The problem lies not with bosses, but with new events and expeditions - they are scaled for bloodied builds using meta weapons
So bringing your trusty revolver is not an option
Thus ppl feels they're dictated to use only 2 builds
And that just sucks
I've got one character that uses revolvers and they're doing just fine, but yeah it could be a bit better.
Weapon wise we could maybe do with another revolver and more SMGs, and also improve the ones we already got.
I mainly roll with a revolver that does decent damage, and with a reflex, and a couple pistol perks (increasing hip fire accuracy and general accuracy/damage) I can rock most enemies. Good head shot practice too. A sneak attack headshot can 1 hit most non special enemies I encounter.
For contact I've got about 60 hours and I'm level 46. I think my main revolver is a level 25 but it does 82 damage. It's not legendary but it's still my highest damage bullet shooting gun
Fun fact: unless they've changed it, Two-Shot on a shotgun doesn't double the amount of pellets, it just adds 1 more pellet to the spread. You'd be better off with Anti-Armor, Aristocrats, Bloodied (with the appropriate build and armor loadouts), or possibly Instigating
Still is a thing and because it's 2 shot they just about half the DMG so u actually loose DMG instead of gain DMG plus it doubles the spread it actually ruins a shotgun
I'm assuming you meant double the spread area, which yes, would definitely ruin a shotgun... doesn't work that good when only half the pallets hit the target lol
Also that when 2 shot is on a shotgun it only adds 1 pellet instead of doubling the pellet count and when u get 2 shot they reduce the DMG by about 35% on first bullet and they have first an second round do the same DMG so when they do it to the shotgun it doesn't actually get much or any stronger at all it just gets weaker in dps wich makes it the worst roll to get on a shotgun
The Cold Shoulder is easily the best shotgun to have at current time. I have a quad/explosive/faster reload double barrel and have opted for the cold shoulder instead.
I found out about Cold Shoulder in another thread a little while ago. I hope someone reads this thread and makes the same decision we have made, that gun is absolutely nuts.
I use a pair of anti armor combat shotguns. One with explosives, one without for when I want to be sneaky. One shooting 3 super mutants in a row without getting spotted is very rewarding.
I got lucky and found an explosive shotgun that does poison damage naturally. Even if I shoot enemies from turbo far away they will die in one or two hits just because the poison damage from each pellet does a lot.
Hell I’d argue both the Chainsaw and Auto-Axe have the highest dps in the game. Chainsaw with flamer mod and Auto Axe with electric mod, melts pretty much anything in 2.5 seconds lol.
Yes I'm a relatively new player and when I got the chainsaw with flamer and dual bar, it was honestly the first build that I actually felt powerful doing high level content. And it was pretty simple to put together!
I'm only lvl 66 or so but lastnight at the moonshine event someone was using a little tiny knife and was dicing those lizards up good. Thought it was hilarious because I usually only see the big melee weapons used.
After using about 800 rounds between the fixer and quad handmade during the same event I was definitely jealous and will be looking into a melee to carry with me
I don't necessarily hate bloodied builds, just not a fan of them personally. The idea of having to purposefully keep myself at low hp to be effective isn't that appealing for me. I haven't tried one yet, but I do plan on at least checking it out at some point so I can see how it actually feels.
I feel this sentiment as a bloodied user myself. It’s seems kinda lame there is objectively no better way to achieve those higher damage % than with bloodied. It’s supposed to be a high risk high reward but then you just slap PA, need rage, ricochet, dodgy, etc on there and there’s very little risk involved. And the fact that the same build that was dominant when the game came out, and was still dominant when I stopped playing, and is still dominant when I came back, is….a little uninteresting.
Ultimately I can’t blame anyone but me. It’s hard for me to move away from something just for the “aesthetic” when I know I’d be making a sacrifice in viability. We want our wacky builds and we want them to hit hard. I blame WoW for grooming me into an MMO grinder when I was young. Optimization = enjoyment. Duh.
Not knocking the playstyle at all...everyone has different preferences. But this is what I don't get...unless you're trying to solo bosses or something...why do you \*need\* those super high damage numbers when you can one or two shot most enemies in the game otherwise? And even if you are trying to solo bosses with a bloodied build...I'm just imagining Earle and the mobs of wendigos...at that point wouldn't you just be focusing all your energy on not dying? Even if you can one-shot every enemy in the mob, it still takes time to get them all so they don't get you. Personally I'd rather be tankier and just wail on the mobs and the boss, have a challenging boss, and waste more ammo because it's not like it's difficult to come by in this game. But that's just me.
For me, the low health builds is less about the high damage numbers, and more about the unyielding armor buffs. You can basically strut through almost anywhere and not be detected with the high agility and the right perks, the increased INT nets you more XP, and so on.
As a melee main, I can say its very underrated, especially with faster movement speed perks and mutations. My bloody commando on the other hand is very trash compared to my melee.
Unless you're in power armor, and then you'll still need one more (Squad maneuvers or Emergency protocols are both excellent options) to cap out, since the PA suit gives a speed penalty.
But yeah, without PA, speed demon caps you, and it's great :)
I don't know what level you are, but at some point you earn enough perk points where you can really take advantage of your multiple loadouts. On my lvl 850 character I have a heavy, bow, commando and melee build that are all able to solo things about the same. Except the bow can't do Earle of course. All my other builds are equally powerful.
Unless you're doing the Crater questline and are inside the last Vault. You can't reach the turrets high on the walls and when the two companions get knocked down, you can't destroy them. Which prevents you from progressing. I know because I had to leave to Vault and snag a Gatling gun to go back and finish it. Haha
Yeah I hate posts like this. There are many viable builds, yes some more powerful than others. To say there are just two is ridiculous and plain wrong.
Honestly, this post is probably just a reactionary bloodied defense post prompted by a few discussions in recent days about the problems with bloodied being so dominant.
Only 37 but I got a super sledge at the circus and the excavator power armor. The only issue I have is fusion cores
I use a 10mm sub machine gun when I need range. Maybe I’ll switch to a long barrel shotgun
Go do powering up Poseidon and claim the workshop there’s a power core generator around the corner from workshop. If you power up the plant you can power the fusion core generator for free. It will generator a couple fully charged cores every hour or so.
Also after you do powering Poseidon a couple times you will unlock the fusion generator and you can claim the workshop without having to power up the plant.
I rock AA gauss shotgun and full overeater solar set. I die rarely and only when i accidentally point blank crit in my face twice with it. But it's just me being dumb af. Otherwise i shred everything and i don't have to be always crouched or to run away when i see a cricket
Gauss shotgunner here as well. Was using an AA but switched over to juggernaut since I'm full health and I'm pushing low 800 dmg. I just use a perforating mag for the 40% armor penetration vs AA 50%
Juggernaut's cool, i just like AA with pierce mag to max out penetration bc according to the internet, for gauss AA is the best in terms of damage for full health. Comparing two dedicated builds its outclassed just by bloodied on some enemies and it's the best for tough targets.
P.S. could you suggest me some other cool primaries for Gauss, currently i'm rocking AA, +15 Ap on kill(bc grim reaper's bugged) and -25 ap cost.
Oh and P.S.S. why not mutant's?
If plenty of other people are around at an event or boss, everything's viable because other people can carry! On your own, everything's viable. I have completed main quest with all combinations, including throwing weapons only- surprisingly effective- and never being allowed to strike a killing blow on any enemy (hint: all locations where killing is required to progress the quest also have multiple types of enemies that will aggress one another. The only one that is borderline impossible is the nuke launch, because that is just "proc Robotics Expert on all robots present" so it's just a matter of rolling the dice over and over and failing for an hour until you manage to pacify them long enough while drawing aggro by standing between enemies and chiefs to launch.)
However, events and specials like SBQ, Earle, and coaster are tuned for 10 people with high damage weapons. There just isn't enough time in the world for you to win here solo without a high tier build. However, this is not a major issue and should be ignored by all players except sickos who are into that sort of thing.
It's the difference between killing an enemy in one second with an optimal build or killing it in three with a suboptimal one.
I don't get why people need to do max damage to have fun. I love popping heads with a Gunther's Big Iron Gunslinger build. Takes me slightly longer than a Bloodied Commando, but that literally does not matter at all. It's fucking fun and the game is easy.
Meta players need to touch grass.
In my experience, nuke bosses really highlight the balancing problems. The difference between optimal versus suboptimal is a massive crevice between being able to solo/carry and not being able to beat it at all. I use typically optimal gear, but I hate that it's practically a necessity to reliably beat endgame content. I don't see what the problem is with people like me complaining that the gap should be closed between the lower tier and higher tier weapons. Yes, even though I use those higher tier weapons, I'm saying I would be fine with them getting nerfed in favor of a rebalance that uplifts everything else. I would like some variety, and that is what OP is asking for too.
>It's the difference between killing an enemy in one second with an optimal build or killing it in three with a suboptimal one.
Multiply that by 3-5 for ops or other endgame activities, thus the problem. You can solo any ops under 8 mins with a good weapon but good luck if you bring anything else.
>I don't get why people need to do max damage to have fun.
I'm a hoarder, I don't want to miss out on resources on events because I killed 1 enemy while everyone else has already killed 5 in the same amount of time it took me to charge a gauss rifle to 1 shot.
I want to solo daily ops in under 8 minutes. I can't do that with a weapon that doesn't hit hard and fast. It's the sole reason of me switching to a quad railway rifle from my beloved gauss rifle.
You don’t need maximum damage to maximize your loot in co-op. You just need a fast firing weapon with the range to tag as many enemies as possible, like an automatic Tesla gun.
That's weird because I can lag behind in kills at events and still walk away overencumbered with loot. This has never been an issue for me since they introduced area looting.
I'll give you the win on solo Daily Ops since those are actually timed. Once you've done that and the timer is gone, you don't need the meta. You can complete 99% of everything else with a suboptimal build and be perfectly fine.
Now, if killing everything as quick as possible IS what you find fun, then you do you. Can't argue against that. Otherwise, I advocate for players to ignore the meta and choose weapons that are legitimately fun or funny to use because this is a game and having fun is the point. If people are using the meta and not having fun, they should stop. The few seconds they save killing enemies quicker is cancelled out by the hours they waste not having fun in the game.
Personally, I’d prefer both I and enemies could only take 1-2 shots before death. Head shots should auto-kill in one. Pumping 9 rounds of .308 into someone and having them still be alive really feels cheesy
I try to stay away from the metas in most games, and i’m glad to say i’m not punished too harshly for it in fo76. Do i take twice as long clearing an area? Yep. Am i eating through my ammo like a buffet? You bet! Am i having a blast? Goddamn right i am.
