Ballistic Fist.

It crushes your enemies and drives them before you.

For my unarmed character, gotta be the ballistic fist.

I recently made an EW character, and the AER14 with associated perks and max charge ammo stacks up really well against tough enemies like deathclaws.

Guns: Assault Carbine - Its 5mm AP ammo cuts through Legion armor like warm butter, and there's a lot of 5mm AP in the game.
Energy: Plasma Rifle - It's not sixy, but parts are easy to come by, and it's not an ammo hog.
Melee: Knock-knock - Who's there? Your worst nightmare!
Unarmed: Ballistic Fist - There are no words for how much this weapon rocks.
Hideout: Spiked Knuckles - Not the same as being armed, but plenty deadly.

Overall: Ballistic Fist. Add 100 Unarmed and the Slayer perk, and even Legate Lanius goes down like wheat before a rotary combine.

All-Time Favorite? Hm... Tough to say cuz half the time I play im switching for lack of ammo.

I liked Maria, but that may be biased because it looks cool. The weapon I used most was the Machete Gladius, but once again for lack of ammo. (My Melee skill was 24 ). The Anti-Material Rifle was fun, bt it wasnt as effective as people made it seem. However, I think my all time favorite thing is the 44. Magnum or the Ranger Seqoia. I love revolvers. I keep as many as possible on me for all situations.

Hmm, i think probably the Special Marksman Carbine ( the name escapes me, oops), it fires ridiculously fast, with the right perks and skill points you have a weapon of sheer accuracy and most importantly death! that or the riot shotgun, god i love that thing, nothing makes a shotgun better then a drum clip to go with it

Only one? Gonna go with dinnerbell then, its a beast.
Close second would be this machine.
And third Maria because of its beauty.

:ermm:

Pushy!

It amuses the crap out of me.

RCW+
AER14
Pushy
Missile Launcher

Fun fun fun weapons.

Unarmed is very popular in this game compared to fallout 3,
actually I think it's a bit overpowered >:(

Gun - Trail Carbine
EW - Modded Laser Rifle
Unarmed - Love & Hate
Melee - Chance's Knife
Explosives - Thump-Thump

I ain't picky, or going for the biggest bang. I just seem to end up using some combination of the above through most of the game. They feel right.

Depends on the character. But so far I'd say my sneak character showed me how great the sniper rifle is with all the mods. You can kill anything in one hit when coupled with sneak attack critical, and associated perks with jacketed soft point rounds. I cleaned out every deathclaw nest including the hidden one with that gun.

But right now I'm liking Maria, it's very deadly. And great for close to mid range. Efficient and plentiful ammo, plus it doesn't break down nearly as fast as the regular 9mm pistols. And there's over pressured 9mm ammo which makes it just about if not completely superior to the 10mm pistol,.

But when I'm surrounded by nightstalkers or cazadores I break out the Silenced .22 SMG. With hollow point ammo it kills every soft target with great efficiency. The grenademachine gun is good for that too, I killed 4 or 5 legionaries with 3 grenades. It's another efficient gun with the right perks and deals a lot of damage, but you gotta be careful with it.One draw back to both they're really difficult to repair unless you want to pay gobs of caps for a new one or to have it repaired.

For distance I've been liking the Brush gun and the Trail Carbine. Both are pretty efficient and have plentiful ammo.

I'm kinda disappointed the 10mm didn't have a unique variant

Mine is more of a part stealth (44 at lvl 30), part super long range kill, part insanely lucky (8 base luck, Finesse, Better Criticals, Build to Destroy Trait) character. As such, here is my weapon collection that I bring along. Mind you, I have 90+ in every other combat skill and 80+ in explosives, so I bring a fair amount of stuff and little ammo for it (what need is ammo when you practice 'one shot one kill' ?) All of this is for hardcoe/Very Hard. I also have Jury Rigging to help maintain stuff.

EDIT- BTW, my favorite weapon is YCS/186, for shizzle bo' hizzle.

YCS/186 Gauss Rifle - For those groups in which you want to take out one character immediately. Ownage with Max MF Cell, Laser Commander and Meltdown. Boom. Headshot.
All-American - Effective in just about any situation. Availability of ammo also helps.
Maria - For everything. Really. I even fight Deathclaws with this.
Knock-Knock - The ally killer. Just squat, wait till hidden, then kill an NCR Trooper or Legion guy or just anyone (yes, I hunt caravans). No hostility. Fantastic. Great for melee rushes too.
Throwing Hatchet w/ Bleak Venom - Insanely effective. Only a few needed to make it count. If only I can make Tremble..
Throwing Spears - Mostly looted from said Legion. Normally I scale the game down to hard, then go on a headshot spree. Ever seen a shooting star head? Insane fun!


