Overview
Are you searching for the most fun build this game can offer? Well search no more, wanderer! This build lets you burn, vaporize, blow up, punch, shoot. Destroy practically everything in your path in the best ways possible. And other stuff.
Introduction
You have tried every build possible, and you’re desperately looking for new ways to make your run exciting because you’re addicted to fnv, i know that feel.
Well, luckily you found this guide, which i came up to merging the 3 things that i love most in this game: Critical hits, unarmed and energy weapons, then i got full mad and decided to also put explosives in it, and thus this baby was born. Every single one of these builds is fun as hell, but what if you put them up together? I know what you’re thinking “B-but you can’t do that, it makes no sense, plus you don’t have enough SPECIAL” well you know what, that’s ♥♥♥♥in wrong!
This build is a detailed walkthrough of almost everything you need to do, so there is no need to say that there may be SPOILERS, but i recommend doing this only if you finished the game once, twice is better, or at least played it for as long as it takes to learn some advanced mechanics, because it could be hard to get some things right, expecially at the start.
That’s it for the boring part, lets make this punch-vape dude.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
So, as i said earlier, it could seem like there is not enough points to make everything work, but that’s only appearance, because you got implants, you got Intense Training and you get one SPECIAL for ending Lonesome Road, so that’s a lot of points.
Starting off, those are the special i recommend and used in my personal run which i based the guide on:
Strength – 5
Standard for S, in the end you will be able to wield every weapon in the game, boosting it to 9, except for the minigun, but that’s not a problem since using guns with this build is pure heresy, with perks you will increase carry weight.
Perception – 5
This build is energy weapons and explosives focused, so this attribute should be much higher, but i realized that what is important in this build is the critical hit, the skills added by P to the en. weps. and explosives is useful, but that’s it, it doesnt give much more, so this is where P will stay, a mediocre 5.
Endurance – 7
Ok so E is our little star, everything it does is useful, survivor skill enhancement, which is needed for certain perks, it gives HP, unarmed damage, and with 7 points you can get every stat implant in the game. This will be increased to 10 in the end, but with the OWB perk Cardiac Arrest you already get 100% poison resistance, so taking that 50% res which 10 E gives you is pointless, but the little HP bonus is good and the point really can’t be used anywhere else.
Charisma – 1
Dump stat, never put any points here, companions are already strong (if not OP), Barter and Speech can be raised quickly, absolutely useless attribute for this build.
Intelligence – 9
This is the important one, 9, because you want those 15 skill points every ♥♥♥♥in level: level fast, build up fast, so you can destroy everything earlier. Get the implant before level 2 to do so, it can be tricky but i will add a tutorial on how to do it down below, anyway you can find everywhere in the web how to get that implant.
Agility – 6
Reload speed! But that’s not the main purpose, we need this for mandatory perks in the build, so yeah put at least 6 points to A.
Luck – 7
You wont go anywhere without a bit of luck, said my grandma to me once, and she was right! We will get this straight to 10 in the endgame, because every 1 point of L is 1% of crit chance, so we have to use it all.
After you read all this, i wanted to show you how your SPECIAL should look once the build is fully done.
S – 9 (implant-1+reinforced spine-2+Intense Training-1)
P – 7 (implant-1+first recon helmet-1)
E – 9 (implant-1+Lonesome Road perk-1)
C – 3 (implant-1+Ulysses Duster-1)
I – 10 (implant-1)
A – 7 (implant-1)
L – 10 (implant-1+Intense Training-1+Lucky Shades-1)
More info about gear and perks in the next sections.
Screenshot taken after 150 hours in this build.
Traits and tagged skills
So you will start with this half rotten character, which isn’t good at anything and still has to do a psychological test for Doc, but now we will gather some points.
You have 45 points distributed by 3 skills of your choice, it obviously isn’t important which ones you will choose, because in the end each one of them will be to 100, but you can get a good start if you choose wisely. I personally chose Barter and Speech because they are useful ALWAYS and you start with 8 points each with my SPECIAL, which is very sad, and Lockpick, because it’s another always-useful skill, but you can choose energy weps or unarmed if you feel like having a kickstart in one of your two main skills.
