Nerd Rage, I never used it in Fallout 3 and I will never use it in New Vegas. When my health drops that low I always use stimpaks. In Fallout 3 my health rarely ever dropped that low.

Here and Now, I use to take this one in Fallout 3 until I found it kind of cheated me of a perk that could have aided my travels it was just a quick way to add more skill points which wasn't bad in Fallout 3 as by that point I would have close to 30 skill points to distribute. In New Vegas I've only been able to get about 20 or so and you pick perks every 2 levels. Seemed kind of pointless to waste a perk when you have a rather limited number to take.

Miss Fortune, I took it once and wished I had taken Mysterious Stranger. My guess it was added for those who want to make a pacifist character. But when I was fighting Deathclaws and she appeared she didn't do me any good.

Light Step, traps are rather easy to disarm and I don't find I have much trouble however there were some points in quests I wish I had it.

Computer Whiz, Most everyone I know just quits out of a terminal if they have one guess left. Would be worth taking if it had dialogue options or allowed you to bypass some systems on quests. Or recover data on systems that have had a critical system failure.

Robotics Expert, not very many robots in this one unless you're going after Mr. House.

Quick Draw, I don't find this to be to useful. Decreasing the time it takes to equip and holster a weapon doesn't seem to have much of an affect combat success.

Cowboy, I like the added benefit to revolvers and even lever actions weapons as you find these frequently but when I found better weapons I didn't bother using lever actions weapons anymore. And getting 45-70 Government ammo for the Brush Gun can be difficult or pricey and I hardly ever used dynamite. But it comes in handy for revolvers I just don't like the need for for a melee skill of 45. Usually if I'm using guns I won't bother putting points into melee.

Living Anatomy, I liked this one at first, but I find it to be obvious what a targets DT or health is just by looking at them and what they're wearing. The 5% bonus against humans and Ghouls didn't seem to have a much of an affect.

Heave, Ho!, good in VATS but rather pitful outside of VATS unless you're trying to throw a lot of explosives or spears quickly at enemies.

I picked Robotics Expert. It really comes in handy. I used it with a stealth boy deactivating robots in places like Helios One and REPCONN.

If you want to max-out your damage Living anatomy is a must.
Robotics expert is great.
Nerd Rage saved my character many, many times since I love wearing clothing and not armor.
All the other ones you pointed out are indeed worthless.

I really wanted the Gifted trait to return

I didn't find the damage bonus to be worth it to be honest. I find picking the right weapons to be best for damage.

Gauss rifle with Overcharged MF cells kills deathclaws in 2-3 shots. Just need weapon repair kits and Jury Rigging perk helps too. With the Energy Weapons skill at 100 and using the unique Gauss rifle you'll do close to 200 damage with over 400 DPS.

I take Nerd Rage, Robotics Expert and Light Step for RP reasons (with different characters, though).

Never saw the use of Here and Now with the rate you gain experience in these games. Retention seems pretty useless to me too.

Yeah, I forgot to add Retention. If I use a skill mag, I use it for one specific task like dialogue or hacking a terminal. No sense in having it last longer than the few seconds I need it for. Seems like some of these perks were hastily added. Or they had some trouble coming up with new perks.

It could be useful to increase a weapon skill for a difficult battle, if the penalty for not meeting a weapons skill requirement was noticable. And if there were difficult battles

I think the cowboy perk wouldve been better if it lowered the damage bonuses, but added more weapons and clothing that would be effected. Maybe only a 15 percent damage bonus, but would include hunting shotgun,varmint rifle and hunting rifle. Also, add a dt bonus while wearing some clothing (maybe only 2 points) and certain hats should grant a bonus of charisma as well as perception.

Precisely, it's virtually useless unless you're fighting a mess of deathclaws and need a skill of 75 to properly use a weapon and you have 65. But when it comes down to those kind of battles I usually end up forgetting I have skill mags lol. I tend to sell them, they're worth about 16 caps if you have a high barter skill. I do however tend to use Meeting People, Salesman Weekly and Programmer's Digest when I just start a character and need a little boost.

I suppose that would work even though it wouldn't be much of a "Cowboy" perk if you could use weapons that Cowboys didn't use. It's more or less a perk that benefits someone who's roleplaying a character that's a Cowboy. Plus, it's perfect for the western setting, but that doesn't mean it's not useless. If you decreased the damage bonus I probably wouldn't bother taking it even if it did boost clothing stats. If it boosted clothing stats and maintained the 20% damage bonus. I would probabyl take it with my current character. As I've been using revolvers.

