I am finding most strong NPCs, and myself, almost completely immune to damage because of the Damage Threshold thing.
Its taking me about 100 shots :gun: to bring down Super Mutants with a Tri-Laser , and it would take them half an hour of swinging away to kill me. :brokencomputer:
I am level 15, and I have only used stimpacks 4 times during combat because I take so little damage. Is this normal, or have I managed to build some Super-Tank.
My companion Veronica can 2-hit deathclaws, and it would take me 50 shotguns to the head to take one down.

Use clothing for armor and use the anti materiel rifle as your gun. Fights should go much faster that way.

The tri-laser shoots three weak shots, if I recall correctly? So it would be terrible against high-armor enemies. Single high-damage shots (like large caliber, non-automatic rifles or the .44 pistol) are better against armor. (This is also why Veronica's punch is good - the power fist is a single, very high strength attack.)



(As for Deathclaws & Veronica... first time I ran into Deathclaws with her, she died to in about a second, followed very quickly by me. Of course, I only have 10 DT, so.... )


What armor are you using / how much DT do you have? Also, what difficulty are you on? If you're on Hard or V.Hard, your damage is being reduced, so you have even more trouble getting through armor.



Edit: example of the tri-laser concept -

You have two weapons, one that fires 3 shots of 10 dmg at once, one that fires a 30 damage shot.

Against an unarmored enemy, they both do 30 total damage.
Against a DT 8 enemy: First gun does (10-8)x3 = 6 damage. Second gun does (30-8) = 22 damage.

I dont really have trouble dealing with supermutants on level 18, I just shoot them in the face with my new girlfriend named Maria. :celebration:

Lvl 15 and super mutants takes forever to kill you?
Ooookay?
And what armor and perks do you have and what difficulty do you play on?

Playing on normal difficulty, not hardcoe.
Yeh, I was joking about the Tri-Laser thing, but even with a more powerful gun like the Cowboy Repeater, which for me deals 34 damage, has the same issue, it honestly does not matter which gun I use because I still do minimun damage, so the faster the fire rate/more projectiles the more damage it deals for me.
Admittedly I am using T-51b power armor, and I have that perk which adds 3 DT, but I did not expect the DT to be enough to make Death Claws just seem like mole rats.
The DT did not do much to help some guys wearing power armor themselves survive my pistol, I could blow of their heads in 2 shots with it. It mostly seems to affect Non-Human enemies.

Veronica is a BEAST with that power fist. I brought her with me for like two hours, just so happened to be in one building with Sentry Bots that were practically invincible to my [censored], and she saved my life. What a hero.

Anywho, I usually wear leather or combat armor and I'm not a super tank. Most enemies die pretty quickly to me too, except the aforementioned sentry bots. Deathclaw attacks (i think) pierce DT (at least I think it did in Fallout 3).

And power armor is supposed to make you a tank. The whole point of the re-use of Damage Threshold from the old games was to make it epic. Once you had power armor in the old ones, enemies with regular pistols would do no damage.

Use more powerful (on a per-shot basis) weapon, or switch to armor piercing ammo (or maybe weapon mods) that ignore a set amount of enemy armor (it will say something like "-15.00 DT" in the ammo's description).

It's an interesting mechanic. I foresee mods that add even more types of ammo (jacketed, etc) to give even more options.

Take the Shotgun Surgeon perk. It removes 10 DP from an enemy for your shotguns and pretty much reduces everyone but Brotherhood members to 0 or 0 > n DP.

Unless he's a EW character at which point he should get the unique gauss rifle and multiplas rifle.

use AP ammo.

and remember DPS is good for unarmored enemies.
and Base damage is good for armored enemies

I don't understand. If you and NPCs are both difficult to take down, doesn't that balance out and have no effect? This is basically a tautology.

You just wanted to try to contribute to the community didn't you? It helps if you have something of substance to say, rather than "I'm not stronger or weaker and enemies aren't stronger or weaker."

I had some serious trouble with sentry bots when I first ran into them. I forget what level I was, but I was sporting a lever shotgun and cowboy repeater rifle thing (cowboy weapons FTW!), and could barely get ANY damage through. I was using MAGNUM cartrdges in my shotgun AND had teh -10 DT perk. After getting owned by his Gatling laser I retreated further into the building and around a corner while reloading and waitng for AP to regen. Thankfully, I had the scientist companion with me and his Plasma pistol was able to land damage.

Granted, I play on the hard difficulty, but this was the first time I didn't know if I was going to be able to kill an enemy I ran into. I went directly to gun runenrs and bough there 6-7k brush gun and some ammor peircing ammo incase I ran into them again...

I've found that the cowboy repeater is ok against average targets, but not so much against heavily armored targets. This Gun (it looks like the M-1 Garande) is my rifle of choice right now. It shoots fast. It reloads fast. And, it packs a punch. Plus, you can put .308 AP rounds in it for extra DT penetration.

I've heard the anti-materiel rifle is the best for taking heavily armored targets down. I just haven't found one in my travels yet.

I got lucky, ran across a pulse gun really early on. It makes sentry bots die in like 1 shot. if your having trouble with them its a must

I personally found that "This Machine" Garand rifle, makes mincemeat out of anything that I faced. Always carried the 12.7mm Pistol as backup along with a modded Assault Carbine.

Also, pulse grenades and mines and stuff do extra damage to people wearing Power Armor, super useful in killing NCR heavy troops or Brotherhood vets.