I just finshed Honest hearts after exploring the whole area and accumulating over 40000 caps (a lot of that was from the mojave casinos ) and was wondering which DLC to play next? Here are the characters stats lvl 27 S8.P6.E10.C6.I9.A7.L10. Bar 86. Ener 65. Exp 31. Guns 78. Lock 75. Med 57. Melee 23. Rep 96. sci 85. sneak 93. speech 90. surv 44. unar 33.
Next, which upgrade should I get ED-E? The armor or the laser?
Im planning on making a melee/unarmed/explosive build next. How should i allocate his SPECIAL stats and does anybody have a good name for this character? All i got is Broly because im bad at names. My current characters name is Zelda -_-...
Okay, the captcha keeps giving me grief and I know I'm doing it RIGHT!!!
Really it can go either way. Dead Money was the first DLC for New Vegas and actually hinted at things that you find in Old World Blues. So you can play Old World Blues, get the backstory of some things that happen in that DLC then, and then play Dead Money with more context. Or you could play Dead Money which hints at stuff in Old World Blues, then go to Old World Blues and discover the context of what you found in Dead Money.
Personally, I'd go with Dead Money and then go to Old World Blues. Mainly because I think Old World Blues is the best DLC that New Vegas had and it's good to save the best for last. :3
Really it can go either way. Dead Money was the first DLC for New Vegas and actually hinted at things that you find in Old World Blues. So you can play Old World Blues, get the backstory of some things that happen in that DLC then, and then play Dead Money with more context. Or you could play Dead Money which hints at stuff in Old World Blues, then go to Old World Blues and discover the context of what you found in Dead Money.
Personally, I'd go with Dead Money and then go to Old World Blues. Mainly because I think Old World Blues is the best DLC that New Vegas had and it's good to save the best for last. :3
Really it can go either way. Dead Money was the first DLC for New Vegas and actually hinted at things that you find in Old World Blues. So you can play Old World Blues, get the backstory of some things that happen in that DLC then, and then play Dead Money with more context. Or you could play Dead Money which hints at stuff in Old World Blues, then go to Old World Blues and discover the context of what you found in Dead Money.
Personally, I'd go with Dead Money and then go to Old World Blues. Mainly because I think Old World Blues is the best DLC that New Vegas had and it's good to save the best for last. :3
In truth, neither upgrade is particularly useful in the long run. Unless you're playing on Hardcore, the boost to damage threshold (it goes from 8 to 20 or sufficient to protect against shotguns and minor small arms fire) is all but irrelevant. Likewise, the upgrade to damage offers a relatively insignificant amount of firepower considering how much hate and discontent the Courier can generate. The choice, all told, boils down to a roleplaying decision regarding which faction you'd like to support rather than having any real use when it comes to power gaming. That said, I would caution you: do not send ED-E to be upgraded with anything in his inventory! When ED-E is returned to you, the inventory will be emptied. This is because the upgraded ED-E is actually a different character altogether.
-Edit-
There's one other addendum I forgot to mention. While I believe it to be one of the bugs fixed in the unofficial patch, the Armor upgrade reduces ED-E's available weight limit by 1 point. This is exacerbated in that any time you have your weapon's confiscated (and then returned), ED-E's weight limit drops by an additional 2 points! Thus, if not playing a modded PC version, you'll want to use caution when visiting casinos or the Fort with ED-E in the party.
Really it can go either way. Dead Money was the first DLC for New Vegas and actually hinted at things that you find in Old World Blues. So you can play Old World Blues, get the backstory of some things that happen in that DLC then, and then play Dead Money with more context. Or you could play Dead Money which hints at stuff in Old World Blues, then go to Old World Blues and discover the context of what you found in Dead Money.
Personally, I'd go with Dead Money and then go to Old World Blues. Mainly because I think Old World Blues is the best DLC that New Vegas had and it's good to save the best for last. :3
In truth, neither upgrade is particularly useful in the long run. Unless you're playing on Hardcore, the boost to damage threshold (it goes from 8 to 20 or sufficient to protect against shotguns and minor small arms fire) is all but irrelevant. Likewise, the upgrade to damage offers a relatively insignificant amount of firepower considering how much hate and discontent the Courier can generate. The choice, all told, boils down to a roleplaying decision regarding which faction you'd like to support rather than having any real use when it comes to power gaming. That said, I would caution you: do not send ED-E to be upgraded with anything in his inventory! When ED-E is returned to you, the inventory will be emptied. This is because the upgraded ED-E is actually a different character altogether.
