Is there any real point to using energy weapons?

[Eboreg]

No really, I've tried to find energy weapons that were worth the investment in the energy weapons skill tree and I just couldn't find any. Want high alpha damage? The Anti-materiel rifle has got you covered. Want good DPS? The Assault carbine has your back. Want murderous close-range firepower? The Riot shotgun is your man. Got a boss that you just can't crack? Lob some explosives at it like a particularly pissed-off Boomer. I'm just struggling to find any energy weapons that are enough of an improvement over their kinetic counterparts to justify putting valuable points into the Energy Weapons skill. About the only energy weapon I ever got any sort of use out of was the Pulse Gun and even then, only on one occasion where Thump-Thump proved to be a better choice. I'd like to know if there are any energy weapons that are actually worth using or if this is actually a fairly common assessment.

[Incarnate]

I literally just wrote a guide about energy builds: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2442020896

But if you don't care to read it, I'll summarize. Get the YCS/186 or Gauss Rifle early on. You'll be sniping Death Claws in two or three shots. Complement it with the MF HyperBreeder Alpha Pistol. This combo completely changes the game.

[stcaFylnO]

I have not done a dedicated Engergy Weapon build yet, but I fooled around with some and will take a stab at defending them. However, I am a crit-build junky, so really, I say most guns suck, except those with high crit multipliers, along with high base and crit damage... Paciencia for the win, except for the exceptions. Typically, I do far better DPS with the Paciencia and better Alphas, than any other weapon in the game, but it requires a seriously dedciated crit-build.

Pulse Gun doesn't take any benefit from skills, perks, or even ammo. Just shoot the cheap bulk ammo from it. So, that's nice at times, especially at very low level.

LAER and Eliajah's LAER with MC ammo: Decimates even the X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion in ~half a clip on Normal (baseline), while in real-time, not VATS. They fire so fast it is a joy. For comparison, an AMR requires 5 shots, while the Paciencia is 5-7, and LAERs are about 10. Both the lead throwers are slow fights, not run-n-gun though. The downside is keeping LAERs repaired.

YCS/186 is the AMR of enery weapons. I've had very good results with MC ammo in it.

Holorifle rocks in Dead Money. Just killed 6 enemies in a big fight, 4 one-shot kills, 2 were two-shot (missed first crit). It needs the upgrades, MC ammo, and a reliable crit build. Also very fragile though, so probably won't use it outside of Dead Money.

Q-35 Matter Modulator with MC ammo and a high crit build. It is reliable.

Have had some good luck with Tri-beam lasers, but haven't used them much.

Compliance Regulator, just for the stun effect, swap to a more deadly weapon to kill. Too bad it only has a 1.5 crit multiplier though, but it still crits a lot with the right build and buffs.

MF Hyperbreeder Alpha: I love this little gun, it is just nice to have around for killing easy targets without wasting ammo. At least it also has a x2 crit multiplier.

Did not care for the Sonic Emitter. It is fragile and slower than LAER. no real need for it with a Pulse Gun laying around for Mojave and Lonesome Road, or the LAER for OWB.

I have no experience with the heavy ones, but a couple have x2 crit multipliers.

-edit, proofreading

[lukandroll]

Energy weapons are deadly what are you smoking?
Ever tried the fully modded laser rifle with a critic build? It decimates everything
The laer, ycs/186, holorifle are beast also

[Ty Tanium]

Howdy Gamestars, 'sup?

For my money, YCS/186, Q-35 Matter Modulator and the good ol' Gauss Rifle. I'm not entirely sure, correct me if I'm wrong but I get the feeling that the energy weapons are just a little harder to master than straight out kinetics. Mind you, I'm a "free shot" (no VATs) man with the Gobi Campaign Sniper and the AMR.
Cheers,
T

[Neorro]

