The Hero of the West

A build meant to embody the martial philosophy of the NCR the same way that Legate Lanius does for The Legion.
This build is all about guns, bullets, explosives, and the ability to carry said guns, bullets, and explosives so that you will always have superior firepower!

SPECIAL

Strength 7 ''Beach Bully''
The Hero is strong from lugging heavy packages across the wastes, all while carrying his guns and ammo.
With the strength implant and Reinforced Spine he'll reach 10 strength for maximum weapon handling and carrying capacity.

Perception 5 ''Wary Trout''
The hero's senses are pretty average.
With the perception implant you'll be able to get the Better Criticals perk.

Endurance 8 ''Flame Retardant''
The hero can take a lot of punishment before going down.
You'll be able to get all except for one implant, I recommend skipping the regeneration implant.

Charisma 3 ''Creepy Undertaker''
The hero has social difficulties which could stem from autism, or maybe brain damage.
In any event: the hero rely more on his own firepower rather than companions for dealing with enemies, and is more likely to attempt tanking damage himself rather than expecting companions to.
If you don't like using companions at all you could instead put two of the points from here into something else.

Intelligence 4 ''Knuckle Head''
The hero isn't the smartest guy around, but he do know how to take care of his equipment.

Agility 5 ''Under Control''
The hero of the west is as agile as he needs to be.

Luck 8 ''Leprechaun's Foot''
The hero aims to hit his targets where it hurts.
With the luck implant and the extra point from completing the Lonesome Road dlc you can get 10 luck.

Tagged Skills

Guns
The first perk we're going to get require 30 points in the Guns skill, and this build is all about guns and explosives.

Explosives
Our second perk require 30 points in Explosives, explosives are one of the build's main factors, and the Ghost Town Gunfight quest has an explosives skill check.

Repair
There is a 9mm submachinegun you can repair in Doc Mitchell's house, high repair helps you maintain your guns and armor, and some of our perk choices require high repair, Jury Rigging being the most notable.

Traits

Built to Destroy
The higher critical hit chance is well worth the faster equipment decay, after all Jury Rigging compensates for any inconvenience from this trait.

Skilled
Skilled is my favourite trait, it gives you more points in every skill and gives you more time to search for skill books.
I recommend taking this trait in the beginning, and later replace it at the auto doc in Old World Blues once you've built up the relavant skills for this build.

Hot Blooded (optional, replaces Skilled)
Gives a damage bonus when you reach low health, at the cost of your perception and agility stats.

Hoarder (optional, replaces Skilled)
If you prefer maxing out your carrying capacity you can take this instead of Hot Blooded.
This trait will give +25 carrying capacity but reduce your SPECIAL stats when carrying less than 160 lbs.
With this trait the build would have a maximum carrying capacity of 375 lbs.

Perks

Note: italics denote the requirements for the perk.

Rapid Reload
A5, Guns 30
As a true gun nut the hero of the west has a lot of practice loading guns.
Less time loading means more time shooting.

Heave Ho!
S5, Explosives 30
The hero has a good throwing arm, making him able to frag enemies from a good distance.

Shotgun Surgeon
Guns 45
Caesar's boys might think they are better in close quarters than those who rely on guns, until a 12 gauge shotgun blast blows their head off!
Shotguns will be our main weapon for close combat.

Quick Draw
A5
This perk allow you to not only draw your weapon fast in a pinch, but also change weapon quickly to adapt to the situation.

Strong Back
S5, E5
The hero is one of the best couriers the Mojave Express has ever seen, in no small part thanks to his ability to carry a lot of stuff.
The strength of his back is without question.

And Stay Back
Guns 70
Gives your shotgun blasts a chance to knock opponents down, making them unable to fight back until they can get back up.

Grunt
Guns 45, Explosives 20
The hero of the west embody the martial philosophy of the NCR, and thus Grunt is a no brainer.
Will give a damage boost to frag grenades, the light machinegun, and some other weapons that might go well with this build.

Mad Bomber
Repair 45, Explosives 45
Knowing how to effectively make improvised explosives ensures that the hero will always have superior firepower!

Stonewall
S6, E6
The hero won't fall easily, he is strong, tough, and used to stand his ground, wether it's against robbers or wasteland creatures.

