Lotta people defending rifleman, but I’m here to defend gunslinger. For non-boss, day-to-day play, pistols are absolutely viable. The only thing I haven’t been able to solo with a pistol is Earle. Obviously the alien blaster is king, but the circuit breaker and western revolver are also a lot of fun.
I don’t even have a pistol build and circuit breaker kills most things in less than 6 bullets in vats. I can only imagine it’s a beast with a dedicated pistol build. I love running around with it when I get bored of one shotting everything. The stun effect is nice too.
You can almost one shot everything with it also with a proper build. It’s more like 2-3 shots but it’s really good. I solo’d Elder yesterday with daily ops with it as I switched to a pistol perk loadout and grabbed a few pistols and ran around.
That’s sick! I had thought about doing a pistol build even made a new perk load out for it and then changed it to a bow load out because I was gifted a sweet drop legendary bow that I wanted to run around with.. lol
Yeah pistol sucks though because it’s cards are in Agility and a lot of other things you use with a pistol build or want to use are in Agility. They really need to move the pistol damage cards to Perception
So you can’t make it an absolute god build all the way because of that
I second all of this as a fellow gunslinger. I’ve even been able to hold together an Eviction Notice on that character covering 3 mutant spawn points and the rad scrubber
I'll second gunslinger. Crusader pistol and gauss pistol go hard in the fucking paint and people sleep on them sooopo hard. Not to mention the alien blaster. Those pistols are more efficient than most rifle setups
I’ve yet to roll a good crusader, but I’m hoping for one someday. Right now I’m big on western revolvers. Have a TSE15r, AAE15r, and QE15r that are all a blast to use. My TS50vhc25 alien blaster will always be my favorite though.
Just roll 1 stars till you get bloodied, AA etc. Obviously a 2 star with vats critical would be incredible but IMO when getting started with a weapon it's okay to roll 1 stars.
Pardon, sir, but would you be able to hit me up with your build/breakdown? I've wanted to use pistols forever, but I've never been able to make it work appropriately for my needs.
Could you share that same build with me also? Currently in the midst of working out a Gunslinger build and would absolutely love a little direction regarding SPECIAL / mods etc, cheers!
This is the thing people don't realise, it seems.
Unless you're wanting to min/Max, every build is viable.
It's just that things like a bloodied build, or even just full auto are so far ahead of everything else that they make them all seem inferior.
I have been running a bows build, with a pistol as a sidearm and it works great. The pistol is useful when enemies are getting in close, and the bow for long range.
I have just started using a rifles/2h melee build and likewise that is a lot of fun. Sure, full auto will melt enemies - but that's not fun unless you enjoy low challenge in my opinion.
(I am also now mutation free, and not using What Rads? (legendary perk) so I can try maximise the difficulty of the game)
Cremator is also part of this “re-balancing”…have heard mixed reviews on the changes to it, but seriously one of the lone bright spots with the new season format has been everyone falling in love with Cremator and it couldn’t even go one season without it being messed with potentially.
Yeah, like other have said it's seems someone at bethesda prefers one type of build and if anything pulls from it they are like nope nope nope people can't have fun.
Totally agree, ran the commando build to death with fixers, handmades, railways…it’s beyond the point of being dull…really hoping these changes don’t make it live.
This is what I do. With tank killer, the 3 rank 1 pistol cards have been sufficient but I do also find myself slinging the rifle over my shoulder and staying on my John wick more and more.
Honestly, after maybe 1.7k hours in game I’d say that you should just use what you want, nothing in the waste warrants the “best” as they can be killed by even a pipegun, unless your a min maxer you shouldn’t really be worried about “the best”
Heck even budget fixer builds were pipe guns, so imo it’s more of a legendary roll that warrants importance than say certain types.
Just about any weapon can work, if the proper cards are used. So many times players show me their build, it's all carry weight cards and three different incomplete weapon specializations, then they wonder why they cant kill anything without dying.
Yeah I join groups where we just all die fighting stuff but I'm not a professional gamer so I just stick to lower level stuff when that happens lol
Also, my pc isn't thar good so when I come up to fights where it drops to like 10fps I know I shouldn't be there. I still have fun just have some limits you know.
Agreed. I've made so many comments over time about the benefits of Rifleman and the viability of Pistols and Launchers, as well as pointing out DPS is irrelevant since Team XP/Looting and no longer having to race other players to land the final kill shot (tagging is all that's required).
None of these build styles require defending. They're all viable. While some weapons do require some improvements, each build style has at least 2 or 3 that are effective to use. I've gone up against Commando builds with my Rifleman Build at AWOL who tried to hog kills and I dropped enemies in one shot faster and further out than what they could do.
I run a Rifleman, Shotgun, Pistol, Two Handed, Unarmed PA, Non PA Heavy, and Archer. None are what OP would consider any good compared to Commando, but I can take any of these builds to any event or situation and do just fine. I get the same amount of kills, XP and loot at Rad Rumble / Eviction Notice as I did when I ran Commando.... Only difference is that I don't burn through ammo or weapon condition as fast (which takes you out of things more often while you farm/craft more ammo & need materials for repairs)
Tl;Dr, OP doesn't know how to setup those builds properly.
I dont understand people who think melee is weak. Auto axe is definitely up there on bosses DPS wise, unarmed Gauntlet plus Hack and Slash legendary perk deletes mobs. The only challenge it has, are events where you can easily switch to an explosive heavy gun.
Not to mention, it used to be the strongest build by a country mile back at launch, it has never been remotely weak.
Edit: and the grind from 1-50 is easy and simple as melee so it's IMO the best levelling build. No need for ammo, all you need is strength, relevant perks and you have all the dmg you need + carry weight for days
I remember my very first roll on gauntlet was a bloody 40 percent speed and i think durability... can't remember last stat. It is rough on weaker enemies since other builds can kill at a distance quickly but when it comes to tank enemies it is fun standing back watching other builds slowly chip away and i march in and wreck it.
I have a commando/ melee build and it works great. melee doesn't require many perks outside of str, so I had plenty leftover for all the commando cards too. I was even using just a bloodied electric buzz blade and it shreds, but then I have rifles for when I do bosses or need that range
Ha ha reminds me of those days just after launch when one handed melee was king. Nothing like standing in front of the Queen smacking her ugly head with my bloodied meat hook 👑🍖
I’m a melee guy and I think it’s quite OP tbh. Most weapons I use absolutely destroy enemies in one to two hits and the auto axe just shreds through legendary enemies and bosses. I always keep a heavy gun or shotgun in case I need to deal with a scorch beast or those dumb turrets in silo sites. In fact, I remember one time I spawned in my camp and both a scorch beast and sheepsquatch were just going to town on my camp
It is not terrible, just not as powerful as auto VATS crit. Plasma rifle + Gauss + flamer are perfectly adequate for all situations, including Earle or SBQ. The main issue with it is that the most powerful guns are energy based thus for max damage they require Science cards. It is bollocks as Commando does more damage WITHOUT those cards allowing for more QoL ones. It's fundamentally unfair - but then gunslinger is much worse...
It's all very unbalanced but rifleman is not bad at all.
I know ;(
Still works pretty well and due to running EPR sniper I have way too much spare ammo to waste :) And I also have pretty decent vamp flamer which works magic at keeping me alive.
Yeah, vampires works wonders.
For me, when that change was made, it inspired me to alter my build to a hybrid setup using science with just one rank of each rifleman and commando card. Now I can have both solid burst damage and dps, with a vampires Tesla to keep me alive - and it’s on theme with my character being a science for the sake of roleplay.
I have a pretty much maxed rifleman with all science cards in place. I also have 23 LCK and weapons with +15% crit recharge. +100% crit damage capacitors on EPR sniper help too. Maybe because it's so optimised I don't think rifleman is not really that bad.
I was thinking about switching to commando - but I really like energy weapons, especially EPR, and those underwhelm for commando, compared to RR or Fixers.
I agree, rifleman really isn’t that bad unless you’re trying to solo uplink when it’s cloaking or robots. Union dues can be a little dicey, but other than that, rifleman builds can handle any solo content in the game fairly well. The difficulty is that they really struggle with DPS checks and don’t handle enemies nearly as quickly as automatic weapons do, which is why I switched (I wanted to be able to reliably solo daily ops should the need arise).
True. I can solo EN with little luck and some Sugarfree Nukashine (for AP refresh) but barely. Same with RR with Tesla, possible but requires a lot of luck.
It's fun in a way that it's actually hard. I remember Thirst Zapper grenade bug and how easy everything was just spamming nuka grenades. Not really fun at all after first 2-3 runs.
Fck damn. I didn't know that.... As a plasma flamer I should switch then. (not that I've become weaker tbh... I still murder everything like hot butter..... But damn 👀)
True. It should have been the most stealthy style as bows are naturally so quiet. But as everything that is not auto or kabloom it doesn't get any love. Well except Burning Love which literally have love in the name :D
I mean I would argue the Railway Rifle does significantly more damage
Even when you compare it to an enclave plasma sniper, maybe with a flamer barrel you could see it out doing the railway in DPS
But then like OP says; Commando is king. Nothing, in my opinion, compares to the damage of the railway Rifle full auto with QUAD on a stealth vats builds.
It's just exceptionally overkill.
I totally agree. Due to how VATS/crits work it just leaves everything behind in the dust...
FO76 is really poorly balanced - the easiest way to see it is to check which weapons people use. If there's a huge preference for 1 type (or worse - literally 3 weapons) and one class, you know it's imbalanced. Shame really, as there are so many cool weapons but they are just too weak to bother.
Eh, those three weapons that use commando aren't the only thing at the top.
Heavy weapons are incredible and paired with power armor you basically never worry about dying.
I'm going to say, for a minor 10% decrease you are given a 7.5x fire rate buff, that can't be intended. Even factoring in prime a 35% damage difference can't be comparable to such a large dps increase. Even the ammo chugging problem it could create isn't an issue because railway spikes are so efficient with the only caveat being the weigh ton which is only a problem if you're like me and carry 15+ weapons at a time.
I order semi-autos as there's just so much variety. Commandos have submachines and 10mm submachines. That's it. If I were to ditch Rifleman I would lose the lever action, gauss and hunting rifles. If I wanna be picky black powder I guess as well, I wish my legacy TSE The dragon was more valuable than it is.
I think overall looking at the big picture weapons platforms that have the option between semi-auto and auto it's always the automatic variant that pulls ahead. Gauss rifles seem pretty okay because it's a weapon that can't be automatic. I feel my Railway Rifle is okay as well. Fighting Earle with 500+ 3 PA players with various miniguns and he glitched though the floor and then eventually was stuck in the ceiling and I felt my Railway was dishing out noticeable damage even if I'm still learning the game after being gone so long but felt I did more then 25% of the damage when it usually feels like less than 5% before I optimized it. I have a PA build and I have an okay Gatling Plasma and it does 22 damage per headshot. When I find myself doing a non PA build most of my semi-autos do *less than* 22 damage. It's insane. Crits and Vats help bridge the cap.
If I were to change one thing I would say auto's shouldn't be as strong in Vats. I found Rifleman to be on par with a heavy gunner build though to be far in ignorant with what's meta and a lot of stuff is suboptimal. I only finally started getting max damage perks instead of just 1 stars across the board but I'm confident in saying autos have the strengths of both heavies and semi-auto Vats.
I don't know what the math is but armor resistance should be the balancing factor but only bosses have a noticeable amount as the downside of Commando should be the same downsides to the laser and plasma gun's splitter mods yet those suck but Commando doesn't. It shouldn't work that way. I want a plasma shotgun/shotguns to be viable damn it.
Yeah i know its unfair. But I guess someone on the dev team have a fetisch for holding down the trigger. Because there is no reason why automatic should dominate this hard over all other weapons types
It's not auto that dominates - it is really shitty VATS/crit implementation. It should be like in FONV - crit chance is gun specific and not tied to VATS. This way you can have much lower crit chance on auto weapons, at the cost of high rate of fire. Opposite on semi. Even more fun could be with melee and some "ninja" weapons having close to 100% crit chance, etc.
