Top 5 Amazing Wasteland 3 Builds
If you’re looking for some AMAZING Wasteland 3 builds to help get you started on building your team, this is the guide for you.
If you’re playing Wasteland 3, you’ve probably realized that you need to create several party members to assist you in your journey throughout the post-apocalyptic Colorado wilderness. There are tons of popular builds that people are gravitating toward for good reason.
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The BEST Wasteland 3 Starting Characters
Instead of giving you single individual builds, I’m going to give you a quick overview of 5 AWESOME Wasteland 3 builds that will help you plow through the content from beginning to end.
You’re probably going to be making 4 characters and there are 5 top tier builds here for you, so pick whichever ones you like and customize them however you want.
5. Drunk-Fu Brawler – Wasteland 3 Builds
Let’s kick things off our Wasteland 3 builds with a build that outputs a lot of damage but may require a little more micromanagement than you would like.
What separates Brawling from the other forms of Melee Combat is that once you’ve achieved level 10 Brawling, Brawling attacks only cost 1 AP. Not only that, if you’re capable of making some morally dubious choices, you get (arguably) the best Brawling weapon in the game extremely early, about 1/4th of the way through.
That said, this doesn’t have to be a Brawling build. You can use the same build just fine with Melee Weapons instead of Brawling.
Attributes – Wasteland 3 Builds
What you’re going to want to do is make a character with high Strength, Coordination, Speed and either Intelligence or Luck (I prefer Intelligence). You can sacrifice a little bit of Speed in order to achieve higher Luck if you prefer, but I like the Speed, personally.
Background – Wasteland 3 Builds
For your Background, pick Lethal Weapon (+10% Melee Damage).
Skills
For your skills, in order to maximize your damage you need 10 Brawling, 6 Animal Whisperer and 3 Weird Science, which leaves you with enough Skill Points left over at level 25 to max out another line and another half a line, so you can easily pick up Hard Ass/Kiss Ass and put a few more points in Animal Whisperer.
If you use the Skill Books for the level 10 points in your skills, you can max out Brawling, Animal Whisperer, one of the speech skills and still have enough left over for the 3 in Weird Science.
Here’s why you want these skills in particular.
- Brawling: Self Explanatory
- Animal Whisperer: You can pick up a Stag in Denver, which requires Rank 6 Animal Whisperer. With the Rank 5 Animal Whisperer Perk (Spirit Animal), Stags give you a +20% Melee Damage bonus. They also have a lot of health and do good damage as a pet, so that’s just a nice little bonus.
- Weird Science: 3 Weird Science is required to equip the Exoskeleton Armor. Equipping all 3 pieces increased Melee Damage by +50%
Beyond that, maxing out Animal Whisperer is nice just because it makes your Stag stronger. With the leftover points, you can max Hard Ass/Kiss Ass/Weapon Modding, or whatever else your team needs.
Quirk – Wasteland 3 Builds
For your quirk you’re going to want to pick Way of the Squeezins.
This gives you +50% damage while drunk, but what it doesn’t mention is that almost every form of alcohol you can drink also gives you the Rowdy buff, which increases Melee Damage by 25%.
Equipment
End-game equipment you want is a Power Gauntlet (for Humans), a Plasma Fist (for Robots), the Exoskeleton Armor Set, and whatever utility you like.
Companion Option
If you want to make a companion into this build, the closest you can get is Ironclad Cordite, though he won’t have Drunk-Fu and you’ll probably have to sacrifice Animal Whisperer for Explosives.
4. Serial Killer Science Healer – Wasteland 3 Builds
For the second of our Wasteland 3 Builds, here’s a team support character with First Aid and Leadership that’s also capable of mowing down enemies with ease.
Attributes – Wasteland 3 Builds
For this character, you’re going to want to max out Charisma, Awareness, Intelligence and Coordination in roughly that order.
Even though we’ll be maxing out Weird Science, this character’s main weapon is going to be an energy damage assault rifle.
Background – Wasteland 3 Builds
The Background on this character isn’t that important. I like Bookworm (+5% Experience) and Grease Monkey (+10% damage to machines). Since the screenshots I’m taking for this guide are from a level 24 character being created, there’s no sense in picking up Bookworm, so I decided to go with Grease Monkey.
