A Power Armor is a special type of armor in Fallout 76. The Power Armor chassis is like a vehicle you can enter. You attach armor pieces (legs, arms, torso, and helmet) to that chassis. A Power Armor needs a Fusion Core to function properly and it will drain the core.
Table of Contents
- 1. How to Get In and Out
- 2. Power Armor Comparison
- 3. Best Defensive Power Armor
- 4. Best Utility Power Armor
- 5. The Math Behind Damage Mitigation
- 6. Best Power Armor in Fallout 76
- 7. Useful Perks
- 8. Best Legendary Effects
1. How to Get In and Out
Ok, first things first. You’ve found a Power Armor in the world and you are wondering how you are getting in. Or worse, you’re stuck in one and wondering how to get out.
Getting in: you can select a Power Armor Chassis from your inventory. They can be found in the “Armor” tab. After you’ve selected it you can place it in the world and enter it by pressing your default use key (E on PC).
Getting out: To exit your Power Armor hold the same key (E on PC) pressed for a few seconds. Your character will exit the Power Armor and you can put it back in your inventory (by pressing SPACE on PC). If you don’t collect it yourself it will be collected automatically.
2. Power Armor Comparison
There are 10 different types of Power Armor available in Fallout 76. Each type of Power Armor has strengths and weaknesses. These are all the available Power Armors:
| Power Armor | DR | ER | RR | TRD | Plan Locations | Mod Plan Locations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excavator | 240 | 240 | 360 | Yes | Miner’s Miracle (Quest) | Events & Responders Vendors & Rare Spawns |
| Raider | 340 | 340 | 340 | Yes | Events & Treasure Maps | Events & Raider Vendors & Rare Spawns |
| T-45 | 360 | 360 | 360 | Yes | Events & Treasure Maps | Events & BOS Vendors & Rare Spawns |
| T-60 | 400 | 370 | 410 | Yes | Events & Treasure Maps | Events & BOS Vendors & Rare Spawns |
| X-01 | 400 | 450 | 450 | Yes | Enclave (Officer on Deck Quest) | Enclave Vendors |
| Ultracite | 455 | 400 | 400 | Yes | Belly of the Beast Quest, SBQ | SBQ |
| Strangler Heart * | 455 | 400 | 500 | No | Gold Bullion (Vault 79) | Uses Ultracite PA mods |
| T-51b | 455 | 455 | 310 | Yes | Events & Treasure Maps | Events & BOS Vendors & Rare Spawns |
| T-65 | 565 | 470 | 470 | No | Gold Bullion (Vault 79) | Gold Bullion (Vault 79) |
| Hellcat ** | 436 | 320 | 320 | No | Steel Reign quest | Gold Bullion (Vault 79) |
DR = Damage Resistance, ER = Energy Resistance, RR = Radiation Resistance, TRD = Tradeable, SBQ = Scorchbeast Queen
* Strangler Heart has the unique effect “Adds acid damage to all armed attacks and makes nearby enemies take acid damage.”. This effect was heavily nerfed and is now barely noticeable. Since the Strangler Heart Power Armor is not tradeable, it has become one of the least sought-after Power Armors in Fo76.
** Hellcat provides an additional 12% ballistic damage reduction. This makes the Hellcat stronger against ballistic damage than the T-65.
3. Best Defensive Power Armor
Finding the best Power Armor for your character is more complicated than comparing resistance values. There are multiple “best Power Armors” and the right choice depends on your use case.
But strictly for defenses, the T-65 Power Armor is generally considered the best and most prestigious Power Armor. The downside is, that you’ll need quite a lot of Gold Bullion to buy the plans.
The Hellcat Power Armor is very strong too and provides even more damage reduction against ballistic damage than the T-65. You get the plans for free by playing through the main story quest of Steel Reign.
The T-51b was the best defensive Power Armor before T-65 and Hellcat were introduced. It’s still a very good Power Armor and being tradeable is a huge advantage to some players. Hellcat and T-65 aren’t tradeable, not even between your own characters.
4. Best Utility Power Armor
The Excavator Power Armor has the best utility. A full set of Excavators provides you with an extra 100 lbs of carry weight. Since inventory management is the true endgame of Fallout 76, the Excavator provides the most important utility.
It is tradeable and cheap to repair, too. This makes it easier if you play multiple characters.
5. The Math Behind Damage Mitigation
To find the best Power Armor for your character it is helpful to know, how damage mitigation works in Fo76. There are three key components:
- Damage reduction (%-based reduction) is something different than damage resistance. Damage reduction is not affected by armor penetration in e.g. Daily Ops while anti armor will reduce the effectiveness of damage resistance.
- There are diminishing returns for damage resistance values. Higher resistances values will affect the damage mitigation less and less.
- Each and every Power Armor has a damage reduction of 42% (7% per piece) and radiation damage reduction of 90%. So a big part of the defenses a Power Armor provides isn’t tied to the type of Power Armor you use.
This is the reason why simply comparing damage resistance values between Power Armors can be very misleading. The higher the resistance numbers become, the less difference it will make in-game.