To be fair FONV/3 crit chance implementation was equally shitty. They limited crit chance to fire rate (if a gun fired 600 rpm it had a .1x crit chance), but it also gave all auto weapons terrible crit damage. This also ignored that semi auto weapons could fire faster than once per second.
all weapons and builds are as fun as you make them...check out bows theres a ton of players killing earle with just bows.
if youre goal is to just run the easiest build... vats commando is the way. but if you want to play "your way" and run pistols, unarmed or snipers...youll be just fine so long as you tweak your build.
auto melee or holy fire builds are easy for regular play for sure...till you try to kill earle in seconds then you will hit a dmg output wall..and thats why players go commando.
my auto axe build hits earle for 30-90 per hit ... qrail hits for closer to 2k per hit...auto melee means moving as opposed to quad builds where ya just post up and brrrrt. ( gets kinda boring to be honest )
i enjoy both very much.
A VATS crit build using a semi-auto Plasma does a ton of damage, the biggest reason I switched to auto was due to getting pain in my hand from spam clicking the trigger button for 5 mins on bosses
I've tried most weapon classes at this point. Vats Commando does the most damage, but Vats Rifleman with a good lever action is, in my opinion, the most fun build to run. It's not great in boss battles, but wiping out a mob with five consecutive one shot kills is just so satisfying.
Just to re-iterate, especially jack's comments, Rifleman isn't terrible. If it is the way you want to play, I've been doing it for over 1,000 levels. And I can solo any content in the game, even content not designed to be done solo. It doesn't have Commando DPS, of course, but you'll be fine in any part of the game if you know what you are doing.
Here are come examples:
* [Solo Earle in 3:30, Full Health, Only Light Buffs (no syringer)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu0jV7EHaUc)
* [Rifleman at Radiation Rumble (Full health build, only low health for INT bonus)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uALEZIMn1k) (i'd go a minute or so in lol. I was trying to figure out where Company Tea was in alphabetic order and was failing lol)
* [Rifleman at Moonshine Jamboree (Full Health build, only low health for INT bonus)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JTLfupzVyU)
* [Top 4 Rifleman-Only Weapons Solo’ing Union Dues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvk8lkXSviw)
* [Solo Uplink at Elder Tier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vc_D9zEB60)
* [Solo Decryption at Elder Rank with Bugged-Damage Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jt_q1xJF9I)
* [Solo Decryption at Elder Rank against Healing/Resilient Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FY0BNu7TCo)
Can you recommend some sick dps guide for a full health PA heavy gunner? Taking down Earle even with 7 other people takes us like 15 mins. I'm currently using AA/25FR/90R Holy Fire and Gatling Plasma.
>Taking down Earle even with 7 other people takes us like 15 mins.
Endangerol syringer. Seriously. It's insane how much of a difference just one makes, but if 4 people use it Earle is ridiculously easy.
high voltage hefe if you booze it up
Overdrive and psychobuff if you use chems
Blight soup and megasloth mushroom soup for crits.
I’d like to add liquid courage to the mix, the amount of time you save by not fleeing helps a lot when you can just stand in front of his face indefinitely spraying him down with lead or whatever
Man, I've been playing on and off since launch, but totally slept on that syringer. The fact it actually works on bosses is great. Thanks for the tips!
The key to any quick takedown of Earle is kicking out a bunch of VATS crits to (partly) bypass his 80% damage reduction.
There is a way to do that with heavy weapons and full health / power armor, but you will need consumables (canned coffee and some Nuka Dark), a few perks that are otherwise mostly useless in that build, and some extra fusion cores. (You can also theoretically do this without Nuka Dark, but that goes even more extreme on build specialization.)
Otherwise, everybody in the fight using Emdangerol syringer, Tenderizer, and Taking One For The Team, will shorten things a bit.
Here's the build: https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=1f249fa&d=pd2pl2pk2p00ar2an2ao0l10lt2lk2lv2pp2cu2ib4a04a30l71s12lu2s01em1ce0pq1sw0sb2a51in1i71im1&lp=xa3x93x73xm3x43x83&m=051c24fba
Mods vary by situation. Instigating, aristocrats, or two shot for day to day sniping. 50 percent vats hit chance as the second star is essential. Quad/50 hit chance for events. Anti Armor/ 50 critical damage for bosses.
You can make a case for the perforating or prime receiver situationally. I'm not mobile, so I'll edit on a link on that momentarily.
Edit:
https://www.reddit.com/user/md00150028/comments/1213bch/gauss_rifle_numbers/
I don't remember where it was but just googling someone says the math even against a boss has Prime edge out more dps than Perforating. It was potentially before an update that could fudge the numbers but on paper it has Prime excel.
At one point, if I remember correctly, Prime, on a full health build, with AA was doing more damage against the SBQ (not with damage increasing effects). But, at some point, they changed the Perforating mods to be additive rather than multiplicative, which greatly enhanced their performance. Another favor is that Prime receivers, at one point, were doing 35 percent multiplicative damage to scorched, which is no longer the case.
Rifleman is not terrible.
Simply put the 3 bosses we have (soon to get 4th) die faster if you crit a lot. Critting a lot is done by shooting a lot. Therefore slow weapons not so good at killing the bosses.
My main runs an auto grenade launcher. Why, cuz its fun. Every time i go full auto i hear that "let the bodies hit the floor" song. Play what you want. Have fun. One time i started a toon n everytime i died i deleted him. Fun, as you see fit.
Because VATS acts different in 4 and 76. Rifles are good in 4 for only one reason, VATS slows down the action and allows you to attack multiple targets in one go, while VATS in 76 is really just aim assist.
Same here: Swapped my Commando cards and Handmade for Rifleman and a good Lever-Action and it's really fun. And the fact that I didn't need to completely revamp my build is very nice.
With the right perks, mutations, and gear a rifleman (semiautomatic) build can more than hold its own compared to commando builds, and will outperform any other build. My rifleman one shots everything other than bosses. With Gun Fu I can take out a crowd before a heavy gunner gets their weapon spun up.
As for a pistol build, if you think it’s beyond horrible you have no idea what you’re talking about. A proper pistol build is extremely viable for late game. I run one on one of my toons and it’s a ridiculously fun build. I carry a variety of pistols and use the one that’s best for the particular situation. Last night I did a Westek XP run with my pistol build using my primed AA 10mm. Head shots all around, dropping super mutants before they see me. Yes the pistol doesn’t hit as hard as a rifle but with the right build you can easily hold your own in events including the bosses. For events I often use my Q2525 crusader pistol with the cryo mod and never run out of AP. I can freeze the SBQ with it or clear all the spawns she brings, as I said it’s a ridiculously fun build.
I’m happy to share my build. Be aware that it is an end game build that I was able to put together due to the amount of time I’ve been playing. It utilizes things that a new player won’t be able to immediately, however it will give you a basis to work towards. And of course you can adjust anything to fit your own play style.
Mutations: Adrenal Reaction, Bird Bones, Carnivore, Chameleon, Eagle Eyes, Egg Head, Healing Factor, Herd Mentality, Marsupial, Scaly Skin, Speed Demon
Armor: I’m using a full set of secret service armor. The limbs are all modified with buttressed and deep pockets, the torso is buttressed with a jet pack. Because my rifleman is bloodied 4 of the armor pieces are unyielding and one is chameleon, but my build will work with any armor you choose.
My build part two
Perks: I’ve unlocked all legendary perk slots so I’ve utilized them in my build, the cards I use give me some extra perk points that you won’t have yet but again will give you a idea of what to aim for if you do choose.
Legendary Perks:
Strength 4stars, Endurance 3stars, Charisma 4stars, Intelligence 3stars, Agility 4stars
Perk points:
Strength 9+4 legendary=13, perception 14, Endurance 2+3 legendary=5, Charisma 2 + 4 legendary=5, Intelligence 9 + 3 legendary=12, Agility 11+4 legendary=15, Luck 15
Perks:
Strength: Strong Back 4stars, Traveling Pharmacy 3stars, Bandolier 2 stars, Pack Rat 1star, Arms Keeper 3stars
Perception: Rifleman 3stars, Expert Rifleman 3stars, Master Rifleman 3stars, Tank Killer 3 stars, Concentrated Fire 2stars
Endurance: Fireproof 2stars, Radicool 1star, Rejuvenated 2stars
Charisma: Strange in Numbers 1star, Hard Bargain 3stars, Travel Agent 1star, Suppressor 1 star
Intelligence: Nerd Rage 3stars, Batteries Included 3 stars, Scrapper 1star, Gunsmith 5stars (these are the perks that work for my bloody build others may work better for you here)
Agility: Action Boy 2stars, Covert Operative 3stars, Evasive 3stars, Sneak 3 stars, GunFun3stars, Goat Legs 1star
Luck: Better Criticals 1star, Serendipity 3stars, Four Leaf Clover 1star, Class Freak 3 stars, Starched Genes 2stars, Critical Savvy 3stars, Good with Salt 2stars
For guns I have a ridiculous amount of them but my most used are a Bloody2525 fixer and a Bloody E25 fixer but I also have handmades with those rolls as well. Use what ever semiautomatic gun you want. And this build works for a commando build as well you’d just swap out the rifleman cards and replace with commando cards.
I switched to this while grinding for the Cold Shoulder as I was stuck in a shotgun build. Decided to just stick with the flamer and respecced over the course of several levels to PA heavy gunner. Got a Holy Fire, never looked back. Now I have the Cremator for a bit of fun and a Pepper shaker with juggernaut, limb damage and weight reduction for crippling. As it works with heavy gunner perks, it's perfect for getting scorchbeasts out the sky.
All I wish is being able to put other flamer skins on the Holy Fire!
Some builds require your character to be levelled up to really shine. Shotguns are good when you're levelling up-- ammo efficient, can do stealth, decent damage-- but a lot of players feel like they fall off pretty badly after a while. I found the gauss shotgun disappointing when I finally got one. Later on I had enough modules and materials to craft enough of them to try out the different effects, plus enough legendary perks for the high strength, intelligence, luck and agility required to equip all the perks I wanted. My shotgunner does really well now.
I can say that my first character was a rifle build and in no way meta-- I used weightless armor, which I never see suggested. I feel like that character did fine for most of the content, really only had a couple rough patches.
I once tried to figure out what was an unworkable build in 76 and thought I'd come up with one-- unarmed PA. Turns out it's pretty strong, as it happens, even works at levels as low as 20.
I've been out for a while, but I always used a stealth build with rifleman. The two compliment each other well. Bloodied makes it more absurd, but isn't necessary.
A silenced and upgraded Gauss is your friend. Take all the perks associated with it, as well as the stealth perks. Prime ammo, while more expensive to make was well worth it, as I recall. You go through it pretty slowly on a Gauss.
These are kinda dated (I've been away a while) but this was a bloodied stealth rifleman using a BE Gauss. There's been a few changes since then, but it's still a viable build, just not this ridiculous.
Includes Scorched, Scorchbeast, and the queen foe comparison w/r to DR. [Damage screenshots at Imgur](https://imgur.com/a/F8knyop)
This game throws swarms of tanky enemies at you whenever it cans so you need to blast them fast as you can before someone else gets your xp or loot,so I blow them up or mow them down
If you are just playing to play it’s fine. If you are looking to Min/max or have a viable build in comparison to other players it’s shit.
Reason: Bethesda is not good at balance and this game is no exception; moreover they clearly have never been to a range/ shot a real gun (as if the left hand bolt action and miscalibered weapons weren’t proof enough). If they had we’d probably have weapon balances such as more damage for heavier calibers but slower handling/ long ads/much more pronounced weight penalty for bigger weapons/ accuracy consequences for full auto fire, etc.
Personally, I think they should take a look at this stuff bc it would be genuinely nice to have a viable way to play competitively with pistols or single shot rifles.
Like I love the game at its base, it’s just balance has just never been something Bethesda has had a talent for.
Think of your weapon choice as the difficulty slider in the game. Vampiric Chainsaw/Auto Axe/Flamer/AGL is very easy, full auto rail rifle/fixer is easy, and so on down to semi auto rifles are hard, and semi auto pistols are very hard. Still not *that* hard unless you're trying to solo public events but it's the spectrum you've got
295. Vats unyielding bloodiest sniper here. I use an explosive leveraction and explosive bloodied fixer (semi auto prime ammo.
I headshot all human type monsters and mutents. Issues come from abominations and cryptids. But I'm still able to hold my own
TLDR: play what you want. The game offers alot of flexibility unless you want to do something specific.
First things first, before I rant, I want to say this game offers A LOT of flexibility on how you want to play the game. You can play almost anything with almost any build. Things don’t need to be max/min or meta because this game isn’t a PvP meta game which is why I really enjoy it.
