1. In general (aside from the obvious outlier in the Gauss Rifle bug), does an EW build perform better in or out of VATS? I recall that some weapons had different ways of calculating damage depending on whether you shot in VATS or by using sights.

2. Also, I'm seeing two takes on Meltdown here: "definitely don't do it" and "it is so awesome," without much in between. I'm going to do an EW build for my next character, and am hung up on wanting to see awesome things but not wanting to deal with me and my companions getting killed all the time. A few questions to follow up on that:

Will you be fine as long as you put some points into Melee or Unarmed too for when enemies close too quickly?
Does Meltdown necessarily always kill you if you get caught in it?
Does Shishkebab cause a meltdown too because it is fire-based?

If it uses the energy weapons skill, it causes meltdown. It doesn't "kill you" if you get caught in it, but it always hurts you. The damage seems to be related to the damage dealt as a killing blow, but I haven't confirmed it. However, if true, it means critical hits critical you.

If you're using a melee or unarmed supplement, it works fine.

Would be cool if Meltdown only worked on Plasma. Or maybe required special ammo.

Thanks for Meltdown clarification.

Any word on VATS/non-VATS for EW? Most worked great in VATS thanks to the low AP costs, and of course you are well set up for reduced AP costs through Plasma Spaz and Math Wrath in F:NV, but I'm wondering if it's worth it to invest in perks like Action Boy twice when I could be taking two ranks of Toughness to compensate for the Meltdown damage...

Meltdown do backfire at times, but in general it offers a nice aoe that helps a great deal against cazadors and nightstalker (which I found kinda problemtic in my pure EW playthrough). To me is trading damage large pack of enemy to occasional short range encounter, and would be nullify if you have some unarmed/melee option.

VATS is generally no-go for EW as the most powerful weapons suffer from giltchs that would produce little to no damage. But Plasma Defender and Pew Pew is pretty good in VATS, they are light weight so you can carry them as panic weapon.

rcw is rather good in vats as it fires bursts of 3 and is fairly fast in vats and accurate.

meltdown is fun and as long as you have high endurance and do NOT have small frame you shouldnt break too many limbs.. will want to get adamantium skeleton late game after you have gotten the tough guy perk to have ultra durable limbs tho.

If you get enough strength to carry ammo and loot or enough endurance to cope with meltdown later on you shold have enough skill in melee or unarmed to use as a backup weapon... my energy chars always use the broad machete I get at the start and laster I keep a tire iron handy or a power fist.

The big problems with Meltdown are...
1. You can't turn it off.
2. If your only source of damamge is energy (which mine was) you are screwed if a lot of things charge you.
3. If your follower is melee (which mine was) they will rush right into the thick of things...
4. if you kill one target it splashes... if target two dies from the splash he blows up... if target three dies from the combined one, and two targets then he blows up... leaveing you dead as a door nail.

As a side note I had a huge problem with this taking out Ceasar. First I blew up Veronica into little bits when everyone exploded. Then I left her outside and went in alone... all that did was cause me to blow up also. I had to leave C4 outside of his tent as a trap, and have him chase me out side... I never could find his corpse not sure it ever came back down I may have used to much C4 >.> lol.

Meltdown is kinda fun. You can work around it if you are willing to, but have back up weapons that are not energy for low HP things that chareg at you. I died to a pack of Gecko's near Goodspring of all places due to a misplaced Meltdown...



***EDIT***
As the guy ahead of me said the RCW is about the only laser weapon that is VAT'able. However Laser rifle + scope, or the YSwhatever more then make up for the lack of VAT's.

Ok, im definitely going for repair as third tag. And i will put skill points to explosives later on.

Plasma caster+ is the best weapon IMO. When modded it's insane. I had fast shot/math wrath/plasma spaz and action boy/grim reaper's sprint/nerves of steel and just finished the game at level 26 or so, on very hard. I didn't even use max charge ammo on the endgame enemies, except against the last guy. A few headshots drops anyone and I can shoot 7 or 8 times in vats, very nice. Outside of vats it shoots really really fast when modded. It's such a [censored] to repair though, even with jury rigging you need flamers or incinerators. I usually just save my weapon repair kits for it.

The multiplas rifle is also really good, it does more damage than the unique gauss rifle if you can hit with all three shots for a sneak attack 0_o. Crits in vats are kinda buggy but otherwise a really good close range weapon.

Do you actually need all three projectiles to hit to start the 3x dmg insane crit sequence? My impression was that you get entire crit pool even if you hit with only one of the projectiles?