Original Thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1395065-energy-weapon-critical-build/

(Energy Weapons hardcoe Critical Specialist)

This build is one of the most overpowered setups you can have, although it will not reach its full potential until level 50. Energy ammo is difficult to come by because it has a higher scarcity than finding bullets, and it is a lot more expensive. Keep in mind that this build assumes that you can gain access to a decent amount of implants and DLC perks to mitigate your need for S.P.E.C.I.A.L. This build has nothing to do with VATS. I hate VATS myself, so there are no perks in this build that will aid with using VATS. Bottom line is, you're trying to get as much critical chance as possible.

At first, you need to prioritize your play-style. Implants are there and available, but you don’t want to use them as crutches. They are luxuries for boosting S.P.E.C.I.A.L at high level. Skills, with the appropriate amount of intelligence, combined with either comprehension or Educated can all reach 100 by the time you’re level 50 if you collect skill books. However, you are going to also need to prioritize skills. Let’s go over SPECIAL first.

Strength: For this build, you don’t want to bother with it very much until higher level. The maximum strength you should be picking up is 6-or-7. Weapon Handling is a necessity for just about any player that prefers not stacking strength, because having to increase STR to 8 to use specific weapons will weigh down the other options for SPECIAL. Perks such as Reinforced Spine, Spineless, and/or an Implant will get you more than enough of this. However, some players (especially on hardcoe) like to get a decently high strength to have more carry weight, and opening up a perk-spot instead of using Weapon Handling. Starting Amount: 5 or 6

Perception: Energy Weapons users drool over this. However, the main purpose of PER for this sort of build is to give access to perks. The enemy viewing distance is only a luxury, and not vital to someone’s play-style. Considering that every other S.P.E.C.I.A.L will increase a few skills, PER is only going to be useful in the short-term. Starting Amount: 6

Endurance: This is the essence of surviving low levels on Very Hard. It increases Health, and other necessities such as Survival. This is not the only benefit you will receive from END. The amount of END you have numbers the amount of implants you can receive. There are 9 implants total. All eight other implants are useful, and having a high END is a good way to make your character tough enough to survive Very Hard. Starting Amount: 8

Charisma: One word: Nope. This SPECIAL has the least to offer considering it only boosts two skills (you won’t need either of these skills until higher levels). Companion nerve is not as useful as it might come across. Considering you’re on hardcoe, you’re in an environment that can easily kill cocky followers. “Meltdown!” can easily kill followers in close range as well, so most of the time you’re probably going to have your followers on “passive” mode. Starting Amount: 1

Intelligence: This is an interesting SPECIAL because Intelligence all depends on preference. It’s going to increase three skills, like most of the other SPECIALs, and it also factors into how many skill points you get per-level. On a short term, INT is terrible. A few points placed into INT will not make a damn bit of difference for about twenty levels. It’s at high levels where you’ll really understand the magnitude of how much a single point of INT can make a difference. Not to mention, there are quite a few dialogue checks that will require a decent amount of INT. That’s why you need to get an implant for this when possible. Starting Amount: 5

Agility: The usefulness of Agility is similar to Perception. Many useful perks are going to require a decent amount of AGL (6-or-7). However, the effects of Agility are better-and-worse than Perception. The skill points that you can from Agility are Guns and Sneak. One-of-which will not be useful (guns, considering that you’re using Energy Weapons). However, Agility noticeably increases draw and reload speed. This is something that can be overlooked. The latter is more useful than the former, but speed is essential for getting out of a tight situation. Starting Amount: 6 or 7

Luck: The essence of this build. Everything about Luck screams “awesome”. The main reason that LCK is useful is the critical. One point of LCK equals one percent to score a critical (1%). That is the main reason why LCK is useful. The standard is going to be five-percent chance to score a critical (5%), but by the time you’re at ten LCK (which must happen for this build by the time you’re at the endgame), you will have ten-percent chance to score a critical simply from LCK (10%). On top of the critical chance, Luck will slightly increase every skill. You gain one skill point for each skill for every two points of Luck. The last bonus, one that is overlooked, is enemy mishaps. Enemies will aim their sights slightly higher. They have more of a chance of bouncing a grenade off a nearby car and killing themselves. Enemies have more of a chance to distance themselves too far to hit you with a melee swing. This list can go on forever, but I’ll end at that point. Oh, and Luck makes it much easier to gamble. Starting Amount: 8