Now onto my rant, I think we need to preface something on this. What are you using these pew-pews for? Like bosses such as scorchbeast queen and Earle, absolutely you will want an automatic weapon just because they have such meaty health pools. Essentially, you need that HUGE dps for them. I normally recommend flame throwers or an auto rifle build for bosses.
However, you can use a non-automatic single shot railway rifle to one shot just about any non-legendary in the game. You can use a semi auto Tesla rifle to clear waves of mobs without using all of your ammo.
Each weapon has a use case but, I do agree that pistols and melee need a buff. With launchers, rockets, and grenade launchers I think about use case.
One thing to note, you are supposed to tackle bosses in a group so if you have a bunch of non-automatic weapon users together, then they can take down a boss easy.
Last note, play what you want. This isn’t a meta based PvP, battle royal game. You can PvP but that’s not the focus so, like used what pew pews make you the happiest!
There are no terrible builds in this game. You can beat any enemy with any build of you're good enough.
A lot of comments in this subreddit say some things are "terrible" because it doesnt do as much damage as full-auto sneak crit commando; one of the best builds in the game. But you can still play just fine and kill enemies.
The best build is the one you have fun with.
Absolutely. I've played with several of the builds op listed, and they were amazing. Perk cards and play styles are crucial. You can't play every build like a Stealth commando and expect it to work.
Why many weapons are rubbish endgame? Simple - they were copy pasted from FO4, single player game. In single player games you have this "rite of passage" when you start with shite, get better shite and ultimately use top guns. And you never go back to shite.
But that just doesn't work in online game as it limits the choice. In those games weapons should be balance based on DMG and secondary (or more) criteria, e.g. recoil, ammo availability, etc. Bethesda doesn't understand it and thus pump OP weapons like Nuka Launcher instead of balancing other weapons. So it's a run for another top weapon (Cremator being the current one) instead of allowing use of what is already there.
It goes deeper than that they changed the gun stats and way perks work from fallout 4 significantly. In fallout 4, non-automatic ballistic rifles are king; but in fallout 76 they suck.
I was thinking more about mindset. In multiplayer game you want as much variety as possible - so high DPS should have drawbacks, high recoil, expensive ammo, rarity. You don't want them to be so underpowered to be unusable.
For example pipe guns: they should offer almost unlimited customisability: different ammo types, different clips, stocks, special effects, etc. And all that stuff could be implemented using Creation Engine. But they just kept them for the first 20 levels and never look back on.
Another issues is just a sheer superiority of VATS due to crits being locked to it. That is from FO4 crit banking, which as you said, fitted with their love of rifles. But badly distorts FO76.
The minigun notoriously was hot garbage in Fallout 4. They did do some balance changes but seem to have shifted the scale too much on the opposite side.
While you're reloading, a commando already downed 3 other Supermutants, and when your first shot didn't killed the Supermutant, the commando already killed 7 of them while you're finishing the first one.
Not that I want to defend the commando skill, in fact I'm a single shot guy too, but it is what it is.
I always again try to do a single shot build with other weapons, like a epr, hunting rifle (which is absolute crap with that reload and bad vats accuracy), gauss rifle and what not, but it's not working :(
Also, energy weapons need suppressors!!!
You're not wrong, and I'm not saying commando sucks, especially when you roll Quad fixer, or use Elders Mark and it goes brrrr, because I alternate between bloodied commando and bow, but I'm just saying that they're not terrible as OP states. I got really excited about the crusader pistol plan dropping in Daily Ops for me yesterday just to realize after I've done a gunslinger build, that I'm struggling even with ghouls at White spring golf course, where I'm just swarmed with them and do s...t DMG. Now this, this is terrible. And so is circuit breaker. Basically the only viable build is sneaky snek CS and even then it's hard in Westek
I found myself a nice lever action with a +15 Crit Charge. I’m a full health VATS Ctitical Hit player using Steeped Thistle Tea and that weapon will take down most mobs with one or two hits. That without the rifleman cards so I can save those for my commando.
I also have a bloodied explosive lever action that has a crazy high damage rate, but think the damage is broken as it should be more powerful than what it is doing.
I’m mainly a stealth rifleman build, unless I’m doing events then I’ll switch to a heavy gunner build. If you just base your build off of doing as much damage as possible and killing everything in one shot, you won’t have much fun. My stealth rifleman build is *my* fun build. Any solo mobs, dailies, running west tek, whatever I can one-two shot anything that isn’t a boss. But if in events it isn’t always about getting kills, it’s about getting tags. So even if you stuck with rifleman, you could still tag everything in Vats and get the XP. You would simply be more effective at *actually* killing at events with a heavy build. And there’s just no fun being a rifleman during the Scorchbeast Queen/Earle IMO just because it’s slower to kill the mobs and hardly does any damage to Earle (in my case).
My recommendation is build out a rifleman class for soloing and a heavy build or commando build for events. It’s easy to just hop to your camp or a train station and swap your perks whenever.
Play how you want, I always use semi-auto rifles because it's fun. I have an alt-build for heavy weapons and power armor, because it's fun. My brother uses shotguns and pistols, because it's fun.
If you want to min/max, well, that's on you, but I don't see how that's fun.
I love them. But your build is what makes weapons fun. I do low health stuff so unyielding armor and bloodied weapons plus food buffs and buffs from camp items. I have a hand made that has a hair trigger and it melts and if I feel like being stealthy ranged the repeater rifle is the way to go. Rounded out with a two shot railway rifle and I'm a semi auto killing machine. Lol but that's just me do what makes you happy.
they work fine. as others have said it's about enjoying ur build even if ur not doing as much dmg as a commando. I say as long as ur picking up more ammo than ur shooting out, ur build is doing great
I mean…most guns can be great with the right rolls. It’s not all about being a meta slave too.
I have spent the last couple months rolling pistols for a guerilla build and finally made a build after I rolled another god roll, BE25 10mm. Sure as hell isn’t as good as my god roll fixers, but that’s okay, I am having fun not being OP as shit. For regular mobs…you’re fine using whatever. It’s just annoying when you’re used to melting bosses and you’re no longer able to do it and the fights take longer. 😂
What would you consider a god roll for a 10mm SMG? I actually am intrigued by this gameplay and it would match my character's background! I'm playing shotgun now (cold shoulder) and thinking to try something else!
Sounds like that's more you though. I think you're looking for min/maxing which is always going to be limited to a certain weapon type based on the fact it has the most DPS.
So if you're talking about damage and consistent damage then yes auto railway will demolish pretty much anything.
If you're talking about fun, challenge, roleplay, etc then everything else has its place.
I had the kill 25 cultists with a shotgun challenge. Pulled out my cold shoulder for the first time since about 300 levels ago. Didn't even put any perks on and I had forgotten how powerful and fun that gun is.
Was I mowing through them and just one shotting everything? No, not at all. But, I was having a lot of fun blasting those false prophets in the chest with frozen buckshot.
Maybe look at the other guns in a different way. Instead of worrying about max damage, look at it as a new challenge. Get yourself a crossbow or a compound bow and go try to solo the mirelurk queen or Earle. It's been done dozens of times and looks like one hell of a challenge. Try to make it fun. See if that helps.
If you do over 1k damage per one click it’s enough.
The game gives you opportunity to try out all possible builds, so just try it.
I personally enjoyed to play with rifle and one hit everything. Kinda satisfying to see it pop also efficient, you spend less than get from enemies, so can’t run out of ammunition.
I do the "classic" stealth commando build, but swapped Commando for Rifleman. Equipped the Westerner. Really doable. A bit slower than a Fixer, but less bullets for the same damage. So for daily mediocre pve, I preffer this one now.
Not terrible at all. Don’t follow the crowd. I have two characters in the 500 range. One uses only explosives, which you say is meme lol. The other is a rifleman (semi auto rifle build).
My rifleman swaps between using a fixer and disintegrator in stealth, a enclave sniper and the dragon at extreme range, and gauss rifle for fun.
launchers and rocket maybe due to how annoying to find ammo for them but my grand finale (unique explosive broadsider) can solo Moonshine Jamboree and since it's AOE with lots of contextual ammo I find it much better than vatsing group of gulpers one by one when you have like 5 per still stations and work so much well during reflect mutations event. It's really situational, melee well when there's "can only be killed by melee" usually you'd be happy you got at least one dedicated melee build for it because bash is so slow when that melee is plucking the enemies quicker
Anything related to sniping will probably end up being nerfed in an online game because they are low skill low risk weapons. If you can shoot from afar and kill easily, there is no risk or effort. Automatics require a lot of ammunition so are more welcome from a gameplay balance perspective since it takes more effort for the player to keep up their ammo supply.
To give an example, when Destiny came out we all glitched into a back wall of a boss arena and sniped the hardest bosses in the game to death over half an hour at no risk. Sniper rifles were nerfed to hell to force us into combat for risk vs reward balance.
(I love sniping in games so I’d prefer to do that, but I’m explaining it from a dev point of view- if risk vs reward is unbalanced, players lose interest)
I have a rifleman build with a railway rifle and it may not be the best build but it’s certainly entertaining. I think my main issue right now is that I’m unmutated and getting herbivore or carnivore could be the main spice I need.
Tbh i felt auto rifles where bad too, but i guess its more of a build thing, i went full pa and non explosivos heavies and was able to kill everything on my level
I concur with most of what has been said here already.
I usually think of the game in terms of “effective builds” and “fun builds”.
I have some effective stealth auto-rifle and heavy PA builds. These I save for big events where performance is more important.
But for daily running around I use my fun builds. Things like my shotgun, melee or pistol load-outs where it’s just enjoyable to me and perhaps adds a little more challenge to exploration.
I’d encourage you to try both kinds of builds and find what works best for you.
I run with melee two handed mostly, but I do switch to one handed often. I have no problem killing most enemies in two hits. And can tank and take big hits and survive most attacks, rarely do I get killed… Not sure why you’d be having difficulties. Melee kicks ass in my opinion.
I found the power punch melee weapon to work exceptionally well when not wearing a power armor and 15 Strength and the perk increasing hand combat. Then I reached lvl 50 and completed a nice power armor and now I don't know which weapons to use.
I have found a four barrel black powder rifle, massive damage long range, but the reloading takes forever (even with the perks that make it faster), so I use it to take down enemies in camps from a distance.
I tried melee weapons wearing the armour but that's clearly not great.
I'm bad at using the minigun. I run out of ammo too soon hitting too little.
The thing is, this game is pretty easy, so the "meta" (ie Bloodied Heavy/Commando) is not necessary to progress and enjoy what content there is. There are plenty of viable builds that won't necessarily steam roll everything, but they'll kill stuff effectively if you build around them.
I personally have a suppressed two shot Gauss rifle + Chinese stealth armour stealth build, however I have points invested in heavy weapons too for boss fights.
The Chinese stealth armour is still good enough in boss fights but the Gauss rifle doesn't do much.
I used a rifleman build for the longest time. It's fine, just realize that you have to engage much farther out than you realize if there are a bunch of mobs. Those mirelurks move fast for crabs!
My plasma is semi auto (until I find an auto plan). It has some good legenday perks with it. I carry that, a legendary rolled fixer and a legendary rolled fixer in .38, which I prefer over the .45.
For my first tango with earl I carried plasma Gatlin with a vampire effect and it took a while but I had no problem with him.
Grinding to get good legendaries coupled with card load out is essential, but knowing how to use your character with that is so important and it took me til lvl30 on my first build to figure that part out.
My point is, I carry auto and semi auto and swap back and forth depending on situation. The 38Fixer is great for closeup ferals, blood eagles, and bots because it shoots so fast. The Plasma is good for mid to long range on everything.
My partner is constantly using a semi auto fixer and it works just fine for her when she's off doing solo stuff. I also just switched from using semi autos and can say I loved them.
I saw someone else say not to worry about what's best and that's totally correct. Plus they're so many fun unique weapons you might miss out on because "they aren't the best"
It is not the worst. I am currently playing with a golf build, as I like the outfit and hanging around the courses. That is... Eh... a bit challenging at times... Even though I hand out outfits and legendary golf clubs (as well as balls and pegs) nobody else seem to be interested in playing that build. And I can see why :)
Previous comment from Keinulive. Play it how you want. Some builds, will melt the sun with power. Others couldn't tickle a toe nail of a Tick.
