I realize that different characters may prefer different manners of dealing death, but what do *you* prefer as a player?

Boom!

Rifles for me. There's things out there I only want to see though a scope, from very far away.

Pow! for me personally.

That is me, too. I do enjoy the sneaky explosions, though. However, I have had bad experiences with mines

Pistols would be number two and third is energy, though they don't seem to have the same "Ooomf!" as projectiles for me, though the piles of goo is cool

I have usually preferred melee in roleplaying games. And so far most of my characters so far have been melee characters. But in my current game I've started to appreciate guns for the first time. I fitted a silencer onto a Walther P99 (FOOK+WMK) and have been having a blast with it. It's great fun to pick off Raiders one at a time, undetected.

I'm also discovering the joys of sniping. I like to snipe outside of VATS. To my amazement, I find I'm not too bad at this. It's enormously satisfying to get a head shot on some enemy who's so far away you can't even hear him scream.