Looks like they have teased out a good number of the perk cards now, so I’ve been putting some thought into my character build. There is a limit to the number of points we get to assign to the SPECIAL attributes (you stop accumulating them at level 50). But perk cards can continue to be unlocked (new ones will likely even be added later). And you can swap perk cards in and out at any time. So the strategy seems to be making your SPECIAL stats only as high as you need them to be to hold the total number of cards you want to carry around with you at a time. For example, (currently) it might not make sense to increase perception higher than 3 since that’s all that’s necessary to unlock Master Pick Lock and you can technically swap those for something else when you aren’t picking a lock.
Going to be interesting to see how this plays out and evolves over time…
I as a general rule don’t want to have less than 5 in a given stat because 5* is the highest any one perks goes. So taking 5 in everything would future proof you against being able to use any single 5* perk that comes out later.
That being said, in a few of my build idea I do only raise Perception to 3 for the very reason you cited. Max lock picking and nothing else beyond that is needed for some builds. There are probably other stats that are similar depending on the build you want to make but it seems to pop up more in PER for me than any other.
perception affects hit chance in vats and enemies showing up on your compass. things like gas masks, hazmat / space helmets lower your perception by 2. So it looks like your vat chance will go up the further away you are. I haven’t verified this yet. Maybe I’ll have to make another character and specialize in perception to see what happens.
Reading some commentary about endurance (and the accompanying HP boost) not being worth taking very high since armor and resistance is more important in combat. Makes me nervous about accidently screwing up my end game.
The thing about Endurance, to me, is the Perks associated with it, not how much or how little of an HP boost it gives. Health regeneration, reduced radiation damage… in the survival aspect of the game that seems more important to me than pure PvP damage numbers since I plan to avoid PvP as much as possible.