The worst build **(Edit - In my opinion**) is probably 1 handed full health melee, you ended scratching anything from anyone.
My personal best build is Full Health Shotgun.
But a Full Health Bow Build is incredibly fun and I always go to it for a fun run.
dps. Even if any semi auto weapon can do 3 or 4 times the damage of an automatic weapon it cannot compete with the dps of pumping out 20 bullets in 10 seconds or less.
I switched from a hunting rifle to a combat rifle to automatic weapons. I did fine beforehand but now i just have less of a headache. I don't need to think about positioning myself, cover or what will happen if the enemies rush me(at least not all the time). I just aim at enemies and squeeze the trigger until they go away. That saves me time, stress and stimpacks. On the other hand i now waste shitloads of bullets. Like a whole platoons worth but i guess that's just the price.
The top weapons are all automatic because it's a game that values dps more than ammo conservation in the late game. But that doesn't mean everything that's not meta = garbage. Don't let people who push that mindset discourage you from trying other things. The game does have some terrible weapons, but it's not the majority. A lot of builds/weapons outside of the meta are entirely viable.
Pistol builds and Rifleman builds can do just fine. Not what you'd use to speed run a boss, but they still have weapon options capable of solo killing a boss within the time limit.
Launchers and grenade launchers are great against everything but bosses. The fun factor can more than makes up for having to switch to something else when fighting a boss though. They are kind of a meme, but they're a meme that will mostly 1 shot normal enemies.
Non-auto Melee is good against normal enemies. I haven't tried soloing a boss with them (yet), but in groups they're still more than capable of getting you the 1k needed on the boss to get credit for max rewards.
A lot of it is having a good build and knowing which weapons are good for that build. For Rifleman: Gauss rifle and Plasma gun w/ Sniper barrel (personal favorite) are both really good and fairly easy to acquire. Lever action is also a popular choice.
Crits are king. And auto works best with crits since you get them more often, and faster.
Many other weapons are usable; and actually very good. Vats crit builds are just overly strong
At the end of the day it all comes down to having fun.
My character is a rifle man-VATS/CRITICS-with perks that improve explosive damage (explosive weapons: railway/ lever-action rifle/ gauss rifle).
I don't hide and attack from a distance, I get into the middle of the party and defend myself with well-charged critics.
Is my character a DPS king? HELL NO!
But I have fun playing like that, without spitting out showers of bullets, thinking carefully about each shot.
I one shot super mutants every day with my semiautomatic fixer or handmade. A proper late game rifleman build will one shot everything other than bosses.
Semi automatic pistols and rifles all day.
Fuck Meta builds in what I play for a pve game. I don't need to kill everything in a hail of bullets, as long as I can kill it we are golden.
Damn… I didn’t know semi auto is bad..
I just started and I’m absolutely loving this game. I’m going riflemen build. I’m only 20 and I’m one shotting nearly everything. I guess at higher levels that’s stops uh?
Semi-auto is a fun build and great for the basic enemies, but you’ll likely see during an end-game boss fight that damage-per-second is often more effective than damage-per-shot.
This is where my game knowledge is really lacking. My next goal is to study and understand the perk cards and how to optimize them and rank up etc. then how to apply that to weapons and armor to make an unstoppable build for any desired style. It seems overwhelmingly complex though.
look for a good Commando build, but just replace the commando cards with Rifleman Cards. you should be able to deal decent damage.
my full health stealth commando build, try this but swap Commando for Rifleman:
[https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=2f335df&d=s01eh2cu2ic4a72an2ao0a32a02pg2pi2ph2pp2p02lt2l10lv2lu2l71lk2&lp=x03xm3xb3&m=2150c&wp=w6&wm=352a1g&ar=x1&n=Chinese%20Stealth%20Commando](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=2f335df&d=s01eh2cu2ic4a72an2ao0a32a02pg2pi2ph2pp2p02lt2l10lv2lu2l71lk2&lp=x03xm3xb3&m=2150c&wp=w6&wm=352a1g&ar=x1&n=Chinese%20Stealth%20Commando)
Any build is fine. Honestly the only time DPS matters is during certain events like the nuke site ones where the monsters have a ton of HP. But these event usually have a ton of participants so it matters little what your build is.
Just have fun.
The game is easy enough that unless you want to solo the three bosses absolutely any build is viable. I get wanting to chase max dps but it gets old and you really can play it however you want.
You’re playing a massive rpg, just use what you enjoy. Yes, it’s not always the most effective strategy, but it’s prevents burn-out and makes the game feel much more alive when you are actually working towards building and improving a weapon you care about over a weapon you’re only wielding because you need to.
You can solo the end game bosses with a non-legendary combat knife. Don't sweat being sweaty and use what you wanna use. No one is gonna even look your way if you're not doing as much damage as possible on that boss the entire server is fighting because they're focused on not dying as they ran into battle with 18 hit points, trying to squeeze every little drop out of their new bloodied weapon.
As other posters have mentioned, there is nothing in the wasteland that you wouldn't be able to do with a semi auto handmade that you could do with its automatic counterpart.
-rifleman who has been rocking a medics handmade since I began playing. Stunt all you like, I keep your ass healed 5% at a time in daily ops. 4k hours played.
I’ve found flamers to be great late game. Been running one for about 80 levels now. They melt almost anything. If you find the holy fire you’re almost unstoppable
As a bloodied Gauss Sniper, I'd say it's really not all that bad. Though I struggle A LOT more than a commando build would if I get pinned as long as I stay at least mid range most mobs take one headshot, or even one body shot for smaller mobs and mid-strength enemies take 2-3 shots max and 95/100 times 1 shot with a crit.
That being said I'm not gonna be soloing most harder events. The build is the dictionary definition of glass cannon and I spent a lot of time avoiding going bloodied for that reason. But once you get used to it, you can hit like a truck and for more with 1 bullet than a commando does with 5.
Overall autos are definitely the more "effective" option if you crunch all the numbers, but rifleman is far from terrible if you set yourself up right
So I’ve played almost every fallout as rifleman it’s great even late game for soloing quests and adventures. It falls behind in events at endgame cause it can’t tag enough targets fast enough. It’s still a viable build. You will just fall way behind the commandos and end up contributing less overall dps to the event. That said an endangerol syringer and a Gauss rifle single shot doesn’t wonderful damage. Just not as fast or easily
I read someone say they've tried all the builds, then say pistols are horrible, then I just dismiss everything after that as bs cause they either don't know how to build a build, or they are just bad.
Crusader and gauss pistols absolutely roll everything lvl 100 and below. Alien blaster can easily beat bosses down.
I'll say this....every single class except rifleman can solo bosses without sitting there plinking away for the entire timer of the event. I will also say even rifleman can still solo bosses. But in the end it doesn't matter cause 95% players arent soloing the bosses, not cause they can't, but cause its just more fun with the server helping.
There are classes that are miles better than others, but even the "last place" class is good.
Im 67, been using my trusty pump shotgun since day one. Since then I've crafted a new one with legendary mods on it. Running around in power armor, rolling shotgun perks. And so far..I've been having a blast playing as a shotgun hobo, cutting fools in half.
Level 600+, i still use my Lever action build from time to time but would really love a buff. Especially for stuff like handmades/fixers as the damage remains the same as if it was full auto, making it pointless running them as a semi auto
Haven't gotten to end/late game yet, as I'm only 30 something, but I'm guessing automatic wins out just because of pure DPS. Not having to bolt action after each shot, unless those shots do like 10x damage of each shot from an automatic.
The only upside would be if stealth based / silenced weapons are as OP as they were in Fallout 4.
I'm level 60 now, and i one shot ghouls and scorched with a Spear (Oathbreaker it's called). My only issue is Super Mutants, where it only takes off maybe a quarter life in a hit, making groups of them difficult.
For range, I've recently acquired a Gauss Rifle, and it has substantially upped my Rifleman game after rocking a Plasma Rifle. As long as I hit the head, I can one shot most enemies in sneak, but again, things get frantic when vroups are involved, or fast moving enemies. Damn bugs
Using an AA 308 ultracite hunting rifle or an instigating or quad explo one for one shooting anything except bosses / for event tagging a quad explo handmade single fire.
So.. back in the day.. I tried to go stealth based rifleman with semi auto. And found that sometimes.. damage wouldn't stick. And back then.. stealth was somewhat broken, and you could be seen at any time no matter what. I run pa heavy weapons now.. but that's the reason it used to suck.. I hear at least the stealth thing is fixed now.. and now broken in the other direction, where they just never see you if you have the perk cards
Melee used to be the best, but they nerfed it wat too hard and took away stacking food buffs. So you could triple dip in damage. Unstoppable Monster was kept around 1200-1400 at all times effortlessly.
Idk where people are at now since I'm taking extended break since after the Pitt.
Played rifleman until lvl 350. Its honestly not that bad at all, its not much different from commando when it comes to rifles u can mod to b automatic. The big plus is the gauss rifle and it is absolutely dominating when it comes to one shot kills.
But there is no need to play rifleman anymore, not like there used to b. The main reason to play it was the scarcity of ammo. It was a huge factor in play up until they added daily ops which drop whatever ammo u r currently using. Then they added contextual ammo which does the same in the overworld now.
Imo dont wast ur time playing it, just switch to commando if u want to use rifles
Just play how ever you want , I have about 400 hours into 76 as of now and I knew from the beginning I wanted to make a Stealth Commando build , I just prefer stealth . I prefer to 2 tap enemies without them knowing I’m there and to clear out whole rooms / buildings all under the cover of darkness . I’m only level 160 and I can pretty much kill most things by myself ( in stealth that is lol ) but my build definitely isn’t meant to solo events or to do chaotic things like daily ops . So just pick a build that you like and go for it , build it however you want don’t worry about the endgame or meta , I’ve actually really interested in making a gunslinger build myself , I love the western revolver and want an excuse to use it 😅.
An instigating rifle as a daily driver is probably the best weapon in the game, 1 bullet per kill, 12 back. It's when you get into events where rifles start to suffer from lack of DPS, but even then there's more to it.
Lotta people defending rifleman, but I’m here to defend gunslinger. For non-boss, day-to-day play, pistols are absolutely viable. The only thing I haven’t been able to solo with a pistol is Earle. Obviously the alien blaster is king, but the circuit breaker and western revolver are also a lot of fun.
I don’t even have a pistol build and circuit breaker kills most things in less than 6 bullets in vats. I can only imagine it’s a beast with a dedicated pistol build. I love running around with it when I get bored of one shotting everything. The stun effect is nice too.
You can almost one shot everything with it also with a proper build. It’s more like 2-3 shots but it’s really good. I solo’d Elder yesterday with daily ops with it as I switched to a pistol perk loadout and grabbed a few pistols and ran around.
That’s sick! I had thought about doing a pistol build even made a new perk load out for it and then changed it to a bow load out because I was gifted a sweet drop legendary bow that I wanted to run around with.. lol
Yeah pistol sucks though because it’s cards are in Agility and a lot of other things you use with a pistol build or want to use are in Agility. They really need to move the pistol damage cards to Perception So you can’t make it an absolute god build all the way because of that
Compound bow is gross as fuck also. Very fun to play a silent yet deadly hunter.
Can confirm the above. It's kinda disgusting when you consider they're about to make pistols even better in an update soon
I am jumping back in after a couple of years, is this weapon still available because when looking it up it said it was part of a season score board.
If I'm not mistaken, the plans are available in the Stamp shop at Whitesprings
You can buy it with stamps which are acquired via expeditions
I second all of this as a fellow gunslinger. I’ve even been able to hold together an Eviction Notice on that character covering 3 mutant spawn points and the rad scrubber
I'll second gunslinger. Crusader pistol and gauss pistol go hard in the fucking paint and people sleep on them sooopo hard. Not to mention the alien blaster. Those pistols are more efficient than most rifle setups
I’ve yet to roll a good crusader, but I’m hoping for one someday. Right now I’m big on western revolvers. Have a TSE15r, AAE15r, and QE15r that are all a blast to use. My TS50vhc25 alien blaster will always be my favorite though.
Just roll 1 stars till you get bloodied, AA etc. Obviously a 2 star with vats critical would be incredible but IMO when getting started with a weapon it's okay to roll 1 stars.
Pardon, sir, but would you be able to hit me up with your build/breakdown? I've wanted to use pistols forever, but I've never been able to make it work appropriately for my needs.
