Fallout 4 Agility Perks

Stat Benefits and Making Use of AGI Perks

Agility is necessary to make good usage of Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.). Several of its Perks synergize very well with those from Luck and Perception given the role Agility plays in the game. Let's look at what Agility does for your character, show on the map where the Agility Bobblehead can be found, then get into analyzing the effects of its Perks in combat and general sneakiness.

Jump to an Agility Perk! - Just need the Perk ID to cheat, or want to know more about one of the Agility Perks? Click to jump to info about that perk:

• Gunslinger
• Commando
• Sneak
• Mister Sandman
• Action Boy
• Moving Target
• Ninja
• Quick Hands
• Blitz
• Gun Fu

Agility Effects

Action Points
Each Fallout 4 Character starts with 60 AP, +10 for each Agility they have - so by default, Characters will have 70 on up to 160 at 10 AGI. Action Points may also be increased through certain foods and chemicals, and by wearing gear that has been made lighter through armor mods.

Sneaking
Agility has a direct effect on sneaking, but it's somewhat small. So much factors in - your armor weight, movement speed, that it's hardly noticeable until you start taking points in the Sneak Perk. With that, these effects - low weight, slow speed, are multiplied to favor high-Agility. With that Perk, you can eventually move at normal sneak speed without slowing down and worrying less about making sound. This is useful for both Snipers, short-range characters who don't want to eat bullets on their way to fight, and melee users who want to get right up behind their target and assassinate them with Ninja.

Pickpocketing
Another function of Agility is to make Pickpocketing easier. Each point raises the base chance by 1% additively, so something that would be 28% goes to 33% with 5 Agility. The maximum chance to pickpocket is 90%. To truly master the art of Pickpocketing, you'd want Perception's Pickpocket Perk, though I find this ability less useful in this game than, say, Skyrim, mainly due to the fact that we don't get XP for stealing and don't improve in skill by doing it. There are certain situations where it's helpful, when combined with sneaking.

Where to Find the Agility Bobblehead: The Wreck of the FMS Northern Star is in the far southeastern corner of the map.

Agility Perks

This is the list of all Agility Perks in Fallout 4. Every perk starts with a minimum SPECIAL rank, which does not go up with future points in the perk - only the level requirement changes. You will find the Perk ID for the player.addperk cheat, as well. This is useful in order to avoid leveling your character to get perk points, or to remove perks and respec your build with the player.removeperk cheat. In case I've made a typo in any of these, you can find any Perk ID in the cheat menu by typing help perkname 0 - for perks with multiple words, try only one word in the perk name. Expect to see them listed without ranks. You can omit the 00s when using these cheats - start with the first non-zero character to save yourself some typing.

About Gunslinger: For many ranged builds, Pistols will excel at dealing with medium-range trash enemies. This Perk will save your bullets and put an accurate pistol's range in between that of a normal one and a sniper rifle. You get +50% range total between Perk ranks 2 and 3. The ability to disarm without regard to where you hit the enemy, along with the fact that you can sometimes randomly cripple targeted limbs without depleting their HP make this Perk a major winner. It is both a great starter for a player who will later seek to max out Gun Fu, or just for a sniper to have something to deal with hordes of approaching ghouls while using VATS. Be sure to also read up on my guide to VATS AP usage.

About Commando: Read the linked guide to get screenshots of this great perk in action and read a bit more about how it works. It's particularly useful for players who will use automatic weapons while hip-firing them (not aiming or using VATS). It gives a tiny boost to accuracy, but the reduction of spread when hip firing is the big draw, aside from the obvious doubling of the damage of all automatic weapons. You will hit enemies at medium range much more often thanks to tighter spread and dish big damage with each bullet that connects - and they can connect remarkably fast if you mod your weapon right.

About Sneak: The boosts that Agility provides to sneaking are kind of tiny, but will be multiplied by a percentage for each rank you take in the Sneak perk. This means the higher your Agility, the more you will get out of this. Just for sniping, the first rank is helpful if you've got an extreme range on your weapon or a Suppressor installed. This is also amazing for Melee players who will use Blitz - 'teleport' to opponents and smash them for big sneak attack damage, then chop up their friends.

The secondary benefits of this are a nice addition, given the Perk gives less of a boost to sneak at higher ranks. It's worth noting that rank 4 means you do not have to walk slowly any more in order to keep detection down. You can't sprint - don't confuse that with running, which is what your character is doing most of the time when you're playing unless you somehow enjoy walking at the pace of an NPC.

About Mister Sandman: For a ranged sneaking build (sniper or not), Mister Sandman is one of the best Perks out there, but only in combination with Ninja - that perk increases sneak attack damage by a larger amount. Mister Sandman stacks addivitely with Ninja to ultimately increase sneak attack damage to up to 4x - 4.8x if you get Deacon's Cloak and Dagger Perk last as of patch 1.4. Alternate between Ninja and Mister Sandman as you level to get the most damage possible when you're running a sneak build.