Hand Loader
Repair 70
Following the gun nut theme the hero don't let spent casings go to waste, and sometimes hand loads bullets to his own specifications.
There is something poetic about killing a legion assassin with a shotgun shell packed with legion coin.

Pack Rat
I5 (intelligence implant), Barter 70
Careful packing allows the hero to carry more grenades, ammo, and other stuff, and helps him be a good courier.

Jury Rigging
Repair 90
One of the most practical perks in the game, making maintenance of equipment easy.
The hero has spent a lot of time on the trail, where the only one who could maintain his gear was himself, he sometimes had to find creative ways to keep his gear working, after all the last thing you want when being charged by a pack of nightstalkers is for your gun to jam.

Finesse
Gives a much higher critical hit chance, making it one of the best combat perks.

Better Criticals
P6 (percerption implant), L6
Makes your criticals do more damage.

Burden to Bear
S6, E6
The hero carry many burdens wether physical or mental.
Gives you more carrying capacity.

Heavyweight
S7
Makes heavy weapons weigh only half as much as usual, great for two of the recommended weapons.

Splash Damage
Explosives 70
Makes your explosions bigger, and as such more enemies will get caught in your explosions.

Spray and Pray
One of the recommended weapons for this build is a machinegun, and another is the liberal use of explosives.
You don't wanna have to stop hosing down enemies with your gun because your companion suddenly decided they should run in between you and your target, nor do you want to accidentally blow them up.

Hit the Deck
Explosives 70
The hero knows how to duck and cover, and won't be easy to blow up.

3 Demolitions Expert
Explosives 50
With 3 ranks of Demolitions Expert the hero will do a lot of damage with his grenades, and any other explosive weapons he might get his hands on.

2 Toughness
E5
The hero is one tough bastard.

Thought You Died
Good Karma
Gives you more maximum hitpoints depending on how high your karma is when you get it, and all your attacks do more damage.

Special Perks

Reinforced Spine
Together with the strength implant this will give the hero 10 strength.

All implants except regeneration
You can get every implant except for one, I recommend making that one regeneration.
The reason I recommend not getting the regeneration implant is because that, in my experience, the regeneration is too slow to ever be particularly helpful.

Equipment

Elite Riot Gear
Apart from making the hero of the west look like an NCR veteran ranger and a heavy trooper had an even more badass child, the elite riot gear gives a +5 critical chance, a point of charisma and a bonus to the guns skill.

Elite Riot Gear Helmet/1st Recon Beret
The helmet gives +2 perception, a bonus to speech, and a type of night vision when sneaking, plus it looks cooler and gives better protection.
Alternatively the beret will give +1 perception and a +5 bonus to critical hit chance.
There is actually a bug in the game where you can wear both the helmet and the beret at the same time, getting the bonuses of both, but that is clearly a mistake and looks stupid as hell, I just wanted to mention it so that nobody try to helpfully point it out to me.

Any Glasses (optional, & only with the beret)
If you decide to wear the beret for the extra critical you could wear a pair of glasses or sunglasses.
Noteworthy choices include Mobius' Glasses for their +10 bonus to explosives and +2 to intelligence.
Another good choice would have been the Lucky Shades, but that would require getting a positive reputation with Caesar's Legion, which goes against the spirit of this character build.
If you decide to get the Lucky Shades anyway you could put the point from completing the Lonesome Road dlc into something other than luck.

Light Machinegun
When given the expanded magazine the light machinegun can keep shooting for an impressive amount of time, even with its high rate of fire, the result is that it's a good weapon wether dealing with many weak enemies or few strong enemies.

Riot Shotgun
A powerful rapid-fire semi-automatic shotgun, great for dealing with enemies at close range.

Anti-Materiel Rifle (GRA)
This powerful .50 sniper rifle will be surprisingly light with the carbon fiber mod and Heavyweight perk.
Able to fire explosive rounds, this gun can take down just about anyone and anything before they even know what's happening.
I once killed the entirety of the mercenary gang that's replaced with aliens when you have the Wild Wasteland trait with only one shot of the explosive round.
It was very satisfying.