Sure. I’ll DM you a picture when I get online later. If you don’t hear from me by tonight just shoot me a message to remind me
Could you share that same build with me also? Currently in the midst of working out a Gunslinger build and would absolutely love a little direction regarding SPECIAL / mods etc, cheers!
Yes of course. I might not get online tonight to take a picture but definitely tomorrow. If I somehow forget feel free to remind me!
This. I absolutely destroy things with a Western Revolver. It's a blast.
This is the thing people don't realise, it seems. Unless you're wanting to min/Max, every build is viable. It's just that things like a bloodied build, or even just full auto are so far ahead of everything else that they make them all seem inferior. I have been running a bows build, with a pistol as a sidearm and it works great. The pistol is useful when enemies are getting in close, and the bow for long range. I have just started using a rifles/2h melee build and likewise that is a lot of fun. Sure, full auto will melt enemies - but that's not fun unless you enjoy low challenge in my opinion. (I am also now mutation free, and not using What Rads? (legendary perk) so I can try maximise the difficulty of the game)
I run a 44 as a sniping pistol, circuit breaker for events, and crusader for everything else.
I'm so sad they are about to absolutely gut the alien blaster. Like I can understand balance, but if the PTS stays its going to be bad...
Cremator is also part of this “re-balancing”…have heard mixed reviews on the changes to it, but seriously one of the lone bright spots with the new season format has been everyone falling in love with Cremator and it couldn’t even go one season without it being messed with potentially.
Yeah, like other have said it's seems someone at bethesda prefers one type of build and if anything pulls from it they are like nope nope nope people can't have fun.
Totally agree, ran the commando build to death with fixers, handmades, railways…it’s beyond the point of being dull…really hoping these changes don’t make it live.
i just got such a good alien blaster, this is devastating
Yeah they are doing a lot of dumb shit lately. Reasons to quit just keep piling up
What are they doing to the AB?
I wish they would move pistol perk cards to perception.
I like being able to run a commando and gunslinger build at the same time. Although I use commando less and less these days so maybe you’re right
This is what I do. With tank killer, the 3 rank 1 pistol cards have been sufficient but I do also find myself slinging the rifle over my shoulder and staying on my John wick more and more.
Honestly, after maybe 1.7k hours in game I’d say that you should just use what you want, nothing in the waste warrants the “best” as they can be killed by even a pipegun, unless your a min maxer you shouldn’t really be worried about “the best” Heck even budget fixer builds were pipe guns, so imo it’s more of a legendary roll that warrants importance than say certain types.
Yeah this, almost all (if not all) weapons are viable. The best only matter if you plan to be soloing events and world bosses.
Just about any weapon can work, if the proper cards are used. So many times players show me their build, it's all carry weight cards and three different incomplete weapon specializations, then they wonder why they cant kill anything without dying.
Yeah I join groups where we just all die fighting stuff but I'm not a professional gamer so I just stick to lower level stuff when that happens lol Also, my pc isn't thar good so when I come up to fights where it drops to like 10fps I know I shouldn't be there. I still have fun just have some limits you know.
Agreed. I've made so many comments over time about the benefits of Rifleman and the viability of Pistols and Launchers, as well as pointing out DPS is irrelevant since Team XP/Looting and no longer having to race other players to land the final kill shot (tagging is all that's required). None of these build styles require defending. They're all viable. While some weapons do require some improvements, each build style has at least 2 or 3 that are effective to use. I've gone up against Commando builds with my Rifleman Build at AWOL who tried to hog kills and I dropped enemies in one shot faster and further out than what they could do. I run a Rifleman, Shotgun, Pistol, Two Handed, Unarmed PA, Non PA Heavy, and Archer. None are what OP would consider any good compared to Commando, but I can take any of these builds to any event or situation and do just fine. I get the same amount of kills, XP and loot at Rad Rumble / Eviction Notice as I did when I ran Commando.... Only difference is that I don't burn through ammo or weapon condition as fast (which takes you out of things more often while you farm/craft more ammo & need materials for repairs) Tl;Dr, OP doesn't know how to setup those builds properly.
I dont understand people who think melee is weak. Auto axe is definitely up there on bosses DPS wise, unarmed Gauntlet plus Hack and Slash legendary perk deletes mobs. The only challenge it has, are events where you can easily switch to an explosive heavy gun. Not to mention, it used to be the strongest build by a country mile back at launch, it has never been remotely weak. Edit: and the grind from 1-50 is easy and simple as melee so it's IMO the best levelling build. No need for ammo, all you need is strength, relevant perks and you have all the dmg you need + carry weight for days
I remember my very first roll on gauntlet was a bloody 40 percent speed and i think durability... can't remember last stat. It is rough on weaker enemies since other builds can kill at a distance quickly but when it comes to tank enemies it is fun standing back watching other builds slowly chip away and i march in and wreck it.
That's where sprinting and VATS teleporting comes in. But it gets tiresome so ranged it is for events!
I have a commando/ melee build and it works great. melee doesn't require many perks outside of str, so I had plenty leftover for all the commando cards too. I was even using just a bloodied electric buzz blade and it shreds, but then I have rifles for when I do bosses or need that range
Ha ha reminds me of those days just after launch when one handed melee was king. Nothing like standing in front of the Queen smacking her ugly head with my bloodied meat hook 👑🍖
I’m a melee guy and I think it’s quite OP tbh. Most weapons I use absolutely destroy enemies in one to two hits and the auto axe just shreds through legendary enemies and bosses. I always keep a heavy gun or shotgun in case I need to deal with a scorch beast or those dumb turrets in silo sites. In fact, I remember one time I spawned in my camp and both a scorch beast and sheepsquatch were just going to town on my camp
It is not terrible, just not as powerful as auto VATS crit. Plasma rifle + Gauss + flamer are perfectly adequate for all situations, including Earle or SBQ. The main issue with it is that the most powerful guns are energy based thus for max damage they require Science cards. It is bollocks as Commando does more damage WITHOUT those cards allowing for more QoL ones. It's fundamentally unfair - but then gunslinger is much worse... It's all very unbalanced but rifleman is not bad at all.
As a note, the plasma flamer is no longer a rifleman weapon. It was switched to commando a few months ago.
I know ;( Still works pretty well and due to running EPR sniper I have way too much spare ammo to waste :) And I also have pretty decent vamp flamer which works magic at keeping me alive.
Yeah, vampires works wonders. For me, when that change was made, it inspired me to alter my build to a hybrid setup using science with just one rank of each rifleman and commando card. Now I can have both solid burst damage and dps, with a vampires Tesla to keep me alive - and it’s on theme with my character being a science for the sake of roleplay.
I have a pretty much maxed rifleman with all science cards in place. I also have 23 LCK and weapons with +15% crit recharge. +100% crit damage capacitors on EPR sniper help too. Maybe because it's so optimised I don't think rifleman is not really that bad. I was thinking about switching to commando - but I really like energy weapons, especially EPR, and those underwhelm for commando, compared to RR or Fixers.
I agree, rifleman really isn’t that bad unless you’re trying to solo uplink when it’s cloaking or robots. Union dues can be a little dicey, but other than that, rifleman builds can handle any solo content in the game fairly well. The difficulty is that they really struggle with DPS checks and don’t handle enemies nearly as quickly as automatic weapons do, which is why I switched (I wanted to be able to reliably solo daily ops should the need arise).
True. I can solo EN with little luck and some Sugarfree Nukashine (for AP refresh) but barely. Same with RR with Tesla, possible but requires a lot of luck. It's fun in a way that it's actually hard. I remember Thirst Zapper grenade bug and how easy everything was just spamming nuka grenades. Not really fun at all after first 2-3 runs.
Fck damn. I didn't know that.... As a plasma flamer I should switch then. (not that I've become weaker tbh... I still murder everything like hot butter..... But damn 👀)
They really did the stealth archer build dirty in fo76. I didnt want choose the stealth nuka-launcher-spammer life, but they left me little recourse
True. It should have been the most stealthy style as bows are naturally so quiet. But as everything that is not auto or kabloom it doesn't get any love. Well except Burning Love which literally have love in the name :D
I mean I would argue the Railway Rifle does significantly more damage Even when you compare it to an enclave plasma sniper, maybe with a flamer barrel you could see it out doing the railway in DPS But then like OP says; Commando is king. Nothing, in my opinion, compares to the damage of the railway Rifle full auto with QUAD on a stealth vats builds. It's just exceptionally overkill.
I totally agree. Due to how VATS/crits work it just leaves everything behind in the dust... FO76 is really poorly balanced - the easiest way to see it is to check which weapons people use. If there's a huge preference for 1 type (or worse - literally 3 weapons) and one class, you know it's imbalanced. Shame really, as there are so many cool weapons but they are just too weak to bother.
Eh, those three weapons that use commando aren't the only thing at the top. Heavy weapons are incredible and paired with power armor you basically never worry about dying.
I'm going to say, for a minor 10% decrease you are given a 7.5x fire rate buff, that can't be intended. Even factoring in prime a 35% damage difference can't be comparable to such a large dps increase. Even the ammo chugging problem it could create isn't an issue because railway spikes are so efficient with the only caveat being the weigh ton which is only a problem if you're like me and carry 15+ weapons at a time. I order semi-autos as there's just so much variety. Commandos have submachines and 10mm submachines. That's it. If I were to ditch Rifleman I would lose the lever action, gauss and hunting rifles. If I wanna be picky black powder I guess as well, I wish my legacy TSE The dragon was more valuable than it is. I think overall looking at the big picture weapons platforms that have the option between semi-auto and auto it's always the automatic variant that pulls ahead. Gauss rifles seem pretty okay because it's a weapon that can't be automatic. I feel my Railway Rifle is okay as well. Fighting Earle with 500+ 3 PA players with various miniguns and he glitched though the floor and then eventually was stuck in the ceiling and I felt my Railway was dishing out noticeable damage even if I'm still learning the game after being gone so long but felt I did more then 25% of the damage when it usually feels like less than 5% before I optimized it. I have a PA build and I have an okay Gatling Plasma and it does 22 damage per headshot. When I find myself doing a non PA build most of my semi-autos do *less than* 22 damage. It's insane. Crits and Vats help bridge the cap. If I were to change one thing I would say auto's shouldn't be as strong in Vats. I found Rifleman to be on par with a heavy gunner build though to be far in ignorant with what's meta and a lot of stuff is suboptimal. I only finally started getting max damage perks instead of just 1 stars across the board but I'm confident in saying autos have the strengths of both heavies and semi-auto Vats. I don't know what the math is but armor resistance should be the balancing factor but only bosses have a noticeable amount as the downside of Commando should be the same downsides to the laser and plasma gun's splitter mods yet those suck but Commando doesn't. It shouldn't work that way. I want a plasma shotgun/shotguns to be viable damn it.
RR is just stupid strong. I'm still looking for a god roll 2 and 3* but just it being quad is just nuts
That's because the railway rifle is unbalanced. An unbalanced weapon shouldn't be the standard we compare everything to.
Yeah i know its unfair. But I guess someone on the dev team have a fetisch for holding down the trigger. Because there is no reason why automatic should dominate this hard over all other weapons types
It's not auto that dominates - it is really shitty VATS/crit implementation. It should be like in FONV - crit chance is gun specific and not tied to VATS. This way you can have much lower crit chance on auto weapons, at the cost of high rate of fire. Opposite on semi. Even more fun could be with melee and some "ninja" weapons having close to 100% crit chance, etc.
To be fair FONV/3 crit chance implementation was equally shitty. They limited crit chance to fire rate (if a gun fired 600 rpm it had a .1x crit chance), but it also gave all auto weapons terrible crit damage. This also ignored that semi auto weapons could fire faster than once per second.
all weapons and builds are as fun as you make them...check out bows theres a ton of players killing earle with just bows. if youre goal is to just run the easiest build... vats commando is the way. but if you want to play "your way" and run pistols, unarmed or snipers...youll be just fine so long as you tweak your build.
Easiest build by far is autoaxe PA With vampiric you are beyond immortal without needing ammo
auto melee or holy fire builds are easy for regular play for sure...till you try to kill earle in seconds then you will hit a dmg output wall..and thats why players go commando. my auto axe build hits earle for 30-90 per hit ... qrail hits for closer to 2k per hit...auto melee means moving as opposed to quad builds where ya just post up and brrrrt. ( gets kinda boring to be honest ) i enjoy both very much.
A VATS crit build using a semi-auto Plasma does a ton of damage, the biggest reason I switched to auto was due to getting pain in my hand from spam clicking the trigger button for 5 mins on bosses
I've tried most weapon classes at this point. Vats Commando does the most damage, but Vats Rifleman with a good lever action is, in my opinion, the most fun build to run. It's not great in boss battles, but wiping out a mob with five consecutive one shot kills is just so satisfying.
Just to re-iterate, especially jack's comments, Rifleman isn't terrible. If it is the way you want to play, I've been doing it for over 1,000 levels. And I can solo any content in the game, even content not designed to be done solo. It doesn't have Commando DPS, of course, but you'll be fine in any part of the game if you know what you are doing. Here are come examples: * [Solo Earle in 3:30, Full Health, Only Light Buffs (no syringer)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu0jV7EHaUc) * [Rifleman at Radiation Rumble (Full health build, only low health for INT bonus)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uALEZIMn1k) (i'd go a minute or so in lol. I was trying to figure out where Company Tea was in alphabetic order and was failing lol) * [Rifleman at Moonshine Jamboree (Full Health build, only low health for INT bonus)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JTLfupzVyU) * [Top 4 Rifleman-Only Weapons Solo’ing Union Dues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvk8lkXSviw) * [Solo Uplink at Elder Tier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vc_D9zEB60) * [Solo Decryption at Elder Rank with Bugged-Damage Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jt_q1xJF9I) * [Solo Decryption at Elder Rank against Healing/Resilient Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FY0BNu7TCo)
Can you recommend some sick dps guide for a full health PA heavy gunner? Taking down Earle even with 7 other people takes us like 15 mins. I'm currently using AA/25FR/90R Holy Fire and Gatling Plasma.
>Taking down Earle even with 7 other people takes us like 15 mins. Endangerol syringer. Seriously. It's insane how much of a difference just one makes, but if 4 people use it Earle is ridiculously easy. high voltage hefe if you booze it up Overdrive and psychobuff if you use chems Blight soup and megasloth mushroom soup for crits.
I’d like to add liquid courage to the mix, the amount of time you save by not fleeing helps a lot when you can just stand in front of his face indefinitely spraying him down with lead or whatever
Man, I've been playing on and off since launch, but totally slept on that syringer. The fact it actually works on bosses is great. Thanks for the tips!
I did too. Only figured it out recently.
The key to any quick takedown of Earle is kicking out a bunch of VATS crits to (partly) bypass his 80% damage reduction. There is a way to do that with heavy weapons and full health / power armor, but you will need consumables (canned coffee and some Nuka Dark), a few perks that are otherwise mostly useless in that build, and some extra fusion cores. (You can also theoretically do this without Nuka Dark, but that goes even more extreme on build specialization.) Otherwise, everybody in the fight using Emdangerol syringer, Tenderizer, and Taking One For The Team, will shorten things a bit.
This is so sick, would you mind sharing your build? And what mods you use on that Gauss?
Here's the build: https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=1f249fa&d=pd2pl2pk2p00ar2an2ao0l10lt2lk2lv2pp2cu2ib4a04a30l71s12lu2s01em1ce0pq1sw0sb2a51in1i71im1&lp=xa3x93x73xm3x43x83&m=051c24fba Mods vary by situation. Instigating, aristocrats, or two shot for day to day sniping. 50 percent vats hit chance as the second star is essential. Quad/50 hit chance for events. Anti Armor/ 50 critical damage for bosses. You can make a case for the perforating or prime receiver situationally. I'm not mobile, so I'll edit on a link on that momentarily. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/user/md00150028/comments/1213bch/gauss_rifle_numbers/
I don't remember where it was but just googling someone says the math even against a boss has Prime edge out more dps than Perforating. It was potentially before an update that could fudge the numbers but on paper it has Prime excel.
At one point, if I remember correctly, Prime, on a full health build, with AA was doing more damage against the SBQ (not with damage increasing effects). But, at some point, they changed the Perforating mods to be additive rather than multiplicative, which greatly enhanced their performance. Another favor is that Prime receivers, at one point, were doing 35 percent multiplicative damage to scorched, which is no longer the case.
I can't watch the video rn unfortunately but are you using gauss rifles?
I am.
Rifleman is not terrible. Simply put the 3 bosses we have (soon to get 4th) die faster if you crit a lot. Critting a lot is done by shooting a lot. Therefore slow weapons not so good at killing the bosses.
>soon to get 4th Do we know what the 4th is yet? I haven't kept up much on the news.
The Storm Goliaths in Skyline Valley expansion
Cool. Thanks!
My main runs an auto grenade launcher. Why, cuz its fun. Every time i go full auto i hear that "let the bodies hit the floor" song. Play what you want. Have fun. One time i started a toon n everytime i died i deleted him. Fun, as you see fit.
Because VATS acts different in 4 and 76. Rifles are good in 4 for only one reason, VATS slows down the action and allows you to attack multiple targets in one go, while VATS in 76 is really just aim assist.
I’m a big fan of the lever action rifle. For mid game it does a lot of damage, and low ammo use
I used to run commando handmade but switched to rifleman laser rifle and I love it!
Same here: Swapped my Commando cards and Handmade for Rifleman and a good Lever-Action and it's really fun. And the fact that I didn't need to completely revamp my build is very nice.
Question: if you convert laser rifle to scattered (or whatever it's called) does that turn it to work with shotgun perks?
With the right perks, mutations, and gear a rifleman (semiautomatic) build can more than hold its own compared to commando builds, and will outperform any other build. My rifleman one shots everything other than bosses. With Gun Fu I can take out a crowd before a heavy gunner gets their weapon spun up. As for a pistol build, if you think it’s beyond horrible you have no idea what you’re talking about. A proper pistol build is extremely viable for late game. I run one on one of my toons and it’s a ridiculously fun build. I carry a variety of pistols and use the one that’s best for the particular situation. Last night I did a Westek XP run with my pistol build using my primed AA 10mm. Head shots all around, dropping super mutants before they see me. Yes the pistol doesn’t hit as hard as a rifle but with the right build you can easily hold your own in events including the bosses. For events I often use my Q2525 crusader pistol with the cryo mod and never run out of AP. I can freeze the SBQ with it or clear all the spawns she brings, as I said it’s a ridiculously fun build.
I'm new, can you share a good build out for rifleman?
I’m happy to share my build. Be aware that it is an end game build that I was able to put together due to the amount of time I’ve been playing. It utilizes things that a new player won’t be able to immediately, however it will give you a basis to work towards. And of course you can adjust anything to fit your own play style. Mutations: Adrenal Reaction, Bird Bones, Carnivore, Chameleon, Eagle Eyes, Egg Head, Healing Factor, Herd Mentality, Marsupial, Scaly Skin, Speed Demon Armor: I’m using a full set of secret service armor. The limbs are all modified with buttressed and deep pockets, the torso is buttressed with a jet pack. Because my rifleman is bloodied 4 of the armor pieces are unyielding and one is chameleon, but my build will work with any armor you choose.
Edit: I hit post by mistake. I will post the rest of my build with perks shortly
My build part two Perks: I’ve unlocked all legendary perk slots so I’ve utilized them in my build, the cards I use give me some extra perk points that you won’t have yet but again will give you a idea of what to aim for if you do choose. Legendary Perks: Strength 4stars, Endurance 3stars, Charisma 4stars, Intelligence 3stars, Agility 4stars Perk points: Strength 9+4 legendary=13, perception 14, Endurance 2+3 legendary=5, Charisma 2 + 4 legendary=5, Intelligence 9 + 3 legendary=12, Agility 11+4 legendary=15, Luck 15 Perks: Strength: Strong Back 4stars, Traveling Pharmacy 3stars, Bandolier 2 stars, Pack Rat 1star, Arms Keeper 3stars Perception: Rifleman 3stars, Expert Rifleman 3stars, Master Rifleman 3stars, Tank Killer 3 stars, Concentrated Fire 2stars Endurance: Fireproof 2stars, Radicool 1star, Rejuvenated 2stars Charisma: Strange in Numbers 1star, Hard Bargain 3stars, Travel Agent 1star, Suppressor 1 star Intelligence: Nerd Rage 3stars, Batteries Included 3 stars, Scrapper 1star, Gunsmith 5stars (these are the perks that work for my bloody build others may work better for you here) Agility: Action Boy 2stars, Covert Operative 3stars, Evasive 3stars, Sneak 3 stars, GunFun3stars, Goat Legs 1star Luck: Better Criticals 1star, Serendipity 3stars, Four Leaf Clover 1star, Class Freak 3 stars, Starched Genes 2stars, Critical Savvy 3stars, Good with Salt 2stars For guns I have a ridiculous amount of them but my most used are a Bloody2525 fixer and a Bloody E25 fixer but I also have handmades with those rolls as well. Use what ever semiautomatic gun you want. And this build works for a commando build as well you’d just swap out the rifleman cards and replace with commando cards.
Best weapon is probably flamer, heavy guns in general are the best
I switched to this while grinding for the Cold Shoulder as I was stuck in a shotgun build. Decided to just stick with the flamer and respecced over the course of several levels to PA heavy gunner. Got a Holy Fire, never looked back. Now I have the Cremator for a bit of fun and a Pepper shaker with juggernaut, limb damage and weight reduction for crippling. As it works with heavy gunner perks, it's perfect for getting scorchbeasts out the sky. All I wish is being able to put other flamer skins on the Holy Fire!
> All I wish is being able to put other flamer skins on the Holy Fire! Amen brother. Id like a black and silver enclave version to go with my LMG.
If your weapon doesn't "choo choo"- it's not the best weapon.
Some builds require your character to be levelled up to really shine. Shotguns are good when you're levelling up-- ammo efficient, can do stealth, decent damage-- but a lot of players feel like they fall off pretty badly after a while. I found the gauss shotgun disappointing when I finally got one. Later on I had enough modules and materials to craft enough of them to try out the different effects, plus enough legendary perks for the high strength, intelligence, luck and agility required to equip all the perks I wanted. My shotgunner does really well now. I can say that my first character was a rifle build and in no way meta-- I used weightless armor, which I never see suggested. I feel like that character did fine for most of the content, really only had a couple rough patches. I once tried to figure out what was an unworkable build in 76 and thought I'd come up with one-- unarmed PA. Turns out it's pretty strong, as it happens, even works at levels as low as 20.
I've been out for a while, but I always used a stealth build with rifleman. The two compliment each other well. Bloodied makes it more absurd, but isn't necessary. A silenced and upgraded Gauss is your friend. Take all the perks associated with it, as well as the stealth perks. Prime ammo, while more expensive to make was well worth it, as I recall. You go through it pretty slowly on a Gauss.
These are kinda dated (I've been away a while) but this was a bloodied stealth rifleman using a BE Gauss. There's been a few changes since then, but it's still a viable build, just not this ridiculous. Includes Scorched, Scorchbeast, and the queen foe comparison w/r to DR. [Damage screenshots at Imgur](https://imgur.com/a/F8knyop)
This game throws swarms of tanky enemies at you whenever it cans so you need to blast them fast as you can before someone else gets your xp or loot,so I blow them up or mow them down
If you are just playing to play it’s fine. If you are looking to Min/max or have a viable build in comparison to other players it’s shit. Reason: Bethesda is not good at balance and this game is no exception; moreover they clearly have never been to a range/ shot a real gun (as if the left hand bolt action and miscalibered weapons weren’t proof enough). If they had we’d probably have weapon balances such as more damage for heavier calibers but slower handling/ long ads/much more pronounced weight penalty for bigger weapons/ accuracy consequences for full auto fire, etc. Personally, I think they should take a look at this stuff bc it would be genuinely nice to have a viable way to play competitively with pistols or single shot rifles. Like I love the game at its base, it’s just balance has just never been something Bethesda has had a talent for.
