Ok, so I think I've figured out the most power-gamy way to play this. I'd like to hear if you know a better way.

So, in the last game, the problem with VATs was that it missed shots that you the player could easily make. Also, you could get critical hits both in and out of VATs. Now, it's not the case.

Now, you can pull out a low action point weapon - the 10mm pistol seems like a good one - and make a bunch of shots of enemy torsos for 95% chance to hit. Then, once you accumulate enough points for a critical - the critical banker perk lets you save up several - you can choose an enemy that is all the way at the edge of a VATs range, with a 1% chance to hit their head, select their head, and mash spacebar.

You get a guaranteed hit! And it's whatever the headshot bonus is + critical hit damage! This is massive - it can instakill bullet sponge enemies. The 4 leaf clover perk means that regular body shots each have a chance of just filling your critical bar instantly, and it apparently maxes at a 45% chance, so a low AP body shot on a nearby enemy gives you a critical hit.

It looks like the optimal weapon might be pistols because of their lower AP cost. But you don't have to commit to any particular weapon, you can get a critical hit guaranteed headshot with the missile launcher as well.

So for combat, I think luck 9 (maybe luck 8 at character creation + bobblehead) and the associated perk tree gives you the most powerful character. VATs isn't just better offense, it's also defense because it slows down time and you take less damage from enemies in VATs and they get less time to shoot back.

Yeah, all the LUCK perks synergy is insane. Four Leaf Clover, Grim Reaper Sprint, Critical Banker, Better Criticals = non stop death machine.

For Unarmed/Melee players, add in Blitz (and Iron Fist Rank 5 later on) for instances of teleporting back and forth to different enemies like NightCrawler just 1 shotting or paralyzing everything (Although still far far worse than ranged weapons in this game, like I can switch to a shotgun with 0 gun perks and do better). Also the 40% reduced AP cost baseball bat is great for fishing the proccs. Apart from gimmicky 8INT PA builds that run around looking for Fusion Cores all day, I don't think anything comes close.

No reason you can't wear power armor. Instead of doing 8 INT to make fusion cores last longer, you can just get the...luck perk...that gives you more money when you loot. Then buy the fusion cores in town. They are just 650 caps each, probably easily affordable if you have a higher level of that luck perk, since there are incredible numbers of containers in this game, and I suspect the perk makes them all have a high chance of a few caps. OR, the 1 charisma perk lets you improve merchant prices so they pay more for your loot and charge less. This probably makes a big difference as well.

This protects you from getting killed when you run out of AP and need to recharge (on higher difficulty settings). Conveniently, there are power armor upgrades that speed up AP recharge and make VATs shooting more accurate.

I did power armor for a few hours, I was finding fresh cores faster than I was burning through them. Switched back because I didn't like the frantic feeling of always having a ticking clock meaning you gotta search stuff quickly. Also, I think the in game NPC dialogues cost you time on your power core. (the ones where you have to wait for them to say stuff before you can select a menu choice. And they are all unskippable, and they are repetitive for the dialogues that merchants you visit often still say every freaking time)

Oh yeah true forgot about the loot aspect. LCK is so crazy good. But I agree I'm not a fan of constant upkeep in long games so PA just kinda annoys me lol.

Add in sneak + ninja in this build, and the synergy would guarantee a 10x melee damage bonus from medium range! I can't wait to start an unarmed playthrough, looks like I could forgo intelligence for a 9 strenght, 9 agility and 6 luck special spread and utterly decimate my foes by level 10-ish!

Couldn't you just step out of the armor and leaving it standing around somewhere while you talk to people or loot stuff, then clamber back in when you're ready to move on? That's how I've always played these type of games anyways--run through the dungeon killing all the enemies, then go back and meticulously loot once I'm sure that everything in the zone is dead. Especially with this game's unreliable enemy detection (the red dots don't seem to appear on your compass unless the enemy has noticed you), it's too easy to get jumped while you're distracted with containers and shelves otherwise.

I still have to see that to trust that, cause that's how I play and bullet sponge can soak criticals in the head...

Actually bullet sponges are the ones breaking my game.

Yeah I spoke too soon. I encountered

Yeah, I spoke too soon. I encountered some "leveled" enemies a few hours after I made that post that were now much tougher than even critical headshots could handle. Lame. As a friend pointed out, it's not very engaging when you shoot someone in the head with a shotgun and they lose 1/5 health while if they shoot you with the same gun, you can die.

So Bethesda has done TWO things everyone hates. Enemies respawn at your current level - a friend of mine hacked his character to be over level 100, and bandits started showing up wearing reflective power armor. Dumb and immersion breaking. And the bullet sponging is not cool - harder difficulty should mean the enemies kill you more often, the traps should be more lethal, you find less ammo and loot, that kinda thing.

needs agility for action points and perception to hit in vats.

Luck perks + having enough settlements that basically print caps = Wondering why the economy has not crashed around you. or if your actually the reason why the economy functions at all because you ARE printing caps.

Ok let me get this straight...your " friend " hAxOrEd his character to level 100 (bascialy making himself a "SPECIAL" god in the process because the game is more or less was built around you getting up to 50ish) and your whining on your " Friends " behalf about how the game tying to keep up with your " Freinds" leet HaXoRiNg is dumb and immersion breaking....

The fact that ordinary bandits would become gods wearing dragonbone armor and wielding the best weapons was an often criticized feature of Oblivion. My complaint has nothing at all to do with my friend hacking the game, I'm complaining that the enemies level up with your character, even when it does not make any sense that they would be a higher level. (they are bandits eating lizard on a stick, how do they have power armor!?) I also am complaining that high level enemies are unfun because they get huge amounts of HP, requiring a long and boring barrage of bullets to defeat them. Play the game a few more hours legitly and you will see what I mean.