Traits:
Built to destroy – 3% more critical chance, this is needed and ♥♥♥♥ the drawback.
Skilled – 65 free skill points, actually not free, you get 10% less xp, but it’s so unnoticeable that it almost feels unfair, again ♥♥♥♥ the drawback and take it.
“But why haven’t you taken the Four Eyes trait since, with the lucky shades and implant, it would boost your P to 9?”
Well my annoying friend, because this is an energy weapons, explosives AND unarmed, so P becomes much less important since we need a trait that works for the other skill too, therefore I prefer 65 skill points which boost you in the beginning and let you max your character much earlier. You ain’t ready for my wizardry if you feel the need of Four Eyes, get out of here.
How do you get all your skills to 100?
So, this is an important question that i often hear, and the answer is only one: Math and Patience.
Yes, i know those are 2.
Anyway, i know nobody likes to do Math while playing, so i will do it for you:
You have 13 skills, and to max your character you need 1300 points.
If you followed my character creation, got my SPECIAL+45 from tagged skills+65 from the skilled trait, you should end up with exactly 338 points, which is quite a lot for a start.
You have 50 levels, which means 49 level ups, and, if you get the INT implant, 15 points per level.
338+15*49=1073
This means you can have 1073 points by level 50.
Now we have to take care of skill books, there are 4 in the base game for each ability (5 for science), plus 1 copy of each is craftable in OWB (then 1 more for science and 2 more for sneak), DM adds one of each, and LR adds one of each too, HH adds crates in which they can spawn, but they are random so they wont be counted. Putting all thes numbers together, we get 4 points per skill for each read book, with the Comprehension perk, doing some math you will find that we have in total 377 skill points in skill books. So in the end we have:
1073+377=1450
As you can see, we have 150 points more than needed, so you just have to get the majority of those skill books.
Now i have some more math for you out there who enjoyed this.
For every special you level up, you get 2 points to each influenced ability, except for Luck that gives you 1 point to each ability every 2 perks (3,5,7,9), you will increase your stats with implants and apparel, but since apparel can’t be used as a solid upgrade since you can easily take them off, i wont count them.
Starting off with Luck, we will get that to 9, so it’s 13 points more already.
Strenght will be upgraded by 3 levels, 2 of which are not irreversible, but since you will always have the reinforced spine i’ll count them,6 points to melee skill.
Perception will have 1 upgrade, so those are 6 points in total, distributed to En. Wep., Lockpicking and Explosives.
Endurance will be upgraded by 2, so that means 8 total points, 4 each to Unarmed and Survival.
Charisma will have 1 upgrade, 4 points between Speech and Barter.
Intelligence, 1 upgrade, 6 points to Medicine, Repair and Science.
Agility, 1 upgrade, 4 points to Guns and Sneak.
Combining all these we get additional 47 points, this is not really important as we clearly saw that you get enough points from skill books, but if you want to max it ASAP you might want to make them count.
But hey, am i forgetting something? A little perk that gives you 2 points for each level up? Yes, that is the educated perk, well, this perk can be described with one word: lazy. If taken by replacing comprehension it doesn’t let you max your character and you still have to hunt for books, which will only give 3 points each, and it gives you very little space of mistake, so no, no educated perk in my build, move your asses and go hunt for those skill books if you want to max you punch-vape guy.
I skipped every skill book in Lonesome Road, and some of the Dead Money ones, but it’s not a problem as you can see, I even lost 65 skill points from removing the skilled trait in OWB and I still managed to do it, so you can take it pretty easy with skill books after all (MIND THAT I HAVE GOT ALL THE MOJAVE ONES AND THE OWB ONES).
This last part was copypasted from one of the last sections of the build, but keep in mind that you still have to collect them all in the earlier stages, or you will end up without a lot of skill points, but it’s just to show that in the end it’s not too hard.