1. Built to Destroy and Fast Shot

2. Built to Destroy and Wild Wasteland

In all honesty, the only reason why you would ever want to drop Fast Shot is to pick up Wild Wasteland, and there is nothing really wrong with this, as Wild Wasteland adds a load of content to the game, which far outweighs the consequence of not obtaining it. However, if you choose Wild Wasteland, you need to understand the consequence. It removes the YCS/186. Therefore, a Gauss Rifle or Tesla Cannon will probably serve as your sniper weapon.

In short: If you want maximum output, go with Fast Shot, although you'll most likely want Wild Wasteland if you're looking for more content.

The Bear Necessities Part One (Prioritizing Skills):

You need to tag these three:

Energy Weapons

Repair

Survival

These are going to be the three most helpful skills. Energy Weapons will increase the amount of DAM that an Energy Weapon will score. Not to mention, Energy Weapons always have a required skill to be effective. For example, a Gatling Laser cannot be effectively fired with an Energy Weapon skill of 25. The gun will not be able to aim properly, and sway from side-to-side. You need to pick up repair, simply because projectile weapons degrade like there’s no tomorrow. While Weapon Repair kits are out there, and you will receive almost an infinite supply of them after Dead Money, Repair is still a must. Jury Rigging requires 90 repair by the time you’re level 14, so you need to get busy with that skill early. Survival is the most important out of the three. Survival will increase the effectiveness of food-and-drink, so it will increase the amount of H20 and FOD you gain from eating and drinking consumable items. This is an absolute must for hardcoe mode, especially if you have a habit of waiting and/or fast travelling.

Increase these evenly as you level up:

Science (even though it’s not tagged, get it to 70 before level 18)

Lockpick

Sneak

Speech

All four of these need to be at 100 by the time you hit level forty. That’s a very easy goal unless your INT is lower than five.

Other necessities:

Barter: 70 for Pack Rat.

Guns: 30 for Rapid Reload.

Don't come crying to this thread about how you couldn't satisfy the "90 repair" requirement for Jury Rigging, or the "90 energy weapons" requirement for Meltdown, etc. If, by those levels, you aren't near 100 with your tag skills, you aren't utilizing your stat prioritization correctly. Same goes for any builds. Scatter some points for the minor stuff like sneak and speech here and there, but make sure that you get your tag skills up quickly.

1. Luck. This is a no-brainer.

2. Agility. Perk Access

3. Strength. To reach 6, so you can meet the highest weapon requirement with Weapon Handling activated. If you add the Reinforced Spine perk to this, you don’t need Weapon Handling.

4. Perception, because it's better than the alternatives.

5. Intelligence. Extra skill points are always good.

6. Endurance. 20 Health is a good way to polish your health, especially considering it's 2/3 of the health bonus that comes from Life Giver.

7. Charisma. I would recommend just holding this off until you’re a polished level 50. This won’t have very much use until you have so much money that you can’t spend it.

Insert Monocyte Breeder and Sub-Dermal Implant anywhere after #2, when you can afford them.

Use Bear-Slayer/Scourge of the East/Divide Survivor/Dead Man's Burden (a.k.a Lonesome Road final perk) for a point to intelligence. By the time you reach this DLC, you will already have luck at 10 due to an implant and intense training. You need this last point of intelligence, along with the intelligence implant, to be able to access Voracious Reader.

Meltdown (or some kind of other AOE benefit perk such as Demolition Expert)

Better Criticals

Finesse

Jury Rigging

Laser Commander

Them’s Good Eatin'

Vigilant Recycler

Comprehension

Just Lucky I’m Alive!

