Post by Hubartthemad on Jan 25, 2016 16:03:43 GMT
Leveling tank
Suitable for low-resource leveling
This is a highly resilient, relatively cheap-to-level tank build. It requires you to gather some drugs, as your addictions will make you very slow when you don't have them. See below for specific instructions on getting them. Why drugs? Because they make you far more efficient and resilient. Less death=less regear and interruptions=less gear farming=more leveling boom boom).
Stat point allocation:
Str 5 (for adrenaline rush)
Perception 6
Endurance 10 (more hp means less death means more fun fun fun)
Charisma 1 (if you aint ugly we will tease you - AND it's a useless stat pretty much)
Intelligence 6 (for swift learner and fast stat points)
Agility 9 (get that nuka cola)
Luck 3 (not many bypasses, , not much critting)
Traits:
Chem reliant (you grinds will be long. Let those drugs get their max effect!)
Loner (if you want a brahmin or slaves, make an alt. Get that extra XP!)
Some will tell you to take small frame for the extra stat point. This is a leveling/grinding tank, and the reduced carry weight from that trait is a bit annoying. Grab that loot!)
Skills tags:
Tag: Small guns
Tag: Big guns
Tag: First aid
The tags are up to debate, but I like to be able to use big and small guns for this kind of multi-purpose leveling character - it allows you to use whatever you find. Also, the LSW/XL gun setup for precise long range and super efficient point blank shooting is great in my opinion. First aid is well worth getting to 200 for super short cooldown and a LOT of HP healed, but don't get it all the way up there before your basic skills are in place.
Skill point allocation:
You need to get your science to 50 to take the Swift Learner perk for 10% extra xp (wiki it - the book seller in Hub has the perk). Try to gather some science books for this, you want those skill points from leveling working on the combat skills and kill stuff ASAP.
Focus either big or small guns to start with - until it is at least 180. You will need one of them at 200 before level 30 to get that More Ranged Damage perk. Personally I focus Big Guns until at least 180 (helps with m60'ing ghouls early), then some first aid or small guns, then some doc (you want that at 100 at some point).
When you have the points available, consider getting lockpick up to at least 100 - you need lockpick for the (repeatable!) gunrunners mutant quest (your main income source for a long time). If you don't want lockpick skill and you are able to dual log, you can make a dedicated lockpick character for unlocking the stuff in there. You cannot complete the quest without lockpicking.
It is a great advantage to get books for your skills - 10 for each. First aid, small guns, outdoorsman books help you a lot if you can get them early, but all books are nice to get. Once you are higher level you will really feel the skill point gain from the high INT and your skills will be very high.
Perks:
Level 3: Adrenaline rush
Level 6: Toughness
Level 9: Even tougher
Level 12: Lifegiver
Level 15: Lifegiver
Level 18: Bonus rate of fire - requires your big or small guns skill to be at least 180!
Level 21: More ranged damage - requires 200 gun skill big or small / or energy weapons, but that is not your focus (or take bonus ranged damage if you haven't gotten gun skill to 200 yet)
Level 24: Bonus ranged damage (or More ranged damage if you didn't take that at 21)
you can wait with taking last perk until level 29, the last perk point will remain. IF you level to 30, however, it will be lost if unspent.
As soon as you hit level 6, you will want to grab the Pack Rat and Strong back support perks for a lot of extra carry weight. Go ungeared and take a trip to Redding and Broken Hills for those. Look them up in the wiki.
Drugs: Psycho, Cigarettes, Nuka Cola
Psycho: get it from the gun shop in the Hub's market area or from a bar in the other towns. The gun shop takes a variety of items in trade, particularly energy weapons, but the one easiest at hand is rope. Get a knife, go to the fiber field in the Hub (it's down the road from the entrance, right side). Get fiber, make ropes, trade for psycho.
Nuka Cola: Bars have it for sale via conversation. Go to the Skum Pitt in Junktown and strike up a convo with the guy there. You can input number to buy with the "say" button or just choose the preset number options. This item costs 100 caps a dose. You can craft it if you like, check the wiki for that - but caps aren't too hard to get.
Cigarettes: The third drug is not a vital part of this, but it IS really nice to get the extra perception to see what is going on. Psycho reduces per by 2, cigarettes give 1 per back.
Go to the tobacco farm. Harvest tobacco plants. Put them in the cigarette machine that is in the location. Use science on the machine (default hotkey 7). Grab the cigarettes.
WARNING: tobacco farm is a pvp area and is occasionally visited by people that want to score some easy smokes. It might be a good idea to set up a tent close by and drop off cigarettes as you make them - if you are found you are probably killed.
Lighters: Cigarettes are great but require a lighter to use. The dwarf-looking gun seller in NCR (Shady Sands) sells those after you do a job for him and the lady in the Rawhide bar in the same town.
