fallout 76 shotgun builds

Fallout 76 Shotgun Build Ideas – More Power for the Game

Latest posts by Arron Kluz (see all)

A good shotgun build in Fallout 76 can make your character more powerful than nearly anything else in the game. The builds have been so powerful in the past that the developers had to patch the game to fix them.

These Fallout 76 builds were doing so much damage to enemies in a single shot that it would somehow end up healing enemies rather than killing them if they were shot outside of V.A.T.S.

Now that that glitch has been fixed, shotgun builds are back on top as one of the most devastating builds out there for both solo and team players.

Key Info Up Front

Most shotgun builds have a shared core of their perk cards and equipment that is then added on and iterated upon to match the build’s focus and your playstyle.

The core of the following three Fallout 76 Shotgun Build Ideas is:

  • Perk Cards: Shotgunner, Expert Shotgunner, Master Shotgunner, Scattershot, Enforcer, and Taking One For the Team
  • Legendary Prefixes: Bloodied, Anti Armor, Aristocrats, and Vampire
  • Gear: Combat Shotguns, Gauss Shotgun, and Pepper Shaker

Build Description

build description

Running a shotgun build in Fallout 76 is mainly about aggression. Whether your build focuses on keeping your health low or finishing entire encounters from the shadows, it is all about hitting enemies as fast as possible and taking them down with just a shot or two before they can even react. These make the builds great for players who enjoy a faster playstyle or enjoy blowing enemies away with ease.

Of course, these builds do suffer a bit from the close-range limitations of shotguns, so you man run into some problems when dealing with enemies from a great distance. However, this can be dealt with by either using stealth not to be noticed, quickly moving between enemies or having teammates that excel at dealing damage further away.

Team Healing Build

This build focuses on healing friendly players during battle, especially by reviving them. The mobility of a shotgun build makes it very effective for running around during boss fights and encounters to revive or help teammates quickly, while the power of a shotgun also helps keep you a strong combatant on the field at the same time.

This build can be transitioned into another one by swapping out its Charisma perk cards when playing solo. I would heavily recommend only using this build if you have a team with you the vast majority of the time.

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

  • Strength: 14
  • Perception: 3
  • Endurance: 4
  • Charisma: 15
  • Intelligence: 5
  • Agility: 6
  • Luck: 9

For this build, you’ll want to heavily focus on Strength to bolster your damage with shotguns and have Charisma maxed out to help you take care of your teammates.

Beyond those two main attributes, you’ll want to have a decently even spread with an emphasis on Luck to get rid of some of the hindrances that players usually have to deal with, like rads.

Perk Cards

Strength

Image from Fallout wiki

You’ll be equipping five Strength cards in total with all of their ranks maxed out. This will help do your shotgun damage ridiculously high so that you can easily take out enemies standing around a downed teammate or contribute your share of boss damage.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Bandolier 22 2 It makes your ballistic ammo weigh 90% less.
Expert Shotgunner 23 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%.
Master Shotgunner 45 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%.
Scattershot 18 3 It makes shotguns weigh 90% less and lets you reload them 30% faster.
Shotgunner 10 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%. 

Perception

Image from Fallout wiki

For Perception, you’ll only want to take a single perk card but max it out to rank three because it will help make your shotguns a lot more accurate.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Skeet Shooter 10 3 It gives your shotguns excellent accuracy and spread.

Endurance

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For your Endurance perk cards, I recommend taking two to help keep you on your feet as you run around reviving your friends.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Aquaboy 26 1 It stops you from taking rad damage while swimming and lets you breathe underwater.
Chem Fiend 23 3 It makes chems you take last twice as long.

Charisma

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Charisma defines this build as these perk cards that will vastly improve your revives so that nobody else in your team will even want to touch a downed ally.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Bloodsucker 11 3 It makes Bloodpacks satisfy your thirst, keeps you from irradiating, and you heal 150% more than normal.
E.M.T. 9 3 When you revive a player, they get high health regeneration for the next minute.
Healing Hands 28 1 When you revive a player, you heal them of all their rads.
Injector 19 3 When you revive a player, their action point regeneration increases by 18 for 10 minutes.
Quack Surgeon 22 1 Allows you to revive players with liquor.
Spiritual Healer 36 3 You regenerate health more quickly for ten seconds when you revive a player.
Strange in Numbers 42 1 The positive effects of your mutations are 25% stronger if your teammates are mutated too.

