When I play Fallout I usually go for a melee/energy weapons build and I love the high tech stuff. I remember my first time getting the tesla cannon in fallout 3 in broken steel and I fell in love with it because it made you feel like the tesla cannon was a god weapon since the BoS sends you to deathclaw central aka Old Olney to find a tesla coil in powerplant and then the enclave invade your ass all while your dealing with deathclaws AND right before all that the ultimate weapon Liberty Prime got decimated by orbital bombs and so the Bos decide hey lets use Mr. Prime's eyeball beams with this handy tesla coil and make a lightning cannon to be used in the final battle with the Enclave, I mean how is that not badass...

Then on fallout new vegas there's a handy lil perk called "Meltdown" and that solidified my love for energy weapons I mean who doesn't like plasma explosions???

There is no favorite for me, they are all very good, but with EVE they are even better.

I'm a big fan of the classic, ole reliable, Laser Rifle. I also really loved the Waser Wifle in 3!

I also think the Firelance is radical!

I don't really use energy weapons. Explosives are better, but when I do decide to go high tech I prefer the laser rifle, or rather one of the unique laser rifles. However, the catch is that the mod EVE must be installed. Without EVE, energy weapons are boring but with EVE, when you crit kill an enemy, they freeze in place, glow super bright, scream, and then explode leaving nothing but a charred skeleton behind, it's all worth it.

I like the alien blaster. Such a cool 50's aesthetic! Most of my playthrougs I try to fit that style.

I loved the Gauss rifle in Fallout 3 as it was so unique in the Energy weapon category, however as i never use power armor in any other Fallout i'll just stick with the laser rifle or the flamer to better suit my characters.

that would be the Sprtel-Wood 9700 that thing spits used it for most of my frontier playthrough.

Sniping with the Gauss rifle is the way but Elijah's advanced LAER is great for crowd control, sure it decays faster but repair kits are easy to find and jury rigging gives me a reason to pick up laser rifles.

The energy weapons really are the best, I enjoy the conventional weapons too, but I think the cool weapons like the gauss and gatling laser give the game its flavor

If you would have asked me like 2 years ago, I would've said the Gatling laser. Right now though, it's the Plasma caster. I LOVE that weapon, I love it in the classics, I love it in FNV, I love it mods for FO4, I love it in F76. It looks exactly the way the weapon should look like, alien, high tech and industrial, and it's always so powerful. Plus, I tend to like plasma more than lasers since those are usually underpowered.

It has to be modded back in for the newer games, but I'm a sucker for the Wattz 1000. It may be the weaker of the energy pistols in the classic games but something about it feels more satisfying than the AER/AEP of the 3d ones, and I've always kept room for it in my inventory in FO4 since I started using Necroix's mod and had a startmeup spawn me in the glowing sea with nothing but one and a hazmat suit at level 1. It had enough punch to get me out without being too overpowered and searching desperately for small energy cells had a real sense of urgency since it was the only thing I had that could let me outfight half the spawns. The memory of those first five or six levels relying on it and a combat knife against the horrors of the Sea is one of my favourite FO4 experiences and tied in really well with my nostalgia for it in the classic games, where it had a good punch.

The AER14 was my favorite but then I discovered the Multiplas... god damn i love this one

Although I haven’t really made much use of energy weapons in the earlier games, in Fallout 4 I enjoy using the plasma rifle. Its design is really nicely detailed.

I've been thinking some more on why the energy weapons in the 3d games have mostly bounced off me, and I think its the decision to make them a viable path from the start. There's nothing wrong with that from a design perspective per se, but it means that the sense of power has to be dialled down to be on par with other entry level weapons for the basic laser pistols and rifles. They don't have the mid-to-late game license for extra punch that made them stand out when you first got them in the 2d games, so they feel dinky if you pick them up early without modding them up. Since I tend to play with heavily enhanced survival damage (1-2 hits ya die at low levels, 3-4 on them they die), the difference between a laser pistol that will knock them down in 2 vs 4 is pretty crucial and only enhances the sense that baseline entry-level laser weapons in the 3d games don't pack a punch. The sheer size of the model is part of the problem, too - it feels like a very weak beam from a very big gun, which feeds into my preference for the Wattz 1000 since its a smaller, sleeker model with a bigger punch.

@loomer Bro, energy weapons in the classics are awful. Sure, NPCs pretend that laser weapons are the scariest thing ever. In reality though, they are obsolete from the moment you find them (they are found at the same time or even after plasma weapons). Pistols aren't better than a sniper or assault rifle. Not to mention, late game armors all have better protection against lasers than they do against conventional bullets. Only the plasma rifle, alien blaster, and pulse weapons are actually viable.

Besides, starting with Fallout 2, with the introduction of gauss weaponry, ballistic weapons were made viable for the whole game. You don't need to switch to energy weapons, like in Fallout. Hell, you don't even need to switch to Big Guns, small guns are perfectly good. It's only fair that energy weapons are made available from the beginning, you know, when a laser pistol might actually be useful.

Oh, they absolutely lack stopping power going forward, but I have fond memories of getting one at the right time in FO2 and it carrying me for a little while.

The plasma caster is honestly my favorite just because it has a good fire rate and it look just futuristic enough that when you look at it you can say "its probably from fallout"

Elijah's Jury Rigged Tesla Cannon, that thing is an absolute beast when combined with max charged ammunition, it has 0 spread and the highest fire rate of all Tesla Cannons, it also looks really cool on your character if you're using the Gannon family Tesla armor, the only downside is that it's condition degrades really fast but finding weapon repair kits shouldn't be a problem by the time you find it, especially if you already completed Dead Money.
Doctor 0 wasn't lying he said that this weapon can slice and cut through robot shells like cheese... paper!

Love a good laser sniper. LAER and the holo rifle are my 2 favorites. Depends on what mood I'm in. In ttw protections gaze is another good one.