Wasteland 3 Best Builds Guide

Creating characters in Wasteland 3 is now incredibly fun due to a huge variety of skills, quirks, and perks. The cherry on top is attribute distribution, which allows for that last bit of fine-tuning. This guide will provide you with some of the best builds for Wasteland 3 that will fit any kind of playstyle.

Best Wasteland 3 Builds

When coming up with these builds, I was mainly interested in finding the most diverse builds that could fit any team composition. Obviously, Leadership is the best passive skill one could have, as well as First Aid, but I also included a few other options for each of the builds to make them more focused. Consider these builds as blueprints for your own characters, trying various perks and skills as you play.

Sniper Build

A sniper needs extreme precision and high critical damage, as anyone who’s enjoyed the thrill of its sort of high-range combat. This build serves to suit those aims and more.

Goat Killer is the best background for this type of build due to its 5% bonus on critical hit chance.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Sniper Rifles — Increases sniper rifle hit chance up to 30%.
• Sneaky Shit — Increases Reception up to 10% and Initiative up to 40%.

Best Quirk

• Death Wish — Gain up to 3 extra AP.

Best Perks

• Concentration — Increases hit chance by 10%.
• Lights Out — Increases sneak attack damage by 200%.

Assault Rifle Build

Players who want to deal an absurd amount of damage while staying relatively safe should consider an assault rifle build with effective healing and status resistance skills.

Choose the Stoner background for this build in order to increase all status effect resistances by 10%.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Automatic Weapons — Increases assault rifle hit chance by 30%.
• First Aid — Increases healing items effectiveness by 30%.

Best Quirk

• Doomsday Prepper — Increases status effect resistance by 35%.

Best Perks

• Double Tap — The second hit is always a critical hit.
• Trigger Happy — Gives extra 3 AP for a dead enemy once per turn.

Science Weapons Build

Scientists can utilize energy SMGs to a great extent, making them truly formidable.

To boost the speed of your attacks with energy weapons, I recommend choosing the Sex Machine background for this build. This will make all your laser guns and freeze-ray guns so much more efficient.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Weird Science — Directly affects the damage and effects of science weapons.
• Nerd Stuff — Allows you to hack robots and computers, unlock extra dialogue options, and provide additional utility.

Best Quirk

• Pyromaniac — Provides a significant damage boost to energy weapons.

Best Perks

• Conductive Beams — Provides a 10% chance to electrocute enemies, dealing energy damage.
• Heating Element — Increases damage by 25%.

Brawler Build

Brawlers can be deadly with the right combination of attributes and skills.

This build relies heavily on attack speed and critical combo hits. The best background in this case would be Sex Machine because it increases combat speed by 0.2 points.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Brawling — Increases combat speed and brawling weapons hit chance by 30%.
• Leadership — Allows to install weapon mods.

Best Quirk

• Circus Freak — Increases combat speed and critical resistance by 25%.

Best Perks

• Deadly Combo — Doubles the brawling combo critical hit chance.
• Flurry of Blows — All brawling attacks cost -1 AP.

Healer/Medic Build

Healers or medics are essential teammates who will heal and revive allies whenever needed.

This build relies strongly on progressive increase of healing and buffing abilities, which requires the Bookworm background that gives 5% experience bonus.

Attributes

Best Skills 

• First Aid — Allows 100% healing when reviving allies.
• Leadership — Increases field stripping by 100%.

Best Quirk

• Poindexter — Increases bonus skill by 1 every two level ups.

Best Perks

• Physical Therapy — Increases the chance to buff allies when reviving them.
• Overhealing — Increases Consitution by 25% with each healing for 3 turns.

Heavy Weapons Build

Here, you can use a combo of a heavy machine gun and explosives for some blazingly hot action.

Choose the Explodomaniac background since it increases your damage output by 15%.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Big Guns — Increases heavy machine gun hit chance by 30%.
• Explosives — Increases explosive damage by 50%.

Best Quirk

• Pyromaniac — Increases fire and explosive damage by 25%.

Best Perks

• Wide Spread — Increases the firing arc of heavy machine gun by 35%.
• Blast Radius — Increases AoE damage by 40%.

Melee Build

Melee damage can be excruciating in Wasteland 3 when it is given a proper attribute distribution.

This build uses both bladed and blunt weapons, which gain an extra 10% damage with the help of the Lethal Weapon background.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Melee Combat — Increases blunt and bladed weapons hit chance by 30%.
• Explosives — Allows you to disarm land mines and traps.

Best Quirk

• Blunderer — Increases all melee damage by 15%.

Best Perks

• Bloodsport — Increases critical hit chance for stunned and blind enemies.
• Hack’n’Slash — Provides a free bonus attack after two consecutive hits with a bladed weapon.

Flamethrower OP Build

Burning enemies in packs is a lot of fun. Not only is this build fun, it is also extremely powerful.

Select the Disciple of the Metal background in order to increase your flamethrower damage output by 15% and burn everything down in mere seconds.

Attributes

Best Skills

• Toaster Repair — Provides access to Heating Element, which increases fire damage by 25%.
• Big Guns — Increases flamethrower hit chance by 30%.

Best Quirk

• Pyromaniac — Increases fire damage of the flamethrower by 25%.

Best Perks

• Toasty — Inflicts automatic burning status effect to your next enemy.
• Terrorizer — Reduces hit chance of all enemies by 15%.

These were the best builds for Wasteland 3, and keep an eye on GameSkinny for further Wasteland 3 guides on our dedicated hub page.