I used to use grenades alot, and often sunk many points into explosives, and demo expert. Now it seems that I am constantly throwing grenades that in Vats will bounce off the cieling and kill me, or my companions will run up and I will kill them. I know that it should take some strategy, and I accept the bad throws occasionally, when they run behind a wall, etc... but I can't get off more than one throw before the bad guys are in my lap. On top of that, It seems that the damage is nerfed. I don't know if it's DT, or what. But with explosives of 80 and one rank of demo exp, I should be able to get a little more use out of grenades. I find that they aren't too effective in NV. Maybe they should have included concussive grenades, as an alternative to frags, to bypass DT. The thumpers are pretty useless to me as well. I guess they work OK vs. powder gangers and fiends, but against anyone with more than just a T-shirt on, explosives are pretty lame.

yah, they nerfed explosives hard. They even made the fat-man extremely weak, even though there are only like 18 mini-nukes in the entire game. This is also all testing from my char that has 3 into demo expert, 1 splash damage and 100 explosives. Its not worth using. Taking like 9 shots from a grenade launcher to kill a combat armored enemy is just stupid. Guns kill stuff faster and have about 100x the ammo supply.

In general, explosive is now a secondary only skill, as it always it.

But they got a wrong nerf bet them in the face (nerfing Missile Launcher and Fatman? WTF). Lucky there is still a unique Grenade Machine Gun that work decent enough, and with some thought put it to your build you can kill DeathClaws with it.

I rarely, if ever, use grenades or mines. Really, I use the pulse mines/grenades to take out robots, and even that doesn't always work.

A lot of times, I find my throws bouncing past the enemy, or not doing much damage. With regard to the latter, I once threw a frag grenade pretty much dead center of a Great Khan tent (filled with three or four sleeping Great Khans). You'd think it would at least kill a Khan or two, if not more, but it barely dented their HP.

I just keep a few grenades, and sell whatever else I scavenge.

I'm only level 15 on my first play through and haven't even started on Vegas quests, but I have been scratching my head about explosives relative to FO3. Grenade launcher took 3-4 hits on feral ghouls to kill them on NORMAL. The only reason I was able to keep shooting is because I was hidden and lobbing them without VATS just for fun so the ferals couldn't find me. I'm only at about 40 explosives and haven't taken any perks so I can't really complain, but it would be nice to get credit for landing a grenade or getting a mob to run near a mine... they certainly put a lickin on the courier when he hits one. Seems like everytime I get suprised by a frag mine, I lose half my health and have at least two limbs out of commission... even with 10 DT armor on...

Generally it seems like I'm struggling to find enough enemies grouped together to make explosives worth it. Outdoors, they all tend to be spread out (think Fiends in their territory) or I can't get close enough to them while grouped without them detecting me and scrambling. Maybe when my sneak is higher and I'm indoors I'll like grenades more... I hope. I'm using it as my secondary weapon skill after guns.

I hate when they nerf weapons or skill trees someone uses. Luckily I don't rely on explosives, I only use the Fatman as a 'I found it and it shall sit on this shelf as a trophy' kind of deal.

Mods (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36208) can help with that.

Because, yes, they did over-nerf explosives. Given the cost of a Fat Man's mini-nuke shell (and the weight), there's no point in carrying the thing without installing an explosives re-balance mod. Missiles aren't bad, but heavy. The EMP pulse grenades are about the only good explosive in the base game.

A lot of explosives suffer from line of sight issues. A small rock, bump in the terrain, whatever, can block a large portion of the blast in the game engine making it so that the NPC is out of line of sight of the point of origin. Which is especially annoying when you just sent a 5lb 250cap mini-nuke down range.

Explosives in general are nerfed to the point that I only put 55- 60 in the skill and take 1 perk of demo expert. I sell all the TNT, 25mm and frag grenades I find, only keeping the 40mm grenades. I use a grenade rifle with long tube mod kit for weakening pack creatures, (canzores, wolves, raider types), from behind a ridge or hill. Sorta like blind firing towards the red blip group. When they come over the hill/ridge to see who's firing at them, Boone and I (current companion) pick them off. Explosives are only good for softing up certain groups of enemies now.

I'm not sure that I've thrown ANY grenades, though I've thrown plenty of dynamite. I like mines, though... Whenever I'm in a situation where I know they're going to be trouble, and I can plan out an escape route in advance, I lay a trail of mines up to where I'm going to start the fight, sneak shoot them, then retreat through my mines. Has helped me with things like lakelurk king, etc. Oh, and using VATS to throw dynamite will often put it at the target's feet.

The only explosives I used in F3 were frag mines.. And they still seem to work pretty well.. Sneak into an area.. lay out some mines. Go hide.. fire a gun to make people look around for you and blammo.. Some die, some just get crippled. I haven't put any points into explosives at all though. Not sure why having a high skill in explosives would make any difference in explosive damage when considering a mine. What they should have done is make laying/setting the mine more dangerous if you don't have the skill.. like it could blow up in you face.

Mines can be a better bet than the grenades, sometimes. I used pulse mines to deal with the Vault 11 (?) secret room.

Mines still seem to work fairly well, it's just the frag grenades and 40mm grenades that are really nerfed. It must be related to the DT mechanic. It's a little more difficult to use vats effectively (and safely) with them as well. That might be because of the reduced range, and the lighting fast reaction times enemies seem to have, which I can deal with, but the damage is silly. A frag grenade was much more usefull in FO3. I haven't even tried missles yet, let alone the fatman. No mods for me xbox360.

Not for 66% of Fallout: NV players they can't...

yeah they do svck and my Boone is dynamite happy throws them all of the time. Had to take them away from him and give to ED-E.

DO NOT give companions explosives they blow you up more then what ever they are trying to kill.

I think they are extraordinary useful, just yesterday there were like 5 night stalkers coming after me, granted they were a far way away, but I pull out the missle launcher with high explosive, took all of them out one shot, I was like [censored] yeh.

YES! Good to know I'm not the only one who noticed this. In the middle of a firefight, often in close quarters, all of a sudden I'd see the explosive warning pop up and be shaken with a blast. Turns out, I had given Boone a LOT of dynamite and frag grenades. Had to take them away and give them to ED-E.