Seriously, anyone given this thing a try? Surprisingly stupidly powerful, especially for such a basic weapon. Hell, the Q-35 Matter Modulator is designed for crit builds, but I see no reason to use it instead of a fully modded Laser Rifle.

Check this out:

A fully modded laser rifle, on a crit, is gonna hit about ~102 damage

A fully modded tri-beam laser rifle, on a crit, is gonna hit about ~141 damage.

Yes, both can have their damage increased drastically in various ways, but for simplicity's sake, accept those numbers for the moment.

Now what benefits does the Laser Rifle have over the Tri Beam since it hits for 40 less damage?

-Faster firing rate

-Scoped and more accurate

-Less ammo consumption

-Bigger clip size (HUGE bonus, trust me)

-Lower AP cost

If you're critting a lot? If you have high luck? There's 66 damage that both weapons are affording you that both gain exactly the same way. 66 damage is nothing to sneeze at, especially when we're talking about a weapon that fires as fast as these two do. That the Tri-Beam can potentially hit for 75 base damage while the Laser rifle gets ~36-45? (sorry, unsure of exact amount ) Totally unneccesary, especially when a scope means you're more likely to land headshots. Likewise, lasers are designed to be heavily effected by amps. Max charge cells and laser commander are very easy to get, both of which do quite a bit for damage. The result is a good 50% and 15% boost to that 66 damage (minimum) that results in 113 damage on a crit. "Not neccesarily, enemy DT!" No, unless you're fighting Graham or the Legendary bloatfly, it's gonna hit about that. Keep in mind this is crit damage we're talking about, DT is gonna cut into the base damage sure, but few enemies have DT high enough to effect both the base damage and crit damage.

Point is, regardless of your weapon choice, you get 113 damage on a crit from either of these. And the Laser rifle has a scope to help you double that damage with a proper headshot. The Tri-beam's extra base damage is irrelevant if it can't keep up with a Laser rifle's ability to headshot consistently.

And hell, still worried about how DT could hurt the basic laser rifle...? Don't be: the All-American is a beast of a gun with high DPS that hits a base 26 damage a shot. The fully modded laser rifle, with a crit build, can easily hit 20-30% crit (to give you an idea, a character with 10 luck, finesse, 1st recon beret, set lasers for fun and Laser commander will have 44% crit) and it has three beams per shot. A single beam critting is automatically 22 damage tacked on, and yes this weapon fires as fast as the All-American. Likewise, a sneak attack critical, which is easy to achieve thanks to the scope, means every single beam will crit for your free 66 damage to start the fight.

The Tri-Beam is still superior for a player with low crit rate since that 66 damage vanishes and becomes unreliable, but if you're built to crit...? (which many energy weapons users are...)

Seriously, every time I use this thing I'm in awe at how deceivingly broken and overpowered this thing is. Has anyone else given a fully modded laser rifle a sincere try? It's HANDS DOWN the best weapon for killing Deathclaws in the game. Absolutely no contest.

We've all been deceived by the flashy lights and high DPH: the Tri-Beam isn't where it's at, it's the basic Laser rifle.

pfft, please, AER14 Prototype is where it's at, Laser Rifle when fully modded does 15.8 damage x2 per shot, which is 23.7x2 with Max Charge ammo. AER14 Prototype takes another MFC for a shot, but at the same time, granst 35 Damage, 52.5 damage per shot with Max Charge, and comes with a x2 Critical chance modifier. If you throw in laser Commander and Lord Death into the pot, the modded Laser Rifle gains 4 damage before the mod, so 26/2=13x1.3=16.9 Damage per beam split, basically 17, 34 together, 51 damage with Max Charge together. For AER14, the damage goes up to 41.4 damage, 62.1 with Max Charge.

I believe the only saving Grace the Laser Rifle does have is exactly what you stated, the crit damage. If you managed to get a crit, the laser rifle will gain 22x2 as crit damage, slapping it on the 25.5x2 beams (17 damage beams with Max Charge ammo), becoming 47.5x2 damage, in total being 95.

AER14 does 35 crit damage, and with 62.1 damage, adds up to 97.1....wait...wut. Apparently even after all of that, the Laser Rifle still gets smoked by its unique cousin.

If we add Just Lucky I'm Alive and better Criticals, Laser Rifle gets 49.5x2 crit damage, adding with 25.5x2 damage, equaling to 150 damage total.

for AER14, we slap that on, its crit damage goes up to 78.75, added together becomes 140.85.

Huh, so later on, the Laser Rifle does get higher damage than the AER14, but almost goes down to its level when facing 15DT enemies, dropping to 140, AER14 goes down to 135. Interesting.

Oh well, the difference between each other is insignificant, as AER14 may lose 10 points of damage, it gains it back with the use of a x2 Critical Multiplier, and it's all in one beam, so heavier enemies will get more damage from it.

As for Tri-beam, I was never really worried or upset of its 'spread' (0.5 for a laser shotty? Dropping down to 0.4 with Trigger Discipline? HOLY CRAP).

However, with Tri-beam fully modded, it has 75 damage per beam total, not 66. so 22x2.25=49.5x3=148.5+75=223.5 damage, without max charge. With it, it becomes 37.5x3, so added with the 49.5x3, it becomes 261 damage. Huh, the Laser RIfle still wins.

In terms of ammo effectiveness, the Tri-beam is 174% weaker than the Laser Rifle fully modded in terms of ammo-cost effectiveness. With those 3 shots, the Laser Rifle has the potential of doing 450 damage total, whereas the Tribeam is 261.

Overall, I think the saving Grace for the Tri-beam is the comfort of quantity.

The only thing I don't like about the TriBeam is I have to fire it from my hip. If I try to zoom in the gun ends up in front of my face and I can't see. I don't know if that is from a mod or stock.

But, I do like to use on Cazadores from a distance. The three beams give just enough spread that it's easy to hit those darting bugs.

Don't even know where to comment cause I see false numbers all over the place, the most important being the Laser rifle gets split to three beams, not two. The mod description makes it sound as though it's 2, but it's been 3 since forever. Install the mod yourself and see.

So again, a sneak attack crit grants 66 crit damage (22 per beam) on top of the 36 or 45 base damage the laser rifle gets. The AER14? 35 + 35. 70 can hardly compete with 100, especially when the AER14 has half the clip size (even less than the Tri-beam).