The sniper rifles are so powerful it makes me cry.

D

DForge

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Ok, Gobi sniper rifle and regular sniper rifle are the kings of everything in this game. Literally. Not just sniping, but non-VATS dps and VATS damage too!

Let me explain.

The hand loader perk makes you able to craft .308 ammo that gives x1,5 DAM with no drawbacks.

With 10 LK, Finesse and 1st Recon Beret, you get 20% CC. Sniper rifles have a CRAZY x5 modifier which means - yeah - 100% critical chance, VATS or no.

Which means a Gobi Sniper rifle will do... (I don't know whether Ammo damage mod increases critical part of damage, But I assumed it does.)

61x1,5 (ammo) + 62x1,5 (ammo)x1,5( better crits)

232 damage per hit.

Gobi sniper rifle has 2,5 attacks per second AND a VATS cost of 33. Now with fast shot and math wrath, 10 AGI and double action boy you will be able to shoot 5 times - and weapons like this machine or brush gun will shoot maximum 7 times in VATS before depleting your AP.

Even with 35% CC (all the modifiers above + VATS cc bonus), This machine maxes out at 1060 damage per VATS sequence, so it's a good chunk of damage less than Gobi does.

Brush Gun with cowboy and hand loader ammo maxes out at 1199 damage. Which is higher, but... it requires cowboy and crafting from a super rare ammo. Arguably you could take blood mess with Gobi to get 1218 dam per VATS sequence instead of cowboy to do more damage, too. Brush Gun also has horrible reload animation - so long that it will make enemies advance significantly even if you're running backwards and the gun only has 6 ammo capacity. Also, if your VATS sequence ends up with reload, you will trigger a small glitch where you can't shoot or enter VATS despite seeing the reload animation has ended.

No other weapon even comes close to those, and Gobi, due to best VATS accuracy modifiers and easiest ammo to come by, wins over the other only contestant - Brush Gun.



Gobi Sniper rifle is the best of all VATS weapons but it's also the best of non-VATS weapons in terms of DPS. Yup. Even Plasma Caster with HS electrode, loaded with max overcharge MFCs, will do less damage. 532 dps, if I recall correctly.

Gobi sniper rifle has a DPS of 536. No weapon can ever come close. As for the caster: it is close, but it sucks - it has a massive spread, no iron sights, misses a lot because projectiles don't hit instantly like bullets --> easy to miss mobile enemies, and decreases in durability so fast it makes me cry. Also, Max overcharge cells needed to reach the dps of 509 have x2,5 weapon condition, so it will literally break after like 50 shots!!! Horrible. Without jury Rigging you will have to craft kits or waste time stealing your caps back from major knight every fight. Even with Raul it's horrible. Not to mention that each Max Overcharge MFC is worth 2,5 regular MFCs, while Gobi only takes one bullet.

In comparison, regular MFC plasma caster has a DPS of ~300. (with CC of 20% and better criticals included, damage averaged). Riot Shotgun - with small range and very weak criticals while using slug ammo which is REQUIRED for the shotgun to work on anything with 15 DT or more - has 277 DPS. This Machine has about 230 DPS. As you can see, Gobi sniper rifle does twice the other weapons' DPS outside VATS with - again - no drawbacks.

It also has a scope, long range and can snipe everything with a bit of stealth with one deadly hit - sniping is soo powerful in NV.

Of course, it's loud and can't be modified, so ironically you might want a silenced regular sniper rifle instead of Gobi sniper rifle for sniping.

What else can I say... Sniper weapons own everything in this game, statistically. At any range, they are jack of all "ranges" and master of all. They are best choice in VATS, outside VATS, at close range, at far range.. you name it. And they only need one perk (Hand Load), 10 LK (which isn't something bad seeing it increases all skills and makes you rich at casinos - I start with 8, take intense training:LK at 2nd level and buy LK implant), two perks you'd pretty much want anyway (Better Criticals) and 1st Recon Baret which gives you 1PE and you can use with with rebreather if you want 3 DT in addition to all bonuses.

Wow. Seems this game wasn't really beta tested well :)
 
Whats gobi?
How do you see the actual damage a weapon does? Not just looking at damage or damage per second?
I used the sniper rifle alot on my first playtrhough, i think its kinda cool to sneak attack a supermutant from far away, but it shouldnt be as powerfull as it is at short range too.
 
Gobi Campaign Sniper Rifle. Unique sniper rifle:) It has 1/2 AP cost of each shot compared to regular sniper rifle and a fire rate of 2.5 attacks per second, which beats, ironically, weapons like This Machine (2.14 attacks per second) and Brush Gun (1.84 attacks per second).

It can't be modded with a silencer though. Which means you're better off with regular sniper rifle when killing things from afar cause it can be silenced.

I got all values from the GECK editor.
 
Sniper rifles are pretty insane and I think it has a lot to do with damage threshold. The damage and crit multiplier is so high, it makes sense to use them in just about any encounter.

