Overpowered Vat's Mechanics: How to Maximize your VATS DPS and Smash Faces.

[Paragon]

I thought i'd write a little guide about VATS mechanics as just talking to few people and reading around it was very evident that very few people actually understand how VATS works and how insanely Over Powered it is.

Now I know some people like VATS and some people would rather play like a FPS game and just shoot stuff pew pew :) Whatever you like is great and fine with me, I'm not gonna say either is better but I personally prefer VATS myself and VATS definitely has some advantages over non VATS,so i just thought i'd share what I know and give some tips and tricks to really maximize that Damage.

*It should be noted here that when you use a critical strike in VATS you have a 100% chance to hit. This means you want to target the enemy Head for maximum damage as your head shot will have 100% chance to hit doing much more damage. Say the enemy is behind cover or so far away you only have a 1% chance to hit... Well no problem, pop that crit and now you have 100% chance to hit. Something very useful.

Damage vs Damager Per Second:
This is prolly the most misunderstood mechanic with VATS. VATS slows down times and fires off shots at the same rate no matter what gun you use, or melee weapon. A super sledge will hit just as fast and often as a combat knife. The main difference being the slower the weapon the more AP is consumed in VATS. Of course mods can affect this and modifiers and so AP is usually not a huge issue in VATS.

This means for example The Deliverer 10mm Unique pistol has a base damage of 25 and will do 25 damage per shot with no modifiers. The Deliverer has a DPS of 48.4 but this is only damage per second out of VATS. Compare this to for example say The Gainer which has a base damage of 48 and a DPS of 4.8. The Gainer will shoot at the same rate and speed as the deliverer in VATS, which means it will hit just as often on each round of ammo doing about twice as much damage even though the dps is 1/10 of the Deliverer. The Gainer does however use 40 AP per shot as the Deliverer only uses 26, meaning you can fire off more shots.

Critical Strikes and Luck:

-This is where VATS will start to shine and really favor heavy hitting weapons like the Gauss Rifle. This means a Gauss Rifle will fire off its 20 Shots in its clip in VATS just as fast as the Deliverer can and this is why the Gauss rifle can pull ahead here in VATS. Take the Last minute Gauss rifle with a base damage of 204 and with perks in the luck tree you get say 250% Critical damage. Considering just base damage, no modifiers from perks besides crit bonus The Last minute will crit for 510 damage per shot that you crit. The Deliverer will crit for 62.5 damage which means to do that same amount of damage you would have to crit 8 times straight to eqaul one crit from Gauss and remember the Deliverer is not going to fire any faster or more efficient in VATS.

The same can be said for Melee weapons also. A slow Atom's Judgement super sledge has a base damage of 140 and a Pickman's blade for example hits for 15 base damage. The same mechanics as above apply. Out of VATS the pickman will do great DPS , but in VATS it will not hit any faster or any more often then the super slow Atom's Judgement.

Which means you can take the Atom's Judgement, scale it insanely high with Strength and so many perks getting that base damage up to around 850. Combine that with say a blitz sneak attack which will basically teleport you across great distances allowing you to sneak attack for what 10x damage I think. And that multiplied by 250% crit, something like 21,250 damage sneak attack vs the Pickman blade's 3,500 ish damage.

So as you can see if you are going for a VATS crit based build you definitely want to maximize those crits by using weapons that are extremely hard hitting. IF you find yourself having AP problems you can just grab Reaper sprint or some AP regen perk. I personally use jet Fuel and sprint perk which gives me around 350 ap with my food/chems up and so I never have AP issues, ever.

Super Sledges is going to be your highest base melee weapons and will give you the most efficient damage in vats for melee. Besides the FAT man and nuka launcher uniques the Gauss Rifle is going to give you the highest base damage at something like 204 before modifiers which is significantly higher then other guns.

I hope this helps some people if your looking to maximize that DPS or maybe want to try a VATS build. I understand its not for everyone and well VATS can be a bit boring at times if its not your cup of tea. But if you like to Critical Head shot enemies non stop even from insane distances , then maybe give a Crit Vats build a try.

