I play no reload vh /hc so I also got Computer Whiz and Light Step. Imo Hunter is ok , Jury Rigging just gamey , and Hand Loader should be taken asap . I will try Adamantium Skeleton in my next melee game. And Pack Rat , really ? .. I've never put any points into barter in any Fallout game for the last 10 years.

This thread seems to be about min/max gun-using characters, and this trait is almost a "must" for any min/max character, I think. Particularly if the only weapon you are going to use is guns, you gain basically 20 free points.

Personally I found the best way to go for a beginning character is this:

S 5
P 5
E 6
C 5
I 9
A 5
L 5

Picked up the Wild Wasteland Perk and the perk for the flimbsy limbs but +1 agi. As I reached level 2 I checked out all the perks and found the Intense Training perk to be the best putting it into int. Once you reach level 4 you pick the perk to give you +2 more points to allocate which will bump you up to 17 points per level. Also as noted the perk that gives you +1 extra per skill book and +10 per skill magazine is great and you need to save all skill magazines. With this setup I got +4 points per skill magazine read and with 4 books out there per skill that's an extra 16 points per possible skill.

As for perks to recommend I would have to say strong back is a definite perk to take along with the pack rat perk (especially if you are in HC mode), Long Haul perk (Note 1), maybe 1 more intense training perk and then it's really up to the player. I do recommend the Recycling perk and the Repair Perk with the Repair Perk being a definite taker if you like to make your own ammo. The Repair Perk does double duty where it not only enables all recipes at the work bench, but helps you recover more ammunition out in the field.

If players are wanting to reach the zenith point the Tag perk might be a good bet as well allocating this into one area or another.

Also make sure to boost up Barter and Speech since they have a great impact. Unlike FO3 you will find several speech options/challenges that will reward good items. Most notable is in The Thorn where players will want to either have a skill mag to boost them from 80 to 90 barter for the near final part or be at 90. This quest line will reward the players probably an extra 2 to 5 thousand caps due to the speech checks.

Note 1: With the Long Haul perk I HIGHLY recommend you discover the Gun Runners place first because it will be a prime sell off point. Can't tell how many times I had tons of loot and either used long haul to go back to my place in Novac or went to the Gun Runners to sell it off. Also remember that even though you max out the merchant in caps it doesn't mean that's the end of it. You can also do trade and get alot of stuff back including cartons of cigarettes, weapon mods, armor, and weapons along with multitudes of ammo.

Another thing to note is the value of items like 9mm submachine guns, 10mm submachine guns, lever action shotguns, Laser RCW weapons, Miniguns, combat armor, leather reinforced armor, Machete Gladius and BoS power armor. At 80 barter skill my character could take 3 weapon repair kits to a 10mm submachine gun and sell it off for 2400 caps if not more. If I was selling combat armor if it was at 75% condition or higher it easily fetched 3000 caps up to 4000 caps with BoS T-51b power armor fetching around 5500 caps.

Now I want to CAUTION people that take the JR perk that this thing is very risky. If you don't have time to sit down and look at what you are repair you will destroy alot of nice guns. Nearly destroyed my All-American, Ranger Sequoia, and Weathered 10mm pistol several times over if not up to 15 times. This perk is great because it expands the possibilities of what to repair your stuff with, but downside is you can easily accidentally consume an item you want to keep. Take this perk with caution and make sure you have time to use it while in the safety of your home/house/establishment/secure place not out on the battlefield where it can backfire.

I don't think so. I think an optimized gun character would take fast shot and born to destroy. That way you can start with average luck and still get 100% crit rate with snipers. Something like

S5
P5
E6
C 1
I 9
A 8
L 6

Pick up comprehension and for any major plot point/skill checks you can alswya[censored] 80 or 100.

Srry to say but it true, list is silly. these are your opinions and for how u play, may not be for others.
+ ranking perks isnt useful especially since it depends on when u get them and how your skills r set up to use them.

Help. I got addicted to Travel Light.

The difference between Int 9 and 8 = 15 skill points at level 30. Good Natured offers effectively +20 skill points at level 1. I'd pull a point from Int, and probably one from Agility, and get Luck up to 8 - with IT Luck at 2 and an implant you can hit Luck 10, which caps crits, has random in-game effects, and also gets you easily set up with massive caps at the slot machines.

I don't know what the heck you are talking about. For me, its only 15 skill points that ae useful, because I don't bother with barter. but even if you did get at least 20 skill use out of it, that's only like 1.25 points of intelligence, while born to destroy is like starting with 3 extra luck. With implant and naughty, you still have 8 luck for gambling, which is pleny. All you need to do is keep winning your money back while you play slots and wait for the big 20K plus payout. 10 luck makes it a little easier, sure, but so what? 99%+ of the game will be outside of the gambling rooms.

