Atomic!¶

With the Atomic! perk, you are 25% faster and strong whenever you are basking in the warm glow of radiation. Outside irradiated areas, your Action Points (AP) regenerate faster and faster the higher your level of radiation sickness becomes.

Since you should generally try to avoid getting irradiated, these perks should have very low appeal to you. Nerves of Steel regenerates your Action Points faster all the time, and as for the hot-zone bonuses… well, radiation isn’t as common as you might think and most fights will take place outside of irradiated areas, so why bother?

Explorer¶

When you choose the Explorer perk, every location in the world is revealed on your map. So get out there and explore!

You can find all the areas on the map by yourself. You even get little icons that will guide you to them when you’re close. Along the way, you’ll get to explore the wasteland, which is the meat of the game. You’ll find skill books, get experience, and find loot. Also, it must be noted that this perk doesn’t make your character stronger in any way. Download a world map and search for places yourself, save yourself a perk.

Eye For Eye¶

For each crippled limb you have, you do an additional 10% damage.

A flat 10% damage bonus is pretty nice, and with Small Frame you may find yourself somewhat prone to having crippled limbs. Still, it’s something you sould generally try to avoid, and the slow movement from having crippled legs, the loss of accuracy from crippled arms, and the loss of vision from having a crippled head offset the damage bonus somewhat. Plus, some of the better perks in “Old World Blues” make your head and torso immune to crippling, reducing the potential of this perk by a great bit.

Grim Reapers Sprint¶

If you kill a target in V.A.T.S., 20 Action Points are restored upon exiting V.A.T.S.

V.A.T.S. has been reduced in this game, and so has Grim Reaper’s Sprint. Still, it’s not abysmal. In the grand scheme of things it’s better to take fewer, safer, smarter shots in V.A.T.S. With this perk you can finish off an enemy in V.A.T.S. and recharge your AP a bit. You’ll do most of your fighting outside of V.A.T.S., certainly, but popping an enemy in the head with a Brush Gun at the right time can be a very effective way to exterminate threats and thin the crowd… and with Grim Reaper’s Sprint you can manage to do this somewhat often.

Mile in Their Shoes¶

You have come to understand Nightstalkers. Consuming Nighstalker Squeezin’s now grants bonuses to Perception (+1 PER), Poison Resistance (+5) and stealth (+5 Sneak) in addition to the normal benefits.

Night Stalkers are uncommon outside of the the ‘Old World Blues’ DLC, so having a constant supply of… heh… Squeezin’s… is probably not going to be likely. Also, Perception isn’t great, Poison Resistance is useless (due to the Cardiac Arrest/Heartless perks), and you should be able to max your Sneak skill, making the… heh… Squeezin’s… redundant in any case.

Ninja¶

The Ninja perk grants you the power of the fabled shadow warriors. When attacking with either Melee or Unarmed, you gain a +15% critical chance on every strike. Sneak attack criticals do 25% more damage than normal.

This perk seems like it’s golden if you look at what it promises… However, it only really shines if you’re a melee character, whether Unarmed or Melee Weapons, as the sneak attack critical damage only works for melee attacks. In Fallout 3, this was great (even if the critical hit rate is buggy) but in New Vegas… it’s very hard to sneak up on something to be able to attack it in melee. As for the bug mentioned earlier-according to contributors (and confirmed by the wiki), the +15% critical chance isn’t added to your base critical hit chance, instead what you get is a 1.15 multiplier to your current critical hit chance. So, with a critical hit chance of 20% (say 10 Luck, Finesse, and Light Touch, not counting any V.A.T.S. or weapons bonuses) you’d end up with a 23% critical chance with this perk-not nearly as good as the promised +15%. While it aspires to be an epic perk, it just falls laughably short.

Solar Powered¶

With the Solar Powered perk, you gain an additional 2 points to Strength when in direct sunlight, and slowly regenerate lost Health.

As tempting as two points of Strength are, you’re probably better off with two points all the time from Weapon Handling. As for the regeneration… just buy the Monocyte Breeder Implant.

Thems Good Eatin¶

Alright, first off, if you’re not playing in Hardcore mode, ignore this perk. You have Stimpaks, you don’t need it. Now that that’s out of the way… this perk is actually fairly interesting for Hardcore gamers. The drop rates are fairly generous-it says 50%, but there’s a chance that enemies will drop two or three of one of the items, and the healing from both items is pretty damn significant-for Blood Sausage it’s HP +15(20s) and for Thin Red Paste it’s HP +7(30s). Compare that to a Stimpak’s HP +15(6s) and… well… it’s pretty good healing, even if you have to wait a bit to get the full effects (which you’ll be used to doing in Hardcore mode anyways). The end result? If you’re not completely incompetent at combat and fighting living creatures, there’s a good chance you’ll get full-healing after each fight. These items can also be used as crafting components to make even more powerful healing items, but other components aren’t as easy to get, so you should feel just fine using them as you find them. They also sell for a good bit-125 Caps for the Thin Red Paste and 175 Caps for the Blood Sausage, although money is never a good reason to select a perk. Overall? It’s an interesting and often useful healing perk for Hardcore players, although with a high Medicine score you’ll do just fine with Stimpaks-especially by level 20, when you can finally get this perk.