Energy weapons are, across the board, weaker than guns. They are harder to find, can eat up ammo very quickly, have no DT modifying ammo types (like Armor Piercing), and tend to do less dmg as well.

There are a few exceptions, namely the plasma caster and gauss rifle (the latter uses 5 mf cells per shot, but is still awesome).

The laser rifle is okay; the plasma rifle is pretty much a joke (slow projectile, weak dmg, ammo consumption), and the pistols don't really measure up.

The plasma defender matches up well against the .357, but is really outclassed by the .44 (you can also handload SWC into the magnum)

The laser rifle is basically useless against armored enemies, but does good DPS.

The plasma rifle matches up well with the hunting rifle, but lacks the Armor pierching ammo or handloaded ammo that makes the hunting rifle a very viable armor killer.

Multiplas does well against shotguns, minus the fact that it shreds ammo.

No equivalent really for the brush gun or hunting revolver.

The best guns are only availble at the highest strength, whereas you can get really damaging guns at strength 6 (brush gun, ranger sequioa, hunting revolver, sniper rifle)



Some suggestions for leveling EW with guns were offered, and here are a few:

-Add -DT and increased damage to selected ammo types, similar to the handloads for guns

-Increase damage on certain guns- the tiered guns ooften outperform their EW counterparts\

Any chance we may see a patch related to this sometime?

There are better energy weapons later on, you havent found all of them yet... Also you should probably look to upgrading your weapons... Venders do sell upgrades to the lasers and plasma rifles..

Get a tribeam laser with a scope, or the plasma weapon with a increased speed attachment... There are a ton of energy weapon upgrades.

I found a mod for plasma rifle that increases projectile speed. Can't speak for the rest as I am on unarmed so I haven't been looking.

Energy Weapons rely quite heavily on critting to kill things. If your crit chance is abysmal you aren't going to be able to shoot your way out of a paper bag, but if your crit chance is huge you'd be able to bring down a battleship.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_weapon_mods#Energy_Weapons

I fully agree with it, even if they do rely on critical hits they are [censored] useless.
And most of them are useless even with the critical % and DAM.
So yeah, I hope they patch the hell out of it.
They tried to balance it with Guns IIRC.
Well, that was an awful move that should never be done again.

I mean, I love Energy Weapons, I loved them in FO1, in FO2, in FO Tactics, in FO3 and it's DLC's just brought me even more joy.
But this is the crappiest EW has ever been.

Are they planing to patch anything?

Energy weapon is just subpar when compared to guns in NV.

The Gauss Rifle still seem to have the VAT error where the explosion push the enemy away and prevent them from taking full damage.

This is a pity to hear. I went with Guns this playthrough, but I was a total Energy Weapon junkie in FO3. A3-21's Plasma Rifle was the only weapon I ever used again once I got it.

I honestly thought that they were going to put more of an emphasis on Energy Weapons this time around (i.e., keep them balanced with Guns) based on the fact that you find a Laser Pistol in Doc Mitchell's house. I guess I was wrong.

With regards to the EW ammo, we do have a choice of at least some ammo types for the various Energy Weaponry as in Standard charge, Overcharge and Max Charge variations that I am currently aware of.

EW are great for a high luck, high crit chance character. Crits on EW completely bypass DT without the need for special ammo.

Plus, you can use Meltdown and turn everyone you kill into a BOMB! Which can come in handy in groups since you can often kill one and have him explode to kill all the others in one fell swoop.

Man, all people do is WHINE about everything, Energy weapons do not and are not getting patched. Maybe we should patch everything just to say they did to please everyone? Patch enemies so they don;'t fire at you and kill you................... Energy weapons are beastly later in the game.

Also Bulk ammo, that does less damage to enemies and the gun itself. Good for taking out trash mobs.

I played through using ew's and found them acceptable.Lots of goo..lots of ash.I also found EW ammo 10 times easier to recycle.ESPECIALLY if you have Veronica along.Never once felt like I needed anything other than standard ammo type.Though,I am interested to see what *max charge* would do in a gauss.

So EW characters are meant to be forced to play with high science to be useful?
Yeah, that's great, not.

I have a high luck high crit chance character and energy weapons still don't do any good damage.
Meltdown is an awful perk IMO.
I've harmed myself and crippled my limbs more than had a chain reaction from enemies with it.
It's a fun perk for the first 100 enemies because it frankly is just so cool. (I'm not being sarcastic, the perk was awesome at first)
But then it kicks in that it doesn't do much, too many times I kill enemies with no other enemies around them, or have to kill a cazador right at my feet only to have the explosion take away 90% of my own health and cripple three of my limbs.

So, some of us, the players, see something that is unbalanced and ask for a fix and it's whining?
Energy weapons were beastly in later parts of the other games.
In New Vegas they can barely keep up with the high level enemies.