The game pauses when you get into pip-boy...whats the rush?

Between a screw yourself over with revolvers, +1Lck and minor Quest bonus, maybe Swift Learner ain't so bad after all lol.

My prefer min/max range SPECIAL would be:
S5
P5
E7
C1
I9
A6
L8

Then rush to Atomic Wangler to play slot, get your self enough caps for all implants but E and regen. If you really care about 1 extra skill points (as you are likely to be level 2 when you hit jackpot), than you can sacrifice a perk on it.

Why bother rushing when you can just follow the path before you and end up in freeside with the same caps?

You should grab the stealthboy in goodspirings and just loot the silver rush. Should give you enough to caps to get the int implant before level 2. Might have to wait for shops to reset though. Also, try to aboid doubling down or playing anything but blackjack, and that will reduce your chance of going over to level 2.

I don't think some of you guys reazlze that a point of agility reduces your draw speed and reload time by something like 10% as well as increasing your AP regeneration. these are all important considerations when you play on very hard.

If you follow the path it will cost you skill points. Also, if you make a fat wad of cash in vegas, you don't have to worry about looting/selling the crappier items. Helpful on hardcoe for sure.

The Pack Rate requirement is 70 barter, even if you get max intelligence quickly enough your still wasting a tone of skill points on barter just to get one perk, when you can unload additional ammo onto your companions. Caps shouldn't even be an issue all you need to do is win some games in Caravan, head to the casino and play blackjack and you can bring in thousands in caps in no time.

I can have 500-600 rounds on me at a time and not even HAVE weight issues with 6 strength. Also, survival does more for you then just unlocking additional recipes, it determines how long you can go without sleep, food, and water. On hardcoe mode investing some points here is worth it.

Strong Back is yet another pointless perk to select, once again having 2 companions with you adds an additional 200-300 in weight capacity depending on what you have them equipped with.

As far as Science over Lockpicking, I agree Science is much more useful it opens up new dialog choices, and it opens up new recipes for chems and drugs.

EDIT - I don't know why people skimp out on Charisma. On Very Hard, and hardcoe having a decent Charisma can actually be super helpful because it increases the Nerve of your companions. Having a level 5 Chr gives a +25 to damage and armor bonus, and having level 10 gives a +50 armor and damage bonus. A level 1 Charisma may give you 4 exta skill points to work with but your companions suffer and have a +5 damage and armor bonus instead of having the default +25.

I'm not saying Charisma is SUPER ESSENTIAL, but on higher difficulties a decent charisma score helps.

I'm sure some "Leadership" type builds will surface eventually where you let your companions do all the work lol.

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It's percent not flat. Don't forget it.

Pack Rat is kinda useless even on very hard + hardcoe unless you play with a very low strength character.
However, play on those settings + using Arwen's Realism Tweak mod and/or the Hardercore mod, and you'll see it's usefullness. You'll need to have some really strong arguments inorder to persuade me to not get that perk.

Oh, and getting 70 barter is easilly done without sacrificing other more usefull skills. Without any cheating except getting the implants before lvl 2, i can have guns, speech, repair, lockpick all on 90 at around level 20, probably abit earlier if i went searching for skill books. This leaves plenty of points for barter and there's really no better skill option unless you want to go with 2 weapon skills.

Companions. Dump stuff on them. The end. Anything else is not optimal and inefficient. They also provide good combat assistance to a good min-max character. With them around theres no reason to ever need barter because the sheer amount of loot you can drag along with them makes up for the entire skill. Then you can pump speech for more options on how to do a quest. Avoiding some fights all together (beat that foo). Hahahah.

Edit
Also a min-max character doesn't give a [censored] about money beyond what they need to min-max so don't go arguing you need barter. It's so hypocritical its not even funny.

No, it's not the equivalent of 3 points of luck, it's just 3 points of crit chance with a weapon degradation tradeoff. Luck does 4 things - boosts all skills, boosts crit chance, helps gambling, and causes enemy mishaps. You're getting one of these.

atleast say "In my opinion" in the title, cause some of this advice is absurd.

I do not think that this game lends itself well to a discussion on "optimal" builds. It is an rpg sandbox where there exists almost zero chance that you will be unable to finish the game regardless of what you choose. that means that you should choose exactly those things that maximize your enjoyment of the game.

for instance: you could tag guns and lock picking and spec agi/pers and be able to acquire (and operate effectively) the gobi campaign rifle at lvl 8 or so. Fallout is about scrounging around and killing [censored] with fun weapons while helping wastelanders. You cannot really fail at that. If you are an energy weapons guy then you can get the unique guass close to lvl 8 as well.

