I Don’t Want To Set the World on Fire (Actually, I Do)

Part One

(Energy Weapons hardcoe Critical Specialist)
This build is one of the most overpowered setups you can have, although it will not reach its full potential until level 50. Energy ammo is difficult to come by because it has a higher scarcity than finding bullets, and it is a lot more expensive. Keep in mind that this build assumes that you can gain access to a decent amount of implants and DLC perks to mitigate your need for S.P.E.C.I.A.L. This build has nothing to do with VATS. I hate VATS myself, so there are no perks in this build that will aid with using VATS.

Starting Out
At first, you need to prioritize your play-style. Implants are there and available, but you don’t want to use them as crutches. They are luxuries for boosting S.P.E.C.I.A.L at high level. Skills, with the appropriate amount of intelligence, combined with either comprehension or Educated can all reach 100 by the time you’re level 50 if you collect skill books. However, you are going to also need to prioritize skills. Let’s go over SPECIAL first.

Strength: For this build, you don’t want to bother with it very much until higher level. The maximum strength you should be picking up is 6-or-7. Weapon Handling is a necessity for just about any player, because having to increase STR to 8 to use specific weapons will weigh down the other options for SPECIAL. Perks such as Reinforced Spine, Spineless, and/or an Implant will get you more than enough of this. Starting Amount: 5

Perception: Energy Weapons users drool over this. However, the main purpose of PER for this sort of build is to give access to perks. The enemy viewing distance is only a luxury, and not vital to someone’s play-style. Considering that every other S.P.E.C.I.A.L will increase a few skills, PER is only going to be useful in the short-term. Starting Amount: 5

Endurance: This is the essence of surviving low levels on Very Hard. It increases Health, and other necessities such as Survival. This is not the only benefit you will receive from END. The amount of END you have numbers the amount of implants you can receive. There are 10 implants total, one of which (END) you will not need for the most part. All nine other implants are useful, and having a high END is a good way to make your character tough enough to survive Very Hard. Starting Amount: 9

Charisma: One word: Nope. This SPECIAL has the least to offer considering it only boosts two skills (you won’t need either of these skills until higher levels). Companion nerve is not as useful as it might come across. Considering you’re on hardcoe, you’re in an environment that can easily kill cocky followers. “Meltdown!” can easily kill followers in close range as well, so most of the time you’re probably going to have your followers on “passive” mode. Starting Amount: 1

Intelligence: This is an interesting SPECIAL because Intelligence all depends on preference. It’s going to increase three skills, like most of the other SPECIALs, and it also factors into how many skill points you get per-level. On a short term, INT is terrible. A few points placed into INT will not make a damn bit of difference for about twenty levels. It’s at high levels where you’ll really understand the magnitude of how much a single point of INT can make a difference. That’s why you need to get an implant for this when possible. Starting Amount: 6

Agility: The usefulness of Agility is similar to Perception. Many useful perks are going to require a decent amount of AGL (6-or-7). However, the effects of Agility are better-and-worse than Perception. The skill points that you can from Agility are Guns and Sneak. One-of-which will not be useful (guns, considering that you’re using Energy Weapons). However, Agility noticeably increases draw and reload speed. This is something that can be overlooked. The latter is more useful than the former, but speed is essential for getting out of a tight situation. Starting Amount: 6

Luck: The essence of this build. Everything about Luck screams “awesome”. The main reason that LCK is useful is the critical. One point of LCK equals one percent to score a critical (1%). That is the main reason why LCK is useful. The standard is going to be five-percent chance to score a critical (5%), but by the time you’re at ten LCK (which must happen for this build by the time you’re at the endgame), you will have ten-percent chance to score a critical simply from LCK (10%). On top of the critical chance, Luck will slightly increase every skill. You gain one skill point for each skill for every two points of Luck. The last bonus, one that is overlooked, is enemy mishaps. Enemies will aim their sights slightly higher. They have more of a chance of bouncing a grenade off a nearby car and killing themselves. Enemies have more of a chance to distance themselves too far to hit you with a melee swing. This list can go on forever, but I’ll end at that point. Oh, and Luck makes it much easier to gamble. Starting Amount: 8

Traits:
This should be a no-brainer. Built To Destroy and Fast Shot.
Whatever you do, NEVER use Wild Wasteland with this build. Even if you remove it later on with the Auto-Doc from Old World Blues, taking the perk in the first place sacrifices one of the best Energy Weapons in the game: The YCS/186.

