Played the game to Lvl30 vhard hardcoe w.o any trouble, bored out of my mind at this point. This thread might have the most obvious statements for people that know how to build a super godzilla indestructible character.
I'll list the best perks in a orderly fashion but they aren't in order in which they are obtained; then i'll list the few skills which are important while others are just obsolete.

#1 Pack rat - no question about this is the #1 perk there is in this game, at least if you play on hardcoe.
#1 Educated - tied for first place with pack rat
#2 Better Criticals - this perk + a sniper rifle + sneak attack is almost a guarantee one shot one kill, even if your getting critical hits which aren't sneak this perk is in effect.
#3 Jury Rigging - repairing guns that cost 4,000 - 7,000 caps to buy with guns that are bought for 75-200 caps is just plain outright cheating, cheating in a form of a perk.
#4 Finese - self explanatory
#5 Sniper - all you will be doing in this game is aiming for the head
#6 Action boy x 2
#6 Grim Reaper sprint
#7 Strong back - 50 extra pounds worth of pack rat ammo weight, yes pls.
#8 Chemist - double duration on bullet time. And your jet/psycho last forever even while fast traveling throughout the tiny map New Vegas has to offer.
#9 Silent running

Debatable perks
Comprehension - I picked this up before reading any skill books, have to say i maybe came across a few with the whole map explored possibly the only perk i regret picking up on my lvl capped toon, probably would of grabbed a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. increase at the level of this perk, the choice variety when i picked this up was very small.
Concentrated fire - I believe enemy needs to survive the first bullet from the anti-matter rifle for this perk to have any effect. (I didn't get this perk)
Hand Loaded - There is ONE good schematic which is for the .308 (sniper rifle ammo) which increases the damage by 50%, the problem is once you reach end game, w.o doing the main questline so you can free roam, the sniper rifle gets replaced by anti matter rifle and last i remember hand loaded doesn't offer any .50 schematics. (I didn't get this perk)
Math wrath - grabbed it @ lvl 30, nothing else that was good at that point, this perk is weaker than action boy but becomes appealing after you've selected from the only decent dozen perks there are.

The most optimum way to characterize your toon's special at creation screen is the following.
Str - 5
Per - 6
End - 9 (for all implants)
Char - 1
Int - 9 (for max skill points)
Agi - 6 (with small frame)
Luck - 5
You may tweak a point here or there depending which trait you go with, small frame or four eyes or both. You'll also want to get a intelligence implant as soon as you get the caps for it to increase it to 10 which will further provide more skill points.

Skills you'll want to max but not to 100, until you start coming close to lvl cap, you'd want to leave them at 88ish in case you come across 3 books that increase your repair skill, and with comprehension thats +12 points. So you don't want to have 100 skill cap before your 30, otherwise skill books go to waste.
Most important 3, want to use all your skill points from the beginning to increase these 3 skills to 70-80 range.
Guns
Repair - Jury Rigging requires 90, and even if there was no perk as such, you'd want to increase your repair really high.
Barter - Not only is this perk offer you dialog on almost every quest to increase your reward, but its a pre-req for pack rat, the best perk in the game.
Science & lockpicking, . Fun fact from my lvl 30 general statistics page: You've hacked 10 computers, you've picked 104 locks. Just from that statistic you'd think lock picking is superior but science is used for some dialog and for crafting. I ended up at 80 science 55 lockpicking when i hit cap, and w. a magazine used, that becomes 100 science & 75 lock picking.
Sneaking - ended up at 92.

Bad skills
Speech
survival - collected raw meat from a pack of bullhorns will last me for 5 years on hardcoe mode, why look any further into this skill and the useless campfire crafting thats associated w. it.
Energy weapons - Guns are 100x more superior
Explosives - Energy weapons are 100x more superior, i guess this makes guns 10,000 more superior then explosives.


I left out all the melee related talents & skills as it is a completely inferior game play vs a character that goes guns. But nevertheless can't compare the 2.

It's silly and misleading to rank perks outside of their level of acquisition. Garbage in, grabage out.

Silly? Maybe your the one thats silly, you silly billy. I clearly stated they are not in order if being obtained, but they are in order of importance. I guess it is silly to take a look at a list of 50 perks and name a dozen useful ones, silly indeed.

I believe thats called Data ---- Straight ----> to Wisdom

How high would you rank educated if you only could get it at level 24? How good would finese be if it required 6+ charisma.

You can't just look at the raw bonus of a perk. It must be weighed incontext of the character and when it can be acquired, and its pre-reqs./

At lvl 24 educated would be at a loss of -40 skill points out of a possible 56 it could give you if you were to pick it up at level 4. So i would rank it very very low.