About Action Boy/Girl: Use VATS? This is a no-brainer pick if you do. It's a little less useful if all you use your AP for is sprinting. It will stack with other Action Point refresh speeds you have, such as those that come from armor. With Action Boy maxed out, a sniper can be ready to fire a second salvo by the time enemies start moving to search for him, and a melee character will benefit as well. It works better the higher your AP, so high agility characters will want this for big battles. Action Boy/Girl is a solid pick for any build type, even at one point.

About Moving Target: I consider this more a Perk for players who don't care about stealth at all and want to charge in either for melee or to close distance in order to use pistols or automatic weapons. This will be more useful early on, as 50 damage/energy resistance is not much by later in the game. The last rank will let you close big gaps with some AP intact, but the first 2 are probably more important. Obviously, this is also good for fleeing battles you can't win... but why not take a perk that will help you win those battles instead? This is one I will personally take only later when I am trying to max out my character, and it will come late.

About Ninja: The normal sneak attack damage is 2x, so a ranged character will get 25% more total damage out of a sneak attack per point while melee will get 50%, 250%, and 500% - 5x normal sneak attack damage. Three or 4 points into Sneak along with light armor or a suppressor should be considered a requirement for Ninja to be effective at range.

This Perk performs much better for Melee, though Melee will need heavy investment in Sneak and Blitz to make great use of it. Snipers will want the aptly named Sniper Perk from the Perception tree, and possibly Penetration, so that they can score headshots at much longer distances and avoid detection. For a sneaky sniper, obviously consider this Perk - just note that once they are searching for you, you're not getting the sneak attack any more. You need the green indicator to show they've let their guard down.

About Quick Hands: This provides a 25% increase to reload speed at Rank 1 (from 4 to 3 seconds for a minigun). At rank 2, the bonus reload speed isn't increased (I checked to see if it's a hidden benefit). How well Rank 2 performs for you depends on your weapon type of choice. For powerful weapons with low ammo capacities, it's going to help a lot - more so if you are also using a weapon that takes about 4 seconds to reload, like the missile launcher. In that case, it helps immensely as you can only fire one rocket without the Perk (and above average AP), while you could fire two missiles with this Perk. Of course, you could just get the Quad barrel, though there are other weapons that have low capacities I've yet to find for myself, I am sure.

About Blitz: This is an amazing Perk for Melee players, though I couldn't recommend it to anyone else except for specific scenarios related to escape or evading an enemy's range. I loved this Perk so much that I went on to make a guide to it. In short, the increase in range is quite large as the Perk suggests. You can see examples on the page linked in the title of the Perk. Here's the big reason to love Blitz, particularly for sneaky players - you don't have to get so close in order to execute a sneak attack. Additionally, your second target can be further from your first, so you can clear a room full of opponents so long as you have a powerful weapon and select them in a chain that is all within the range of your Blitz rank.

About Gun Fu: This is one of the big draws of a high-Agility build in Fallout 4. Gun Fu is absolutely incredible, but only sees its maximum potential when you're fighting 4 or more foes and have the AP to deliver enough shots to make it worthwhile. The way it works, if you only had 3 targets, you could not trigger the critical hit even if you selected different body parts - it's per enemy, and parts don't matter. That's just a mechanics statement.

What'd happen is, you'd hit that third target for 50% more damage on every shot - so therefore, you should repeatedly hit the third target in that case, until it's dead. If you went back to target #1, it'd take normal, target #2 would take 25%.

For obvious reasons, it works well with low-AP cost weapons that have moderate damage. With Rank 4, you'd be able to crit every enemy beyond the fourth as many times as you want. It keeps track of which was your first, second, and third target so you'd want to hit only new enemies that have not yet been targeted. If something is set to die. Given crits always hit so long as you have at least 1% in VATS, it is worth using those 4th+ target shots to clear distant enemies, even with a pistol.

Agility Builds

Agility is useful in either a Perception-heavy ranged build, or a Strength-heavy melee build. Melee users will want Blitz, badly, in order to do some seriously badass combos and dash around rooms knocking out foes. Either can benefit from the Better Criticals Perk that Luck provides, but players who use Gun Fu will enjoy it most.

Learning about Blitz has me convinced I'll enjoy a Melee build one day, while my current is set on a path with Gunslinger and high Perception. I've always enjoyed sneaky ranged builds, because it's easy to play on a high difficulty and score even better loot to max out my character. I'll make wonderful use of Gun Fu when I get to that, but will also be utilizing Four Leaf Clover and Grim Reaper's Sprint in my own build.

Hopefully some of these mechanics help you figure out which Perks you will want to max out in your own build, since there are so many combinations. With no level cap, there's no real pressure, although there are many utility Perks we need to be truly successful - Blacksmith/Gun Nut and Locksmith, for example, which slow down these dream builds but make them a realistic choice.