All your drugs will last 60 minutes instead of the regular 30. You will get addicted to them at first use. If you take a wrong drug or just want to chill back and be clean a while, there are drug antidotes available at bars/the Hub gunshop. They will clear your addictions but are relatively expensive).
Main leveling weapons
M60: Big gun. Highly efficient on low-armor targets. The ghouls around Necropolis east of the Hub die well from this.
Advantages: Relatively easy to craft. 10-round bursts with very high per-bullet damage. Works well at mid-range against tight groups. If you can get the targets lined up you will see 2 or 3 splatter in one burst at times. Fun!
Disadvantages: Very hungry gun. You will go through the (for a new player hard to get) ammo very fast. Consider bringing a pistol sidearm for finishing off low hp opponents, the m60 has no single shot capacity. Another disadvantage is that this gun does not have superior armor penetration and thus lower efficiency against well-armored targets
XL70E3: Small gun. This is your point-blank weapon. Can be replaced by various other small gun burst weapons until you get your hands on it.
The XL has some spread if you aren't firing at point blank range.
Advantages: Uses the very common 5mm ammo, and can load JHP or AP. Has good per-bullet damage. Uses less action points than the m60 per burst, allowing 2 bursts in 1 turn (with bonus rate of fire). With AP ammo this gun can kill players with ease at point blank - try it out in Hinkley.
Disadvantages: Hard to craft, a bit expensive to buy.
HK P90c: Lovely 1-handed submachinegun with burst and single mode. Uses 10mm ammo which is easy to craft. Can use JHP or AP. A bit less damage than the XL, but uses a bit less action points as well and still spits 15 rounds per burst.
Advantages: 1-handed gun, so you can still fire it if your arm gets crippled. Very useful if your doc skill is still low. The ammo is easy to craft. Consumes less action points than the XL70E3 to fire, and can thus allow 2 bursts per tun even before you get your bonus rate of fire perk.
Disadvantages: Requires advanced workbench, advanced resources and blueprint to craft/a bit expensive to buy. Damage output is a bit less than the XL70E3.
Light Support Weapon: Long range, good penetration, no spread. This is a great gun for grinding, but it is a single-target gun. Watch out with lines of fire if friendlies are around, but apart from that this gun hits its target with all 5 rounds in a burst. This gun does not benefit from point blank shooting since all bullets usually hit the target at range anyway.
Advantages: Precise shooting. Good penetration. 2 bursts per turn at 10 action points. 5-round bursts means less ammo use than the other burst guns.
Disadvantages: The .223 ammo it uses can be a bit hard to get in the start. Get it from ghouls by necropolis or try trading with players. Also, this gun does not benefit from point blank range - that's where you pull out your XL70E3.
Other guns? Sure, grab what you can. Go for guns that can burst. Your DPS is based on added damage per bullet, not on critical hits, so most energy weapons aren't your cup of tea - thus the lack of focus on energy weaopn skill (yes, the gatling laser has burst - but most pve monsters have way too good laser resist for it to be a viable pve weapon).
So what do I do to level
Lv 1-3: Shovel shit and carry crates in the Hub. Remember to do the tent quest when you reach level 2.
Lv 4-10:
Do the quest for radscorpion eggs at the doc in junktown. Nice Xp and gets you a perk for radiation and poison resist. Lovely! After that, go kill stuff. If you can get your hands on m60's and ammo - or other good grind guns - go say hi to the ghouls around necropolis. Be careful for now, they will hurt!
At level 10 you will have access to the caravans. The most stable caravan route is the one the Gunrunners Caravan travels, it goes NCR-Hub-Gunrunners fortress back and forth, back and forth. If you have an XL at this point you will want to go for point blank shooting the ever-present endless walkers that you encounter there. Go for spear guys first. The caravans can be your main leveling thing for many many levels, or you can go kill whatever you want in the wastes.
So do I play realtime or turnbased?
Well, there's a debatable topic. I say learn to realtime as fast as possible - you are tanky and can take a hit. Turnbased is slower and doesnt fit well with your action points for shooting twice per turn until level 18. Also....turnbased means you are in encounter longer, increasing the chance of hostile invasion a lot. ALWAYS go in, do your thing, and out as fast as possible - every second you are in an encounter increases your chance of being murdered by players that find you.
Gear Income
As soon as you are level 15 you can start doing the repeatable gunrunners mutant quest. It has short cooldown (6-8 hours?). See other guides in forum for best approach. The loot from there can be traded at gunrunners for Combat Armors Mk2, ammo, XL70E3 guns etc. etc., and it has plenty 5mm ap ammo and some .223 - good for your main grind weapons. Consider setting up a tent next to the quest location to dump gear in, the quest is always in same location.