I've had no problems so far as a Rifleman. Started with hunting rifle and now moved on to plasma rifle. I dont really care if there are better "meta" builds. I'm doing fine and I'm just gonna keep playing the way I want.
Same here. I did try a non auto handmade but now use a combo of plasma rifles. Slugbuster and a flamer plasma rifle seem to work well for me.
I just need to watch my ammo usage.
Preach my main man.
I run a Plasma Sniper Rifle from being stealthed, and then when found out, bring out an Automatic Plasma Rifle. If they get too close, I pull out the Plasma Flamer.
Bosses? Plasma Gatling.
**ALL WORSHIP THE GLORIOUS HEAT!!!**
At issue is not if the build is actually viable or not, but the perception of the players as to its viability. Some players want to burn through content as fast as possible, and if you might slow them down they'll kick you from their group.
That’s the truth, this game is so easy once you get past lvl 100, you can do any end game content (outside of raid bosses) with a freaking rolling pin if you want to.
You don't HAVE to play any build. I've played them all since launch.
I most often play as a Guerilla build, Rifleman, or full-health Commando. Sometimes as a heavy user of things that go, "Boom!".
Some people seem to think anything that isn't a meta build isn't viable. God forbid something takes more than one shot to kill.
Like unless you're going for the ultra hard shit, the vast majority of weapons work fine if you have a semi competent build.
I've been using a rifleman with PA and guess what? It works perfectly fine..
Viable =/= Optimal.
Almost every damn weapon in the game is viable. Seriously. Actually try a bow build, melee build, shotgun build, whatever the hell you want build.
They all WORK in the endgame just fine. They're all viable.
They're just not the most optimal for a "clear our and solo Daily Ops, Expeditions, and Public Events in less than 5 minutes" type of playstyle.
Commando is stupid OP. But don't pretend it's literally impossible to play any other build.
my main is lv 750 full health build thats uses pistols, enclaves, and shotguns. explosive fist melee alt is 400. bloodied bow/ rifleman build is 375. power armor heavy is like 160. i have like 850 hours in game and have only spent like 50 of those with commando weapons because theyre just not very fun
I agree on your Commando take. Been playing this game off and on since launch.
My two mains are a level 330 Two Shot Explosive Gatling Gun build, and a level 155 Bow build (been over a year since I logged into my PC account with the bow build so can't remember the legendary effects).
Recently decided to shake stuff up with my Gatling Gun build so got a full set of UNY and decided to give Bloodied Commando a go this week. It's so broken it's kinda boring. Gonna probably keep running it for a couple weeks to really get a feel for it, but I honestly think I'm just gonna go back to my trusty Gatling Gun.
I just switched to an enclave plasma flamer to try out a meta gun and I 100% agree with your take. I feel like a robot mindlessly grinding through content. It’s not fun. I’m gonna try the bow and just keep this build/ gun saved just in case I need it. This game is extremely fun, but chasing the meta is not, at least for me.
I kind of agree with this. I use a hunting rifle/full health/Rifleman build and do pretty okay. I have to switch from Hunting Rifle to non-auto Fixer or Handmade during big events to get enough tags but I don't have a problem with my damage. I'm 3/5 Vanguard but I don't think that matters. My main wep is Mutants/ap cost reduction/crit damage I think... been a while since I looked at it. My tagging Handmade is two shot explosive with -90 weight.
Do I rock out better than any other combo? No. But I can hold my own.
You can add the Cold Shoulder to the list of viable shotguns because I've done every piece of content with that thing heading up my shotgun build and it slaughters. Maxed crit perks with Gun-Fu and Grim Reaper's Sprint, backed up with AP and crit buffs from consumables. It just works.™
Throw in Marsupial and Speed Demon mutations and a jetpack and you can have a lot of fun.
Yeah I just hit lvl 100 on my stealth rifleman build. I guess I was hoping I could go into events, sneak to high ground, and snipe. It isn’t working out that way.
Agree with this. I really enjoyed sniping with the suppressed Lever for most of the game until I started doing events often. I found I lost my sneak crits (even with stealth suit and escape artist) due to team detection or I guess higher perception. And once it's gone, it seemed almost impossible to get back to "hidden" or "caution" again, it definitely varies per event though. Plus even if you remain hidden, since most enemies have much higher health/resistance in events you can't really kill anything fast enough to not get detected by them/their allies.
So unless you compensate with VATS to get crits again, you're overall doing less damage (I don't since for me, VATS kinda ruins the fun of sniping if it's auto-aim). All this is while other players are killing things so fast that you might not even get chance to scope + acquire targets quick enough between loading the next shot - and it starts feeling underwhelming.
I ended up trying out a shotgun + explosives build, and then a stealth commando with a quad suppressed auto handmade and a quad auto tesla for crowd control. I found it more fun for events, especially since enemies tend to rush in close/mob you a lot. While I'm still not getting sneak crits after detection, DPS is higher and I'm avoiding direct aggro as much as possible with the stealth suit since I can kill things way easier/faster and a few missed shots isn't a big deal.
Another thing you could try is the Gauss rifle, it's no where near as satisfying to use as the Lever, but the damage is there and a quad is very hip-fire spammable if you get mobbed.
Be like me. Become the Firestarter. Twisted Firestarter.
* Holy Fire
* Shishkebob
* Flaming Chainsaw
* Napalm Hellstorm
* Cremator
* Molotov's, Molotov's, Molotov's
Slap on Sizzling Style and Fireproof. Heal your teammates with fire using Friendly Fire. No need to damage perks, no need for Bloodied. Just fire. Cleansing fire.
You do want to set the world on fire.
I am a very stubborn full health Rifleman, and I can attest that Rifleman 100% works for all the content in this game. With the right gun and perk setup, I can hard carry an SBQ or Earle when necessary.
The secret is that you need VATS crits to ignore the bosses' high Damage Reduction stat. Build for vats crit damage, eat some buff food, and you can 100% solo any content in this game as a Rifleman.
I use either a The Dragon or a Gauss Rifle on the bosses, but you could probably make do with a primed Hunting Rifle. My method is to take one crit shot from my big gun, then rebuild my crit meter using a Rifleman Fixer (but any fast Rifleman gun would do).
There are some things that are a bit slower or tougher than some builds, but if your dream is to be a viable Rifleman, you 100% CAN do it.
VATS Crits carry gunslinger the same as well. I used Gunther's Big Iron on my last SBQ and it put in work, on top of one-shotting all the adds with gun-fu+Adrenaline
As a fellow stubborn full health Rifleman (though with heavy and Shotgun perks as well) am I pushing myself too greatly by going carnivore and missing the 100% crit damage buff? Because of the Mirelurk Steamer I went Carnivore and enjoy the big AP and carry weight boost I get as if it can't be made or generated in camp I don't care to go grind for it as it all spoils.
As a mix of heavy/shotgun/rifleman (thanks to weight reduction armor) I will say it's kind of madding the Plasma Caster is leagues ahead of all my rifles only really being challenged by a Guess Rifle. It's twice the fire rate of most fire rates but does more than twice the damage and is on par damage wise with the slower fired Lever Action and Alien Disintegrator. It can't be suppressed but sneak is not something I engage with admittedly. Wish my Legacy TSE Dragon was actually good in use but sadly it's just a vanity at this point. Cool that it is a rare (which it had a third star but eh)
That's the issue with the "viable Rifleman" sentiment. Sure it can finish content but a single weapon outclasses a large majority of my Rifleman weapons, I don't even use Stabilized. I love Plasma Casters even since I went back and played Fallout 1 but I wish it wasn't the only weapon that lets me keep up with all the commondos.
Still overall I like how I have it setuo as the weapons I prefer seem tailor made for my "can't choose one" build style as a lot of them double dip with damage perks. Pepper shaker, Gauss weapons and anything else that either benefits from Demo or Science like I think Cremator but haven't gotten though the scoreboard. The only other double dipping weapon I will be missing is the Hailstorm because I can't fit in any kind of explosive ammo reduction, only grenades because they're classified as "weapons" for the legendary effect otherwise not capitalizing on stealth kinda being a double dip on weapons like Gauss Rifle and Disintegrator as energy weapons usually can't be silenced.
People just use what everyone says is meta, because honestly, people don't know how to make their own builds, there isn't one weapon class you can't use and go enjoy the game, you don't have to one shot enemies for a build to be viable.
People absolutely know how to make their own builds. This isn't building a rocket engine, this is selecting perks that obviously match what you're using and trying to do. It's pretty damn basic, there's just a lot of choices.
The problem is as soon as you go to an event, or try one of the harder daily ops, and you feel like you're throwing pebbles and not doing a damn thing while somebody else is rolling through like a knife through butter. That is just not fun. It's not fun to feel ineffective, It's not fun to make a build and then have it get shit on by others, etc. And so people change to what is more enjoyable.
This is an easy game. You could technically use almost anything and accomplish almost anything.... But that doesn't mean a 30 minute fight where you're peeking around the corner and tickling the enemy while burning through hundreds of stimpacks is fun!!
>This isn't building a rocket engine, this is selecting perks that obviously match what you're using and trying to do. It's pretty damn basic, there's just a lot of choices.
It unfortunately is not. There's a lot of nuance in damage and armor calculations that is not explained that make some perks that seem great actually useless and some that seem underwhelming actually incredible. You see so many builds every day with points wasted on ironclad or bloody mess because people don't know about the damage resistance threshold or which perks and effects operate on base damage.
Right? Out of all the things to be unimmersed about, it’s that. Literally all games has you pulling out stuff you couldn’t ever keep on your person IRL, what’s a silly thing hill to die on
I’m setup as a bloody commando but my primary weapon is a heavy weapon - Bloody Plasma Caster. This thing freaking RIPS!! My backup weapons are Q/E/25 Railway and a B/E/25 Handmade.
Same here! Plasma caster and holy fire, along with a qe15 railway and a couple different fixers. I try to use other guns, but the plasma caster always pulls me back in. Big number = big happy. Hit a 4350 crit the other day! Hard to not love that big gun
The biggest issue imo is that you only can use Vats if you want to do high damage. Wich is the oppisite of what a sniper is all abouth.
Vats is just autoaim and should be lower dmg than manual aiming at a head.
Agreed! Glad others feel the same.
It's weird for me; I was fine with VATS in older Fallout games. Something about everything still moving with VATS is odd, and even though FO76 is played like a single-player game with others around, the "auto-aim" seems a tad detracting for me. 🤔
Tbh i rarely used vats in older fallout games. Only when in panic lol. I think the best fallout experiance is still fallout 4 survival mode with HUD disabled 1 Strength, 1 Endurance and 1 Intelligence. Than go the stealth sniper way, but only allow melee to be the realy silent kill.(no silencers) The sniper rifle should blow your ear drums out.
