Forum:My Current NV Build

Ok so this is my 4th run through on the PS3, as well as 7 characters on the PC, and ive decided to max my character as much as possible, thought this might be of use to people now that dead money is out, along with its additional skill books, allows you to almost max out your character.

Before anything patch up to recent and install Dead Money.

First up SPECIAL:-

This takes SPECIAL to 5, 1, 5, 3, 9, 9, 9, and allows for 5 implants to be taken. (Note if going for the legions lucky shades (+1 Luck) feel free to set initial luck to 8 and put the extra point into charisma.)

Already at this point your critical chance is good, using the easily and quickly obtainable 'That Gun', with weapon condition at 25 - 50 - 75 - 100%, critical hits outside af VATS are 7.5 - 15 - 22.5 - 30% (in VATS, 10.6 - 21.3 - 31.9 - 42.5%)...not bad but it could be better.

Tag skills: You will want to tag barter, guns and lockpick.

You will need to get to the med clinic ASAP (ideally before you get to level 5) and take the intelligence implant, and you will need to take the Educated perk at level 4. Assuming you can get to the med clinic and still be level 1, you will have a maximum of 572 skill points to spend building your character.

Implants to get:Strength, intelligence, agility, luck, sub-dermal armor (total cost 24,000 caps), this raises your special to 6, 1, 5, 3, 10, 10, 10, by taking the level 16 Weapon Handling perk you can efficiently field all weapons except the Minigun, CZ57 avenger, rebar club and ballistic fist...no big deal.

Ok, so theoretically if you could get all 5 implants and wear a +1PER hat, at level 1 your skills would be: HP 200, AP 95, Weight limit 210, DT 4.0, rad resist 8% Barter 28 E. weapons 9 Explosives 9 Guns 42 Lockpick 24 Medicine 27 Melee 19 Repair 27 Science 27 Sneak 27 Speech 13 Survival 17 Unarmed 17

...i say theoretically, try to get the intelligence implant early otherwise you lose 1 valuable skill point for every other level increase...and they all add up. I managed to get to the med clinic and get the perk before level 5, plus i had recruited Boone and ED-E so its do-able you just need to be persistant, and not discover too many places or kill too many people getting there.

There are 572 skill points, and 260 skill points from books (with comprehension, 195 without), thus reading all skill books as well as everything above gives a potential level 1 player at: Barter 48 E. weapons 29 Explosives 29 Guns 62 Lockpick 44 Medicine 47 Melee 39 Repair 47 Science 51 Sneak 47 Speech 33 Survival 33 Unarmed 37

Whilst still leaving 572 skill points to distribute as you wish, it is possible to get all skills to 86, which with skill books (and comprehension) means that you can easily 100 everything.

BUT WAIT!

Necessary clothing Kill Malcolm Holmes for his roving trader jacket and roving trader hat, you get +10 barter. Vault 3 utility jumpsuit grants +5 to lockpick and +5 repair. Naughty nightwear grants +10 speech. Followers lab coat grants +10 science and +10 medicine.

Skill limits (for quests) Barter - 80, roving trader jacket and hat (+10), reduce to 70. Energy-N/A Explosives-N/A Guns - 100 Lockpick - 100, if wearing a +1PER hat and vault 3 utility jumpsuit (+5), reduce to 93 (hat raises this to 95, then jumpsuit to 100). Medicine - 60, followers lab coat (+10), reduce to 50. Melee-N/A Repair - 80, vault 3 utility jumpsuit (+5), reduce to 75. Science - 100, followers lab coat (+10), reduce to 90. Sneak-N/A Speech - 100, naughty nightwear (+10), reduce to 90. Survival-N/A Unarmed-N/A

I compiled this just before dead money came out, and TBH i would really up the Energy weapon skill, after that sneak is always important. So if these are the max skills that you need for quests, given what you can get from books alone means you need to spend 238 skill points (i.e. minimum you can do this by is level 16) in these areas:- Barter 70-48=+22 E. weapons Explosives Guns 100-62=+38 Lockpick 95-44=+51 Medicine 50-47=+3 Melee Repair 75-47=+28 Science 90-51=+39 Sneak Speech 90-33=+57 Survival Unarmed

This still leaves 572-238= 334 skill points to distribute amongst everything. I would suggest getting energy weapons and sneak to 80 each (takes 84 skill points), raise medicine to 90 (40 skill points), barter to 90 (20 skill points) = 144 skill points, still leaving you 190 to play with.

This would leave you at (if you could equip all clothing at once): Barter 100 E. weapons 80 Explosives 29 Guns 100 Lockpick 100 Medicine 100 Melee 39 Repair 80 Science 100 Sneak 80 Speech 100 Survival 33 Unarmed 37

This would be your character at level 24...not too shabby.

SO getting back to Critical Chance! Along the way make sure to get:- 1st recon beret (+5%) Finesse perk (+5%) Light Touch perk (+5%) (with light armor) Added to the 13% that the character naturally gets gives a critical chance of 28% outside VATS (33% with VATS). To use 'That Gun' again at condition 25 - 50 - 75 - 100%, gives critical hits outside VATS of 17.5 - 35 - 52.5 - 70 (20.6 - 41.3 - 61.8 - 82.5 with VATS), in otherwords at 75% weapon condition outside of VATS every second shot hits critically.

To put this into perspective, outside VATS assuming 75% weapon condition (i.e. just at the repair/maintenance point) critical multipliers have the following effect: Weapon - crit multiplier - critical % Laser RCW - 0.5 - 11.5% (1 in 9) Hunting rifle - 1.0 - 21% (1 in 5) Cowboy repeater - 1.25 - 26.2% (1 in 4) Plasma pistol - 1.5 - 31.5% (almost 1 in 3) Gauss Rifle - 2.0 - 42% (2 in 5) That Gun - 2.5 - 52.5% (1 in 2) Ratslayer - 5.0 - 105% (as long as this rifle is at more than 72% condition, it always hits critically)

VATS increases these stats by 17.86%, i.e. Gauss rifle 42% outside VATS is 49.5% in VATS.

If you did not bother with the 1st recon beret or the light armor the gauss rifle would be reduced to 27% outside vats...so its roughly half if you decide to wear different armor.

This makes weapons like the YCS/186 particularly deadly, at 100 energy skill it will deal 140 damage per shot, if VATS shooting, and you have taken action boy/girl you can get off 3 shots and can guarantee (statistically speaking) one to hit critically, even with a fairly low weapon condition of 60% in VATS 3 shots should just guarantee a critical hit once. Thats 140 damage for two shots and a third hitting critically at 210 = 490 DAM, this is ignoring other factors that lower the impact damage, or that raise the DAM of the weapon. This is especially noticible when combining it with the 'max charge' microfusion cells...it can tear through deathclaws in seconds. A sneak attack critical, followed by 2 normal shots with max charge ammo (total hits for over 1000 DAM) will easilly finish off the legendary deathclaw at 850 hit points.

As for perks i would go for:- 2 Confirmed Bachelor 4 Educated 6 Comprehension 8 Bloody Mess 10 Commando 12 Finesse 14 Light Touch 16 Center of Mass 18 Weapon Handling 20 Cowboy 22 Grim Reaper's Sprint 24 Jury Rigging

That leaves you to choose 5 additional perks.

Ok thats me done, for now, let me know how you would improve this please. Cheers!