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Fallout 76 players have many options for how they want to play their characters and tackle the challenges of the Appalachia wasteland. Whether players want to deal with enemies using explosives, a giant hammer, or in a group of friends, there are plenty of options to pick from.
This is standard for the Fallout series, but Fallout 76 gives players even more choices than the series traditionally does through its perk systems and mutations. So, if you’re looking to kill enemies before they can even see you, here are some Fallout 76 sniper build ideas for a sniper build.
Key Info Up Front
- S.P.E.C.I.A.L.: Strength 2, Perception 15, Endurance 1, Charisma 4, Intelligence 5, Agility 15, Luck 14
- Mutations: Marsupial, Eagle Eyes, Adrenal Reaction
- Weapons: Level Rifle
- Armor: Order of Mysteries Set
- Perks: Strong Back, Concentrated Fire, Expert Rifleman, Master Rifleman, Rifleman, Tank Killer, Radicool, Lone Wanderer, Gunsmith, Action Boy, Adrenaline, Covert Operative, Escape Artist, Sneak, Better Criticals, Bloody Mess, Class Freak, Critical Savvy, and Startched Genes
- Legendary Perks: Far-Flung Fireworks, Legendary Perception, Follow Through
Sniper Build Description
Running a sniper build in Fallout 76 is largely what you would expect. Sniper builds focus on staying away from enemies and killing them quickly with a sniper rifle before retaliating.
A strong sniper build will focus primarily on making you as lethal as possible with sniper rifles at the cost of carrying capacity and health.
This means that allowing enemies to get too close to you will always end in a headache, so you’ll likely want to approach encounters with a lot of stealth to take out as many as possible before you gain their attention.
However, this build also has you covered to allow you to still craft to your heart’s content as well as pass Charisma checks while you play through quests.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Stats
When you first start in Fallout 76, you’ll have one point in each of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and you get one point to distribute between them for each level you gain as well. You also can’t reset your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. at any point in the game, so you’ll want to make sure you have your build in mind before you get started.
For this build, we’ll end up with the following spread when you’ve reached all of your points at level 50:
- Strength: 1
- Perception: 15
- Endurance: 1
- Charisma: 4
- Intelligence: 5
- Agility: 15
- Luck: 15
We want our stats to be like this to manage the build’s effectiveness in combat while still allowing you to craft equipment and ammunition, pass charisma checks, and take full advantage of V.A.T.S.
Having maximum Perception will ensure your ranged weapons deal as much damage as possible. Having a higher Agility gives you more Action Points to take advantage of V.A.T.S., and the high Luck will provide you with critical hits in V.A.T.S. more frequently.
As you level up, you can raise your attributes in any order that you wish. However, it is wise to get your Intelligence to five early in your leveling so that you can always craft gear and ammunition to let you keep your sniper running.
Getting your Charisma to four can also be good to do early in your playthrough if you haven’t done the quests before and want to fully roleplay and have its checks as options. Getting these out of the way early is also intelligent as they won’t have as big of an impact when the encounters are easier early on.
Related: Fallout 4 Best Starting Stats
Perks
You will also have to take advantage of Fallout 76’s perk system for this build. Its system works similarly to unlocking trading cards and assembling them in a deck that gives you various benefits and bonuses.
Each card has the requirements of a player level and an associated S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat meeting a prerequisite level.
Once you reach certain levels starting after level 50, you will also unlock Legendary Perk cards that make your character even more powerful and earn mutations from exposing yourself to radiation.
Perk Cards
Your regular perk cards can be swapped out and exchanged at any point, so feel free to play around with them and see what works best for you. This is especially true for the lower level Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, and Charisma perks.
What perks you go with will also be impacted by whether you are playing alone or with others, as many perks only impact teammates, which are useless. However, the below perks for Perception, Agility, and Luck you’ll want to follow to maximize your damage and the efficacy of this build.