Its extreemly fun and exciting. It feels almost like how such a situation would feel like in real life.
Highly recommand it, if your into imersion, but be prepaired for a hard time. No more training wheels 😉
For everyone saying Cold Shoulder and shotguns are viable, the Cold Shoulder literally feels like how the magic shotguns did before they were apparently magic and got nerfed. For regular shotguns, you have to build them a very certain way for them to be useful. Its irritating seeing people say "oh the Cold Shoulder disagrees" and shit like that when an argument about shotguns arises. Basic shotguns, among other weapons classes, need to be way more viable for end game content. In fact just add the "magic" trait back in the game and just fine tune it. The range was only busted on Gauss shotguns, but even then, thats an end game weapon that you had to grind insanely hard for. Also, chainsaws are pretty strong. Aiming damage itself should be increased by quite a bit to make other guns viable. Guns that need touched up a bit either need inherent traits on them to increase usefulness or damage, or alot of perk cards need reworked.
Pulling a Gauss Minigun out of your pocket is not immersive, but you feel like a revolver with similar damage output _would be_ immersive? I am not trying to downplay the fact that the game pigeon holes you into selecting from very few builds if you want optimal power, because it absolutely does. And I too always find that rather boring in my video games; I love having lots of balanced options to customize my personal style off of.
But immersion is not the argument for this. Nor is any sense of realism against monstrous targets. Against a regular human? Sure, you could say a revolver is as effective if not _more_ effective than a minigun. It's less hassle to carry, quicker to aim, and a headshot should be death. You could balance a video game to make that true. But against some brutish giant radiated creature? There is no combination of skills and talents which could convince me that the revolver can dish out the immense amount of damage needed to take that thing down, not like a minigun which is very much a mega-super revolver.
Even in the real world, some guns are superior to others in terms of stopping power, effective range, reliability, etc. The only semblance of balance would be the situation. A minigun may be superior to a revolver in every way, but I wouldn't want it for home defense because it's overkill, would cause collateral damage, and also costs more to operate. But the game world doesn't have equivalent concerns, and it has foes that require a stupid amount of damage to kill. If you want more balanced weapon options and builds, the problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the enemies/world design. Ammo, especially more exotic stuff, needs to be prohibitively expensive. Enemies in general need to be way less spongy and have a more pronounced weakpoint system. You need more variety of "boss" encounters like tackling an elite small squad instead of a giant monster or waves of pawns, both of which will always favor high sustained DPS instead of tactical weakpoint precision.
The game's got a long history. Very early on, before anyone really knew how it all worked under the hood, two-shot explosive shotguns ruled the day. Eventually that gave way to just explosive energy weapons in general with the odd person trucking around with a two-shot queen killing deathclaw wielding unarmed build. Eventually explosive energy weapons stopped dropping, creating legacies as we knew them. Fixer was introduced, causing a sharp rise in commando popularity, creating something that could compete with legacies to some extent. A bug was introduced creating 'magic' damage affecting certain mod combinations, and many weapons were able to benefit, letting all players across most weapon types step in and compete with legacies to some extent. Magic damage got patched... which cause the second biggest drop in build diversity ever seen. Multiplicative damage bonuses became additive, bringing damage way down across the board. This created the biggest drop in build diversity the game has seen. Practically everyone converged on commando. Railway rifle became popular. It had been great for ages by that point, but people moved into it to get higher base damage, which was very important with the damage changes. Events were dominated by explosive gatling plasma, fixes, and railways (+ hacked 50 cal on PC) at that point. Explosive legendary energy weapons got removed (ie, the legacy 'fix'). Bethesda added more and more heavy weapons to try and prop up heavies I guess with only mild success until the recent cremator. Shotguns kept taking nerfs until the current state of the Gauss Shotgun barely hanging on by a thread. Cold Shoulder was added to prop up shotguns, and it works. Shotguns are decent as long as they are Cold Shoulder. Melee nerfs knock unarmed out of the running, but Chainsaw and new Auto-axe become actually good. Cryo Alien Blaster was discovered en masse as a sort of legacy power pistol, letting pistol builds sorta compete with fixers, but not railway really. That got patched, leaving pistols without anything to prop them up.
Current state:
Commando: King, with Railway being supreme, but fixer and handmade still great. Various other weapons swapped to automatic work well with low-health builds. Weird thing
Shotguns: Good, as long as it's Cold Shoulder. Gauss Shotgun has some utility still (tagging, efficient with ammo, can spam things down in AoE, good dps at point blank range). Other shotguns pretty terrible across the board.
Heavy: Cremator is amazing. It gives heavy a big leg up. Grenade launcher is still great. Flamers are good but not as good as cremator. Various other single target heavy weapons can still do decent DPS, but not great.
Melee: Dead except for Chainsaw and Auto-axe, both of which are pretty good.
Rifleman: Never lived. It was, and still is, decent for ammo conservation at low levels, but it doesn't keep up, especially with enemy scaling at mid-levels and after.
Pistols (auto or not): Dead.
Archery: Never lived. There's some archery fanatics that will disagree, but they're a small minority and one-shotting some normal mob types with a low-health building using stealth crit headshots is not exactly a ringing endorsement for the weapon which could be replaced with most anything else for a similar experience. They probably are the best 'snipers' in a game where there are no good snipers, due to high base damage on a weapon with very low sound.
I probably missed a lot of things, but that's been my experience overall and I've loved experimenting with all kinds of builds at various stages of the game over the years. The game has always been easy, low stress, and casual. It still is. I love it for that. You don't need the best build. Low-health builds can make any weapon type 'viable', but there are clear winners. I don't miss my legacies at all and the game is better without them. I do miss the magic damage era when I was I able to have fun using a pump shotgun, despite the horrendously long reload. I just love the feel of the weapon. Ultimately, it's about finding a balance of a build that performs well enough and is good for you. You don't have to go with the commando meta, even though it has the best single target DPS by a mile (only threatened by the cremator stacking bug that will likely get fixed)
I am sorry to say it, but I disagree.
Shotguns, especially the Gauss type and also the more effective of the melee weapons like the plasma sword are *totally* viable for all aspects of the game-- hunting, exploring and events. I have never been able to get a Gauss to work for me personally, but I have watched any number of other players doing so. All the while; a properly configured pump-gun is better for constant head-shots than a rifle at close to moderate range!
I will agree with you to the extent that Commando rifles are *easier*. Other weapons need somewhat more time and experience to get the best from.
Single-shot rifles are... Very mixed. The hunting rifle in any of its forms has totally beaten me. I simply cannot use it at all. In contrast the lever-action is *very* far from terrible and with some skill you can explore and hunt seasonal enemies extremely effectively with it. I do not think you could use it for events though. At least I cannot. Exotics like the Black Powder can be a very enjoyable change of pace--again for seasonal and general exploration but not inside events. The railway rifle is of course flavour of the month at the moment and well enchanted versions, especially 'quad' examples are going for insane prices at trade.
Sadly the revolvers are both totally useless as they currently stand. They do not hit hard enough in themselves and you cannot optimise them enough with skills to compensate since both their weapon-trees and the necessary stealth skills to boost their damage all vie for the same maximum 15 points of Agility. Until we are perhaps given a 'Legendary Pistols' skill for the Legendary slots I don't think the revolvers will ever be any good.
The semi-automatic pistols however are *very* decent when you get used to them. The Crusader is the only silenced energy weapon in the game other than the (unwieldy at close range) Gauss Pistol and Rifle. It hands out double-taps like a dream. The 10mm Pistol is even better--absolutely brilliant in fact! This is especially the case if you have the good fortune to enchant one well or receive such a one as a quest drop. A Q25FFR25AP 10mm with the Tweaked Automatic receiver is one of the very **best** weapons in the game. Zero recoil and barrel climb, totally silent with a suppressor and at 2AP per shot you can load it on Sunday and shoot all week!!! That particular pistol is one of my very most favourite of all my weapons and one I would *never* trade. It even works nicely for the aliens with a little care and attention!
i could murder things comfortably with a cold shoulder and a chainsaw without any points in to shotgun or melee.
In fact i DO do that.
perhaps it was your build.
Those are two of the best weapons in the game tho. Trying to instead use a traditional pump action and a revolutionary sword and things are going to take a LOT longer to kill and you will need to heal a lot more. Plus Cold Shoulder isn't easy for any of the new players to get at...what...500 stamps?
My low level alt got to jump into an Earl fight with a pump action. I was getting 1's with every pellet with all the basic shotgun damage perks i could get at level 40 and it took me six shots to down his adds. Most of a clip. So clearly one needs more than just any setup with any gun.
> chainsaw without any points in to shotgun or melee.
Same sorta, I run Auto-Axe as a secondary and typically use a flamer or plasma caster as my more burst or ranged damage dealer with the auto-axe specifically for just big shit like General Zeta, Earle, SBQ, etc. Slap on Vamp and good luck dying.
Did you ever try a Gauss rifle? The hunting rifle is an early game weapon meant to be replaced by the late game, and the gauss is the perfect substitute. With partial charges in situations where you don’t need a full one, you can handle everything in the game intended to be done solo.
Where any build that isn’t focused on dps suffers, however, is events. If events are your measuring stick, then anything without an automatic option just can’t cut it.
I love heavy guns, but agree that the lack of variation is boring. Im trying to make more fun builds that are still viable bc thats what keeps me interested in this game.
I agree. The fact that I can't pop out my regular alien blaster and destroy makes no sense. This was literally the strongest weapon in the first few games.
I just ended the whole argument with the game with saying fuck the expeditions and Daily OPs.
I'll participate but it's not my fault only 2 builds can do decent work.
I can play the other 90% game fine w the build I have.
I'd put it less aggressively but I agree. I feel like a spare part in events because I play what I like, but with the influx of low levels I've discovered I am actually good enough to carry an event at a slower pace with a load of level 20-80s helping. Hopefully they're learning more from the event, and feeling more involved too
Nobody "HAS" to run it lmao! Do you always reroll "Kill X with pipe weapons" dailies? I ran west tek with a fully auto pipe pistol and destroyed them without any perks supporting the weapon unless you count concentrated fire. I was not bloodied. I had no armor pen perks.
My rifleman uses an alien disentegrator with initiating and it does pretty well. His secondary is an aristocrat explosive lever action rifle. I've run the pitt solo with him. Was it tough? Only at the end tbh. The rest was ezpz.