Suitable for low-resource leveling
This is a highly resilient, relatively cheap-to-level tank build. It requires you to gather some drugs, as your addictions will make you very slow when you don't have them. See below for specific instructions on getting them. Why drugs? Because they make you far more efficient and resilient. Less death=less regear and interruptions=less gear farming=more leveling boom boom).
Stat point allocation:
Str 5 (for adrenaline rush)
Perception 6
Endurance 10 (more hp means less death means more fun fun fun)
Charisma 1 (if you aint ugly we will tease you - AND it's a useless stat pretty much)
Intelligence 6 (for swift learner and fast stat points)
Agility 9 (get that nuka cola)
Luck 3 (not many bypasses, , not much critting)
Traits:
Chem reliant (you grinds will be long. Let those drugs get their max effect!)
Loner (if you want a brahmin or slaves, make an alt. Get that extra XP!)
Some will tell you to take small frame for the extra stat point. This is a leveling/grinding tank, and the reduced carry weight from that trait is a bit annoying. Grab that loot!)
Skills tags:
Tag: Small guns
Tag: Big guns
Tag: First aid
The tags are up to debate, but I like to be able to use big and small guns for this kind of multi-purpose leveling character - it allows you to use whatever you find. Also, the LSW/XL gun setup for precise long range and super efficient point blank shooting is great in my opinion. First aid is well worth getting to 200 for super short cooldown and a LOT of HP healed, but don't get it all the way up there before your basic skills are in place.
Skill point allocation:
You need to get your science to 50 to take the Swift Learner perk for 10% extra xp (wiki it - the book seller in Hub has the perk). Try to gather some science books for this, you want those skill points from leveling working on the combat skills and kill stuff ASAP.
Focus either big or small guns to start with - until it is at least 180. You will need one of them at 200 before level 30 to get that More Ranged Damage perk. Personally I focus Big Guns until at least 180 (helps with m60'ing ghouls early), then some first aid or small guns, then some doc (you want that at 100 at some point).
When you have the points available, consider getting lockpick up to at least 100 - you need lockpick for the (repeatable!) gunrunners mutant quest (your main income source for a long time). If you don't want lockpick skill and you are able to dual log, you can make a dedicated lockpick character for unlocking the stuff in there. You cannot complete the quest without lockpicking.
It is a great advantage to get books for your skills - 10 for each. First aid, small guns, outdoorsman books help you a lot if you can get them early, but all books are nice to get. Once you are higher level you will really feel the skill point gain from the high INT and your skills will be very high.
Perks:
Level 3: Adrenaline rush
Level 6: Toughness
Level 9: Even tougher
Level 12: Lifegiver
Level 15: Lifegiver
Level 18: Bonus rate of fire - requires your big or small guns skill to be at least 180!
Level 21: More ranged damage - requires 200 gun skill big or small / or energy weapons, but that is not your focus (or take bonus ranged damage if you haven't gotten gun skill to 200 yet)
Level 24: Bonus ranged damage (or More ranged damage if you didn't take that at 21)
you can wait with taking last perk until level 29, the last perk point will remain. IF you level to 30, however, it will be lost if unspent.
As soon as you hit level 6, you will want to grab the Pack Rat and Strong back support perks for a lot of extra carry weight. Go ungeared and take a trip to Redding and Broken Hills for those. Look them up in the wiki.
Drugs: Psycho, Cigarettes, Nuka Cola
Psycho: get it from the gun shop in the Hub's market area or from a bar in the other towns. The gun shop takes a variety of items in trade, particularly energy weapons, but the one easiest at hand is rope. Get a knife, go to the fiber field in the Hub (it's down the road from the entrance, right side). Get fiber, make ropes, trade for psycho.
Nuka Cola: Bars have it for sale via conversation. Go to the Skum Pitt in Junktown and strike up a convo with the guy there. You can input number to buy with the "say" button or just choose the preset number options. This item costs 100 caps a dose. You can craft it if you like, check the wiki for that - but caps aren't too hard to get.
Cigarettes: The third drug is not a vital part of this, but it IS really nice to get the extra perception to see what is going on. Psycho reduces per by 2, cigarettes give 1 per back.
Go to the tobacco farm. Harvest tobacco plants. Put them in the cigarette machine that is in the location. Use science on the machine (default hotkey 7). Grab the cigarettes.
WARNING: tobacco farm is a pvp area and is occasionally visited by people that want to score some easy smokes. It might be a good idea to set up a tent close by and drop off cigarettes as you make them - if you are found you are probably killed.
Lighters: Cigarettes are great but require a lighter to use. The dwarf-looking gun seller in NCR (Shady Sands) sells those after you do a job for him and the lady in the Rawhide bar in the same town.