I've been rocking the anti-material rifle but I wasn't aware you could craft some special ammunition that does even more damage. There probably isn't much, if anything, in the game that could survive more than one critical hit from such a gun.
 
Aye, my first character was unfortunately a sniper. My second one a big gunner. I laughed as I met the requirements to wield a minigun. Compared with the sniper rifles (not only goby, varmint rocks from the very beginning, too) the damage output of the automated high tier guns is way too low. Crowd control with mini gun only works if you have a group of mole rats or mantis against you :P
 
Statisticly, the sniper is the most effective battle element in the entire history of war.

Snipers will always be overpowered.
 
yeah but Sniper rifle being better than combat shotguns at close range? uhh... I don't think it should work like that ;))

But who cares. It's powerful, it's fun, it's enjoyable. In a single player game terms "overpowered" and "balance" don't apply anyway.
 
um.. the sniper rifle fires a .308 slug with a huge cartridge behind it.

IRL, that has much greater knockdown power than a 12ga shotgun due to the weight of the projectile, the increased speed at which it travels, and the way in which it transfers that energy to the surface it strikes all at once in one place.

at close range or long range, it's enough force to knock your head clean off, or knock you on your ass just by coming close to you.

it's actually quite realistic in terms of balance when compared to a shotgun thats only firing low speed, low weight projectiles that rapidly lose their energy and which cease being deadly to anything but small birds at a range of 50yds or so.
 
whirlingdervish said:
um.. the sniper rifle fires a .308 slug with a huge cartridge behind it.

IRL, that has much greater knockdown power than a 12ga shotgun due to the weight of the projectile, the increased speed at which it travels, and the way in which it transfers that energy to the surface it strikes all at once in one place.

at close range or long range, it's enough force to knock your head clean off, or knock you on your ass just by coming close to you.

it's actually quite realistic in terms of balance when compared to a shotgun thats only firing low speed, low weight projectiles that rapidly lose their energy and which cease being deadly to anything but small birds at a range of 50yds or so.
Click to expand...
This^

and yea the terms "over powered" or "unbalanced" dont apply in a sngileplayer game.
also atthat ranger camp charlie if you go on top of the buses the entire east becomes a shooting range just sit back and blow the heads of feral ghouls :twisted:
 
I,ve become addicted to killing random NCR soldiers with my suppressed sniper rifle. It's very easy to take them down without a reputation hit.
 
getting swarmed by Nightstalkers, for example, can seriously ruin your day.
Click to expand...

That's when you've gotta take out your crowd control gun ;)

The problem with sniper rifles is that .308 ammo is hard to come by
Click to expand...

Is it? I have seen plenty ingame; and almost every guns trader sells a bunch, even if there isn't a lot lying around. And there shouldn't be - you're not wasting as much ammo as with an automatic weapon. So, I'd hardly call it a shortage.
 
Yes the gun runners and pretty much every decent merchant has a lot of .308 ammo. What's really rare in this game is 45-70 GoV't making Brush Gun borderline useless despite it's the only gun that has better damage to AP ratio than Gobi Sniper rifle. The Gun Runners have 45-70 GoV't hollowpoint, mostly, which cannot be broken for casings and thus cannot be used to craft the hand load ammo. Which sucks.
 
True. 45-70 has mostly hollow point ammo for sell however, which works extremely well against targets up to 19 DT, by the way - outperforming the hand loader ammo and without the x3 gun CND drawback.

If someone is interested in maths:

Hollow point ammo will work better on regular shot even against well armored foes. It takes 19 DT to make damage of Brush Gun+Cowboy+Hollowpoint equal to Brush GUn+Cowoby+Hand Load ammo. With less DT the hollow point ammo does more damage and doesn't have the x3 gun CND drawback. It can be also bought from gun runners, although not in big quantities.

With critical damage it becomes way more powerful against ANY target unless it's 30+ DT.
 
AFAIK, none of these nerdy combat math breakdown conversations took place when fallout 3 came out. That sorta gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
 
Only found 45-70 GoV't hollowpoint so far and it just sucks against everything that wears an armor, which makes it pretty much useless if you don't want to fight molerats... and for this you don't need a Brush Gun.
 
19DT+ enemies aren't that common actually. Regular deathclaws have 15 DT for example. And you can use another gun against them. Brush gun with hollowpoint ammo and cowboy perk SHOULD outperform everything in VATS, actually... even the Gobi, going by math.

Not that it's a preferred choice of mine due to the ammo shortage, of course. And it needs a perk that has pretty annoying requirement (45 melee)
 
Overpowered and underpowered stuff in single player games never made sense to me. I'd save it for multiplayer games, in single you use whatever you want, because it's only you giving a rat's ass.
 
DForge said:
Gobi sniper rifle has a DPS of 536. No weapon can ever come close.
Click to expand...

I have 100 in Energy Weapons and with MF Cell OC's in my YCS/186, it does 583 DPS.

I always wondered what the hell was in that Very Hard locker in that place...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top