The ultimate party: Supreme Jerk Ironman beaten, max firepower / zero deaths

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Just beaten WL2 DC (no mods, no unofficial patch - vanilla game) on Supreme Jerk without reloading (hence, Ironman style). This is by far the most powerful party, both during whole game and at the endgame, i ever created.

For TL;DR and for all the stats, skills, perks and end-game items shown (SPOILERS, obviously) - see it all here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRP5K9RWyZE .

Oh, and that video also features last fight of the game (Matthias) done on SJ without losing a single NPC - which is quite difficult to do, given low health and sheer suicidal behaviour of them uncontrollable followers, of whom i got well over a dozen there. It can be done! :)


Now, some details about how and why this party is simply the best there can be.

1st, all 7 characters are extremely capable combatants: 15 CI end-game and everyone has 2 or more highly damaging attacks per turn.

2nd, there are two Int=10 "skill boats", resulting in all important skills maxed: everyone has at least one combat skill at 10, and every last non-combat skill is at 10 (few with trinkets, most without).

3rd, armor = 15 tank who shrugs off most / all damage during most of game's encounters, who's despite heaviest armor is not turtle-slow, who's also capable assault rifle user on top of maxed out blade weapons, giving great tactical versatility.

4th, machine gun and energy weapons user who, under endgame buffs, generates 25 AP per turn, shredding up to 4 synths per turn.

5th, last but not least, it's all-girl party, as you can see. Which normally is not something you can do, because normally Angela leaves in Canyon - and there are only 2 other female NPC squad members available (Vulture / Rose and Pizepi). However, it is possible to keep Angela by one in-game trick (see just below). There's really quite no other follower as powerful as Angela, so she's a must to keep. :)

So here's how to keep Angela. If you exit Canyon right after appearance of HQ message which results in her departure, thus keeping her in the party for the whole game. Just send one guy to stand near exit to Arizona map, then send another lone guy (solo mode) to go further into the canyon, when you 1st enter Canyon. Then select the guy near the exit and use it right after HQ starts to say things. Timing's important.

And few more notes about playing the game in Supreme Jerk Ironman. You gotta know the game and avoid insta-killers like trying to mechanically repair the nuke in Silo 7, activating "target organics" in Prison, etc. You gotta do good tactically (positioning, proper use of precision shots, etc). And you probably gotta grind levels here and there, early in the game, via random encounters. The latter, here's some useful observations for:

- create your rangers with good number of skills which give expensive items to them. Early on, you'll meet a vendor with "end-Arizona-grade" weapons and items, and selling most of items you've started with allows to buy one or more of those game-changing things. I particularly recommend a good bladed weapon, assault rifle, and heavy armor - in this order. Game-changer, early on, especially if you manage get all 3;

- 1st levels grind is best done right next to Ranger Citadel - around 1st half of the path to Radio Tower location. Don't go west, animals there, bad way to grind. This 1st grind area generates 3x raiders encounters which give some items to sell, while having enemies dealing little to no damage to your heavy armor tank;

- once at least level 4 (better - 6), it's time to head west, then north, then east - "around" bad radiation (level 3) clouds, which gets you to Rail Nomads. There will be caches, and obviously good number of quests / things in Rail Nomads itself, but also, 2nd grind area is right next and to the north of it. It generates 3x raider encounters, no animals, each encounter 105 xp (up from 45 xp in 1st grind area). Better weapons dropped, good amount of assault rifle ammo, more expensive junk, and still quite low armor penetration so the tank should be pretty happy;

- once feeling high enough level (and having some good skills for Ag Center / Highpool), leave 2nd grind area and do one of those. Then proceed with the game as you see fit, until you get Combat Armor (armor = 5) and get your Weaponsmith to 8 and obtain corresponding perk (can be something around level 12...16, depending how you play). By which time, you're good to go do 3rd grind area, which is in the little square-shaped area to south-east from Abandoned Railway. Any spot which is not more west nor more north than Abandoned Railway location - will steadily generate 6...7 raiders encounters, which drop higher tier weapons (great for disassembling for weapon parts), and give 360...420 xp per encounter. With Combat Armor and all the armor perks you can get for your tank, those will do little to no damage to your tank, now, making it easy to deal with. Keep your snipers / riflemen near their max range, initiate combat by having your tank running into raiders (preferably when they are not looking towards the tank, so you'll get closer) - and those raiders won't manage to hit your ranged weapon users at all.

For all the above to work well, it's also important to have sufficient Outdoorsman level - because if it's not high enough, then you'll spawn into raider encounters being too close to them, getting sort of ambushed. I think Outdoorsman = 3 is good enough for 1st and 2nd grind areas, and = 6 is fine for 3rd.

Then, leaving Arizona with some level 30 or higher - is basically enough to get to level 50 near the end of the game even without any dedicated grinding in LA (assuming taking most / all random encounters you normally get while going around LA for quests and such).