I would say do Dead Money, then Old World Blues and finally Lonesome road. The small story bits really improved the experience for me and Lonesome road certainly comes last thematically. Dead Money is pretty good for earlier in the game as your items and caps don't carry into it. That said, a lot of people find Dead Money the hardest and least fun of the DLC, and as such leave it till last. Works any way around tbh.
As said, ED-E upgrades are really not that important, I would seriously suggest going the RP route.
If you are playing on PC, I would suggest playing Dead Money next, and possibly installing a mod to disable the radios. You'll know why when you get there. In terms of narrative, Dead Money is 'before' OWB.
However, in my not-very-humble opinion, Dead Money gargles a truly titanic amount of gonads. I was not a fan. Old World Blues, on the other hand, I thought was fantastic. Play Dead Money first (if you must) to get it out of the way, then cleanse the palate with a dose of Old World Blues!
Hmmm... I'd vote Dead Money first, then Old World Blues - firstly there's the story component, but also because Dead Money fits your stats better. 10 Endurance is great for soaking cloud damage, 10 Luck lets you bankrupt the cacino you get access to somewhere along the way and over 50 Energy Weapons lets you use the Holorifle you get given at the start to it's fullest potential. High Lockpick, Repair and Science are good too, as they let you crack open a bunch of early-on secrets that can kit you out in good armour and weaponry (Police Station, Science 75 to hack a computer to open an armory - you won't regret it). Low explosives and Melee might hurt a little, but the enemies are easy enough to deal with (look for glowing blue things on walls to deal with Holograms) that the Holorifle will do just fine.
Big notes for Dead Money though - it's very dark, foggy and maze-like, so it's very easy to get lost in it when you're doing the first half. Outside Hardcore mode the cloud that fills it isn't too damaging with a good endurance (don't stand around in it though unless you've got plenty of Stimpaks), but it can hide speakers which will kill you if you don't break them/flee from them in time. Save often when exploring new areas and if you hear your collar start beeping back up and look around to see if you can find the radio/speaker setting it off; if you can't, just sprint through, either trying to find the thing or just to escape it. It can get a little frustrating on the first run when you don't know where everything is, but Dead Money is definitely a DLC that's worth going through.
As for an Explosive/Melee character - Strength, Perception, Endurance and Agility are good SPECIALS as they give you a big buff to your primary skills early on and are necessary for your later-level perks. Charisma is useless skill wise for melee-focused; Intellect is the standard 'Get better faster', with no perks tied into it but the extra skill points being pretty useful for leveling; Luck is about whether or not you want to rely on critical hits or not (though a decent luck is always good for money-related matters).
A good spread I've found with my Melee characters is:
Implants and armour can buff your strength to 10, so if you take any Intense Training perks dump them elsewhere. Perk-wise, a good spread is:
Fantastic Perks
Slayer - LVL 24, 7 AGL, 90 Unarmed; it's a 30% speed buff to melee/unarmed attacks, which is awesome.
Ninja - LVL 20, 80 Sneak, 80 Melee; +15% critical chance is good and a +25% critical damage is handy if you're sneaky.
Admanatium Skeleton - LVL 14; Help keep you going as you close in on enemies and keep you safe if you blow yourself up. Always a good choice.
Unstoppable Force - LVL 12, STR 7, 70 Melee; bonus damage when enemies block your melee attacks, which is super handy when your damage revolves around melee attacks.
Piercing Strike - LVL 12, 70 Unarmed; -15 DT to enemies with BOTH melee and unarmed; a must-have as this lets you hit Deathclaw-level enemies with maximum power.
Super Slam - LVL 8, STR 6, 45 Melee; 15-30% chance to knock down enemies can be handy for stun-locking big bosses. Depends on the size of the weapon you're using though.
Stonewall - LVL 8, STR 6, END 6; +5 DT to unarmed and melee, but more importantly you get knock-down immunity - fantastic when you're going toe-to-toe with Bighorner packs, Deathclaws or Legion.
