Overview
You like tommy guns, drugs and pain ? This build is for you.
SPECIAL and Traits
This build is an alternative to the classical “high critical chance laser/plasma/cowboy/grunt”.
The aim of this build is to be equipped with a 45 auto fully modified smg and the sierra madre reinforced armor.
This build require to get better critical which require 6 Perception and 6 luck, you can then start with 5 perception and luck and then get the implants.
A decent agility is usefull also, as the less time you spend in reloading, the more you spend time in shooting, and you need fast reload.
Implant GRX are extremly usefull and so you need an endurance of 7.
You would need also a strength of 6, but with reinforced spine and the implant, you can start with only 3.
Here is a suggestion, you don’t even need to use charism as a dumb stat :
Strength : 3 Perception : 5 Endurance : 7 Charisma : 5 Intelligence : 5 Agility : 7 Luck : 6
No traits are required, logan’s loophole can be usefull but you want to get rid of it with Old World Blues.
Perks
The most important perk of this build are :
fast reload, light touch, hand loader, grunt, bloody mess, better critical, the professional ,eye for an eye, travel light, pack rat (if you play in hardcore).
Suggested levelling :
Level 2 : fast reload
Level 4 : Educated (these yummy skill points)
Level 6 : Toughness
Level 8 : Grunt
Level 10 : bloody mess
Level 12 : hand loader
Level 14 : Jurry rigging
Level 16 : Toughness 2
Level 18 : Pack rat
Level 20 : light touch
Level 22 : better critical
Level 24 : travel light
Level 26 : Living anatomy
Level 28 : the professionnal
Level 30 : Implant GRX
Level 32 : Implant GRX 2
Level 34 : Eye for an eye
Level 36 : chemist
Level 38 : chem resistant
Level 40 : Fast metabolism
Level 42 : Robotic expert (Robots have often high dt, and because you have high dps with low damage, they would be harder to deal with)
Level 44 : Bachelor/black widow
Level 46 : Lady killer/chercher la femme
Level 48 : fight the power : a steady 5 % critical chance against ennemies that have high DT, nice.
Level 50 : Thought you die + 10 % damage and a lot of hp.
Otherwise :
Reinforced spine is essential.
Items and companion
Weapons :
At low level :
9mm pistol, Maria if you do the main quest early, a service rifle, vance 9mm submachine gun with hand loaded ammunition would destroy any unarmored enemy. Then the assault carbine would be your best friend for a long time.
Once you would get the 45 auto submachine gun, reinforced spine, you can use only that.
Chance knife : lightweight, it can be still nice to have it and you can hide it in the casino.
In the casinos and the legion fort, sleepytime would be the best choice.
Don’t use any sniper rifle, it would overload you in a non usefull way.
Ammunition :
Well, obviously 45 auto. Hollow point 45 auto can be great against any enemy that has a DT higher than 20 :
Anyway, you would lose all your dps because of the damage threshold, but the minimum dps you can get is 20 % of your raw dps. With psycho, broken leg and arms, yao gua meat, hollow point 45 auto, you can get a total dps over 1000, which mean
an effective dps of 200. It’s great.
Against any ennemy with an armor under 10 or 8, standard ammunition would be the best, and it wouldn’t degrade your weapon too fast.
Against deathclaws, supermutant, giant radscorpion, super hand load is the best.
Against NCR ranger, brotherhood paladin, NCR heavy trooper, the best is hollow point.
Because you would shoot a lot of ammo, you want to craft your own ammo.
10mm ammunition are cheap and contain the big pistol primer, and so they are great to craft your own 45 auto, otherwise, 12,7mm round and 44 magnum come second. 9mm doesn’t have big pistol primers, but it has pistol powder, which can make 9mm ammunition interesting to buy to craft 45 auto. 45-70
Armor :
The most protective you get, and when you get light touch, the most light protective you get. You want to end with sierra madre reinforced armor.
Companion :
Raul, with him, weapons degrade in a slower way, and he is a cool dude. ED-E : can repair your weapon, help you craft more ammo with lonesome road.
Strategy
How does it work ?
There is two kind of bonus critical chance in new vegas, multiplicative one and steady one. All are multiplicative but : laser commander, set laser for fun, light touch, fight the power.
Automatic weapons have their critical chance divided by their attacks per second, as light touch can’t be multiplied or divided, it’s very powerfull to use with any automatic weapon.
That’s what make gatling laser build so powerfull. It’s very powerfull also with a 45 auto submachine gun, because even if you get much much less critical hits, they hit much harder as you have higher base damage and critical damage, and benefit also from the professionnal.
Eye for an eye give you a bonus of 10 % damage for every of your limb crippled. A broken leg give you a penalty of 10 % speed and travel light a bonus of 10 % speed when in light armor. Basically, it enable you to get 10 % more damage with no penalty. You might also break your arms and negate completely the accuracy penalty with steady. With 2 arms and a leg broken, eye for an eye, on steady, travel light and a light armor, you get a bonus of 30 % damage, while having no penalty in accuracy.
If you win the voucher in dead money, you can have a near unlimited amount of steady and because steady is weightless, there is no problem in stockpilling it.
The build could have work theorically with the light machine gun, but it would have required a bigger investment in strength. Theoretically, the light machine gun is better has it has less reload time, and armor piercing 5,56 ammo is better against high armor ennemy than super hand load. However no merchant sell massive amount of armor piercing 5,56 mm.
Because the 45 auto submachine gun has a high spread, you want to crouch and aim constantly as you shoot. Otherwise, in the late game you can be constantly on steady, that make crouching unnecessary
Mods ?
If you can find an outfit that make you looks like a mafiosi or Rambo, it’s great. You can also mod yourself a copy of the mysterious stranger outfit and hat with the stats of the reinforced light armor. I t
What’s great with this build :
You move fast, you hit hard, it doesn’t has a lot of requirement when it come to special and that build bring you a new gameplay experience.