Why use any weapon but Gauss?

[Paragon]

I mean except for fun or personal preference I guess, is there really any clear advantages using other weapons? I'v played through a few times on survival and just find it hard to not use the Gauss rifle as it one shots pretty much everything and lets face it ammo is just so easy to get.

Course its not available for first 20 or so levels but I personally always level with super sledge as it one shots everything also, even large groups.

anyway I am just curious, If I do another playthrough might try doing like a Overseer guardian build and rush for that weapon soon as I get out of vault.

[ReallyMeanGoldfish]

Ammo is expensive for gauss gun. As soon as I can afford it, I buy Spray and pray. I also use some unique 10 mm for close up work.

[ayrtep]

You are right there is no reason to use anything other than your favourite weapons. Whatever that is.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by iPledgeNevertoZues:

The Gauss rifle doesn't feel like it does enough pew for me. I don't know why. I prefer using regular weapons. Either a combat rifle and a 10mm pistol or some of my moded moder weapons like an M4 or something.

I think for crit/vats based build the gauss is just insane since its single target one hit damage is just so damn high. Combine with rifleman and I think you pretty much one shot anything with it almost.

Originally posted by Foxy Grandpa {dɯɒɺɫ}:

Originally posted by Zileene:

Besides the Gauss, which I have only started to use recently, I've been using a Lucky combat rifle that I chambered to .308 and made into a silenced recon rifle.
The 2x crit damage, along with all the sneak and silenced multipliers, let me 2 shot a Mirelurk Queen last night. ^_^

I sneak crit a more lurk queen with an the instigating disciple cutlass in one shot

Yea I prefer melee, but since I use vats I use the hardest hitting weapon as vats really ignores DPS since weapon speed rally only affects AP and well with chems you get like 350 AP. And since you use blitz/vats you just benefit so much more with slow hard hitting weapons like super sledge etc.. as they hit harder and hit just as fast as the fastest weapon if your using vats.

I think my tooltip on my super sledge is like 837 with no adrenaline at all. You take that with 10x sneak and 250% from critical and you will one shot eve the strongest enemy in game. Actually im pretty sure you could one shot with the weakest melee built like this :)

[Paragon]

Originally posted by ReallyMeanGoldfish:

Ammo is expensive for gauss gun. As soon as I can afford it, I buy Spray and pray. I also use some unique 10 mm for close up work.

Yea but caps is so easy to get, even really early using grape mentats and managing weight with chems/food like radstag. I ended up with 20-30k excess caps pretty quickly, nothing to really spend it on of value.

[Vinnie Mack]

gauss is a great gun, especially if you get a good legendary drop. However, once you are discovered, it is far too slow. So even if i had a gauss, i would still have the handy suppressed 10 mm that has gotten me through over 200 hours of game play. Also, the ammo is expensive. And it rarely drops in game world.

[Vinnie Mack]

Originally posted by ayrtep:

You are right there is no reason to use anything other than your favourite weapons. Whatever that is.

i usually carry three weapons for various situations. Since i am playing survival, i have a limit on what i can carry. I am going pistol-route this time around, for weight reasons. And an early suppressed 10 mm drop. Right now, i am using the 10 mm, a modded out plasma pistol, and a heavily modded laser musket. The musket is only good for far ranged sniping since it has probably the worst reload speed of any weapon in the game. !0 mm is up close. And the plasma is for the more dangerous enemies. Most of the time, the 10 mm is just fine.

[Rizzly]

Gauss rifle is a good looking gun but it's so clunky and just useful mid-long range using a scope. The iron sight and reflex sight are completely crap unlike many other guns.
The gauss doesn't fit most builds either, only if you're into sniping.

Originally posted by ReallyMeanGoldfish:

Ammo is expensive for gauss gun. As soon as I can afford it, I buy Spray and pray. I also use some unique 10 mm for close up work.

Spray 'n Pray uses more ammo-per-caps than a gauss would...With gauss you need one shot (e.g 20 caps) where with SnP you would need 10 bullets (eg 5*10)

[nineCavalry]

as you said already, personal preference.
just don't like energy weapons(laser/plasma/gauss) in general.
i don't feel like i'm wielding a real gun, unlike using a 50 cal, an AK, or minigun, or just a sword.
it just feels too futury even for the fallout universe, unless it's being used by the institute.