I've used it before too. I could see it being handy in some scenarios, but with the addition of the pulse gun I haven't come across a robot I couldn't take down.

That's a fair point and I can't say I noticed any boost in performance when I had that perk activated. I decided to take the perk for roleplaying purposes and because by the time I reached the upper 20's, I had little else to choose from.


I wonder if your Luck attribute affects how often these guys appear. I always thought they were placed in the game simply for humor.


I have a special talent for stumbling into traps and I don't know if it's because the lighting in the game is typically dim or if I'm just careless. I could have definitely gained some benefit from taking this perk. :tongue:



Have to agree with you even though this perk would have fit my second character perfectly due to the roleplaying aspect. There are only three spots on the map that have a large concentration of robots; not nearly as much as the Fallout 3 world so why bother?

If you like to compete against Boone for killcount while wondering the wasteland this could come in handy. :tongue:


I used the Cowboy Repeater through the entire game because of this perk and found that this low-level gun holds up well on hard and very hard mode. I wouldn't mind a damage decrease if this meant the perk could be applied to more cowboy-like weapons.

Yet another perk that I took for roleplaying purposes and it helps bring out the rpg aspect of this game. Other than that it's not really essential.

eh? I can go Deathclaw hunting with a Trail Carbine thanks to that perk. Now for the Brush Gun getting .45-70 ammo isn't bad when you figure out the secrete is pickpocketing empty cases from Veteran Rangers. Also, shooting the more widely available HP rounds at enemies with a DT under 15 will free up more cases to press the SWC rounds with. Cowboy Repeater can also be used late in the game thanks to this perk. Hell, even the humble .357 Revolver can get some pretty impressive damage with this perk behind it and Lucky is just nuts with it's critical hit chance and high ROF.

Cowboy perk, Trail Carbine and SWC hand loads. All that combined results in a weapon system than can kill nearly every enemy in the game with a handful of well placed rounds. Long ranged sniping through the scope or short ranged VATS the gun does both really well. Being able to shoot ~500 rounds (1,000+ with Raul following) before needing to even think about repairing the gun is just a bonus.

You also forgot to add Swift Learner?

Miss Fortune (miles better than Mysterious Stranger as she can hit multiple targets), Light Step, Cowboy and Robotics Expert are all great. Though admittedly Robotics Expert is not as useful as it was in 3 as there are relatively few robots out there.

I have never taken Here and Now though, I just don't see the point. You're just diddling yourself out of a perk. Agree on Nerd Rage too.

I'd nominate Swift Learner as a useless perk, unless you're playing a kill-'em-all character levelling up is too quick as it is without speeding it up further by wasting a perk slot.

Well, with the cowboy perk you gain a damage bonus with hunting revolvers, why not add the shotgun and rifle variants? Also a boost to certain clothing would still make the perk well worth taking

Jury Rigging. Does anybody even use this perk?! :tongue:

No, but I don't think I've ever taken Robotics Expert, Computer Whiz, or half of those on that first list. For robots, I just use my trusty sniper rifle with AP rounds. One or two shots is all I need to take them out. Alternatively, there are the Pulse weapons.

Computers, you can either back out, or if you're like me, can crack the codes in 3 tries.

I took Here and Now on my first play through, but found it to be a waste. Won't do that again. Swift Learner is probably another one that isn't necessary. There's more than enough XP to be earned in the game.

Here and Now is useful if you need extra skill points at a time, But you'll regret it later..

I just choose it because all my other perks are useless then.

Jury Rigging: I don't see how this perk COULD be useful. This is one of the most helpful perks handsdown.

Plasma Enthusiast or whatever it's called.
Plasma weapons already have high AP points as far as I remember so 10% decrease in AP cost isn't very necessary.

I'd be lost without that perk. It has made my life a hell of alot easier on F:NV :slap:

At least SOMEONE understands that its easier to maintain weapons and armor with that perk..

I'de have no working weapons.. :sadvaultboy:

YES! How is a perk that lets you fix the AMR with ratty Caravan Shotguns a TERRIBLE PERK?

Answer: It isnt.

I kno rite! :spotted owl:

I HATE how you can repair Remnant Power Armor with Metal Armor! I mean, Pff, How useless is THAT? So useless.

And lets not forget how useless it is to repair that unique gun of a rare normal gun with common normal gun. I mean, so useless. :laugh:

Pff, Yeah I mean really, Who would repair that gun thats worth over 15000 Caps with a 109 cap weapon.

Peh, Those poooooor souls. :rolleyes: