Ive always been a huge fan of min maxing and synergizing builds as long as i have been playing RPG's from the original Black Isle Fallout's to Baldurs Gate and so on, here is my go to build for very hard/hardcore.


The Build
S.P.E.C.I.A.L
ST - 7 + 1 (Implant)
PE - 5 + 1 (Implant)
EN - 8 + 1 (Implant)
CH - 1 + 1 (Implant)
IN - 4 + 1 (Implant)
AG - 7 + 1 (Implant)
LU - 8 + 1 (Implant) + 1 (the bear-slayer/deadman's burden/scourge of the east)

Tag Skills
Melee / Survival/ Unarmed

Traits
Heavy handed
As the game progresses it can super-charge your melee damage, giving you an advantage to your DPS. If you could get a perk and item that give you an extra damage, that would surely be overpowered. However getting this trait just makes your critical damage unfair.

Skilled
Gain more skills right off the bat, but -10% EXP gain, can also do it another time for a extra +5 to all skills and no more negative EXP gain.

Perks
Level 2 - Confirmed bachelor
Damage against male baddies. Since theyre the majority of baddies you'll come across all game.

Level 4 - Educated
Is a convenient way to compensate for your early-game needs. You can max out all your skills with only just 3 Intelligence anyways with planning and skill book gathering.

Level 6 - Bloody mess
Boosting damage is often a priority - 5% damage might not seem a lot, but it can be important in combat.

Level 8 - Toughness
A handy early level perk for protecting you against baddies. Obviously, as the game progresses this perk becomes more useful.

Level 10 - Toughness
More DT.

Level 12 - Fast metabolism
The extra healing from your stims will increase your sustainability and will enable you to last longer during fights.

Level 14 - Piercing strike
It permanently strips 15 DT away from enemies, making them more vulnerable to melee/unarmed damage. The exact effect is difficult to quantify it varies depending on how much DT the target currently has (ex Big MT robots, Legendary bloatfly). As in general rule, the less armour the target has, the more effective your melee damage will be.

Level 16 - Adamantium skeleton
Enemies keeps breaking your bones before you can get close to them? Look no further, adamantium skeleton is the perk you want. This gives you much-needed limb damage reduction, allowing you to trim down enemy limb damage as you directly engages them in fights.

Level 18 - Purifier
It greatly boost your damage on ghouls, tunnelers, deathclaws etc.

Level 20 - Super slam
Greatly preferred on every melee build due to the much greater chance of knocking down baddies. Super slam does rely on having a reasonably good attack speed however, as otherwise it will not proc reliably.

Level 22 - Unstoppable force
There's not an awful lot to say about this - it helps you inflict more damage against enemies that blocks you in close combat.

Level 24 - Stonewall
If you're getting targeted by cyberdogs or deathclaws like for instance, make sure to pick this perk to prevent them from knocking you down. It also provides you with some extra DT (against melee enemy only) which is always welcomed

Level 26 - Slayer
Provides a sizable increase to your damage per second.

Level 28 - Cowboy
Increase damage output for the Chance's knife.

Level 30 - Grunt
Is going to make Chance's knife even more stronger.

Level 32 - Silent running
Decreases an enemy's chance of detecting you while you run in sneak mode.

Level 34 - Chemist
Doubles the duration of chems.

Level 36 - Chem resistant
Chance of getting addicted is reduced.

Level 38 - Ninja
Ninja at a glance can seem sort of useless, like the only time it would be useful is on enemies that haven't detected you yet. This means that you get the SAC bonus for every time you attack enemies in sneak mode.

Level 40 - Better criticals
Not to mention that you still need critical damage, alternatively providing more DPS.

Level 42 - Quick draw
Faster weapon holster/draw

Level 44 - Pyromaniac
Is a strong perk, as it might provide you with the extra DPS necessary to finish off an enemy.

Level 46 - Living anatomy
Boosts your damage and allows you to discern how much health the enemy has in numbers instead of health bars.

Level 48 - Finesse
Will help in scoring more critical hits.

Level 50 - Aint like that now
Becomes substantially better since you are dishing out much more consistent DPS than before.

Special Perks
Elijah's ramblings
Increases your critical damage and also to counteract the downside of the Heavy handed trait.

Lonesome road
More damage without companion.

Brainless
Decreases your addiction rate.

Cardiac arrest
Enhances your healing power, as well as strengthening your poison resistance.

Reinforced spine
Additional 2 strength and DT.

Coin operator
Due to how efficient the coin operator is gold-wise, it is a good idea, you can now craft sierra madre chips, to redeem items as many as you can from the vending machine.

Sierra madre martini
You can now craft sierra madre martini that provides a much-needed stat boost.
Item Selection
Weapons
Chance's knife is a strong melee weapon nevertheless, but it won't be of great use at early levels since it degrades quite a lot of durability, it doesn't deal that much damage and it requires proper perks anyway for it to be effective. It's damage benefits from both Cowboy and Grunt perks. In later game this can reach the point where you can hardly hit anything, while you deal out a lot of punishment.

If baddies are looking tough and gives you hard time sooner or later, grab Gehenna / Shishkebab as your big DPS weapons. The damage that it provides is certainly great plus the burn damage helps a lot to kill fast. Gehenna is great, don't get me wrong but Gehenna is really expensive and don't really do that much for us in the early stages of the game like for example Shishkebab would do. Therefore we buy it later when we need to replace shishkebab which should always be in our inventory at any given time before we get Gehenna.

Blood nap is pretty good, it makes for fairly easy killing, and a good alternative of Chance's knife since blood nap does quite a bit more damage than chance knife, but it gets outclassed as game goes on.

Apparel
Remnants power armour
Get these things, if you need more Durability.

Marked beast face helmet - Armor of the 87th tribe
Tanks you up quite significantly and giving you more crit hit chance.

Scorched sierra power armour - Atomic-valence tri-radii-oscillator
The HP regen is constant and therefore will restore you to full health slowly.

Aid
Battle brew - MedX - Slasher
These items generally suits tanky or squishy players who want to soak up heavy damage. It greatly improves your survivability, so is very useful against baddies that packs a lot of damage.

Psycho - Yao Guai Meat - Weapon binding ritual
These items are your ultimate damage steroid for a heavy hitting melee build.

Rushing water
It'll help you gain more attack speed.

Bleak venom - Cloud kiss(lethal)
Leaves a damage over time effect after a single hit, which while pretty insignificant in itself, can cause really problems for enemies with layered protection like deathclaws or power armoured enemies.

Turbo
If the situation becomes too dire you always have the turbo drug to escape or finish off group of baddies.

Buffout - Sierra madre martini
These nice items has everything you wishes for in terms of stats and benefits. You get a sizable amount of hp, good amount of endurance and a nice amount of strength.

Weapon repair kit
For repairing your equipments before it breaks/becomes useless.

OK, so:

1) Confirmed Bachelor means, role playing wise, your character is gay, and pretty loose with his affections. Nothing wrong if that's what you're into, but for basic role playing purposes, it's not for everyone, certainly not for me. Also, only works on characters who are gendered, meaning humans. You can get much better results with "Fight the Power" or Living Anatomy. And 10% damage is kinda worthless. A weapon with low damage but high DPS will barely see any effect. A weapon with high damage will see a considerable effect, but those kill in one or two hits anyway, so it doesn't matter.

2) The Remnants power armor has very low health, 400 compared to the 2000 of the T51. If you're going to be taking damage, and in melee you will be taking damage, that means a lot of repairing. And repairing, unless you use mods, is going to cost you. A lot. In NV, because Josh apparently went to the HP Business School, it's cheaper to buy a new item than to repair your existing item. the cost of repairs is 200% of the item's value. This unless you use Jury Rigging, which isn't in your list.

3) Pyromaniac is completely useless in a melee build, unless you are planning to stick to the Shiskebab/Gehenna. But you also include Cowboy and Grunt, so it sounds like you are planning to use other weapons.

4) For someone who is planning to use chems and ingestibles as much as you're suggesting there, because you're using basically ALL the chems (except for Hydra, oddly, since it would make a huge difference in that build), you should go with Logan's Loophole. Or, if you don't want to drop 10 perks (which you could by the way) Old World Gourmet is good to fight addiction.

5) Keep your own brain. It gives you more DT, which you would need in melee. If you're worried about addiction, see above.  

5) Quick draw makes no sense in a melee build. There's no need to constantly switch around weapons.

6) If you stack up on Superstims, you don't need any healing enhancing perks.

7) 5% Damage doesn't make any difference in game. It's just a small Bonus. The appeal of Bloody Mess is watching your enemies explode for seemingly no reason.