Intelligence

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For Intelligence, you’ll want to take one perk and max it out to rank five to get the most out of your crafting and to keep your gun going strong.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Gunsmith 11 5 Your guns break half as slow, and you can craft Tier 5 guns.

Agility

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Your Agility for this build is high enough to grab two perk cards, so you’ll use them to make your shotguns a bit stronger and help keep your armor in good shape.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Enforcer 30 3 It makes your shotguns have a 15% chance to stagger and twice that to cripple limbs.
White Knight 39 3 It makes your armor break 60% slower and makes it cheaper to repair.

Luck

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With a Luck of nine, you’ll be grabbing four perk cards here that will help round out this build and make playing it just a bit easier for you.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Bloody Mess 42 3 Increases your damage by 15% and gives enemies a chance to explode in gore when killed.
Class Freak 46 3 Reduces the negative effects of your Mutations by 75%.
Dry Nurse 23 1 It gives you a 50% chance to keep stimpaks used to revive other players.
Starched Genes 30 2 It stops you from mutating and prevents RadAway from curing mutations.

Legendary Perks

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Once you hit level 50, you’ll start unlocking Legendary Perk slots that will allow you to equip some of the most powerful perk cards in the game. You can get these in any order as you unlock them to cater this build to your playstyle, but I heavily recommend starting with Blood Sacrifice!

  • Blood Sacrifice!: Gives teammates 40 additional Damage Resistance and heals them for 70 hit points over 14 seconds when you die.
  • Far-Flung Fireworks: Gives enemies a 20% chance to explode when you kill them with ranged weapons.
  • Funky Duds: Grants you 200 Poison Damage Resistance when wearing a matching set of armor.
  • Sizzling Style: Gives you 200 Fire Damage Resistance when wearing a matching set of armor.
  • Taking One For The Team: When attacked as part of a team, that enemy takes 40% extra damage from all sources.
  • What Rads?: Heals you for six Rads per second and gives you 300 Rad Resistance.

Mutations

Like all high-level builds in Fallout 76, you’ll also want to carefully obtain a list of mutations for your character to make them even more lethal. These do come with some negatives, but with the Class Freak perk card, these are vastly outweighed by the benefits.

  • Egg Head: Increases your Intelligence by eight and decreases your Strength and Endurance by one.
  • Grounded: Gives you 125 more Energy Resistance but decreases your damage with energy guns by 5%.
  • Herd Mentality: Increases your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. by three while playing in a group but decreases them by one if you’re alone.
  • Scaly Skin: Increases Energy Resistance and Damage by 50, but decreases your Action Points by 13.
  • Speed Demon: Makes you reload faster, increases your movement speed by 25%, and makes your hunger and thirst degrade 63% more quickly.

Equipment

Image from Fallout wiki

The equipment you’ll use for this build will largely depend on what you get as you play. However, suppose you feel like grinding for the optimal gear. In that case, you’ll want to get your hands on a set of Shielded Secret Service for your under armor and focus on decreasing limb damage and increasing resistance for your regular armor.

For your weapon, you can use any shotgun that you prefer, but I recommend the Pump Action Shotgun because it ignores half of your target’s armor, and the last shell has a 25% chance to double its damage.

Bloodied Shotgun Build

Bloodied builds are extremely popular for damage builds regardless of what weapon or equipment it focuses on. However, these builds are very dependent on your equipment, so you’ll have to do a fair amount of grinding to get your hands on exactly what you’re looking for. Using the Bloodied effect also requires you to stay at around 20% health for maximum damage, which tends to be a riskier build.

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

For your attributes, you’ll want to have Strength maximized to increase your damage while spreading out the remainder of your points across the rest of them pretty evenly to get the damage and survivability increases they offer.