Pack Rat

Implant Y-7 (OWB Implant)

Voracious Reader (pair this with Retention for maximum efficiency from True Police Stories)

Set Lasers For Fun (Unlocked)

Strong Back (Ranks 1+2)

Light Touch (if you’re using Light Armor)

Travel Light (if you’re using Light Armor)

Lord Death (Unlocked)

Weapon Handling (If you decide to choose Reinforced Spine as opposed to Spineless, drop this perk.)

Chem Resistant (if you choose to use chems)

Other Passive Perk Benefits:

Day Tripper

Fast Times

Camel of the Mojave

Bug Stomper

Abominable

Animal Control

Machine Head

Free Radical

Tough Guy

This is my perk method for each level, and I highly recommend it, although you can plug in whatever perks you wish to use that fits your play-style.

2. Lady Killer or Confirmed Bachelor

4. Comprehension

6. Intense Training: Luck

8. Strong Back

10. Finesse

12. Preference

14. Jury Rigging

16. Better Criticals

18. Vigilant Recycler

20. Them’s Good Eatin’

22. Laser Commander

24. Meltdown (Pyromaniac or Demolition Expert [paired with explosives] as possible AoE alternatives)

26. Rapid Reload

28. Chemist

30. Light Step

32. Silent Running

34. Burden To Bear

36. Pack Rat

38. Voracious Reader

40. Retention

42. Implant GRX

44. Implant GRX

46. Heavyweight

48. Preference

50. Just Lucky I’m Alive

Note: If you're not on hardcoe, you need to replace the following:

Survival (tag Medicine if you're not going to play on hardcoe, instead.)

Pack Rat

Heavyweight

Them's Good Eatin'

Strong Back

Burden To Bear

I'd recommend replacing them with VATS related perks such as (unless you're opposed to using VATS):

1. Grim Reaper's Sprint

2. Sniper

3. Concentrated Fire (you'd want to get Guns to 60)

4. Nerves of Steel

5. Action Boy

1. Holorifle+++. This should be the standard weapon of just about every Energy Weapon character post-Dead Money. Great DAM, great critical damage, has a scope, but the attack speed (and mag-size) is mediocre.

3. Tri-Beam Laser Rifle (GRA)+++. Incredible accuracy with three lasers that each have a 1.5 critical multiplier. Combined, all three beams will pull off 66 critical damage which falls short of the Holorifle, but is still stellar. This weapon needs to be modded before it becomes effective, but once it's fully modded, it's possibly the best all-purpose Energy Weapon in this batch.

4. Sprtel-Wood 9700. Expensive as hell, but has lethal attack speed and accuracy. It’s an all-purpose weapon. You should be fueling every Electron Charge Pack you find into this. The alternative is the only slightly weaker but less accurate fully modded Gatling Laser.

5. YCS/186. Your sniper weapon. While the Sprtel-Wood has a good accuracy, fully-automatic weapons are almost never going to get you one-shot kills on Very Hard. The YCS has a higher DAM than even the Anti-Materiel Rifle, and about the same fire rate. The alternative would be the normal variant of this weapon. The Gauss Rifle.

6. Preference

7. Pew Pew or MF Hyperbreeder Alpha. If you're like me, and you not only have an abundance of energy cells, but you also have an affinity for high DAM, Pew Pew's your gun. However, The MF Hyperbreeder is very efficient due to its recharging ammo, and it has lethal attack speed. Choose what fits your playstyle.

8. Hotkey “True Police Stories”

As for ammo, you’re going to end up going with Optimized or Max Charge. It all depends on efficiency. Max Charge is leaps-and-bounds more powerful than Optimized, but paired with Built To Destroy, your weapon is going to degrade to nothing very quickly. I would recommend building Optimized with Vigilant Recycler until you finish Dead Money and gain the code to be able to build a ton of Weapon Repair Kits. Jury Rigging is also very useful.

For starts, I suggest refraining from armor that drops important stats. For example, T-45d Power Armor drops Agility by 2, which is definitely not worth it.

Glass Cannon: Sacrifice DT for a lot of critical strike.

