Highlights
- Melee builds in Fallout 76 received a nerf with the recent change that prevents stacking food melee buffs, which many players are frustrated with.
- The new melee buffs in Fallout 76, such as the "light" and "tasty" versions, offer weaker or stronger buffs with different crafting material requirements.
- This change to melee buffs could be a sign of similar reworks for other popular builds, such as VATS builds, in the future.
In a recent change to Fallout 76, melee builds received a rework that many players feel is a nerf. Specifically, food melee buffs in Fallout 76 can no longer be stacked together. However, there are new melee buffs available to help balance this out. The preexisting melee buffs are still available, but there are now “light” and “tasty” versions of these same buffs. The light versions offer weaker buffs at the convenience of requiring fewer crafting materials, while the tasty versions offer the strongest buffs available and require a significantly increased amount of crafting materials.
Given how some of the other popular builds in Fallout 76 rely on temporary buffs just as much as melee builds, these other builds could be getting this same rework in the near future. One type of build in particular that is highly susceptible to receiving this same treatment is VATS builds in Fallout 76.
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Fallout 76’s Recent Changes to Melee Buffs Explained
Some of the popular melee buffs that have become a big talking point in the game’s community are the recipes that require meat from Yao Guais in Fallout 76. There are only a handful of Yao Guais in Fallout 76 and they each generally drop one to two meats, so the fact that the new Tasty Yao Guai Roast melee buff requires twelve meats has left many players frustrated. Because of this recent change, most of the tasty melee buffs generally aren’t viable to craft, which is unfortunate considering that these replaced the strongest buffs for melee builds.
Melee builds are generally outperformed by plenty of other meta builds in Fallout 76 , and now with the increased cost of crafting melee buffs, many players feel that this change isn’t balanced.
For the most part, melee builds in Fallout 76 arguably rely on the temporary buffs provided by consumables to be effective throughout late-game content. There are a few particularly powerful melee weapons in Fallout 76 that can be special exceptions, but these can be extremely rare to obtain.
Since consumable buffs are so vital for melee builds in Fallout 76, the recent change to how melee buffs can be crafted is a massive nerf. Melee builds are generally outperformed by plenty of other meta builds in Fallout 76, and now with the increased cost of crafting melee buffs, many players feel that this change isn’t balanced. Regardless, Bethesda seems to be unbothered by the community’s negative reaction to this change, which could very well pave the way for other builds to receive a similar rework.
Why Fallout 76’s VATS Critical-Hit Builds Could Be Getting a Nerf Soon
While there are buffs specific to increasing the damage of VATS builds, the damage for this kind of build generally comes from perks in Fallout 76 that affect critical hits. However, these builds still rely on a special type of consumable buffs.
Since using VATS in Fallout 76 will drain the player’s Action Points, this is where the consumable buffs for this build come into play, by improving the rate at which the player's AP regenerates. For certain weapons, it’s possible to stack enough AP regeneration buffs that will almost entirely prevent the player’s AP from depleting, meaning that players can consistently trigger critical hits for a sustained duration. Given how this kind of build heavily benefits from stacking buffs, it would be a severe nerf if this type of buff would no longer stack.