  • Strength: 15
  • Perception: 3
  • Endurance: 9
  • Charisma: 7
  • Intelligence: 3
  • Agility: 8
  • Luck: 11

Perk Cards

Strength

Image from Fallout wiki

With your maximized Strength, you’ll be taking five rank three perks. Most of them will increase your shotgun damage to make you as lethal as possible, while the remainder will help keep you on your feet via raising damage resistance since you’ll want to stay at low health.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Barbarian 14 3 It makes each point of Strength you have to add four Damage Resistance up to 80. 
Expert Shotgunner 23 3 Your shotguns deal 20% more damage.
Master Shotgunner 45 3 Your shotguns deal 20% more damage.
Scattershot 18 3 It makes shotguns weigh 90% less and allows you to reload them 30% faster.
Shotgunner 10 3 Your shotguns deal 20% more damage.

Perception

Image from Fallout wiki

Since your Perception is on the low side for this build, you’ll only be taking one maxed-out perk card to help round out your shotguns.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Skeet Shooter 10 3 It makes your shotgun accuracy and spread a lot better.

Endurance

Image from Fallout wiki

For your Endurance perk cards, you’ll be taking ones that raise your damage resistances to keep your health from getting too low but not having so much that you don’t benefit as much from the Bloodied effect.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Fireproof 27 3 You take 47% less damage from explosions and fire.
Ironclad 30 5 While not wearing Power Armor, your Damage and Energy Resistance are increased by 50.
Radicool 38 1 Having higher Rads increases your Strength up to a maximum of five.

Charisma

Image from Fallout wiki

With the moderate Charisma level in this build, you’ll want to use it to round it out for playing alone and with teammates so that you can jump back and forth with ease.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Lone Wanderer 4 4 While playing alone, you take 20% less damage, and your Action Points regenerate 30% faster.
Strange in Numbers 42 1 Your positive mutation effects are 25% stronger while playing in a team with other mutated players.
Tenderizer 46 2 When you hit a target, they take 7% more damage for the next 7 seconds.

Intelligence

Image from Fallout wiki

For Intelligence, you’ll only be taking one perk card that will compound with the Bloodied effect to make you even stronger when you fall especially low on health.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Nerd Rage! 3 46 When you fall below 20% health, you deal 20% more damage, regenerate Action Points 15% faster, and gain 40 Damage Resistance.

Agility

Image from Fallout wiki

You’ll want to use your Agility perk cards to maximize your lethality as much as possible, so you should grab just two maxed out perk cards.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Action Boy 2 3 Your Action Points regenerate 45% faster.
Adrenaline 49 5 Your damage increases by 10% for 30 seconds after each kill. This effect stacks up to 60%, and the timer is refreshed for each kill.

Luck

Image from Fallout wiki

Like most builds, your Luck attribute will be used to round out this build with some extra damage and help mitigate the game’s annoyances, like getting new mutations.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Bloody Mess 42 3 You deal 15% more damage, and enemies have a chance to explode in gore when killed.
Class Freak 46 3 Your mutations’ negative effects are reduced by 75%.
Serendipity 5 3 When you are below 30% health and not wearing Power Armor, you have a 45% chance to ignore damage.
Starched Genes 30 2 Rads no longer will make you mutate, and RadAway will not remove your mutations.

Legendary Perk Cards

Image from Fallout wiki

For your Legendary Perks, you can take just about whichever match with your playstyle the best. However, I do have a few recommendations.

  • Legendary Intelligence: You can take this card if you plan on using an explosive shotgun to take the perk card Demolition Expert, which will increase your explosive damage by 60%.
  • Legendary Agility: You can also take this card to take either Gun Fu (V.A.T.S. swaps target when you kill an enemy, with the three subsequent enemies taking 10%, 20%, and 30% more damage, respectively) or Enforcer (Gives your shotguns a 15% chance to stagger and a 30% chance to cripple limbs).
  • Far-Flung Fireworks: Gives killed enemies a 20% chance to explode.