Recommended Endings

Dead Money
You can do basically whatever you prefer, except siding with Elijah of course, as the Hero would never help him destroy the NCR, not that I expect you'd want to go for the Elijah ending anyway.
This build has a high carrying capacity so you could probably make off with a lot gold.

Honest Hearts
I would say that fighting the White Legs make the most sense for this build, the White Legs' relationship with Caesar's Legion is reason enough.
The fate of Salt Upon Wounds I leave up to you, the same goes for the companion quests.

Old World Blues
You can do whatever you prefer.

Lonesome Road
It would make the most sense to either bomb Caesar's Legion or stop the launch.
I leave Ulysses' fate up to you.

Main Story
There is only one ending that fit this build: the NCR ending.
This build was designed to embody the martial philosophy of the NCR the same way that Legate Lanius do for the legion, and I imagined this character to be an overly patriotic californian, and doing whatever benefits the NCR the most, even at the cost of those not of the republic.
This will inevitably mean that the Hero of the West will become a fierce enemy of Caesar's Legion.

Trivia

I hope you enjoyed the build, it feels fitting that after publishing a samurai build this one is very ''murica!''
If this one seems to be of worse quality than the samurai build then that's because I wrote this one way before I wrote the samurai, and didn't feel like rewriting it.

This build was inspired by some of Ulysses' lines in the Lonesome Road dlc.

I was originally going to call it the Champion of the West, but felt Hero was a more fitting counterpart to Lanius' Monster of the East.

This is the fourth build I've published and will probably be the last, at least for any forseeable future.
It was originally going to be the third, but I deleted the character I used for it by mistake.

Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments, constructive criticism is welcome.

[Lolholm]

Thanks for the comment SgtSporky! I appreciate the feedback and found your perspective quite interesting, so please don't mistake my counter arguments here for hostility.
I did in fact play the entire game through with this build on hardcore mode, and it is an NCR build not an NCR Ranger build, the point is to embody the NCR military philosophy in its entirety. If you listen to what Ulysses says about the marked men in the Divide they revere their guns AND explosives.
I ended up leaning more into the average NCR Troopers and the Heavy Troopers who use semi-automatic and fully automatic guns rather than lever-action and revolvers, and from the Rangers I mainly kept elements of the Elite Rangers (the Anti-Material Rifle and the look) rather than the cowboy aspects that are more prevalent in the lower ranking guys.

[SgtSporky]

Mechanically, this is sound; however, if you really want to lean into the NCR roleplay, I would replace Grunt with Cowboy and alter chosen weapons accordingly; this brings you more in line with the Rangers, but it also plays better with And Stay Back, since a lever-action shotgun is much cheaper and benefits from both perks. It also makes better use of Hand Loader by giving you access to SWC ammunition, and working together with that it can bring brush guns, especially Medicine Stick, up to anti-material rifle levels of DAM while also being much faster. Without Grunt boosting frag grenades and with Cowboy making dynamite more viable, it might also be a good idea to take some of the skill points and perks you would have invested in explosives and put them into survival instead; after all, Rangers should be able to live off the land for extended periods, and are you even playing the game if you don't have hardcore mode turned on?

[Lolholm]

Good catch Random NCR Ranger! Obviously the hero wouldn't side with Elijah!

[A Random NCR Ranger]

In terms of any ending you want for dead money

There is one where you side with Elijah to destroy the NCR with the cloud, though its essentially an Easter egg with how many requirements it needs

[Lolholm]

Thanks Rogue Planet! I'm glad you appreciate my efforts!
Also, pretty solid commenting on your part, pointing out the specific parts you liked, A+.

[Rogue Planet]

cool build! I like the attention to detail added for the equipment, recommended endings, and the reasoning behind them all. I also think the outline of the overview is solid, especially how in the Perks section you italicized the requirements. Clearly a lot of thought went into this! Keep it up!

[TheDarkraiDimension]

FOR THE REPUBLIC!!!!

[Lolholm]

Thanks for the comment Deplorable.
Murica!

[Deplorable]

Sounds like my character build the first time I played through the game. all bet your's is way better though out then mine. Murica!

[Lolholm]

I originally wanted to call it champion, but changed it because because I felt ''Hero of the West'' worked better as a counterpart to Lanius' ''Monster of the East'' than ''Champion of the West''.

So I pick NCR.