meh, I wouldnt say the Deathclaw Gauntler has very high damage..

I went unarmed for the fact i never used unarmed as melee weapons always seemed to do the job and guns were always effective very effective as I would always specialise them

never thought punching a deathclaw was going to be my best tactic but hell, a ballistic fist is all you need against oblivion and some turbo

Still slaughtered Envlave units as if I were slicing room temperature butter with a glowing red hot knife, along with other Deathclaws.

Unarmed is the build that I use the most now in New Vegas. However there is something a bit off about being able to kill a guy in power armour with spiked knuckles even if they are unique ones. I don't use stims during combat either.

Hey, it makes just as much sense as killing someone in power armor with a 9mm pistol.

But you can't do that in the originals....

*still wants the original combat mechanics to return, everything was better balanced in those days*

Unarmed doesnt need to be nerfed. Every weapon skill has its 1-hit-kill weapons. Play on very hard difficulty with hardcoe mode enabled. It will become quite challenging to take on deathclaws and cazadors (but still possible). Personally im glad unarmed is as powerful as it is, because it isnt completely useless like many games make it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't NV, FO1 and FO2 all share the same damage threshold mechanic?

nope, NV only does it half assed. You get 20% damage if you don't beat DT, You don't have DR either....

Unarmed is not overpowered first of all.

Second of all, its a challenge to play an unarmed character. The toughest enemies use melee attacks and I use explosives to complement my unarmed.

And its a single-player game, if you think its OP, you don't have to use it. (Unarmed isn't OP at all)

Also I play on very hard.

1.) You need a perk or specific (low tier) weapon to go through armour (Gun and EW doesn't need one), critical rate is same as Guns (and worst than EW), knockdown also require perk or specific weapon (which Gun have bean bags), melee is the one that have better cripple multiplier, EW and Gun is just as easy to hit while you are face hugging. Special moves are more of a cool factor, low AP moves are only comparable to low AP Gun and EW. While no reload is sort of an advantage, some Gun and EW have short reload time while Melee is also benefited. Also note that Unarmed doesn't have a wide range of DPS, DPH and multi-hit weapon.

2.)Range is a big con. It is way easier to avoid damage at range.

3.) EW is suppose to have a high up-keep. Note that you can get -DT without Perk (or specific lower tier weapon), not to mention you get damage multiplier on top of it. EW also receive a high crit multiplier which only low tier unique gets.

4.) Holorifle is way more over the board than both Pushy and Ballistic Fist.

5.) We all know explosive need some tweak, so they are out of question.

1. It's still better in more areas than the other combat skills are of it.

2. I don't consider it a big con though, just use cover while you move and use tactics, once your up at someone then they're dead, ain't got no chance once you show up right in front of them.

3. I thought EW had a pretty [censored] crit multiplier in Vegas.

4. Yup but since it's not out for everyone I thought I'd exclude it from the equation due to exclusivity.

To the OP - something kinda similar happened to me with unarmed early on, only the fight wasn't as big/didn't last that long. Spiked knuckles, that stronger legion assassin group that gets sent after you, low chr. level & under 20 unarmed skill. On the one hand, I understand that melee of all types should be strong because you have to run in close and (potentially) take a lot more damage in order to get your own damage in, but at the same time... well ... <_<

1.) What more area? We covered DT bupass, crit rate, special effect, cripple, hit rate, reload and variety. Pushy/Ballistic Fist does about equal damage to .45-70 Guns, Multiplas/Plasma Caster, Shishkebab/Fire Axes and Annabel. All these have there own strength and weakness, Unarmed isn't above them at all. In fact, Unarmed doesn't have a big hitter like other weapon type.

2.) You can use cover and tactics with range weapon as well; and with weapon mention above I don't see how enemy have more "chances".

3.) Still better than other weapons.

4.) It is comes to PC and PS3.

Unarmed's zero range is a pretty huge drawback against decent opponents. If the NV combat AI was more intelligent than they are, this drawback would be exploited much more than it is at the moment.

The other thing is that if you have enough stimpacks you can just heal through all the damage you take going in. Unarmed on Very Hard/hardcoe is significantly weaker than ranged weapon types, because you can't charge and heal at the same time.

Finally, the best weapons that Energy Weapons, Melee Weapons and Guns can offer stack up pretty damn well against the Ballistic Fist and Pushy. Oh Baby! does more DPS than anything Unarmed has to offer, for example; same with the All American and the Plasma Caster.

Fallout Wikia says that strenght modifies melee damage, but Prima Guide says strenght modifies unarmed damage.
I assume that Wikia knows better, but I want to be sure. So, how it is really?

1. When creating a character I refuse to gimp myself unless I fully roleplay, so I don't see why I should not take those perks, the difference with Unarmed and the other weapons are several things, I've used Plasma Caster and I'm not impressed, it's slow in ROF, reload time and projectile speed, and if you miss (which you will) then it's a shot you've wasted.
With Unarmed on the other hand all you have to do is close the distance then punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch.
No need to worry about running out of ammo, reloading, missing a shot, or using special ammo for any enemy.
Multiplas is just an ammo drainer and hardly works, I've tried using it several times and the damage doesn't register for me, must be a bug or something but I still don't consider it a good weapon, just an ammo drainer.
Anabelle, while highly powerful, is slow as hell and a double edged weapon.
.45-70, I don't use Guns so much but I'm guessing it's about the same as for Plasma Caster except better damage and faster projectiles, still, I'm not 100% about these weapons.
Shishkebab/Fireaxe, haven't played Melee yet, on a hiatus atm, gonna try it out later, still, if they're as powerful or more powerful than Unarmed weapons are then I guess they should be given a slight nerf as well. (But I'm very uncertain of this, will decide my opinion on them when I've played a Melee character.)