The Bear Necessities Part One (Prioritizing Skills):

You need to tag these three:

Energy Weapons
Repair
Survival

These are going to be the three most helpful skills. Energy Weapons will increase the amount of DAM that an Energy Weapon will score. Not to mention, Energy Weapons always have a required skill to be effective. For example, a Gatling Laser cannot be effectively fired with an Energy Weapon skill of 25. The gun will not be able to aim properly, and sway from side-to-side. You need to pick up repair, simply because projectile weapons degrade like there’s no tomorrow. While Weapon Repair kits are out there, and you will receive almost an infinite supply of them after Dead Money, Repair is still a must. Jury Rigging requires 90 repair by the time you’re level 14, so you need to get busy with that skill early. Survival is the most important out of the three. Survival will increase the effectiveness of food-and-drink, so it will increase the amount of H20 and FOD you gain from eating and drinking consumable items. This is an absolute must for hardcoe mode, especially if you have a habit of waiting and/or fast travelling.

Increase these evenly as you level up:

Science (even though it’s not tagged, get it to 70 before level 18)
Lockpick
Sneak
Speech
All four of these need to be at 100 by the time you hit level forty. That’s a very easy goal unless your INT is lower than five.

Other necessities:
Barter: 70 for Pack Rat.
Guns: 30 for Rapid Reload.

Implants:
1. Perception. Get it before you hit level 16.
2. Luck. This is a no-brainer, but it can wait considering that Perception is needed to get Better Criticals (50% damage after a critical, which is much more beneficial than 1% chance of critical).
3. Strength. To reach 6, so you can meet the highest weapon requirement with Weapon Handling activated. If you add the Reinforced Spine perk to this, you don’t need Weapon Handling.
4. Agility. Faster reloads are always handy as you’re leveling up.
5. Intelligence. Extra skill points are always good.
6. Charisma. I would recommend just holding this off until you’re a polished level 50. This won’t have very much use until you have so much money that you can’t spend it.
Insert Monocyte Breeder and Sub-Dermal Implant anywhere after #3, when you can afford them.

Bear Necessities Part Two (Perks)

Meltdown
Better Criticals
Finesse
Jury Rigging
Laser Commander
Them’s Good Eatin'
Vigilant Recycler
Comprehension
Just Lucky I’m Alive!
Pack Rat
Implant Y-7 (OWB Implant)
Voracious Reader (pair this with Retention for maximum efficiency from True Police Stories)
Set Lasers For Fun (Unlocked)
Strong Back (Ranks 1+2)
Light Touch (if you’re using Light Armor)
Travel Light (if you’re using Light Armor)
Lord Death (Unlocked)
Weapon Handling (If you decide to choose Reinforced Spine as opposed to Spineless, drop this perk.)
Chem Resistant and Old World Gourmet (if you choose to use chems)

This is my perk method for each level, and I highly recommend it, although you can plug in whatever perks you wish to use that fits your play-style.

2. Lady Killer (or Confirmed Bachelor, depending on preference)
4. Comprehension
6. Intense Training: Luck
8. Strong Back
10. Finesse
12. Life Giver
14. Jury Rigging
16. Better Criticals
18. Vigilant Recycler
20. Them’s Good Eatin’
22. Laser Commander
24. Meltdown
26. Rapid Reload
28. Light Step
30. Burden To Bear
32. Silent Running
34. Chemist (increased efficiency from Food and Water)
36. Pack Rat
38. Voracious Reader
40. Retention
42. Heavyweight
44. Chem Resistant
46. Old World Gourmet
48. Robotics Expert
50. Just Lucky I’m Alive

Part Two

Best-In-Hotkey Weapons
1. Holorifle+. This should be the standard weapon of just about every Energy Weapon character post-Dead Money. Great DAM, has a scope, but the attack speed (and mag-size) is mediocre.
2. Sprtel-Wood 9700. Expensive as hell, but has lethal attack speed and accuracy. It’s an all-purpose weapon. You should be fueling every Electron Charge Pack you find into this.
3. Elijah’s Advanced LAER+. This is the alternative to the Holorifle if you’re looking for long range accuracy. It has lethal accuracy, a solid attack speed, and quick reload. It’s one of the few Unique Weapons that can be modded.
4. YCS/186. Your sniper weapon. While the Sprtel-Wood has a good accuracy, fully-automatic weapons are almost never going to get you one-shot kills on Very Hard. The YCS has a higher DAM than even the Anti-Materiel Rifle, and about the same fire rate.
5. Plasma Caster. A semi-automatic all-purpose weapon alternative to the Sprtel-Wood. To sum this up, Microfusion Cells as opposed to Electron Charge Packs.
6. Pew Pew. It’s one of the deadliest Energy Weapons in the game. You should be fueling every single Energy Cell you have into this bad-boy. The best part? It’s a pistol, so you can carry it into casinos.
7. Hotkey “True Police Stories”
8. You can’t hotkey 8 items because #2 is used for ammo switch.