8 ) And last, but far more important, why would you even bother with a melee build? This isn't TES. There are guns, lasers, man-portable nuke catapults... Guns are obsolete, but melee weapons are a whole different level of obsolete.

gavin gold wrote:

OK, so:

1) Confirmed Bachelor means, role playing wise, your character is gay, and pretty loose with his affections. Nothing wrong if that's what you're into, but for basic role playing purposes, it's not for everyone, certainly not for me. Also, only works on characters who are gendered, meaning humans. You can get much better results with "Fight the Power" or Living Anatomy. And 10% damage is kinda worthless. A weapon with low damage but high DPS will barely see any effect. A weapon with high damage will see a considerable effect, but those kill in one or two hits anyway, so it doesn't matter.

2) The Remnants power armor has very low health, 400 compared to the 2000 of the T51. If you're going to be taking damage, and in melee you will be taking damage, that means a lot of repairing. And repairing, unless you use mods, is going to cost you. A lot. In NV, because Josh apparently went to the HP Business School, it's cheaper to buy a new item than to repair your existing item. the cost of repairs is 200% of the item's value. This unless you use Jury Rigging, which isn't in your list.

3) Pyromaniac is completely useless in a melee build, unless you are planning to stick to the Shiskebab/Gehenna. But you also include Cowboy and Grunt, so it sounds like you are planning to use other weapons.

4) For someone who is planning to use chems and ingestibles as much as you're suggesting there, because you're using basically ALL the chems (except for Hydra, oddly, since it would make a huge difference in that build), you should go with Logan's Loophole. Or, if you don't want to drop 10 perks (which you could by the way) Old World Gourmet is good to fight addiction.

5) Keep your own brain. It gives you more DT, which you would need in melee. If you're worried about addiction, see above.  

5) Quick draw makes no sense in a melee build. There's no need to constantly switch around weapons.

6) If you stack up on Superstims, you don't need any healing enhancing perks.

7) 5% Damage doesn't make any difference in game. It's just a small Bonus. The appeal of Bloody Mess is watching your enemies explode for seemingly no reason.

8 ) And last, but far more important, why would you even bother with a melee build? This isn't TES. There are guns, lasers, man-portable nuke catapults... Guns are obsolete, but melee weapons are a whole different level of obsolete.

I hope you realize that melee has the overall highest damage output in the game with the right perks coming at over a whopping 4000 damage, not even Paciencia with a Luck Crit build and HP rounds can perform even with sneak attack, melee is far from obsolete and this build isn't for a immersive "role play", its for the maximum amount of damage possible in New Vegas.

Pyromaniac is far from useless since Gehenna's DOT can stack. Not to mention this melts enemies behind armor like a poison proc does.

Melee weapons are obsolete. That doesn't mean useless. You can kill a person by mauling them to death with a baseball bat or slicing them apart with a chainsaw and they are just as dead as if shot with a bullet or an energy beam. That's not the point. It means there are better alternatives.

Pyromaniac is niche, because only two melee weapons benefit from that perk, and it requires you to invest quite a bit in energy weapons, which you won't be using. It works best if you want a mixed melee/ranged build focusing on EW rather than guns. If you are going to go only for melee, it's not worth it. Specially if you already took several perks that enhance other types of weapons, like Cowboy or Grunt.

Oh, and if you don't care about role play and it's just about making the most damage, that's fine. I'm just pointing that out because a lot of people don't realize it. But even then. Look, the only gendered NPCs you will find in game are humans, which are the most common enemy, sure, but also one of the weakest. You don't really need a perk to enhance your damage against human specifically, those perks are for taking on more challenging foes. All the other enemies you find, including Ghouls and Supermutants don't have gender. Non feral ghouls (which, with the exception of the Bright Brotherhood, are extremely rare) do have gender, but ferals don't, they are classified as abominations.

I think you're completely overlooking my point this build is about maximum possible damage in New Vegas, so yes all perks that account damage even if they seem measly with their "5%" boost is very important. I wouldn't call Melee obsolete since they literally beat every single other weapon category in the game damage wise, which is the caveat of the game, to kill as fast as possible. "But what about taking damage???" That doesn't matter since you'll be healing so fast and outclassing enemies DPS.

