The Sentinel
Heavy metal music for a heavy metal build.
The name of this build comes from the highest rank the player can achieve in Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4. It's all about big guns, power armor, and more or less VATS-less combat. While Fallout 4 has made non-VATS combat a lot more fun and viable compared to its predecessors I still find myself using it a lot, perhaps even too much, so with this build I thought I’d try to change things up.
SPECIAL
The Sentinel has the most lopsided starting SPECIAL of any character I’ve made thus far: 7 Strength, 8 Endurance, 9 Intelligence, and 1 everywhere else. Since the VATS-related stats (Perception, Agility, and Luck) are essentially nonexistent with this build you’re more or less forced to stick with regular combat.
Strength (7): While the Sentinel doesn’t use melee weapons the boost to carrying capacity that Strength provides is quite helpful. More importantly, several important perks for this build are located here. With the bobblehead, You’re SPECIAL, and a point invested here on a level-up you’ll be able to reach the 10 Strength required for the Pain Train perk.
Perception (1): As this build doesn’t really bother with VATS this isn’t a particularly useful stat. However, Rifleman (one of the most important perks to this build) requires 2 Perception so as soon as you leave Vault 111 and check in with Codsworth you’ll want to go to Concord and pick up the bobblehead there.
Endurance (8): I wanted to make this build an absolute tank so a high endurance score is necessary. Grab the bobblehead and invest a point on a level-up here so you can reach the 10 Endurance required for the Solar Powered perk.
Charisma (1): Like the VATS-related stats, Charisma isn’t particularly necessary for the Sentinel. The low selling / high buying prices aren’t a big issue, the reduced maximum population for settlements is irrelevant to this build, and you can simply pop some Grape Mentats if you absolutely need to persuade someone. However, later on in the playthrough, you’ll want to grab the bobblehead and invest a point on a level-up here so you can reach the 3 Charisma required for the Lone Wanderer perk.
Intelligence (9): As several of the Sentinel’s key perks require a high intelligence score you’ll want to invest a lot here. Aside from that, the increased EXP gain is great. While you don’t need it for any perks I still recommend grabbing the bobblehead here for even more EXP gain.
Agility/Luck (1): Both of these have little to no use outside of VATS so they’re not necessary to the Sentinel. It’s worth noting that you’ll still be able to sprint for a while despite the low AP on account of having a high Endurance score.
Perks
Listed (roughly) in order of priority. All of them should be maxed out (with the exception of any DLC exclusive ranks) unless indicated otherwise.
Nuclear Physicist: As the Sentinel spends a lot of time in Power Armor (surprise) this is an essential perk.
Hacker: The Sentinel is capable of using computers to open all sorts of locks in search of prewar tech.
Rifleman/Heavy Gunner: The Sentinel relies on a combination of energy rifles and heavy weapons to get the job done, the former more so than the latter.
Science/Armorer: Required for many of the weapon/armor mods that the Sentinel uses.
Lone Wanderer: Initially you’ll want to keep Danse around as a companion, but once you start traveling alone you’ll want to pick this perk up.
Medic: As tanky as this build is there will still be times where you run low on health and that’s when this perk proves its worth. Combine it with the Medic Pump power armor mod and you can practically stop worrying about dying altogether.
Pain Train: I love Shield Charge in Skyrim so it’s no surprise that I love this perk too. It’s quite the effective tactic and since you’re in power armor you don’t have to worry about taking a ton of damage while doing it.
Life Giver: A great perk for enhancing the general tankiness of the build.
Solar Powered: The fact that it’s only in effect part of the time is disappointing but getting a boost to two of your primary stats is always nice, as is the added health regeneration. The passive healing of radiation damage is really useful as well; I rarely had to use RadAway because of it.
Steady Aim: While in most cases it’s simple enough matter to look down the sights in order to aim this is still a useful perk for when you have to hip fire.
Adamantium Skeleton: While limb damage is usually negligible in Fallout 4 being able to negate it doesn’t hurt and this perk certainly fits in with the tank theme of the build.
You should be at level 50 once the build is complete.
Equipment
The Sentinel relies on either BOS Combat Armor or BOS T-60 Power Armor for protection depending on the situation. For missions that involve only light combat or simply traveling across the Commonwealth the former is used. For heavy combat missions and clearing out well-defended locations the latter is used. Be sure to take advantage of all of the unique T-60 Power Armor pieces that you can get from the Brotherhood, both those received as quest rewards and those that can be bought from Proctor Teagan. Regardless of which armor you happen to be wearing at the moment you’ll want to wear the BOS Uniform underneath.
Aside from the weapons listed below, I also recommend making use of Vertibird Signal Grenades; air superiority is always helpful.
This is the Sentinel’s primary weapon. The Survivor’s Special comes with the Bloodied legendary effect, which gives a 5% damage boost per every 5% health missing. This works well with the Sentinel’s tankiness, since even at low health he still has plenty of fight left in him. It also synergizes well with the Steadfast BOS Combat Armor chestpiece, which gives 4 additional damage/energy resistance per every 10% health missing.
The Survivor’s Special is good for most situations but you might want to bust out a Gatling Laser (I renamed mine Vindicator, as you can see) for heavy combat. While you might be hesitant to use it as it runs off of the same fusion cores used for your power armor it’s surprisingly ammo-efficient, as you can get 500 shots off a single core and it doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of them to kill an enemy.
Against particularly tough enemies or tight groups of enemies this works particularly well. As the Sentinel doesn’t perk Gun Nut you’ll simply have to get lucky with the weapon mods. Fortunately, you don’t particularly need the Targeting Computer and missile launchers with triple or quadruple barrels aren’t extraordinarily rare at higher levels. I actually managed to buy a quadruple barrel mod from Proctor Teagan, but I don’t know how likely he is to stock it.
While the Sentinel works best in close to mid-range combat he’s entirely capable of long-range combat with this weapon. Something worth noting is that while the Sentinel isn’t ordinarily capable of using VATS effectively, if for whatever reason you absolutely need to you can use Orange Mentats with this weapon to decent effect in VATS, though you won’t be capable of getting many shots off. This will also let you take advantage of the VATS-enhancing effects on some of your unique armor pieces (such as the Commando Helmet or Exemplar’s T-60 Armor).
While I didn’t actually use Righteous Authority (though as you can see I modded it just for kicks) it segues nicely into a point I’d like to make about roleplay. The Sentinel believes in the Brotherhood’s ideals but that doesn’t mean he’s blindly loyal. For example, he helps Virgil cure himself and then later convinces Captain Kells that he’s not a threat during A Loose End. Most importantly, however, he spares Danse’s life during Blind Betrayal. However, since after the completion of that quest traveling with Danse makes the Brotherhood hostile to you you’ll want to part ways with him for good shortly thereafter and pick up the Lone Wanderer perk. Before you finish adventuring with him, however, you’ll want to max out his companion affinity so you can get his companion perk (Know Your Enemy, which boosts damage by 20% against ghouls, super mutants, and synths, a fitting bonus for a Brotherhood of Steel build), something which can only be done after Blind Betrayal. So how does this tie into Righteous Authority? Well, as a parting gift I decided to give it back to him; the Sentinel can’t really take advantage of its legendary effect anyway.
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