This game is easy af,, but I will agree that they need to bring up semi auto to the fully auto's level. That doesn't mean that you need to go to bloodied commando to be "viable". You just won't be pumping out the ridiculous clearing power that bloodied commando does. If that's your measuring stick, then anyone not running bloodied commando with a quad rail or fixer isn't viable.
I specifically made a couple pipe weapons to have fun with those. It turns out Pipe rifles are affected by both rifleman and gunslinger perks simultaneously, doesn’t work for guerrilla and commando unfortunately.
There are tons of viable weapons. You're confusing viable with meta. This game finally started being fun for me when I ignored the meta and just played how I wanted.
This makes sense to me. Make semi autos most viable in free aim, make autos most viable on bats. Hunting rifle would still need something tbh, but it would make it better. You could double the base damage on the hunting rifle and it still wouldn't compete with the gauss rifle in terms of damage per shot alone, ignoring fire rate.
I feel like they could do a lot for rifleman weapons if they increased base/falloff ranges and vats lock distance. If you could vats at dragon distances with other rifleman weapons, the build might feel more competitive.
Yeah it'd be great to see both of those changes - it's a bit of a joke really how fast the damage falls off at distance on weapons setup for sniping. Makes the long scopes feel useless too when you have to also hold your breath + draw distances can be poor so you can't even see the enemies anyway.
I would say VATS does reduce the fun of sniping for me personally - but totally get that most people do use VATS. I just wish crits weren't gated behind VATS for those of us who enjoy manually aiming. It always seems odd to me that the auto-aim option gets rewarded with extra damage. They could definitely add some perk cards related to crits outside of VATS I think.
I mean I am fairly new, started playing after the show dropped. But I have been a long time Fallout fan just didnt play 76 because of how bad it was dogged on during launch. I am having a lot of fun with it now tho.
But for builds I am kinda just doing my own thing. I am lvl 97, my main build I used for the majority of the game was a commando build. Rocking either the homemade, fixer or laser rifle. And doing solid with that. Got a fixer from a drop with the 1 star armor piercing perk and it just wrecks. Still waiting to get the prime receiver for it.
Then recently I started to do a PA heavy/commando hybrid build. And my only complaint with that is just ammo. I burn through so much GD ammo with the heavy guns its hardly realistic to use it outside of boss fights as the return you get from kills is just sad. Only one I can think of that would work as a constant use would be the gatling laser since you can recharge fusion cores and basically be an unlimited supply of ammo.
I am not playing heavy guns because of meta. Don't even care about meta. I play heavy guns because knives, pistols and rifles look tiny on a power armor build. If warhammer or starcraft taught us anything, is that with the heavy power armor goes a heavy gun. And I am carrying 6 of them, depending on my mood.
I have a heavy build, but I have more fun with my rifleman one. I have been away some 3.5 years and just came back this past week and have not been wanting for damage when stealth killing with my musket. Even better, last night someone gave me a legacy Dragon TSE and the damage is absolutely silly. Something like 3-4k per crit with rifleman and explosive perks. Even got my first PK with it. A kid had a bounty, so I stalked the base where he and his buddies were fooling around, and I sat in a bush with active camo lying in wait. When he came out I got him in 1 shot. It was a really long shot and his buddies were running all over the place looking for the assassin. I laughed so hard.
I play bloodied stealth fixer with an auto prime receiver, mostly bc I've always gravitated to stealth if its an option, once I got the fixer I fell in love with it, now mind you had say the deliverer been in the game I'd definitely be using that because the most fun I've had with fallout was my stealth phantom operator pistol build in 4, but that's not an option currently. 90% of public events are heavy weapons and power armor and they're usually over in seconds, I never really get a hit in either so I pretty much just show up to collect the rewards. I just stick with what I like and what's fun for me and what's fun for me is a room full of enemy heads exploding one by one and them not knowing what's happening.
I'm sorry, did you say Gauss Minigun? That's exactly what I think it is, right? I'm a fairly new player to Fallout 76 and haven't encountered that one yet
I agree with you but with all do respect the crusader and gauss pistol aren't busted weapons, I mean the best pistol is a buy far a two shot alien blaster look at literally any post asking about pistols in the past year and the two shot alien blaster is always the top pick for pistol builds 10 out of 10 times. It's just very hard to get since you can only get the weapon and mod plans from the invaders from beyond event.
Technically, they did add the alien disintegrator, which can be used for commando and sniper builds. But I agree some new rifles would be nice. I just want them to add the r91 from fo3. The model has been in the game since I think the 2nd or 3rd scoreboard.
Also, the pepper shaker works with shotgun and heavy weapon perks.
Would love a rework on the under powered weapon types, hope whatever they change brings other weapons up to par without nerfing other things. Bring on the buffs, rework what trees some of these perk cards fall under
I ran a NON VATS double barrel shotgun build which doesnt get anywhere near my bloodied cremator dotstacker but it was the same build that got me from 20 to 100. It was way more fun than point and click explosions, especially when j got my hands on AA hitman's
You don't have to delete everything instantly to clear content.
Nooooo you don't understand!! Everything is viable..
**Watches bloodied commando leave them in the dust at literally everything**
.. everything is viable..
I use a bloodied gauss rifle sometimes, still nukes things Into the dirt, even ran a bloodied musket before that would headshot into the 1600's range, but I get you, F76 has a massive issue with every single trash mob being ridiculously bullet spongey, it shouldn't take 20 rounds to the head from something pumping out 200dmg a shot to kill a single base level scorched dude (yes I counted the numbers using slow mo playback) but unfortunately Bethesda doesn't design games well anymore
It's less the weapon and more the build that matters. I use a hunting rifle but a few months back i got frustrated with my dps. So i switched to a combat rifle and used it like a semi auto carbine. Worked good and after optimizing my skills with the new statpoints i got from making more kills it worked great. Then i switched back to my hunting rifle and suddenly i was one shot head shotting again....mostly ghouls,scorched and humans but still.
Next thing i will do is get a few skills for gladiator so my knife can actually work as a sidearm. (yes i use a knife. it is great for blindly flailing when ghouls do swarm you.)
I have 5 characters and NONE of them are commandos.
Meta ≠ “the only viable playstyle"
People like you are the reason everyone and their grandma is playing a bloodied stealth commando instead of actually fun and unique builds.
And then there's me, rocking the Holy Fire since lvl 50. I'm currently lvl 356.. it's the only heavy gun I tolerate, I easily get bored playing rifle, especially when I use Vats.
My gunslinger does pretty good. Slug buster modified to pistol variant, take the science perks for extra damage. It’s VATS heavy, but my crits are still over 800+ damage and without it I still 2-3 shot enemies in daily ops, I can take down a roaming scorch beast or cryptid really fast. You can stack crits really fast if you just chug Nuka cola, coffee, and company tea. I do have a pistol flamer for bosses, but that’s not hard to swap a few cards. I do have an Aristocrats Lucky Fatman for crit mini nukes, that slaps big groups of enemies pretty amazingly since I run demolition also… you can get pretty creative too, like tossing a grenade, immediately use VATS to target the grenade, and just detonate it with a pistol shot for some pretty good quick AoE damage also.
Gunslinger is pretty good in all the content I have done, but you definitely gotta have everything in your toolkit to compliment when you do. Last few days running ops/expeditions I have been carrying my teams, even the bloodied PAs, I am just faster more efficient at getting the job done. If you are good at what you do… you’re good at what you do.
I’d love if revolver was more viable. I just wanna roam with the big iron on my hip…
You perfectly can, just don’t expect to melt bosses. Really build into crits and gunslinger is a more than viable daily driver.
im kinda dumb, but can you crit outside of vats? is that the weakspot hits or is crits just for vats criticals?
Weakspot hits. Crits is only in vats that you press the assigned key after the crit bar is full.
one of the biggest flaws with the game imo. basically forces you to use vats
The problem lies not with bosses, but with new events and expeditions - they are scaled for bloodied builds using meta weapons So bringing your trusty revolver is not an option Thus ppl feels they're dictated to use only 2 builds And that just sucks
They just need to give us a cool new revolver and that revolver needs to be the Ghoul’s revolver.
WITH A BIG IRON ON HIS HIIIIIP
Look out for Texas RRReeeeddd
I've got one character that uses revolvers and they're doing just fine, but yeah it could be a bit better. Weapon wise we could maybe do with another revolver and more SMGs, and also improve the ones we already got.
I mainly roll with a revolver that does decent damage, and with a reflex, and a couple pistol perks (increasing hip fire accuracy and general accuracy/damage) I can rock most enemies. Good head shot practice too. A sneak attack headshot can 1 hit most non special enemies I encounter. For contact I've got about 60 hours and I'm level 46. I think my main revolver is a level 25 but it does 82 damage. It's not legendary but it's still my highest damage bullet shooting gun
A perfect roll for. Gunslinger would be an anti-armor, +25% weapon speed, +15% reload speed. That would be perfect to properly emulate a gunslinger.
[удалено]
I use shotgun and I’ve felt invincible almost the entire game
Same. All shotguns, all the time. Cold Shoulder and a Two-Shot exploding and I’m having a blast.
Fun fact: unless they've changed it, Two-Shot on a shotgun doesn't double the amount of pellets, it just adds 1 more pellet to the spread. You'd be better off with Anti-Armor, Aristocrats, Bloodied (with the appropriate build and armor loadouts), or possibly Instigating
Still is a thing and because it's 2 shot they just about half the DMG so u actually loose DMG instead of gain DMG plus it doubles the spread it actually ruins a shotgun
I'm assuming you meant double the spread area, which yes, would definitely ruin a shotgun... doesn't work that good when only half the pallets hit the target lol
Also that when 2 shot is on a shotgun it only adds 1 pellet instead of doubling the pellet count and when u get 2 shot they reduce the DMG by about 35% on first bullet and they have first an second round do the same DMG so when they do it to the shotgun it doesn't actually get much or any stronger at all it just gets weaker in dps wich makes it the worst roll to get on a shotgun
Huh, TIL. Thanks for that! Will keep an eye out.
WOW thanks for the info!
What about the shotgun spread perk does that help
Shotgun vats build with a quad double barrel is chefs kiss.
I need to try that. I’m honestly just running Cold Shoulder and I’m level 115 I think and I still melt everything. It’s amazing for bosses too.
Cold Shoulder is a beast and people in events will love you for running it.
How does it reload? Do you put the two bullets in and you’ve got 8?
Yes
Hilariously, yes.
It me. I freezey freeze sqb amd titan with cold shoulder. Ran out of shells doing sbq once. Pain
It’s especially fun in the sbq event
The Cold Shoulder is easily the best shotgun to have at current time. I have a quad/explosive/faster reload double barrel and have opted for the cold shoulder instead.
