Thankyou.

Id be interested in knowing too, the pros and cons of melee vs unarmed. In my first playthrough i was staring with awe at just how much damage veronica pumped out with a ballistic fist. Though I do think it was because I had Cha at 5. Followers gets a suprising lot of damage and armor from high cha.

I know! on my 2nd playthrough - which im creating now, im in a predicament between melee and unarmed.

I'd like to hear how a playthrough on either went.

Haven't had the chance to play a melee guy yet but if you are get your Med and sneak skills as high as they go. You won't be paying a lot in repair bills with this build but you will probably be making up for it with chems, stimpacks, and stealthboys. Doable but harder than a gun.

thanks for the insight.

From the perk/trait guide at http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/959559-fallout-new-vegas/faqs/61071 It looks to me youd be wanting BOTH skills.


SUPER SLAM
ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ
Level: 8
Ranks: 1
Usefulness: [*....]
Prerequisite: Melee Weapons: 45, Strength: 6
Description: All melee weapons (except thrown ones) and unarmed attacks have a
chance of knocking your target down. Handy, but not essential.
Only useful if you're specialising in Unarmed.


PIERCING STRIKE
ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ
Level: 12
Ranks: 1
Usefulness: [****.]
Prerequisite: Unarmed: 70
Description: When strikeing unarmed or melee weapons (including thrown ones),
this perk negates 15 Damage Treshold points. Very useful for
Unarmed character builds, arguably even essential. It can also
have its uses for regular characters, as this greatly improves
melee combat in general.

Seems to me that even melee guys would want to build up unarmed just for this beauty.


And this one requires investment in melee and sneak.

NINJA
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Level: 20
Ranks: 1
Usefulness: Unarmed Builds: [*****] / All-Round Builds: [***..]
Prerequisite: Melee Weapons: 80, Sneak: 80
Description: When attacking with Melee Weapons or Unarmed you gain a +15%
critical chance on every strike. Sneak Attack Criticals do 25%
more damage than normal. A must for all Unarmed builds, and even
decent for All-Round Builds.


Finally

SLAYER
ˉˉˉˉˉˉ
Level: 24
Ranks: 1
Usefulness: Unarmed Builds: [*****] / All-Round Builds: [**...]
Prerequisite: Unarmed: 90, Agility: 7
Description: Speed of all Unarmed and Melee Weapon attacks increased by +30%.
Again, this really shows how much the developers wanted people to
"like" Unarmed builds. It's a must for Unarmed builds, but not
more than decent for all-round builds.

one of my characters is a melee/unarmed guy right now, and i think its incredibly fun. You can be taught how to do 'special' unarmed attacks, which make it more fun than throwing the same 3 types of punches everytime. It especially satisfying when i take on a large group of guys (8+) with guns, and own them all with my spiked knuckles. Its even more satisfying (to me) with bloody mess on, because i always punch peoples limbs right off. Though for all i know it could just be the change of gameplay that makes it thrilling, i just got done with a 30hr sneaky guns gameplay guy, so switching to a straight up brawler guy makes it really fun. I've only put 3hrs into my unarmed guy, so i can't say how fun it is the long run.

Interesting. How do you rather the heavy handed trait that increases base melee damage at the cost of crit damage? Imo I think its there to allow you to skimp on crits and focusing on augmenting your base damage to ridiculous levels as you cant actively target bodyparts in VATS. Which also gives you more points to invest otherwere by drawing from Luck.

Thanks thats interesting.

Thankyou!

Ballistic Fist and Paralyzing Palm is a utterly deadly combination. You can take down [individual] Deathclaw with that combo.

Paralyzing Palm for 70 unarmed. There's also Unstoppable Force, for 70 melee. I'd probably go Unarmed - Ballistic Fist is brutal even without skill, has to be violent with it, and I'd be happier leaving Melee at 45 for Super Slam and saving the points, bypassing Unstoppable Force and Ninja.

Here's my hypothetical hardcoe I've just started. He is low Charisma for a solo playthrough - cause my companions drop all the time in regular, and if they died for good I'd be annoyed.

S 8 P 4 E 8 C 1 I 10 A 5 L 4

Traits: Heavy Handed, Trigger Discipline (helps shooting in early game when can't afford shooting skill).

This is specifically designed for lower luck and avoiding crit helping perks because they don't fit into the build until very late. You could easily drop Heavy Handed, push Int back to 8 and Luck and Perception up 1 each, then grab Ninja and Better Criticals later on instead of Nerd Rage and Math Wrath... but it will be really late in the build.