Mutations

Before you equip the Starched Genes perk card, you’ll want to chase down the mutations that will help this build out the most. These are:

  • Adrenal Reaction: Increases your weapon damage at low hit points and lowers your maximum hit points.
  • Bird Bones: Increases your Agility and Action Points while making you fall slower and decreasing your fall damage, but increases limb damage and decreases Strength.
  • Carnivore: Doubles the benefits of meat but prevents you from eating vegetables and fruits.
  • Eagle Eyes: Increases critical hit damage and Perception while decreasing Strength.
  • Egg Head: Increases your Intelligence but decreases your Strength and Endurance.
  • Electrically Charged: It gives you a chance to shock melee attackers when they hit you, but it also deals some damage to you.
  • Healing Factor: Gives you increased health regeneration but decreases the effects of chems.
  • Marsupial: Makes you jump higher and increase your carry weight, but decreases your Intelligence.
  • Scaly Skin: Increases your damage and Energy Resistance but reduces your Action Points.
  • Speed Demon: Lets you reload faster and move faster while making your hunger and thirst fall more quickly.

Equipment

Image from Fallout wiki

You could take any Bloodied shotgun for this build, but I would widely recommend the Gauss Shotgun. Of course, it needs to be Bloodied to make the majority of this build work, but taking the Gauss Shotgun with both Bloodied and Explosive with the Demolition Expert perk card will give you some insane damage numbers. You can take any set you like the most with the Unyielding trait for the Action Point refresh for your armor.

Stealth Shotgun Build

If you are a player who likes clearing out an entire building of enemies without any of them getting off a single shot, you’ll want to use this stealth build. It will work for just about any activity or encounter in the game, although you may not want to use it in some of the biggest boss fights like Scorch Queens because they can’t be stealthed in.

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

For your attributes, you’ll want a mainly even spread except for using Intelligence as your dump and having Agility nearly maximized. This will keep your build well-rounded enough to adapt to any encounter while also keeping you hidden throughout them.

  • Strength: 9
  • Perception: 5
  • Endurance: 9
  • Charisma: 7
  • Intelligence: 1
  • Agility: 14
  • Luck: 11

Perk Cards

Strength

Image from Fallout wiki

This build keeps your Strength low enough that you’ll only be able to take three maxed-out perk cards, so you’ll want to use them purely to get more damage out of your shotgun.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Expert Shotgunner 23 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%.
Master Shotgunner 45 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%.
Shotgunner 10 3 Increases your shotgun damage by 20%. 

Perception

Image from Fallout wiki

For your Perception perk cards, you’ll want to take two to help you play better at night while also buffing up your shotguns a bit.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Night Eyes 50 2 It gives you night vision while sneaking between 6 pm and 6 am.
Skeet Shooter 10 3 Gives your shotguns greatly improved spread and accuracy.

Endurance

Image from Fallout wiki

You’ll want to use your Endurance perk cards to help you get around the map better to make sure you can always avoid enemy sightlines while also helping keep you up on the rare occasion that enemies spot you.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Adamantium Skeleton 21 3 You no longer take limb damage.
Aquaboy 26 1 You can breathe underwater and don’t take rad damage while swimming.
Ironclad 30 5 When you aren’t wearing a Power Armor, you gain 50 Damage and Energy Resistance.

Charisma

Image from Fallout wiki

For your Charisma perks, you’ll make this build work a bit better when playing on a team, although you may want them to run a stealth build as well. You’ll also use one perk card here to help you finish off any enemies that survive one shot with a quick second one.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Inspirational 2 3 Increases your XP gained by 15% while playing on a team.
Strange in Numbers 42 1 It makes your positive mutation affects 25% stronger if playing with mutated teammates.
Tenderizer 46 3 When you deal damage to an enemy, they take 10% additional damage for the next 10 seconds.

Intelligence

Image from Fallout wiki

With only one point in Intelligence, you won’t have too many options for perk cards here. So, you’ll want to use it for just a small universal benefit.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Scrapper 13 1 You get more components when scrapping weapons and armor.