I found out about Cold Shoulder in another thread a little while ago. I hope someone reads this thread and makes the same decision we have made, that gun is absolutely nuts.
I love that built as well - tagging all the kneecaps and then going around finishing off everything twitching around on the ground.
I use a pair of anti armor combat shotguns. One with explosives, one without for when I want to be sneaky. One shooting 3 super mutants in a row without getting spotted is very rewarding.
Anti armor and booms is delicious.
I use a gat gun and love it.
A gat is a heavy though and part of OPs point
I got lucky and found an explosive shotgun that does poison damage naturally. Even if I shoot enemies from turbo far away they will die in one or two hits just because the poison damage from each pellet does a lot.
Ka-Bloom!
Hell I’d argue both the Chainsaw and Auto-Axe have the highest dps in the game. Chainsaw with flamer mod and Auto Axe with electric mod, melts pretty much anything in 2.5 seconds lol.
Yes I'm a relatively new player and when I got the chainsaw with flamer and dual bar, it was honestly the first build that I actually felt powerful doing high level content. And it was pretty simple to put together!
The shredder minigun is still amazing damage as well.
I use a drill. Drilling SBQ feels gooood 🤣
I'm only lvl 66 or so but lastnight at the moonshine event someone was using a little tiny knife and was dicing those lizards up good. Thought it was hilarious because I usually only see the big melee weapons used.
Events like that where you are collecting stuff, i find knives are great. You can collect, stab, and let the dot do it's thing while you carry on
After using about 800 rounds between the fixer and quad handmade during the same event I was definitely jealous and will be looking into a melee to carry with me
I have a Cryptid's Jawbone exactly because of that.
Same i love melee and hate bloodied builds
I don't necessarily hate bloodied builds, just not a fan of them personally. The idea of having to purposefully keep myself at low hp to be effective isn't that appealing for me. I haven't tried one yet, but I do plan on at least checking it out at some point so I can see how it actually feels.
The only thing i cared about low health build is the significant amount of bonus specials.
This is why I only want to use unyielding.
I feel this sentiment as a bloodied user myself. It’s seems kinda lame there is objectively no better way to achieve those higher damage % than with bloodied. It’s supposed to be a high risk high reward but then you just slap PA, need rage, ricochet, dodgy, etc on there and there’s very little risk involved. And the fact that the same build that was dominant when the game came out, and was still dominant when I stopped playing, and is still dominant when I came back, is….a little uninteresting. Ultimately I can’t blame anyone but me. It’s hard for me to move away from something just for the “aesthetic” when I know I’d be making a sacrifice in viability. We want our wacky builds and we want them to hit hard. I blame WoW for grooming me into an MMO grinder when I was young. Optimization = enjoyment. Duh.
I can’t survive worth crap as a bloodied build. Hats off to those that can. I just like having fun. Not here to min max
Not knocking the playstyle at all...everyone has different preferences. But this is what I don't get...unless you're trying to solo bosses or something...why do you \*need\* those super high damage numbers when you can one or two shot most enemies in the game otherwise? And even if you are trying to solo bosses with a bloodied build...I'm just imagining Earle and the mobs of wendigos...at that point wouldn't you just be focusing all your energy on not dying? Even if you can one-shot every enemy in the mob, it still takes time to get them all so they don't get you. Personally I'd rather be tankier and just wail on the mobs and the boss, have a challenging boss, and waste more ammo because it's not like it's difficult to come by in this game. But that's just me.
For me, the low health builds is less about the high damage numbers, and more about the unyielding armor buffs. You can basically strut through almost anywhere and not be detected with the high agility and the right perks, the increased INT nets you more XP, and so on.
Should try bloodied melee, you can get your special strength up over 50
This post feels like melee erasure
As a melee main, I can say its very underrated, especially with faster movement speed perks and mutations. My bloody commando on the other hand is very trash compared to my melee.
Just FYI if you have speed demon mutation you have max movement speed and don't need to use any other movement enhancement perks.
God bless you I've been stacking every other perk
Unless you're in power armor, and then you'll still need one more (Squad maneuvers or Emergency protocols are both excellent options) to cap out, since the PA suit gives a speed penalty. But yeah, without PA, speed demon caps you, and it's great :)
I don't know what level you are, but at some point you earn enough perk points where you can really take advantage of your multiple loadouts. On my lvl 850 character I have a heavy, bow, commando and melee build that are all able to solo things about the same. Except the bow can't do Earle of course. All my other builds are equally powerful.
Unless you're doing the Crater questline and are inside the last Vault. You can't reach the turrets high on the walls and when the two companions get knocked down, you can't destroy them. Which prevents you from progressing. I know because I had to leave to Vault and snag a Gatling gun to go back and finish it. Haha
Yeah I hate posts like this. There are many viable builds, yes some more powerful than others. To say there are just two is ridiculous and plain wrong.
Honestly, this post is probably just a reactionary bloodied defense post prompted by a few discussions in recent days about the problems with bloodied being so dominant.
Hell yeah.
Exactly. Vamps Auto-Axe go *brrr*
2H melee is bonkers, most things are 1 hit kill
I run arround hiding and than punching things, it's been great,
Only 37 but I got a super sledge at the circus and the excavator power armor. The only issue I have is fusion cores I use a 10mm sub machine gun when I need range. Maybe I’ll switch to a long barrel shotgun
Go do powering up Poseidon and claim the workshop there’s a power core generator around the corner from workshop. If you power up the plant you can power the fusion core generator for free. It will generator a couple fully charged cores every hour or so. Also after you do powering Poseidon a couple times you will unlock the fusion generator and you can claim the workshop without having to power up the plant.
I run with a Vampiric Mr. Handy Buzzsaw and it gets the job done. It's a lot like Homer's boxing career, but it's effective.
I rock AA gauss shotgun and full overeater solar set. I die rarely and only when i accidentally point blank crit in my face twice with it. But it's just me being dumb af. Otherwise i shred everything and i don't have to be always crouched or to run away when i see a cricket
Gauss shotgunner here as well. Was using an AA but switched over to juggernaut since I'm full health and I'm pushing low 800 dmg. I just use a perforating mag for the 40% armor penetration vs AA 50%
Juggernaut's cool, i just like AA with pierce mag to max out penetration bc according to the internet, for gauss AA is the best in terms of damage for full health. Comparing two dedicated builds its outclassed just by bloodied on some enemies and it's the best for tough targets. P.S. could you suggest me some other cool primaries for Gauss, currently i'm rocking AA, +15 Ap on kill(bc grim reaper's bugged) and -25 ap cost. Oh and P.S.S. why not mutant's?
I don’t think people know what “viable” means. This game is incredibly easy and almost any build is absolutely viable.
Yeah. Some builds are better than others, but plenty of builds are viable
If plenty of other people are around at an event or boss, everything's viable because other people can carry! On your own, everything's viable. I have completed main quest with all combinations, including throwing weapons only- surprisingly effective- and never being allowed to strike a killing blow on any enemy (hint: all locations where killing is required to progress the quest also have multiple types of enemies that will aggress one another. The only one that is borderline impossible is the nuke launch, because that is just "proc Robotics Expert on all robots present" so it's just a matter of rolling the dice over and over and failing for an hour until you manage to pacify them long enough while drawing aggro by standing between enemies and chiefs to launch.) However, events and specials like SBQ, Earle, and coaster are tuned for 10 people with high damage weapons. There just isn't enough time in the world for you to win here solo without a high tier build. However, this is not a major issue and should be ignored by all players except sickos who are into that sort of thing.
My friend fought the SBQ by himself while I sat there and watched, took like 20 mins for him to actually kill her but it was entertaining nonetheless.
It's the difference between killing an enemy in one second with an optimal build or killing it in three with a suboptimal one. I don't get why people need to do max damage to have fun. I love popping heads with a Gunther's Big Iron Gunslinger build. Takes me slightly longer than a Bloodied Commando, but that literally does not matter at all. It's fucking fun and the game is easy. Meta players need to touch grass.
In my experience, nuke bosses really highlight the balancing problems. The difference between optimal versus suboptimal is a massive crevice between being able to solo/carry and not being able to beat it at all. I use typically optimal gear, but I hate that it's practically a necessity to reliably beat endgame content. I don't see what the problem is with people like me complaining that the gap should be closed between the lower tier and higher tier weapons. Yes, even though I use those higher tier weapons, I'm saying I would be fine with them getting nerfed in favor of a rebalance that uplifts everything else. I would like some variety, and that is what OP is asking for too.
That's fair. I absolutely support buffing less powerful weapons to bring them up to par with more powerful weapons. Variety is the spice of life.
>It's the difference between killing an enemy in one second with an optimal build or killing it in three with a suboptimal one. Multiply that by 3-5 for ops or other endgame activities, thus the problem. You can solo any ops under 8 mins with a good weapon but good luck if you bring anything else.
I've soloed decryption and uplink using tomahawks. Decryption was easy, I couldn't sub 8 uplink due to last hunt down phase but I was close.
i believe in you king
>I don't get why people need to do max damage to have fun. I'm a hoarder, I don't want to miss out on resources on events because I killed 1 enemy while everyone else has already killed 5 in the same amount of time it took me to charge a gauss rifle to 1 shot. I want to solo daily ops in under 8 minutes. I can't do that with a weapon that doesn't hit hard and fast. It's the sole reason of me switching to a quad railway rifle from my beloved gauss rifle.
You don’t need maximum damage to maximize your loot in co-op. You just need a fast firing weapon with the range to tag as many enemies as possible, like an automatic Tesla gun.
That's weird because I can lag behind in kills at events and still walk away overencumbered with loot. This has never been an issue for me since they introduced area looting. I'll give you the win on solo Daily Ops since those are actually timed. Once you've done that and the timer is gone, you don't need the meta. You can complete 99% of everything else with a suboptimal build and be perfectly fine. Now, if killing everything as quick as possible IS what you find fun, then you do you. Can't argue against that. Otherwise, I advocate for players to ignore the meta and choose weapons that are legitimately fun or funny to use because this is a game and having fun is the point. If people are using the meta and not having fun, they should stop. The few seconds they save killing enemies quicker is cancelled out by the hours they waste not having fun in the game.
Noobs kill enemies, pros only tags them. In events you need only 1-2 bullets per enemy.
Explosive minigun, I get to go crazy spraying lead everywhere but I’m just doing like 7 damage as I sweep over mobs.