How do you get all your skills to 100?
So, this is an important question that i often hear, and the answer is only one: Math and Patience.
Yes, i know those are 2.
Anyway, i know nobody likes to do Math while playing, so i will do it for you:
You have 13 skills, and to max your character you need 1300 points.
If you followed my character creation, got my SPECIAL+45 from tagged skills+65 from the skilled trait, you should end up with exactly 338 points, which is quite a lot for a start.
You have 50 levels, which means 49 level ups, and, if you get the INT implant, 15 points per level.
338+15*49=1073
This means you can have 1073 points by level 50.
Now we have to take care of skill books, there are 4 in the base game for each ability (5 for science), plus 1 copy of each is craftable in OWB (then 1 more for science and 2 more for sneak), DM adds one of each, and LR adds one of each too, HH adds crates in which they can spawn, but they are random so they wont be counted. Putting all thes numbers together, we get 4 points per skill for each read book, with the Comprehension perk, doing some math you will find that we have in total 377 skill points in skill books. So in the end we have:
1073+377=1450
As you can see, we have 150 points more than needed, so you just have to get the majority of those skill books.
Now i have some more math for you out there who enjoyed this.
For every special you level up, you get 2 points to each influenced ability, except for Luck that gives you 1 point to each ability every 2 perks (3,5,7,9), you will increase your stats with implants and apparel, but since apparel can’t be used as a solid upgrade since you can easily take them off, i wont count them.
Starting off with Luck, we will get that to 9, so it’s 13 points more already.
Strenght will be upgraded by 3 levels, 2 of which are not irreversible, but since you will always have the reinforced spine i’ll count them,6 points to melee skill.
Perception will have 1 upgrade, so those are 6 points in total, distributed to En. Wep., Lockpicking and Explosives.
Endurance will be upgraded by 2, so that means 8 total points, 4 each to Unarmed and Survival.
Charisma will have 1 upgrade, 4 points between Speech and Barter.
Intelligence, 1 upgrade, 6 points to Medicine, Repair and Science.
Agility, 1 upgrade, 4 points to Guns and Sneak.
Combining all these we get additional 47 points, this is not really important as we clearly saw that you get enough points from skill books, but if you want to max it ASAP you might want to make them count.
But hey, am i forgetting something? A little perk that gives you 2 points for each level up? Yes, that is the educated perk, well, this perk can be described with one word: lazy. If taken by replacing comprehension it doesn’t let you max your character and you still have to hunt for books, which will only give 3 points each, and it gives you very little space of mistake, so no, no educated perk in my build, move your asses and go hunt for those skill books if you want to max you punch-vape guy.
I skipped every skill book in Lonesome Road, and some of the Dead Money ones, but it’s not a problem as you can see, I even lost 65 skill points from removing the skilled trait in OWB and I still managed to do it, so you can take it pretty easy with skill books after all (MIND THAT I HAVE GOT ALL THE MOJAVE ONES AND THE OWB ONES).
This last part was copypasted from one of the last sections of the build, but keep in mind that you still have to collect them all in the earlier stages, or you will end up without a lot of skill points, but it’s just to show that in the end it’s not too hard
Perks
*I marked the very importand ones, you can exchange the unmarked ones for every other perk you want, this is my personal list.
Levels – Perks – Requirements – Comment
02 – Intense Training (1) – n/d – Put this one in Luck.*
04 – Comprehension – IN 4 – Do not read any skill books before getting this perk!*
06 – Light touch – AG 6 Repair 45 – More crit chance.*
08 – Super Slam! – ST 6 Melee 45 – A downed enemy is a harmless enemy. Works with Deathclaws.*
10 – Finesse – n/d – Plain 5% crit chance, must have.*
12 – Piercing Strike – Unarmed 70 – Do you feel like punching unarmored foes, like always?*
14 – Jury Rigging – Repair 90 – Very useful perk for any build.