[Vinnie Mack]

Originally posted by nineCavalry:

as you said already, personal preference.
just don't like energy weapons(laser/plasma/gauss) in general.
i don't feel like i'm wielding a real gun, unlike using a 50 cal, an AK, or minigun, or just a sword.
it just feels too futury even for the fallout universe, unless it's being used by the institute.

indeed personal perferences. i love most of the energy weapons in the game. in Fallout 3, my favorite weapon was the android's plasma rifle. For me, doing different weapon-build characters gives more replayability. Melee build would have a different feel from a sniper or Powerarmor fiend.

[josseriot]

1) variety is the spice of life

2) ammo isn't easy to find and isn't cheap

3) slow firing rate

4) terrible from-the-hip accurancy

5) eats up a lot of AP in VATS

6) it doesn't go "pew pew pew" like my sup'd up legendary Powerful plasma sniper rifle (which has a super fast firing rate to boot) or turn things into green goo

7) you get better stagger with combat shotguns and the railway rifle, and if you know what you're doing, that actually matters, especially with tough ghouls and mirelurks that get up close and can really hurt you

8) terrible bash because its bash speed is so slow--the thing is huge yet half the time I can't manage to bash a radroach with it

9) weighs a mofo ton

My current PC uses the Mutant Slayer's guass rifle with all the max mods, but I still lug around the Powerful plase sniper rifle and an Incendiary Combat Shotgun for fast kills and when I get swarmed/mobbed. The gauss is better for controllable sitations where I can keep a distance, aim from a crouched position and pick off enemies one by one, like in Quincy or most Super Mutant locations.

[Nite69]

Guass rifle is too heavy and too slow a recharge and fire rate

the best weapon in my opinion is the Explosive Combat Shotgun

[s.turner3030]

Originally posted by =EGC= _Nite_:

Guass rifle is too heavy and too slow a recharge and fire rate

the best weapon in my opinion is the Explosive Combat Shotgun

Except when things are a bit too close and you blow your own bits off with the explosive part

[Vinnie Mack]

Originally posted by s.turner3030:

Originally posted by =EGC= _Nite_:

Guass rifle is too heavy and too slow a recharge and fire rate

the best weapon in my opinion is the Explosive Combat Shotgun

Except when things are a bit too close and you blow your own bits off with the explosive part

i have yet to get a drop of this weapon, in over 600 hours of game play.

[Dimathiel]

IMO the Gauss rifle is great if you primarily use VATS. My current playthrough though I'm not using VATS much if at all (I think just for the rescue Ken mission) and the Gauss rifle is a pain to use outside of VATS. Much prefer a combat shotgun and 10mm backup.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by Vinnie Mack:

Originally posted by ayrtep:

You are right there is no reason to use anything other than your favourite weapons. Whatever that is.

i usually carry three weapons for various situations. Since i am playing survival, i have a limit on what i can carry. I am going pistol-route this time around, for weight reasons. And an early suppressed 10 mm drop. Right now, i am using the 10 mm, a modded out plasma pistol, and a heavily modded laser musket. The musket is only good for far ranged sniping since it has probably the worst reload speed of any weapon in the game. !0 mm is up close. And the plasma is for the more dangerous enemies. Most of the time, the 10 mm is just fine.

I'v never used it without vats so speed is really never issue as vats ignores weapon speed and fires it just as fast as a 10mm, just slower weapon speed = more AP usage, but lets be honest with a decent build you can hit 350 ap pretty easily and pretty early and well ammo is not a concern as it can easily be bought from many vendors and caps is just so easy to come by. You can even by the ammo early game to start saving it up.

also worth noting while using vats the gauss rifle, last minute I guess does like 218 base damage, the 10mm does 18 base damage. Both can be scaled eqaully meaning when its all said in done the gauss per shot will do like almost 20x more damage and like I said vat's really doesnt matter about speed of fire , just ap usage.

But I do agree that you should use what is more fun to you and yoursytle, whether thats vats or not, or 10mm or not :)