Good VATS short range weapons?

[Altonu]

I've built my character for stealth and long range (ninja, sandman, rifleman, gun nut, science etc), and out int he open I do very well, but when I have to enter buildings or get a pack of ghouls on me, then I'm at a disadvantage (particularily because I'm going around in leather armor still to keep my weight down for stealth and most things kill me in a matter of seconds if they get close enough).

I've been using a shotgun, and I tried converting the Overseer Guardian rifle to a short range powerful single shot weapon (at least til I can put a silencer on it) and those have helped, but in previous FO games, I've speced one type of weapon (energy of balistic) and use a rifle for sniping and a good pistor for close range.

Specifically, I'm looking for a good ghoul slayer, and I think somethign with a lot of shots in VATS and good damage and accuracy for head shots is what I need, since even with a combat shotgun, I'm usually dead if a pack of ghouls gets to me.

I recently was blessed by the acquisition of a two-shot laser pistol (48 damage unmodded), and I'm thinking this could come in real handy for close range combat, but since I've put nothing into gunslinger, it is nowhere as efffective as I would like at this point. I have science and gun nut both at 3 ranks, so i can build most mods for it, but I don't know what the best way to mod it for my goals is. Would full auto + beam slippers work well for from the hip desperation, or would I be better off with beam focusers, and a sniper barel to hope for lost of stronger vats head shots?

I'm curious what other players (who have horrible coordination and have no business playing FO4 as an action shooter (which is why I build for stealth, but I need a backup plan) :) ) have been doing in this regard.

[GRIMGOR]

I have a Combat Shotgun with frost damage it destroy any think.

Add in my luck perk that gives me a critical hit any time I like you end up with a bloody mess.

[Chop]

Bleeding combat shotgun, explosive 10mm pisto, explosive combat rifle and a .44 magnum are my main weapons, plus a stunning super sledge. They all work wonders in V.A.T.S

[きつね]

If you can find a Shotty with double tapp mod :) ( 2 shots for one ) , or use the combat rifles Failing that get the perk that lets you charge em :) , or jump boots for power armor as for your laser pistol , put the burning / auto mod, with the gunslinger handle , should be decent :)

[TooTall1]

Join the Railroad enough to get Ballistic weave, use armorer to improve your clothes, it is a bit overpowered tho...

[GRIMGOR]

Originally posted by TooTall1:

Join the Railroad enough to get Ballistic weave, use armorer to improve your clothes, it is a bit overpowered tho...

Having more amour on a hat then a whole outfit just a bit OP?

[ImHelping]

When not talking about legendary or named weapons that get more than normal amounts of shots?

Lasers.

Even a short stock laser RIFLE gets a lot of vats shots. Laser pistols are just nuts. On top of Lasers being reasonable strong, energy damage, with a good rate of fire.

"Two-shot" weapons are garbage on anything but single shot weapons (or a 4 tube missile launcher). Their nerfed accuracy stat, bonkers recoil, and horrible hip fire accuracy mean they are wildly impractical for anything you need to take multiple shots in a row with.

A two shot .44 revolver's hip fire crosshair widens out to practically cover your entire screen. A two shot 10mm automatic's recoil is so strong it points into the sky after 5 bullets (compared to having nearly zero recoil even with the rapid rate of fire legendary).

But a sniper weapon or launcher, then double shot weapons are impressive.

EDIT: Beam spltters on lasers are, alas, terrible. because it splits the damage between beams. So every beam needs to hit, or you are dealing horrible damage. Which is a shame, because a laser shotgun fires super fast even semi auto.

Imagine if beam splitters did good damage. You can make a fully automatlc laser pistol with a beam splitter, and it's the same amount of VATS shots as ever.