Thehaunted318 did a test and published his results on reddit:
| Damage | Excavator | Raider | T-45 | X-01 | T-60 | Ultracite | T-51 | T-65 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 0,8 | 0,7 | 0,6 | 0,6 | 0,6 | 0,6 | 0,6 | 0,6 |
| 50 | 6,7 | 5,9 | 5,8 | 5,6 | 5,6 | 5,3 | 5,3 | 4,9 |
| 100 | 17,3 | 15,2 | 15 | 14,4 | 14,3 | 13,7 | 13,7 | 12,6 |
| 200 | 44,5 | 39,2 | 38,4 | 37 | 36,9 | 35,3 | 35,3 | 32,5 |
| 300 | 77,4 | 68,1 | 66,8 | 64,4 | 64,2 | 61,4 | 61,3 | 56,7 |
Note: the Hellcat Power Armor wasn’t released at the time he conducted his tests and it was tested without legendary effects on the armor pieces.
If your enemy is doing 100 damage and you’re wearing the Excavator Power Armor, you’ll lose 17.3 health points according to his test. In a T-65 you’ll lose 12.6 health points. This is the range between the highest (560) and lowest (240) damage reduction in-game. Just by looking at the DR values, it doesn’t look like the difference between 560 DR and 240 DR would be so minor.
The YouTuber LoneVaultWanderer did a comparison between Excavator, T-65, and Hellcat. He used a low health build, the mod Emergency Protocols, the legendary perk card Electric Absorption, and non-legendary Power Armor pieces. Multiple level 100 super mutants couldn’t kill him while he was just standing in the middle of them. Because in an optimized build, even the mathematically worst Power Armor is strong enough.
Fallout 76 - The BEST Power Armor? You May Not Believe My Answer...
6. Best Power Armor in Fallout 76
If you consider the base damage reduction of 42% for all Power Armors, legendary effects like Overeaters, optimized builds, and the diminishing returns of damage resistance values, it becomes clear that the resistance values are high enough on all Power Armors.
If you can survive easily in an Excavator Power Armor, there is no reason to use any other Power Armor (besides cosmetics). With some good legendary effects like Overeaters, Sentinel, or enemy-specific effects like Troubleshooters, the mitigation in an Excavator is perfectly fine for all the content.
If you feel like your survivability is not good enough or you just dislike the Excavator, Hellcat or T-65 will be your optimal choice.
7. Useful Perks
There are a few really helpful Perk Cards for Power Armor users.
If you run a heavy gun build the perk Stabilized is a must-have. The perks Dodgy, Ricochet, and Blocker aren’t explicitly for Power Armor users but will improve your survivability quite a bit.
The legendary perk card Electric Absorption is very strong. It can become obsolete if you are able to get optimized legendary effects on your PA pieces. But till then, even rank 1 will do wonders.
You should have Fix It Good and Power Patcher available for repair sessions. Always use Power Smith and a high intelligence loadout if you craft new pieces.
8. Best Legendary Effects
8.1 First Star
Because of how the math behind damage mitigation works, and how much mitigation the Power Armor provides already, legendary effects like Bolstering, Aristocrats, and Vanguards are really weak in practice.
The biggest damage mitigation is provided by enemy-specific prefixes. You can wear a mix or build specific sets for specific occasions:
- Troubleshooter’s for Daily Ops with robots and the Encryptid event.
- Zealot’s for Daily Ops with scorched and Scorchbeast Queen.
- Mutant Slayer’s if you farm e.g. West Tek or Daily Ops with mutants.
- Assassin’s for PvP and Daily Ops with humans like cultists.
- A mix like 2 Troubleshooter’s, 1 Mutant Slayer’s, 1 Zealot’s and 1 Auto Stim for some relaxed questing.
- etc.
The next best effect in terms of protection is Overeater’s. It is very strong but requires you to be well fed and well hydrated. The advantage is that it helps against every enemy type and you don’t need to change your gear.
8.2 Second Star
The second star depends highly on your build. Here are some general guidelines:
- Powered (increase action point refresh speed) is very good. Most PA users will not use V.A.T.S. but Powered allows you to spring more and to use Dodgy more effective. If you have multiple pieces of Powered you could even try to remove Action Boy from your build to free up some points.
- +25 fire resistance and +25 poison resistance is really strong if you don’t use Funky Duds or Sizzling Style. If you have two pieces of resistance you could already try to remove the legendary perk to free up one slot for something else.
- If you use Overeaters as your legendary prefix, reduced hunger and thirst from Glutton is great.
- Hardy provides you with 7% less explosion damage which can be a life saver, literally. But note, that the self damage from explosions was reduced with the update Night of the Moth. If you’re using Hardy because of your own explosive weapons, you should try if it’s still necessary for you.
- +1 Strength is great if you run a melee build.
8.3 Third Star
For the third star Sentinel is the best defensive option. A 75% chance to reduce damage by 15% while standing still is perfect for Power Armor users. Cavalier provides the same damage reduction while sprinting and can be great for Daily Ops.
Note: it is not clear, but very likely, that there is a cap on how much %-wise damage reduction a character can have. So the goal is probably not to reach 5 enemy-specific pieces and 5 Sentinel’s for a Daily Op.
Very good, but depending on your build, are all the weight reduction effects:
- Reduced ammo weight affects all ammo types and can save you up to 8 perk cards, if you use a lot of different ammo types.
- Reduced food/drink/chem weight is great, because it affects both chems and food. the Backpack mods only affect the one or the other.
- Reduced weapon weight reduces the weight of all weapon types. For hybrid builds or builds with a lot of weapons in general, this can make a huge difference.
8.4 Conclusion
Finding the best legendary effects is not only a matter of RNG. It highly depends on your build, the content you play the most, and on how you play it.
A solid mix of different effects can be ideal. Especially if you can combine some of the better legendary effects listed above.
