» Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:02 am Ever since Lonesome Road came out, I've been intrigued by the Camarader-E perk. Specifically, it's 4th level, that increases the damage of all Laser weapons by 5. Now, 5 damage isn't a huge amount on it's own, but a lot of the weapons this affects get a significant boost out of this mere 5 damage. In fact, the only weapons that don't get a huge boost out of it are the LAER, Elijah's Advanced LAER, and Pew Pew. Everything else gets a significant boost in weapon damage. Combine that with the Laser Commander perk, which increases damage even further, and Laser weapons start to look really appealing. I did a Google search, and didn't find any builds focused specifically around Laser gear, so I decided to make one myself and see how it works. Here's what I came up with:
SPECIAL
Strength - 5. The highest Strength needed to wield any of the Laser Commander weapons is 8 for the Gatling Laser. This means that the Strength Implant and the Reinforced Spine perk are all I need to equip every weapon I'm going to use. Setting Strength at 5 allows me to take Strong Back, and gives me an even 200 Carry Capacity until I pick up the aforementioned perks.
Perception - 6. This is only as high as it is for Perks. ED-E's Enhanced Sensors perk makes my Perception pretty useless.
Endurance - 5. Allows me to get Strong Back, and 5 Implants. Implants will be STR, END, AGL, LCK, and DT. None of the others are worth bothering with.
Charisma - 1. Standard for a combat-oriented build. I could bump it up, since I'll be running around with ED-E, but I'm supposed to be the hero, and I'm perfectly capable of dealing with enemies myself.
Intelligence - 8. Gives me 14 points per level, which equals out to 686 total Skill Points earned. And that doesn't even factor in the initial values of my skills, or TAG!'d skills, or anything else, so I'm pretty good here. No need for a Medical Clinic run.
Agility - 7. I'd put this at 6 and keep it there, but increasing Agility increases Reload Speed with weapons, so any extra SPECIAL points I have will go here (such as from the end of Lonesome Road). I expect to end with this at 9 (Implant and Lonesome Road), but I may be forgetting something.
Luck - 8. Mainly for crits. While I'm not going out of my way to max Crit Chance, I do like to boost it, on the grounds that more crits = more damage. I plan on wearing the Lucky Shades, so with those and the LCK Implant, I'll be rocking 10 Luck.
Traits
Good Natured - I'm only using Energy Weapons, so this moves points out of my other Weapon skills and puts them into skills I will use more often. Sure, my Energy Weapons skill starts lower, but overall I gain more than I lose.
Skilled - Getting +5 Skill Points to every skill is pretty insane. And the drawback isn't significant enough to even be noticeable, really.
TAG! Skills
Initially, I TAG! Energy Weapons, Lockpick, and Science. This is mainly to get a Laser Pistol from Doc Mitchell. Once I get to the border of Goodsprings, I swap the Energy Weapons TAG! over to Survival; I haven't run a character who used Survival, so I want to give it a try.
Perks
2 - Light Touch
4 - Comprehension
6 - Vigilant Recycler
8 - Travel Light
10 - Finesse
12 - (Filler)
14 - Jury Rigging
16 - Better Criticals
18 - (Filler)(Would be Meltdown)
20 - (Filler)
22 - Laser Commander
This is the core of the build; everything after that is just filling up the Perk slots with whatever I can pick up. I could take Educated at 4, but I've got plenty of Skill Points as it is, so anything else would just be icing on the cake. In addition, I'd have to push Vigilant Recycler and Travel Light back, and I prefer to have those sooner rather than later. Level 12 has nothing vital to the build, so I can take either Strong Back or Robotics Expert; not sure which would work better. As for level 18, I would take Meltdown, but I'm running the jsawyer mod (or at least, an edited version of it), and one of the things it does is restrict the Meltdown perk to only trigger on Plasma weapons. This makes perfect sense, given the animation, so I didn't revert the change. This means that Meltdown won't do anything for me. I'll probably take Toughness at level 18, and again at 20, since I'll be using Light Armor; this will help improve my defenses.
End-game gear is going to be the 1st Recon Beret, Lucky Shades, and Joshua Graham's Armor. That's +8% Crit Chance, and the Luck from the Lucky Shades bumps my Luck to 10 after the Implant. That's 23% base crit chance, multiplied out by my weapon multiplier. Light Touch, Laser Commander, and Set Lasers for Fun add another 19% on top of that, so I've still got plenty of Crit Chance, even without the other 5% I'd be getting from Built to Destroy and Ulysses' Duster.
As for weapons, I expect I'll be using the Laser Rifle+ for long-range combat, the Gatling Laser+ for tougher enemies, and Pew Pew for close to mid-range stuff, but we'll see what happens.
Thoughts?