[ellenjanuary]

Deliverer for ghouls - all day long. :P

[Sempophai]

Originally posted by ellenjanuary:

Deliverer for ghouls - all day long. :P

For everything, as far as I can tell lol

[p4ul]

used deliverer up to lvl 50 for evrything on survival. even without sandman. its totally easy mode compared to other builds i tried. when i wanted a bit more range i used a .50 cal sniper pipe pistol with supressor. a bit stupid that u have sniper pistol with long range scope :D

[G-Man]

This isn't exactly what you asked for, but I think you're thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of using VATS against ghouls, try something automatic and *don't* use VATS in those situations. You can actually get off more shots faster with a high rate of fire weapon without VATS.

An automatic combat shotgun or assault rifle might be exactly what you need.

Later in the game, rapid fire weapons lose their sting due to increasing enemy armor, but you should still do better with a shotgun used outside of VATS against groups of weak enemies. Shoot your shotgun from the hip at the centre of the enemy instead of going into VATS. Save VATS for headshots against more powerful enemies.

[Ms O'Horné]

first of all if you want to play a sneak build, play sneaky and witty. you don't have to kill everything. and if you do, and its a tough enemy. make sure you scout the surroundings for patrols and tag things with a recon scope, then decide where to lay mines, who to oneshot with a silenced pistol or rifle (probably the highest level or legendary). use stealthboys if your enemy is very aware. use surroundings against them (hack turrets etc). pickpocket weapons (L30).

when you fight ghouls specifically, they are litteraly like pudding, you can shoot of their limbs, shoot their legs, they'll crawl in slowmo to you. wich works on everything btw, little harder with deathclaws, but when u manage to cripple their leg, you win.

there is so many strategies but the most important part is you do NOT have to kill, sneak around to your objectives.

I have over 300hours playtime now, and i do know some quests are rly tough for a sneaky, mainly some mainmissions, since they force you to kill certain named NPCs. but you can prepare for those missions, take a launcher or fatman with you with 1 or 2 ammo.

[Altonu]

Thanks for all the replies. The reason I'm concerned with wanting a good VATS weapons is that I find ghouls are very good at getting beside and behind me when they swarm, and by the time I turn to shoot them, they have already done substantial damage. Its also those quests that force you into spots where stealth is just not an option Slag's room in Saugus Ironworks comes to mind

I do try to play sneaky, and most of the time it works very well. There do seem to be trigger spots where stuff will spawn out of nowhere when an action is performed or a line is passed (one building I explored had only one enemy, but once I shot him, he trigged an alarm and spawned a bunch of enemies out of nowhere that quicklyoverwhelmed me).

The more I think about it, the strange thing is that ghouls are what tend to give me the most problem outdoors (in lexington (when I first arrived and was not expecting it), outside of certain buildings, etc. I can deal with super mutants outside very well most of the time (their dogs can be annoying though), but in a building, they seem to always know where I am. Its a bit strange that I'm more concerned about packs of ghouls than I am about deathclaws, but thats because I have no been ambushed by those. Maybe I just need to pump more perks into stealth and agility? (got enough agility to get Sandman and Ninja, then started working on perception). Gun-Fu with a good pistol would probably be a good anti-ghoul solution too now that I think about it.

I've been putting off the "main quest" until I was comfortable in my survival ability and had a good contiguous block of time to work on it, and I have not got "Deliverer" or any railroad representative yet (assuming those are both found as part of the main quest).

Gonna try the full auto beam splitter idea, then if that does not work, go the opposite route with a quick single shot build. Probably time to finally start on the main quest too - but with my luck, the moment I do that, I will get interupted by real world stuff...

[Arthemus]

Silenced combat shotgun. Works for me.

[Rex Powercolt]

silenced combat shotgun or overseers guardian without using vats works better indoors

[Kameraden]

Deliver + just 1 10% VAT reducing piece of armor literally can hit the "Limits" on how many attacks you can do in VATs so you can not even use up all your AP in a single VATs attack once you get that additional 10% VATs reducing item combined with the Deliver's already VATs reduced ability. Plus when fully modified it does respectable damage per shot and uses cost effective 10mm ammunition. It's the ultimate spammer. It also shoots very fast for "free" aim moments as well. You can shoot down a lot of weak enemies in a single VATs attack or kill some pretty respectable strengthed enemies in a single VATs attack.