Bonus HtH Damage perk - question.

[Mr.Green]

Hey guys. A simple question I need an answer to.
Did this perk changed after Fallout 1? In F1 every level increased the Melee Damage on (C)haracter sheet +2 so with Strenght 10, B-HtH-Dmg x3 = Melee Damage 5+6 -> 11.

In Fallout 2 the Melee Damage don't change after adding the perk even 1 time, is it supose to be like that or my game is broken or am I missing something ???

[Hopper]

Yep it's strange that it doesn't increase on the stat screen or the inventory screen. Also I never noticed any real difference when I used to take multiple ranks of Bonus HtH.

You're better off avoiding it and spending your perks on Bonus Move, Better Criticals and such as an unarmed/melee character.

[Mr.Green]

Originally posted by Hopper:

Yep it's strange that it doesn't increase on the stat screen or the inventory screen. Also I never noticed any real difference when I used to take multiple ranks of Bonus HtH.

You're better off avoiding it and spending your perks on Bonus Move, Better Criticals and such as an unarmed/melee character.

Thank you Hopper for reply. I needed to be sure. :)

[The Chosen Chad]

In vanilla Fallout 2 its bugged and doesnt properly work, pretty sure it works on the UPU though

[Anderson]

Increasing Melee Damage only increases the maximum damage you do with those attacks. Even if it actually was +2 damage, Living Anatomy is +5 to both ranged and melee attacks against living targets (which is vast majority of enemies). Don't ever bother with Bonus HTH Damage, or even Bonus Ranged Damage.

[The Chosen Chad]

Originally posted by Anderson:

Increasing Melee Damage only increases the maximum damage you do with those attacks. Even if it actually was +2 damage, Living Anatomy is +5 to both ranged and melee attacks against living targets (which is vast majority of enemies). Don't ever bother with Bonus HTH Damage, or even Bonus Ranged Damage.

Depends on the build and what you wish for, these two perks arent bad at all.

[Anderson]

They are always worse than Living Anatomy. I mean, no perk really is "bad", since you could beat the game without any perks at all. But if we compare them to one another, some perks will simply offer more.
If you had a perk that granted +50% critical damage, and one that granted +100%, the second perk is simply better. The first perk might still be decent, but is still worse.
And since the number of perks you can take is limited, there is opportunity cost to taking them. Therefore, a perk that grants +5 damage to all attacks (against living creatures), versus one that that only grants +2 to melee attacks only is always going to be superior. IF you had infinite perks, then sure, take Bonus HtH Damage, but you only have 7-8 of them, and there are much better choices for a melee build (like Bonus Move).

[The Chosen Chad]

I get what you said by limited, Im not keen to grind so lets say they are indeed limited and not that the high level cap allows a player to get in theory 30+ perks.

Anyway, sure Bonus Move is better for melee/HtH builds than Bonus HtH Damage, no arguing with that. But if you one want to have the highest non crit damage per punch and lets say you play with a high sequence and high sneak build and you dont care about Jet Addiction. Then hey, Bonus Move isnt that important in this specific playstyle and build.

Hell, I even got in game proof that taking both 3 ranks of HtH Bonus Damage and Living Anatomy along with Heavy Handed really boosts your melee damage, here is me against Enclave Heavy Troopers at Lvl 15 :

Undrugged and with no Power Armor :
http://www.noelshack.com/2021-04-7-1612084871-scr00016.png
Fully drugged and with Power Armor :
http://www.noelshack.com/2021-04-7-1612084620-scr00014.png

Damage output by only punching the head :
http://www.noelshack.com/2021-04-7-1612084620-scr00011.png
http://www.noelshack.com/2021-04-7-1612084620-scr00012.png
http://www.noelshack.com/2021-04-7-1612084620-scr00013.png

[Anderson]

I guess what I'm saying is that "highest non-crit damage per punch" is not a goal you should be aiming for in a build if you are going for maximum effectiveness.
If you wanted to just maximize damage, you would take Better Criticals, drop Heavy Handed, and get Bonus Move. Then just punch people in the face (or the eyes).

But if you just want highest non-crit punches, then by all means. But is someone asked for help in making a melee character, i would not be able to recommend that approach.

[Mennan]

Originally posted by Anderson:

Increasing Melee Damage only increases the maximum damage you do with those attacks. Even if it actually was +2 damage, Living Anatomy is +5 to both ranged and melee attacks against living targets (which is vast majority of enemies). Don't ever bother with Bonus HTH Damage, or even Bonus Ranged Damage.

Bonus ranged damage is actually pretty useful if your using a Minigun since it will be +2damage for each of the 40 rounds. Which then when you roll a crit it'll then be multiplied again. If your playing a sniper character its pretty useless.
Bonus HtH damage is pretty terrible on the other hand because its +2 max damage which at most if you take all of them at you'll still only get roughly extra 18 damage if you roll on a 3x damage on the crit table.
Living anatomy is better than both of them however because it does not get reduced by DT/DR of the target. It's damage is added directly onto the calculated damage after all other damage modifiers are calculated.

[The Chosen Chad]

Never said its a good build for beginner or for OP, its a good perk for a specific build like Bonus Ranged Damage is for burst based builds. In this playthrough I tried to do the maximum damage per punch, and I found out it was a more than viable build especially for experienced player.

If I would make a better build with the same perks, I'd only swap Jinxed for Finesse, Good Nature or One Hander, take 2 points from Perception and a single point from Intelligence, put it all in Luck, then Tag Locpick, Speech and Sneak. I'd take the exact same perks then take Better Crits at level 18, then Tag! or Mutate and finally Slayer at level 24.

Also Heavy Handed isnt actually that bad, its the description that does a poor job explaining what it actually does. Its not like one can make better or worse HtH/Melee build with or without it tho. Its all tied to how one play, I prefer to kite and kill people one by one thanks to high sneak skills some prefer to attack head on with a lot APs and some wants to kill a maximum amount of people in two turns with high sequence, its just all comes down to how someone wants to play, there is no better or worse way to play Fallout 2 tbh.