2. What I meant is that the range isn't a problem if you know how to use cover, never said it was exclusive to unarmed/melee characters, just as viable if not more viable for ranged combat skills.

3. Hmm, Luck 10, Ninja, Finesse = 30% base crit chance. Far better than any other combat skill as far as I know of.
Still, most weapons only have 1x multiplier in Unarmed but remember that with Slayer Unarmed weapons attack far faster and each hit has a 30% chance to critically hit while with most ranged weapons we have to carefully place our shots so that we don't miss.
Face hugging with ranged weapons is also not really comparable, cause at some point you need to reload while Unarmed can just mash more attacks on top of more attacks.

4. But until then I won't include it.

If you dedicate your character to Unarmed, of course it would be better than other weapon type :facepalm: ; what I am saying is with each and their own perks you would be as deadly with all weapon types (maybe not quite with explosive).

I list Plasma Caster get 3 shot per second....how is that low? IIRC plasma bolt are hit-scan...so it is rather hard to miss.
For Multiplas.....3 cells is less than Gauss/YCS and it does more potential damage; as for hit no-registering.....never seen it happens.
If you don't like the speed you get HV rockets; you also get 50% DR against the blast if you make your character explosive heavy.
You should try .45-70, they are the only saving grace for Gun to stand up against EW.
And you haven't play Melee as well, what a NV combat expert to claim Unarmed is overpowered :goodjob:



I wonder where is all the complain about too easy as snipers.........


Luck 10+Finesse*Ninja=18.75% crit chance, get your info right.

Slayer is a Lv 24 perk, not to mention Melee also benefit from it.

Ever heard of rapid draw? it skips the reload sequence, since you don't "gimp yourself".

1. The way I see it is this: I should ONLY be able to even survive on Very Hard if I have a great spec and are really skilled at the game.
I would like to complain about the difficulty mode instead but I doubt they'll fix it, it's shot to hell anyway.
So, if I push out my character to become really really really strong and I do the correct specializations in order to enhance his/her performance then I want to use this character on a higher difficulty.
I push it to Very hard, and I'm still too powerful.
Only way to "fix" it now is to gimp myself.
And the next time I play this kind of character (combat skill) then I need to gimp myself further by "not" picking perks so I don't end up too powerful.

Still, when I look at how completely ridiculous my character was with Unarmed I looked over the other characters who had different combat skills and I came to the conclusion that this was the most powerful character I've ever made. (except for ED-E + YCS which is just... See 2.)

a. 3 attacks per second? Didn't know that, so speed is better then.
b. Well, maybe it's just for me then but it registers around 20% of the times I fire with it, the rest of the 80% the damage is minimal or non existent.
c. My latest character is Explosives oriented and Missile Launchers are brutal as hell, understandable, but they're also double edged even with a perk.
d. Will do next time I do a Guns character.
e. Who said I was an expert?

2. Snipers are and will always be incredibly unfair, no point in asking for a nerf, their main design is to be unbalanced towards everything.

3. ? Luck 10 = 10%
Finesse = 5%
Ninja = 15%
10+5+15=30.
:confused:

4. Okay.

5. :huh:

Don't know about guns, as I haven't specced a character in them yet, but Energy Weapons has some pretty disgusting perks too. Metldown lets you do just absolutely crazy damage.

I have access to Geck, and it shows the critical bonus is a multiplier, but I do get the wrong number.

So it is actually: (10+5)*1.15=17.25%

I was wondering why I was confidant that Heavy Hand is good.

I'm confused, so which perk is it that is funky with the +%? Ninja or Finesse?

Btw, another point in favor of melee and unarmed being incredibly powerful: Purifier (perk).
Gives +50% damage against various enemies but the ones most notable are Deathclaws and Super Mutants.
So, Ballistic Fist does 80 in damage without perks and 102 in damage with perks.
Take this with Purifier and each hit does 120 without perks and 151 with perks.
I dunno how this one is in GECK but by going by the description of the perk and the damage of Ballistic Fist from the wikia I'd say this perk is... A little too powerful since it includes top tier enemies as well,
For top tier enemies it should only do 25% more damage or maybe even just 20%, but 50%? That's just too much of an advantage against deathclaws and super mutants IMO.

Since I can't use the GECK then maybe you could check it up to see if my crude math is right or not.

Ninja is the one being doughy, giving 1.15x crit chance instead of +15%.

Purifier: 1.5 damage multiplier against Centaurs, Nightstalkers, Spore Plants, Spore Carriers, Deathclaws, Super Mutants, and Feral Ghouls. Nightstalkers are sort of dangerous for Unarmed because they have a rather big pack and Unarmed only hit a single spot unlike Melee weapon which does a swing.

But what I do wonder how you go from 80 to 102 to 120 to 151.

As for Purifier's +50%, it is no where near the Handloaded round bonus and Cowboy for Gun or EW's 1.5 multiplier on top of -10DT and crit multiplier against everything.

Ballistic Fist : http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ballistic_fist

Base damage 80

Modified damage with perks, 102,4
Heavy Handed (+ 16)
Bloody Mess (+ 4)
Lord Death (+ 2.4)

Purifier enhances unarmed damage with +50% against all abominations.

(Base + Purifier only)
80 - 50% = 40
80 + 40 = 120

(Perks included)
102,4 - 50% = (roughly) 51,2
102,4 + 51,2 = 153,6 (roughly)

[edit]

(Perks counted separately)
80 - 50% = 40
80 + 40 + 16 + 4 + 2,4 = 142,4

Right, ALL perks.