The BEST Wasteland 3 Companions TIER LIST
Wondering which Wasteland 3 companions deserve a spot on your team? This Wasteland 3 companions guide is just the thing to teach you which companions are worth a spot.
If you’re playing Wasteland 3, you probably know that only 4 of your party’s 6 available slots can be filled with custom characters. For your last two slots, you have to bring along one of the various Wasteland 3 companions.
The Wasteland 3 companions you have available are: Jodie Bell, Marshal Kwon, Lucia Wesson, Scotchmo, Ironclad Cordite, Fishlips, Victory Buchanon, and Pizepi Joren.
This Wasteland 3 companions guide will break down which companions are the best and which ones are the worst by organizing them into tiers.
S Tier – Wasteland 3 Companions
Lucia Wesson
Unlike most other party members, Lucia’s unique background actually helps out significantly. It grants an additional +5% strike rate. If you combine that with Kickboy’s utility, you can get her up to a 40%+ strike rate by the end of the game if you invest in Charisma. If not, her strike rate will still be extremely high.
Like Kwon, you get Lucia early so she doesn’t have too many wasted points. Her points in Survival are… not ideal (survival is not a good skill), but other than that she’s just got Small Arms and Barter, which makes her almost as customizable as Kwon.
There are a number of things you can do with her to make her extremely powerful.
You can take Small Arms up to level 7 for the Draw! Perk and then get her to level 10 Sniper Rifles and use her to fire off the best Sniper Rifle multiple times per round.
You can finish off Small Arms and switch her over to Shotguns and equip her with a Jackhammer, which pretty much takes out whole clumps of enemies by itself.
Or, you can keep her with Pistols and use the +5% strike chance for Pistols perk to launch Strikes almost every turn.
Lucia is also a good candidate for maxing out Leadership since it synergizes well with the bonus strike rate she’ll want from Charisma.
It might not seem like it at first, but Lucia is probably the best of the Wasteland 3 companions, although it requires some extra work.
Scotchmo
Scotchmo is S Tier for mainly one reason: Drunk-Fu + Jackhammer = everything dead. If you don’t have a (better) shotgun user already, Scotchmo is great for hanging onto the Jackhammer. Beyond that, Scotchmo is… well, he’s pretty good actually.
Unfortunately for Scotchmo, you won’t be able to use the Jackhammer, even if you get it early, until much later in the game.
Scotchmo’s points in melee combat are a complete waste, but luckily there are only two of them. Lockpicking is an extremely useful skill, although you’ve probably got a party member with Lockpicking by the time you recruit Scotchmo.
If so, you might want to remake that party member to free up some skill points and leave the lockpicking to your friendly neighborhood hobo.
Sneaky Stuff is not a huge priority but it actually pairs fairly well with shotguns. Shotguns tend to be really good to start off fights with, roughly on par with Sniper Rifles.
A Tier – Wasteland 3 Companions
Marshal Kwon
What’s nice about Kwon is that you get him immediately and he only has a handful of wasted points. Automatic Weapons (particularly SMGs) are good without having to invest in any other skill tree for synergy. He comes with Kiss Ass, which is decent enough since it means you won’t have to include it on any of your created characters.
The main thing that makes Kwon good is not necessarily that he’s particularly great, it’s that he’s not as bad as most of the other companions and you get him early enough to min-max him. His stats aren’t allocated horribly. His skills aren’t allocated horribly.
His unique background trait is nearly useless and he has no quirk, which makes him inferior to a player created character, but other than that he’s just solid. Once you get him a Ripper SMG, he’ll melt enemies.
Out of all of the Wasteland 3 companions, it’s hard to go wrong with Kwon. You get him immediately and he’s extremely good.
Ironclad Cordite
Cordite starts with 9 Brawling, which means if you saved the Skill Book from the Garden of the Gods, he starts with 10 Brawling. Also, if you rush to him, you can get him pretty early so he won’t be underleveled compared to the rest of your team.
Cordite’s build is not horrible and he gets a unique melee attack that hits in a cone. Explosives and Mechanics are both very useful exploration skills that you often won’t have on your regular party members unless you have a skill dump character, and since Cordite has high strength, he can launch his grenades pretty far.