Strength
For your Strength, you’ll only be able to equip one card at first rank, but you can pick from any of the following depending on your preferences:
| Perk Name | Level Requirement | Description |
| Bandolier | 22 | It makes ballistic weapon ammo weight 45% less |
| Pack Rat | 7 | Junk items weigh 25% less |
| Strong Back | 26 | Carry ten additional pounds |
| Sturdy Frame | 13 | Your armor weighs 25% less |
| Traveling Pharmacy | 3 | All Chems weigh 30% less |
Perception
For Perception, you’ll want to take the following five perk cards and have all of them set to rank 3 to maximize your damage.
| Perk name | Level Requirement | Description |
| Concentrated Fire | 2 | Allows V.A.T.S. to target enemy limbs and gives bonus accuracy and damage |
| Rifleman | 8 | Non-automatic rifles do 20% additional damage |
| Expert Rifleman | 20 | Non-automatic rifles do 20% other damage |
| Master Rifleman | 42 | Non-automatic rifles do 20% other damage |
| Tank Killer | 30 | Rifles and pistols ignore 36% of enemy armor and have a 9% chance to cause stagger. |
Endurance
For your Endurance perks, you’ll only be taking one card of the first rank. While you can go with any of them, my recommended options are:
| Perk name | Level Requirement | Description |
| Adamantium Skeleton | 21 | Limbs take 30% less damage |
| All Night Long | 41 | Your hunger and thirst grow 20% slower at night |
| Aquaboy/Aquagirl | 26 | You don’t take Rad damage from swimming and can breathe when underwater |
| Cannibal | 15 | Eating humanoid corpses fills your health and hunger |
| Chem Fiend | 23 | Chems you take last 30% longer |
| Ghoulish | 36 | Radiation heals you over time |
| Rejuvenated | 12 | You gain increased benefit from being Well Fed and Well Hydrated |
| Revenant | 32 | You get 25% extra damage for two minutes after being revived |
Charisma
For your charisma perk, you will be able to equip up to four points worth of cards. You can choose any of the perk cards depending on your preferences, but I recommend the following:
| Perk name | Level Requirement | Description |
| Bodyguards | 5 | Gain up to 12 damage and energy resistance for each teammate |
| E.M.T. | 9 | Revived players come back with up to 60 seconds of health regen |
| Happy-Go-Lucky | 17 | Luck is increased by two when under the influence of alcohol |
| Lone Wanderer | 4 | When playing alone, take up to 20% less damage and gain up to 30% action point regen |
| Strange in Numbers | 42 | The positive effects of mutations are 25% stronger if you have mutated teammates. |
Intelligence
You will also be able to equip five points of cards and can personalize what you have to go well with your preferences. The cards that I would recommend considering are:
| Perk name | Level Requirement | Description |
| Expert Hacker | 22 | Gain +1 hacking and get locked out of terminals for less time |
| Gunsmith | 11 | Guns break up to 50% slower |
| Robotics Expert | 48 | Hack enemy robots for up to a 75% chance to pacify it |
| Weapon Artisan | 40 | You can repair weapons up to 200% of maximum condition |
Agility
For your agility perks, you’ll want to equip the following five perks:
| Perk name | Rank | Level Requirement | Description |
| Action Boy | 3 | 2 | Your Action Points are regenerated 45% faster |
| Adrenaline | 5 | 49 | Each kill gives you 10% additional damage for thirty seconds. Effect stacks up to 60% and has its duration refreshed with every kill. |
| Covert Operative | 3 | 27 | Ranged Sneak attacks deal 2.5 times damage |
| Escape Artist | 1 | 35 | Running no longer affects your stealth, and sneaking can cause enemies to lose track of you. |
| Sneak | 3 | 20 | While sneaking, you are 75% more difficult for enemies to detect |
Luck
For your luck perk cards, you should use the following five:
| Perk name | Rank | Level Requirement | Description |
| Better Criticals | 3 | 47 | Your critical hits with V.A.T.S. deal 40% more damage |
| Bloody Mess | 3 | 42 | It can make enemies explode into a bloody mess as well as deal 15% more damage |
| Class Freak | 3 | 46 | The negative consequences of your mutation are 75% less effective |
| Critical Savvy | 3 | 44 | Your critical hits only consume 55% of your critical hits meter |
| Starched Genes | 2 | 30 | Rads will never make you mutate again, and you can use RadAway without curing your mutations. |
Legendary Perks
Once you reach level 50, you will unlock a Legendary Perk slot. You will then open more at levels 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300. There are 26 Legendary Perks available overall, and any of them can work with this build. However, I would recommend the following:
| Perk name | Description |
| Ammo Factory | Produce up to 150% more rounds while crafting ammunition |
| Far-Flung Fireworks | Enemies killed by ranged weapons have up to a 20% chance to explode |
| Follow Through | Damaging an enemy increases the damage they take by up to 40% for 10 seconds. |
Mutations
When you build up too many Rads in your system in Fallout 76, you will mutate, giving you a modifier that can have both negative and positive effects. For this build, you’ll want to get your hands on three mutations.
