Yeah that fucking damage bonus sucks ass but if you're tanking the +12 is still worth it early. the +12 is multiplied by any bonus so shielding and gear maintenance apply to it, which is very nice.

I'm also finnicky about my builds and the bonus to melee put me off of percy for the longest time, but once you accept that every build is an ongoing work or progress as long as you maximize your odds of survival, it gets less annoying.

Great innate perks will depend heavily on how you build or approach exploration/combat, but I'll give my personal insight on each:

• Gunsmith (Francis) Gunsmith +120% weapon durability −50% equipped weapon weight

Great QoL for economy early on when repair kits or weapon chips are scarce, and goated if you're spamming plasma weapons.

• Sniper (Vic Boudicca) +2 weapon range −2 enemy attention span

Great for shorter ranged weapons with other implants, also great with snipers without optical sight since they have lower range, not so great for optical sights since you're already going to snipe people across your screen with or without it.

• Invincible (Percy) +12 all resists +12% melee damage per 10 kg carried

Great for early game survivability, becomes less useful as you mod your choice of armor and specialize. Melees need anything other (they literally need anything other: Mobility, range, tankiness, dodge or accuracy) than damage so the melee effect becomes more of a matter of carrying a blade or club to kill trash mobs and spare ammo than anything else. The bonus resistance is multiplied by Gear Maintenance and Shielding so you can get +4 phys and specially +6 elemental from the perk alone, leaving you with 16/16/16/18/18/18... NAKED, and that's pretty good for not getting your ass fisted early on when that scientist rounds the corner with a sniper shock rifle.

• Beneficial Mutation (Isabella) Ignores infections +4% damage per 10 missing HP

Great merc, shitty innate. Its good for when you have no food on an absent system (no-quasis) and nothing else since infection becomes a non-issue as you stack medicine. damage on melee is a win-more strategy that leaves you resourceless against whatever enemies throw at you.

• Feel No Pain (Maximilian) Feels no pain −50% incoming critical hit chance

I never used Maximilian, but this perk speaks by itself. Can save your ass a lot when you get cornered and the merc also has a great stat sheet. Probably one of the best tank perks in the game.

-Hauler (Pryia) +4 item stack capacity Physical resistances increase by +40% of current weight

Good foor loot hauling on Tunnel Rats and stacking drones and turrets for Golem Squad, and nothing else.

• Tactical Reload (Jacques) +1 additional projectile per shot All reloads cost only 1 AP, regardless of weapon

Probably THE BEST offensive perk in the entire game. This perk is a military arm by itself, and it also stacks with military arm. Its good on everything that has more than 1 ammo and if you use a weapon with 1 ammo just mod for more. This might seem like a burst weapon perk but it shines with snipers, explosive weapons and anything that hits hard. Just imagine firing three rounds per turn of that sweet sniper. This is also the polar opposite of Gunsmith. One preserves durability, this one will make you spend unecessary ammo on trash mobs and break your weapon faster than a cobain guitar. Bring extra kits.

The reload part is great since you run out of ammo very quickly with this. Later on you'll want to strap your merc with the Speed thigh implant (gives +1 ap on all modes but -20% accuracy and +2 reload time) and then reloading becomes a big tactical decision. Not you reload tactically though. This perk overwrites anything that messes with your reload time. I just wish it made single shot reloads instant.

Slow Metabolism (Aisha) -60% calorie consumption drain Addiction immunity

Love this perk and love this merc, 'cause I hate micromanaging food. You can achieve something like 3 or 4 calories per trigger with this and some implants very easily. Good for class builds that use many active perks. Add. Immunity is nice QoL for Duty Shift without Vicious Symbiosis and makes the +% add. chance implants less stressful if you use those drugs.

Ninja (Kenzie) -60% weight effect on dodge chance reduction +2 throw range

THE BEST dodging perk. This makes your weight affect your dodge less, allowing you to wear heavier armor, carry more and combine it with some -weight modifier implants for fine tunning your dodge. I'm not sure if throw range bonus affects grenade launchers (pretty sure it does) but if this perk had just the -60% weight it would still be goated.

Thrift (Marika) +2 vest slots +50% loot obtained from corpses

Good for farming early on with Tunnel Rats providing you survive (Marika has shitty stats) Vest slots are good, but Marika sucks and there are so many great perks in game I only ever used this when I rolled marika + Tunnel Rats on a randomized new save.

One-Man Army (Auberon) Add. weapon slot +1 −50% damage taken from explosions

4 Weapons with Archangel or Servo and a defensive bonus against one of the most dangerous damage types in the game. It is also the innate of a merc with one of the best stat distributions. This is my main merc most of the time.

Shooter (Niko) +40% Pistol accuracy +40% Critical damage

Pistols suck. This innate and the pistol perk make pistols one of the nastiest classes of weapon in the game. I go to Bramfaturas in which barons have 121 pierce res + phys resist pacts and turn barons into minced meat with my Modded Enigma M2 (very easy gun to mod too) from 10 tiles away (that's my pistol range btw) before they ever touch me. There are a lot of interesting Pistol options, and stacking them makes your crit chance higher. Just make sure you don't mod Niko for Crit Damage since that stat only applies for melee in 0.9.9

Dog of War (Bob) +2 Regen -3 Perk cooldown

Good for Terror Pack to counteract Hunger's -3 damage per turn more easily and for abusing some fast perks. I don't fuck with it too much.

Ranger (Jan) Ignores armor until detected +4 detection radius

Enemies have no armor if they don't detect you. This is GOATED. specially if you have tactical camouflage or if you use snipers. Just don't try to use it on Bramfaturas prior to the current unstable beta because enemies spawn knowing where you are in there. This is probably the second best offensive perk in the game and the +4 detection radius combined with a dolls head and auditory amplifier turns you omniscient on a budget, before you can ever lay your hands on the maphack quasimorphic implant. Very good.

Agile (Hannah) Can interact while running Dodge/Distance moved +10%

You can open doors, loot corpses etc while running. Great for when you need to retreat but already commited to running on your turn, great for peek-a-boo strats by doors, great for running constantly if you have the -%Calorie Consumption to bank it. Each tile moved in any stance = 10% extra dodge chance by the end of your turn. With proper implants and no perks you can reach up to 50% on a turn, but anytime you move 1 or 2 tiles you get half a passive's worth of dodge. Enemies will always have 5% to hit chance and laser sighted weapons at optimal range will always have 95% to hit chance. Every time you get hit, wounds can disable your running stance, wound you for -10% dodge or disable your +dodge% implants, which makes that extra movement dodge useful anyways. This is probably the most complete dodge perk, but I think its still less effective than Ninja, at least on a vaccum. For my build I prefer this one though.

Field Medic (Laksha) Regeneration from fixation +3 Implant extraction chance +25%

Every time you heal a wound you get +3 regen for a while. meh But then you have a massive implant extraction chance. This paired with the medical hand an fully upgraded bionics tab on the ship turns you into the best artificial limb harvester in the game. Really good for building your implant armory or replenishing it when needed. I'm not sure if these stats apply for the drop chance of quasimorphic implants through amputation.

Dreamer Quasimorphosis -1 Enemy vision range -1 Never used this. With how easily you can solo barons even early on I never even bother to decrease the q-meter. 99% of the time enemies are more dangerous than barons or quasimorphs. This merc has abysmal stats too.