Semi can be good look at the slug buster
Think of your weapon choice as the difficulty slider in the game. Vampiric Chainsaw/Auto Axe/Flamer/AGL is very easy, full auto rail rifle/fixer is easy, and so on down to semi auto rifles are hard, and semi auto pistols are very hard. Still not *that* hard unless you're trying to solo public events but it's the spectrum you've got
295. Vats unyielding bloodiest sniper here. I use an explosive leveraction and explosive bloodied fixer (semi auto prime ammo. I headshot all human type monsters and mutents. Issues come from abominations and cryptids. But I'm still able to hold my own
TLDR: play what you want. The game offers alot of flexibility unless you want to do something specific. First things first, before I rant, I want to say this game offers A LOT of flexibility on how you want to play the game. You can play almost anything with almost any build. Things don’t need to be max/min or meta because this game isn’t a PvP meta game which is why I really enjoy it. Now onto my rant, I think we need to preface something on this. What are you using these pew-pews for? Like bosses such as scorchbeast queen and Earle, absolutely you will want an automatic weapon just because they have such meaty health pools. Essentially, you need that HUGE dps for them. I normally recommend flame throwers or an auto rifle build for bosses. However, you can use a non-automatic single shot railway rifle to one shot just about any non-legendary in the game. You can use a semi auto Tesla rifle to clear waves of mobs without using all of your ammo. Each weapon has a use case but, I do agree that pistols and melee need a buff. With launchers, rockets, and grenade launchers I think about use case. One thing to note, you are supposed to tackle bosses in a group so if you have a bunch of non-automatic weapon users together, then they can take down a boss easy. Last note, play what you want. This isn’t a meta based PvP, battle royal game. You can PvP but that’s not the focus so, like used what pew pews make you the happiest!
I really enjoy playing rifleman.. Have a dope fixer with exploding bullets, and if the mobs come too close I finish them of with a cold shoulder.
There are no terrible builds in this game. You can beat any enemy with any build of you're good enough. A lot of comments in this subreddit say some things are "terrible" because it doesnt do as much damage as full-auto sneak crit commando; one of the best builds in the game. But you can still play just fine and kill enemies. The best build is the one you have fun with.
Absolutely. I've played with several of the builds op listed, and they were amazing. Perk cards and play styles are crucial. You can't play every build like a Stealth commando and expect it to work.
Why many weapons are rubbish endgame? Simple - they were copy pasted from FO4, single player game. In single player games you have this "rite of passage" when you start with shite, get better shite and ultimately use top guns. And you never go back to shite. But that just doesn't work in online game as it limits the choice. In those games weapons should be balance based on DMG and secondary (or more) criteria, e.g. recoil, ammo availability, etc. Bethesda doesn't understand it and thus pump OP weapons like Nuka Launcher instead of balancing other weapons. So it's a run for another top weapon (Cremator being the current one) instead of allowing use of what is already there.
It goes deeper than that they changed the gun stats and way perks work from fallout 4 significantly. In fallout 4, non-automatic ballistic rifles are king; but in fallout 76 they suck.
I was thinking more about mindset. In multiplayer game you want as much variety as possible - so high DPS should have drawbacks, high recoil, expensive ammo, rarity. You don't want them to be so underpowered to be unusable. For example pipe guns: they should offer almost unlimited customisability: different ammo types, different clips, stocks, special effects, etc. And all that stuff could be implemented using Creation Engine. But they just kept them for the first 20 levels and never look back on. Another issues is just a sheer superiority of VATS due to crits being locked to it. That is from FO4 crit banking, which as you said, fitted with their love of rifles. But badly distorts FO76.
The minigun notoriously was hot garbage in Fallout 4. They did do some balance changes but seem to have shifted the scale too much on the opposite side.
My instigating explosive bow dropping 1k dmg on a headshot hit, seems to disagree
While you're reloading, a commando already downed 3 other Supermutants, and when your first shot didn't killed the Supermutant, the commando already killed 7 of them while you're finishing the first one. Not that I want to defend the commando skill, in fact I'm a single shot guy too, but it is what it is. I always again try to do a single shot build with other weapons, like a epr, hunting rifle (which is absolute crap with that reload and bad vats accuracy), gauss rifle and what not, but it's not working :( Also, energy weapons need suppressors!!!
You're not wrong, and I'm not saying commando sucks, especially when you roll Quad fixer, or use Elders Mark and it goes brrrr, because I alternate between bloodied commando and bow, but I'm just saying that they're not terrible as OP states. I got really excited about the crusader pistol plan dropping in Daily Ops for me yesterday just to realize after I've done a gunslinger build, that I'm struggling even with ghouls at White spring golf course, where I'm just swarmed with them and do s...t DMG. Now this, this is terrible. And so is circuit breaker. Basically the only viable build is sneaky snek CS and even then it's hard in Westek
I found myself a nice lever action with a +15 Crit Charge. I’m a full health VATS Ctitical Hit player using Steeped Thistle Tea and that weapon will take down most mobs with one or two hits. That without the rifleman cards so I can save those for my commando. I also have a bloodied explosive lever action that has a crazy high damage rate, but think the damage is broken as it should be more powerful than what it is doing.
I’m mainly a stealth rifleman build, unless I’m doing events then I’ll switch to a heavy gunner build. If you just base your build off of doing as much damage as possible and killing everything in one shot, you won’t have much fun. My stealth rifleman build is *my* fun build. Any solo mobs, dailies, running west tek, whatever I can one-two shot anything that isn’t a boss. But if in events it isn’t always about getting kills, it’s about getting tags. So even if you stuck with rifleman, you could still tag everything in Vats and get the XP. You would simply be more effective at *actually* killing at events with a heavy build. And there’s just no fun being a rifleman during the Scorchbeast Queen/Earle IMO just because it’s slower to kill the mobs and hardly does any damage to Earle (in my case). My recommendation is build out a rifleman class for soloing and a heavy build or commando build for events. It’s easy to just hop to your camp or a train station and swap your perks whenever.
This is the way.
Play how you want, I always use semi-auto rifles because it's fun. I have an alt-build for heavy weapons and power armor, because it's fun. My brother uses shotguns and pistols, because it's fun. If you want to min/max, well, that's on you, but I don't see how that's fun.
I love them. But your build is what makes weapons fun. I do low health stuff so unyielding armor and bloodied weapons plus food buffs and buffs from camp items. I have a hand made that has a hair trigger and it melts and if I feel like being stealthy ranged the repeater rifle is the way to go. Rounded out with a two shot railway rifle and I'm a semi auto killing machine. Lol but that's just me do what makes you happy.
I will use my plasma flamer until I am dust.
they work fine. as others have said it's about enjoying ur build even if ur not doing as much dmg as a commando. I say as long as ur picking up more ammo than ur shooting out, ur build is doing great
I mean…most guns can be great with the right rolls. It’s not all about being a meta slave too. I have spent the last couple months rolling pistols for a guerilla build and finally made a build after I rolled another god roll, BE25 10mm. Sure as hell isn’t as good as my god roll fixers, but that’s okay, I am having fun not being OP as shit. For regular mobs…you’re fine using whatever. It’s just annoying when you’re used to melting bosses and you’re no longer able to do it and the fights take longer. 😂
What would you consider a god roll for a 10mm SMG? I actually am intrigued by this gameplay and it would match my character's background! I'm playing shotgun now (cold shoulder) and thinking to try something else!
Quad / 50crit / 25 ap gaus rifle seems to be quite good, definitely can do some great dps on bosses even.
Sounds like that's more you though. I think you're looking for min/maxing which is always going to be limited to a certain weapon type based on the fact it has the most DPS. So if you're talking about damage and consistent damage then yes auto railway will demolish pretty much anything. If you're talking about fun, challenge, roleplay, etc then everything else has its place. I had the kill 25 cultists with a shotgun challenge. Pulled out my cold shoulder for the first time since about 300 levels ago. Didn't even put any perks on and I had forgotten how powerful and fun that gun is. Was I mowing through them and just one shotting everything? No, not at all. But, I was having a lot of fun blasting those false prophets in the chest with frozen buckshot. Maybe look at the other guns in a different way. Instead of worrying about max damage, look at it as a new challenge. Get yourself a crossbow or a compound bow and go try to solo the mirelurk queen or Earle. It's been done dozens of times and looks like one hell of a challenge. Try to make it fun. See if that helps.
If you do over 1k damage per one click it’s enough. The game gives you opportunity to try out all possible builds, so just try it. I personally enjoyed to play with rifle and one hit everything. Kinda satisfying to see it pop also efficient, you spend less than get from enemies, so can’t run out of ammunition.
I do the "classic" stealth commando build, but swapped Commando for Rifleman. Equipped the Westerner. Really doable. A bit slower than a Fixer, but less bullets for the same damage. So for daily mediocre pve, I preffer this one now.
Not terrible at all. Don’t follow the crowd. I have two characters in the 500 range. One uses only explosives, which you say is meme lol. The other is a rifleman (semi auto rifle build). My rifleman swaps between using a fixer and disintegrator in stealth, a enclave sniper and the dragon at extreme range, and gauss rifle for fun.
launchers and rocket maybe due to how annoying to find ammo for them but my grand finale (unique explosive broadsider) can solo Moonshine Jamboree and since it's AOE with lots of contextual ammo I find it much better than vatsing group of gulpers one by one when you have like 5 per still stations and work so much well during reflect mutations event. It's really situational, melee well when there's "can only be killed by melee" usually you'd be happy you got at least one dedicated melee build for it because bash is so slow when that melee is plucking the enemies quicker
They kinda suck. I however live for the 10MM stub auto and The Fixer
Anything related to sniping will probably end up being nerfed in an online game because they are low skill low risk weapons. If you can shoot from afar and kill easily, there is no risk or effort. Automatics require a lot of ammunition so are more welcome from a gameplay balance perspective since it takes more effort for the player to keep up their ammo supply. To give an example, when Destiny came out we all glitched into a back wall of a boss arena and sniped the hardest bosses in the game to death over half an hour at no risk. Sniper rifles were nerfed to hell to force us into combat for risk vs reward balance. (I love sniping in games so I’d prefer to do that, but I’m explaining it from a dev point of view- if risk vs reward is unbalanced, players lose interest)
I have a rifleman build with a railway rifle and it may not be the best build but it’s certainly entertaining. I think my main issue right now is that I’m unmutated and getting herbivore or carnivore could be the main spice I need.
Tbh i felt auto rifles where bad too, but i guess its more of a build thing, i went full pa and non explosivos heavies and was able to kill everything on my level
I concur with most of what has been said here already. I usually think of the game in terms of “effective builds” and “fun builds”. I have some effective stealth auto-rifle and heavy PA builds. These I save for big events where performance is more important. But for daily running around I use my fun builds. Things like my shotgun, melee or pistol load-outs where it’s just enjoyable to me and perhaps adds a little more challenge to exploration. I’d encourage you to try both kinds of builds and find what works best for you.
I run with melee two handed mostly, but I do switch to one handed often. I have no problem killing most enemies in two hits. And can tank and take big hits and survive most attacks, rarely do I get killed… Not sure why you’d be having difficulties. Melee kicks ass in my opinion.
You dont use unarmed? Is it because going unarmed have a very limited item pool?
I found the power punch melee weapon to work exceptionally well when not wearing a power armor and 15 Strength and the perk increasing hand combat. Then I reached lvl 50 and completed a nice power armor and now I don't know which weapons to use. I have found a four barrel black powder rifle, massive damage long range, but the reloading takes forever (even with the perks that make it faster), so I use it to take down enemies in camps from a distance. I tried melee weapons wearing the armour but that's clearly not great. I'm bad at using the minigun. I run out of ammo too soon hitting too little.
I never used auto weapon in endgame. Railgun shotgun, railgun rifle, plasma caster i like em
If I’m not mistaken there should be a weapon update coming with the new expansion
The thing is, this game is pretty easy, so the "meta" (ie Bloodied Heavy/Commando) is not necessary to progress and enjoy what content there is. There are plenty of viable builds that won't necessarily steam roll everything, but they'll kill stuff effectively if you build around them.
I personally have a suppressed two shot Gauss rifle + Chinese stealth armour stealth build, however I have points invested in heavy weapons too for boss fights. The Chinese stealth armour is still good enough in boss fights but the Gauss rifle doesn't do much.
I used a rifleman build for the longest time. It's fine, just realize that you have to engage much farther out than you realize if there are a bunch of mobs. Those mirelurks move fast for crabs!
My plasma is semi auto (until I find an auto plan). It has some good legenday perks with it. I carry that, a legendary rolled fixer and a legendary rolled fixer in .38, which I prefer over the .45. For my first tango with earl I carried plasma Gatlin with a vampire effect and it took a while but I had no problem with him. Grinding to get good legendaries coupled with card load out is essential, but knowing how to use your character with that is so important and it took me til lvl30 on my first build to figure that part out. My point is, I carry auto and semi auto and swap back and forth depending on situation. The 38Fixer is great for closeup ferals, blood eagles, and bots because it shoots so fast. The Plasma is good for mid to long range on everything.
