I am considering making a character who uses energy weapons but two things give me pause: first of all I've heard they were nerfed to the point of uselessness, is this true? And do ash piles still fail to disappear causing the game to be bogged down with time?

people say it but it really isn't true they still can be used a lot

That still doesn't answer my question of whether or not there are still permanent ash piles.

idk about ash and goo piles, sometimes i see places where i think they have dissapeared, other places i see that they remained there

And energy weapons have recently been buffed, not nerfed

guns are still reigning supreme, but with the latest patch's buff to EW, they are now actually really good, max charge/over charge are even more strong now with the -10/-5 dt ea shot, however, plasma piles still remain after melting an enemy, but ash piles do disappear

I know at the very least that the Laser RCW got upgraded after the patch. It was a svcktastic weapon before, now it's kinda decent for low-to-mid level characters.

I just started an EW character on HC / VH.
I did the level one run to vegas for the implant and silver rush robbery and am using the plasma defender. So far it works pretty good.
Ammo isn't as common as bullets, but you can find it though I've resorted to bulk ammo. Once I got my repair up to 50 I could make weapon repair kits because it is way too costly to repair and I'm no where near jury rigger.

The patch bumped up the power of EW in general, and gave the ammo some DT bypass so now enemy armor doesn't make them useless.

Energy weapon ammo costs 2-3x as much as normal ammo while doing around the same to lesser amounts of damage. The guns themselves degrade and need constant repair due to their low HP. Not to mention how rare energy weapons and their ammo is in the game. They are still underpowered IMO. Lore wise, they need to do much more damage too.

Not true, damage wise Plasma Pistol > .357 Magnum.
More damage per shot, more damage per second, and it can fire 16 times before reloading unlike the revolver, and the plasma weapon has a higher critical rate. Its still a cheap weapon so there should be no trouble paying for repairs if replacement parts are in short supply. And both weapons are early game.
A plasma pistol is durable enough to say wipe out the NCR prison

The laser rifle deals comparable damage to the marksman carbine, more damage if its upgraded and you optimize your critical rate. Not bad for a weapon available as early as Nipton. Vs a high level gun runners weapon.

For late in the game you have the AER14 laser rifle 36dmg a shot [40 with laser commando] and a x2 critical rate. Nothing like a highly accurate semi-automatic weapon that criticals 70% of the time or more if you've built your character right. [high luck, bones hat, finesse and of course laser commando] That's without using overcharged or maxed charged ammo.


Once again not actually true most of the ammo vendors also carry energy ammo now and you can convert ammo back and forth to suit your needs.

Do you even have the 1.2 patch?

I'd say Energy Weapons are fine as they are now. Yes, it wouldn't be easy to play an EW only character in the beginning, but after all it's the wasteland, you're not supposed to find energy weapons and ammo for them left and right. Such weapons and ammunition aren't easily manufactured, hence the high price, so it all makes sense. It wouldn't, of course, if they were underpowered, but I don't think they are (at least on Hard difficulty). Personally, I was tearing things apart with my plasma rifle early in the game and then up until the end with its unique version. Granted, I wasn't using solely EW, but only because of costly repairs, and I think that's a good balance.

Not very practical (yet more that possible) to have as main weapons, but they are great as supplementary arms. During my first playthrough I enjoyed them a lot, and they were my weapon of choice in mid-tough and tough situations. I can't possibly see what is wrong with them.

The early game enemies are weak enough that even the recharger rifle is sufficient to get you to Vegas. By then you could have picked up the Q-Matter Rifle. Or even gotten just a laser rifle with scope and optic focus. You might even get lucky and fine a recharger pistol on a dead bright follower, and that weapon deals decent early game damage with unlimited ammo you just have to pace yourself a little.

I was talking about my experience as a newcomer to the game and I've still found EW to be extremely good, while just flowing with the game. If you have some background info on the game and a strict plan of actions in the beginning, then, by the looks of it, you can just forget about Guns altogether.