All your drugs will last 60 minutes instead of the regular 30. You will get addicted to them at first use. If you take a wrong drug or just want to chill back and be clean a while, there are drug antidotes available at bars/the Hub gunshop. They will clear your addictions but are relatively expensive).
Main leveling weapons
M60: Big gun. Highly efficient on low-armor targets. The ghouls around Necropolis east of the Hub die well from this.
Advantages: Relatively easy to craft. 10-round bursts with very high per-bullet damage. Works well at mid-range against tight groups. If you can get the targets lined up you will see 2 or 3 splatter in one burst at times. Fun!
Disadvantages: Very hungry gun. You will go through the (for a new player hard to get) ammo very fast. Consider bringing a pistol sidearm for finishing off low hp opponents, the m60 has no single shot capacity. Another disadvantage is that this gun does not have superior armor penetration and thus lower efficiency against well-armored targets
XL70E3: Small gun. This is your point-blank weapon. Can be replaced by various other small gun burst weapons until you get your hands on it.
The XL has some spread if you aren't firing at point blank range.
Advantages: Uses the very common 5mm ammo, and can load JHP or AP. Has good per-bullet damage. Uses less action points than the m60 per burst, allowing 2 bursts in 1 turn (with bonus rate of fire). With AP ammo this gun can kill players with ease at point blank - try it out in Hinkley.
Disadvantages: Hard to craft, a bit expensive to buy.
HK P90c: Lovely 1-handed submachinegun with burst and single mode. Uses 10mm ammo which is easy to craft. Can use JHP or AP. A bit less damage than the XL, but uses a bit less action points as well and still spits 15 rounds per burst.
Advantages: 1-handed gun, so you can still fire it if your arm gets crippled. Very useful if your doc skill is still low. The ammo is easy to craft. Consumes less action points than the XL70E3 to fire, and can thus allow 2 bursts per tun even before you get your bonus rate of fire perk.
Disadvantages: Requires advanced workbench, advanced resources and blueprint to craft/a bit expensive to buy. Damage output is a bit less than the XL70E3.
Light Support Weapon: Long range, good penetration, no spread. This is a great gun for grinding, but it is a single-target gun. Watch out with lines of fire if friendlies are around, but apart from that this gun hits its target with all 5 rounds in a burst. This gun does not benefit from point blank shooting since all bullets usually hit the target at range anyway.
Advantages: Precise shooting. Good penetration. 2 bursts per turn at 10 action points. 5-round bursts means less ammo use than the other burst guns.
Disadvantages: The .223 ammo it uses can be a bit hard to get in the start. Get it from ghouls by necropolis or try trading with players. Also, this gun does not benefit from point blank range - that's where you pull out your XL70E3.
Other guns? Sure, grab what you can. Go for guns that can burst. Your DPS is based on added damage per bullet, not on critical hits, so most energy weapons aren't your cup of tea - thus the lack of focus on energy weaopn skill (yes, the gatling laser has burst - but most pve monsters have way too good laser resist for it to be a viable pve weapon).
So what do I do to level
Lv 1-3: Shovel shit and carry crates in the Hub. Remember to do the tent quest when you reach level 2.
Lv 4-10:
Do the quest for radscorpion eggs at the doc in junktown. Nice Xp and gets you a perk for radiation and poison resist. Lovely! After that, go kill stuff. If you can get your hands on m60's and ammo - or other good grind guns - go say hi to the ghouls around necropolis. Be careful for now, they will hurt!
At level 10 you will have access to the caravans. The most stable caravan route is the one the Gunrunners Caravan travels, it goes NCR-Hub-Gunrunners fortress back and forth, back and forth. If you have an XL at this point you will want to go for point blank shooting the ever-present endless walkers that you encounter there. Go for spear guys first. The caravans can be your main leveling thing for many many levels, or you can go kill whatever you want in the wastes.
So do I play realtime or turnbased?
Well, there's a debatable topic. I say learn to realtime as fast as possible - you are tanky and can take a hit. Turnbased is slower and doesnt fit well with your action points for shooting twice per turn until level 18. Also....turnbased means you are in encounter longer, increasing the chance of hostile invasion a lot. ALWAYS go in, do your thing, and out as fast as possible - every second you are in an encounter increases your chance of being murdered by players that find you.
Gear Income
As soon as you are level 15 you can start doing the repeatable gunrunners mutant quest. It has short cooldown (6-8 hours?). See other guides in forum for best approach. The loot from there can be traded at gunrunners for Combat Armors Mk2, ammo, XL70E3 guns etc. etc., and it has plenty 5mm ap ammo and some .223 - good for your main grind weapons. Consider setting up a tent next to the quest location to dump gear in, the quest is always in same location.