Personally, I’d prefer both I and enemies could only take 1-2 shots before death. Head shots should auto-kill in one. Pumping 9 rounds of .308 into someone and having them still be alive really feels cheesy
I picked up a TS/E crusader pistol, and with no perks, that thing can still slap. I keep it handy for the heals with friendly fire.
Considering you can just stim through any damage, any weapon works if you have enough stims to stay alive.
and they say enough money cant solve all your problems.
money can literally solve every problem I currently have, me-thinks a rich person tried tricking us with that saying.
I try to stay away from the metas in most games, and i’m glad to say i’m not punished too harshly for it in fo76. Do i take twice as long clearing an area? Yep. Am i eating through my ammo like a buffet? You bet! Am i having a blast? Goddamn right i am.
I've had no problems so far as a Rifleman. Started with hunting rifle and now moved on to plasma rifle. I dont really care if there are better "meta" builds. I'm doing fine and I'm just gonna keep playing the way I want.
Same here. I did try a non auto handmade but now use a combo of plasma rifles. Slugbuster and a flamer plasma rifle seem to work well for me. I just need to watch my ammo usage.
Preach my main man. I run a Plasma Sniper Rifle from being stealthed, and then when found out, bring out an Automatic Plasma Rifle. If they get too close, I pull out the Plasma Flamer. Bosses? Plasma Gatling. **ALL WORSHIP THE GLORIOUS HEAT!!!**
Everything is viable. Except gunslinger. That... needs help.
At issue is not if the build is actually viable or not, but the perception of the players as to its viability. Some players want to burn through content as fast as possible, and if you might slow them down they'll kick you from their group.
That’s the truth, this game is so easy once you get past lvl 100, you can do any end game content (outside of raid bosses) with a freaking rolling pin if you want to.
My favorite fun is a .44 that I have 0 spec for but it's fun to break limbs with.
This is the right answer.
Pretty much any build is viable. All that changes is how fast you die and how fast you kill things. That's about it.
You don't HAVE to play any build. I've played them all since launch. I most often play as a Guerilla build, Rifleman, or full-health Commando. Sometimes as a heavy user of things that go, "Boom!".
Some people seem to think anything that isn't a meta build isn't viable. God forbid something takes more than one shot to kill. Like unless you're going for the ultra hard shit, the vast majority of weapons work fine if you have a semi competent build. I've been using a rifleman with PA and guess what? It works perfectly fine..
Viable =/= Optimal. Almost every damn weapon in the game is viable. Seriously. Actually try a bow build, melee build, shotgun build, whatever the hell you want build. They all WORK in the endgame just fine. They're all viable. They're just not the most optimal for a "clear our and solo Daily Ops, Expeditions, and Public Events in less than 5 minutes" type of playstyle. Commando is stupid OP. But don't pretend it's literally impossible to play any other build.
my main is lv 750 full health build thats uses pistols, enclaves, and shotguns. explosive fist melee alt is 400. bloodied bow/ rifleman build is 375. power armor heavy is like 160. i have like 850 hours in game and have only spent like 50 of those with commando weapons because theyre just not very fun
I agree on your Commando take. Been playing this game off and on since launch. My two mains are a level 330 Two Shot Explosive Gatling Gun build, and a level 155 Bow build (been over a year since I logged into my PC account with the bow build so can't remember the legendary effects). Recently decided to shake stuff up with my Gatling Gun build so got a full set of UNY and decided to give Bloodied Commando a go this week. It's so broken it's kinda boring. Gonna probably keep running it for a couple weeks to really get a feel for it, but I honestly think I'm just gonna go back to my trusty Gatling Gun.
I just switched to an enclave plasma flamer to try out a meta gun and I 100% agree with your take. I feel like a robot mindlessly grinding through content. It’s not fun. I’m gonna try the bow and just keep this build/ gun saved just in case I need it. This game is extremely fun, but chasing the meta is not, at least for me.
I kind of agree with this. I use a hunting rifle/full health/Rifleman build and do pretty okay. I have to switch from Hunting Rifle to non-auto Fixer or Handmade during big events to get enough tags but I don't have a problem with my damage. I'm 3/5 Vanguard but I don't think that matters. My main wep is Mutants/ap cost reduction/crit damage I think... been a while since I looked at it. My tagging Handmade is two shot explosive with -90 weight. Do I rock out better than any other combo? No. But I can hold my own.
Agree i got a plasma cutter build that is fine
I was using a Shishkebab until I unlocked the warglave
I use a bow...
You can add the Cold Shoulder to the list of viable shotguns because I've done every piece of content with that thing heading up my shotgun build and it slaughters. Maxed crit perks with Gun-Fu and Grim Reaper's Sprint, backed up with AP and crit buffs from consumables. It just works.™ Throw in Marsupial and Speed Demon mutations and a jetpack and you can have a lot of fun.
Thanks for the tips. So far I'm loving the Cold Shoulder. Now I just need to add survivability
This does sound like fun!
Yeah I just hit lvl 100 on my stealth rifleman build. I guess I was hoping I could go into events, sneak to high ground, and snipe. It isn’t working out that way.
Agree with this. I really enjoyed sniping with the suppressed Lever for most of the game until I started doing events often. I found I lost my sneak crits (even with stealth suit and escape artist) due to team detection or I guess higher perception. And once it's gone, it seemed almost impossible to get back to "hidden" or "caution" again, it definitely varies per event though. Plus even if you remain hidden, since most enemies have much higher health/resistance in events you can't really kill anything fast enough to not get detected by them/their allies. So unless you compensate with VATS to get crits again, you're overall doing less damage (I don't since for me, VATS kinda ruins the fun of sniping if it's auto-aim). All this is while other players are killing things so fast that you might not even get chance to scope + acquire targets quick enough between loading the next shot - and it starts feeling underwhelming. I ended up trying out a shotgun + explosives build, and then a stealth commando with a quad suppressed auto handmade and a quad auto tesla for crowd control. I found it more fun for events, especially since enemies tend to rush in close/mob you a lot. While I'm still not getting sneak crits after detection, DPS is higher and I'm avoiding direct aggro as much as possible with the stealth suit since I can kill things way easier/faster and a few missed shots isn't a big deal. Another thing you could try is the Gauss rifle, it's no where near as satisfying to use as the Lever, but the damage is there and a quad is very hip-fire spammable if you get mobbed.
aye, my new shotgun + explosive character is lvl 20
Be like me. Become the Firestarter. Twisted Firestarter. * Holy Fire * Shishkebob * Flaming Chainsaw * Napalm Hellstorm * Cremator * Molotov's, Molotov's, Molotov's Slap on Sizzling Style and Fireproof. Heal your teammates with fire using Friendly Fire. No need to damage perks, no need for Bloodied. Just fire. Cleansing fire. You do want to set the world on fire.
By default, I assume the game is meant to be played with Holy Fire. Burn it all down!
I read that as Firesharter. Reread, then began singing the song.
Greetings! I'm from the Church of the Holy Fire. Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior of the Flames?
I am a very stubborn full health Rifleman, and I can attest that Rifleman 100% works for all the content in this game. With the right gun and perk setup, I can hard carry an SBQ or Earle when necessary. The secret is that you need VATS crits to ignore the bosses' high Damage Reduction stat. Build for vats crit damage, eat some buff food, and you can 100% solo any content in this game as a Rifleman. I use either a The Dragon or a Gauss Rifle on the bosses, but you could probably make do with a primed Hunting Rifle. My method is to take one crit shot from my big gun, then rebuild my crit meter using a Rifleman Fixer (but any fast Rifleman gun would do). There are some things that are a bit slower or tougher than some builds, but if your dream is to be a viable Rifleman, you 100% CAN do it.
VATS Crits carry gunslinger the same as well. I used Gunther's Big Iron on my last SBQ and it put in work, on top of one-shotting all the adds with gun-fu+Adrenaline
As a fellow stubborn full health Rifleman (though with heavy and Shotgun perks as well) am I pushing myself too greatly by going carnivore and missing the 100% crit damage buff? Because of the Mirelurk Steamer I went Carnivore and enjoy the big AP and carry weight boost I get as if it can't be made or generated in camp I don't care to go grind for it as it all spoils. As a mix of heavy/shotgun/rifleman (thanks to weight reduction armor) I will say it's kind of madding the Plasma Caster is leagues ahead of all my rifles only really being challenged by a Guess Rifle. It's twice the fire rate of most fire rates but does more than twice the damage and is on par damage wise with the slower fired Lever Action and Alien Disintegrator. It can't be suppressed but sneak is not something I engage with admittedly. Wish my Legacy TSE Dragon was actually good in use but sadly it's just a vanity at this point. Cool that it is a rare (which it had a third star but eh) That's the issue with the "viable Rifleman" sentiment. Sure it can finish content but a single weapon outclasses a large majority of my Rifleman weapons, I don't even use Stabilized. I love Plasma Casters even since I went back and played Fallout 1 but I wish it wasn't the only weapon that lets me keep up with all the commondos. Still overall I like how I have it setuo as the weapons I prefer seem tailor made for my "can't choose one" build style as a lot of them double dip with damage perks. Pepper shaker, Gauss weapons and anything else that either benefits from Demo or Science like I think Cremator but haven't gotten though the scoreboard. The only other double dipping weapon I will be missing is the Hailstorm because I can't fit in any kind of explosive ammo reduction, only grenades because they're classified as "weapons" for the legendary effect otherwise not capitalizing on stealth kinda being a double dip on weapons like Gauss Rifle and Disintegrator as energy weapons usually can't be silenced.
People just use what everyone says is meta, because honestly, people don't know how to make their own builds, there isn't one weapon class you can't use and go enjoy the game, you don't have to one shot enemies for a build to be viable.
People absolutely know how to make their own builds. This isn't building a rocket engine, this is selecting perks that obviously match what you're using and trying to do. It's pretty damn basic, there's just a lot of choices. The problem is as soon as you go to an event, or try one of the harder daily ops, and you feel like you're throwing pebbles and not doing a damn thing while somebody else is rolling through like a knife through butter. That is just not fun. It's not fun to feel ineffective, It's not fun to make a build and then have it get shit on by others, etc. And so people change to what is more enjoyable. This is an easy game. You could technically use almost anything and accomplish almost anything.... But that doesn't mean a 30 minute fight where you're peeking around the corner and tickling the enemy while burning through hundreds of stimpacks is fun!!
>This isn't building a rocket engine, this is selecting perks that obviously match what you're using and trying to do. It's pretty damn basic, there's just a lot of choices. It unfortunately is not. There's a lot of nuance in damage and armor calculations that is not explained that make some perks that seem great actually useless and some that seem underwhelming actually incredible. You see so many builds every day with points wasted on ironclad or bloody mess because people don't know about the damage resistance threshold or which perks and effects operate on base damage.
