit on level 3. While it won't keep you in VATS forever it will help you avoid an AP bottleneck where you have too many crits stored and no points to fire them with.

Its also worth keeping in mind that even at 25% you will get a full refresh every 4 kills on average which is a perfect number since 3 or less enemies you can handle with your standard AP bar and for any number above odds are you will have a refresh helping you out.

Its good to take pleasure in your work

So at this point you have tons of crit damage, AP regeneration and a bit of crit generation. Its a strong build but it isn't super unfair, so what perks can we really be added to it? How about Four Leaf Clover, a perk that allows you to dish out crits as if they were going out of season. This genuinely might be the most broken perk in Fallout 4.

With each level you gain a better and better chance to fill up your crit meter when firing a shot in VATS, something you will do constantly with a Luck build. Once this perk is leveled up high you will create a self perpetuating cycle of crits. Something the game, to put it lightly, wasn't exactly balanced for.

Finally, there is one more perk but the build doesn't really require it, at this point you have everything you need to completely obliterate anyone that dares oppose you, but its a fun one so you might as well take it.

I am talking about Ricochet, it gives you a chance (depending on how low your HP is) to have an enemy's bullet bounce off a wall with a funny ZING noise and straight back in to their noggin. Its good for a few laughs even if it ends up being rarely needed.

So with all the perks accounted for, what is the end result of a high Luck build? You enter a fight, use up your stored crits, get a couple of kills which refreshes your AP which then allows you to use your newly gained crits from numerous talents to score more kills which get you more AP refreshes which... yeah, I think you get my point.

I hope with this overview of Luck I managed to, if not change your mind, at least open in to the possibility of a Luck run in the future. Its fun, its powerful and its full of hilarious moments, what's not to like.