A few facts before I start:

* Best energy weapons require 8 STR so you need to go there with Intense Training and Implant sooner rather than later. Weapon Handling at lvl 16 can lower requirements by 2 points - but why waste a perk while you can have same effect, extra +1 STR from it and all at meagre expense of 4000 caps? Doing 4 STR initially, then weapon handling, implant and intense training would work too, what do you think?
* Energy overall compared to Guns is low on damage but high on critical chance so a build for energy has to exploit this.
* There's a possible synergy with Explosives if you intend to use Flamers. Requires Pyromaniac perk at lvl 12 and 60 Explosives for +50% fire damage. Is it worth it? Maybe for late game after level 20 and everything else is covered?
* Energy Weapons have quite high skill requirements so you need them at 75 quite early or your Plasma Caster won't cut it. Up to 100 for Tesla Cannon and/or Tesla Beaton.
* High Science and Repair are necessary to recover ammo, to make weapon repair kits and finally to be able to patch your rare toys with similar items. You don't find enough of energy weapons to have everything at 100% like with Guns.
* You need to loot Silver Rush store with Stealth Boy early on. There's no other way.

Now the build:

STR 6 (+2) (Like I said, best guns require 8). Or STR 4 and then a whole chain of boosts to get weapons that require 8.
PER 6 (for better Criticals more than anything else)
END 5-6 (allows getting implants for STR, END, INT, AGI and LCK + one or two elite ones (I don't like regen one so can do with 5 END). I could add one END here and remove one point from PER boosting it with implant instead. What do you think?
CHA 1 (all points moved to INT to make a skilled sociopath)
INT 8 (+2) (Mother of all attributes)
AGI 4 (used for AP, reload time, weapon draw time and that's it, I want it moderate)
LCK 7-9 (+1) - Crit chance, bonus to all skills, casinos - and everything else. If INT is mother of all other attributes, this is the daddy of them).

Traits:
Good Natured: Since we won't be using other weapons, this nets 20-30 skill points right away at expense of -5 Energy Weapons. Worth it.
Fast Shot: +20% fire rate at expense of -20% accuracy. Laser RCW and later Gatling being my main reasons here - but plasma spam doesn't fail either with huge magazine capacity of energy weapons.

Skills:
Tag Energy Weapons, Science and Lockpick.
In the game first do Lockpick to 55, then Science to 75 for Recycler (you need this early or you will be fighting with a machete more than your laser rifle), then Repair and Energy Weapons. After which you can get Speech, return from exploring the wastes and do some questing finally.

Perks:
2 - Intense Training, +1 INT (for skill points, I want it at 10 eventually)
4 – Educated, +2 skill points per level (so extra 54 throughout the game)
6 – Comprehension, +1 skill points from books (there’s 5 books per skill and 13 skills, so I get another free 60 skill points or so per a game, vast majority of those very early and in skills I have no time to upgrade otherwise), double skill points from magazines (so I can stop training most things (like Lockpick) at 55 early on and move on to other stuff while doing skill-checks in quests)
8 – Vigilant Recycler (Science 70), recycling boost for more ammo. Most perps are armed with Guns so there won't be as much of ecells to grab as normal ammo types.
10 – Finesse, +5% crit chance, often doubled by energy weapons which have higher crit chances than Guns.
12 – Intense Training +1 STR. (+implant which will allow using Plasma Caster and other heavy weapons in the category)
14 – Jury Rigging (Repair 90), repair things with similar items, required for every energy user because you don’t loot even nearly as many of those as Guns.
16 – Better Criticals (PER and LCK = 6), since most of my good attacks will be criticals…
18 – Meltdown (Energy Weapons 90), killed enemies emanate harmful energy around them – this will often harm me – but at the same time for role-playing reasons I can’t imagine a build without this. Or if you go with STR 4 build, you want to take Weapon Handling here.
20 – Intense Training +1 LCK. (Can't have too much)
22 – Laser Commander (Energy Weapons 90)
24, 26, 28, 30 - I could train Explosives here.

Equipment:
1. Early (Good Springs -> Boulder City) : Recharger Rifle, Recharger Pistol, Plasma Defender and Scoped Laser Rifle. And Plasma Rifles and Combat Armors of looted caravan en route to Vegas.
2. Mid-game (Deathclaws, Nightkin and Fiends): Q-35, Multiplas, Tri-Beam, Laser RCW.
3. Late-game (everything else): Plasma Caster, Gatling, Plasma Beaton and that unique Gauss.

Companions:
1. Veronica early on, she will lead to BoS and she will allow crafting ammo anywhere.
2. Tajeda later on. He slows down rate at which your guns break which is priceless even for a high Repair character.

