This is what bothers me, there are no good perks you can build towards like you could in fallout 3 The best perks have been toned down and some perks have been made a little bit better.

look at these perks/traits:

fast shot: less action points
Kamikaze: 10 more action points
Action boy/ girl: more action points
Action boy/girl rank 2: more action points again
grim reapers sprint: you gain 25 action points upon killing your enemy
math wrath: 10% less action points
plasma spazz:: 10%less action points for energy weapons
nerves of steel: faster action point regeneration

hug? Anyone notice the pattern to ?

Also the perks with ridiculous prerequisites ! Omg !

living anatomy:
This would be good for a guns character. But who has 70 points in medicine if you are not melee ?

Cowboy:
You also need 45 in melee. Why ? So a hatchet or a knife does more damage ? You are not gone use that, ever.

And the unarmed melee combination of perks. Fun right ? Wrong.

Nah, sure there are a lot of perks. But none stand out and most are dull.

And why computers wizz, and infiltrator are still here. Beats me.

Yeah, the game was rigged from the start alright.


small frame: 3 more action points, rofl

i do, im guns.

I respectfully disagree. I've had 80 points in Medicine with a gunslinger character - Stimpacks and Rad Away kick much butt with that kind of skill.

I use throwing hatchets and knives. Cowboy perk is very excellent for a themed character - take that with Shotgun Surgeon and a Lever Action shotgun? It's pretty sweet.

Seems strange that your focus is on the perks and not the character. But maybe that's just me.

I like Friend of the Night, Silent Running and Finesse. Can't pick a Best Perk though. Don't think that's the point anyway.

Jury Rigging

This. So far its been the most usefull perk. When my remnants armor gets low all I have to do is find some metal armor and its fixed.

This.

Repairing my .44 with 10mm pistols for the win.

Slayer- Req: Lvl 24, AG 7, Unarmed 90. Effect: The speed of all your melee and unarmed attacks is increased by 30%.

^ That makes me mad enough to hit something. WHAT MELEE BASED CHARACTER WILL HAVE 7 AGILITY?! I really could have used that for my Explosive/Melee beserker, who just happens to be named Brick... No Borderlands reference there at all .

Anyway, I really like the Jury Rigging perk, saves me alot of caps.

The most useful perk ever.
(helps me keep my power-armor and expensive weapons well repaired without breaking my bank)

The single best perk out there is Travel Light. Imagine you play FNV for 10 hours. With this perk and wearing a light armor instead of combat armor, you save 2 hours (!!!) worth of running compared to if you ran in Combat Armor. There isn't a single action in this entire game you'd do more often than running, so why not boost it. Hotkey heavier armor in case you are in trouble and voila.

Lever-Action Shotgun, Ranger Sequoia, Brush Gun, scoped Trail Carbine and Chance's Knife make Cowboy very feasible for the entire game - even if a tad slow at firing rate, you are perfectly capable of dealing with most annoying enemies with those guns. Even with STR 6 and Melee 50 (it requires only 5 points above what Cowboy itself requires in Melee) Chance's Knife can crit you into a victory over almost all creatures out there. If you have Finesse, Better Criticals, Boone's hat, very solid Luck and do it in VATS, it's almost certain you will crit with it.

Jury Rigging and Sandman=)

I have none of those perks.

Traits
Small Frame - +1 SPECIAL on character creation. The penalty is easy to counter by not taking lots of damage in the first place. With hardcoe mode off the penalty is meaningless.

Trigger Discipline - Accuracy is greater than rate of fire.

Perks
2: Rapid Reload
4: Educated
6: Comprehension
8: Strong Back
10: Cowboy
12: Hand Loader
14: Silent Running
16: Better Criticals
18: Entomologist
20: Shotgun Surgeon
22: Weapon Handling
24: Adamantium Skeleton
26: Toughness
28: Toughness
30: Pack Rat (or whatever)

If I don't plan on using lever action weapons allot I can swap out Rapid Reload and Cowboy for something else.

Anyway, for the best perk it's hard to say. For me it's Better Criticals, but a pacifist character would have little use for it.

Educated, Comprehension, Pack Rat, and Jury Rigging are all awesome perks.

whatchutalkinboutwillis

Educated and travel light are about the oly perks that go on every one of my characters.

How about you took Int. Training at lvl 2 and instead of wasting a full trait on +1 AGI took something you can't otherwise have like Good Natured skill bonus, Trigger Discipline, Fast Shot or even Built to Destroy? Rapid Reload is among most useless perks in this entire game.

Getting lots of Doctor's Bags and Hydra is pretty irritating even without Small Frame and with Adamantium.

Definitely the Jury Rigging perk. All the other ones they have just seem rather average and blah to me. And some of the requirements for them are not quite right. Some of them just seem to be a little ...off.

Rapid reload is far, far from useless in FNV. It's probably the best level 2 perk you can get if you take a cowboy or sniper character on very hard.

It's only 25%. To make this useful it should at least halve the time of reload - resembling Mordecai's skill in Borderlands. Intense training can help here far more, even if it's in Charisma boosting companion damage by 5%...

Ya, it's only 25%. So? It's also only a level 2 perk.

It doesn't even affect reload AP cost in VATS... It's a bad one.

If I'm having to reload, I'm probably also moving backwards and using VATs would be a mistake anyway since it freezes you in place. You can just as easilly reload while you walk backwards.

I'm currently playing a sneak and snipe character so Better Criticals is awesome for me.

Hard decision but these are the other ones that were fighting for first place:
Jury Rigging is a close second for keeping my long guns in good condition without spending (censored) loads of caps for repairs.
Hand loader (gotta love that upgraded ammo)

Umm....All the lever action weapons, revolvers and the hunting shotgun are painful to reload in mid fight. The perk makes a huge difference then. I did mention it can be dropped if those weapons won't be used much.


For the small frame trait. http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3205/pipboyshot.jpg screenshot shows exactly why the penalty isn't a big deal. That's on Normal+hardcoe settings so on VH, at the same point, the numbers would be abit over double that. I've had crippled limbs a grand total of three times with that character. Don't take much damage, the penalty doesn't matter and the trait is nearly a free SPECIAL point on character creation.

Okay. Also, why no Jury Rigging?

A stockpile of over 40 Weapon Repair Kits for starters. Long as I can still acquire the parts to make new ones and don't waste the ones I have weapons are covered. Caps from the selling of extra high end armor/weapons I don't need should be enough for armor repairs. What else is over 100k caps good for near the end of the game except for making tons of 12 gauge coin shot?

Jury rigging is a nice perk and it removes allot of the effort in keeping your gear fixed, but you are not going to lose the game for not picking it.

Jury Rigging will let you make tens of thousands of caps by repairing almost broke expensive weapons like 10mm sub machine guns and .45s with cheap .38s and 9mm guns.

Hand loading lets you make +50% damage .308s for your sniper rifle.