16 – Better Criticals – PE 6 LK 6 – The name says it all, more damage.*
18 – Stonewall – ST 6 EN 6 – If you fall, you’re dead, so this doesn’t make you fall.
20 – Them’s good eatin’ – Survival 55 – Adds lootable things that heal, a lot, a big ♥♥♥♥in lot.
22 – Laser Commander – En. wep. 90 – More crit chance with lasers.*
24 – Vigilant recycler – Science 70 – The ammo you get from here are OP.
26 – Slayer – AG 7 Unarmed 90 – The more you hit, the more criticals you inflict.*
28 – Pyromaniac – Explosives 60 – With the SH saturnite fist this is a bliss.
30 – Burden to Bear – ST 6 EN 6 – 50 more carry weight.
32 – Strong Back – ST 5 EN 5 – 50 more carry weight. Again.
34 – Pack Rat – IN 5 Barter 70 – Ammo weigh less.
36 – Intense training (2) – n/d – Put this in ST, needed for the next perk.
38 – Heavyweight – ST 7 – Big explosive weapons weigh less.
40 – Demolition expert (1) – Explosives 50 – Better damage.*
42 – Demolition expert (2) – Explosives 50 – Much better damage.*
44 – Demolition expert (3) – Explosives 50 – ♥♥♥♥in blow everything up.*
46 – Splash damage – Explosives 70 – Bigger bangs!*
48 – Voracious reader – INT 7 – The ultimate crit chance boost.*
50 – Just lucky I’m alive – Neutral Karma – Better criticals.*
So, that was the hard part, now i will list the other important perks, the ones you get from challenges and quests, not obtained by leveling up.
Set lasers for fun – 4% crit chance with energy wep.*
All usanagi implants (not the HP one) – Stats and DT.*
All unarmed technics – Enhanced combat style.*
Cardiac arrest – 100% poison resist right at the start of OWB.*
Reinforced spine – +2 ST at the end of OWB.*
Lonesome Road ending – +1 SPECIAL.*
And that’s it for the perks, obviously you just have to follow the marked ones, the others are here just to show how i set mine.
Best clothing
There isn’t much choice here, because the highest crit chance can be achieved only this way, so i’m just going to list the apparel here.
For a big part of the game you will not have access to the duster, so just use any light armor you like, i personally use Graham’s armor, before that Gecko reinforced leather armor, and even before that a normal reinforced leather armor, but it’s your choice.
Ulysses’ duster – +5% crit chance, +1 CHR.
1st Recon beret – +5% crit chance, +1 PER.
Lucky shades – +1 LCK.
Best unarmed weapons
Here you have a wide variety of gloves and fists, every one listed has its own good things, so i suggest you try them all until you find the one you like.
With the endgame gear and perks your unarmed damage will have a 28% crit chance affected by the weapon multiplier (not counting true police stories), and 5% not affected by it, considering this, my favorite choices are:
Industrial Hand – Man this thing is a monster, it rips through anything and does nearly 4 hits per second with a flat 33% crit chance and ignores DT/DR, so yeah this is the weapon to go if you just want to left click to win by sawing through naked enemies.
Saturnite fist superheated – This weapon is not that good, but things change if you get the pyromaniac perk, then this will become one of the highest damaging unarmed weapons, and who doesn’t like a 33% chance of setting someone on fire? Its only drawback is the speed, it hits hard but slow.
Fist of Rawr – This one looks sick and does a good amount of damage, which combined with an awesome 61% critical chance lets you have some fun with it. Unfortunately its speed is almost equal to the one above, but the damage output is smaller, hence this takes the third place.
Embrace of the Mantis King! – With a multiplier of 3×, this fist makes you get an unbelievable 89% crit chance, which is almost always. The only shame is that those crits don’t hurt that much, and it’s a bit slow, but you can get your hands on this toy pretty early in the game, and it’s the most op weapon you can find until you get one of the above.
Greased Lightning – A faster (much faster) version of the power fist, but i find it boring to use and its damage output it’s still worse than a good crit weapon, like the one above.