[KoalafiedKiller]

You basically have to pick between a crit-vats build or a sneak build by end game. High level enemies are just so spongey that directly engaging them just takes too long. The only real alternative is to use overdrive which allows crits outside of Vats (like the previous games).

That being said, this is a good write up for those looking to keep up with those high level bullet sponges.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Paragon:

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*It should be noted here that when you use a critical strike in VATS you have a 100% chance to hit. This means you want to target the enemy Head for maximum damage as your head shot will have 100% chance to hit doing much more damage. Say the enemy is behind cover or so far away you only have a 1% chance to hit... Well no problem, pop that crit and now you have 100% chance to hit. Something very useful.

I'd say it's more useful for one-shoting enemies in power armor.

[KoalafiedKiller]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by Paragon:

.
*It should be noted here that when you use a critical strike in VATS you have a 100% chance to hit. This means you want to target the enemy Head for maximum damage as your head shot will have 100% chance to hit doing much more damage. Say the enemy is behind cover or so far away you only have a 1% chance to hit... Well no problem, pop that crit and now you have 100% chance to hit. Something very useful.

I'd say it's more useful for one-shoting enemies in power armor.

Speaking of that, penetrator is a good ability for Vats crit builds since it allows you to target fusion cores (for PA and sentry bots), mirelurk heads, deathclaw bellies, and combat inhibitors from any angle.

[DouglasGrave]

The other consideration to keep in mind is the number of enemies you're facing. The low AP cost of things like Deliverer (compared to a gauss rifle) makes it better suited for things like mopping up packs of feral ghouls and other multi-target situations.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

The other consideration to keep in mind is the number of enemies you're facing. The low AP cost of things like Deliverer (compared to a gauss rifle) makes it better suited for things like mopping up packs of feral ghouls and other multi-target situations.

Thanks for the extra tips guys. And yea anytime you overkill something with one shot you are not being efficient and so I would agree with you. But The Gauss , although overkilling ghouls, will kill them faster as you can just target them one shot each and be done with it.

But you are right that you could prolly do same with another gun, I just personally use melee/gauss as Melee with AOE is just so insane with vats/blitz at taking out large groups in one swing.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

I'd say it's more useful for one-shoting enemies in power armor.

Speaking of that, penetrator is a good ability for Vats crit builds since it allows you to target fusion cores (for PA and sentry bots), mirelurk heads, deathclaw bellies, and combat inhibitors from any angle.

Yea I forgot to mention that, good point, a great perk for Vats build as you can hit through walls and fusion cores , even if you have only 1 % chance to hit :)

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

You basically have to pick between a crit-vats build or a sneak build by end game. High level enemies are just so spongey that directly engaging them just takes too long. The only real alternative is to use overdrive which allows crits outside of Vats (like the previous games).

That being said, this is a good write up for those looking to keep up with those high level bullet sponges.

That or Furious automatic weapons.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by =яενєηąŋŧ=:

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

You basically have to pick between a crit-vats build or a sneak build by end game. High level enemies are just so spongey that directly engaging them just takes too long. The only real alternative is to use overdrive which allows crits outside of Vats (like the previous games).

That being said, this is a good write up for those looking to keep up with those high level bullet sponges.

That or Furious automatic weapons.

Furious automatic weapon? You mean like splatter cannon? Those new autos are so sick :)

As powerful as any gun is out of VATS , its just "MORE" powerful in VATS.

[Rylus]

Ah, well - one thing 's left to add: Critmeter does load up per Hit based on Luck, not the Damage you do.
That in mind, to "load up" the Meter shoot with a Single-Shot Gun with high RoF. The stupid 10mm can be modded to Fill at Luck:9 without AP-Bonus the frigging Meter once per AP-Gauge.
This combined with Reapers Sprint can allow you to go insane from the Beginning on

But Yeah, in FO since FO1 the Hammer is King.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hms_GdvOKZY