Tag: Melee, Survival, Unarmed. Unarmed will be major combat skill, Melee just to unlock Super Slam.

2: IT: Agility
4: Educated – I 4
6: Rad Child – Survival 70
8: Super Slam – Melee 45 S 6
10: Toughness – E 5
12: Toughness E - 5
14: Piercing Strike – Unarmed 70
16: Stonewall – S 6 E 6
18: Paralyzing Palm
20: Adamantium Skeleton
22: Purifier
24: Slayer – Unarmed 90
26: GRS
28: Nerd Rage - Science 50, Int 5
30: Math Wrath - Science 70

Survival 70, Science 70, Unarmed 90, Melee 45 - low reqs for high Int, should give plenty of room for skills to advance the story - Speech, Lockpicking, a ranged skill (likely Guns for the .50 cal).

Way too high int in that build, bump agility some more.

you get 15 skillpoints per level at 10 int, 13 skillpoints at 6 int.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1129011-your-character-statsskillsetc/page__p__16556109__fromsearch__1&#entry16556109

Checkout my thread for my unarmed build. It kicks ass and i still own on hardcoe with difficulty cranked up. I know people are wondering about heavy handed, here's the thing, if you play unarmed crits are crap. Unarmed is all about crippling your opponent then basically knocking his head off... I haven't tried melee yet, but heavy handed would probably work against melee since most melee weapons ive come across gives some kind of crit bonus/chance.

PS: To prove criticals are not essential what so ever for unarmed... let's say it takes you iono 10 shots to kill a giant radscorpion.. it takes me 2-3 punches. Bang --> Cripple --> Death Blow!


-Theone

Where are the npcs that train different attacks? I know someone made a post regarding it in this thread and I saw it in one of their trailers where the guy had multiple melee attacks through vats

Hmm, some good thoughts there. Echoes what I thought about crit being virtually uneeded for unarmeds. Ive heard theres currently five known unarmed moves in the world, are they used through vats or other ways?

The only one i found so far is called Ranger Takedown and it's not done through VATS (Not this one.. maybe others are).. you basically hold the power punch trigger and move backwards... in FPS you basically do like a right hand thrust which knocks em down... in third person you do a leg sweep... both moves are instant cripples from the times i used it and very powerful... if you can land it

From what i've seen unarmed is ridiculously good.
Actually, I wasn't even good at unarmed, but I found some spiked knuckles and when I ran out of ammo they saved my life. I ended up selling them because they were worth hundreds of caps though.

My Guns skill is set to 50, and my Unarmed set to 35, and my Unarmed weapons are still WAY more powerful than any gun I've ever had (aside from Euclid's C-Finder).

Love and Hate FTW

I know; I was arguing that way in earlier threads before the game came out. But I just don't notice that big a difference from agility. Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm not into power gaming (wouldn't even know where or how to start), but after two false starts creating a character I'm playing now with an unarmed / melee character who also tagged survival. So far, level two (but I'm using a slow leveling mod) and she's fun to play.

Used a gun a couple times (nothing like a 9mm to take out mines) and uses more melee than unarmed at her low level. It's pretty satisfying to kill a giant scorpion with a razor, to beat the stuffing out of a coyote, or to finish off some guy with a good, solid punch. Can't wait for the higher levels and the awesome perks she can get!

You need 7 agi to qualify for Slayer, or 6 with an implant.

SLAYER
ˉˉˉˉˉˉ
Level: 24
Ranks: 1
Usefulness: Unarmed Builds: [*****] / All-Round Builds: [**...]
Prerequisite: Unarmed: 90, Agility: 7
Description: Speed of all Unarmed and Melee Weapon attacks increased by +30%.
Again, this really shows how much the developers wanted people to
"like" Unarmed builds. It's a must for Unarmed builds, but not
more than decent for all-round builds.

the main thing about agility is that it raises action points in VATS.

AGILITY
ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ
Agility increases your Action Points in V.A.T.S., and improves how fast you
draw, holster and reload your weapons, as well as your running speed.


You have 80 ap at 5 agi and getting 3 per point of agi, making 95 at 10.

terrible in the early game when your armor svcks and up close conflict is dangerous. but later in the game when you get better armor. you can kick a ton of ass

I haven't had any trouble. There's always something to hide or crouch behind so you don't get shot, and enemies have to move up close and you take them out