Energy Weapons are very very usable after the last patch. Just finished a playthrough with a character solely based on them, and it worked like a charm. Never had problems with ammo, either.

First off hardcoe or casual? in hardcoe the weaight of your ammo will be a BIG issue. each shot of a laser pistol weighs as much as a 12 gauge shell. each shot of a plsma pistol wesighs almost as much as an enti material rifle shot.

1 shot of a multiplas or tribeam will weigh as much as a stick of dynamite.

The clip from a plasma pistol wesighs as much as the pistol. So every time you reload thats 3 lb of ammo you needed.

Also the point where you can break even on a kill from loot is VERY different so you have to wait a good number of levels before you can be comforable firing away.

Still it works out in the end.. not as powerful as guns overall by a long shot but they are fun and work out.

As for ash piles.. some will hang around for a LOOONG time but even on my cheap [censored] laptop they dont slow me down and yes they do poof from time to time.

EW are ok after patch. On par with weapons or above in damage. They still have some drawbacks like scarcity of repair, expensive and heavy ammo and they degrade fast. But generally very playable.

There is mod on NV nexus which prevents targets from disintegrating in to piles. Aura effect is still there. It solves problem with ash/goo piles.

Still suffer a bit of weight issue in HC, but in normal it is superior on the high end.

With the right build any weapon type will be effective, which is why I am testing them on a neutral build. Energy weapons in lore are supposed to be rare and expensive, not to mention how often they need repair, however they make up for it in terms of damage they are supposed to. Guns and their ammo are much more frequently encountered and they both last longer. The problem is that they do similar amounts of damage, when they aren't supposed to. I think the patch did a good job in making them more equal, but with the draw backs of E weps, they should be stronger than guns without relying on crits.

I still think EW suffer from DT. AP ammo for guns is cheap and plentiful - and it wont break your gun. The darn Gatling Laser is a kids toy now- extremely weak even with Max Charge. Way outclassed by the Minigun with AP ammo

Edit: Even the Light Machine Gun with AP can drop a Deathclaw faster then the Gatling Laser with Max Charge.....

:violin:

Though the Tesla Cannon with Max Charge can two shot a Deathclaw. Can you tell I use Deathclaws as my test subjects?

The AER14 can can drop a deathclaw with overcharge and a few head shots, not counting sneak attacks.

Anything can drop a deathclaw, given the right build, but can it drop one quicker than its gun equivalent? The all-american using AP rounds, or even more powerful guns. The point of energy weapons is that they degrade fast, they are costly and they are rare but they make up for it in their firepower. This is not the case as that guy explained. Why would the US military be in the process of upgrading to them if they did the same amount of damage as guns?

^^ I agree with that. Overall the Guns weapons just seem better then the Energy Weapons. Even though EW have a slight edge with certain weapons. Still, guns are better.

Because the wastelanders don't know how to use them the way they are intended? You have to remember the EW we have access to my no be calibrated to be "Commie Murder".

Anyways, Incinerator is all you need to clear out the Quarry.

I'm trying to figure out how much of a dt reduction would be optimal for them.
Right now I have :
Normal: -7
OC: -10
MC: -15
Is that too powerful? It makes the game much easier but I'm not sure if it is too much.

Grab a YCS early on... 2 cells per shot, extremely accurate and can pretty much 1 shot everything with normal ammo through mid game. Need I say more? By the end you can have near 100% crit with PewPew, is very accurate and that can 1 shot everything through mid level using surplus ammo. Q-35 has a very high crit rate, 1 cell per shot, very accurate and does enough damage to sneak kill most things in the game.

EDIT: Vigilant Recycler and Pack Rat really help... but having a companion or 2 as pack mules works

They got it right with guns - make some ammo bypass DT and some ammo do extra damage without the DT bypass. Make OC the AP round and MC the hollowpoint round. Leave normal alone.