For those who have taken it, what do you think about the meltdown perk?

Chain reactions are great, no so great is crippling blowing yourself up with the meltdown corona in close quarters combat.

I was wondering if the explosions caused by the meltdown perk are effected by demolition expert or other explosive based perks? For example, will Hit the Deck protect me from the corona blast?

Thanks .

I guess it's good... If you are facing enemies who cluster themselves...
But other than that no I find the perk to be only for show.

I just tested meltdown and wow that's a screwy perk. I nearly killed myself. I got to thinking though, if this is affected by 'hit the deck', explosives expert, or splash damage then daaaaaaaamn.

Does anybody have an answer for this? I've been searching and I haven't come across anything.

I love Meltdown. True, you blow yourself up occasionally but the blast radius is fairly small and I've found that enemies often attack in clumps. It's great fun sneak attacking a Deathclaw with a max-charged gauss gun and blowing up all of it's babies. Looks frickin' cool, too.

As long as you have a good melee/unarmed weapon to pull out when they get close it's not too much of a problem.

Not blowing up your companions is another matter entirely, though..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8KdmTtoHtE

Honestly i loved this perk.

As a rule anything that can permanently cause you harm to yourself, your allies or turn friendlies hostile during combat is a bad perk to have. If an enemy is up close and beating on you the last thing you want to do is shoot him with an energy weapon because thats going to hurt you even more.....and the reason you took meltdown is likely because you specialised in energy weapons so its a situational perk that is always on. It's essentialy like firing a missle or grenade launcher in your own face.

If you are energy weapon specialised and you take this perk I would reccomend also being melee orientated so you can still fight up close without using an energy weapon.

Or carry an energy weapon that doesnt trigger the boom... I think only plasma gooing and lssder incinerations can trigger it so shouldnt a flamer or gause rifle not cause it?

Lame. THe explosives perks don't seem to affect meltdown at all. I stood same range next to that guy that sits in the chair in goodsprings. With Splash Damage and full ranks of Demolition Expert I took the same damage as without them. Hit The Deck changed nothing either. Too bad, I wanted to do a rockin explodey meltdown build.

I ended up taking Melee Weapons just so I had a fallback when guys got close. It's not nearly as useful as I thought it would be and I won't be taking it next time I have an Energy Weapons character.

All energy weapons trigger it. I have personally triggered it with flamers and the gauss rifle.

Flamers and incinerators can also trigger Meltdown. It's damage is affected by how strong your weapon is, from what I heard. Also chain blasts, even weak ones, have the potential to mess you up. The biggest draw back is that when the enemy gets close, you should always step back a bit then shoot, or risk blowing your own limbs off.

I love it. Since most mobs now spawn in groups, it makes being a sneaky character with EWs perfect since EWs can't be silenced. But if there's no one left to hear you shoot, you're all good!

Just... Don't use it up close unless you like going through Hydra/Doctor's Bags like a Fiend through Psycho.

as did i.

making an energy weapons guy was more fun then i thought it would be, and i like this perk.

does any one know where a good melee weapon shop is

- The gauss rifle will trigger meltdown, the condition is merely that the killing blow has to be done with an energy weapon. (I did some testing with the Gauss Rifle the other night while working on explosives balance, and it was my weapon of choice for triggering Meltdown.)

- The explosion uses either the Plasma Grenade or the Plasma Mine explosion (or a distant 3rd possibility, the mostly unused Raven Rock explosion). Because of the way it's coded, you would have to access the source of the executable to find out for sure. Or do lots of trial and error.

- Since it causes explosions, it's a fair guess that explosives-related perks will increase the damage.

This is not a safe perk to use indoors... or near allies... or innocent 3rd parties that you're trying to keep alive. It's a very strange perk in that it requires 90 Energy skill to take, which implies someone who is heavily using Energy Weapons, yet it pretty much makes those weapons unusable in close quarters battle. It is, however, a fun perk to take if you can deal with the downsides.

I just like that it adds a fun factor to the otherwise dull and nerfed Energy Weapons. Xarnac uses Meltdown, then again Xarnac's executing all humans these days.

Not all Perks are good Perks.


Heck, some Perks make the game harder.


That is a good thing.

Yeah, this feels like a very trait-esque perk. Do alot of damage but you're pretty much a risk to yourself and others.

After messing around with it, I don't think that meltdown is effected by duck and cover.

But if you want to minimize crippling, there's always adamantium skeleton.

Hmm if I take this perk ill prolly have made sure to break my limbs 50x before hand and then got adamantium skel first so I dont blow all my bits off...

Though still fairly weak, meltdown in combination with laser commander and the scoped laser rifle can be pretty fun to play around with.

i personally love this perk. the chain reaction has only happened for me a couple times (VERY situational) but when it does, it is quite epic.

truth be told though, its not that great if you run around with veronica/rex. they just get pwnt. bad idea in hardcoe.