Most Useless weapons in new Vegas

[James Snowscoran]

That's exactly why I don't like them in NV, they have high DPS but low DAM. DPS is only good against unarmored enemies, and how many unarmored enemies do you meet exactly?

A lot, actually. Almost all the enemies that aren't:
-NCR
-Legion
-BoS
-Deatchlaw
-Large Radscorpions
are unarmored/very lightly (5<) armored.

And how many people do you find that don't fall into those categories?

Are we playing the same game here? 90% of the enemies you'll be exposed to in a normal playthrough won't fall into any of those categories. And with that being said, the 10mm SMG won't have much trouble tearing through NCR or legion troops that aren't rangers or centurions.

Unless you're having a really hard time fighting fiends or powder gangers, you don't really need automatic weapons.

How about cazadores and nightstalkers? But yeah, vanilla NV isn't a particularly hard game- you could easily finish the entire thing using only a 10mm pistol and a scoped hunting rifle. The fact that most players seem to prefer using only firearms doesn't make energy weapons useless.

 

[Felspawn]

That's exactly why I don't like them in NV, they have high DPS but low DAM. DPS is only good against unarmored enemies, and how many unarmored enemies do you meet exactly?

A lot, actually. Almost all the enemies that aren't:
-NCR
-Legion
-BoS
-Deatchlaw
-Large Radscorpions
are unarmored/very lightly (5<) armored.

And how many people do you find that don't fall into those categories?

Are we playing the same game here? 90% of the enemies you'll be exposed to in a normal playthrough won't fall into any of those categories. And with that being said, the 10mm SMG won't have much trouble tearing through NCR or legion troops that aren't rangers or centurions.

Unless you're having a really hard time fighting fiends or powder gangers, you don't really need automatic weapons.

How about cazadores and nightstalkers? But yeah, vanilla NV isn't a particularly hard game- you could easily finish the entire thing using only a 10mm pistol and a scoped hunting rifle. The fact that most players seem to prefer using only firearms doesn't make energy weapons useless.

Exactly, NV isnt a tought game but for something like a pack of a dozen nightstalkers or hell for the fat health bar of a super mutant (of which most have no DT) the shear damage of a SMG is useful. Paticularly when they are right in your face. and sure they arent that useful vs Brotherhood or a Deathclaw but when they are just like 2% of the mobs you face in the game why not use something more appropriate for the other 98%

 

[whirlingdervish]

In my first playthrough I used the 10mm ssg in most of the cave situations on the worldmap and in pretty much every cazador encounter that I had where I didn't snipe them all down from a distant hillside.

It crits their wings about as easily as the riot shotgun, but it seems to hit more further away so they get knocked down sooner leaving you more room to breathe.

Even with better guns available, I keep a modded 10mm ssg on my guns char at all times due to the almost free ammo and the ease of repairing it. In a tight spot it cuts down a lot of enemies for low cost.


Most of the useless weapons I've tried so far were explosives like the grenade rifle and fatman. They look pretty, but don't seem to do much without a lot of points in explosives and perks too.

Some people swear by the laser rifle as a sniper weapon, but I haven't found many times where it wasn't eclipsed by a better sniping weapon for the job and I've taken to just leaving them on the ground next to dead fiends. It's probably my least used weapon other than the varied wimpy melee ones like the nailbat and pool cue.

 

[Wintermind]

It probably functins as a decent sniper weapon for exclusively energy weapons people who don't want to lug around a gauss rifle/kill some BOS dudes.

The grenade rifle is pretty cool but you really need range for it to shine. Otherwise you're just gonna hurt yourself.

 

[Courier]

The scoped laser rifle is a pretty good early sniping weapon for energy types until you get a gauss rifle, at least it's about the equivalent of the scoped varmint rifle for guns characters.

 

[Felspawn]

Early on I actually really like the laser rifle as a sniper rifle, its rapid fire and accurate nature has come in handy plenty of times. Hell when i walk over to get the YCS i remember vaporizing 4 of the 5 mercs there with manual non-vats headshots before they could even know i was there. slower bolt action files just wouldnt have been able to drop them as fast, and honestly by the time a real sniper rifle shows up , i already have the YCS

 

[Walpknut]

This is a pretty good idea, I am now inspired to make my own Iron Man run, I have never made one, too much comitment to the game to do them, but I am gonna try and see how far I can go, maybe a LUCK based one, and this time make it like the character is actualy me, gonna be fun.