Pushy – Although this fist becomes pretty weak pretty fast, its really useful to push enemies away from you while dealing a moderate amount of damage, but since every statistic it’s mediocre i recommend it only if you really can’t get any other of the above.
Paladin-toaster – “What the ♥♥♥♥ is this thing doing here?” that’s what i’m asking myself while reading this, well it’s a good situational weapon against robots or power armors, though there are many better choices, but the nice thing about this is that you can get it just at the start of the game by making a quick run to the cave and using a stealth boy, so i recommend using this exclusively if you can get it in the first 5 levels, as a kick start for stronger enemies, but since it attacks slow due to your ♥♥♥♥ start unarmed skill and does poor damage, merged with the very high cost of maintenance, you will want to switch ASAP to brass knuckles, spiked are better, and then again ASAP to one of the fists above.
Two-step goodbye – What we have here is a masterpiece of mad minds, first of all, with a 4× multiplier, you get 117% crit chance, which is obviously rounded to 100%, this means that every hit is a critical hit, but it doesn’t stop here, every critical kill (which translates to every kill) you do will stick a grenade to the corpse which does over 300 dmg with the explosive perks, this weapon is pretty dangerous for you and your allies, so i don’t really recommend it, but it’s really fun to use and it’s very particular so i’ll list it here.
Best energy weapons
There is lots of energy weapons in this game, but most of them are not optimal for a crit build, like the plasma ones, but i’ll list what i found out to be the best ones, even the non-critchance friendly.
But first, math! The standard crit chance for laser weapons, in the end game, will be 28% affected by the weapon multiplier, not counting true police stories, and 19% not affected by it (9% for the plasma weapons). Laser weapons have the highest crit chance of all the weapons in this build.
LAER+ – Very good weapon, almost perfect. It has one and only one small drawback: durability. It just lasts for a little time, which is not that good, but it’s ok since in the endgame we will have millions of money and alternative ways to repair it.
Laser rifle+ – Hold on there, don’t jump on me yet, let me explain why this takes such a high place on the energy weapons list: the Tri-beam laser rifle is a better option, better damage, better critical, hell it tears down Deathclaws as nothing, but it uses too much ammo, way too much. I couldn’t get out of my house with 300 MFC because 30 minutes after I would have had the need to get back and take more, as if it wasn’t enough, you always have to aim carefully or you’ll waste 3 MFC, and you can shoot only 16 times. That’s not very good, same thing with the YCS/186, too much ammo wasted and reloads too often. But then you get the Laser rifle: you have to fully mod it, and then it will do a great job, only 1 MFC per shot: you can waste as many as you want and you will still use less than with the Tri-beam, and 24 shots until reload. Like the less reliable counterpart, it has a 61% crit chance, but this one shoots 2 lasers simoultaneously, each one can crit for the same amount of damage as the Tri-beam’s ones. It can take the place of the YCS/186 because with the scope it becomes a fair sniper weapon, even though the damage isn’t nearly as big as the YCS. So, in the end, use this instead, it’s a solid weapon and you will like it, trust me, you wont notice a great difference in DPS, but you will on ammo. The only reason to use the Tri-beam instead, is if you’ve been stocking up MFC since 2010 and don’t mind losing them all, and I mean a stock of tens of thousands of those, and maybe they wont even last long enough to finish the game. As a side note, the laser rifle, if it scores a critical for each laser, with my perks and my build, it can literally obliterate things, with just one MFC per shot.
Pew Pew – This is an alien blaster, except it uses 5 energy cells per shot and it has the skin of a laser pistol, even with that yellow-ish thing going on. With the crit chance applied to its mulitplier (2.5x) we will have a 89% crit chance, which means a lot, and the damage done by this weapon’s crit is the same as the alien blaster’s one, even more if loaded with optimized/max charge ammo. Its main drawback is the 2 shots magazine capacity, which means you have to 1-2 shots something that charges at you, and this doesn’t happen with Deathclaws, keep it in mind.