Demolition Expert - LVL 6, 50 Explosives; +60% explosive damage at max rank. 60%. Imagine that on a Fatman. Just... imagine.
Splash Damage - LVL 12, 70 Explosives; +25% blast radius is awesome for groups, but it's something to be careful with if you favour the HE explosives or the Fatman, as the blast radius on those is already massive. Do NOT use Big Kid's in the Fatman if you take this - unless you start running as soon as you shoot it you'll get hit by some of the blast, which is gonna suck.
Implant GRX - LVL 30, END 8; at max rank with the Chemist and Day Tripper perks this will save your life in sticky situations or allow you 30 seconds of unstoppable punching action; insanely useful for melee characters as you can even pop 2-3 applications of it to help you get close to high-powered ranged enemies like Snipers or Assassins. A must have.
Optional:
Paralyzing Palm - LVL 18, 70 Unarmed; useful for Unarmed attacks as your VATS attacks can paralyze enemies, but it only affects unarmed and VATS is much riskier to use in Vegas as a melee-focused character. If you use VATS and Unarmed a lot then take it, but if you're more Melee Weapons-focused then it's a waste of a perk.
Hit the Deck - LVL 12, 70 Explosives; -25% explosive damage received from all sources can be useful if you're accuracy isn't that good, but if you're good enough with your explosives (or using too strong explosives) then it's not really that useful. Considering the low number of enemies that use explosive damage, this is something that can be easily skipped.
Bloody Mess - LVL 6; +5% damage, punch enemies so hard they explode into gorey chunks. Great fun with an unarmed/melee character, but it's silliness is something left up to personal taste.
Toughness - LVL 6, END 5; +6 DT at max rank is pretty useful when you're approaching someone in with a gun in melee and the added resistance to your own explosives isn't something to sneeze at. Can be ignored however if you don't have the perks to spend/have stupidly awesome armour though.
Mad Bomber - LVL 6, 45 Repair, 45 Explosives; gives you access to a bunch of explosive recipies, but they're all a little underpowered or require stupid resources to make, so I find it's best to not bother taking this perk and find yourself a Missile Launcher instead.
Thank you for all the intel and actually reading my entire post. most people don't read the whole op for some reason. You have given me a lot of food for thought on how to progress and it is much appreciated.
I would say do Dead Money, then Old World Blues and finally Lonesome road. The small story bits really improved the experience for me and Lonesome road certainly comes last thematically. Dead Money is pretty good for earlier in the game as your items and caps don't carry into it. That said, a lot of people find Dead Money the hardest and least fun of the DLC, and as such leave it till last. Works any way around tbh.
As said, ED-E upgrades are really not that important, I would seriously suggest going the RP route.
If you are playing on PC, I would suggest playing Dead Money next, and possibly installing a mod to disable the radios. You'll know why when you get there. In terms of narrative, Dead Money is 'before' OWB.
However, in my not-very-humble opinion, Dead Money gargles a truly titanic amount of gonads. I was not a fan. Old World Blues, on the other hand, I thought was fantastic. Play Dead Money first (if you must) to get it out of the way, then cleanse the palate with a dose of Old World Blues!
I suggest Old World Blues, with Lonesome Road as a close second. I would suggest in this order for fun:
OWB
LR
DM
Chronologically, DM takes place before OWB; but I feel that it makes more sense to play OWB first because story-wise, makes the plot of DM slightly less hmm nonsensical; and it provides good build-up. So for story:
OWB
DM
LR
AS for ED-E (Best companion BTW) get the armor upgrade. It may be just personal preference, but his laser upgrade is utterly ridiculous and completely destroyed the immersion for me. Plus, now he can withstand more than one .22 round to the chassis without detonating! =D
Hmmm... I'd vote Dead Money first, then Old World Blues - firstly there's the story component, but also because Dead Money fits your stats better. 10 Endurance is great for soaking cloud damage, 10 Luck lets you bankrupt the cacino you get access to somewhere along the way and over 50 Energy Weapons lets you use the Holorifle you get given at the start to it's fullest potential. High Lockpick, Repair and Science are good too, as they let you crack open a bunch of early-on secrets that can kit you out in good armour and weaponry (Police Station, Science 75 to hack a computer to open an armory - you won't regret it). Low explosives and Melee might hurt a little, but the enemies are easy enough to deal with (look for glowing blue things on walls to deal with Holograms) that the Holorifle will do just fine.