Whats w. the hypothetical statements & questions, it doesn't require 6 charisma, and if it did then it wouldn't be very good at all would it.
Yes i guess everything can be taken into context, such as a Lvl 24 character realizing he missed out on a perk that works best when picked up early such as educated. Im not gonna make 30 different threads for each individual level. How about that for some context.

Also i believe its in the title of the thread "how to make a optimum character" not how to take a character thats nearly at level cap. Your taking my stuff out of context not the other way around

Pack rat is way overrated. Between ED-E and another follower carry weight should never be a problem. Quite easy in fact to go through a hardcoe play through without the perk.

Also, you need "Hand Loader" perk in the mix. Some of the custom hand loads one can do at the reloading bench are just nuts. +50% damage from .308 rifles using JHP with no penalties or .44 Magnum SWC that turns the trail carbine into a monster. Then you have .357 JFP that really breaths new life into the Cowboy Repeater at higher levels. Only thing keeping the perk from being overpowered is the .44 Magnum SWC rounds need both the perk and a pair of skill checks with an NPC to obtain. Otherwise I would been using the Trail Carbine as my main weapon along time ago.

Other than the .223, or 5.56mm HP, rounds for Ratslayer every round I use is hand loaded.

does anyone find that theres a lack of usefull perks i mean if it wasnt 1 every 2 levels youd just end up picking whatever random skill youd close your eyes and scroll up and down and land on one and use it.....
i mean theres a few useful perks but other than that ifind most of them useless

You lost me after you said pack rat was the most important perk.

And that's coming from a guy with rat in his name.

I did mention that perk, along w. the .308 50% dmg ammo it crafts which is the ammo that grabbed my attention for this perk, even then i've moved on to bigger and better guns which is the .50 cal. And hand loader does not offer anything for .50 cal.
I certainly don't use any weapons w. .44 ammo at level 30, hell i think i passed the .44 calibur when i got my hands on a hunting revolver, then i grabbed a revolver from a NCR veteran which replaced the hunting revolver and both of those guns don't use .44.
At best Hand Loader is useful mid-game and becomes obsolete towards late game free-roaming.




Some of the useless perks in FNV were useful in fallout 3, such as scoundrel. But in FNV ammo is 1 trip away from Gun Point vendor & its dirt cheap. You've also had perks like Cyborg in FO3, and all the perks for energy weapons because energy weapons weren't terrible in FO3 so you had a bigger perk pool

You'll figure out why pack rat is #1 after you try hardcoe mode.

I only play on very hard/hardcoe, and I would never take that skill cause there is no way in hell I'm wasting all those skill points in nearly useless barter.

is that the perk that requires high barter??
cause if it is im not that high yet....

Edit: it was answered before i asked....
i dunno im hardly ever over weight with 2 packmules with me

Pack rat is good but the high barter you need for it pretty much makes the skill rubbish, I never put points into barter. The points that you put into barter could be used to make your player much much better.

Maybe its just a personal fetish of mine to be swimming in 120,000 caps with 96 barter. But @ lvl 30 w. guns & repair maxed out; 90ish sneak; 55 lock &80 science which will open 75/100 doors/computers w. magazine (which are plentiful) w. that said, theres really nothing else to put your skill points into. I love caps, and i love making my ammo weight 50% less. But i suppose if you have multiple companions as if one wasn't over-powered enough to you carrying all your ammo and equipment then maybe you can skip out on barter to pick up???? theres nothing else to pick up.. Cause i have everything maxed or nearly maxed thats important and thats including 96 barter. Hell i even have my energy wpns at 86 and i've never used them.

If i had 80 skill points to spend at the point im on (by skipping out on barter completely) i wouldn't know what to put them in. I guess i'd max out my 90 sneak and raise lockpicking from 55-80 and max science so i can save 20 caps on magazines which vendors constantly sells (maxing science was sarcasm). And i would still have over 50 skill points left over to spend.

you are trying to min-max a chaarcter build here and you are calling companions overpowered? Maybe you are missing "solo" or "non-companion" character in your title.

Right let me just get back on the topic, if not barter then what. +25 more to lockpicking is the only thing i see in my build. But even then i have 50-70 points wasted in energy & explosives, i don't regret it because theres really nothing to put skill points into.

http://img243.imageshack.us/f/aaadm.png/

Good god man, you don't even have travel light by level 30. I think your perk-o-meter is broken.

Anti-Materiel is overrated compare to Handloader, not the otherway round. Although I have to admit able to fight Deathclaw face to face is awesome.

