Forum:Gun Character Build Ideas?

I dont know what SPECIAL stats to use or what traits/perks are recommended, im intrested in sniping but also close quarter combat.

First decide if you are going VATS or not.

For snipers the effective strength break-point is 8 (after implant and food/drug buffs and power armor and weapon handling perk) for the Anti-Materiel Rifle. The AM Rifle is not essential however and a more stealthy sniper much prefers to use the sniper rifle with silencer. Recommendation is set STR to 5 at start and get the implant to increase it to 6, if you find you are using the AM Rifle lots or some heavy weapon then you can later pick up the weapon handling perk and wear power armor to get STR up to 10, while buffout and STR enhancing food work fine to increase strength for occasional use of the AM Rile/heavy weapons.

Perception for snipers is key. The better critical perk is a massive damage increase to snipers and requires a perception of 6 (unbuffed except for the implant). Set at 5 at start and buy implant to raise it to 6, or set at 6 to start and get 4-eyes trait (lowers it by 1) and implant to 6.

Endurance for snipers has one significant purpose for snipers, determines how many implants you can have. It has other benefits as well and there is no justification from a min-max point of view for setting it below 5, allowing you to buy the implants for the other 6 special stats - up to 6 points, a point of endurance can be converted to a point of the other stat AND a point of endurance, you give up next to nothing to get it. Note that an endurance implant does not let you have another implant. Recommendation is to set endurance to a minimum of 5, see charisma for why 5 is the recommendation and not 6.

Charisma is interesting. Most players consider it a waste stat which can be left at 1. This means you can save an implant slot from endurance on the charisma implant. The primary effect of charisma in the game is to improve your companions, and it isn't game breaking. You can set charisma at 1 and leave it if you think other stats are more important to you, or you can raise it if that seems wrong. No recomendation.

Intelligence is ugh. There is no great need for a high intelligence and an intelligence of 4 allows you to pick up the one perk considered essential, comprehension. If you slime your way to New Vegas and get the intelligence implant at level 1, you can set it to 3 and not notice. If you are taking the more normal route to New Vegas then you want to set it to 4 at start to get comprehension at level 4. Recommendation is to set intelligence to 4 at start, play through the storyline and implant it to 5 later. While it is not game destroying to set intelligence at 4 to start or 3 and get the implant at level 1 which allows you to forgo the implant and save a point of endurance, having an intelligence of 4 raised to 5 gives you a more slack for character development as your character levels.

Agility depends on your playstyle. Technically if you never use VATS you can set it to 1 and leave it, the perks which require agility are either VATS related or non-essential. If you are a nova-hot non-VATS player and want to min-max stats then set it to 1 and leave it, it you are a mere mortal then a mid-level agility comes in very handy when you need VATS. If you use VATS alot you should have a high agility, setting it to 9 at start (or 8 if you chose the small frame trait) and implanting it to 10 is perfectly reasonable. Recommendation set at start to 9 (or 8) for a VATS player, set to 5 at start and implant for an occasional VATS player and not recommended set to 1 and have fun if you are too good to use VATS.

Luck is the stat for leftover stat points. The recommended maximum is 8, an implant can raise it to 9 and the lucky shades can raise it an additional point to 10 - note that the lucky shades require Caesar's Legion reputation. The recommended minimum is initially 5, implanted to 6 so that you can get the better critical perk.

Traits:

traits are pretty obvious choices but with notes. Wild Wasteland is pretty useless from a min-max point of view and doesn't have enough triggering points to make it a good role playing choice, ignore it until your 3rd playthrough when you want to see the few changes it makes in the game. Good natured is better than it looks at first, as a guns character you will not be using unarmed, melee, explosives or energy weapons skills while all characters will be using the buffed skills -basically it is 15 extra skill points. Fast shot accuracy loss does not seem to affect non-VATS shots (which should be most of your sniper shots).

Perks:


 * 1) 1 perk for gun characters that should not be overlooked - Handloading. The most beneficial perk for any guns character.  Once you get this perk and start using hand-loaded ammo you will wonder how you got by without it.  As an added bonus the perk requires 70 repair skill so in getting it you also gain the repair skill necessary to make weapon repair kits which are also great.  If some battle is too tough for you with vanilla ammo, stop by a reloading bench and whip up some overcharged ammo and see how much easier it is.

The only other two essential perks are comprehension & better criticals. There are lots of useful perks, but you ost definitely want those.75.67.224.12 21:37, July 8, 2011 (UTC)