Big notes for Dead Money though - it's very dark, foggy and maze-like, so it's very easy to get lost in it when you're doing the first half. Outside Hardcore mode the cloud that fills it isn't too damaging with a good endurance (don't stand around in it though unless you've got plenty of Stimpaks), but it can hide speakers which will kill you if you don't break them/flee from them in time. Save often when exploring new areas and if you hear your collar start beeping back up and look around to see if you can find the radio/speaker setting it off; if you can't, just sprint through, either trying to find the thing or just to escape it. It can get a little frustrating on the first run when you don't know where everything is, but Dead Money is definitely a DLC that's worth going through.
As for an Explosive/Melee character - Strength, Perception, Endurance and Agility are good SPECIALS as they give you a big buff to your primary skills early on and are necessary for your later-level perks. Charisma is useless skill wise for melee-focused; Intellect is the standard 'Get better faster', with no perks tied into it but the extra skill points being pretty useful for leveling; Luck is about whether or not you want to rely on critical hits or not (though a decent luck is always good for money-related matters).
A good spread I've found with my Melee characters is:
Implants and armour can buff your strength to 10, so if you take any Intense Training perks dump them elsewhere. Perk-wise, a good spread is:
Fantastic Perks
Slayer - LVL 24, 7 AGL, 90 Unarmed; it's a 30% speed buff to melee/unarmed attacks, which is awesome.
Ninja - LVL 20, 80 Sneak, 80 Melee; +15% critical chance is good and a +25% critical damage is handy if you're sneaky.
Admanatium Skeleton - LVL 14; Help keep you going as you close in on enemies and keep you safe if you blow yourself up. Always a good choice.
Unstoppable Force - LVL 12, STR 7, 70 Melee; bonus damage when enemies block your melee attacks, which is super handy when your damage revolves around melee attacks.
Piercing Strike - LVL 12, 70 Unarmed; -15 DT to enemies with BOTH melee and unarmed; a must-have as this lets you hit Deathclaw-level enemies with maximum power.
Super Slam - LVL 8, STR 6, 45 Melee; 15-30% chance to knock down enemies can be handy for stun-locking big bosses. Depends on the size of the weapon you're using though.
Stonewall - LVL 8, STR 6, END 6; +5 DT to unarmed and melee, but more importantly you get knock-down immunity - fantastic when you're going toe-to-toe with Bighorner packs, Deathclaws or Legion.
Demolition Expert - LVL 6, 50 Explosives; +60% explosive damage at max rank. 60%. Imagine that on a Fatman. Just... imagine.
Splash Damage - LVL 12, 70 Explosives; +25% blast radius is awesome for groups, but it's something to be careful with if you favour the HE explosives or the Fatman, as the blast radius on those is already massive. Do NOT use Big Kid's in the Fatman if you take this - unless you start running as soon as you shoot it you'll get hit by some of the blast, which is gonna suck.
Implant GRX - LVL 30, END 8; at max rank with the Chemist and Day Tripper perks this will save your life in sticky situations or allow you 30 seconds of unstoppable punching action; insanely useful for melee characters as you can even pop 2-3 applications of it to help you get close to high-powered ranged enemies like Snipers or Assassins. A must have.
Optional:
Paralyzing Palm - LVL 18, 70 Unarmed; useful for Unarmed attacks as your VATS attacks can paralyze enemies, but it only affects unarmed and VATS is much riskier to use in Vegas as a melee-focused character. If you use VATS and Unarmed a lot then take it, but if you're more Melee Weapons-focused then it's a waste of a perk.
Hit the Deck - LVL 12, 70 Explosives; -25% explosive damage received from all sources can be useful if you're accuracy isn't that good, but if you're good enough with your explosives (or using too strong explosives) then it's not really that useful. Considering the low number of enemies that use explosive damage, this is something that can be easily skipped.
Bloody Mess - LVL 6; +5% damage, punch enemies so hard they explode into gorey chunks. Great fun with an unarmed/melee character, but it's silliness is something left up to personal taste.
Toughness - LVL 6, END 5; +6 DT at max rank is pretty useful when you're approaching someone in with a gun in melee and the added resistance to your own explosives isn't something to sneeze at. Can be ignored however if you don't have the perks to spend/have stupidly awesome armour though.