 

[James Snowscoran]

The problem with the laser rifle is that it's not very well optimised for sniping. The scope isn't available until Novac, leaving EW builds without a sniping weapon for the early game, and the rifle is optimised for rapid fire rather than high single-shot damage. Still a pretty decent weapon, though I remember it being terrible in the unpatched game.

 

[Courier]

The laser rifle is really the only weapon that is useful at both long-range sniping and close up, point blank combat which makes it a pretty versatile weapon.

 

[Felspawn]

the scope can be hit or miss, but hey like and modded weapon you can run into the same issue with the Varmit gun if you have bad luck. it seemed by EW characters always had varmit scopes available were my Gun characters were SOL. that said you dont "Need" the scope as much as you think as the laser rifle has a really nice zoom for an unscoped weapon. it might be harder to use on say a 360 control but with a mouse and keyboard i was doing pretty well with it

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Due to the bugged Beam Splitter (three beams instead of two) the Laser Rifle was actually a good sniping tool. With Better Criticals you dealt more than 400 DAM with a sneak headshot, better than the Sniper Rifle.

 

[brfritos]

WoW people, scoped laser rifles are simply awesome, snipers should really try it.

But it's a completely different way to play, since it's accurate as an sniper rifle, so you actually "rapid-fire snipe".
It's very good.

I'm on a PC BTW, I hear all the time that on consoles you need to use VATS a lot more because the lack of accuracy in the controller/pad.
This is true or it's BS?
I'm asking because I hate VATS, can't stand the damn thing.

 

[whirlingdervish]

I play on PC only and I use VATS as sparingly as possible (I also ignore most of the VATS specific perks in favor of all around ones) so that may color my reaction to the Laser Rifle.
(I also haven't bothered with it much since the early patches and my first playthrough)

On one of my recent games I made a bit of a hybrid guns/ew char and decided to grab laser commander and meltdown but none of the plasma related stuff.

Instead of carrying MFCs and pumping money into laser rifle mods, I take all my EW ammo and convert to max charge ECP.

It works great to switch from freehand sniping with something like the All American, to spraying down enemies with the plentiful Laser RCW using max charge ecp ammo if they rush you.
The constant green blasts from meltdown as you cut their legs out from under them is pretty fun to watch.

With a bit of attention paid to where the dots are on your compass, nothing gets close enough to need VATS unless you march right into the Fort, and even then you can drop the 5 guys inside the gate spraying the All American at close range with regular ammo.
Caesars tent would require a bit of strategy, and a lot less RCW.

 

[Felspawn]

As someone who played FO3 on the 360 but New Vegas on a PC i can defiantly attest to using VATS alot less, both due to general nature of (to me) the mouse and keyboard being more accurate combined with iron sights and the general notion that VATS wasnt crazy overpower like it was in FO3.

Thats not to say that Vats is useless, far from it, you can see plenty of video on youtube of people clearing out some of the tougher areas in NV on Very Hard in a stream of Vats combat. it just doesn't seem as necessary.

Having said that i can see some folks, who dislike the "shooter" nature of FO3 and New vegas specializing in Vats as its more stats driven and takes the player out of a characters combat skill set (at least a little)

 

[Iabimyshkin]

I love the 10mm SMG; it can be quite effective, plus it looks cool! I don't use it in big fights obviously but find it rather fun to shoot with. It does depend what type of character I play too...

I also think the cleaver can be useful. On topic though I'm no fan of the golf club, the switch blades and never consider the BB gun...

 

[Silas]

Rolling pin, Straight razor, Boxing tape, Boxing glove, Fat man (ammo), mines, explosives in general are rather hard to use as the main weaponry, BB Gun.

 

[Mr Krepe]

Well most if not all explosive weapons, most low level melee weapons like nailboard etc.

Many people swear by the varmint rifle, but I don't see the big deal about it? Even on my guns/NCR playthrough, I found it difficult to use and the damage it inflicted on enemies I thought was often meager.

 

[James Snowscoran]

^ Sneak attacks to the head with it kills most lightly armoured humans. It's only really good when it's scoped. But yeah, when enemies have spotted you it's usually better to switch to something else.

 

[Felspawn]

scoped and equally importantly its silenced. its one of the few long range silent weapons, and what makes it great is how early you can get it. if you get lucky with mod availability you can walk out of goodsprings with a silenced, scoped, extended mag varmit gun and it'll be a FANTASTIC sneak attack weapon for many many levels (or at least until you get a ratslayer

 

[Courier]

Ratslayer is even better and can be found pretty early in the game before you reach Novac.