Ulysses' Duster paired with Travel Light and Light Touch. Fill these as the two preference perks for this setup.

1st Recon Beret

Juggernaut: Sacrifice critical strike for a load of DT. This is the classic Fallout approach with EWs.

T-51b Power Armor

T-51b Power Helmet

Well Rounded: A good amount of DT but also some critical chance and/or Energy Weapons skill. I have listed two good options for this setup.

Marked Patrol Armor

Lobotomite Mask.

I felt this created a "Bane" look, and it's a terrifyingly awesome looking set for the courier. Not to mention, it has some energy weapon skill attached.

Elite Riot Gear

Elite Riot Helmet

These are good choices with appropriate critical increases, as well as some handy SPECIAL points (I think it adds perception) and a good amount of DT.

The absolute best combination is going to be Raul Tejada and ED-E. Max Charge and Built To Destroy are going to make your weapons degrade like crazy, so you need his perk to offset this. ED-E becomes a workbench after Lonesome Road, and with Camarader-E, he becomes the best possible follower. His perk also makes up for lost Perception as well.

REFRAIN FROM MELEE FOLLOWERS WHEN USING MELTDOWN. ESPECIALLY ON hardcoe. Meltdown, especially against a tough enemy, is going to kill (literally kill on hardcoe) your follower, because they’ll be standing up-close. When you’re doing quests for followers such as Veronica, Rex, and Lily, make sure to tell Veronica and Lily to use ranged weapons if possible, and turn Rex onto “passive” mode.

Preparation: The reason that Voracious Reader, Comprehension, and Retention are on there is because of True Police Stories. The system that Voracious Reader enacts is a situation where every burned/destroyed/scorched book you pick up (there are thousands upon thousands of them in the game) will give you a blank magazine. At this point, the real factor is wonderglue. Giving Muggy some mugs will get you wonderglue, as well as scavenging. Once you have these materials, along with at least one True Police Stories magazine, you can make hundreds of them. Now, you have hundreds of magazines that each last three real minutes (due to Retention) that award +10 critical.

Start off by activating “True Police Stories”, then casting off a sneak attack critical. If you encounter a group of enemies, you may very well kill each-and-every one of them with Meltdown, if you're using it. The sneak attack critical should be done with one of the semi-automatic weapons, not the Sprtel-Wood. Once you have alerted the group of enemies (or enemy), you need to pick a weapon depending on the situation. If they’re up close and personal, then use Pew Pew. If they’re at a medium range, use the Holorifle+ or Elijah’s Advanced LAER, depending on if you want accuracy and quantity, or DAM with more range. At long range, it depends on the scenario. If the enemy has an enormous amount of DT, then use the Sprtel-Wood to bring them down before they reach you. If you think that they will go down in one hit (most enemies do with this build), then use the YCS/186. The Heavy Incinerator will most-likely be an AOE choice if you can bunch the enemies up together. The same goes for other explosives such as Mercy and the Missile Launcher. At a ridiculously long range, you want to be using the YCS/186.

-Raul Tejada is best-equipped with the Medicine Stick with his "Old Vaquero" perk.

-Weapon choice can also be about preference. Some players are more efficient with the Holorifle while others can be stellar with a Plasma Rifle.

-If you’re going to use chems, I recommend Hydra the most, followed by Turbo.

-This build was for an FPS Energy Weapon feel, not VATS, although I included a section about the replacements for hardcoe perks which will satisfy VATS.

-Don't expect one-shots in Old World Blues because they simply won't happen.

-Again, no matter what, you need to eventually reach 8 strength or 6 paired with "Weapon Handling".

-If you enter Lonesome Road and advance enough through the first bunker to get the first ED-E upgrade, then come back to the main game, your Mojave ED-E will gain the ability to repair 25% of your weapon durability once a day.

-If you really have no honest idea what you want to attach to your #6 hotkey, because I left it open to preference, my top recommendations would by Elijah's Advanced LAER (fully modded), AER14 Prototype, or the Q-35 Matter Modulator.

Thanks for reading!