Mad Bomber - LVL 6, 45 Repair, 45 Explosives; gives you access to a bunch of explosive recipies, but they're all a little underpowered or require stupid resources to make, so I find it's best to not bother taking this perk and find yourself a Missile Launcher instead.
Thank you for all the intel and actually reading my entire post. most people don't read the whole op for some reason. You have given me a lot of food for thought on how to progress and it is much appreciated.
Dead Money first, story-wise and due to your stats (tons of sneak and endurance is useful there, health regen perks even more so. I suggest Solar Powered. Still works in the daytime despite the fog). Still, it's a massive slog. Easily the worst DLC they made, gameplay-wise. The story is rather worth it in my estimation, though. Not a terrible job on that.
For ED-E's upgrade I prefer the armor, since he's a fragile little bugger without it (and I've never played on other than hardcore, going so far as to ramp it up to the nines with Project Nevada on all but my first playthrough)... his damage upgrade is pretty insignificant, since he's only really good for taking down minor enemies with or without.
For your next build... I'd say melee and unarmed is redundant, though I have an unarmed/explosives (unarmored) challenge character. She's all strength, endurance, charisma and perception with no agility or luck and minimal intelligence (all part of the challenge). I think she would have been more effective with more moderate everything but strength with maybe highish intelligence. She still manages with all of that, though I haven't finished the game with her (currently going through Honest Hearts, actually). The last fights are going to be a massive pain.
Story wise, Dead Money first, though it doesn't matter a whole lot. The only one that matters is to play Lonesome Road last.
As for gameplay, it depends on what you like. If you enjoy atmosphere drenched survival horror gameplay, Dead Money is your man.
If you want comedy and energy weapons, go for Old World Blues.
I'm part of a small, vocal minority that feels Dead Money is by far the best DLC, but it certainly isn't for everyone. Lots of sneaking around, lots of limits on where you can go and what you can do and a very oppressive claustrophobic atmosphere.
For ED-E, I get the laser first, but you know you can get both, right? You don't have to choose one or the other.
In terms of your next character, it would probably be best if you picked one of those 3 combat styles for the best possible stuff.
I made an Unarmed Legion follower a little while ago named Maximus Aurelius because it sounded cool and had names from Gladiator. He runs around in Enclave power armor and hits things with his shotgun fist.
On a side note, did you take Intense Training a fuckload of times or just mod your SPECIAL stats?
I honestly save Dead Money for last since you can only go there once and the more powerful you are, the better your experience since there is no backing out of it once in and there are a lot of one-shot items to be had in there. This is especially pertinent if like me, you like to collect stuff even if you don't use it(whether it be unique items or just one of each). Not only that but I'd say Dead Money is easily the hardest of all the DLC's beyond The Lonesome Road just because you start out with less than what you had at the beginning of the game, literally the clothes on your back and an Energy Weapon
crimsonshrouds said:
I just finshed Honest hearts after exploring the whole area and accumulating over 40000 caps (a lot of that was from the mojave casinos ) and was wondering which DLC to play next? Here are the characters stats lvl 27 S8.P6.E10.C6.I9.A7.L10. Bar 86. Ener 65. Exp 31. Guns 78. Lock 75. Med 57. Melee 23. Rep 96. sci 85. sneak 93. speech 90. surv 44. unar 33.
Next, which upgrade should I get ED-E? The armor or the laser?
Im planning on making a melee/unarmed/explosive build next. How should i allocate his SPECIAL stats and does anybody have a good name for this character? All i got is Broly because im bad at names. My current characters name is Zelda -_-...
Okay, the captcha keeps giving me grief and I know I'm doing it RIGHT!!!
As for ED-E, since he's gonna go down if he's got too much heat, go with the weapon. Extra damage is always best in the case of companions since they can't permanently die except on Hardcore. I can't really help you with the second bit though, though I suggest the name Brick.
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) and was wondering which DLC to play next? Here are the characters stats lvl 27 S8.P6.E10.C6.I9.A7.L10. Bar 86. Ener 65. Exp 31. Guns 78. Lock 75. Med 57. Melee 23. Rep 96. sci 85. sneak 93. speech 90. surv 44. unar 33.
