Sniping them for a sneak attack with handloaded .308s is pretty much your best case scenario. This is, I believe, why Guns are such a popular choice in the various "optimal build" arguments - because they deal well with one of the few really consistent threats in the game.

Multiplas (count it as a shotgun), Dinner Bell or Riot are perfectly capable of dealing with even biggest Deathclaws. I cleared up Legendary's cave with all three...

I got Living Anatomy on my guns character (80 in the skill by level 30) and I still had 70 medicine. Medicine is so underrated because as soon as you get Remnant Power Armor you don't need it, but throughout the rest of the game, it is very crucial to have. Anyways, my favorite perk is Jury Rigging.

Jury is by far the most useful

After about 2 hours of planning, I made a character that to my knowledge, had the highest possible skills and SPECIAL that can be reached in the game legitimately, and using the unarmed/melee perks he actually owned fairly hard with a chainsaw. So I wouldn't discredit those perks (Ninja, piercing stike, super slam, stonewall etc).

Care to post it?

With 10 AGI on my sniper I found the fast reloading perk to be handy....with an AMR it takes like 2x as long to chamber the next round as it does to reload or swap weapons.

Every perk has its use... well most anyway. I only use survival on my melee characters and that is on very hard/hardcoe. Pack rat is awesome when you are carrying .50 MG ammo types and ammo for your grenade machine gun.... Without it I can easily over burden myself just carrying adequate supplies of ammo.

I never use VATS except as melee... which you are forced to use it for special moves *LAME*, I find VATS wastes time and fights go so much faster just using crouch + aim.

VATS on the other hand can be handy with automatic weapons, the focused fire perk means you can spray automatic fire at an enemy a good distance away with acceptable accuracy. People never think of this.... but using a Mini-Gun from range and getting a sneak attack head shot in VATS is actually quite satisfying. You can see all of the bullets heading straight for their head with almost no spread.

If anyone can think of other supposedly "useless" perks I can come up with strategies that use them and are not eccentric.

I'll bite: Here and now. Swift learner.

Even better "Here and Now".

Swift learner can be used around Goodsprings to get you as much XP as possible and when you exit the area for the first time you can choose a different perk to replace it.

Here and Now can be taken if you do not have anything that do not care to pick at a level.... I used it once on a specialist sniper character because I did not feel the need to pick up another Intense Training stat just because I have no other options..... it is not pretty, but when you really have nothing else to choose why not?

At lvl 30 anything is better than here and now or swift learner... Even Meltdown.

I love meltdown! i just started using it. my only complaint is using it with rex...not the best idea when it melts your dog!

Jury Rigging is probably my pick as the best perk

I'm probably the 20th person here who can get behind the Jury Rigging perk. My only regret is that I got it at around level 26, which is rather late in the game. What makes it so handy is that I'm not a gambler and seldom have more than 9,000 caps on me at any given time; a small number when combat armor costs around 5,000 caps, etc.

Jury Rigging for sure, and Run 'n' Gun

First off, I had no idea what to expect from the game in terms of itemization, so Pack Rat seemed like an obvious choice for a hardcoe character. In retrospect, I could have gone either way.

For most of the game I had a 5 STR, so 200 weight limit. If I stripped down as much as I reasonably could, keeping 3-4 guns, armor, rad suit, some food/water, ammo, and a couple miscellaneous items (like the Caravan deck), I'd be around 80. I'd say about half of it was lightweight stuff that was affected by Pack Rat. Then, while exploring, often a huge percentage of what I'd gather would also be lighter-weight goods. Until the end of the game, I was constantly picking up any non-alcoholic drinks I saw (water, SS, cola), and sometimes alcoholic, all ammo, and any food that offered decent to good hunger reduction. There are also some weapons that are very light and thus affected by the perk.

Knowing what I know now, I could certainly have planned around Strong Back rather than Pack Rat. Or I could have just kept a companion the whole way; my FO3 experience made me take companions and set them to wait so I could sneak around alone, without realizing until I was 95% done that they're actually useful in this game. But, for all that, there were a number of occasions where Pack Rat helped more than Strong Back would have.

Right now i'm testing out different ideas, but I think I might have hit upon the "Loner" build.

MeltDown Perk
Demolition Perk
Radius Explosion Perk

Had the Meltdown perk and I think Demo 1 when I did veronica's I could make you care mission. Used the Alien Blaster on 1 Brotherhood of Steel Guy who attacked us. Well next thing I know *KABOOM* and there's 4 piles of ashes and Veronica is blown backwards into the damn door. :disguise: :whistling:

Needless to say i've since kept this perk and found it to be quite useful when taking care of enemies. The problem is as the title mentions this is a "Loner" perk and only suitable to have Ed-E. Also it is best that this perk only be used in regular mode not hardcoe mode since it would likely kill your companions.

For me however the best perk of all time is probably the Long Haul perk since it lets me carry a ton of stuff to my safe house at Jean Sky Diving.

I'd be torn between Hand Loader and Jury Rigging but would probably lean towards Jury Rigging as being the most useful perk overall.

Actually it is ery easy to get caps on this game. make the weapon repair kit. get the expensive weapon repair it full and sell it. do not repair it with the same weapon. i always have 10,000 caps eventhough i already pay the implant. try higher your barter skills. this is the legit way.

i always loot: wonderglue, wrench, electronics, duck tape, metal. to make the kit

Do you get more value for selling the WRK then repair weapon with it?

Add in finesse, commando, sniper, and intense training to build luck is awesome. By level 20 you are one shot killing deathclaws from sneak. Add in stealthgirl, and boones cap, and you are a killing machine from the shadows.

Eh, I use VATS exclusively, but always reload out of VATS between shots. Gives me something to do while my AP loads back up. I took Fast Reload, didnt really want anything else at 2nd level.

In terms of overall usefulness, I'd probably have to pick Jury Rigging - but in terms of my own personal favourites, I'd have to go with the ones that give you extra conversation options, i.e. Confirmed Bachelor and Ladies' Man for guys and Black Widow and Cherchez la Femme for girls. Leads to some genuinely hilarious dialogues at times.

Making weapon repair kits is a waste of time for high-speed low-drag characters. Searching every run-down shanty for extra wrenches is a waste of time for a power-build.

Or, let me explain it this way- when my first character I made in FONV got jury-rigging all those weapon repair kits became an inefficient method of keeping gear in top shape.

Now with my new chars, I don't even bother crafting them- as jury rigging takes less time and is a more efficient method. I literally never have to search around, or travel to a workbench, I don't need to "store" items- Jury rigging makes all this catch-and-ferry activity associated with weapon maintenance irrelevant.