But you could choose whatever you want, quite honestly. Goat Killer is a pretty good one.
Skills
For your skills you’re going to want to max out Assault Weapons, Weird Science, First Aid and get Leadership to Rank 5+. In order to accomplish this, you’ll need to use the Skill Books for the final ranks of Weird Science and First Aid, or else you’ll have to leave one or two skills at Rank 9.
The reason you want these particular skills is mainly because of the perks.
- Assault Weapons: Trigger Happy grants +3 AP when you kill an enemy
- Weird Science: +30% Energy Damage, Energy Damage increases on targets with high armor (Perk), Energy damage electrocutes enemies
- First Aid: +1 Speed if Ally Downed, +50% Damage after Reviving Ally
Quirk – Wasteland 3 Builds
Serial Killer is the quirk you’re going to want. It functions well with Trigger Happy for +6 AP every round if you’re scoring kills, and you will be.
If you’re using the strongest SMG with the right weapon mods, it’ll cost 3 AP a shot, meaning you’ll get two extra attacks per round purely from Serial Killer and Trigger Happy.
Equipment
For your weapon, the best thing you can get is a Ripper SMG modded to convert to Energy Damage.
You can also use an Atom Smasher if you don’t have a Ripper or if you don’t want to convert your Ripper to Energy Damage. Also, keep in mind you can reduce the Ripper’s AP cost to 3 if you manage to get your hands on a Quickfire Mag.
The reason the Ripper is so good with this build is that every shot gets the flat damage bonus provided by the level 6 Weird Science perk (Microwave Research). You will shred through enemies easily.
Companion Options
If you’re looking to convert a companion into this build, Pizepi is an ideal candidate. You’ll just have to take Nerd Stuff instead of Leadership.
3. Quickdraw Flamethrower – Wasteland 3 Builds
This build may require more finesse to pull off on higher difficulties where Friendly Fire is active, but it shouldn’t be too hard to keep your allies out of the line of fire.
Here is a build that relies on making smart use of the Small Arms “Draw!” Perk, which makes your next attack cost 0 AP after reloading an empty clip.
Because Flamethrowers all have 2 Ammo Capacity, if you mod one with an Advanced Materials Mag, it will have 1 ammo capacity and cost 1 AP to reload. That means Flamethrower attacks with the best Flamethrower will cost 1 AP instead of 5.
Attributes – Wasteland 3 Builds
You want to max out Coordination and Awareness. Beyond that, you could take Strength and Speed up to about 6 each and invest the rest in Intelligence or Luck if you like. In my build I maxed out Strength and Speed and I felt both were a bit excessive.
Background – Wasteland 3 Builds
We’re going for as much +Fire damage as possible, so you’re going to want Disciple of Metal (+15% Fire Damage Bonus).
Skills
For your skills, you want to get Small Arms to 7 for the Draw! Perk. Next, get Big Guns to 7 so you can equip the Incinerator. Then, take Toaster Repair up to 7 to unlock the Heating Element Perk (+25% Fire Damage).
After that, max out Weird Science for the bonus fire damage. Once you’ve done all that, feel free to go back and max out Big Guns for the additional hit chance.
You can spend whatever points are left over however you’d like.
Quirk – Wasteland 3 Builds
Your quirk is going to by Pyromaniac for the additional 25% Fire Damage. No question about it.
Equipment
You’ll be using an Incinerator as your main weapon and a K-Cannon as your sidearm. The K-Cannon is actually pretty nice because it gives you a way to pick off single enemies without wasting your Flamethrower Fuel.
Companion Options
Victory Buchanon would be an ideal candidate for this build if not for his 7 levels in Hard Ass. Because of all the points he has dumped into Hard Ass, you’re not going to be able to max out Weird Science and get Toaster Repair to 7 in any reasonable amount of time. Aside from that, he’s the best you’re going to get. Lucia could also work.
2. S&M Shotgun Leader – Wasteland 3 Builds
This build slaughters enemies and buffs your team while requiring very little point investment. It’s decent enough in the early game, but once you hit the middle part of the game when you get the top tier Shotgun perks and the Jackhammer shotgun, it absolutely wrecks everything.
