Fallout 4: Critical Banker Perk Strategy (2024)

How to Use & Store Criticals

Gameplay Effects & Utility: The Critical Banker Perk is arguably the best in the Luck section of Fallout 4's Perk Tree. While normally you can only store up 1 Critical Hit, Critical Banker allows you to add an extra slot for 'banking' criticals each time you take a rank in it. But there's more! When you've got all 3 ranks of this amazing Perk, you sometimes get an extra Critical when you 'bank' one, meaning you get two for one!

How to Critical: In V.A.T.S. targeting mode, press the indicated button just before your character fires. No specific timing is necessary, it just needs to be pressed when highlighted and before the shot is taken. You have several seconds to do this. When the shot fires, a special indicator will pop up and you'll deal additional damage with that hit. Critical Hits are useful for every type of build. Generally, you can tell how much damage a shot is going to do to an opponent by looking at their health bar, so will know if a crit is necessary to finish them off.

When using this perk with multiple crits stocked, you'll sometimes need to be on the ball and ready to initiate the crit on the second attack. Simply pressing the button over and over will suffice. I have only seen a crit miss once - if you have 0% chance of hitting, such as when a target ducks out of view, you will waste it. There is a Perk in the Perception tree that eliminates enemy cover and allows you to penetrate it as though it doesn't even exist. The synergy of various skills is one of the best parts of character customization in Fallout.

Making best use of Fallout 4's Critical Banker Perk means having a decent Luck stat, but that is a requirement so it's a non-issue. Going beyond 7, however, will make it work even better, as will the Four Leaf Clover Perk, which will let each hit in VATS have a chance to fill the Crit Meter. This second Perk is not necessary to making good use of Critical Banker - you could simply save them up for a dangerous situation in order to disarm or kill an opponent, but it's entirely possible to synergize all these Perks together to make a V.A.T.S. targeting powerhouse that crits every 2-3 hits, and sometimes even gets a full replenishment of their AP (with Grim Reaper's Sprint). Now combine that with the Better Criticals Perk to raise the damage of crit hits that almost never miss, and you're unstoppable by normal opponents. The utility of Critical Banker is easy to overlook based on a simple Perk description, but the destructive damage you can deal with it is obvious when you wield its power with a weapon in which your character has taken damage-boosting perks. Bloody Mess, Lone Wanderer, and one of the weapon-specific perks are highly recommended for a final build.

More AP will help you make maximum use of this Perk, because more hits with high luck is more banking! I prefer a fast-firing weapon, like an automatic or pistol, but a player could certainly make a mess wielding a rifle/shotgun (both benefit from the same perk) to unleash devastating close-range criticals or headshots from great distances. Yes, a sniper who has saved up crits is absolutely sick with this, especially when dealing with human-type enemies that are especially vulnerable to head shots. You can quite literally queue up 4 targets while sneaking and pop each of them in the head sequentially, ensuring your victory in a battle. In case you can't tell, I love this perk and it has many applications.