Hello all, been a long time since my last post on these forums. But Fallout is soo good and the only reason I quit was due to a bugged out quest and a corrupted save ruined everything.

Last night, after completing Dead Money, I finally just hit level 27 and 100 gun skill for the good Medicine Stick. I do have the cowboy perk already. So my current loadout is Sniper rifle (probably switch to Christine's next once I start the next DLC.. which is soon), Medicine Stick, and thinking Lucky to work well with the smart cowboy, living off the land feel I have going. However, on VH I am getting annihilated by legion assassins and I wonder if it is due to a redundancy to my weapons. The assassins charge at me, no matter if I am sneaking or not.. leaving the sniping route off unless I catch them off-gaurd. Therefore, I usually switch to my medicine stick and use VATS to pick them off. Well either I die from the Assult Carbine or 12.7mm submachine guns before or after I finish a round of VATS.

So, help? I don't know how I feel about shotguns.. I usually like mid to long range guns and ME3 left bad tastes of shotguns in my mouth... I mean we have shotguns in real life.. and they aren't that terrible with range. Thing it is a dumb direction with game mechanics.

Anyways, enough of tangents... Should I rather switch to a pistol? Is sniper rifle and medicine stick redundant? I thought of a cool looking cowboy with a sniper, medicine stick, pistol, and chances knife for whatever reason.. So I guess just throw in some imput please

And one more tangent... I already have medicine, speech, guns, repair, science, lockpicking, and working on 60 something survival all mostly maxed (just left space for skill books besides guns to use my beloved medicine stick) so what is the next to increase? Melee for chances knife? I don't know about Barter... most dialogue options to use barter seems evil and underhanded.. not my character. And most would agree that energy weapons and guns are a waste.. so what is left for the next 20 levels?

Forget Medicine Stick, if you see them before they see you use a silenced sniper rifle. And aim for the head. Or just stick to cover and pick them of from a distance.

do you have hand load rounds for your medicine stick? and start firing before they get into vats range. stock up on med-x. What armor are you wearing?

Death from afar I'd say....if you have steady, take it and go into VATS and take some shots with your sniper...or use stealth boy to sneak away(?) For the future, explosives will do wonders for you considering that the legion arrives in packs. I would pursue Mercy (Dead Wind Cavern), anti-material rifle, and/or Boone as a companion (seeing his long range talents)