thanks for the opinions....

Guns are awfully abundant, as are melee weapons.

I was feeling like energy weapons got the short end of the stick til I found the Q-35, drops a lot of bad guys very, very fast.

Lockpicking is very useful, as is speech.

Explosives aren't very abundant, having it as a primary weapon skill would be hard.

Survival is pretty useless, repair isn't as mandatory as it was in FO3.

My 2 cents.

thanks man...for your time..just tryin to get a feel from a few different players then take it from there..last fallout i remember repair,lockpicking and i forget the other 1 i picked.....what about stat catagorie adjustment?? thanks

Keeping Intelligence high is important, other than that, support your primary weapon skill (perception for guns, str for melee) I opted for 6 charisma and 6 luck.

Keep in mind you can add 1 implant that improves any SPECIAL quality per point of endurance you have (2 other implants available that add to damage threshold and another one for health regen).

Since there are no bobbleheads, and you only get perks every two levels, I went with the following for my initial build (on hardcoe + very hard):

Str 7
Per 4
End 5
Cha 1
Int 8
Agi 5
Luck 10

Traits: Built to Destroy, Wild Wasteland
Tagged Skills: Sneak, Melee, Guns

In FO3, I would usually end up with Luck, End, Int, Str and Agility pretty high after some intense training and bobbleheads, but I'm planning on not putting perk points into Intense Training very much in FNV. I will put a few intense training into Str, Agility, maybe endurance, depending on if there is a specific perk I want that has a requisite. I will try to get Cherchez La Femme and Black Widow to get more dialogue options because my Cha is so low.

Luck high for the criiticals, which really helps with all the New Vegas melee weapons that have bonus crit chance, bonus crit damage or bonus limb damage, such as machete, straight razor, cleaver. Already I've lopped off a few heads of convicts not wearing armor with one or two machete criticals. I've had a few one or two shot sneak critical headshot kills with 9mm or cowboy repeater as well.

Someone later pointed out that high luck will probably help gambling.. I should have considered that this is Fallout: "New Vegas" so luck should be important in other areas. The luck doesn't seem to provide extra caps or loot from dead bodies so far.

I think survival is pretty helpful on hardcoe mode. Those campfire recipes provide massive HP compared to stimpaks, and there are a lot of melee poisons you can craft. I'm going to put 70 skill points into it so I can get the Rad Child perk, which regens HP if you are irradiated.

High luck does help with gambling.

Prepare to break the banks.

Contrary to whats been said perception does absolutely nothing for weapon accuracy. Unless you really want the Sniper or Better Criticals perks leave Perception at 1 and put the points into Endurance so you can use more implants imo. Charisma is also just as useless as it was in Fallout 3 even with the Nerve stat.

The only stat I would ever consider pushing to 10 at the start would be Int. Anything else would be a waste because of implants.

If I understand correctly, however, implants are only available later in the game and they are very limited in quantity according to your endurance. In FO3, there were enough skill books with Comprehension, bobbleheads and perks to raise skills so that you could max out all of your skills at a lower intelligence. Not sure exactly how this will work with FNV.

thanks for the insight guys are great...

Since some of you mentioned implants, i got a question for ya.

I read that the endurance implant won't count towards your maximum ammount of implants, ei. having an endurance of 5 and increasing it to 6 with the implant will still only allow you to get 5 implants.

But what about perks? Do the implants count towards fullfilling SPECIAL requirements for perks?

Bumping for a definitive answer since all i get are speculations

Do the implants work as the perk "Intense Training" and count towards perk requirements ei. (a perk requires 5 agi, you got 4, you get the agi implant = you can take the perk) or do they only effect skills?

Yes. They are a permanent boost so they count for perks, weapons, and conversation checks. I have all nine implants so I've tested and confirmed this to be true.

Thank you very much for the answer Pickle.

I started with END of 9 at creation, then got all 9 implants (although I didn't try getting endurance as the very last implant)
So either
(i) the endurance implant counts towards base endurance (my theory), and thus having 10 guarantees you can get all 9 implants (maybe less is required)
OR
(ii) the endurance implant does not count towards base endurance, and thus having 9 guarantees you can get all 9 implants (maybe less is required)

On a side note, implant costs:
4000 each for all 7 of the base stats increase implants
8000 each for the 2 special effect implants

Also, my INT was 4 (with a mentat withdrawal so it came to 3) and the doctor mentioned something about me really needing that stat / being really deficient in that stat, and so charged me only 3000 for it.

I had the Q35. Gave it to one of my companions. Went into a casino, came out. My companion no longer had it.

they pawned it for some jet

I went for 8 End, 10 Int and 1 Luck.

You don't need luck when you have the mind of a God!

If I had known about the implants earlier I might have gone with 9 Int and gone straight to the clinic for the final +1. I've now got all the implants apart from Int.

The traits for + Per on Glasses and +5 to none combats seemed like a no brainier to me. Guns looks good early on and I was doing fine without investing any points in guns skills. I've now started putting points in energy weapons as there is a Perk to boost their power at 22 (and no perk to boost guns).

+ PER on glasses is bad idea. For all checks on PER (ie. to get Better Criticals with 6 PER), Four Eyes will actually treat you as -1 PER even though you're wearing glasses. It's only for weapon spread calculations and for your 'radar' that PER is +1 with glasses.

I took a gamble and built a ranged character 1 PER and 1 CHA and do all my shooting outside of VATS --- and it's very successful

And oh yes Fizzle, having 10 INT (or at least 9) is definitely crucial. I would recommend starting with 10 INT and 5 luck so that many of your important secondary skills start out at 25 right at the start. Dont miss Comprehension at 4 either and get those skill books. It doesnt really matter losing 1 INT (from no INT implant) but having 25 on a lot of skills is a fast start for your char. Bump any skill by 5 points and use a magazine to hit 50 temporarily (50 repair for weapon repair kit, 50 lockpick, 50 science, etc)

Check it out!
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1128041-hardmode-build-energy-weapons-companion-spoilers/page__p__16549485__fromsearch__1&#entry16549485

Just make sure you got 6 base perception and you can still get the perks that require 6perception assuming you get the implants aswell.

I'm currently playing a sniper;

Str: 5
Per: 6
End: 9
Char: 5
Int: 9
Agi: 1
Luck: 5

Traits: Four Eyes + Good Natured.

With the implants i'm on 6 base perception when determining perk requirements. The +1 perception from Four Eyes helps with the skills aswell.
So far from what i've seen, Four Eyes+Good Natured are the optimal combination for min/maxing, if you remember to be at 6 perception before taking Four Eyes.


It's working really well so far at lvl 12.