Agility

Image from Fallout wiki

Agility plays a huge part in this build. You help make you better at stealth and increase your Action Points to make your stealth attacks hit as strongly as possible.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Action Boy 2 2 Your Action Points regenerate 30% faster.
Covert Operative 27 3 Your sneak attacks with ranged weapons deal 250% damage.
Enforcer 30 3 It gives your shotguns a 15% chance to stagger and a 30% chance to cripple limbs.
Escape Artist 35 1 You can sneak to lose enemies, and your stealth isn’t affected by running.
Goat Legs 32 1 You take 40% less fall damage.
Light Footed 38 1 When you are sneaking, you won’t activate floor traps or mines.
Sneak 20 3 It makes you 75% harder to detect while sneaking. 

Luck

Image from Fallout wiki

Your Luck perk cards should be used to round out your build by minimizing the negative effects of mutations and giving you a chance to avoid damage if you start getting hit.

Perk Name Level Required Rank Description
Class Freak 46 3 Decreases the negative effects of mutations by 75%.
Luck of the Draw 14 3 It gives your weapons a chance to repair themselves whenever you hit an enemy.
Serendipity 5 3 It gives you a 45% chance to ignore damage when you fall below 30% health.
Starched Genes 30 2 It prevents you from mutating and stops RadAway from removing mutations.

Legendary Perks

Image from Fallout wiki

Once you hit level 50 and start getting Legendary perk cards, you should grab these in the following order, followed by whatever other ones catch your eye:

  • Master Infiltrator: Auto-unlock skill three terminals and locks. Increases your Lockpick and Hacking skills by three.
  • Follow Through: Increases the damage dealt with enemies by 40% for 10 seconds when you hit them with a ranged stealth attack.

Mutations

Image from Fallout wiki

Before you equip the Starched Genes perk card, ensure that you have all of the mutations you want for this build so that you don’t have to worry about chasing them down anymore or getting ones you don’t want. I recommend taking the following:

  • Chameleon: It makes you invisible in combat if you aren’t wearing armor and stand still.
  • Marsupial: Makes you jump higher and increase your carry weight but decreases your Intelligence.
  • Scaly Skin: Increases your damage and Energy Resistance but reduces your Action Points.
  • Speed Demon: Lets you reload faster and move faster while making your hunger and thirst fall more quickly.

Equipment

Image from Fallout wiki

You’ll want to carry a silenced combat shotgun equipped with a prime receiver and 25% extra damage while aiming for this build. This will help you ignore enemy armor and increase your damage when you sneak up and can take the time to aim your shot. However, you may also want to carry a Gauss Shotgun with you to pull out when you get discovered until you can sneak away again.

Since you can’t wear armor to take advantage of the Chameleon mutation, you’ll want to find a good set of Chinese Stealth Armor for your underarmor. This armor will make you so good at stealth that most enemies won’t even be able to detect you unless they walk right into you.

F.A.Q.s

Question: How do I get the Gauss Shotgun in Fallout 76?

Answer: To get the Gauss Shotgun, you have to craft it at a workbench once you know its plan, which can be bought from Samuel for 500 gold bullion once you get a Settlers reputation of Ally. Once you know the plan, you can also find legendary weapons earned as quest rewards.

Question: Are shotguns good in Fallout 76?

Answer: Yes, if you get a shotgun with solid legendary rolls, they can be some of the undisputedly most powerful guns in the game.

Question: Where can I farm shotguns in Fallout 76?

Answer: To get shotguns, you’ll want to kill a lot of Scorched. To do this, you can either farm kills in Morgantown High School or run through the firebreathers questline.

Conclusion

No matter how you like to play with a shotgun, there is a build that will work well for you in Fallout 76. One of the particularly great things about shotgun builds is that they tend to transition exceptionally well to playing in Power Armor as well, allowing you to take them into the most significant boss fights or as you loot through locations.

They also tend to play very well with teams or solo, helping cut down on swapping out perk cards if you manage to jump back and forth between the two options.

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