it's a great perk for energy weapon but absolutely non-viable for a character using those weapon as his primary combat skill. By picking that skill not only any of the energy weapons you use will trigger the splash damage but it may affect if on a mission where you would need to shoot in a mixed crowd of enemies and bystanders, obviously, that's a no go.

My suggestion to Obsidian/Bethesda is to restirct that perk to only plasma weapons or a specific energy ammo.
Like that, a pure energy build could always have the opportunity to use weapons in those critical situations where you need to be precise without hurting anybody else(for example when retaking the NCRF prison, you wouldn't have to worry to damage the NCR sodliers when fighting inside the building against the Powder Gangers or that sniper, if you want to snipe him, when trying to save President Kimball).

Well that is one of the major consequences of taking that perk, the fact it will damage/kill everything close to the target you just killed and can cause a potential chain reaction if you fire into a crowd.

Personally when in the described situation with my EW character, I switch to a ballistic ranged weapon even though my character isn't all that skills with guns to avoid killing everyone in the crowd.

It makes the Flamethrower garbage also. Applying it to all Energy Weapons wasnt a well thought out decision in my opinion. If people wanted splash damage they would use a Missile Launcher or something.

the biggest problem is it having the tendency of blowing your old limbs off, when you shoot your enemy, and the poor bystanders that get included too. The counter to all that is watching 5 people blowing up at once.

Err.....You know you can stop and runaway and let the fire to kill things off right?

And you can also take Adamatium Skeleton to offset the heavy limb damage.

Kids these days :shrug:

Ummm, that has no bearing on his problem... his problem is that it kills bystanders.

Tbh just switch weapons depending on foe, a RCW works best against Cazadors before they close and most npc's, multiplas or better on deathclaws, and guass on heavy NPC's like centurians.
This way you kill all before they get close enough to detonate, the other factor is ignore V.A.T.s as the game now favours speed and foot work over accuracy and stand & shoot tactics while taking no damage.
This also frees up at least 4 perks you might be tempted to take on all builds previously, Action boy / girl, commando, ah hell I forget which ones are in now since I use V.A.T.s even less then before.

now that you mention the missile launcher, at least the Meltdown deals a good amount of damage, I was so disappointed when I saw how little a Fatman did against a pack of Deathclaws.
Anyway, that perk as some potential but it is not viable for a pure energy build...and looks like it was specifically made for it...

IIRC fire doesn't trigger meltdown.

And I am also responding to others besides OP.

I realize that many who favor energy weapons are concerned about the relative DT gimp of overcharged energy cells, etc., but isn't the point of the collateral damage with the meltdown perk a deliberate choice to balance its effect on gameplay?

I actually like the high risk / high reward of the meltdown. I wish there were more perks like this.

But it is hell on friendly NPCs.

Oh well a little collateral damage never hurt anyone. Except innocent civilians.

Well they're fixing it's gimped damage against armored targets and changing energy weapons damage, but I think personally that the trade off is worth it. It turns all my weapons into grenades, if I kill an enemy. Only fix I would suggest is it along with explosions not blowing your own limbs off, but I see how folks would feel it detracts from realism.

No clue, but i've found it too dangerous for myself and my companions as my EW character usually travels with Veronica. It's fun when it blows up room full of enemies, it's not fun when it cripples my limbs and kills my companion. And the former doesn't happen often enough to deal with the latter.

My current character is built as a non-combat specialist with explosives as my only attack skill. With low END and low STR I learned via the school of hard knocks how to avoid splash damage and killing bystanders... I usually end up just trying to weaken enemies and let my companions perform most of the actual fighting. This strategy would probably work with meltdown, but not for all of you combat specialists.

On a non hardcoe playthrough with a melee expert it's pretty much a good way to break a horde.
On the end game it also comes in handy fo the same reason, I usally take small frame on hardcoe so I learned early on to stock up on hydra.
At later levels with the full perks foes rarely came close enough for the AoE to effect me, and as I mentioned light clothing and positioning yourself out of reach is the key.


Sneak is handy to avoid fights, but in NV with very fast foes, combined with alot of attacks ignoring DT and plain automatic weapon fire from multipules it and heavy armour are not reliable to keep you safe all the time.

Sadly,this perk requires a rather high skill level,and it radically alters the play style.This perk made me wish perks were undoable.Ah well...I finished that playthough anyway...and will never,ever touch the perk again.

Yes, like someone above, this is a perk that radically changes your playstyle, and not for the better, I 'm not sure the devs intended it this way.
Like I said, it should benefit a little tweek in a patch to make it much more versatile, available for some specific weapon(s)/ammo but leaving you room to use other energy weapons that doesn't benefit from it.