Ironclad Cordite’s unique Background, Warlord, grants +4 Armor, which isn’t particularly strong, but it’s not nothing. Finally, you get (arguably) the best brawling weapon for free around the same time Cordite joins your party, so he’s pretty strong right off the bat.
B Tier – Wasteland 3 Companions
Pizepi Joren
Pizepi is a great character except for two things. Her Coordination is very low, and you get her very late, just like Vic. Also, her unique Background (+25% energy/fire/cold resistance) is just ok.
Aside from that, the skill build she comes with is extremely nice. Automatic Weapons + Weird Science allows you to augment a Ripper with an Energy Damage mod and absolutely melt enemies, thanks to the Microwave Research (which Pizepi already comes with).
As with Vic and Scotchmo, you probably already have someone with Nerd Stuff by the time you reach Pizepi, but you can always re-create that party member.
First Aid rounds out her kit nicely, since you can typically get by just having this skill at level 4 on a single character in order to use Medkits and Med Darts.
If you didn’t get her so late, I’d say Pizepi would belong in A Tier.
Victory Buchanan
The main problem with Victory Buchanan is that, unless you’re playing the game for the 2nd or 3rd time and you’re skipping around in the story, you get him extremely late in the game after a lot of the content has already been completed.
Other than that, he’s a very strong companion who doesn’t have a lot of wasted points. Out of all the companions, his unique Background is probably the best (maybe 2nd best after Lucia), as it grants +5% critical hit chance.
He has points in both Small Arms and Big Guns, which might seem like a waste at first, except that the level 7 Small Arms perk, Draw!, works with all weapons, including big guns.
You can easily have Vic wield the Jackhammer and a Minigun and just plow through content.
His 7 points in Hard Ass aren’t particularly useful since you’re almost guaranteed to have a Hard Ass character already by the time you reach him, but just like with Scotchmo’s Lockpicking, you can always re-create your custom characters to free up points for them while allowing Vic to become your new Hard Ass specialist.
The only things Vic has that are really messed up are his perk selections and his attributes. His attributes aren’t horrible, but they’re far from ideal.
C Tier – Wasteland 3 Companions
Fishlips
There’s just nothing special about Fishlips. His skill points in Armor Modding and Toaster repair are pretty much completely wasted. Just make one throwaway custom character for all of your modding needs, same thing for Toaster Repair unless you want the fire damage perk for a Flamethrower character.
Fishlips’s Attribute allocations are decent enough, and you get him at a fairly low level so you can fix a lot of what seems out of place, like his extremely low coordination.
Fishlips does have a unique Background, Scrapper, that’s pretty good (+0.4x critical damage).
It’s not that Fishlips is terrible. He’s just forgettable and has a ton of totally useless skill point allocations. Also, he eats people. So… there’s that.
D Tier – Wasteland 3 Companions
Jodie Bell
You get Jodie Bell fairly early, so you’d think that she’d be more customizable then other characters, but even coming in at level 6 or so, her skill points are all completely messed up.
To top it off, her unique Background is terrible. It just gives her +1 Quick Slot. Which might seem alright until you realize you can reequip your Quick Slots at any time, even in combat.
Jodie’s attributes aren’t horrible, but that’s about all that’s good about her.
The thing is that her build just isn’t cohesive at all. Mechanics, Animal Whisperer and Sniper Rifles all do absolutely nothing for one another, and it’s difficult for her to specialize in any of them
Also, you’re most likely going to want to make your own Sniper because you’ll want to have Death Wish or Sadomasochist on your Sniper, and Jodie doesn’t have any quirk at all.
Conclusion – Wasteland 3 Companions
To be honest, min-maxing aside, you should pick whichever Wasteland 3 companions you like the most. Since you have 4 player-created characters and most of the companions are imperfect, it’s probably best to just use whoever has the personality that you like the most.
The main thing that really separates these Wasteland 3 companions, when it comes to actually playing the game, is when you get them. Frankly, you’re going to be picking from Kwon, Lucia, Jodie and Scotchmo for most of the game. Cordite and Fishlips come around 1/3rd of the way through and Pizepi/Vic come extremely late.
Since you need a full party with all the exploration skills available, any of the later Wasteland 3 companions you get will require you to rework your team in order to make a place for them.
That about covers it when it comes to The Best Wasteland 3 Companions Tier List. Be sure to check out the Main Page or the Game Guides section for more gaming content, or click here for more content related to Wasteland 3.