Havent completed my Energy build on PC yet but back when I played on the xbox the energy build just broke game, I found Recharge rifle in goodspring cave on a dead brightbrother, yes its stats are aboslute trash but with 50pts in skill from tag and 2 levels I was killing deathclaws in Sloan albeit from a position they could not reach me, slow 2ap tickle at no ammo cost and the durability held up.
Made my way past the train tracks towards McCaren ran into a few fiends on the way and one of them had laser RCW, the energy eqvellent of 10mm SMG. Great upgrade from the recharge rifle but eats ammo to fast, found some plasma rifle but the multiplier ammo use was not to my taste, the laser rifle have a weird aimbot feature that will shoot the closest target yet somehow I could snipe with it without crouch aiming. Stole the plasma caster in van graff right under their nose, was nice nostalgia and hits well, durability was not my liking so ended up in lucky 38 weapon locker. Flamers are fun but to heavy and not practical outdors or with companion so it to went into the locker. Gatling laser are fun, melted whole cottoncove and Ceasar tent with the forth along with all the EC ammo I ever had and converted. Gaussriffle can be gathered for free in Brotherhoodbunker for some reason game makes everyone want to use the leftmost firing range and when 3 or more gather there randomly someone will drop their weapon, found it dissapontingly weak could be bug besides the displayed dps in pipboy dont count reloads furthermore it use whoping 5MFCells each shot, got good caps for it tho.

Eventually came across my first unique energy weapon Q-35 Matter Modulator, this thing vaporizes any in few shots or oneshots anything in sneak even deathclaws in the chest (tried do the same later with YCS/186 and it took me 3-2 shoots from sneak even in heads altho the gauss family have a bug where only either the direct hit or the radial hit will register and not combine to be the displayed damage)things got out of hand when I got meltdownperk, chainreaction death and dont have melee companion they just get caught in blast. thanks to the travel time of plasma weapon you can fire several ahead and by time 2nd target realize 1st died its getting hit and 3rd about to die. A missed shot in unaware Cazador swarm will make them investigate then comes the 2nd shots and meltdown the group.

Energy weapons have its advantages and dissadvantages, so far no energy weapon have a supressor so its harder to get away with no reputation loss shenanigans like a reliable supressed sniper rifle "hey im here to hand in all these NCR dog tags, they uh ran into legion" :pokerface: (the medium armor are to profitable jury rig to not snipe random NRC patrolls and the legion always good scavenge ingediens I struggle to find so they'll die to)

While Energy ammo are less supplied all of them can be converted between each other with some Science skill, even the surpluss ammo unlike guns. Also you can overcharge them for something like HP ammo damage but with AP bonus at cost of more condition loss, Furthermore you can later instead Max Charge for even more damage and none of them needed a perk to unlock or hulls or gundpoweder or firingpins or lead, and yes that include surpluss ammo. Havent been able to breakdow surpluss guns ammo unless thers a mod for that. With Veronica you can always do this even without DLC for ED-E. Guns use repair skill tho wich I find more usefull, most terminal hack arent needed and often can be lockipcked door or find password.
And if your even more ammo reserved the recharge gun types dont use any so you can start use all looted ammo as currency instead and you dint had to melee kill for them.

Recently found Tesla-Beaton prototype on my 23pt energy wep courier pretend cowboy with 75+ in explosives guns and melee. the weapon is to heavy 8str and skill req of 100 when firing it could barely hit broadside of a barn with my stats but boy did it howl like a beast and hits like it when finally landed the shot. Will definetly do a character focus built on it next play.

[stcaFylnO]

Update: Pew Pew

Got one to add to the list. I'm sure other people, like me, were initially put off by the high ammo cost of Pew Pew, and that it can only fire twice between reloads. However, with base 75 damage, 50 crit-damage, and an incredible x2.5 crit multiplier, the weapons is like a one-handed CoS. Right now, my base crit chance is 38%; between this weapons critical multiplier and all buffs, crit chance goes over 100%. Basically, I can shoot the cheap Bulk Ammo and score one-shot kills reliably. If a tougher enemy comes along, or not buffed properly, just swap to MC Ammo.

This is all without a dedicated Energy Weapon build too, so adding some nice perks like Meltdown might be fantastic.

[Facetable]

Originally posted by stcaFylnO:

Update: Pew Pew

Got one to add to the list. I'm sure other people, like me, were initially put off by the high ammo cost of Pew Pew, and that it can only fire twice between reloads. However, with base 75 damage, 50 crit-damage, and an incredible x2.5 crit multiplier, the weapons is like a one-handed CoS. Right now, my base crit chance is 38%; between this weapons critical multiplier and all buffs, crit chance goes over 100%. Basically, I can shoot the cheap Bulk Ammo and score one-shot kills reliably. If a tougher enemy comes along, or not buffed properly, just swap to MC Ammo.

