Righteous Authority suddenly underpowered.

[DragonFly.OS]

So I'm slowly progressing through the story, exploring between missions and upgrading my equipment as effectively as possible. But I've been noticing that my main weapon up until now, Righteous Authority is dealing less and less damage.
I know that the strength and resistance of the enemy characters is getting higher as I travel down the map, but its taking me 10+ headshots to kill some of the most medium characters in the game. I've upgraded it as high as I can get it as a rifle (including several levels into the Rifleman perk and the energy weapons bobblehead), and it still doesn't seem to do much damage.
Is this just a case of finally moving on and making my plasma weapon my main, or is there a way to improve it any higher?

[Septevar]

do you have the bloody perk in luck? adds 15% more dmg in combat

[Nish-Ki]

Laser weapons become underpowered very fast, , unless you take weapon perks for auto-heavy-semi etc. Even then Laser damage is low. But their rate of fire is crazy fun :D so i think it evens out

[Stardustfire]

Bobble head only helps with crits, means it is useless when u like me not a VATS user.
Energy weapons miss out some of the execive options Ballistic weapons can take, because the missing silencer.

[Xyzzy]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Bobble head only helps with crits, means it is useless when u like me not a VATS user.
Energy weapons miss out some of the execive options Ballistic weapons can take, because the missing silencer.

You still get Crits even if you don't use Vats.

[Jouni]

Try to farm a legendary Wounding Laser rifle and turn it into a laser auto shotgun. Everyone who is close enough goes down in a hurry regardless of whether or not you have the perks for automatic weapons.

[Hans Blitz]

You can also gain bonuses to energy damage from reading books, companions and perks.
Also depends on the subjects armor rating, they more resistant to certian damage, different armor have differerent damage rating, metal and leather absorb different types of damage..

[Stardustfire]

Xyzzy enlighten me, how u get crits in vanilla without using vats when crits are vats usage exclusive? answer: u dont, in all my gametime i never seen a crit, oh and blackrain the comics have the same problem like the bobble heads, raise only crits. at least the weapon depending comics: Grognak, Tesla, Guns and pistols. Only helpers are the Awesome ones.
This Vats only crit Crap is the matter u can ignore crit perks and items completly when fight RT. missing good old FO1 and FO2 where u ever coud get crits (ok there u must use VATS to fight at all, so im not fair here)

for the Starter: Use a good Scope on u weapon and u can Try to get a little more effect by using the Sniper Perk and the Awesome Comic that helps scoped weapons.

[ghpstage]

Its a general problem with energy damage, it stems from a bug/oversight in the way damage is calculated energy damage gets hit far, far harder by its DR than ballistic damage does, so when you start running into enemies that have noticeable amounts of DR energy tends to fall behind very fast.
To make matters worse, the DR reduction bonus from rifleman only applies to ballistic DR....

[Hans Blitz]

I know crits are more based on perk and luck stats and using V.A.T.S is tied to it all more in this games the previous games, but i also agree you do some kinda crit damage out of vats.

I have sniper shot raiders in one hit from distance, where i have reloaded the exact senario let the raider get close and all of a sudden its taking multple shots to the head, do mobs gain more damage resistance when entering into closer combat with the player?
They do say luck has an over all effect on whether or not your shot even hits, so it could still play a part in doing higher damage out of vats.

[Xyzzy]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Xyzzy enlighten me, how u get crits in vanilla without using vats when crits are vats usage exclusive? answer: u dont, in all my gametime i never seen a crit, oh and blackrain the comics have the same problem like the bobble heads, raise only crits. at least the weapon depending comics: Grognak, Tesla, Guns and pistols. Only helpers are the Awesome ones.
This Vats only crit Crap is the matter u can ignore crit perks and items completly when fight RT. missing good old FO1 and FO2 where u ever coud get crits (ok there u must use VATS to fight at all, so im not fair here)

for the Starter: Use a good Scope on u weapon and u can Try to get a little more effect by using the Sniper Perk and the Awesome Comic that helps scoped weapons.

What, you think Vats perks don't work outside of Vats?? You are so wrong my friend.
Look, you have Action Points, we all do, vats use or normal use. A Sneak Attack Critical occurs when successfully attacking an opponent while being [HIDDEN] by using one's Sneak skill. Successfully hitting the target will result in a guaranteed critical strike. [outside of Vats].

[ghpstage]

Originally posted by Xyzzy:

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Xyzzy enlighten me, how u get crits in vanilla without using vats when crits are vats usage exclusive? answer: u dont, in all my gametime i never seen a crit, oh and blackrain the comics have the same problem like the bobble heads, raise only crits. at least the weapon depending comics: Grognak, Tesla, Guns and pistols. Only helpers are the Awesome ones.
This Vats only crit Crap is the matter u can ignore crit perks and items completly when fight RT. missing good old FO1 and FO2 where u ever coud get crits (ok there u must use VATS to fight at all, so im not fair here)

for the Starter: Use a good Scope on u weapon and u can Try to get a little more effect by using the Sniper Perk and the Awesome Comic that helps scoped weapons.

What, you think Vats perks don't work outside of Vats?? You are so wrong my friend.
Look, you have Action Points, we all do, vats use or normal use. A Sneak Attack Critical occurs when successfully attacking an opponent while being [HIDDEN] by using one's Sneak skill. Successfully hitting the target will result in a guaranteed critical strike. [outside of Vats].

Unlike in FO3 and NV sneak attacks and crits are completely separate mechanics. Better criticals does nothing to boost sneak attack damage in this one.

There are only a small number of ways to get crits outside of VATS in FO4, namely the Overdrive chem and the Basher perk.

[Xyzzy]

"Certain chems, like Overdrive, increase your chance 25% and when you use it, about every 3 hits is a critical. And that's not in VATS or while sneaking, it's in the vanilla combat."

[Hans Blitz]

Jet! V.A.T.S for junkies!

[Nish-Ki]

Dead Eye legendary effect, Free Quick scope moment. Gotta drop aim for it to trigger again though :[