Any comments? Corrections?

Take 5 strength, go get the implant then get the perk http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Weapon_Handling
Get 9 luck and the get the implant.

Okay.

S 5
P 5
E 7
C 1
I 9
A 5
L 8 (+1)

First implant will be Int very early, then Per for Better Criticals, then Str, then Lck and then everything else. Should work as a charm - unless there's a screw up in low Agility I don't know about (6 seems perfectly fine though).

I use this build currently and it works very well.

Zyx


S P E C I A L

2 5 5 1 9 9 9


Traits fast shot good natured

tagged skills science energy weapons repair
also train medicine barter explosives


perks

2 hunter
4 educated
6 toughness
8 vigilant recycler
10 finesse
12 mysterious stranger
14 math wrath
16 better crits
18
20
22 laser commander
24 jury rigging
26
28 plasma spaz
30


Leaves me with room enough for whatever perks I wind up wanting late game. I had planned on getting entomologist at 6 but I fergot it used survival this time;/ still if I find enough survival guildes I might get it later to spank radscorps and such.

On going low strength... im NOT playing hardcoe so I dont need to lug around stupidly heavy energy ammo... and yes using a recharger rifle does add a bit more weapon spread but then fast shot already had that I STILL have 95% chance to hit before I get toe to toe with most enemies...

9 agility and 9 luck and high int are key to energy weapons as you need alot of skills and you need to be fast as all heck and lucky.

Reducing STR to pump AGI doesn't seem like a right move. I mean, those extra 3 points of AGI add like 9 APs and slight bonuses to weapon draw time (useless), reload time (huge magazines on energy guns) and some minor running speed bonus. Staying at 5 (+1) AGI won't break a character. On the other hand going down to 2 STR will prevent from using Plasma Caster and other neat stuff, pretty much every late game energy gun...

Doesnt prevent you from using them at all.. I use the recharger rifle and it has 5 str req and it works rather well for my char at 2 str. If I need better I can get the weapon handling to boost my total weapon str to 5 late game and I already know being 3 off isnt a deal breaker ill be fine.

As for agility.. combined with fast shot it realy makes you a gatling gun in rt as well as in vats. And dont forget many energy weapons use 2 or more ammo a shot so the mag doesnt actauly hold as many shots as you wish it did.

Oh, oh!! I'll help.

Step 1.

Don't.

Energy weapons just plain svck. They simply do not hold their own when you have the option of picking guns.

I maxed out energy and have a build similar to the ones y'all talked about and without the armor penetrating abilities it just doesn't work end-game and there isn't much in the way of weapons early in the game either (recharger rifle is a piece of junk, barely kills Powder Gangers).

The crits are great and work okay, but guns just work better.

I say put last 2 perks in DT....with Implant you have 10DT naked! Since you are focusing on one type of weaponry you should have extra perks left over.

True, but who dosent love the gauss rifle, but as a whole energy weps just arent worth it

I just started with this guy - spent some time figuring out good synergy heres what I came up with!
This guy will utilize Energy weapons, melee and explosives. Already with the +6 to his DT he can get personal popping some med-x and some psycho. Just ran'em through and wiped out Eddie and his crew at only lvl 5 with NCR facewrap armor on, so we'll see how he progresses.



str 7
per 5
end 7
cha 1
int 6
agi 5
lck 9

lvl2 - intense training +PER
lvl4 - educated
lvl6 - toughness
lvl8 - toughness
lvl10- commando
lvl12- finesse
lvl14- demo expert
lvl16- better criticals
lvl18- meltdown
lvl20- demo expert
lvl22- laser commander

well one thing to note is I am not totaly min maxing my characters.. if I were min maxing id start with 7 intel and 7 agility as frankly loosing 29 skill points isnt that big a deal over the entire game.. just means one skill wont be as nice as before... one skill that I realy wouldnt have maxed till late game anyway so who cares?

And yes they did indeed do a bad job with energy weapons.. thats why im not likely to make any more energy weapons characters after this one until I find a good mod. Thats why I dont get these type games on console;/

Oh and you will note I also train explosives...

1. I have a full game with GOBI behind me, I'm bored with Guns and want to try something new. Thread is called perfect energy build, not energy build strong than GOBI build. Move along if you don't know how to tune an energy gun guy.

2. Yep, DT perks will be on my shopping list among other stuff. Either that or basic explosives.

3. Recharger rifle does not svck, it's Varmint replacement and I can burn a Viper or a Powder Ganger with a good sneak critical without much trouble. It doesn't have scope but it has good iron sights - and it doesn't use ammo so you can spam it if everything else fails. Very good gun IMO for first few hours of the game.