And that's it. With 10 to 20 ammo for each weapon, normally I can make a long run through a few quests.
Oh yeah, when I do get dead money, I'll be sure to add Annabelle into the picture.

I wouldnt really say its overpowered. Id say it is a viable skill though, that can be used as one's only weapons skill. Usually this isnt possible in most games, and its very refreshing that is IS possible in NV. There are still dangers to using unarmed weapons, but weapons like the ballistic fist let you kill things as effectively as any conventional gun or energy weapon does.

I dunno, I think the Ballistic Fist is what pushes unarmed into the realms of being overpowered myself (unless it's been altered in any of the patches). My unarmed guy picked one up at about level 12 iirc, and from that point on the only real trouble he faced was with deathclaws, human enemies in particular are a walkover with it. Though punching the head clean off someone's shoulders is no end of fun, it's true.

About the punching heads off people part, I believe the chainsaw gets an honorable mention, partially because the damage is amazing, but mostly because I feel like Jack Nicholson in the Shining when I use it. HERE'S JOHNNY!

..
Is it bad when I laugh manically when I grind corpses apart?

Minigun with AP rounds! The last Legion dude, Lanius or whatshisface goes down with one 'clip' with the help of some chems.

Rifle: This Machine. Powerful, accurate enough, durable. It's a Garand. I have one. Amazing rifle. I'm pretty sure the last two things on earth will be that rifle and some cockroaches. Trail Carbine with scope comes in second, only because I'm in love with John C. Garand's wondrous invention. I do wish the developers had included some sort of AK in the game. That's another great post-apocalyptic rifle.

Pistol: Maria and Lucky. Powerful enough for backup weapons, particularly with +P/JHP ammo. Wish 9mm +P could be crafted. Above all, both are stylish. A pistol should be stylish. The Ranger Sequoia is also a beautiful weapon, but a bit excessive as a backup, which is the role my pistols take. As a primary it's great, but eclipsed by the Hunting Revolver due to the scope.

Shotgun: Hunting Shotgun with all mods or Dinner Bell. Powerful, low spread. Loads a might slow, but that can be worked around. I prefer the Hunting Shotgun because I like the look of the wooden stock over Dinner Bell's camo.

Melee: Knock-Knock and Gladius. A Pulsaski axe and a khukri (which is what the Gladius really is) would make themselves indispensible after Armageddon. Both do lots of damage, even to armored foes. The Throwing Hatchet's awesome too, but there's only like 3 of them in the whole game, so it gets left out.

Unarmed: Love and Hate. Just because they're cool. Who doesn't like spiked knuckles?

Explosives: The humble Frag Grenade. Common and makes a satisfying boom.

Don't care for energy weapons or the bigger guns much.

Unarmed: Ballistic Fist
Melee: Tie between Chainsaw and Cosmic Knife Super-Heated
Guns:
- Automatic Rifle (better then the Light Machine Gun imo if you have JSP rounds),
- Pretty much all revolvers, especially Mysterious Magnum and Lucky
- Gobi, that's just a nice rifle (:
- Riot Shotgun... Oh yeah
Energy:
- Laser RCW, 'cause it's a Tommy Gun
- Euclid's C-Finder, no explanation needed
- Holorifle
Explosives: Grenade Machinegun (again, no explanation needed), and good ol' frag grenades

^ that was a fire axe, not a chainsaw. See my post on page 1 of this thread.

rifles any kind i tend to play specialists

The Lucky duh.

I cheat and use La Longue Carabine modified in the GECK with 0.02 spread instead of 0.2 spread :thumbsup:

I mean it's such a bizarre rifle, what looks like a Henry Repeater breech loader modified to take .357 rounds with extreme length on the muzzle.

Knock-Knock.

It's not the strongest, not even in the two-handed melee categorie, but it's soooo bad ass!
Whenever I play a slightly psychotic maniac character it's my weapon of choice

euh no

You think I have psychic powers to see in your mind?

QUOTE (me): Hideout: Spiked Knuckles - Not the same as being armed, but plenty deadly.

Addendum: Sneak 50 Hideout: Maria. Partly due to destructive power, and partly due to cool factor. Wear this little sweetheart and the Naughty NIghtwear for Luck. Ring-a-ding, baby.