In hardcoe, able to convert used ammo into dmgx1.5 rounds and recover double case? or scarce 50cal into something even more deadly?
AMR is overkill in most case, rarity of 50cal also add on extra trip just to be sure you are loaded.

Speech is decent, it allows you to finish a few quest that is usually exclusive, and often open up options in quests; I consider it "decent".

Barter would be great if I manage to dump energy weapon altogether, but I never get tired of melting things to ashes nor goo.....

Well its either 50% extra sniper rifle dmg which takes up a perk or a anti-matter rifle shot that sets things on fire (if they happen to survive the first bullet) otherwise their corpse will be set on fire.
There is no ammo rarity, its 100% restock every time a vendor restocks. .50 cal is certainly not rare as it is sold in bulk, regular round, incendiary round, and armor pen round. And i never run out, i sure as hell can't carry too many of them as it weights. Four .50 cal bullets weight a pound..... thats w.o pack rat. And people here are saying not only its not the best perk, they plain outright refuse to get it? lol Ya.....

I think i mentioned hand loader perk in previous posts, its debatable. Its certainly not useless.

As for speech.. barter does what speech does in quest conversations, which is usually 50% or double the amount of cap rewards. But barter has use outside quest dialog, such as buying & selling.

Got gunskil, repair, lockpick, speech at the levels i want.
Figured Barter was a good option for the perks.

Pack Rat is awesome imo, even if you're not using the AmR. Proper armor weights quite a bit and if you're like me, you never let any ammo lying around.

There are no "best and worst" perks but there are certainly upper tier and lower tier. The Sniper perk for example while it may be good on console on the PC its garbage.. especially if you are taking sneak attacks with an Anti-Materiel Rifle as your style of play.

Chemist is also one of the lower tier perks. You dont need to make Chems last longer when you have an unlimited supply of them.

And Pack Rat is useless unless you actually carry around guns (and ammo for them) that you dont even use. If the only thing you are carrying around with you is the Anti-Materiel Rifle, ammo for it, food/water, a few misc items and your apparel then you shouldnt be really going over 100lbs of weight leaving 150 or even more to pick up things on your travels. You over value making things that barely weigh anything even lighter. The Pack Rat perk probably freed up about 15~lbs of weight in your inventory, congrats.

Comprehension adds 4 or 5 bonus points to each skill if you manage to grab all the books by the way. It also lets you leave Lockpicking and Science at 80 so that any time you have to crack a 100 lock/terminal you just read a skill mag that gives you +20.

The pack rat cuts ammo weight in half, most of my weight is ammo, and no i carry more then 1 gun, and with more then 1 gun i carry more then 1 ammo caliber and more then one type of ammo for each caliber.
Riot Gun
.22 Silenced Machine Gun
Sniper
AMR
12.7mm pistol
Ranger Sequoia

And about chemist.. If there was a perk that only doubled the time on Turbo i'd pick it. Chemist doubles time on turbo stims radaway jet and just about every consumable. If your gonna stack buffs such as psycho and slasher for massive overkill chemist is the way to go. As 1 slasher & psycho will last forever. I believe the perk you get from achievements called "Day tripper" is counted towards chemist, cause when i pop meds they last forever.

And how in the world are you ruling out sniper as a perk for PC? have you noticed that there are half a dozen good perks are tied to V.A.T.S. ? Have you noticed that the whole fallout franchise is V.A.T.S. Have you? Cause the head is what you want to aim for in V.A.T.S. whenever you use it, cause its big part of the game you know. And coincidentally sniper gives you extra change to hit that body part, and you want to skip out on it? Okay.

Yes thanks for reminding me cause i think you just copy/pasted what i've wrote several times on page 1.

There's 15 perks to pick from. I always pick Finesse, Better Criticals, Educated, Comprehension, Hand Loader/Vigilant Recycler and Jury Rigging no matter who I am playing. That's 6 already. I also consider Toughness, Pack Rat and Strong Back a good choice in the long run but I'd rather take them later in the game.

I have strong dislike to all the VATS-based perks, both those increasing accuracy (I use VATS only in point-blank range) and AP (I typically have more AP than I need...).

I will never take perks allowing to hack computer again, pick a lock again, draw weapon faster or run faster with lighter armor - and other minor booster perks because 1 perk per 2 levels just doesn't leave space for this crap.

I don't like perks that give damage bonuses only to particular rare enemies, robots for example or wild animals, I don't need those at all, they simply aren't warranting spending of a perk. Same goes for perks that boost only handful of weapons.

I don't use drugs almost at all so things boosting their duration or strength are a waste of space for me.

Here and Now! and Swift Learner are a huge waste of a perk slot.