Marsupial:
This mutation will increase your carry weight by 20 points and increase your jump height. Not only is jumping around the map a lot of fun, but it also will help you get to vantage points and get angles on enemies during encounters. It’s harmful, however, in that it lowers your Intelligence by four points.
Eagle Eyes:
The Eagle Eyes mutation will give you four additional points to Perception and increase your critical damage by 25%. Its negative is four fewer points of Strength, but that attribute plays such a small role in this build that the decrease is entirely negligible.
Adrenal Reaction:
This mutation increases the weapon damage you deal when at low health while lowering your max hit points by 50. This mutation can be paired with a bloody weapon exceptionally well while also helping get you out of any hairy situations you find yourself in.
Gear
The gear you use for this build is mainly up to personal preference. However, there are some weapons and sets of armor that you should consider, especially early on in your playthrough when the gear is less varied.
Weapons
When you first start playing, you’ll likely want to use a Hunting Rifle as they can be found just about anywhere. However, once you get far enough, you’ll want to upgrade to a Lever Rifle for its significantly more significant damage.
Suppose the Lever Rifle isn’t your speed. In that case, however, you can also go with the Handmade Rifle or the Gauss Rifle without having to change this build to accommodate if you find the unique rifle The Dragon that is also a healthy option as it is mighty and can one-shot many weapons.
Eventually, you will also get a sniper rifle with the Legendary Perk Two-Shot. This perk will make your gun shoot two projectiles with each shot, doubling its damage and ensuring that a successful sneak attack should take down nearly everything but bosses with ease.
Armor
The armor sets you to decide to wear again mainly up to your personal preference, but you will have severely limited options because of your low Strength and carrying capacity. However, there are still some standout options.
One of these is the Order of the Mysteries set, which can be earned by completing the faction’s quests at level 25. All of that armor only weighs one pound and should be more than strong enough to cover you until at least level 50.
By then, you’ll start finding unique armor variants that don’t have any weight at all, or you can craft Shrouded armor. If you want to focus primarily on the stealth aspect of this build, you should also consider the Chinese Stealth Armor.
The armor is costly to craft, but it permanently gives you the effect of a stealth boy whenever you crouch, which can be indispensable.
Playstyle
To work effectively, you’ll want to enter every combat encounter in stealth for this sniper build. You should then start by targeting the highest value targets to get them out of the way early before working on the less impactful or intimidating ones.
If you play it well enough, you should be able to clear entire buildings without coming out of stealth, especially with the right gear. However, if you are spotted, you’ll want to make sure to keep your distance as much as possible.
Enemies getting too close can be a big headache for you, but you could carry a rifle without a scope or some other alterations to make it a bit better and hit enemies right in your face just in case things get out of hand.
F.A.Q.s
Question: Are sniper rifle builds well in Fallout 76?
Answer: Yes, sniper rifles are some of the most powerful ranged weapons in the entire game, although they require the player to approach encounters in a very particular way.
Question: Where can I find sniper rifles in Fallout 76?
Answer: You may get lucky enough to have a sniper rifle drop in random loot, but if you need to hunt one down, you’ll want to grind out encounters in Flooded Trainyard, Red Rocket Mega Stop, or Mole Miner Tunnel.
Question: Is there a level cap in Fallout 76?
Answer: There isn’t necessarily a level cap, but you’ll stop getting S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points after level 50. However, leveling past 50 can still unlock Legendary Perk slots and additional perk cards.
Conclusion
This sniper build is only one of many options for approaching a sniper-focused playstyle. If staying back isn’t your style, there are plenty of options that focus on automatic weapons, melee options, unarmed, or even explosives.
And, all of that is without taking into account your suit of power armor. One of the great things about Fallout 76’s perk system is that if you try this build and don’t like it or grow tired of using it, you can always mix things up.