Here's a proof. http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6469/recharger.jpg

yes its good it saves ammo, but if you cant sneak up on people the rifle is pretty weak, luckily I have high luck, so it usually gets a crit, turning whatever attacked me into dust.

That is what I did with my energy guy.

I did like
5
5
7
1
4
9
9

traits fastshot and kamikaze
Rush vegas. stealthboy silver. [censored] the game with plasmacaster spam. A highly, highly ammo effecient weapon. it almost seems more effective outside of VATS than inside. Save all weapon repair material you come across. Get your repair to to 50 or whatever so you can make them. I think my first few perks went something like:
Confirmed bachelor
Educated
Fast reload (yes that means rasing guns like 7 points)
Then typical DPS perks thereafter. weapon handling included. Implant per and str, obviously so you can get most of them.

You can actually get to vegas and pick up the plasma caster by level 4, which will turn even very hard into a breeze if you have halfway decent aim.


following this route, it kind of turns the normal status quo on its head. Energy weapons are best early-midgame, and guns later, especially the ridiculously sniper rifles. Of course you could powergame for rifles too and rush 100 lockpick for the gobi, a doubly ridiculous rifle.

You can't afford a couple implants by level 12???

Acquiring toys isn't a big problem compared to the hoops you need to jump through to get Lucky, Ratslayer and Gobi (good luck with rats at lvl2 or good luck getting 100 lockpick before level 10). If you are cunning enough and know where to look you can even get INT implant at level 2 - and a ton of different guns too. That unique Gauss too, there are two Stealth Boys in Good Springs after all and there's certainly 4k worth of loot en route to Vegas. Novac store alone is over 1k. If you get lucky Silver Rush or Novac will have a scope for Laser for sales too. Ammo will be a problem - but that's what conservation perk is for.

Remember you can sell all guns you find AND ammo for them. That's always extra few hundred.

It reminds of F2 rush to Enclave to get Combat Shotgun, Enclave Power Armor and Plasma Rifle off the chests there. Then going back to do Arroyo gecko quests. :-p

It seems like Energy needs a good completmentary combat style, without losing out to guns (which it inevitably would, seeing as guns kind of rock energy weapons with different ammo types AND more damage and variety).

I'm thinking explosives, melee or unarmed would be best, though it'd be a tough choice between the three, and none would really solve the blatent weakness of energy weapons against high DT.

Maybe overcharge ammo could have AP attribute...

i dunno if its just me or what but i'd really like to get energy weapons going. so far it seems like i'm just popping a med-x and a psycho per battle then just [censored] everything with my supersledge... i'm not even speced out for melee however it seems to be VERY effective kinda disappointing. Will energy weapons ever rock out?

i play very hard / hardcoe i guess a good example would be.
on my first playthrough i was mid into the game lvl 20 or so general speced out char kinda jack-of-all trades so to say. when the legion assassins would come after me cause i pissed off thee el' caesaro my char would get squished. this new guy at lvl 7 hes basically a walking deathsquad with my measly 35 points in melee and my sledgehammer with the added DT i took and i'm only wearing reinforced leather kinda weird... i crushed legion assassins i mean... i felt bad..

I realize later energy users have to spam high DT targets, hence Fast Shot there among traits rather than Trigger Discipline which is godly with guns (Gobi spread is insane even without it...). But then again, we're spoiled with 1-shot guns, I don't think Deathclaw daddie should go with 1 shot... I had an easy game already, now I want to have a fun one. Then I will go Explosives for even more of challenge and fun.

One fun thing about energy is that enemies either fall as a pile of ash or a pile of plasma, nice and glowing, easy to find and loot. With snipers you blow them up to gazillion pieces and you often don't know which limb belonged to whom. I looked for Fiend leader heads like 5 minutes because they were under a pile of bodies. Here you just have one dust pile next to another. Nice and tidy.

Is intelligence also give extra skill points per level like it says? I never put points into it before

You get 10 + INT / 2 skill points to distribute at every level. So difference between INT 8 and INT 10 is 30 points at the end of the journey. Not much - but not few either. You also get +2 Doctor, Repair and Science points for each INT so total is 36 points. It's not crucial to go above 8 - but at the same time it's very convenient, especially if you start with 8, do Intense Training at lvl2 and then go for an implant very soon.

Also, you don't lose half-points, if you have 9 INT, you will be getting 14 skill points at one level, 15 at another, then 14 again and so on. So uneven value of INT is perfectly fine.

I wouldn't dare to go below 8 with it...

6 is doable too but 8 is prefered!