Better companion perks

[stebbinsd]

Half the companion perks in this game are either nerfed to hell or bordering useless. Hands down, the most pathetic of all companion perks is Nick Valentine's. An extra guess with each terminal hacking minigame is completely pointless, considering A) I can just exit out the terminal when I have only one guess remaining and immediately re-enter, effectively giving me unlimited guesses, and B) even if I don't do that, I only have to wait ten seconds before I can try again.

 

Then there are the heavily nerfed ones like Cait's, Strong's, and Hancocks, which require you to take damage for the perks to even activate! Hancock's is admittedly less suicidal than Cait's or Strong's since you can still keep up to 75% of your max health. But that's like saying that slitting your wrist is less suicidal than jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Strong's perk is almost entirely useless for everyone BUT melee characters!

 

The fact that I had to work so hard to build up my companion affinity should, alone, be enough of a balance. The perks themselves don't need to be balanced; they're the equivalent of quest rewards. The quest alone is the balance.

 

So how about some slightly more useful companion perks for these guys?

 

For Valentine, how about ... damage from robots and synths are reduced by 15%? Like the equivalent of the troubleshooter legendary armor effect, but without taking up an armor slot.

 

For Strong, how about something like that, but with reduced damage from super mutants? The equivalent of a passive "mutant slayer" legendary effect.

 

For Cait and Hancock, their buffs to AP regen and crit filling would just be straight passive buffs ... no health or radiation prerequisites.