As for ammo, you’re going to end up going with Optimized or Max Charge. It all depends on efficiency. Max Charge is leaps-and-bounds more powerful than Optimized, but paired with Built To Destroy, your weapon is going to degrade to nothing very quickly. I would recommend building Optimized with Vigilant Recycler until you finish Dead Money and gain the code to be able to build a ton of Weapon Repair Kits. Jury Rigging is also very useful.

Armor:
For starts, I suggest refraining from armor that drops important stats. For example, T-45d Power Armor drops Agility by 2, which is definitely not worth it.

Glass Cannon: Sacrifice DT for a bit of critical strike.

Joshua Graham’s Armor paired with Travel Light and Light Touch
1^st Recon Beret
Lucky Shades.

Juggernaut: Sacrifice a tiny bit of critical strike for a load of DT. This is the classic Fallout approach with EWs.

T-51b Power Armor or Gannon Family Tesla Armor
T-51b Power Helmet or Gannon Family Tesla Helmet

Well Rounded: A good amount of DT but also some critical chance.

Elite Riot Gear
Elite Riot Gear Helmet

Followers:
The absolute best combination is going to be Raul Tejada and ED-E. Max Charge and Built To Destroy are going to make your weapons degrade like crazy, so you need his perk to offset this. ED-E becomes a workbench after Lonesome Road, and with Camarader-E, he becomes the best possible follower. His perk also makes up for lost Perception as well.

REFRAIN FROM MELEE FOLLOWERS. ESPECIALLY ON hardcoe. Meltdown, especially against a tough enemy, is going to kill (literally kill on hardcoe) your follower, because they’ll be standing up-close. When you’re doing quests for followers such as Veronica, Rex, and Lily, make sure to tell Veronica and Lily to use ranged weapons if possible, and turn Rex onto “passive” mode.

Play-Style:
Preparation: The reason that Voracious Reader, Comprehension, and Retention are on there is because of True Police Stories. The system that Voracious Reader enacts is a situation where every burned/destroyed/scorched book you pick up (there are thousands upon thousands of them in the game) will give you a blank magazine. At this point, the real factor is wonderglue. Giving Muggy some mugs will get you wonderglue, as well as scavenging. Once you have these materials, along with at least one True Police Stories magazine, you can make hundreds of them. Now, you have hundreds of magazines that each last three real minutes (due to Retention) that award +10 critical.

Start off by activating “True Police Stories”, then casting off a sneak attack critical. If you encounter a group of enemies, you may very well kill each-and-every one of them with Meltdown. The sneak attack critical should be done with one of the semi-automatic weapons, not the Sprtel-Wood. Once you have alerted the group of enemies (or enemy), you need to pick a weapon depending on the situation. If they’re up close and personal, then use Pew Pew. If they’re at a medium range, use the Holorifle+ or Elijah’s Advanced LAER, depending on if you want accuracy and quantity, or DAM with more range. At long range, it depends on the scenario. If the enemy has an enormous amount of DT, then use the Sprtel-Wood to bring them down before they reach you. If you think that they will go down in one hit (most enemies do with this build), then use the YCS/186. The Plasma Caster fits in all three scenarios. At a ridiculously long range, you want to be using the YCS/186.

Extras:
-Divide Survivor/Dead Man’s Hand/Scourge of the East/Bear-Slayer: I normally insert INT or STR because I’m normally at 10 LCK by the time I make it to Lonesome Road, but LCK should be the priority in this case.
-Raul Tejada is best-equipped with a Medicine Stick or Brush Gun.
-The Brotherhood upgrade to ED-E is the best for hardcoe, although I normally give him a Followers upgrade for a better ending.
-If you’re going to use chems, I recommend Hydra the most, followed by Turbo.
-My reasoning behind Robotics Expert is that robots (especially the OWB ones) are the enemies that often can avoid being one-shot-killed.
-Keep in mind that you are not going to be near-capable to one shot enemies in Old World Blues on very hard. Unless you use console commands to give yourself more critical chance, it’s very difficult.
-Old World Gourmet is overlooked, but I find it important because of the 25% addiction resistance.

Thanks for reading!

I love this.

Alittle side note, get your luck up asap for dead money. Go into the madre and win the 1000 chips code.
Infinite repair kits.

Thank you for the guide gingy.