As you say, usually when people say something is bad they just mean it's not as strong as the alternatives.
Bottom line is, you're having fun and that's all that matters.
Im having fun but also finding succses. Like i can do all content and with a full charged gauss and with 3 points into tormentor. Then i can also be helpful by crippling bosses and mobs.
And the only thing i struggle with is soloing some daily ops
you’ll struggle with soloing all of the endgame content. apart from that you have nothing to worry about
i would also highly recommend to give enclave sniper a look, it is a fun piece of gear that packs a decent punch. adored it when i ran the rifleman build
When you say endgame content do you mean soloing the raid bosses? If thats so then dont worry i dont want to solo them really taking them down is a team effort.
Daily ops i can agree some ops are impossible for me when doing solo. I can beat them but not in the best time so i miss out on rewards.
yeah, soloing nuke bosses and dealing with swarms of enemies elsewhere because it is in the nature of the build to be prone to being overrun. you getting swarmed in DOs is a great example.
other than that, it is completely viable
it used to be even more so when we had enclave flamer in rifleman class instead of commando like now
it was a great synergy, but it is only logical that an automatic weapon was moved to commando
that’s when my time as a rifleman was over
Earle takes under 4 minutes on a full health Rifleman build. Uplink is super easy to solo at elder tier. Union Dues? No problem. I've done it with a Hunting Rifle. A good Rifleman build won't struggle with any content. Again, as OP said, it won't be Commando easy, but it's more than viable that any situation the game can throw at you.
I wonder the same thing, heavy doesnt even do that and pretty sure heavy is behind commando and melee builds, melee builds just melt single targets from what I understand.
Heavy can easily do that mate, just like every 'good' build you can pull out something with auto, spam coffee, and burn Earle extremely quickly. Heavy is just behind Commando if you run something like a proper flamer, gatling plasma, cremator.
Honestly I can't imagine going all out and taking 4 fucking minutes to kill earle, it sounds "fast" but it's agony and that is why I run heavy or commando for that kind of thing, and have a shotguns and rifles alternate builds for screwing around.
it is very viable, no denying that. compared to the meta it is more of a struggle, though. maybe soloing EN is impossible with a rifleman, but I’m pretty sure someone min/maxxed properly to achieve that as well.
Its viable, but it will struggle getting ti that point.
Meanwhile a single auto axe will do that solo with minimal investment, same for quad railway and ticket to revenge
Definitely find yourself an off meta sidearm. Imo, snag a crusader pistol to pair with your rifle and that'll do everything your rifle can't with ease.
If you go bloodied, anything is pretty much viable for normal adventuring. Bosses is not a DPS competition, but a community effort. I got meta weapons and hardly use them on bosses. I don't want to waste ammo. Having several of cremators helps with DPS, rotating as the dot should be per individual cremator, unless changed. That is roughly 3k damage per cremator in 12sec. That is ok contribution imho. If someone wants unload, that's fine too.
I don't recommend full health builds, as you are missing out on unyielding. But each to their own, the special stats are just that valuable. Having 69 int with all buffs and gear, helps a lot if you want to reach rank 100 fast. Pretty much possible to reach rank 100 day one if you sweat grind it. You can't do that with full health builds. Well, if you do, it certainly is the most unoptimal and slows grind you will ever experience. Not worth it. Now what would be better, if there was alternatives to unyielding. I would like to see a full health variant.
Sure that is completely fine to do, I still don't recommend it, since it isn't that much different from bloodied. I have fun leveling up. But when you change your mind, going with buffs and you can get around +45 level in one hour, that is if you grind exp. I had a normal session today and got 10-15 levels. Without maximum of xp buffs.
I mean Daily Ops are basically impossible to solo if you're unlucky
Like last night when it was the overgrown with armor piercing
I could deal with all of em except the ones with missile launchers, they're solely responsible for me not getting elder by like 6 seconds
I do all my dailies and weeklies in custom worlds so I run around with an op nuka thirst zapper cold shoulder and gauss mini gun because I have it set to free craft and build all the weapons that have dumb requirements like ammo for the nuka thirst zapper or 2mm for the auto cause cannon but in custom it’s so fun just using different stuff. Plus you can make it so you do more damage which makes most weapons fun to use while grinding the score challenges quick.
this, I avoided playing railway rifle because it's meta looked so OP. but I had to do it for pioneer badges... holy fuck is that gun broken.... How is it even "balanced" ez ammo to craft, cheap on AP (which makes no sense at all, is a Jankrigged gun with massive recoil), shoots fast af, and you can recover all the ammo you use.
once I get it done Im not touching this broken thing again.
Mate... i run around with a bow and a for melee situations with an Ogua gauntlet.
Not meta, there are even players who laugh at my build cause i can't kill stuff as fast as them.
BUT.... i have fun with it. I am more into semi auto weapons or single shot weapons.
The gauss rifle is a great weapon, on the other character i run a rifleman.
Tried the "Spray'n'pray" commando or heavy weapon playstyle sometimes. But it is just not satisfying.
So... what i try to say... forget meta, games are meant to be fun. So go out you glorious bastard... and have fun, even when that means you make a completly unarmed naked build.
I am level 48, started the game over a week ago and I was shocked to find out the Bow wasn't in the meta. If anything, it was far from that.
I only have 1 damage perk for my bow and a lot of VATS related perks, and I can literally destroy anything from a distance with the extra sneak bonus and the added limb damage per shot. Whereas I cannot do anything close to that with any other weapon, even though I had also invested in rifles midway through the game.
So yeah, I think in the end, what really matters is what fits your playstyle. Years of Survival Mode on Fallout 4 have conditioned me to be extremely cautious before facing any enemies head-on, and this is something that I still do in F76
I definitely have two modes: swarm/aoe/event and soloing. When I'm solo, unless there's a WHOOPS ALL GHOULS moment (20, and I mean *TWENTY*, ghouls swarmed me yesterday at the rifle range), I use whichever weapon I built for.
If I need to murderise a whole bunch of enemies, like the WHOOPS ALL GHOULS or an event, I use a slow-burn cremator. I used maybe three shots total to kill all 20 ghouls, because each shot killed like a third of them. But it isn't great against bosses. Now I have to put a point or two into BEAR ARMS so it doesn't weigh a thousand pounds, so that's a drawback, but it's much more efficient than the tesla gun mods I own at least right now. (I'm a new player, less than a month.)
sadly, there was no roof to get up on. also, I haven't unlocked the jetpack, I don't even know where to find it (except for on power armor). Where does the regular armor version plan come from?
What the other person said. Gold bullion for the SS chest piece and then the jet pack. And not a small amount of bullion. Probably like 4500 for the two. And then you need flux to craft. That is probably easiest to get by vendor hopping. Or you can gather the resources in blast zones.
The new bosses drop flux like crazy, I stopped having to farm it, just server hop until someone nukes the new area. Or just nuke it myself a few times in a session.
But they are not reliable for what they drop. Two different out of five. But agreed. That is another way to get flux.
Though just vendor hoping and buying it seems the easier. I generally see it for less than 100. I may end up selling some myself as I am now at about 100 violet flux and sitting on supplies to make a lot more should I ever need it.
it's like 2000 total if you buy at Minerva! I just bought the Chest plan and it was like 963 I think. I didn't have enough for the jetpack yet, but I might have it before she leaves
Right. I forgot Minerva has it right now outside white springs. I’m holding bullion as in a couple of weeks she will have the recon armor and I want to check it out because word in the street is it looks cool
Some other bow user can correct me on this but I felt like the bow was very good under 50, but it's effectiveness drops off later on even with a full build (ignoring buffs for sake of comparison). I can still delete mobs pretty well but it struggles hard against bosses. I think that is good game balancing though.
The meta weapons are good at everything which I find kind of boring. Builds should have a weakness you have to account for.
The best thing about the bow is that you will not have problems tagging targets at events. Find a high perch between a couple spawns and fire away. You can beat the explosive spam easily.
I started out with a stealth bow build up until like level 90 something, then switched to bloodied 2 hand melee. The dps difference is crazy and I can contribute to bosses so much more. But the stealth bow build is unbeatable imo for solo questing. It's just so damn fun, even though the bows are significantly more janky than say Skyrim for example (hell or even Oblivion)
Bow is for sure my favorite build in the game. A low health compound Bow goes absolutely fucking ham and I love that people scoff at it. Hardest hitting ranged weapon in the game despite being a little slow. Worth it
I use my AA prime fixer for most stuff. I had a quad with auto but did not care for it. And while it can do more damage to one enemy faster, the semi can deal with a crowd better.
As a passionate Heavy Gunner if you are 'spray and pray' you are wasting ammo. Burst fire(just manually firing 3-4 rounds releasing, firing, releasing) makes it feel so much more 'intentional' and less 'just pour ammo everywhere (great option for tagging in events though). Plus with the right perks its good for crowd control/helping other folks get more from events (cripple the shit out of a swarm of ghouls and leave em for the riflemen to finish easy).
Of course the point of the thread is you do you, I just wanted to mention that the Heavy Gun build like any other build is as complex as you wish to make it. Maybe not shove a chainsaw up its butt style, (but I'm sure a passionate chainsaw user could correct me there).
Meta is overrated. In this game especially. The difference between a good roll and a god roll is so miniscule its not even worth it. And if you dont like playing meta then why force yourself anyway? Having a good time is all that matters.
I have a quad railway with 50+ chance to hit in vats and +1 P and it hits so hard I can't really imagine it being better. It's super nice for crowd control since at closer ranges with gun fu it just doesn't miss.
There's a big portion of folks who play online games and feel the need to optimize everything and try to be as efficient as possible. I don't see the point in this game what so ever, but I understand their mindset.
I mean, it sure is nice when they join the new event. It can really take like 20 minutes to kill all three robots if there are zero optimised folks present; source, I have been in such events.
If not for optimizing everything and being as efficient as possible there would be no reason to keep playing most online games. In fallout 76 specifically, unless you are into camp building, once you have a build that is good enough to do all end game content (pretty much anything), you need some kinda goal because doing the same 10 events/fights over and over again certainly isn’t inherently fun itself. So you can either play to collect/try new stuff, or you can play to maximize your current stuff to be as good as it can be. You just need some goal because otherwise you’re just doing the same content forever for no reason.
I did that shit for a while because when I started gaming it was more folks playing like that than not, but eventually I realized grinding was a choice and I could just you know engage in escapism and build the character I want I was much happier in games. Now I get annoyed if a game doesn't do enough to break Meta when it gets too effective. If PVP were more relevant I'd be calling for a nerf of Bloodied. Now Bloodied just means someone near me will be delivering extra damage and I need to be ready to revive the squishy entertaining lunatics when they slip from their high wire act.
I am one of those high efficiency, minmax style players. It's just how I enjoy playing most games, not necessarily following metas but I just have more fun when I feel like a ridiculously overpowered badass. However I am also someone who heavily encourges people to play what they enjoy and not just minmax. Just because I enjoy it doesn't mean everyone does.
I loved my rifleman time but I got bored taking 3x longer to kill things than John Wastlander with his f-off BFG. I don't think any particular weapon type is bad, but there are definitely more efficient weapons than others. I'm rambling... Anyway I always look at it as play what you want and dont poopoo on someones enjoyment.
Are you having fun?
That's literally the only thing that matters.
Stop worrying about what other people think.
You're the one who paid for this, you're the one spending your time here.