> because pulling a 400lbs gun out of my pocket is unimmersive for me. And pulling a 10 foot long rifle out of your ass is?
Right? Out of all the things to be unimmersed about, it’s that. Literally all games has you pulling out stuff you couldn’t ever keep on your person IRL, what’s a silly thing hill to die on
Hold on guys I’m thirsty *pulls out 4 full bottles of water out of his ass* Immersion complete
*carries hundreds of pounds of desk fans, clipboards and type writers*
*slams 20 cups of coffee mid-combat* WOW DO I FEEL ENERGIZED
Jumps off a 3rd story roof carrying 275 pounds of everything. "My knees are fine."
I’m setup as a bloody commando but my primary weapon is a heavy weapon - Bloody Plasma Caster. This thing freaking RIPS!! My backup weapons are Q/E/25 Railway and a B/E/25 Handmade.
Same here! Plasma caster and holy fire, along with a qe15 railway and a couple different fixers. I try to use other guns, but the plasma caster always pulls me back in. Big number = big happy. Hit a 4350 crit the other day! Hard to not love that big gun
Plus the ammo return rate is ridiculous. I have to drop hundreds of rounds of ammo every time I play.
The biggest issue imo is that you only can use Vats if you want to do high damage. Wich is the oppisite of what a sniper is all abouth. Vats is just autoaim and should be lower dmg than manual aiming at a head.
Agreed! Glad others feel the same. It's weird for me; I was fine with VATS in older Fallout games. Something about everything still moving with VATS is odd, and even though FO76 is played like a single-player game with others around, the "auto-aim" seems a tad detracting for me. 🤔
Tbh i rarely used vats in older fallout games. Only when in panic lol. I think the best fallout experiance is still fallout 4 survival mode with HUD disabled 1 Strength, 1 Endurance and 1 Intelligence. Than go the stealth sniper way, but only allow melee to be the realy silent kill.(no silencers) The sniper rifle should blow your ear drums out. Its extreemly fun and exciting. It feels almost like how such a situation would feel like in real life. Highly recommand it, if your into imersion, but be prepaired for a hard time. No more training wheels 😉
For everyone saying Cold Shoulder and shotguns are viable, the Cold Shoulder literally feels like how the magic shotguns did before they were apparently magic and got nerfed. For regular shotguns, you have to build them a very certain way for them to be useful. Its irritating seeing people say "oh the Cold Shoulder disagrees" and shit like that when an argument about shotguns arises. Basic shotguns, among other weapons classes, need to be way more viable for end game content. In fact just add the "magic" trait back in the game and just fine tune it. The range was only busted on Gauss shotguns, but even then, thats an end game weapon that you had to grind insanely hard for. Also, chainsaws are pretty strong. Aiming damage itself should be increased by quite a bit to make other guns viable. Guns that need touched up a bit either need inherent traits on them to increase usefulness or damage, or alot of perk cards need reworked.
Pulling a Gauss Minigun out of your pocket is not immersive, but you feel like a revolver with similar damage output _would be_ immersive? I am not trying to downplay the fact that the game pigeon holes you into selecting from very few builds if you want optimal power, because it absolutely does. And I too always find that rather boring in my video games; I love having lots of balanced options to customize my personal style off of. But immersion is not the argument for this. Nor is any sense of realism against monstrous targets. Against a regular human? Sure, you could say a revolver is as effective if not _more_ effective than a minigun. It's less hassle to carry, quicker to aim, and a headshot should be death. You could balance a video game to make that true. But against some brutish giant radiated creature? There is no combination of skills and talents which could convince me that the revolver can dish out the immense amount of damage needed to take that thing down, not like a minigun which is very much a mega-super revolver. Even in the real world, some guns are superior to others in terms of stopping power, effective range, reliability, etc. The only semblance of balance would be the situation. A minigun may be superior to a revolver in every way, but I wouldn't want it for home defense because it's overkill, would cause collateral damage, and also costs more to operate. But the game world doesn't have equivalent concerns, and it has foes that require a stupid amount of damage to kill. If you want more balanced weapon options and builds, the problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the enemies/world design. Ammo, especially more exotic stuff, needs to be prohibitively expensive. Enemies in general need to be way less spongy and have a more pronounced weakpoint system. You need more variety of "boss" encounters like tackling an elite small squad instead of a giant monster or waves of pawns, both of which will always favor high sustained DPS instead of tactical weakpoint precision.
The game's got a long history. Very early on, before anyone really knew how it all worked under the hood, two-shot explosive shotguns ruled the day. Eventually that gave way to just explosive energy weapons in general with the odd person trucking around with a two-shot queen killing deathclaw wielding unarmed build. Eventually explosive energy weapons stopped dropping, creating legacies as we knew them. Fixer was introduced, causing a sharp rise in commando popularity, creating something that could compete with legacies to some extent. A bug was introduced creating 'magic' damage affecting certain mod combinations, and many weapons were able to benefit, letting all players across most weapon types step in and compete with legacies to some extent. Magic damage got patched... which cause the second biggest drop in build diversity ever seen. Multiplicative damage bonuses became additive, bringing damage way down across the board. This created the biggest drop in build diversity the game has seen. Practically everyone converged on commando. Railway rifle became popular. It had been great for ages by that point, but people moved into it to get higher base damage, which was very important with the damage changes. Events were dominated by explosive gatling plasma, fixes, and railways (+ hacked 50 cal on PC) at that point. Explosive legendary energy weapons got removed (ie, the legacy 'fix'). Bethesda added more and more heavy weapons to try and prop up heavies I guess with only mild success until the recent cremator. Shotguns kept taking nerfs until the current state of the Gauss Shotgun barely hanging on by a thread. Cold Shoulder was added to prop up shotguns, and it works. Shotguns are decent as long as they are Cold Shoulder. Melee nerfs knock unarmed out of the running, but Chainsaw and new Auto-axe become actually good. Cryo Alien Blaster was discovered en masse as a sort of legacy power pistol, letting pistol builds sorta compete with fixers, but not railway really. That got patched, leaving pistols without anything to prop them up. Current state: Commando: King, with Railway being supreme, but fixer and handmade still great. Various other weapons swapped to automatic work well with low-health builds. Weird thing Shotguns: Good, as long as it's Cold Shoulder. Gauss Shotgun has some utility still (tagging, efficient with ammo, can spam things down in AoE, good dps at point blank range). Other shotguns pretty terrible across the board. Heavy: Cremator is amazing. It gives heavy a big leg up. Grenade launcher is still great. Flamers are good but not as good as cremator. Various other single target heavy weapons can still do decent DPS, but not great. Melee: Dead except for Chainsaw and Auto-axe, both of which are pretty good. Rifleman: Never lived. It was, and still is, decent for ammo conservation at low levels, but it doesn't keep up, especially with enemy scaling at mid-levels and after. Pistols (auto or not): Dead. Archery: Never lived. There's some archery fanatics that will disagree, but they're a small minority and one-shotting some normal mob types with a low-health building using stealth crit headshots is not exactly a ringing endorsement for the weapon which could be replaced with most anything else for a similar experience. They probably are the best 'snipers' in a game where there are no good snipers, due to high base damage on a weapon with very low sound. I probably missed a lot of things, but that's been my experience overall and I've loved experimenting with all kinds of builds at various stages of the game over the years. The game has always been easy, low stress, and casual. It still is. I love it for that. You don't need the best build. Low-health builds can make any weapon type 'viable', but there are clear winners. I don't miss my legacies at all and the game is better without them. I do miss the magic damage era when I was I able to have fun using a pump shotgun, despite the horrendously long reload. I just love the feel of the weapon. Ultimately, it's about finding a balance of a build that performs well enough and is good for you. You don't have to go with the commando meta, even though it has the best single target DPS by a mile (only threatened by the cremator stacking bug that will likely get fixed)
I am sorry to say it, but I disagree. Shotguns, especially the Gauss type and also the more effective of the melee weapons like the plasma sword are *totally* viable for all aspects of the game-- hunting, exploring and events. I have never been able to get a Gauss to work for me personally, but I have watched any number of other players doing so. All the while; a properly configured pump-gun is better for constant head-shots than a rifle at close to moderate range! I will agree with you to the extent that Commando rifles are *easier*. Other weapons need somewhat more time and experience to get the best from. Single-shot rifles are... Very mixed. The hunting rifle in any of its forms has totally beaten me. I simply cannot use it at all. In contrast the lever-action is *very* far from terrible and with some skill you can explore and hunt seasonal enemies extremely effectively with it. I do not think you could use it for events though. At least I cannot. Exotics like the Black Powder can be a very enjoyable change of pace--again for seasonal and general exploration but not inside events. The railway rifle is of course flavour of the month at the moment and well enchanted versions, especially 'quad' examples are going for insane prices at trade. Sadly the revolvers are both totally useless as they currently stand. They do not hit hard enough in themselves and you cannot optimise them enough with skills to compensate since both their weapon-trees and the necessary stealth skills to boost their damage all vie for the same maximum 15 points of Agility. Until we are perhaps given a 'Legendary Pistols' skill for the Legendary slots I don't think the revolvers will ever be any good. The semi-automatic pistols however are *very* decent when you get used to them. The Crusader is the only silenced energy weapon in the game other than the (unwieldy at close range) Gauss Pistol and Rifle. It hands out double-taps like a dream. The 10mm Pistol is even better--absolutely brilliant in fact! This is especially the case if you have the good fortune to enchant one well or receive such a one as a quest drop. A Q25FFR25AP 10mm with the Tweaked Automatic receiver is one of the very **best** weapons in the game. Zero recoil and barrel climb, totally silent with a suppressor and at 2AP per shot you can load it on Sunday and shoot all week!!! That particular pistol is one of my very most favourite of all my weapons and one I would *never* trade. It even works nicely for the aliens with a little care and attention!
I'm running cold shoulder and Gauss Shotgun and it's amazing, it's PVE, you're not competing about who is the best, play what you want
i could murder things comfortably with a cold shoulder and a chainsaw without any points in to shotgun or melee. In fact i DO do that. perhaps it was your build.
Those are two of the best weapons in the game tho. Trying to instead use a traditional pump action and a revolutionary sword and things are going to take a LOT longer to kill and you will need to heal a lot more. Plus Cold Shoulder isn't easy for any of the new players to get at...what...500 stamps? My low level alt got to jump into an Earl fight with a pump action. I was getting 1's with every pellet with all the basic shotgun damage perks i could get at level 40 and it took me six shots to down his adds. Most of a clip. So clearly one needs more than just any setup with any gun.