You're doing something wrong then because I killed all the legendary monsters with only 2 shots from a nearly broken laser rifle.

Try taking more damage perks (or going out and killing 1000 of anything to get the maximum level of Lord Death).

I specced full on damage actually.
Better Criticals.
Black Widow.
Bloody Mess.
Animal Control.
Bug Stomper (3).
Finesse.
Living Anatomy.
Lord Death.
Mutant Massacrer.
Set Lasers For Fun.

I have no idea why but the only weapon that does damage towards high level enemies for me is the unique Gauss Rifle.

I've tried using every other weapon in the game on enemies and tested them all but none did any good damage to the more dangerous enemies.
I've yet to try out Gatling Laser because I can't find the damn thing.
Going to try out the Tri-Beam in just a couple of minutes though.

The issue is its not unbalanced. They work great in NV, it's just you.

Mhm.
All I know is that I've specced a full damage and high crit character, I fire the weapons at enemies and they don't do good damage.
And the one's that do good damage have other problems.
Gauss Rifle is not the best thing to use when a deathclaw is 2 feet from me.
Mutliplas simply doesn't hit enemies for some reason.
I could fire it right in front of a super mutant and it still do no damage, even though it has the highest damage out of all of them, excluding Gauss and Tesla.
And Tesla Cannon has the same problem as Gauss Rifle with it's long reload time that it isn't a viable choice for close combat animals and NPC's.
Gauss Rifle works great for sniping, close range, not so much.
Multiplas has a tremendous damage... When it actually decides to "hit" the enemy... Which might take a whole clip. (And no, I'm not "bad" at aiming.)
And Tesla Cannon can be a beast against a singular enemy, but when up against several cazadors/fiends/super mutants/fire geckos the reload time will kill me.
So it's just me?
Well then, what is it?
What have I done wrong?
What have I missed?

Man, it's really like some people didn't bother reading the first post.

My main point isn't that energy weapons are unuseable- they are quite useable- it's that compared to guns and especially against armored foes with high DT, they are very lacking.

Yes, you could spec with luck 10, built to destroy, finesse, etc, and have a 90%+ crit chance, but that really seems to be just about the ONLY method of making energy weapons worth a damn AGAINST HIGH DT enemies- you know, the ones you find later in the game. Even then, aside from the weapons that take a very high strength (8 or >8), you don't have the same knockout options as with guns.

This is not a particularly difficult issue- alter one of the ammo types to have a -DT effect, and bam, they become pretty viable again.

For a build that actually seeks to balance itself with regard to other skills (ie. not pumping crits and choosing all the crit based perks), energy weapons are just not good compared to guns, melee, or unarmed.

This I would love.
I'm sure it would solve my problems as well.

Gabriel,

I don't think you've missed anything; this is an issue that is coming up frequently.

People are speccing builds dedicated solely to making energy weapons a viable alternative to guns in regards to dealing damage, and still finding themselves struggling.

Again people, this is not to say that you CAN'T kill with energy weapons, it's just to say that it requires far more specialization and sacrifices in skills than the equivalent kick ass character would specializing in guns.

With enemies that have a high DT you're going to be using either the plasma caster or the gauss... that's it really. With guns, you could use the trail carbine, .44 mag (both with .44 SWC), hunting rifle (AP or JSP), this machine, sniper rifle, brush gun, anti Materiel gun, hunting revolver, ranger sequoia, 12.7 mm pistol or SMG; all of which- excluding the Anti Materiel- require strength 6 or less.

That plasma rifle does okay damage, but it WAAAAAAY outclassed by it's equivalents in guns, the .44 magnum and the trail carbine or hunting rifle. The guns have better DPS, rate of fire, are easy to keep fed, and far less rare (for repair). That's the only gun that can be handled really well without 8 strength and 100 EW skill.

one more thing.. why is everyone saying EW ammo is hard to find? i have like 5000 MF cells just sitting in a box at my house....and i get more daily from the BOS for being friendly with them. same goes for the other EW ammo.

No idea why people would accuse others of not playing the game right.

My character for the Very Hard + Hard Core play through had Energy and Gun both at 100. I had Luck 10, with Born to Destroy, Kamikazi, and all the standard sniper/sneak/critical Perks that is common to the build. hands down, Guns are just better.

I originally had Energy leveled to 100 because I like green goo, but half way thorugh I had to split it between Energy and Gun because it just isn't efficient.

Hate to tell you brother but you must not be looking in the right places, I've found PLENTY of NRG weapons and mods and ammo. I dont know what your even talking about, maybe your playing FO3? I use the Tommy Gun energy weapon (forgot the name) all the time and I always get plenty of ammo.

It's not hard to find really, but playing on hardcoe Mode it's really annoying that half of the weapons eat ammo like crazy which makes for many trips back to the house.