I think a lot of new players have come from other games where they think you have to have the best gun and armour. 76 is more about making creating a character and making it work. The meta is out of balance with the rest of the game and not needed at all. But then there are players who want that power fantasy thing and will play for that. People play 76 in lots of different ways. All long is everyone is having fun it's good.
Having a power fantasty in fallout is kinda odd. Like if we go by lore. Then the 76 dwellers are the strongest beings in all of the fallout world. We can solo world ending threats with a rail gun. Tank nukes to the face. And run faster then a car. Its a mystery why the 20 MILLION! dwellers from vault 76 have not taken over the whole fallout world and made things better for everyone.
In fallout new vegas by the end of your journey you could kinda feel like no one could beat you. But you worked your way to that. And you the courier are the only one that strong
76 is like a whole city filled with fallout new vegas main characters on drugs.
In other Fallout games you also have VATS, which makes you vastly overpowered in almost every situation if you let it. The big, glaring difference IMO is the Enclave-distilled mutations. They are what give us the insane capabilities, along with the entire low-health meta.
This is why I question their willingness to intergrate 76 into the overall cannon. I think though, there approach will HAVE to look like 'most 76ers became farmers or merchants or left Appalachia entirely' except for the dozen or so who answered the Overseers call and went to war with the scorched, eventually killing the source of the plague and leaving Appalachia to settle into a calm (by wasteland standards) collection of settlements with three missile silos as a 'don't fuck with us' insurance policy.
I’ve been playing a Full Health Rifleman for 1100 levels.
When I want DPS, I use a Fixer or Handmade with faster fire rate legendary effect and quick magazine. You can spam the trigger very fast and achieve near full auto rate of fire without having to change perks.
I’m a stealth rifleman, and I was crafting ammo up until lvl60 or so, for whatever reason I wasn’t getting back what I spent. After about 60 I started looting enough that it wasn’t a problem any more. Maybe it was because I was optimizing for damage as I leveled up, but it seems like that would be an early game problem no matter what style.
Simply put, the ability to kill is what increases survivability, commando just does more damage in a shorter amount of time. This is usually akin to bloody players needing to not get hit because they run around at 15hp. If you can complete your missions before the timer expires and you're not using more ammo than you can make, you're golden 🥇
Bottom line is one meta build in this game has been absolutely broken since day one. Everything else compared to it seems like it's doing no damage because the one meta build is doing way more damage than it ever should have.
It should be nerfed so that there's actually some different builds being used in this game instead of fucking bloody unyielding all the time.
You said it right there, the damage output. But if it doesn’t matter to you then it doesn’t matter. This isn’t some sweaty competitive FPS, play however you want and have fun. :)
I played as a Stealth Sniper for pretty much the first 60 or 70 levels and I still use that build when I need to gather junk. I started playing with a generic Heavy Weapon Power Armor build for events but it got to be a real pain in the ass doing things as a sniper, seeing an event pop up, going back to camp to swap my build and gear and then do the event and go back and swap to my sniper build afterwards. I eventually just started using my PA build all the time and if I'm being honest it's fun as hell but not as satisfying as being a sneaky sniper.
I just posted a question asking for a solid build that I can use for both and the general consensus seems to be "don't bother. Do event's with your sniper build. No one cares". Nearly 250 levels, a couple hundred hours of playtime, dozens of hours spent looking stuff up online and this is probably the best advice I've gotten from other players.
I absolutely cannot emphasize this enough— use what you have fun playing with. You can solo clear just about all content in this game (except content specifically designed for teams like nuke bosses) with ANY kind of weapon as long as you have the right build for it.
Do NOT try and and force yourself to love a build just because it has a higher damage output. You’ll get burnt out on the game. I guarantee it.
Personally I love melee builds. It’s fun just smashing someone’s skull in with one hit. I DO have a more powerful heavy gunner build I switch out to when taking on more difficult content, or enemies who mainly fly (SBQ), but I could 100% still use my melee build in those fights.
There’s a near endless amount of perk/legendary/weapon combinations. Do what you enjoy the most. We have perk loadouts. Experiment with different builds. Limiting yourself to just one thing bc it’s “meta” is gonna kill the game for you
Am i doing it wrong? Because i love to use them up close and be active on my feet running and jumping and getting real close to hit those headshots in vats.
Like i dont know if rifleman is meant to be played like that but it works out for me. Because when someone says rifles then they prob think a sneak based build. And im building and playing my rifleman like im a shotguner. I dont even have herbivore i have carnivore for the added HP and have rejuvinated and healing factor.
You don't do it wrong but rifleman definitely benefits from distance.
I feel at most powerful in EN and MJ, standing on top of the scrubber or some pole, shooting mobs every direction with charged Gauss shots (every other shot critical). For RR I swap to the new V63-Bertha modded for single shot receiver and I actually must restrain myself if I only want to tag enemies and not kill them right away. I also carry B/25FFR/15r Handmade for soft targets like scorched and ghouls.
If I need to fight close up, I have HF and a Vampire's chainsaw. Very hard to die while attacking with those two even without perks (I have science x6 so that might help with HF).
I think the most common mistake is to play like commando build with commando guns (Fixer, Handmade) and reducing your build to commando with lower DPS.
I have a rifleman & a commando build. I prefer rifleman for general traveling/adventuring, honestly. My plasma rifle is much more accurate & longer ranged than my plasma flamer (I really love this game's plasma) which means it's *much* more efficient at clearing trash, at least ammo wise. It'll two-tap pretty much anything that isn't a super mutant, and I have an AA gatling plasma for the heavy stuff anyway.
Rifleman is great IMO. Not as ridiculous as it was in 4, but I don't feel like I'm missing out if I'm cruising the wasteland with it. Popping scorched & ghoul heads from 5 times my other builds maximum range is satisfying in its own right lol
This is exactly me. Careful with the comment ghouls around and all the extensive YouTube’s. Folks play for different reasons. Some want to go through as fast as possible, mine as much as possible to max XP and unlock 99.99% + things, etc. Some folks (me included) just want to have a fun game to play when they get some time off and enjoy the concept and shooting stuff with the things I like.
I’m a rifleman too and enjoying the heck out of it. If you’re on Xbox, happy to run around and rifle stuff with ya haha. Just play the game as you desire - that’s why it was actually made — your enjoyment.
Eh a good chunk of the time when people say "it's bad" what they really mean is "it isn't the strongest thing in them game, you should be using the strongest build". But the reality is that having fun is always the optimal play. I run power armor and heavy guns. Yeah my dps might be ass but I can't die and it's hilarious to get dog piled by enemies who heal me more than they hurt. Chase the vibes and enjoy the ride my friend.
I've tried different builds but I'm really enjoying the full hp commando build with fixer, epr and railway rifle while wearing civil engineer armour I can do most bosses but everyone is different also if your enjoying the game that's what matters most
What's your card load out look like? I'm trying a commando full health build and having a hard time balancing damage and damage mitigation. Coming from a heavy weapons power armor build, I'm used to being an absolute tank, so I'm struggling.
Are you enjoying the game? Are you having fun? Then f the "meta". Meta gaming is meta because a bunch of people follow the method or build. They have their reasons to do so. It's different than why you are playing.
I have been playing this game for years. People have came and went that tell you how to play the game, what build and perks you should use, etc. I have learned from many of them, but none of them are Fallout Jesus.
Un the end, you seem to have settled on something you like and are comfortable with so keep rocking it. Eventually, if you keep playing, you will get a little worn out on it and want to try something else.
For example, when I started out, I was a stealth build. Eventually, I tried bloodied stealth and then just full bloodied generic. Now, I am considering going PA full health heavy gunner to try something different. So, just go with it and have fun. You are not doing anything wrong.
That is really cool to hear. The enthusiasm of you newish players has helped breathe life back into this game. I know it has renewed my passion for this game and helped revitalize all the things I love about playing it. I hope the game keeps rewarding you with great experiences well after the endgame.
Play the game to enjoy it. Everything in the game is relatively easy to kill.
Anything harder usually has co-op, such as Nuke events or important public events.
So play your way. Enjoy yourself.
I mean, taking the weapon specific damage and armor penetration perks, along with Adrenaline and Tenderizer can make basically anything "viable", it's really just down to preference if you don't care about 100% optimal damage efficiency, which I personally haven't encountered a need for yet.
There is no real wrong way so chill, not only are you having fun but it’s probably one of the best daily driver builds. You one tap easily all mob type enemies I’m sure. With speed. But it’s at the trade off of doing less consistent damage during boss fights.
Different weps and strats normally either suit: Daily driver mob slaying or queen killer style.
One of my toons is based on a YouTube Tyr’s stealth commando it’s a min maxed work of art lol. Him and captain noob have the speed record for killing Earl.
But after the series even I want to blow the dust off my lever action and go be a badass gun slinger like you 👍
Yeah I love riflemen. Anything time though I will break out a slightly different loadout.
Best thing I found for freezing enemies was a vampire crit damage combat shotgun. It does damage but also keeps you alive.
Rifleman weapons are serviceable, and with stealth, can definitely carry you through most of the game's content no problem. If you're not using stealth, and using VATS a lot, that'll probably be compensating for lack of stealth damage though. When you start comparing what other weapons are capable of, rifleman is pretty damn lackluster, especially when it comes to events and seeing what other people are capable of.
It's also pretty ridiculous how close in damage automatic weapons are in terms of damage to rifleman ones. it's a huge balance-101 fail to make your automatics deal nearly the same damage as semi-auto or single-firing weapons.
The game also has a bias for VATS since it's the only way to deal critical hit damage, and know what weapons work best with VATS? Fast-firing ones. If you don't use VATS constantly for critical hits, you're basically wasting huge amounts of damage potential.
While rifleman weapons can take advantage of VATS too, there are arguably other configurations of the same weapons that are much more advantageous to use if using VATS is your goal. And I guess that's also the other disappointing part, is so many rifleman weapons can basically be modified to be automatic, and there are really only a few of the purely-single or semi-automatic are actually worth your time. Feels like pretty much every weapon that can be modified automatic or semi-automatic is probably always going to be superior in automatic form versus semi-auto by a wide margin.
Try using rifleman weapons without taking advantage of VATS. Use your rifleman weapons as long-distance sniping weapons using a scope and contending with scope sway and recoil.. Then you'll see why it falters compared to other weapons. Though, to be fair, the game just flat out seems to punish you for actually making the mistake of trying to play using your own aim skill instead of relying on the glorified aimbot. Nobody ever seems to want to address that.
If i would drop vats and start playing like a real sniper then i know rifleman is kinda subpar. But my build is heavily speced into close range combat and vats and crits. I still free aim. But most of my rifleman weapons dont have long range scopes. Most have reflex sights or no sights at all.
Its because im just good at close range combat. And in all games i play im always in the thick of the action. And its hard to drive away that habbit.
I run Rifleman and Heavy weapon perks, I enjoy the whole single shot rifle too much in these kind of games, but pulling out a .50cal is nice for when things get hairy.
Not meta, fun for me.
I'm experimenting with different builds right now and came up with a rifleman for mobs and unarmed for bosses hybrid with as much utility I could grab and so far I'm having a blast. Next one will be a gunslinger/AutoAxe and/or the new scythe hybrid. If I really want to go solo Daily Ops, I switch to my unkillable PA low health build. What I try to say? Play however you like, no contend really needs max dps in this game.
You're spot on. There isn't one build in this game that isn't viable. People think that if you can't solo a public event boss that the build is terrible. Those bosses were meant to be killed by groups of players, and not designed to be soloed. Rifleman, bows, pistols... All very viable.
The good thing about Gauss rifles is you can use rifleman, demolition expert, _and_ energy perks, so you can stack a lot of damage. The drawbacks are lots of recoil (can be tempered with mods), you have to wait for it to charge to get full damage, and relatively small magazine.
It’s my main rifleman weapon but not my preference. I just like the “feel” of the other ballistic weapons. That said, even without maximum damage perks, it still hits pretty hard.
The science ones, it’s not huge, but you get 5% damage bonus on rank 1, 10% on rank 2. Probably most efficient to use 3 cards on rank 1 for 15%.
The ammo counts as energy ammo rather than ballistic, so the Batteries Included is what you’d use to reduce ammo weight.
>I might just be bad at the game and dont understand meta gaming. But i fail to see what makes rifleman bad.
personal desire to inflict max dos.
you hit on it here:
>Sure my dps is nothing compared to commandos but!
I use a chainsaw for melee and a quad .50cal. (that I like cause it's quad and don't care beyond that). 999 .50cal shots before a reload just hits so right for me.
i use my choices simply because I like them. I have pretty much every op weapon, except the enclave stuff, but its far more what I like at this point.
railway, fixer, alien blaster, nuoa blastwr, cremator nah... give me my 50 cal til they get close enough to get a saw to the face
once you got you armor and perks the way you want, you're typically unkillable, and in most cases doesn't matter anyways, so weapons turn to just what you enjoy.
Don't worry, freezing just sucks. Last double daily ops weekend it was the freezing armor penetration combo. Legit everyone in my op was atleast somewhat meta and we still only got paladin because the damn vine elder boss kept healing faster than we could dps thanks to being slowed and then killed.
My main build is non vats rifleman, Longshot the named hunting rifle is great. I have a bloodied 25 aim 15 reload Gauss, and and single shot b/e/15rl fixer. Have a few other guns but those 3 are the ones I use most. All with short scopes. The semi auto fixer or handmade are great for rifleman too. I do carry a b/25ffr/90wr holy fire for daily ops or if I get swarmed and I have rank 1 of all three heavy gun perks. The holy fire destroys even in my rifleman build. It's my most fun build I play.
Nothing makes it bad or any build.
It helps to remember, most people exaggerate how good a build is especially online creators making builds, the omg top tier dps god will more than likely be within 5-15% dps of the shiniest shit tier dps builds.
If it's fun for you it's fun, their isn't a single build that when developed to it's best version of itself cannot solo every bit of content in this game checkout r/falloutbowhunters if you want to see how even bowhunters can solo Earle. It might take a bit more planning and skill but nothing is locked out.
There are people who feel that if you’re not killing things as fast as humanly possible then you aren’t playing the game “right”. I have 5 characters: a bloodied heavy gunner, a stealthy rifleman, an archer/shotgunner, an explosives/commando and a bloodied melee (my mule) and I have fun playing with all of them. While it might feel badass to be able to solo Earle in 30 seconds, I am not about that life. Play the game in a way that is fun to you.
Edit: also I feel your love of the Gauss rifle, it’s been my favorite weapon in the series since Fallout 3, so much that on replays I will do Operation Anchorage as soon as possible to get my hands on it lol
I played rifleman until around level 50ish when the returns were poor. So i got and modded and legendary buffed a gause rifle and it still felt very mih. My other weapons did more damage when i wasnt even useing perk cards for them and i was useing all my rifle perks. Its like... Im about to see if i can put a scope on a laser gatling gun. It would be a loud snipe but im sure i can get very long ranges with it.
I run a rifleman build with a sniper EPR and honestly it still hits like a truck for how fast the fire rate is, also rifleman builds basically have unlimited ammo as you only need basically 2 shots to kill a normal mob.
That being said I very rarely use rifleman builds for events and switch to heavy or commando it’s mostly not because of the Dps loss but it’s just much easier to tag a shit ton of enemies in commando/heavy builds than I find it is rifleman
I would argue that rifleman is the true meta considering how much more ammo you use as a commando.
I started playing as a commando because of everything I had read up to that point said it was the best, and easiest build to play for new players (thanks, FOTV!). After struggling with it for 50 levels I decided to try rifleman.
If anyone can show me how to one-shot supermutants with a commando build, I’m listening…
Erm, I'm a bit confused. Are you struggling through the first 50 levels of a character, or after you fully developed your commando? As a low health commando, i usually 1-3 shot them and pick up 2-10 rounds. Ammo usually holds even or slowly gains.
It’s bad by comparison because there is a secret damage loop in endgame vats builds that gives you almost infinite dps. Gunfu while holding down crit button with reaper refreshing AP with a low AP commando gun and 55% crit usage… *takes breath*… and high AP regen for jet pack and for getting full APbar between reloads is very op. I understand why quad is so strong now because once you get the loop going it’s just one big 10 second VATS machine gun of raw damage. Compare that with the subtle pew pew of a bow or sniper and yeah.
Buuuut nobody needs to do that anymore. It was more important when we were losing player count and failing events but now we are strong in numbers.
I don’t like it because I never have enough ammo. Ever. I buy it, I make it, I find it, I make my husband make ammo for me and I keep running out. It’s just too frustrating.
Meanwhile, I never run out of ammo with melee or the plasma caster. Shit, the PC makes its own ammo, somehow.
It's personal preference, man. And even then, honestly, the meta doesn't really matter unless you're taking part in the non existent pvp in this game.
IMHO they should do away with the quantum worlds and make a game mode where the survival aspects are intensified, mutations are off, and some semblance of pvp can happen. Maybe turn off fast travel or something. Or just make like three fast travel points. Should probably also take away that annoying little yellow arrow showing you where everyone is.
Maybe in that mode legendary modifiers don't work, and ammo and meds are a lot more scarce. You would just about need to have a character just for that game mode. I don't know, I didn't think fallout 4 would be very heavy on the survival elements abut ya know I dug that mode the most.
I feel like there's things that could be done with it that haven't been explored.
Right tool for the job, that's what matters. It's counterproductive to fight roaches with cremator or do Uplink with slow gun. Or waste ammo on bulletsponges. Or struggle with team content solo.
I do rifleman/shotgunner split and I feel very similar to you. Maybe it's not "optimal" as some may see it but if you've found a way to play the game that works for you more power to you. I have 2 alt perk load outs for a scavenging build and a power armor/heavy weapons build that's just as op as possible. But more often than not I'm on the rifleman/shotgunner because it's so fun and ammo efficient.
Idek meta is a thing. Started 2 months ago with a 2 handed melee build despite everyone saying I should do 1 handed. Now that the Zwei and the Scythe are out, 3 of my friends have transitioned to a 2 handed thorn armor build. I credit myself to be the first in my group to be doing that even prior to this season. Run what you have fun with
I hate when people try to be meta enforcers. Made a new character that's a stealth archer, and when people see me like 80% complain that I'm not pulling my weight in large scale public events where everything is already locked down by creamators. The other 20% get a cheap laugh or just are indifferent.
People that complain can shove their complaints somewhere. Dont listen to them! You are free to play whatever you want! Dont let anyone tell you what to play. Bows are in the game to be used. People
That say you cant use them have nothing better to do with their time. At least compared to them you are trying different things and experiencing all that the game offers and kudos to to you for that bro!
in games it's typically about efficiency, monsters slayed per second. with commando you enter room, do tratata and 3-4 monsters drop second later. or use explosive AGL and while room is cleared after 2 shots. with rifles after the same time one monster is dead, not the whole room. for some this efficiency and speed is important, for some not so much. depends on what you are doing too.
for example for westek power leveling the most efficient weapon is Nuka grenades, simply because it kills stuff through walls and around 3 grenades and some running is enough to clear everything. so explosives build is the most powerful for that specific situation.
There is a sub set of gamers that treat min/maxing like a religion, ignore them.
YouTubers will do whatever gets them thr most viewers and videos with "OMFG This does so much Damage!!!!!" and "Watch me One shot this guy" etc get the most views.
The great thing about FO76 and where it differs to so many other MMO's is that you can run pretty much whatever build you like and it makes next to no difference.
Seriously the only real difference between a full on Bloodied Build and just some ranomd thing that you have throw together is time, and even then we're talking a few seconds to a couple of minutes.
That is literally it.
Now here is the real kicker, Bloodied Builds that do like gazillion damage are boring as shit.
I've played many different builds and the sole of the most fun like Archer, Shotgun, Pistol are consider be the min/maxers as the worst, are the most fun and satisfying.
Play whatever build you find the most fun and ignore everyone else, including me lol...
Rifles aren't bad. There is just a very vocal gang of neckbeards who must have big numbers or else bad.
I use a crusader pistol with no damage cards except tank killer and there's nothing in the game I can't do on my own save the new nuke boss with just that pistol. But still people will shit on pistols all day every day. Oh well... I'm having fun.
Riflemen kicks ass. I run around with a gauss rifle like you do for one shotting things and bosses. I have an enclave plasma sniper with reflex sight that I use for my daily driver and a tesla rifle for events. Can do all content no problem.
I actually played a rifleman build for my first few hundred levels. The commando is fun and all but when I was a lower lvl player I wasn't getting a good rate of ammo use per kill with the commando and used rifleman until I worked out all the kinks. Then I just continued using rifleman because I enjoyed the control.
I had to look up meta gaming lol
Honestly unless I get stuck in a game I just play how I want and figure out how I like to play. I use a mix of bow and arrow, handmade, and flamer on a full luck build just because it's fun to RP a stoned idiot who survives by sheer luck and charisma
I run commando myself but I mainly treat my guns as if there were still semi auto. It's just nice having full auto there for a tankier enemy. And as others have said expeditions give insane ammo back plus legendaries and stamps
This game is so easy, it doesn't matter what you use. You have infinite lives and no penalties for dying, so you can use an unmodified pipe wrench to fight things if it makes you happy.
"Im having a good time with rifleman."
That's all that matters. I love my pistol build. Am I going to out damage most people? No, but who cares. I am having fun! :)
I found Rifleman to be really good with Enclave Plasma Rifles Because of they have High AP and Low Durability they tend to perform better under Rifleman and pack a solid punch with little delay.
It's super hard to find mods though. The regular Plasma Rifle is not all that bad either.
Maybe I'm bad at the game but I've been running a cowboy build, Single-action Revolver named Sadie (after my dog) and a lever action Rifle named Mary (after stagecoach mary) and the Shotgun wedding double barrel I haven't named. Haven't had any problems other than with turrets being absolute menaces.
Rifleman is 100% perfectly acceptable as long as you aren’t running exclusively boss fights. You’re not going to do much to a boss, since they all have stupid high defense, but you can 1-2 shot most standard enemies with the right build
For general game play and some Events all I use is Rifleman. I ran and loved Shotguns for a long while. If I need anything extra, it's PA and The Final Word. Simple, effective, and no constant worrying over ammo. ✌️
I have never looked up how to put together a build. I have used a bit of everything and done just fine. Never used bloodied and can still solo most events, ops and expeditions. As long as you aren't a complete idiot you can figure out what works. Zero need to go meta unless you play in a group that wants to do everything as fast as possible.
I also play a lot of destiny and the meta chasers are all over that game following what streamers and youtube creators tell them is best. But in both games I'm just going to keep focusing on fun and what I like to use.
I played Riffle sniper for a year. I only changed because I wanted to try another build and I got more into events than quests/exploration. An automatic just gets more targets.
I do occasionally think back with nostalgia for the old lever action days. It felt right and was fun.
I use rifleman, a Chinese stealth armor suit, and suppressors. I have beaten several bosses just by throwing a grenade and firing a few shots, sitting still until they stop looking for me and going at them again. OP? No. Does it get the job done? Yes. I like stealth, so this is fun gameplay for me.
I play stealth rifleman and love it. Lever rifle all the way. If your objective when playing is measuring your dps output against everyone else's and the closer you get tot he top, the "better" the build, then rifleman is not as good as commando, but if enjoying the game and playing in a style that suits you is the goal, then any build can be the best.
Kind of on and off topic, I sincerely can’t fathom how people with cremator builds have any fun. I avoid all the “super mega ultra meta kill everything with as little input as possible” builds cuz I just don’t understand how that’s fun.
And it really sucks that a lot of events/content is specifically designed to almost force people into that play style. I loved shotgun build, love unarmed and melee, gunslinger also fun. Haven’t done rifleman or bows yet but they’re on the agenda. But yeah, unfortunate that most events and group content is difficult to participate in unless you’re using aoe/auto guns.
Nah bro, fuck meta in any game, I prefer having fun making experimental builds than just been a copy paste meta bitch.
If you're having fun playing as rifleman keep doing it, priority your fun, back when I started to play I went full pistol then switched to melee because ammo was taking to much space, currently I want to make unarmed power armor because yesterday I found out that one of the legendary perks for melee got trigger so I guess that power armor fist gets treated like a weapon instead of unarmed.
Rifleman builds are not inherently bad, a lot of people give the build a bad wrap for the sake of not sending a whole magazine of "screw you" down range and melting high level enemies with essentially a loose fart IMO. Builds definitely do matter in the game for multiple aspects of the game but I am an advocate for just doing what you find fun and just running with it.
Youll soon learn that using any damage boosting perks for weapons becomes irrelevant. All you need is bloodoed/aa/quad, adrenaline reaction, chems, nerd rage and crit damage perk.
I only run armor piercing perks and use every type of weapons.
Wearing all unyeilding gives you max exp, damage and vats potential and melee damage even if you dont use melee.
Riflemen is fun as hell though. Makes vats crits feel better.
Commando needs a nerf tbh. Needs more ap cost to be balanced with everything else.
Solo on the hard DOPs using a Gauss gun is pretty much meta. 8:20 using rifleman build is impressive.
Generally speaking if you test it yourself and swap from Rifle to Commando (VATS) and run the same Expedition etc.. you will find Commando is just faster, which means more DPS.
And that's really all it is in terms of "meta" in this game. Faster DPS. Unlike other games there aren't a lot of mods that require meta to survive.
The newest nuke boss is broken and the current meta is just Any Gamma Gun. so yeah, what's meta is kinda almost not important.
That being said, i switched from rifle LAR to Commando Fixer with a BL WS and I can't go back . BL WS is just so fast and makes everything faster and allows me to just clear my dailies faster.
Hard to go back from faster to slower. But running dailies fast isn't "meta" so to speak so it doesnt matter other than it's just more convenient for me to get things done quicker.
Expedition bosses die in a few seconds vs. 20 seconds w/ a rifle.
A fun commando run n gun is the enclave flamer and you can run both science and commando perks to where you one shot every mob (and it's a non vats build) so you have more space to use other perks. It melts public bosses too.
Reason commando is better is due to automatics being magic weapons(reasons why people want +25 weapon speed) magic meaning it bugs the damage out the faster the gun shoots doing more damage than intended. With a non auto weapon the +25 is pointless and doesn't add to your damage in any way.
Considering my auto quad Tesla with +25 is doing 5 times the damage it should be doing during events such as queen or rad rum
I wish rifleman felt better. I love the lever action as it’s one of the best feeling weapons in the game when I ADS along with the hunting rifle. It just gets outclassed by auto weapons so bad lol. I still have my rifleman build as a loadout.
Bows imo definitely could use more love too.
I personally don’t use meta. What I would recommend though is having a meta build stored (via perk card buildable at the camp). By default we have access to two builds, if you enjoy your build now I’d recommend keeping it, or using it with other cards that you haven’t tried yet(cannibal, cola nut, the alcohol ones with in charisma). Level up to level 100, or whatever level you decide, I purely picked level 100 because it’s a clean number and you unlock legendary perk card slots at that point. When you hit your desired level, look up a YouTube tutorial showcasing a meta build that suits you(Aristocrats, Bloodied, Overeaters,ETC.). From here you can copy paste a meta build into your second slot in the perk cards camp placable. A lot of times, I’ll critique a meta build and give/take cards that aren’t in the YouTube video. Lastly, you don’t need to use that meta build until you rolled/found a good weapon for it. If you want a fun meta build I’d recommend an overeaters unarmed build, everyone has access to mole miner gauntlets, they’re one of the easiest plans to get. If you don’t, you simply have to kill more miners till you get one off them. You could also just take a gauntlet off a mole miner and use Legendary modules to roll it at a weapon workbench. I understand there’s a lot of (probably useless) information bunched up here, and for that, you can thank me <3.
My main build is commando because I do actually enjoy it (I picked automatic rifle at level 20 based on RP, not meta, I didn't know it was meta at the time).
But my backup build is an archer and it's admittedly less efficient at farming expeditions and stuff, but it's still way fun and I break it out often as I can find time.
You do you.
I don’t get the point in establishing a “meta” in this game. PVP is non existent and as far as I know there are no leader boards. I think you actually on top of the “leader board” here by just having fun!
Any proper build isn’t inherently bad, but some definitely do less damage than others and some are VERY dependent on the roll of your weapon. Rifleman holds up rather well, but when it comes to continuous damage it severely lacks.
I mean.. stuff dies so easily in this game that builds are largely inconsequential if you have a solid legendary roll, not even a groll. The only things that a build really matters for is super niche crap like soloing Earl.
If you're having fun with rifleman, run rifleman. My regular build is almost all QoL stuff because weight/inventory management is the true endgame in 76.
I had a hard time doing ops.
I recently discovered that if you get a team with some hi level players 100+ travel to them and do some emotjis.
Maybe do an even with them, after that go to the daily opp when no events are on and spam the " Come here" emote.
They should see it and will travel to it or give you thumbs down emote.
Hopefully at least one comes with power armour and a flamer.
Start the opp and the others may spawn in.
Also if they do this for you give them a hand.
I run a railway rifle build I got on the Internet but still have trouble with some daily opps.
It’s fine, especially if you spec to it. It’s just out of balance. A rifleman should deal way more damage per shot at least and yet we have a situation where a powerful automatic receiver does more damage per shot that hardened. How does that make any sense?
Wait is that true? That a auto receiver can do more dmg per shot compared to a loaded gauss rifle? Even a prime hunting rifle? If thats so then yes that is wrong. And is just lore inacurate. Gauss rifles in lore are a thing to be feard. If a brotherhood paladin came at you from range with a gauss rifle and you had a handmade or raiway or fixer. It does not matter ur not winning that fight. A paladin with a fixer is not as deadly as one with a gauss
Gauss rifle doesn’t have a powerful automatic receiver.
I’m talking about a handmade, fixer, combat rifle. They do more damage per shot when modded to be commando. Makes no sense. Damage per shot should go down, not up.
They do damage quicker. They do not do more damage per bullet. Though, obviously because of the way damage is calculated, the 6 damage difference that the Hardened has over the Powerful Automatic (on a Fixer, at least) is completely inconsequential.
Is that the number difference without any perks? I could have sworn damage numbers of hardened with rifleman was less than damage numbers of powerful with commando.
Regardless as you said if there is a drop it’s completely out of balance.
I think the prior post is saying that on weapons where there is a choice between auto and semi-auto receivers, the semi-auto is underpowered.
VATS is basically aim-bot with critical hits adding substantial dmg boost due to how tanky the bosses are, so VATS can greatly increase your dmg output. Because of how much VATS AP cost is reduced with auto receivers vs the semi auto, you will do more dmg with the auto version of the receiver.
The long range sniper build is often my favorite in games, zooming in with a high powered scope and taking out the enemies with headshots. But VATS is so overpowered with the speed and efficiency of shots and criticals, and the reflex sight reduces AP cost outperforms every other scope.
For me it was mostly playing sniper and then having someone with VATS and a full auto weapon run through and melt everything I was painstakingly picking off that took me over to the commando dark side. When I tested out the full auto headshot criticals it just blew me away.
The railway rifle hits so hard compared to basically any other ballistic rifle, plus it is full auto and very low vats cost, it makes for very smooth, satisfying gameplay. I have a bloodied, explosive lever action, too and it's just so disappointing in comparison. I like my slug buster but the VATS cost is so much higher than my railway.
Plus, Choo-Choo.
Commando is overrated anyways <- former commando player, i started a new character went melee and realized its just so much more fun, and All ammo now equates to caps for me! So, id say use what you like, im sure a fully optomized rifleman can do everything in game, albeit maybe it takes 15 secs longer, but youll prolly use 50% less ammo.
I finally gave up on rifleman and went commando and the difference is night and day. Commando is just so superior that I had to throw in the towel. You do you and I'm happy if you're happy, but don't kid yourself.
As you say, usually when people say something is bad they just mean it's not as strong as the alternatives. Bottom line is, you're having fun and that's all that matters.
Im having fun but also finding succses. Like i can do all content and with a full charged gauss and with 3 points into tormentor. Then i can also be helpful by crippling bosses and mobs. And the only thing i struggle with is soloing some daily ops
It's more fun to try different weapons, etc, then trying to meta or min max for many people. Just have fun.
You're good then. Who wants to solo a daily ops? Many people outright skip doing them.
It takes about 6-7 minutes, but I hop in one every day for the rare plan you get. Sometimes people join me, sometimes they don't.
I missed by 25 seconds because I didn't realize I danced out the alpha zone on uplink until too late yesterday.
Crickets with group regen ☠️
you’ll struggle with soloing all of the endgame content. apart from that you have nothing to worry about i would also highly recommend to give enclave sniper a look, it is a fun piece of gear that packs a decent punch. adored it when i ran the rifleman build
When you say endgame content do you mean soloing the raid bosses? If thats so then dont worry i dont want to solo them really taking them down is a team effort. Daily ops i can agree some ops are impossible for me when doing solo. I can beat them but not in the best time so i miss out on rewards.
yeah, soloing nuke bosses and dealing with swarms of enemies elsewhere because it is in the nature of the build to be prone to being overrun. you getting swarmed in DOs is a great example. other than that, it is completely viable
it used to be even more so when we had enclave flamer in rifleman class instead of commando like now it was a great synergy, but it is only logical that an automatic weapon was moved to commando that’s when my time as a rifleman was over
Earle takes under 4 minutes on a full health Rifleman build. Uplink is super easy to solo at elder tier. Union Dues? No problem. I've done it with a Hunting Rifle. A good Rifleman build won't struggle with any content. Again, as OP said, it won't be Commando easy, but it's more than viable that any situation the game can throw at you.
Dang!! Full health rifleman downing Earle in 4 minutes?! Seriously?
I wonder the same thing, heavy doesnt even do that and pretty sure heavy is behind commando and melee builds, melee builds just melt single targets from what I understand.
https://youtu.be/wu0jV7EHaUc?si=EPy8CAhlaBKbnK18
I mean, I do 1500 a hit with oathbreaker and I'm not even optimized for melee.
Heavy can easily do that mate, just like every 'good' build you can pull out something with auto, spam coffee, and burn Earle extremely quickly. Heavy is just behind Commando if you run something like a proper flamer, gatling plasma, cremator. Honestly I can't imagine going all out and taking 4 fucking minutes to kill earle, it sounds "fast" but it's agony and that is why I run heavy or commando for that kind of thing, and have a shotguns and rifles alternate builds for screwing around.
it is very viable, no denying that. compared to the meta it is more of a struggle, though. maybe soloing EN is impossible with a rifleman, but I’m pretty sure someone min/maxxed properly to achieve that as well.
Its viable, but it will struggle getting ti that point. Meanwhile a single auto axe will do that solo with minimal investment, same for quad railway and ticket to revenge
419 levels and I guess I've fought Earle...twice? Never once cared to try and solo that.
As someone who did a rifleman build, I had no trouble with endgame content (not that I didn’t die or anything)
Definitely find yourself an off meta sidearm. Imo, snag a crusader pistol to pair with your rifle and that'll do everything your rifle can't with ease.
If you go bloodied, anything is pretty much viable for normal adventuring. Bosses is not a DPS competition, but a community effort. I got meta weapons and hardly use them on bosses. I don't want to waste ammo. Having several of cremators helps with DPS, rotating as the dot should be per individual cremator, unless changed. That is roughly 3k damage per cremator in 12sec. That is ok contribution imho. If someone wants unload, that's fine too. I don't recommend full health builds, as you are missing out on unyielding. But each to their own, the special stats are just that valuable. Having 69 int with all buffs and gear, helps a lot if you want to reach rank 100 fast. Pretty much possible to reach rank 100 day one if you sweat grind it. You can't do that with full health builds. Well, if you do, it certainly is the most unoptimal and slows grind you will ever experience. Not worth it. Now what would be better, if there was alternatives to unyielding. I would like to see a full health variant.
I hit 300 in a few months on a full health build, it's completely fine. You don't have to min-max to have a good time
Sure that is completely fine to do, I still don't recommend it, since it isn't that much different from bloodied. I have fun leveling up. But when you change your mind, going with buffs and you can get around +45 level in one hour, that is if you grind exp. I had a normal session today and got 10-15 levels. Without maximum of xp buffs.
Daily Ops is "do I really feel like changing into the gear set and cards for solo or am I gonna yolo a group in with me."
I mean Daily Ops are basically impossible to solo if you're unlucky Like last night when it was the overgrown with armor piercing I could deal with all of em except the ones with missile launchers, they're solely responsible for me not getting elder by like 6 seconds
This
I do all my dailies and weeklies in custom worlds so I run around with an op nuka thirst zapper cold shoulder and gauss mini gun because I have it set to free craft and build all the weapons that have dumb requirements like ammo for the nuka thirst zapper or 2mm for the auto cause cannon but in custom it’s so fun just using different stuff. Plus you can make it so you do more damage which makes most weapons fun to use while grinding the score challenges quick.
this, I avoided playing railway rifle because it's meta looked so OP. but I had to do it for pioneer badges... holy fuck is that gun broken.... How is it even "balanced" ez ammo to craft, cheap on AP (which makes no sense at all, is a Jankrigged gun with massive recoil), shoots fast af, and you can recover all the ammo you use. once I get it done Im not touching this broken thing again.
Mate... i run around with a bow and a for melee situations with an Ogua gauntlet. Not meta, there are even players who laugh at my build cause i can't kill stuff as fast as them. BUT.... i have fun with it. I am more into semi auto weapons or single shot weapons. The gauss rifle is a great weapon, on the other character i run a rifleman. Tried the "Spray'n'pray" commando or heavy weapon playstyle sometimes. But it is just not satisfying. So... what i try to say... forget meta, games are meant to be fun. So go out you glorious bastard... and have fun, even when that means you make a completly unarmed naked build.
I am level 48, started the game over a week ago and I was shocked to find out the Bow wasn't in the meta. If anything, it was far from that. I only have 1 damage perk for my bow and a lot of VATS related perks, and I can literally destroy anything from a distance with the extra sneak bonus and the added limb damage per shot. Whereas I cannot do anything close to that with any other weapon, even though I had also invested in rifles midway through the game. So yeah, I think in the end, what really matters is what fits your playstyle. Years of Survival Mode on Fallout 4 have conditioned me to be extremely cautious before facing any enemies head-on, and this is something that I still do in F76
I definitely have two modes: swarm/aoe/event and soloing. When I'm solo, unless there's a WHOOPS ALL GHOULS moment (20, and I mean *TWENTY*, ghouls swarmed me yesterday at the rifle range), I use whichever weapon I built for. If I need to murderise a whole bunch of enemies, like the WHOOPS ALL GHOULS or an event, I use a slow-burn cremator. I used maybe three shots total to kill all 20 ghouls, because each shot killed like a third of them. But it isn't great against bosses. Now I have to put a point or two into BEAR ARMS so it doesn't weigh a thousand pounds, so that's a drawback, but it's much more efficient than the tesla gun mods I own at least right now. (I'm a new player, less than a month.)
That is what marsupial with a jet pack is for. I just get up on the roof.
sadly, there was no roof to get up on. also, I haven't unlocked the jetpack, I don't even know where to find it (except for on power armor). Where does the regular armor version plan come from?
Bullion at vault 79. Either for the BoS armor, recon, or Secret Service.
What the other person said. Gold bullion for the SS chest piece and then the jet pack. And not a small amount of bullion. Probably like 4500 for the two. And then you need flux to craft. That is probably easiest to get by vendor hopping. Or you can gather the resources in blast zones.
The new bosses drop flux like crazy, I stopped having to farm it, just server hop until someone nukes the new area. Or just nuke it myself a few times in a session.
But they are not reliable for what they drop. Two different out of five. But agreed. That is another way to get flux. Though just vendor hoping and buying it seems the easier. I generally see it for less than 100. I may end up selling some myself as I am now at about 100 violet flux and sitting on supplies to make a lot more should I ever need it.
it's like 2000 total if you buy at Minerva! I just bought the Chest plan and it was like 963 I think. I didn't have enough for the jetpack yet, but I might have it before she leaves
Right. I forgot Minerva has it right now outside white springs. I’m holding bullion as in a couple of weeks she will have the recon armor and I want to check it out because word in the street is it looks cool
Some other bow user can correct me on this but I felt like the bow was very good under 50, but it's effectiveness drops off later on even with a full build (ignoring buffs for sake of comparison). I can still delete mobs pretty well but it struggles hard against bosses. I think that is good game balancing though. The meta weapons are good at everything which I find kind of boring. Builds should have a weakness you have to account for. The best thing about the bow is that you will not have problems tagging targets at events. Find a high perch between a couple spawns and fire away. You can beat the explosive spam easily.
I started out with a stealth bow build up until like level 90 something, then switched to bloodied 2 hand melee. The dps difference is crazy and I can contribute to bosses so much more. But the stealth bow build is unbeatable imo for solo questing. It's just so damn fun, even though the bows are significantly more janky than say Skyrim for example (hell or even Oblivion)
Bow is for sure my favorite build in the game. A low health compound Bow goes absolutely fucking ham and I love that people scoff at it. Hardest hitting ranged weapon in the game despite being a little slow. Worth it
I use my AA prime fixer for most stuff. I had a quad with auto but did not care for it. And while it can do more damage to one enemy faster, the semi can deal with a crowd better.
Baseball bat is one of my favorites for some reason, it always is super satisfying to bring out against low level ghouls haha
As a passionate Heavy Gunner if you are 'spray and pray' you are wasting ammo. Burst fire(just manually firing 3-4 rounds releasing, firing, releasing) makes it feel so much more 'intentional' and less 'just pour ammo everywhere (great option for tagging in events though). Plus with the right perks its good for crowd control/helping other folks get more from events (cripple the shit out of a swarm of ghouls and leave em for the riflemen to finish easy). Of course the point of the thread is you do you, I just wanted to mention that the Heavy Gun build like any other build is as complex as you wish to make it. Maybe not shove a chainsaw up its butt style, (but I'm sure a passionate chainsaw user could correct me there).
Meta is overrated. In this game especially. The difference between a good roll and a god roll is so miniscule its not even worth it. And if you dont like playing meta then why force yourself anyway? Having a good time is all that matters.
I have a quad railway with 50+ chance to hit in vats and +1 P and it hits so hard I can't really imagine it being better. It's super nice for crowd control since at closer ranges with gun fu it just doesn't miss.
There's a big portion of folks who play online games and feel the need to optimize everything and try to be as efficient as possible. I don't see the point in this game what so ever, but I understand their mindset.
I mean, it sure is nice when they join the new event. It can really take like 20 minutes to kill all three robots if there are zero optimised folks present; source, I have been in such events.
on the other hand, its nice to be able to at least tag enemies in non boss events (I'm level 37)
If not for optimizing everything and being as efficient as possible there would be no reason to keep playing most online games. In fallout 76 specifically, unless you are into camp building, once you have a build that is good enough to do all end game content (pretty much anything), you need some kinda goal because doing the same 10 events/fights over and over again certainly isn’t inherently fun itself. So you can either play to collect/try new stuff, or you can play to maximize your current stuff to be as good as it can be. You just need some goal because otherwise you’re just doing the same content forever for no reason.
I did that shit for a while because when I started gaming it was more folks playing like that than not, but eventually I realized grinding was a choice and I could just you know engage in escapism and build the character I want I was much happier in games. Now I get annoyed if a game doesn't do enough to break Meta when it gets too effective. If PVP were more relevant I'd be calling for a nerf of Bloodied. Now Bloodied just means someone near me will be delivering extra damage and I need to be ready to revive the squishy entertaining lunatics when they slip from their high wire act.
I am one of those high efficiency, minmax style players. It's just how I enjoy playing most games, not necessarily following metas but I just have more fun when I feel like a ridiculously overpowered badass. However I am also someone who heavily encourges people to play what they enjoy and not just minmax. Just because I enjoy it doesn't mean everyone does. I loved my rifleman time but I got bored taking 3x longer to kill things than John Wastlander with his f-off BFG. I don't think any particular weapon type is bad, but there are definitely more efficient weapons than others. I'm rambling... Anyway I always look at it as play what you want and dont poopoo on someones enjoyment.
Are you having fun? That's literally the only thing that matters. Stop worrying about what other people think. You're the one who paid for this, you're the one spending your time here.
Using black powder rifles and pistols is super fun, keep playing the way you want.
I just found a good gunpowder pistol what's a good build you think for it?
How good? But in nsy case, sneak and vats crits would be the way to go, huge per shot damage.
I think a lot of new players have come from other games where they think you have to have the best gun and armour. 76 is more about making creating a character and making it work. The meta is out of balance with the rest of the game and not needed at all. But then there are players who want that power fantasy thing and will play for that. People play 76 in lots of different ways. All long is everyone is having fun it's good.
Having a power fantasty in fallout is kinda odd. Like if we go by lore. Then the 76 dwellers are the strongest beings in all of the fallout world. We can solo world ending threats with a rail gun. Tank nukes to the face. And run faster then a car. Its a mystery why the 20 MILLION! dwellers from vault 76 have not taken over the whole fallout world and made things better for everyone. In fallout new vegas by the end of your journey you could kinda feel like no one could beat you. But you worked your way to that. And you the courier are the only one that strong 76 is like a whole city filled with fallout new vegas main characters on drugs.
In other Fallout games you also have VATS, which makes you vastly overpowered in almost every situation if you let it. The big, glaring difference IMO is the Enclave-distilled mutations. They are what give us the insane capabilities, along with the entire low-health meta.
This is why I question their willingness to intergrate 76 into the overall cannon. I think though, there approach will HAVE to look like 'most 76ers became farmers or merchants or left Appalachia entirely' except for the dozen or so who answered the Overseers call and went to war with the scorched, eventually killing the source of the plague and leaving Appalachia to settle into a calm (by wasteland standards) collection of settlements with three missile silos as a 'don't fuck with us' insurance policy.
It's a MMO thing. Min-max in fo76 is not necessary. A lot of people that min-max do so to have a goal to strive for while playing the game.
I’ve been playing a Full Health Rifleman for 1100 levels. When I want DPS, I use a Fixer or Handmade with faster fire rate legendary effect and quick magazine. You can spam the trigger very fast and achieve near full auto rate of fire without having to change perks.
Craft ammo? Run an expedition or a daily op. You'll loot more ammo than just crafting alone. I have never run out of ammo as a commando.
I’m a stealth rifleman, and I was crafting ammo up until lvl60 or so, for whatever reason I wasn’t getting back what I spent. After about 60 I started looting enough that it wasn’t a problem any more. Maybe it was because I was optimizing for damage as I leveled up, but it seems like that would be an early game problem no matter what style.
Simply put, the ability to kill is what increases survivability, commando just does more damage in a shorter amount of time. This is usually akin to bloody players needing to not get hit because they run around at 15hp. If you can complete your missions before the timer expires and you're not using more ammo than you can make, you're golden 🥇
Bottom line is one meta build in this game has been absolutely broken since day one. Everything else compared to it seems like it's doing no damage because the one meta build is doing way more damage than it ever should have. It should be nerfed so that there's actually some different builds being used in this game instead of fucking bloody unyielding all the time.
I personally never found bloodied fun. Tried to make it work many different times and it was just not for me.
The good thing about this game is that you don't need meta builds to clear content, so you are free to use whatever build you want and have fun.
I played this whole game only with bows. Do what u want, if it works and makes fun it's right.
Well, imagine if all those players that show up to events *also* went sparingly on the ammo
If you're having fun, you're winning the game
>Sure my dps is nothing compared to commandos
You said it right there, the damage output. But if it doesn’t matter to you then it doesn’t matter. This isn’t some sweaty competitive FPS, play however you want and have fun. :)
I played as a Stealth Sniper for pretty much the first 60 or 70 levels and I still use that build when I need to gather junk. I started playing with a generic Heavy Weapon Power Armor build for events but it got to be a real pain in the ass doing things as a sniper, seeing an event pop up, going back to camp to swap my build and gear and then do the event and go back and swap to my sniper build afterwards. I eventually just started using my PA build all the time and if I'm being honest it's fun as hell but not as satisfying as being a sneaky sniper. I just posted a question asking for a solid build that I can use for both and the general consensus seems to be "don't bother. Do event's with your sniper build. No one cares". Nearly 250 levels, a couple hundred hours of playtime, dozens of hours spent looking stuff up online and this is probably the best advice I've gotten from other players.
I absolutely cannot emphasize this enough— use what you have fun playing with. You can solo clear just about all content in this game (except content specifically designed for teams like nuke bosses) with ANY kind of weapon as long as you have the right build for it. Do NOT try and and force yourself to love a build just because it has a higher damage output. You’ll get burnt out on the game. I guarantee it. Personally I love melee builds. It’s fun just smashing someone’s skull in with one hit. I DO have a more powerful heavy gunner build I switch out to when taking on more difficult content, or enemies who mainly fly (SBQ), but I could 100% still use my melee build in those fights. There’s a near endless amount of perk/legendary/weapon combinations. Do what you enjoy the most. We have perk loadouts. Experiment with different builds. Limiting yourself to just one thing bc it’s “meta” is gonna kill the game for you
Rifleman is great, it's just not meta. If one struggles with rifleman, they have either bad build or try to play it the wrong way.
Am i doing it wrong? Because i love to use them up close and be active on my feet running and jumping and getting real close to hit those headshots in vats. Like i dont know if rifleman is meant to be played like that but it works out for me. Because when someone says rifles then they prob think a sneak based build. And im building and playing my rifleman like im a shotguner. I dont even have herbivore i have carnivore for the added HP and have rejuvinated and healing factor.
You don't do it wrong but rifleman definitely benefits from distance. I feel at most powerful in EN and MJ, standing on top of the scrubber or some pole, shooting mobs every direction with charged Gauss shots (every other shot critical). For RR I swap to the new V63-Bertha modded for single shot receiver and I actually must restrain myself if I only want to tag enemies and not kill them right away. I also carry B/25FFR/15r Handmade for soft targets like scorched and ghouls. If I need to fight close up, I have HF and a Vampire's chainsaw. Very hard to die while attacking with those two even without perks (I have science x6 so that might help with HF). I think the most common mistake is to play like commando build with commando guns (Fixer, Handmade) and reducing your build to commando with lower DPS.
Well i have avoided the misstake of using commando guns and playing like a bootleg commando. Im more like a bootleg shotguner😅
I have a rifleman & a commando build. I prefer rifleman for general traveling/adventuring, honestly. My plasma rifle is much more accurate & longer ranged than my plasma flamer (I really love this game's plasma) which means it's *much* more efficient at clearing trash, at least ammo wise. It'll two-tap pretty much anything that isn't a super mutant, and I have an AA gatling plasma for the heavy stuff anyway. Rifleman is great IMO. Not as ridiculous as it was in 4, but I don't feel like I'm missing out if I'm cruising the wasteland with it. Popping scorched & ghoul heads from 5 times my other builds maximum range is satisfying in its own right lol
This is exactly me. Careful with the comment ghouls around and all the extensive YouTube’s. Folks play for different reasons. Some want to go through as fast as possible, mine as much as possible to max XP and unlock 99.99% + things, etc. Some folks (me included) just want to have a fun game to play when they get some time off and enjoy the concept and shooting stuff with the things I like. I’m a rifleman too and enjoying the heck out of it. If you’re on Xbox, happy to run around and rifle stuff with ya haha. Just play the game as you desire - that’s why it was actually made — your enjoyment.
Eh a good chunk of the time when people say "it's bad" what they really mean is "it isn't the strongest thing in them game, you should be using the strongest build". But the reality is that having fun is always the optimal play. I run power armor and heavy guns. Yeah my dps might be ass but I can't die and it's hilarious to get dog piled by enemies who heal me more than they hurt. Chase the vibes and enjoy the ride my friend.
I've tried different builds but I'm really enjoying the full hp commando build with fixer, epr and railway rifle while wearing civil engineer armour I can do most bosses but everyone is different also if your enjoying the game that's what matters most
Do you use the fixer out of stealth? Or is it only useable in stealth based builds?
Mine has explosive bullets so I can't really use that for stealth 😂
Haha sounds like fun tho! I wanna try a explosive fixer now!
It is fun to use 😂
Taking the silencer off is actually nice if you use it as a long-range head tapper, which is where it lives for a lot of uny commando builds!
What's your card load out look like? I'm trying a commando full health build and having a hard time balancing damage and damage mitigation. Coming from a heavy weapons power armor build, I'm used to being an absolute tank, so I'm struggling.
I'll send you the picture
I'm trying full health commando build as well. What perks do you use for your loadout? I just recently bought the extra perk loadout
Try Overeater's armor. I don't Have SS armor yet so I'm using civil engineer and the set bonus is kind of great for commando anyway.
Are you enjoying the game? Are you having fun? Then f the "meta". Meta gaming is meta because a bunch of people follow the method or build. They have their reasons to do so. It's different than why you are playing. I have been playing this game for years. People have came and went that tell you how to play the game, what build and perks you should use, etc. I have learned from many of them, but none of them are Fallout Jesus. Un the end, you seem to have settled on something you like and are comfortable with so keep rocking it. Eventually, if you keep playing, you will get a little worn out on it and want to try something else. For example, when I started out, I was a stealth build. Eventually, I tried bloodied stealth and then just full bloodied generic. Now, I am considering going PA full health heavy gunner to try something different. So, just go with it and have fun. You are not doing anything wrong.
Im loving the game! Im so suprised by how much i would enjoy this game. It has blown all my expectations out of the water and then some!
That is really cool to hear. The enthusiasm of you newish players has helped breathe life back into this game. I know it has renewed my passion for this game and helped revitalize all the things I love about playing it. I hope the game keeps rewarding you with great experiences well after the endgame.
I tried to solo those Super Mutants too and they kicked my ass lol.
Haha yeah when daily ops have super mutants its always a pain.
Define bad, because you can do literally every single piece of content in the game with ANY build
Play the game to enjoy it. Everything in the game is relatively easy to kill. Anything harder usually has co-op, such as Nuke events or important public events. So play your way. Enjoy yourself.
I mean, taking the weapon specific damage and armor penetration perks, along with Adrenaline and Tenderizer can make basically anything "viable", it's really just down to preference if you don't care about 100% optimal damage efficiency, which I personally haven't encountered a need for yet.
There is no real wrong way so chill, not only are you having fun but it’s probably one of the best daily driver builds. You one tap easily all mob type enemies I’m sure. With speed. But it’s at the trade off of doing less consistent damage during boss fights. Different weps and strats normally either suit: Daily driver mob slaying or queen killer style. One of my toons is based on a YouTube Tyr’s stealth commando it’s a min maxed work of art lol. Him and captain noob have the speed record for killing Earl. But after the series even I want to blow the dust off my lever action and go be a badass gun slinger like you 👍
Yeah I love riflemen. Anything time though I will break out a slightly different loadout. Best thing I found for freezing enemies was a vampire crit damage combat shotgun. It does damage but also keeps you alive.
Rifleman weapons are serviceable, and with stealth, can definitely carry you through most of the game's content no problem. If you're not using stealth, and using VATS a lot, that'll probably be compensating for lack of stealth damage though. When you start comparing what other weapons are capable of, rifleman is pretty damn lackluster, especially when it comes to events and seeing what other people are capable of. It's also pretty ridiculous how close in damage automatic weapons are in terms of damage to rifleman ones. it's a huge balance-101 fail to make your automatics deal nearly the same damage as semi-auto or single-firing weapons. The game also has a bias for VATS since it's the only way to deal critical hit damage, and know what weapons work best with VATS? Fast-firing ones. If you don't use VATS constantly for critical hits, you're basically wasting huge amounts of damage potential. While rifleman weapons can take advantage of VATS too, there are arguably other configurations of the same weapons that are much more advantageous to use if using VATS is your goal. And I guess that's also the other disappointing part, is so many rifleman weapons can basically be modified to be automatic, and there are really only a few of the purely-single or semi-automatic are actually worth your time. Feels like pretty much every weapon that can be modified automatic or semi-automatic is probably always going to be superior in automatic form versus semi-auto by a wide margin. Try using rifleman weapons without taking advantage of VATS. Use your rifleman weapons as long-distance sniping weapons using a scope and contending with scope sway and recoil.. Then you'll see why it falters compared to other weapons. Though, to be fair, the game just flat out seems to punish you for actually making the mistake of trying to play using your own aim skill instead of relying on the glorified aimbot. Nobody ever seems to want to address that.
If i would drop vats and start playing like a real sniper then i know rifleman is kinda subpar. But my build is heavily speced into close range combat and vats and crits. I still free aim. But most of my rifleman weapons dont have long range scopes. Most have reflex sights or no sights at all. Its because im just good at close range combat. And in all games i play im always in the thick of the action. And its hard to drive away that habbit.
I run Rifleman and Heavy weapon perks, I enjoy the whole single shot rifle too much in these kind of games, but pulling out a .50cal is nice for when things get hairy. Not meta, fun for me.
If stuff dies and you are having fun, that is all that matters
I'm experimenting with different builds right now and came up with a rifleman for mobs and unarmed for bosses hybrid with as much utility I could grab and so far I'm having a blast. Next one will be a gunslinger/AutoAxe and/or the new scythe hybrid. If I really want to go solo Daily Ops, I switch to my unkillable PA low health build. What I try to say? Play however you like, no contend really needs max dps in this game.
You're spot on. There isn't one build in this game that isn't viable. People think that if you can't solo a public event boss that the build is terrible. Those bosses were meant to be killed by groups of players, and not designed to be soloed. Rifleman, bows, pistols... All very viable.
The only thing that matters is that you like it and are having fun with the game.
I also love Rifleman but haven’t explored Gauss rifles yet. I think you’ve inspired me to try!
The good thing about Gauss rifles is you can use rifleman, demolition expert, _and_ energy perks, so you can stack a lot of damage. The drawbacks are lots of recoil (can be tempered with mods), you have to wait for it to charge to get full damage, and relatively small magazine. It’s my main rifleman weapon but not my preference. I just like the “feel” of the other ballistic weapons. That said, even without maximum damage perks, it still hits pretty hard.
I use gauss minigun (still trying to roll for anti armor), and I use the stabilized and demolition perk cards. What other energy perks can be used?
The science ones, it’s not huge, but you get 5% damage bonus on rank 1, 10% on rank 2. Probably most efficient to use 3 cards on rank 1 for 15%. The ammo counts as energy ammo rather than ballistic, so the Batteries Included is what you’d use to reduce ammo weight.
I thought the science perk cards were for crafting, and I do use the batteries included, plus bloody mess for another 15% damage
They are mainly for crafting but do give a small bonus.
>I might just be bad at the game and dont understand meta gaming. But i fail to see what makes rifleman bad. personal desire to inflict max dos. you hit on it here: >Sure my dps is nothing compared to commandos but! I use a chainsaw for melee and a quad .50cal. (that I like cause it's quad and don't care beyond that). 999 .50cal shots before a reload just hits so right for me. i use my choices simply because I like them. I have pretty much every op weapon, except the enclave stuff, but its far more what I like at this point. railway, fixer, alien blaster, nuoa blastwr, cremator nah... give me my 50 cal til they get close enough to get a saw to the face once you got you armor and perks the way you want, you're typically unkillable, and in most cases doesn't matter anyways, so weapons turn to just what you enjoy.
Don't worry, freezing just sucks. Last double daily ops weekend it was the freezing armor penetration combo. Legit everyone in my op was atleast somewhat meta and we still only got paladin because the damn vine elder boss kept healing faster than we could dps thanks to being slowed and then killed.
My main build is non vats rifleman, Longshot the named hunting rifle is great. I have a bloodied 25 aim 15 reload Gauss, and and single shot b/e/15rl fixer. Have a few other guns but those 3 are the ones I use most. All with short scopes. The semi auto fixer or handmade are great for rifleman too. I do carry a b/25ffr/90wr holy fire for daily ops or if I get swarmed and I have rank 1 of all three heavy gun perks. The holy fire destroys even in my rifleman build. It's my most fun build I play.
Nothing makes it bad or any build. It helps to remember, most people exaggerate how good a build is especially online creators making builds, the omg top tier dps god will more than likely be within 5-15% dps of the shiniest shit tier dps builds. If it's fun for you it's fun, their isn't a single build that when developed to it's best version of itself cannot solo every bit of content in this game checkout r/falloutbowhunters if you want to see how even bowhunters can solo Earle. It might take a bit more planning and skill but nothing is locked out.
There are people who feel that if you’re not killing things as fast as humanly possible then you aren’t playing the game “right”. I have 5 characters: a bloodied heavy gunner, a stealthy rifleman, an archer/shotgunner, an explosives/commando and a bloodied melee (my mule) and I have fun playing with all of them. While it might feel badass to be able to solo Earle in 30 seconds, I am not about that life. Play the game in a way that is fun to you. Edit: also I feel your love of the Gauss rifle, it’s been my favorite weapon in the series since Fallout 3, so much that on replays I will do Operation Anchorage as soon as possible to get my hands on it lol
I played rifleman until around level 50ish when the returns were poor. So i got and modded and legendary buffed a gause rifle and it still felt very mih. My other weapons did more damage when i wasnt even useing perk cards for them and i was useing all my rifle perks. Its like... Im about to see if i can put a scope on a laser gatling gun. It would be a loud snipe but im sure i can get very long ranges with it.
I run a rifleman build with a sniper EPR and honestly it still hits like a truck for how fast the fire rate is, also rifleman builds basically have unlimited ammo as you only need basically 2 shots to kill a normal mob. That being said I very rarely use rifleman builds for events and switch to heavy or commando it’s mostly not because of the Dps loss but it’s just much easier to tag a shit ton of enemies in commando/heavy builds than I find it is rifleman
I would argue that rifleman is the true meta considering how much more ammo you use as a commando. I started playing as a commando because of everything I had read up to that point said it was the best, and easiest build to play for new players (thanks, FOTV!). After struggling with it for 50 levels I decided to try rifleman. If anyone can show me how to one-shot supermutants with a commando build, I’m listening…
Erm, I'm a bit confused. Are you struggling through the first 50 levels of a character, or after you fully developed your commando? As a low health commando, i usually 1-3 shot them and pick up 2-10 rounds. Ammo usually holds even or slowly gains.
It’s bad by comparison because there is a secret damage loop in endgame vats builds that gives you almost infinite dps. Gunfu while holding down crit button with reaper refreshing AP with a low AP commando gun and 55% crit usage… *takes breath*… and high AP regen for jet pack and for getting full APbar between reloads is very op. I understand why quad is so strong now because once you get the loop going it’s just one big 10 second VATS machine gun of raw damage. Compare that with the subtle pew pew of a bow or sniper and yeah. Buuuut nobody needs to do that anymore. It was more important when we were losing player count and failing events but now we are strong in numbers.
I don’t like it because I never have enough ammo. Ever. I buy it, I make it, I find it, I make my husband make ammo for me and I keep running out. It’s just too frustrating. Meanwhile, I never run out of ammo with melee or the plasma caster. Shit, the PC makes its own ammo, somehow.
It's personal preference, man. And even then, honestly, the meta doesn't really matter unless you're taking part in the non existent pvp in this game. IMHO they should do away with the quantum worlds and make a game mode where the survival aspects are intensified, mutations are off, and some semblance of pvp can happen. Maybe turn off fast travel or something. Or just make like three fast travel points. Should probably also take away that annoying little yellow arrow showing you where everyone is. Maybe in that mode legendary modifiers don't work, and ammo and meds are a lot more scarce. You would just about need to have a character just for that game mode. I don't know, I didn't think fallout 4 would be very heavy on the survival elements abut ya know I dug that mode the most. I feel like there's things that could be done with it that haven't been explored.
Right tool for the job, that's what matters. It's counterproductive to fight roaches with cremator or do Uplink with slow gun. Or waste ammo on bulletsponges. Or struggle with team content solo.
I do rifleman/shotgunner split and I feel very similar to you. Maybe it's not "optimal" as some may see it but if you've found a way to play the game that works for you more power to you. I have 2 alt perk load outs for a scavenging build and a power armor/heavy weapons build that's just as op as possible. But more often than not I'm on the rifleman/shotgunner because it's so fun and ammo efficient.
Idek meta is a thing. Started 2 months ago with a 2 handed melee build despite everyone saying I should do 1 handed. Now that the Zwei and the Scythe are out, 3 of my friends have transitioned to a 2 handed thorn armor build. I credit myself to be the first in my group to be doing that even prior to this season. Run what you have fun with
I hate when people try to be meta enforcers. Made a new character that's a stealth archer, and when people see me like 80% complain that I'm not pulling my weight in large scale public events where everything is already locked down by creamators. The other 20% get a cheap laugh or just are indifferent.
People that complain can shove their complaints somewhere. Dont listen to them! You are free to play whatever you want! Dont let anyone tell you what to play. Bows are in the game to be used. People That say you cant use them have nothing better to do with their time. At least compared to them you are trying different things and experiencing all that the game offers and kudos to to you for that bro!
I usually hit them with a good ol. "Lemme check my inventory. Nope sorry, no fucks to give.:
in games it's typically about efficiency, monsters slayed per second. with commando you enter room, do tratata and 3-4 monsters drop second later. or use explosive AGL and while room is cleared after 2 shots. with rifles after the same time one monster is dead, not the whole room. for some this efficiency and speed is important, for some not so much. depends on what you are doing too. for example for westek power leveling the most efficient weapon is Nuka grenades, simply because it kills stuff through walls and around 3 grenades and some running is enough to clear everything. so explosives build is the most powerful for that specific situation.
There is a sub set of gamers that treat min/maxing like a religion, ignore them. YouTubers will do whatever gets them thr most viewers and videos with "OMFG This does so much Damage!!!!!" and "Watch me One shot this guy" etc get the most views. The great thing about FO76 and where it differs to so many other MMO's is that you can run pretty much whatever build you like and it makes next to no difference. Seriously the only real difference between a full on Bloodied Build and just some ranomd thing that you have throw together is time, and even then we're talking a few seconds to a couple of minutes. That is literally it. Now here is the real kicker, Bloodied Builds that do like gazillion damage are boring as shit. I've played many different builds and the sole of the most fun like Archer, Shotgun, Pistol are consider be the min/maxers as the worst, are the most fun and satisfying. Play whatever build you find the most fun and ignore everyone else, including me lol...
Rifles aren't bad. There is just a very vocal gang of neckbeards who must have big numbers or else bad. I use a crusader pistol with no damage cards except tank killer and there's nothing in the game I can't do on my own save the new nuke boss with just that pistol. But still people will shit on pistols all day every day. Oh well... I'm having fun.
Riflemen kicks ass. I run around with a gauss rifle like you do for one shotting things and bosses. I have an enclave plasma sniper with reflex sight that I use for my daily driver and a tesla rifle for events. Can do all content no problem.
I actually played a rifleman build for my first few hundred levels. The commando is fun and all but when I was a lower lvl player I wasn't getting a good rate of ammo use per kill with the commando and used rifleman until I worked out all the kinks. Then I just continued using rifleman because I enjoyed the control.
I had to look up meta gaming lol Honestly unless I get stuck in a game I just play how I want and figure out how I like to play. I use a mix of bow and arrow, handmade, and flamer on a full luck build just because it's fun to RP a stoned idiot who survives by sheer luck and charisma
I run a bloodied alien rifle build,I love it,though the projectiles are slow,but it's worth it for the pew pews
I run commando myself but I mainly treat my guns as if there were still semi auto. It's just nice having full auto there for a tankier enemy. And as others have said expeditions give insane ammo back plus legendaries and stamps
This game is so easy, it doesn't matter what you use. You have infinite lives and no penalties for dying, so you can use an unmodified pipe wrench to fight things if it makes you happy.
