What combat skill is the most useful to you?

[theLeeHarvey]

I've noticed I have a tendency to do that. As I progress through the levels and I start putting points in Melee Weapons for lack of a better place, I start to use a Gladius much more. Mostly just when I feel like messing around.

[LordMufflon]

I mainly use guns because they can be found everywhere and it is easy to find ammo for them, energy weapons are too hard to find and the ammo is too expensive and rare, and they do not have enough damage too make them worthwhile. I have tried to use mods to make them better, but I still end up using the all american and a sniper rifle, instead of the Q35 and YCS/186. energy weapons need a huge boost to be worthwhile. My backup is usually melee they have one huge advantage over ranged weapons, no ammo needed, in the early game it's nice to not waste ammo on worthless enemies like radroaches, bloatflies, mantis nymphs and the like.

[Sarogath]

well a decent guns skill is probably inevitable since projectile weaponry is really that abundant in the wasteland..

 

the character i play right now is specialized in energyweapons (gotta love the plasma spaz perk^^) and melee. i do find melee useful even in early game stages imo its about building your character right if you want high dmg with your melee weapon you will need an appropriately high strength value and you might wanna increase your sneakskill to get that auto-crit when attacking from a hidden position. and i do think melee without sneak as support-skill is quite a bit harder because raiders may see you wielding your 6feet bumper-sword as you run towards them and are very likely to open fire...

i have to admit that i only started to really build for the plasmaweapons when i hit Level10 because of the lovely Q35 - "Matter Modulator" i found. plus the weapon upgrade mods i have installed makes it a perfect one hit kill on a deathclaw when sneaking (or a whole pack of deathclaws that is xD). so there's no lack of power for energyweapons in my game. i do feel a bit OP sometimes but then again i'm Level30 and i dont wanna fight for my life everytime i stumble upon a single blind deathclaw...

for melee my choice is "Knock-Knock" -> killed the deathclawqueen in the quarry with 3 hits straight (fully amped up chems. big fun a must try^^)

 

cheers

[Rossum]

Most of my characters tend to use energy weapons due to them just looking cooler and the existence of the recharger guns (might not be the most powerful but hey, unlimited ammo is always welcome).

 

Oh, I've also got an unarmed character going who completed Dead Money pretty easy by just smashing Ghosts in the face. All the characters kept talking about how Ghosts were tough but that sounded funny after my character kept exploding their heads with his huge fists (that guy also had low intelligence for the dialog so he was like a "Hulk SMASH!" kind of guy... though his name was Bark).

 

Though I'm not above putting 50 points into Melee just so I can use the 9-Iron and smashing opponents in the nuts.

 

 

But to be fair the only character I stuck with long enough to finish the game with used guns. So I kind of use all kins of combat skills, but I think energy weapons are the coolest.

[ALatchley]

Guns, then melee. I became a believer in melee when my character used the unique attack of the chainsaw on the Legate. Insane amounts of damage.

[MadMann135]

Guns plain and simple.

Energy weapons were officially nerfed (actually de-nerfed a bit with the damage threshold -2 for standard ammo) and in short rare. With a good conventional weapon and good aiming (OK the gun does not have to be that good but you get the idea) a player can cause some serious damage. Energy weapons and explosives are more operation specific skills and do not get used much by me.

 

Next fallout title I think unarmed and melee weapons should be merged as they are in short the same thing, close combat fighting.

 

Energy weapons are expensive for what they can do. Here is a quick demonstration of the expensiveness.

1 microfusion cell cost 3 caps and weighs 0.1, 1 5.56 round cost 1 cap and weighs .026.

For single use Microfusion capability: In the laser rifle the Microfusion cell does 22 damage and -2 damage threshold. The Q-35 matter modulator does 40 damage, - 2 damage threshold and is slow. the holorifle does 80 damage -2 DT and has the slowest projectile of the three. (In this comparison the laser rifle should do 28-30 damage in order to be useful). The microfusion cell is used by Fiends the Vangrafs, and the Brotherhood of Steel ...Fiends already hate you, Brotherhood are xenophobic but can learn to trust you and the Vangrafs are a gang that will turn on you if you side with Cass. BUG: the Brotherhood store does not keep it's expanded inventory., once it refreshes the expanded inventory is no more. The microfusion cell is also sold by all sellers (well most) but with a low spawn chance.

 

The 5.56 can do between 18 and 26 damage depending on the weapon, Cap per damage the 5.56 wins, Damage per unit the microfusion cell wins. Everything else wise the 5.56 wins, it is used by all factions and in 4 guns NPC's use against you (7 if you guns total) which means free spare parts and lots of ammo. The projectile is fast (not instantaneous as the laser rifle), it may not be the strongest but it is one of the most plentiful.