Start every fight by blowing up 3-5 enemies and giving your whole team a 20% crit boost. Easy.
Attributes – Wasteland 3 Builds
This character is going to be granting the various Leadership buffs to your party so it’s important to get Charisma up to a reasonable level. It’s not terribly important to max it out (though you certainly can), but you should get it decently high.
Aside from that, you’re going to want high Coordination, maximum Awareness and reasonable speed. Strength doesn’t matter because we’re going to take Sadomasochism, so this character’s going to die in one hit no matter what.
A good stat allocation might look like this:
Background – Wasteland 3 Builds
For your background, Goat Killer is the only option. It’s the biggest direct DPS bonus for ranged characters.
Skills
All you need is Small Arms rank 10, Leadership rank 10 and then you’re free to take whatever else you want.
Quirk – Wasteland 3 Builds
For your quirk, I’m going to recommend you take Sadomasochist. I think Serial Killer is technically better by a slight margin, but Sadomasochist will save you some ammo in the long run.
This build also isn’t like the First Aid build where you may want to spend that extra AP on different actions. This character will spend every action point on shooting at enemies.
Equipment
You’re going to want a Jackhammer and a Spectrum Assault Helmet (+12% Crit) or the Commandant’s Helmet (+15% Crit). Beyond that, up to you.
Companion Options
Scotchmo or Lucia would be your best bet if you’re creating a shotgun-oriented character. Either one can perform this role very well. Vic is also a good choice, although you get him so late that you’ll have most likely already settled into your party by then.
1. Death Wish Sniper – Wasteland 3 Builds
In my Quirks Guide, I mentioned that it’s a tough call between making your Sniper a Death Wish Sniper or a Sadomasochist Sniper. The Death Wish Sniper is better for most of the game, but the Sadomasochist Sniper is better at the end of the game.
With that in mind, I think people will get more mileage out of the Death Wish Sniper, because during the portion of the game where it’s stronger, it’s vastly stronger, and that portion is a lot bigger. Still, I’ll leave it to you. The build is the same either way, you just change the quirk.
Remember: Sadomasochist = great early/mid-game, best late game; Death Wish = best early / mid-game, great late game.
Basically what makes the Death Wish Sniper good is that it gets enough AP to attack twice with two super powerful 6 AP sniper shots every round from the beginning of the game onward, as soon as it gets 6 Coordination.
Attributes – Wasteland 3 Builds
Easy. Snipers don’t need speed, so you can max out all of the relevant attack stats: Awareness, Coordination, Intelligence and Luck. Mostly in that order. Max out Awareness, get 6 in Coordination, max out Intelligence and Luck, then go back and finish Coordination.
Background – Wasteland 3 Builds
I realize in the screenshot above that I picked Desert Cat. You don’t want Desert Cat. Desert Cat was a mistake. You want Goat Killer. You want to be pumping out crits as often as possible.
Skills
You want to max out Sniper Rifles and Sneaky Stuff. That’s really all you need. Your sniper gets to be your opener every fight, and it’ll almost guaranteed open with a big fat kill on a beefy high health target.
Quirk – Wasteland 3 Builds
I talked a bit about the quirks above, but I think all things considered Death Wish is the better overall option. Once you get to Aspen and collect the Anabolic Injector Utility (+1 AP), you can just kick your Sniper out and remake it with Sadomasochism instead.
Alternatively, you can give the Injector to someone else and just continue on with the Death Wish sniper. It has no trouble exploding enemies and it has a few AP left over to spend on moving around and marking targets.
I would note that if you decide to give both the Anabolic Injector and the Quickfire Mag to your Death Wish Sniper, it can attack 3 times per round, which is just downright silly.
Equipment
Equipment options aren’t too difficult here, especially because you can’t equip armor. Just equip the strongest sniper rifle you have available. It’s as simple as that.
Companion Options
Your only Sniper companion is Jodie and her skill points are just all over the place. On top of that, she has no quirk and her Background just gives her an extra quick slot. This character should be a beast and Jodie is pretty meh. I’d make your own.
That about covers it when it comes to the Top 5 Amazing Wasteland 3 Builds. 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.