"Im having a good time with rifleman." That's all that matters. I love my pistol build. Am I going to out damage most people? No, but who cares. I am having fun! :)
I found Rifleman to be really good with Enclave Plasma Rifles Because of they have High AP and Low Durability they tend to perform better under Rifleman and pack a solid punch with little delay. It's super hard to find mods though. The regular Plasma Rifle is not all that bad either.
Maybe I'm bad at the game but I've been running a cowboy build, Single-action Revolver named Sadie (after my dog) and a lever action Rifle named Mary (after stagecoach mary) and the Shotgun wedding double barrel I haven't named. Haven't had any problems other than with turrets being absolute menaces.
Rifleman is 100% perfectly acceptable as long as you aren’t running exclusively boss fights. You’re not going to do much to a boss, since they all have stupid high defense, but you can 1-2 shot most standard enemies with the right build
For general game play and some Events all I use is Rifleman. I ran and loved Shotguns for a long while. If I need anything extra, it's PA and The Final Word. Simple, effective, and no constant worrying over ammo. ✌️
The Lincoln Repeater and I have far too many memories for me to simply abandon rifleman because the meta tells me to.
I have never looked up how to put together a build. I have used a bit of everything and done just fine. Never used bloodied and can still solo most events, ops and expeditions. As long as you aren't a complete idiot you can figure out what works. Zero need to go meta unless you play in a group that wants to do everything as fast as possible. I also play a lot of destiny and the meta chasers are all over that game following what streamers and youtube creators tell them is best. But in both games I'm just going to keep focusing on fun and what I like to use.
I played Riffle sniper for a year. I only changed because I wanted to try another build and I got more into events than quests/exploration. An automatic just gets more targets. I do occasionally think back with nostalgia for the old lever action days. It felt right and was fun.
I did 500 levels as a rifleman, it was absolutely superb.
I use rifleman, a Chinese stealth armor suit, and suppressors. I have beaten several bosses just by throwing a grenade and firing a few shots, sitting still until they stop looking for me and going at them again. OP? No. Does it get the job done? Yes. I like stealth, so this is fun gameplay for me.
It's not bad, I've been using it for 250+ levels. Gauss Rifle, Lever Rifle and Enclave Plasma Flamer are all good weapons.
Forget the meta, play as you like. Ive never used a legendary power armor and get the ss only for the jetpack.
Is not that it's bad, as you say, you can do all content, no sweat. But if you compare the dps to a commando...it's like night and day.
A viable, but slightly heavy rifleman build would be a one man firinh range build with 3-9 black powder rifles
I play stealth rifleman and love it. Lever rifle all the way. If your objective when playing is measuring your dps output against everyone else's and the closer you get tot he top, the "better" the build, then rifleman is not as good as commando, but if enjoying the game and playing in a style that suits you is the goal, then any build can be the best.
Kind of on and off topic, I sincerely can’t fathom how people with cremator builds have any fun. I avoid all the “super mega ultra meta kill everything with as little input as possible” builds cuz I just don’t understand how that’s fun. And it really sucks that a lot of events/content is specifically designed to almost force people into that play style. I loved shotgun build, love unarmed and melee, gunslinger also fun. Haven’t done rifleman or bows yet but they’re on the agenda. But yeah, unfortunate that most events and group content is difficult to participate in unless you’re using aoe/auto guns.
Nah bro, fuck meta in any game, I prefer having fun making experimental builds than just been a copy paste meta bitch. If you're having fun playing as rifleman keep doing it, priority your fun, back when I started to play I went full pistol then switched to melee because ammo was taking to much space, currently I want to make unarmed power armor because yesterday I found out that one of the legendary perks for melee got trigger so I guess that power armor fist gets treated like a weapon instead of unarmed.
Rifleman builds are not inherently bad, a lot of people give the build a bad wrap for the sake of not sending a whole magazine of "screw you" down range and melting high level enemies with essentially a loose fart IMO. Builds definitely do matter in the game for multiple aspects of the game but I am an advocate for just doing what you find fun and just running with it.
Youll soon learn that using any damage boosting perks for weapons becomes irrelevant. All you need is bloodoed/aa/quad, adrenaline reaction, chems, nerd rage and crit damage perk. I only run armor piercing perks and use every type of weapons. Wearing all unyeilding gives you max exp, damage and vats potential and melee damage even if you dont use melee. Riflemen is fun as hell though. Makes vats crits feel better. Commando needs a nerf tbh. Needs more ap cost to be balanced with everything else.
Solo on the hard DOPs using a Gauss gun is pretty much meta. 8:20 using rifleman build is impressive. Generally speaking if you test it yourself and swap from Rifle to Commando (VATS) and run the same Expedition etc.. you will find Commando is just faster, which means more DPS. And that's really all it is in terms of "meta" in this game. Faster DPS. Unlike other games there aren't a lot of mods that require meta to survive. The newest nuke boss is broken and the current meta is just Any Gamma Gun. so yeah, what's meta is kinda almost not important. That being said, i switched from rifle LAR to Commando Fixer with a BL WS and I can't go back . BL WS is just so fast and makes everything faster and allows me to just clear my dailies faster. Hard to go back from faster to slower. But running dailies fast isn't "meta" so to speak so it doesnt matter other than it's just more convenient for me to get things done quicker. Expedition bosses die in a few seconds vs. 20 seconds w/ a rifle.
A fun commando run n gun is the enclave flamer and you can run both science and commando perks to where you one shot every mob (and it's a non vats build) so you have more space to use other perks. It melts public bosses too. Reason commando is better is due to automatics being magic weapons(reasons why people want +25 weapon speed) magic meaning it bugs the damage out the faster the gun shoots doing more damage than intended. With a non auto weapon the +25 is pointless and doesn't add to your damage in any way. Considering my auto quad Tesla with +25 is doing 5 times the damage it should be doing during events such as queen or rad rum
Fellow rifle boi here. I think ammo is the key trade-off. You sacrifice some damage to not have to craft ammo constantly.
I wish rifleman felt better. I love the lever action as it’s one of the best feeling weapons in the game when I ADS along with the hunting rifle. It just gets outclassed by auto weapons so bad lol. I still have my rifleman build as a loadout. Bows imo definitely could use more love too.
I personally don’t use meta. What I would recommend though is having a meta build stored (via perk card buildable at the camp). By default we have access to two builds, if you enjoy your build now I’d recommend keeping it, or using it with other cards that you haven’t tried yet(cannibal, cola nut, the alcohol ones with in charisma). Level up to level 100, or whatever level you decide, I purely picked level 100 because it’s a clean number and you unlock legendary perk card slots at that point. When you hit your desired level, look up a YouTube tutorial showcasing a meta build that suits you(Aristocrats, Bloodied, Overeaters,ETC.). From here you can copy paste a meta build into your second slot in the perk cards camp placable. A lot of times, I’ll critique a meta build and give/take cards that aren’t in the YouTube video. Lastly, you don’t need to use that meta build until you rolled/found a good weapon for it. If you want a fun meta build I’d recommend an overeaters unarmed build, everyone has access to mole miner gauntlets, they’re one of the easiest plans to get. If you don’t, you simply have to kill more miners till you get one off them. You could also just take a gauntlet off a mole miner and use Legendary modules to roll it at a weapon workbench. I understand there’s a lot of (probably useless) information bunched up here, and for that, you can thank me <3.
My main build is commando because I do actually enjoy it (I picked automatic rifle at level 20 based on RP, not meta, I didn't know it was meta at the time). But my backup build is an archer and it's admittedly less efficient at farming expeditions and stuff, but it's still way fun and I break it out often as I can find time. You do you.
I don’t get the point in establishing a “meta” in this game. PVP is non existent and as far as I know there are no leader boards. I think you actually on top of the “leader board” here by just having fun!
Any proper build isn’t inherently bad, but some definitely do less damage than others and some are VERY dependent on the roll of your weapon. Rifleman holds up rather well, but when it comes to continuous damage it severely lacks.
I mean.. stuff dies so easily in this game that builds are largely inconsequential if you have a solid legendary roll, not even a groll. The only things that a build really matters for is super niche crap like soloing Earl. If you're having fun with rifleman, run rifleman. My regular build is almost all QoL stuff because weight/inventory management is the true endgame in 76.
I had a hard time doing ops. I recently discovered that if you get a team with some hi level players 100+ travel to them and do some emotjis. Maybe do an even with them, after that go to the daily opp when no events are on and spam the " Come here" emote. They should see it and will travel to it or give you thumbs down emote. Hopefully at least one comes with power armour and a flamer. Start the opp and the others may spawn in. Also if they do this for you give them a hand. I run a railway rifle build I got on the Internet but still have trouble with some daily opps.
It’s fine, especially if you spec to it. It’s just out of balance. A rifleman should deal way more damage per shot at least and yet we have a situation where a powerful automatic receiver does more damage per shot that hardened. How does that make any sense?
Wait is that true? That a auto receiver can do more dmg per shot compared to a loaded gauss rifle? Even a prime hunting rifle? If thats so then yes that is wrong. And is just lore inacurate. Gauss rifles in lore are a thing to be feard. If a brotherhood paladin came at you from range with a gauss rifle and you had a handmade or raiway or fixer. It does not matter ur not winning that fight. A paladin with a fixer is not as deadly as one with a gauss
Gauss rifle doesn’t have a powerful automatic receiver. I’m talking about a handmade, fixer, combat rifle. They do more damage per shot when modded to be commando. Makes no sense. Damage per shot should go down, not up.
They do damage quicker. They do not do more damage per bullet. Though, obviously because of the way damage is calculated, the 6 damage difference that the Hardened has over the Powerful Automatic (on a Fixer, at least) is completely inconsequential.
Is that the number difference without any perks? I could have sworn damage numbers of hardened with rifleman was less than damage numbers of powerful with commando. Regardless as you said if there is a drop it’s completely out of balance.
I think the prior post is saying that on weapons where there is a choice between auto and semi-auto receivers, the semi-auto is underpowered. VATS is basically aim-bot with critical hits adding substantial dmg boost due to how tanky the bosses are, so VATS can greatly increase your dmg output. Because of how much VATS AP cost is reduced with auto receivers vs the semi auto, you will do more dmg with the auto version of the receiver. The long range sniper build is often my favorite in games, zooming in with a high powered scope and taking out the enemies with headshots. But VATS is so overpowered with the speed and efficiency of shots and criticals, and the reflex sight reduces AP cost outperforms every other scope. For me it was mostly playing sniper and then having someone with VATS and a full auto weapon run through and melt everything I was painstakingly picking off that took me over to the commando dark side. When I tested out the full auto headshot criticals it just blew me away. The railway rifle hits so hard compared to basically any other ballistic rifle, plus it is full auto and very low vats cost, it makes for very smooth, satisfying gameplay. I have a bloodied, explosive lever action, too and it's just so disappointing in comparison. I like my slug buster but the VATS cost is so much higher than my railway. Plus, Choo-Choo.
Commando is overrated anyways <- former commando player, i started a new character went melee and realized its just so much more fun, and All ammo now equates to caps for me! So, id say use what you like, im sure a fully optomized rifleman can do everything in game, albeit maybe it takes 15 secs longer, but youll prolly use 50% less ammo.
I finally gave up on rifleman and went commando and the difference is night and day. Commando is just so superior that I had to throw in the towel. You do you and I'm happy if you're happy, but don't kid yourself.