This is all without a dedicated Energy Weapon build too, so adding some nice perks like Meltdown might be fantastic.

Pew Pew may chew through ammo, but the slaps it dishes out are well worth it

In my experience using it, building for it means taking Laser commander along with other typical crit perks (better criticals, finesse, just lucky I’m alive, etc...) and I’d also recommend using Compliance Regulator and/or MF Hyperbreeder along with it. Aside from that, get the 4th eyebot upgrade in LR for an increase to damage

For keeping a good supply of ammo, the quartermaster at Hoover Dam has a ton (though there’s a speech check of around 50 if I remember correctly) and Vigilant Recycler can help out

Also: Sonic Emitter - Robo Scorpion is a fun source of AoE damage with this build, especially with meltdown

[stcaFylnO]

Facetable,
This character is a crit-sniper with ballistic weapons, but I'm really impressed with these lasers. For a true EW build, how do you feel about Meltdown? Does it just cause a lot of problems in close quarters, or do you recommend swapping to a non-energy weapon in those cases?

[Danny]

Originally posted by stcaFylnO:

Facetable,
This character is a crit-sniper with ballistic weapons, but I'm really impressed with these lasers. For a true EW build, how do you feel about Meltdown? Does it just cause a lot of problems in close quarters, or do you recommend swapping to a non-energy weapon in those cases?

I tried Meltdown once, very bad for fast and/or numerous enemies that like to close up on you.
As the explosion will hit you as well, though I do only play on very hard + hardcore.

[stcaFylnO]

Originally posted by Danny:

Originally posted by stcaFylnO:

Facetable,
This character is a crit-sniper with ballistic weapons, but I'm really impressed with these lasers. For a true EW build, how do you feel about Meltdown? Does it just cause a lot of problems in close quarters, or do you recommend swapping to a non-energy weapon in those cases?

I tried Meltdown once, very bad for fast and/or numerous enemies that like to close up on you.
As the explosion will hit you as well, though I do only play on very hard + hardcore.

I wonder if you were taking half damage from Meltdown, just like enemies would on Very Hard mode?

Also, did you try to mitigate the damage in anyway and have good results? Like buffing with Atomic Cocktail, or other? Maybe some perk like In Shining Armor (armor and reflective glasses)?

[Danny]

If you want to bother with mitigating damage, nothing is as effective as, Slasher, Med-X and Battlebrew. For that maxed out 85% damage resistance against ALL damage.

Seriously, it pushes very hard + hardcore level 50 Lonesome road Deathclaws into specialised gecko territory! XD

[stcaFylnO]

Oh, okay. For some reason I've been thinking the DT boost from chems were for physical damge, like ballistic weapons, while Atomic Cocktail (AC) was for engergy and fire. Looks like I can shave some excess weight. My current character gets 75% protection from a high Survival rating, so AC caught my eye.

Your method wouldn't burn perk points either; farming Mutant Cave Fungus and converting plants to Salient Green for Battle Brew would be more convenient than wasting a perk on Nuka Chemist to make a Atomic Cocktails, while also saving a point from that shining armor.

Thanks

[Doctor Go-Go]

Been so long and Fallout 4 is so different than 3 when it comes to the way weapons and builds work that I don't recall. But with NV there are several wacky over-powered builds. Either they allowed that intentionally of they didn't care enough to fully balance the game.

I don't have any fond memories of Energy nor HW builds because I almost always build favoring scavenging, stealth, technical and people skills. Never really focused on combat.

I tend to avoid the energy weapons myself.

[Danny]

Originally posted by Doctor Go-Go:

I don't have any fond memories of Energy nor HW builds because I almost always build favoring scavenging, stealth, technical and people skills. Never really focused on combat.

How did you deal with forced combat sections?

[stcaFylnO]

<facepalm>, I finally figured out why Atomic Cocktail is providing +75 resistances; it is due to high Survival rating. I'll fix other post.