Melee Builds... Extremely Powerful

[Renegadexss]

Damn I'll have to try a dedicated melee build.

 

[outofthegamer]

What's this 'money glitch'?

The money glitch i was talking about is not fixed in any patch, so you dont have to remove updates from your HDD.

Go to any vendor in the game and look in their inventory for 2 of the same weapon, but with different condition levels. For example, a sawed-off shotgun for 168 caps and another sawed-off shotgun for 690 caps. Then buy the cheaper weapon and sell it back. It will appear back in the vendor's inventory (still at 168 caps), but if you buy it again, it will appear in your inventory fully repaired; and you can sell it back for 1149 (depends on your barter skill, mine is usually less than 10).

After you sell it back again, it will still show as 168 caps in the vendor's inventory, so you can repeat the process, making one thousand caps or more each time. Keep going until the vendor has no money left.

note: you may have to buy and sell the same item more than 2 times before it shows as fully repaired in your inventory. but not more than 4 times.

 

[outofthegamer]

sorry for the double post... posting from my PS3 and it limits post length.

note 2: if the vendor does not have 2 of the same weapon, like vendortron, you can sell him a poorly conditioned copy of something he already has then do the glitch.

note3: it doesn't work on some weapons, but it does work on some armor, like recon armor.

ALWAYS SAVE BEFORE doing the glitch; you could lose a lot of caps by trying to do the glitch with one of the weapons that doesnt work. I always go to Mick & Ralph's, because Mick can repair all your stuff, then you can get all of your money back; and he always has a few sawed-off shotguns or hunting shotguns.

 

[Geech]

Yeah, I don't get all of the focus on Piercing Strike for melee builds. Raising unarmed all the way up to 70 just for that one perk does not seem like a great use of points, especially when Knock Knock is doing 60+ damage per swing without even being the top melee weapon.

There are 4 copies of Pugilism Illustrated in New Vegas (5 if you've got Dead Money), and if you've got the Comprehension Perk (most people do), you'll only actually need to raise your Unarmed up to 50ish to qualify for Piercing Strike; that's not much.

And, to be fair, skill points really aren't even an issue: you could nearly max out every skill back when the level cap was 30; now it's 40 (and it's going to continue to raise alongside the next 2 DLCs). You can easily afford to drop points into Unarmed to pick up Piercing Strike without deviating from any "core builds" you might be working on.

The benefit of doing so is that you essentially ignore Damage Threshold, which suddenly makes a number of easily-overlooked weapons extremely viable and effective. The main drawback of a weapon like Chance's Knife is that it's got a relatively low damage rating, and that's completely negated by Piercing Strike. Chance's Knife's AP-cost is less than half that of Oh Baby's, even while its crit-rate is twice as high, and you can almost squeeze out 6 attacks per second with it (compared to Oh Baby's 2 and a half). The damage-per-second on Chance's Knife can easily rival, or even exceed Oh Baby's.

Which is quite a feat, considering it only weighs 5% as much, has 50% of the requirements, and can be acquired essentially the moment you leave Goodsprings.

And it's a holdout weapon.

I believe that it can be a powerful weapon, but I guess it depends on your goal in the game. Maxing out that build requires investing 30 points or more in a skill you won't use, finding all of the magazines for that same skill, and taking like four different perks. Or you could get Oh, Baby! and hit stuff real hard. Even if you have to take weapon handling to meet the strength requirement, that's still a much cheaper solution. I don't think the investment is really worth the return unless you're doing it just to see it happen.

If you're just moving through the game with a melee build, putting that much attention on unarmed means you've neglected a lot of other important skills like speech, lock-picking and sneak. Nevermind trying to spend points on complementary skills like survival, medicine and barter. While I'm sure you can get all of that stuff quite high by level 40 regardless of your build, that's not really how I have fun with the game. I want to have a useful character when it matters, not once I have completed most of the game.

I don't mean to criticize that style if that's how you choose to play, but it certainly isn't my cup of tea.

Damn I'll have to try a dedicated melee build.

I'm surprised at how fun and effective it really is. I think I'm actually having an easier time with combats than I did with my energy weapons character. I was really skeptical before I tried it, but now I'm glad I did.

 

[Courier]

How do you guys get passed the Cazadores guarding Chance's Knife on such low levels? I've never gotten it until I leveled up enough and had enough antivenom.

 

[Pjotr84]

How do you guys get passed the Cazadores guarding Chance's Knife on such low levels? I've never gotten it until I leveled up enough and had enough antivenom.

You can reach Chance's knife by going over the hill on the left side of the road. That way, with a bit of luck, you can avoid all of the Cazadores there.

 

[milk ducks]

I believe that it can be a powerful weapon, but I guess it depends on your goal in the game. Maxing out that build requires investing 30 points or more in a skill you won't use, finding all of the magazines for that same skill, and taking like four different perks. Or you could get Oh, Baby! and hit stuff real hard. Even if you have to take weapon handling to meet the strength requirement, that's still a much cheaper solution. I don't think the investment is really worth the return unless you're doing it just to see it happen.

If you're just moving through the game with a melee build, putting that much attention on unarmed means you've neglected a lot of other important skills like speech, lock-picking and sneak. Nevermind trying to spend points on complementary skills like survival, medicine and barter. While I'm sure you can get all of that stuff quite high by level 40 regardless of your build, that's not really how I have fun with the game. I want to have a useful character when it matters, not once I have completed most of the game.

I don't mean to criticize that style if that's how you choose to play, but it certainly isn't my cup of tea.

I think you nailed it when you said that everyone plays the game differently. I've always been one of those people who obsesses over details. I'm a bit of a number-cruncher, and in games where you have to "build" your character, the experience is never organic and natural to me; before I can even start, I need to review all the possibilities, determine what my serious options are, talk to people who've done it before, etc.

Having said that, in New Vegas, I always collect every skill book, and carry around all sorts of clothing and equipment that temporarily boosts my skills so I can keep them as low as possible while still completing the checks. That may not be how everyone has fun with the game, but I can't imagine playing it any other way. I don't think other playstyles are wrong, or bad, I just wouldn't enjoy anything else.

As far as Piercing Strike goes, I guess I see it this way: any Melee-focused build I create is going to have Slayer, no matter what weapon I plan on using. Slayer increases your Melee and Unarmed attack speed by 30%, so it's a tremendous bonus (especially if you're using a huge two-hander like Oh, Baby!). It requires 90 Unarmed skill to unlock, which is 20 higher than Piercing Strike. And since there are so few dedicated Melee/Unarmed perks, I see myself picking up Piercing Strike as I move along anyway. It just feels like an obvious choice to me.

Oh Baby is certainly the more powerful of the two weapons right out of the gate, and it's not until Chance's Knife gets a few perks underneath it (Cowboy, Grunt, Piercing Strike, etc), that it starts to get really powerful. Some people might prefer Oh Baby for that reason, but I prefer Chance's Knife because it's faster, has a lower AP-cost per swing (so you can bring just the right amount of force to every target, and you're not wasting as much AP with swings that overkill), has double the critical hit rating, is available very early on, and is an improved holdout weapon, so you can take it with you wherever you go.

But everyone has fun in their own way, and Oh Baby is not a bad choice by any calculation (it's damned powerful, in fact), but it's not the kind of powerful I have fun with.

 

[ARV274]

I cant believe thismore people should do melee, it rocks! My favorite build of all tiem is tagging Guns, Melee and sneak. For when im not sneaking around and I get into close range, I use the Oh, Baby. When Im sneaking Chances knife is excellent with the crit bonus. Long range is silenced sniper rifle, and medium range is silenced .45 Auto.