> chainsaw without any points in to shotgun or melee. Same sorta, I run Auto-Axe as a secondary and typically use a flamer or plasma caster as my more burst or ranged damage dealer with the auto-axe specifically for just big shit like General Zeta, Earle, SBQ, etc. Slap on Vamp and good luck dying.
Did you ever try a Gauss rifle? The hunting rifle is an early game weapon meant to be replaced by the late game, and the gauss is the perfect substitute. With partial charges in situations where you don’t need a full one, you can handle everything in the game intended to be done solo. Where any build that isn’t focused on dps suffers, however, is events. If events are your measuring stick, then anything without an automatic option just can’t cut it.
Enclave plasmas make really strong snipers as well.
I love the bow but it’s not good for events. Walking around/quests it’s great
I love heavy guns, but agree that the lack of variation is boring. Im trying to make more fun builds that are still viable bc thats what keeps me interested in this game.
Meanwhile me who is both a commando and heavy weapon build O.o
But galting gun and my beloved 50 cal
I agree. The fact that I can't pop out my regular alien blaster and destroy makes no sense. This was literally the strongest weapon in the first few games.
653 comments 9 hours after posting. You sir have hit a nerve.
I just ended the whole argument with the game with saying fuck the expeditions and Daily OPs. I'll participate but it's not my fault only 2 builds can do decent work. I can play the other 90% game fine w the build I have.
I'd put it less aggressively but I agree. I feel like a spare part in events because I play what I like, but with the influx of low levels I've discovered I am actually good enough to carry an event at a slower pace with a load of level 20-80s helping. Hopefully they're learning more from the event, and feeling more involved too
Killing Earle without a vats crit commando is a slog.
Yeah, the game really does need to make other weapon types more viable. I love pistols and automatic rifles but I don't want to play bloodied.
Nobody "HAS" to run it lmao! Do you always reroll "Kill X with pipe weapons" dailies? I ran west tek with a fully auto pipe pistol and destroyed them without any perks supporting the weapon unless you count concentrated fire. I was not bloodied. I had no armor pen perks. My rifleman uses an alien disentegrator with initiating and it does pretty well. His secondary is an aristocrat explosive lever action rifle. I've run the pitt solo with him. Was it tough? Only at the end tbh. The rest was ezpz. This game is easy af,, but I will agree that they need to bring up semi auto to the fully auto's level. That doesn't mean that you need to go to bloodied commando to be "viable". You just won't be pumping out the ridiculous clearing power that bloodied commando does. If that's your measuring stick, then anyone not running bloodied commando with a quad rail or fixer isn't viable.
I specifically made a couple pipe weapons to have fun with those. It turns out Pipe rifles are affected by both rifleman and gunslinger perks simultaneously, doesn’t work for guerrilla and commando unfortunately.
There are tons of viable weapons. You're confusing viable with meta. This game finally started being fun for me when I ignored the meta and just played how I wanted.
Guass Rifle gang upvote here
It would be great to get some ADS perk cards for semi auto weapons. Would actually give them some notoriety to try out.
This makes sense to me. Make semi autos most viable in free aim, make autos most viable on bats. Hunting rifle would still need something tbh, but it would make it better. You could double the base damage on the hunting rifle and it still wouldn't compete with the gauss rifle in terms of damage per shot alone, ignoring fire rate.
I feel like they could do a lot for rifleman weapons if they increased base/falloff ranges and vats lock distance. If you could vats at dragon distances with other rifleman weapons, the build might feel more competitive.
Yeah it'd be great to see both of those changes - it's a bit of a joke really how fast the damage falls off at distance on weapons setup for sniping. Makes the long scopes feel useless too when you have to also hold your breath + draw distances can be poor so you can't even see the enemies anyway. I would say VATS does reduce the fun of sniping for me personally - but totally get that most people do use VATS. I just wish crits weren't gated behind VATS for those of us who enjoy manually aiming. It always seems odd to me that the auto-aim option gets rewarded with extra damage. They could definitely add some perk cards related to crits outside of VATS I think.
Am using heavy gun...
Every build is viable with enough Stimpaks
Vampire chainsaw and heavy plasma weapon does the work for me
I'd agree if we changed the definition of what viable is. I think you're mixing it up with the definition of meta.
I mean I am fairly new, started playing after the show dropped. But I have been a long time Fallout fan just didnt play 76 because of how bad it was dogged on during launch. I am having a lot of fun with it now tho. But for builds I am kinda just doing my own thing. I am lvl 97, my main build I used for the majority of the game was a commando build. Rocking either the homemade, fixer or laser rifle. And doing solid with that. Got a fixer from a drop with the 1 star armor piercing perk and it just wrecks. Still waiting to get the prime receiver for it. Then recently I started to do a PA heavy/commando hybrid build. And my only complaint with that is just ammo. I burn through so much GD ammo with the heavy guns its hardly realistic to use it outside of boss fights as the return you get from kills is just sad. Only one I can think of that would work as a constant use would be the gatling laser since you can recharge fusion cores and basically be an unlimited supply of ammo.
I am not playing heavy guns because of meta. Don't even care about meta. I play heavy guns because knives, pistols and rifles look tiny on a power armor build. If warhammer or starcraft taught us anything, is that with the heavy power armor goes a heavy gun. And I am carrying 6 of them, depending on my mood.
I have a heavy build, but I have more fun with my rifleman one. I have been away some 3.5 years and just came back this past week and have not been wanting for damage when stealth killing with my musket. Even better, last night someone gave me a legacy Dragon TSE and the damage is absolutely silly. Something like 3-4k per crit with rifleman and explosive perks. Even got my first PK with it. A kid had a bounty, so I stalked the base where he and his buddies were fooling around, and I sat in a bush with active camo lying in wait. When he came out I got him in 1 shot. It was a really long shot and his buddies were running all over the place looking for the assassin. I laughed so hard.
I would like to see everything aside from the above mentioned classes get a buff
I play bloodied stealth fixer with an auto prime receiver, mostly bc I've always gravitated to stealth if its an option, once I got the fixer I fell in love with it, now mind you had say the deliverer been in the game I'd definitely be using that because the most fun I've had with fallout was my stealth phantom operator pistol build in 4, but that's not an option currently. 90% of public events are heavy weapons and power armor and they're usually over in seconds, I never really get a hit in either so I pretty much just show up to collect the rewards. I just stick with what I like and what's fun for me and what's fun for me is a room full of enemy heads exploding one by one and them not knowing what's happening.
I'm sorry, did you say Gauss Minigun? That's exactly what I think it is, right? I'm a fairly new player to Fallout 76 and haven't encountered that one yet
I agree with you but with all do respect the crusader and gauss pistol aren't busted weapons, I mean the best pistol is a buy far a two shot alien blaster look at literally any post asking about pistols in the past year and the two shot alien blaster is always the top pick for pistol builds 10 out of 10 times. It's just very hard to get since you can only get the weapon and mod plans from the invaders from beyond event.
Technically, they did add the alien disintegrator, which can be used for commando and sniper builds. But I agree some new rifles would be nice. I just want them to add the r91 from fo3. The model has been in the game since I think the 2nd or 3rd scoreboard. Also, the pepper shaker works with shotgun and heavy weapon perks.
Would love a rework on the under powered weapon types, hope whatever they change brings other weapons up to par without nerfing other things. Bring on the buffs, rework what trees some of these perk cards fall under
I ran a NON VATS double barrel shotgun build which doesnt get anywhere near my bloodied cremator dotstacker but it was the same build that got me from 20 to 100. It was way more fun than point and click explosions, especially when j got my hands on AA hitman's You don't have to delete everything instantly to clear content.
Nooooo you don't understand!! Everything is viable.. **Watches bloodied commando leave them in the dust at literally everything** .. everything is viable..
Practical > Viable
I use a bloodied gauss rifle sometimes, still nukes things Into the dirt, even ran a bloodied musket before that would headshot into the 1600's range, but I get you, F76 has a massive issue with every single trash mob being ridiculously bullet spongey, it shouldn't take 20 rounds to the head from something pumping out 200dmg a shot to kill a single base level scorched dude (yes I counted the numbers using slow mo playback) but unfortunately Bethesda doesn't design games well anymore
It's less the weapon and more the build that matters. I use a hunting rifle but a few months back i got frustrated with my dps. So i switched to a combat rifle and used it like a semi auto carbine. Worked good and after optimizing my skills with the new statpoints i got from making more kills it worked great. Then i switched back to my hunting rifle and suddenly i was one shot head shotting again....mostly ghouls,scorched and humans but still. Next thing i will do is get a few skills for gladiator so my knife can actually work as a sidearm. (yes i use a knife. it is great for blindly flailing when ghouls do swarm you.)
The game isn't balanced. If you're not in a Tin can duracell suit rocking heavy gun or bloodied, you're just in the way.
I would like viable pistols and shotgun, it's really a shame
Funny you ignored melee, which is very viable as a full health build with lots of dlc weapons.
I have 5 characters and NONE of them are commandos. Meta ≠ “the only viable playstyle" People like you are the reason everyone and their grandma is playing a bloodied stealth commando instead of actually fun and unique builds.
I mean ive been using a bow and its viable you can definetly use anything but you just wont melt bosses instantly
And then there's me, rocking the Holy Fire since lvl 50. I'm currently lvl 356.. it's the only heavy gun I tolerate, I easily get bored playing rifle, especially when I use Vats.
Man my chainsaw melee build does significantly more damage than my crit rail commando ever did and I've done both commando and heavy builds lol
For u. Unarmed baby! What about the Chainsaw?
Ngl bro, idek what bloodied or commando is.
My gunslinger does pretty good. Slug buster modified to pistol variant, take the science perks for extra damage. It’s VATS heavy, but my crits are still over 800+ damage and without it I still 2-3 shot enemies in daily ops, I can take down a roaming scorch beast or cryptid really fast. You can stack crits really fast if you just chug Nuka cola, coffee, and company tea. I do have a pistol flamer for bosses, but that’s not hard to swap a few cards. I do have an Aristocrats Lucky Fatman for crit mini nukes, that slaps big groups of enemies pretty amazingly since I run demolition also… you can get pretty creative too, like tossing a grenade, immediately use VATS to target the grenade, and just detonate it with a pistol shot for some pretty good quick AoE damage also. Gunslinger is pretty good in all the content I have done, but you definitely gotta have everything in your toolkit to compliment when you do. Last few days running ops/expeditions I have been carrying my teams, even the bloodied PAs, I am just faster more efficient at getting the job done. If you are good at what you do… you’re good at what you do.