ALSO if we are taking into account TTW Weapons, Jack The Ripper centered around luck procs paired with Poison, can do a whopping 4500 Damage to a enemy. That kills NPC's in 1 second, Deathclaws in 2 and Super Mutant Overlords in just under 4 seconds, no other weapon in the game EXCEPT the Experimental MIRV can attain that power.

If it is about just making as much damage as possible, then there are many perks you're not including. Lady Killer, Hunter, Sneering Imperialist, Fight the Power...

Also, by taking unnecessary perks, you lock yourself out of others more useful to that build. For example, if you are willing to drop 10 perks, which like I said, you could since a lot of the ones you chose don's synergyze well, you could pick Logan's Loophole, which doubles the duration of chems. 25% more damage from Slasher is more significant than just about any perk, and that way you could make it last double (it stacks btw) and never worry about becoming addicted to it.

And again, you don't really understand what the word obsolete means. First of all, taking damage does matter, it's just you're taking steps to overcome that. I can just as easily snipe enemies from long distance and I never have to worry about taking damage at all. Many enemies are extremely dangerous to take on at melee range, even if you can kill them. And you don't get extra points for overkill. No enemy in game requires 4000 damage. The toughest enemy in the game is the legendary bloatfly with 2000. Deathclaws have 500.

Now, the strongest melee weapon in the game is the thermic lance, which does 100 damage, 139 with all related perks. Gehenna provides the most DPS with 350 (again, as long as you have all perks). Given that, I'm not sure where you are getting the 4000. And let me tell you, you can absolutely outperform that with a good ranged weapon.

Jack The Ripper can attack 30 times in a second, each spike on it counts as a seperate critical hit, its damage being 60x30=1800, Now pile on the fact that poison does 15(10 sec) can stack, which constitutes with every hit from the ripper, which correlates to 4500 damage stacked.

https://youtu.be/6v0KqPL-870

Also this video shows the argument for ranged weapons comparing damage wise to melee.

I have no clue what you mean by Jack the ripper. If you mean the chainsaw/ripper that you can find, I would tell you that those numbers aren't right. Nevertheless, it still is pretty damn impressive. I would expect it to be, it's a chainsaw. But to deliver that damage, it also requires you to be right next to the guy.


Now, that video is a... joke video. The guy isn't making a proper comparison of all weapons in the game, optimized for maximum damage, he's memeing. And he's killing one lone molerat, which is one of the weakest enemies on the game.

By the way, like I told you, you don't get extra points for overkill. Molerats have 45 HP. 4000 damage doesn't do anything.

Jack The Ripper is the unique Ripper in Fallout 3 found in Deathclaw Sanctuary, and no those numbers arent wrong, while the thermic lance can attack 5 times a second, Jack can attack 30 times a second since each individual prong on the weapon is considered a separate hit. Hes making the proper comparison of the high end weapons you can acquire in the game, and 4000 damage doesnt do anything???? uhh thats enough to one shot the Legendary Boatfly and Giant Robo Scorpion.

Oh OK, since you were talking about New Vegas I wasn't thinking about FO3 weapons. That's substantially more than the NV ripper does (and that one still does tremendous damage). But like I said, they're chainsaws, I would expect them to be extremely deadly.

Now, 4000 is enough to kill the Giant Roboscorpion. But you won't be doing 4000 to it. That thing has a much higher DT, and is a robot, not an animal, which means many of the perks he was using wouldn't apply. That's why I say using a molerat as your target is kind of a meme.

Now, look. I'm being a jerk. I don't like melee weapons because I think getting in melee range of an enemy is kind of weird when you can shoot them. Plus I use mods that make weapons more lethal, so getting within melee range is kind of a death sentence. But If melee makes you happy, by all means play that way.

But, seriously, objectively speaking, don't pick Pyromaniac unless you will be sticking to the Gehenna. And if you do, don't pick Cowboy or Grunt or something like that. It's one or the other. And I stand by my statement that Confirmed Bachelor is kind of pointless. If it was me, I'd pick Robotics Expert or Fight the Power.

Im basing my weapons off of TTW, also Confirmed Bachelor/Black Widow are a flat 10% more damage to the most common enemy type in the game (males), id take fight the power over robotics expert any day of the week anyways since robots are much more rare than humans especially faction humans.

OK, if it works better for you, then that's your call then. I'm just saying. Humans go down pretty easily regardless. If it was me I'd rather have perks that boost damage to tougher, even if rarer, opponents. But you do you.