Make sure you don't "waste" you points of wil wasteland .....because it isn't optimal. Give me a f'n break man.

It is nearly impossible to fail at this game.
There exists no venue or basis upon which to facilitate any kind of competition.
If being "optimal" is really what does it for you then I can support your felt need to play that way. I think most people play video games for fun though.

Also, given the new level ceiling, taking perks like here and now and swift learner are not the tabboo that they were under the lvl 20 ceiling.

My advice for optimizing play in new vegas is as follows:
1) Decide which kick-ass unique you want to kill [censored] with.
2) Rush whatever you need to obtain it.
3)...kill [censored] with it
4) profit (in greater entertainment value)

Real time aiming isn't always the best option without a scope from far away. I like freezing combat when face to face with 5 enemies to make me use some tactics besides just backing up and firing repeatedly, wasting ammo.

I like the rpg element that vats adds to the game.

Obviously it's all opinion.

Speech is a very good skill if you want to solve conflicts without shooting, and it's actually useful in this game unlike fallout 3, but if you'd rather just go with a high gun skill then obviously it's useless.

If you don't like being able to get extra skill points from skill books and a +20 boost instead of +10 from magazines and would rather spend more skill points to get to required amounts, then obviously that perk is useless.

if you use lots of companions and want them to do a ton of damage then it's obvious you don't want charisma at 1. Keeping it at 5 gives them a reasonable boost, but that just means you won't be able to get 9 in int without sacrificing something like luck, which increases critical chance.

to be completely honest I don't agree with anything the OP said, and I play through the game just fine. So yeah, personal opinion. What's "optimal" for one person's playstyle isn't "optimal" for another.

Like a previous poster said, this game is pretty hard to fail at. So, while the game can be challenging I think you need to make it more challenging for yourself in order for it to be fun. And this is done by not making a perfect min/max character. I put the personality of my character first when choosing skill pts and perks. He is still good at stuff, just not a monster. He has a high charisma, because he's a charismatic guy. I just hoped that the game wouldn't screw me by making that stat worthless. And as Cass is an important follower for my character (he's addicted to whiskey) it hasn't been. She hasn't died once in combat yet (ok, apart from that one time I ran into Deathclaws by accident and we both died) despite a lot of people writing in the forums how often their companions die, or how useless they are. I bet they put their charisma at 1.

My character is weak, 3 str (I'm on hardcoe too), so I picked weapon handling so he could use the heavier pistols (pistols are his favorite type of weapon) - so with a whiskey in him he can handle a normally 6 str gun. This plays perfectly into his character.

To me this is the most optimum way to assign perks.

side note - I picked Ladykiller for the extra dialogue choices, but have literally encountered 2 or 3 times where it came up in over 30 hours of game time. Kinda annoyed at the game developers over that.

My only real quibble with your list is the overemphasis on enabling your inner packrat. I've always been a hoarder in these games but this time I just said NO and have been enjoying a light and easy life. So I also don't put too much emphasis on Strength at the beginning of the game.

Here's my list of the ideal order to take perks:

Level 2: Swift Learner (there's NO excuse for not taking this perk first)
Level 4: Comprehension (this is debatable. I take it early because the 20% skill boost is most useful in the beginning)
Level 6: Entomologist (because Rad Scorpions and Cazadors are such a pain when you're a low level - but requires 45 Survival)
Level 8: Commando (if you're a rifle guy)
Level 10: Hunter (mostly for Deathclaws - but requires 35 Survival)
Level 12: Sniper
Level 14: Intense Training (boost Luck to 6 so I can take Better Criticals when I reach level 16)
Level 18: Tag (add more skill points to something that's more useful a bit later in the game - I choose Explosives. Lockpick is another good choice)

I choose Comprehension at Level 4 so I can find skill books to boost my Survival to 45 in preparation for the Entomologist perk at Level 6.

Edit to add: oops, I see you play hardcoe mode. Take back what I said about not needing the packrat-oriented perks.

To each his own. :foodndrink:

However, in a very real sense this is a totally "wasted" perk because you can easily level a character to level 30 without it. The process just takes 10% longer.

I am at level 21 on my first playthrough, and have not even been to Vegas yet. So much to do, so little time ....

you are completely right about charisma. One game I used intense training to get charisma to 10, then I put veronica in power armor (with causeless rebel perk) and gave her Pushy. Then I put on Benny's suit and walked around for two levels without a weapon equipped. I don't mean using "unarmed" weapons either. I mean that I set her to aggressive and just took her to some of the toughest places on the map and watcher her punch nightkin across the mojave. It was nothing short of glorious.