What's a decent energy weapon to use against deathclaws?

I'm currently playing a level 18 energy weapons user. She's not really a "heavy weapons" type so I don't think a gatling laser would be in character. She's more of a medium-build, medium armor type.

My current inventory is:

Laser rifle - fully modded

Laser RCW - modded

Plasma rifle - modded

Multiplas rifle

So far none of these seem heavy enough to do the trick. Should I wait until I can get my hands on a gauss rifle?

Now excuse me while I gather my intestines back up. A deathclaw just ripped my abdomen open. Hey! Come back here with my spleen!

Normally a critical strike from a plasma rifle with MC ammo does the trick. If they are charging on you, though, nothing short of a Gatling laser or plasma caster will stop them. That is my personal experience, at least.

My experience on very hard is that the laser rifle with all the mods using optimized ammo is the best weapon for killing deathclaws.

Now my energy weapon users go with fast shot, built to destroy and I never use VATS. Luck is 7+ and I take finesse and better criticals at the earliest opportunity, as well as laser commander.

My tactic is to approach from stealth, identify the path that the deathclaw will come at me from and set up such that their path will be straight towards me, not across my field of view. This makes your follow up shots much easier. You have 24 shots loaded and can fire them off at 4 per second, the first two or three will get the deathclaw before he has a chance to react. I also normally aim for center of mass, no fancy headshots that can miss but just sure things. Once the chest is crippled every subsequent shot to the chest will casue the deathclaw to pause and go into a stagger animation which will slow his approach and also make it easier to shoot him again.

With the 24 shots a single deathclaw will get dropped before he gets to you as long as you do not miss too much.

Now if a deathclaw gets the jump on you the better weapon to use at shorter range is the modded tri-laser with optimized. It has more spread and only iron sights so it is not as good at long range but at short range it outputs a lot more damage in a short period of time and also has a large number of shots available without reloading.

I personally never liked to use a gatling laser as their damage per shot is low and the DT of 15 really cuts down their damage. Even max charge only gets past 10 DT leaving you with 30-40% of the damage being stopped. Also the max charge ammo uses a lot to make and wears out the weapons extremely fast. Also I'm lazy so I just like to use one ammo for everything and optimized does that just fine.

The slow travel speed of plasma bolts can make for a lot of misses unless the deathclaw is running straight at you and just runs into all of them. Also only the plasma caster+ has a decent damage per second output compared to a tri-laser but is handicapped with the slow speed of plasma and a small number of shots. Reloading while a wounded deathclaw is rushing you is a bad idea.

Honestly, I go for snipe them with a Gauss Rifle from a perch when using energy weapons on the monsters.

Multiple multiplas shots to the head with VATS with at least Overcharge/Optimized and ideally Maxcharge. Might not work on greater deathclaws.

But, as stated earlier: Gauss rifle, apply directly to the forehead. Quick, simple, cranially explosive. The holorifle can work too if you peg them as they're standing still.

I want to say that your Plasma weapons have the damage to take care of Deathclaws, but that assumes full condition and 100 skill. However, even then, the slower projectile speed and lower RoF can be dangerous. The only way I can think of to swing the odds in your favor is to open up with the Compliance Regulator. Spam shots at your target until you get a crit, then switch to the Plasma weapon and get as much damage in as you can before they get back up. I'd suggest other weapons, but I don't have much experience with Energy Weapons. I'm currently running an Energy Weapons Courier, but that character is specifically limited to Laser weapons. Of those, the strongest are Pew Pew and the LAERs from Old World Blues. I'm not about to suggest Pew Pew, as it only gets 2 shots before it has to reload, and I haven't gotten the character far enough to pick up the LAERs, so I don't know how well they do in open combat; I'm therefore hesitant to suggest them.

Funny.......

on very hard, I cleaned with EXTREME ease the deathclaw promontory using fully mod laser rifle.

well, I sugest this weapon, NO VATS (you shoot more faster without), optimezd ammo and the right perks (set laser or fun, laser commander and better criticals. Later, camarader-e rank 5).

Oh yeah, and a good distance too.

My favorite energy weapon vs deathclaws is the Holorifle+++. With Max Charge ammo it is devastating.

This is fully repaired, using VATS, Energy=100, but none of the Energy perks.

However I play on Normal difficulty, so YMMV.

Except I'd have to play Dead Money again to get it. I'm still having nightmares from the first time.

YCS/178. The answer to all your problems in one convient package.