The Alien Blaster has something like 170 shots. Each shot is enough to kill almost any enemy in the game on Normal. I one shot both Lanius and Deathclaw Mother with it.

You won't fight deathclaws using Guns without a sniper, either. Generally that's how you fight them in this game.

It's a bit annoying that Melee/UA/Guns/Explosives are all just as viable as Energy Weapons. If I'd known that I wouldn't have wasted my skill points doing what I did in the first two games which was to level guns and energy weapons at the same time so that when you come across the amazing eweapons later you're already trained for them. However, the Gauss Rifle is an energy weapon...and despite it's ammo usage, per shot it's the most powerful weapon I've come across period...so I wouldn't say it's COMPLETELY nerfed.

What have you been smoking? which Plasma equivalent of Laser is weak?

Oh wait, Pew Pew, so you are complaining a unique gun that use 15 CF doing more damage then a gun that uses 3 CF?

If you have problem with Meltdown than don't take it; in fact, if you up your explosive skill for Pyromaniac for Flamer you can get Hit the Deck! to help agianst Meltdown damage. But I would agree it should be EW dependent not explosive if someone is going to fix it....

Nah it's more of a preference to how you fight them.
I for example want them to know I'm there, I want them to be a challenge.
I don't like picking off enemies from afar since it's so easy.
So I want to go toe to toe with them.
That's my preference in how to fight them.
But I can't since none of the weapons are viable for mid-range to close combat with them.

So basically, with my previous character I did this, sniped enemy, sniped enemy, sniped enemy, found cazadors, fought them with RCW, sniped enemy.
All I did was snipe every one.
I hate snipers.
But none of the other weapons did any damage.
So I felt that I was forced to use the YCS to take them down.

That's a complaint about Deathclaws, not about Energy Weapons.

It's not just them.
Fighting Veteran Rangers made me have to draw distance between us and use the Gauss.
Fighting Super Mutants I had to draw distance between us and use the Gauss.
Anything with high DT I always had to use the Gauss to make any kind of damage.
I tried using other weapons against them, but none of them worked well.
I just either ended up wasting ammo and healing myself a lot or just said "[censored] it" and changed to the Gauss.

And frankly it's not just high level weapons either.
At low level the plasma and laser pistol are horrible weapons to use.
They do awful damage and waste a crapload of ammo.
So for low levels you really should use the Incinerator since it's the only low-level weapon any good.
But then, what's the point with laser/plasma pistol to begin with?
I don't remember much of my mid-level experience so I can't speak much for the weapons in between start of the game and end of the game but some of those felt nice and balanced.

In my opinion- energy weapons should be devestatingly powerful, but ammo should be limited and the guns themselves should be rare and more difficult to repair.

a laser pistol should be at least a 2x as powerful as a 9mm

laser rifle should be about the same strength as a hunting rifle.


plasma rifle should be about as a hunting revolver, even a bit stronger

And here's an "in your dreams" suggestion:

I was thinking that maybe Energy Weapons should have some special effects to make up for the whole DT problem.
Like laser weapons could have a piercing ability so that with each 40 damage done with the weapon the enemies DT breaks down by 1.5 points or 2.5 points depending on the laser weapon used.
And plasma weapons could have higher limb damage and small corrosive effect.
Fire weapons should eat away at DT as well, for each 3 seconds an enemy is on fire it's DT goes down by one. (It's not too powerful since the player needs to set an enemy on fire and then hide from it and let the fire do the magic which isn't easy when meeting animals.)
It could help a lot without making them too powerful.

Flamer works, as it get x4 crit and decent ROF.

And I like you dream.

But I simply disagree the whole EW=late game Guns but use different skill.

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Energy weapons are balanced by the fact you can basically have infinite ammo for them without having to buy very much.

I'm using all MC class energy ammo thanks to perks and recycling the empty ones is really helpful as well.

Energy weapons are also based on heavy VATS usage, being low AP weapons in general and having a big advantage using Perks like Math Wrath, Plasma Spaz, and Meltdown. You can seriously spam the crap out of your energy weapons and slaughter very well, especially with Concentrated Fire.

Energy is also better against multiple targets (mainly Meltdown) than guns are, guns are great against single targets but lack when it comes to dealing with multiple foes at the same time.

Also, flame weapons are energy based now, and great against groups.

The Guass Rifle is the best sniper rifle in the game.

I think they are fine, different, but certainly fine.

BTW - The cowboy repeater is pretty crappy at higher levels.

I have to agree. I do feel that energy weapons were a bit too overpowered in the earlier Fallout games since once you got the Winchester Plasma Rifle in Fallout 1, and the Pulse Rifle in Fallout 2 you were pretty much done. In Fallout 3 I think energy weapons were a bit better balanced; they were a force to be reckoned with, but they weren't overpowered. In New Vegas there's really no reason to use energy weapons, at all; even the Winchester Plasma Rifle Plasma Caster borders on being relatively useless. Not sure what Obsidian was thinking.