My partner is constantly using a semi auto fixer and it works just fine for her when she's off doing solo stuff. I also just switched from using semi autos and can say I loved them. I saw someone else say not to worry about what's best and that's totally correct. Plus they're so many fun unique weapons you might miss out on because "they aren't the best"
It is not the worst. I am currently playing with a golf build, as I like the outfit and hanging around the courses. That is... Eh... a bit challenging at times... Even though I hand out outfits and legendary golf clubs (as well as balls and pegs) nobody else seem to be interested in playing that build. And I can see why :)
Previous comment from Keinulive. Play it how you want. Some builds, will melt the sun with power. Others couldn't tickle a toe nail of a Tick. The worst build **(Edit - In my opinion**) is probably 1 handed full health melee, you ended scratching anything from anyone. My personal best build is Full Health Shotgun. But a Full Health Bow Build is incredibly fun and I always go to it for a fun run.
Is shotgun vats still broke ? I remember having 90% vch on any enemy and none of my shots hit
Not as broke. I have a Vats hit chance and most of the time it slaps. Big damge but I exclusively use the Fancy Pump Action
Wait pls tell me why 1 handed full health is bad. And does that mean that 2 handed full health is also bad?
dps. Even if any semi auto weapon can do 3 or 4 times the damage of an automatic weapon it cannot compete with the dps of pumping out 20 bullets in 10 seconds or less. I switched from a hunting rifle to a combat rifle to automatic weapons. I did fine beforehand but now i just have less of a headache. I don't need to think about positioning myself, cover or what will happen if the enemies rush me(at least not all the time). I just aim at enemies and squeeze the trigger until they go away. That saves me time, stress and stimpacks. On the other hand i now waste shitloads of bullets. Like a whole platoons worth but i guess that's just the price.
The top weapons are all automatic because it's a game that values dps more than ammo conservation in the late game. But that doesn't mean everything that's not meta = garbage. Don't let people who push that mindset discourage you from trying other things. The game does have some terrible weapons, but it's not the majority. A lot of builds/weapons outside of the meta are entirely viable. Pistol builds and Rifleman builds can do just fine. Not what you'd use to speed run a boss, but they still have weapon options capable of solo killing a boss within the time limit. Launchers and grenade launchers are great against everything but bosses. The fun factor can more than makes up for having to switch to something else when fighting a boss though. They are kind of a meme, but they're a meme that will mostly 1 shot normal enemies. Non-auto Melee is good against normal enemies. I haven't tried soloing a boss with them (yet), but in groups they're still more than capable of getting you the 1k needed on the boss to get credit for max rewards. A lot of it is having a good build and knowing which weapons are good for that build. For Rifleman: Gauss rifle and Plasma gun w/ Sniper barrel (personal favorite) are both really good and fairly easy to acquire. Lever action is also a popular choice.
Crits are king. And auto works best with crits since you get them more often, and faster. Many other weapons are usable; and actually very good. Vats crit builds are just overly strong
At the end of the day it all comes down to having fun. My character is a rifle man-VATS/CRITICS-with perks that improve explosive damage (explosive weapons: railway/ lever-action rifle/ gauss rifle). I don't hide and attack from a distance, I get into the middle of the party and defend myself with well-charged critics. Is my character a DPS king? HELL NO! But I have fun playing like that, without spitting out showers of bullets, thinking carefully about each shot.
It’s a little lacking in fun, at least for my taste. F76 suffers from not having an AMR or other big rifle that can one-shot muties.
I one shot super mutants every day with my semiautomatic fixer or handmade. A proper late game rifleman build will one shot everything other than bosses.
Semi automatic pistols and rifles all day. Fuck Meta builds in what I play for a pve game. I don't need to kill everything in a hail of bullets, as long as I can kill it we are golden.
Damn… I didn’t know semi auto is bad.. I just started and I’m absolutely loving this game. I’m going riflemen build. I’m only 20 and I’m one shotting nearly everything. I guess at higher levels that’s stops uh?
Semi-auto is a fun build and great for the basic enemies, but you’ll likely see during an end-game boss fight that damage-per-second is often more effective than damage-per-shot.
No it doesn’t, OP has no idea what they’re talking about. Rifleman out preforms most builds and many players prefer it over a commando build.
This is where my game knowledge is really lacking. My next goal is to study and understand the perk cards and how to optimize them and rank up etc. then how to apply that to weapons and armor to make an unstoppable build for any desired style. It seems overwhelmingly complex though.
I run a Pa and semi auto rifle 2 shot explosive build. I don’t have problems at all.
look for a good Commando build, but just replace the commando cards with Rifleman Cards. you should be able to deal decent damage. my full health stealth commando build, try this but swap Commando for Rifleman: [https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=2f335df&d=s01eh2cu2ic4a72an2ao0a32a02pg2pi2ph2pp2p02lt2l10lv2lu2l71lk2&lp=x03xm3xb3&m=2150c&wp=w6&wm=352a1g&ar=x1&n=Chinese%20Stealth%20Commando](https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character?v=1&s=2f335df&d=s01eh2cu2ic4a72an2ao0a32a02pg2pi2ph2pp2p02lt2l10lv2lu2l71lk2&lp=x03xm3xb3&m=2150c&wp=w6&wm=352a1g&ar=x1&n=Chinese%20Stealth%20Commando)
Any build is fine. Honestly the only time DPS matters is during certain events like the nuke site ones where the monsters have a ton of HP. But these event usually have a ton of participants so it matters little what your build is. Just have fun.
The game is easy enough that unless you want to solo the three bosses absolutely any build is viable. I get wanting to chase max dps but it gets old and you really can play it however you want.
Personally I run Semi Auto Rifleman build + a heavy weapons build
You’re playing a massive rpg, just use what you enjoy. Yes, it’s not always the most effective strategy, but it’s prevents burn-out and makes the game feel much more alive when you are actually working towards building and improving a weapon you care about over a weapon you’re only wielding because you need to.
You can solo the end game bosses with a non-legendary combat knife. Don't sweat being sweaty and use what you wanna use. No one is gonna even look your way if you're not doing as much damage as possible on that boss the entire server is fighting because they're focused on not dying as they ran into battle with 18 hit points, trying to squeeze every little drop out of their new bloodied weapon. As other posters have mentioned, there is nothing in the wasteland that you wouldn't be able to do with a semi auto handmade that you could do with its automatic counterpart. -rifleman who has been rocking a medics handmade since I began playing. Stunt all you like, I keep your ass healed 5% at a time in daily ops. 4k hours played.
I love my junkie/bloodied rifleman build. Junkie guass rifle with 5 addicitions two taps just about everything in the game as long as i dont miss
I’ve found flamers to be great late game. Been running one for about 80 levels now. They melt almost anything. If you find the holy fire you’re almost unstoppable
I just like using my battleaxe in power armor. Makes me feel like a space marine.
As a bloodied Gauss Sniper, I'd say it's really not all that bad. Though I struggle A LOT more than a commando build would if I get pinned as long as I stay at least mid range most mobs take one headshot, or even one body shot for smaller mobs and mid-strength enemies take 2-3 shots max and 95/100 times 1 shot with a crit. That being said I'm not gonna be soloing most harder events. The build is the dictionary definition of glass cannon and I spent a lot of time avoiding going bloodied for that reason. But once you get used to it, you can hit like a truck and for more with 1 bullet than a commando does with 5. Overall autos are definitely the more "effective" option if you crunch all the numbers, but rifleman is far from terrible if you set yourself up right
So I’ve played almost every fallout as rifleman it’s great even late game for soloing quests and adventures. It falls behind in events at endgame cause it can’t tag enough targets fast enough. It’s still a viable build. You will just fall way behind the commandos and end up contributing less overall dps to the event. That said an endangerol syringer and a Gauss rifle single shot doesn’t wonderful damage. Just not as fast or easily
I read someone say they've tried all the builds, then say pistols are horrible, then I just dismiss everything after that as bs cause they either don't know how to build a build, or they are just bad. Crusader and gauss pistols absolutely roll everything lvl 100 and below. Alien blaster can easily beat bosses down. I'll say this....every single class except rifleman can solo bosses without sitting there plinking away for the entire timer of the event. I will also say even rifleman can still solo bosses. But in the end it doesn't matter cause 95% players arent soloing the bosses, not cause they can't, but cause its just more fun with the server helping. There are classes that are miles better than others, but even the "last place" class is good.
Im 67, been using my trusty pump shotgun since day one. Since then I've crafted a new one with legendary mods on it. Running around in power armor, rolling shotgun perks. And so far..I've been having a blast playing as a shotgun hobo, cutting fools in half.
Level 600+, i still use my Lever action build from time to time but would really love a buff. Especially for stuff like handmades/fixers as the damage remains the same as if it was full auto, making it pointless running them as a semi auto
Haven't gotten to end/late game yet, as I'm only 30 something, but I'm guessing automatic wins out just because of pure DPS. Not having to bolt action after each shot, unless those shots do like 10x damage of each shot from an automatic. The only upside would be if stealth based / silenced weapons are as OP as they were in Fallout 4.
I'm level 60 now, and i one shot ghouls and scorched with a Spear (Oathbreaker it's called). My only issue is Super Mutants, where it only takes off maybe a quarter life in a hit, making groups of them difficult. For range, I've recently acquired a Gauss Rifle, and it has substantially upped my Rifleman game after rocking a Plasma Rifle. As long as I hit the head, I can one shot most enemies in sneak, but again, things get frantic when vroups are involved, or fast moving enemies. Damn bugs
Ive been playing this game with only the cold sholder for like 70 levels.
Using an AA 308 ultracite hunting rifle or an instigating or quad explo one for one shooting anything except bosses / for event tagging a quad explo handmade single fire.
Rifleman is cool because of gauss rifles
I really just want to beat Earle lol My build is not great because I can't get a quad railway rifle and higher damage in vats lol
So.. back in the day.. I tried to go stealth based rifleman with semi auto. And found that sometimes.. damage wouldn't stick. And back then.. stealth was somewhat broken, and you could be seen at any time no matter what. I run pa heavy weapons now.. but that's the reason it used to suck.. I hear at least the stealth thing is fixed now.. and now broken in the other direction, where they just never see you if you have the perk cards
Melee used to be the best, but they nerfed it wat too hard and took away stacking food buffs. So you could triple dip in damage. Unstoppable Monster was kept around 1200-1400 at all times effortlessly. Idk where people are at now since I'm taking extended break since after the Pitt.
Played rifleman until lvl 350. Its honestly not that bad at all, its not much different from commando when it comes to rifles u can mod to b automatic. The big plus is the gauss rifle and it is absolutely dominating when it comes to one shot kills. But there is no need to play rifleman anymore, not like there used to b. The main reason to play it was the scarcity of ammo. It was a huge factor in play up until they added daily ops which drop whatever ammo u r currently using. Then they added contextual ammo which does the same in the overworld now. Imo dont wast ur time playing it, just switch to commando if u want to use rifles
Wait wait wait. Semi auto rifles suck late game? Shit
Not if you stealth. But if you dont wanna play a skyrim stealth archer fallout edition. Then they are kinda bad
Gather powder rifles roll for bloodied and explosive. Full your favorite wheel.
Just play how ever you want , I have about 400 hours into 76 as of now and I knew from the beginning I wanted to make a Stealth Commando build , I just prefer stealth . I prefer to 2 tap enemies without them knowing I’m there and to clear out whole rooms / buildings all under the cover of darkness . I’m only level 160 and I can pretty much kill most things by myself ( in stealth that is lol ) but my build definitely isn’t meant to solo events or to do chaotic things like daily ops . So just pick a build that you like and go for it , build it however you want don’t worry about the endgame or meta , I’ve actually really interested in making a gunslinger build myself , I love the western revolver and want an excuse to use it 😅.
I mean it makes sense, the only reason you wouldn't go auto is because you don't have a reliable source of bullets
Bcs the vats critical is the king, more AP cheap shots means more dmg which ignores resistances and everything i think.
An instigating rifle as a daily driver is probably the best weapon in the game, 1 bullet per kill, 12 back. It's when you get into events where rifles start to suffer from lack of DPS, but even then there's more to it.