YCS/186 – The big guy of the energy weapons, this rifle is pure destruction, one shots almost everything, it has a very high crit chance of 65%, but since i think it will be used as a sneaky weapon it will crit always, and its damage is madness, a crit hit with all the perks with this thing can cause more than 400 damage. It’s situational though, as it works best in long distances, and there are more practical weapons in close quarters.
Plasma caster+ – If Mercy (see explosive weapons section) was an energy weapon, this is what it would be like. I chose this over The Smitty Special (unique variant) because of the higher crit chance, the plasma caster has a small 37%, and yet does a decent amount of damage. Obviously mod it. It has a small magazine but that’s not a problem because by the time it ends everything will be dead, the problem is its very wide spread, so you can’t engage foes in long range combats with it.
Holorifle+ – I have lots of thoughts about this rifle, it’s the best damage per cell energy weapon in the game, but its magazines are small and it doesn’t fire quite fast, you might want to try it and see if you like it, it has a max 47% crit chance without True Police Stories, but those crits hurt as hell. I like it as a weapon you can use to kill small groups of enemies with low hp pool, but since it doesn’t crit that much, a weapon like the laser rifle surpasses it in DPS.
Cleansing flame – Since you will probably get the pyromaniac perk for the saturnite fist superheated, you will use it in your energy weapons too! This flamethrower does a good amount of damage overall and it’s very fun to use.
Tri-beam laser rifle+ – This is awesome. Let’s have a look at this: fully modded, it does a very good damage, it shoots 3 lasers and each laser, separately, has 61% crit chance, if each laser scores a crit, you get an obliterating weapon, and since you have 61% chance, that is going to happen. If you’re wondering why such an amazing weapon is here, and you haven’t read the Laser Rifle description, it’s because it destroys your ammo very badly.
Q-35 matter modulator – One of the most balanced weapon in the game, its projectiles are fast, only 1 MFC per shot, high crit damage and 65% crit chance, and many other aspects that make this one good, we don’t get a lot for the crit chance because it’s a plasma rifle, but it’s ok since it’s very good at what it does. It can be used in every situation early on, and you can just switch to another one if you feel the need of more range or damage, and use this as a main weapon. After using it quite some time with this build i found that its fire rateo is a big drawback and i don’t feel to recommend it anymore for the late game, but it”s still a great all around weapon.
Sprtel-Wood 9700 – This monster doesn’t quite use your crit chance bonus, but it’s very op so you might want to try it, again it’s fun as hell to use, so just buy it and go shoot at things.
AER14 protorype – This is an all around good weapon, works in every situation, 75% crit chance, doesn’t use much ammo, and it’s very efficient, but it doesn’t have any strong point, it’s good at everything but there are many weapons that do certain things better. Anyway, it’s a generic weapon to use against non-difficult enemies, its damage is pretty bad though, even the critical.
Best explosive weapons
This is the fun part of the weapons listing, those things are pure madness and i love every single one of them, they are situational so i ended up using all of them.
Mercy – This weapon of pain has to be one of my favourite in the game, and while you hear that ”CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG”, and your enemies limbs fly all over the place, you realize explosives was a good choice. Add plasma nades for the best explosive-energy combo in the game!
Esther – So here you are, above cottonwood cove, with your better-than-the-fatman weapon embraced, you check all your damage and area perks, you load your Big Kid ammo, and then fire. The sight is almost as beautiful as megaton detonating.
Red Glare – Have you ever seen an Apache attack helicopter? Well if you haven’t, they have those big things that fire dozens of rockets per second. What do you think about having one of those on your shoulder?
Annabelle – This missile launcher is op and easily obtainable, it will serve you right from the start of the game, and be sure to kill some guys on the Hoover Dam battle with it, just in its honor.
25mm grenade APW – This is your little boy, it’s nothing special but it’s a good alternative if your CHUG CHUG CHUG runs out of ammo, i choose this over the grenade machine gun to add some variety, since their stats are almost the same.