I think energy weapons may have been more useful in New Vegas if there were different types of damage resistances for creatures and armors in addition to the included damage threshold like in Fallout 1/2. It just doesn't make sense for even Deathclaws to be able to shrug off plasma blasts just because they have a really high DT.

Vigilant Recycler perk grants unique rounds, similar to hand loaded rounds, they aren't as good however and really damage the guns a lot.

Personally, I rarely, if ever use energy weapons (do the Gauss rifles count?). I keep the Laser RCW around, along with a couple rarer plasma/laser weapons. Other wise, I sell them.

Random thought while reading this. Why not take Damage Threshold, double the value, and switch to damage resistance.

Right now Laser vs. Leather armor = useless
use the above Laser vs. Leather armor = 80% damage
or Laser vs. Rad Scorp = 48% damage

This way, EW's have an "Armor Piercing" ability but armor is still useful. Won't even need to alter damage or anything.

ammo on the other hand...

Of course it is. Its a low tier weapon you get near the start of the game.
Hunting Rifles, Hunting Revolvers, Hunting Shotgun, Riot Shotgun, 12.7mm Pistols, 12.7mm SMGs, Marksman Carbine, Trail Carbine, Anti-Material Rifles, Brush Gun, Sniper Rifles, and probably a bunch of other guns i'm forgetting are all better.
Whats interesting is I probably listed more guns than the entire EW family combined. (minus fire weapons)

I use the incenerator A LOT. From my experience it's the best weapon to use to cripple enemies. Especiallly if there are lots. Just fire away and you're sure to cripple 75% of your enemies bodies.

That said,I do think energy weapons were nurfed bad. Not only do they do less damage compared to guns,they use 2-4x more ammo compared to their gun "equivalents" whats up with that? Kinda stupid imo. Everybody that knows anything about since knows, you don't need a lot of a catylist ( ammo inthis case) to have a big reaction. Look at nukes, split one little atom and BOOM. It's shouldn't be the amount ammo that matters but how it's used. Energy weapons kinda svck, it's sad because they are my favorite type of weapons. I wont be using them from now on...shame.

Yeah, but all those guns are weaker than the Gauss Rifle.

The anti material riffle is on par with the gauss riffle.

Sniper Rifle? SR is better in every way except when it comes to killing deathclaws in 1 sneak attack.
Anti-Material Rifle? They'll kill deathclaws in 1 sneak attack to the head just the same as a Gauss.
12.7mm SMG? Best VATS gun in the game.
Brush Gun/The Machine? Best all-purpose gun in the game.

Thats not even factoring in the high ammo cost of the Gauss Rifle. The only EW that significantly trumps a similar Gun is the Multiplas, but that weapon suffers from ridiculous ammo usage.

no, no, no. Vigilant recycler only makes recycling rounds cheaper, FE: 3 used rounds to make a regular one rather than the normal 4 used rounds. It also makes you get 20% more used rounds than normal when using energy ammo, it does not give you any unique ammo's that you wouldn't already be able to make.

If there is one issue with Energy weapons its ammo... And you say it has infinite? Energy weapons aren't as good as guns, but there are certainly advantages and a proper energy weapons build is really deadly especially vs packs as you said. But many weapons are pretty bad mainly lasers (except for PEW PEW) and consumption is high, you also need better rounds to compete with regular guns which makes the ammo even more limited. In vats, energy weapons are the [censored] though, but again; costs a lot of ammo.


The unique gauss rifle is better than any sniper outside of vats, even anti material, the only thing better with a regular sniper is that you can silence it. In vats its bugged though. Also a sneak crit from a gauss rifle makes your foes blow up if you have meltdown which you should since without it, i really don't see reason for an energy weapon build. The aces in energy weapons are multiplas rifle, plasma defender, plasma caster and gauss rifle. The rest of the weapons are either pretty bad, or uses a lot of ammo like pew pew or gatling laser. I've played both builds and while energy weapons are more deadly at range imo, there is no all around rifle, wheres regular guns have plenty. So you either need some unarmed skill or small guns skill, to use energy weapons effectively in narrow spaces.

No ti doesn't. Overcharge and Max Charge ammo only require science skill.



So there one useful energy weapon :woot:

Which isn't a staple skill like repair /thread.

Hit another annoyance earlier on. I managed to get hold of a Plasma Rifle, so I figured that I could take on a few Deathclaws. Turns out, Plasma Weapons are also weak as hell against them. The only weapon that I've found to be useful against a Deathclaw is the Sniper Rifle. I really do think that Energy Weapons need a serious buff. They should at least be capable of ignoring the DT an enemy has.