Best Level 50 Perk?

[SleepIncarnate]

I'm curious to see which of the level 50 perks people think is the best.

I think the only one without any major flaws/drawbacks to it is Ain't Like That Now, unless you count having to be evil to get it as a drawback. Just Lucky I'm Alive's drawback is that it requires you to be neutral when you get it (not the easiest feat considering just killing feral ghouls grants karma) and that one of its two effects is useless (+4 luck for 3 minutes after a fight is over if you came close to death). Thought You Died has the issue where you have to be maxed out on karma to get the most benefit.

That said, ALTN is great for attacking fast, TYD is great for survivability and bonus damage, and JLIA is great for crit builds (as it stacks multiplicatively with Better Criticals for a total 125% bonus to crit damage). The question then becomes, which is the absolute best to shoot for?

[Vita, Mortis, Careo]

I feel that Thought You Died provides the most benefit, especially since accumulating positive karma is very easy to do in New Vegas.

[red255]

yeah its 100 extra hit points and 10% extra damage. the 100 hitpoints is worth several ranks of lifegiver.

Lucky I'm alive is worth 1 rank of better criticals.

the other one is attack speed. which seems good on paper but if you aren't using something fully automatic its not like you notice the difference in click speed. Rushing water gives +50% attack speed for 30 seconds (1 minute 15 seconds with chemist and day tripper)

you don't notice it unless you are on turbo.

[Vassago Rain]

The attack speed increase makes already fast weapons like the medicine stick and saturnite fist into god weapons.

You can also empty a whole ranger sequoia cylinder in the blink of an eye.

[SleepIncarnate]

Okay, so that's two votes for TYD and one for ALTN.

But to counter your point about JLIA, red, is that while individually, they have the same benefit, together they actually are better, as they multiply damage bonus rather than add it. Better Criticals gives 50% bonus to crit damage, meaning crits now do 150% damage over what they were before. JLIA adds another 50% on, but it's 50% of the new total from BC, so is 75% from base crit damage, meaning crits are now doing 225% damage compared to base. With a stealth/crit build, this is pretty impressive, especially when factoring in other things, like using a brush gun with the cowboy build. can probably one-shot a deathclaw if you get a crit.

[Vassago Rain]

You can make up for that by getting Elijah's ramblings. A proper build can threaten instant death with Gehenna.

Then again, adding just lucky I'm alive will accomplish the same thing. You can get some silly critical damage boosts if you stack everything on a 2x or better melee weapon.

[SleepIncarnate]

And there lies the important point, I find, is the stacking/build effects. Like in your first post, you mentioned the medicine stick and ranger sequoia, both weapons that work with Cowboy. Not sure how the damage bonus of it (+25% base) stacks with the crit bonuses of BC/JLIA, etc., but if it's also multiplicative, then you can make some nasty builds with that kind of thing. Same as with a Grunt build, or a good unarmed/melee build (take a deathclaw on with boxing tape!).

[SleepIncarnate]

Also, if combining all three, Elijah's Ramblings brings the crit multiplier up by another 50% of that 225%, so adds another 112.5%, for a total crit damage of 337.5%. Too bad it only works with melee weapons, but hey, Chance's Knife is a x2 crit multiplier, and is affected by both Cowboy and Grunt. You know you wanna be the pint-sized slasher again!

[SleepIncarnate]

Speaking of melee builds, that's a build where you can make arguments for and against ALTN, as some people like the added speed in melee, others feel it makes it harder to control your attacks. For those who love speed, pairing ALTN with Slayer and a fully modded katana turns you into a walking blender. Of course, the speed and AP regen aspects tend not to work together so well for melee builds (you tend to focus on one or the other).

[talgaby]

Just Lucky I'm Alive + Elijah's Ramblings + ninja build = you can pretty much kill deathclaws with a switchblade if you manage to stay hidden for a sneak crit.
On the other hand, unarmed build + Ain't Like That Now is just ridiculous. You can kill anything, including enemies in power armour, with your bare fists.

[Discreet_Pigeon]

ALTN +Slayer +Rushing Water + Bloody Mess +Super Slam! +Greased-Lightning+ Turbo/Implant GRX= Flying enemies turning into gibs.

Obviously melee weapons would work best because of the added melee hacker perk but I just love the sound of the power fist piston and clonk when it hits an enemy especially when they blow up into tiny gibs with the extreme speed of the Greased lightning. The only downside is that sometimes the body is unsalvageable(can't find the gibs or they get stuck in unreachable places).It is awesome to juggle two deathclaws simultaneously though. *Sigh if only I recorded the act.

[Oniix]

actually the good karma one isn't exactly correct with its description. you never actually lose the health gained from the perk if you lose karma. if you are maxed out with good karma you automatically get the 100hp boost and its there for keeps. in other words you get a free permanent 100hp boost and a damage boost to go along with it. my advice is try to get your good karma as high as you can before you hit 50 if you want that perk.

[red255]

who are you talking to? nobody thinks you lose HP bonus with lost karma. Its not worded poorly. your karma resets to 0 at level 50 with any of the perks.

Good 100 HP, 10% damage

Neutral +50% critical damage. some wonky Luck bonus thing that is generally useless since you probably have high luck since you care about critical hits.

Bad. 20% IAS 25% better AP Regen.

So the good one does 10% more damage and 20% more critical damage (because crit damage works that way) AND 100 extra HP. so... without needing to score a crit which would probably kill the target anyways, its better than the middle one.

the last one. ... IAS is really wonky in new vegas. as I said... like a year ago you won't notice the difference unless you are on Turbo or don't bother to aim. and if you were on Turbo, might as well down a rushing water at the same time.