The Disciple
Before the Nuka-World DLC was released I was working on a stealthy melee build using Pickman’s Blade. After its release, I ended up reworking the idea because it introduced the perfect faction for stealthy melee builds like my own: The Disciples. While stealth may form a significant portion of the build, don’t let that fool you; it can function just as well outside of stealth. High Strength and Endurance means that it hits hard and can take hits as well as it dishes them out. The crown jewel of this build, however, is Blitz; with it, the Disciple can eviscerate a group of enemies in seconds. Before I go on, however, please note that this build does require the Nuka-World DLC; I’m not going to be presenting a vanilla version here.
SPECIAL
Strength (9): As this is a melee build having a high Strength score is essential for hitting as hard as you can. Be sure to grab the bobblehead here for some extra damage.
Perception (1): More or less irrelevant to the build.
Endurance (7): As this is essentially a pure melee build, you’ll be right in the thick of things whenever you’re not sneaking, so having a lot of health makes it a lot easier. Be sure to grab the bobblehead and put two points on level-ups here so you can get the Solar Powered perk later on.
Charisma (1): The Disciple isn’t exactly the smooth-talking type, preferring to take things by force instead. That being said, you’ll want to perk Lone Wanderer eventually so when that happens just put a point here on a level-up and grab the bobblehead too.
Intelligence (1): I wasn’t planning on ignoring Intelligence this hard but there weren’t any perks I wanted to grab here and I wanted to focus my SPECIAL points elsewhere. Surprisingly, I wasn’t leveling as slowly as I thought I would, though I did grab the bobblehead here to make things go a little faster.
Agility (8): As mentioned earlier, Blitz is essential to this character’s offense so I gave myself just enough Agility to perk after using You’re SPECIAL. I grabbed the bobblehead here too for even more AP.
Luck (1): At character creation I ignored this so that I could focus on other stats. Later on though, I put a total of five points into this on level-ups and got the bobblehead too in order to start incorporating more criticals into my fighting style.
Perks
Listed (roughly) in order of priority. All of them should be maxed out (with the exception of any Far Harbor exclusive ranks) unless indicated otherwise.
Big Leagues: As you might expect, the Disciple uses the Disciples Blade for her weapon of choice; I recommend Throatslicer in particular for its legendary effect (Wounding) but if you find one with an effect you like better then go for it. Regardless, you’ll want to invest into this perk for getting as much damage as you can out of it.
Sneak/Ninja: Standard perks for a stealth playthrough, not much to say here.
Blitz: A great perk well worth the Agility investment, enabling you to close the distance between you and your opponents in an instant.
Blacksmith/Armorer: Upgrading the Disciples Armor to its improved variant requires all four ranks of the Armorer perk and, oddly enough, the second rank of the Blacksmith perk. Furthermore, the best variant of the Disciples Blade (the Cutlass Blade) require all ranks of Blacksmith as well as the aforementioned Big Leagues. Note that you can also get a Cutlass Blade (and with the Instigating legendary effect too) by speaking to Nisha after completing Power Play, so you don’t necessarily need the last rank of Blacksmith; I just went ahead and perked it since I had a point to spare.
Rooted: Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother perking this, since it’s rare that you’ll be standing still, but it applies to VATS as well, meaning that each and every slash of your blade in VATS will get the hefty damage bonus from this perk!
Lone Wanderer: The boosts that this perk provides to the solo player are simply too useful to ignore.
Solar Powered: The big deal here is the strength bonus, which will let you deal extra damage twelve hours of the day. If you don’t mind standing in the sunlight, your rads will be slowly purged and you’ll get some extra health regeneration too. The Endurance bonus is nice as well.
Better Criticals / Critical Banker: In situations where your regular and already quite impressive damage output isn’t enough, these perks will give you an extra edge with your criticals.
Bloody Mess: Perked primarily because it’s very fitting, thematically speaking, for a Disciples build, but the damage boost is quite nice too.
You should be at level 50 once the build is completed.
Gameplay
VATS, and the Blitz perk in particular, is the bread and butter by which the Disciple functions. Sneaking up on a target? Blitz it and get the sneak attack bonus. Just got spotted? Blitz your targets before they can react. Enemy too far away for you to engage? Sprint into blitzing range and take them out. This isn’t to say that you can’t function outside of VATS; your impressive Endurance and good Damage Resistance ensures that you can absorb plenty of bullets when approaching your targets, while your high strength means that your enemies won’t keep shooting for long.
While the focus is almost entirely on melee with this build, you’ll want to keep a gun handy for dealing with targets outside of your blade’s reach, such as wall and ceiling mounted turrets; I recommend Splattercannon for the job, painted in the Disciples colors, of course. Don’t let it distract you from your melee game though; as the Disciples like to say: “Sure, we carry guns, but knives are where it’s at. It’s not fun unless you’re up close and personal.”
Though you may want to claim every area you can for the Disciples, be sure to set one aside for the Pack (I went with Safari Adventure for obvious reasons). The reason for this is because at the climax of the Nuka-World questline, the gang that got the least number of areas will turn on you, and you’ll want the gang in question to be the Operators. Why? Because after completing the questline, you get one perk each from the two surviving raider gangs, and the Pack’s perk (25% more melee/unarmed damage and damage resistance) is much more useful to the Disciple than the Operator’s perk (10% better stealth is the only relevant boost).
To wrap things up, I’d like to talk about roleplay a bit. For me, the problem with making a raider character in Fallout 4 is justifying the transition from a kind, loving family man/woman to, well, a bloodthirsty raider. The rationale I came up with was this. After waking up from cryostasis the Disciple set out to find her son. This path eventually throws her into a confrontation with Kellogg, who tells her point-blank that there’s no way she’s getting her son back. Though she wins the battle she gives in to despair, believing that she’ll never see her son again. Instead of returning to Nick Valentine to discuss what had happened he instead sets off on her own, travelling the Commonwealth without any real purpose. Naturally this means she ends up fighting for her life on more than one occasion, and over time she grows to enjoy the violence and bloodshed, her one and only means at striking back at a world that took everything from her. By the time she encounters Nuka-World, she knows exactly what she wants to do.
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