Viable Melee/Unarmed Build?

That's why Jurry Rigging is a must .

 

The problem with Jury Rigging in my opinion is that unless you are a guns courier, his usefullness is mainly for making money.
With guns it makes a lot of sense raising the repair skill for the Hand Loader perk and since Jury Rigging is only 20 points above, is very easy to achieve.

But for a EW build his benefits are not so very good, since you need another expensive weapon to fix a very expensive weapon. Some weapons really benefits from it, like Tri-Beam Laser being repaired with Laser Rifles, but most don't.
The same applies for explosive weapons, the most usefull weapon in this category, the Grenade Machinegun, can only be repair with another Grenade Machinegun.

Guns build take the most of this perk, since they can use another shitty gun to repair the one they are using it and at the same time use spare weapons for selling.

I'm not saying that the perk is not worthy, IT'S, but my currently explosive/unarmed build benefits very little from it other than making money, with the exception of repairing the various gloves weapons with brass knuckles, of course (but with 50 repair the Weapon Repair Kit already fix a good chunck of the weapon and duct tape are plentifull).
I think it's more usefull putting 90 points in unarmed/melee and taking Piercing Strike (no DT from anyone/anything in the game, unless they are using Power Armor!), Unstoppable Force, Slayer, Stonewall and Super Slam.

But if you are talking of making money in the game, this is the perk if you don't have a very high Luck.

On the rant part of the post, there's a lot of inconsistencies in what levels you can obtain a gun in NV. The Ratslayer is one of them, is hard to put down those rats in early levels and by the time you are strong enough to do it, you have better weapons available and your guns skill will be high enough to use them (Hunting Rifles with scope, ie). The same goes for Gobby sniper rifle, this weapon has NO advantage over the normal sniper rifle, besides less weigh.
In fact, it's worst than his counterpart, since you can't silence it and that lock is clearly out of proportion.

Mercy and Mantis Gauntlet are another ones, by the time you can put your hands in a Mantis Gauntlet you'll probably have Piercing Strike (if you don't have this perk, you should, it really worth the 70 points in unarmed).

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EW build needs to have Jurry Rigging , weapons decay is significantly higher .
But you're right , at best one powerful weapon is used throughout game so it's more for getting money . Although i tend to gamble for 32k caps . I don't want to have to buy gauss rifle every day just to fix my YCS and merchants need to restock in due time , it would be time consuming for nothing important . And we can't have that on hardcore

And i agree that most weapons aren't used by the time you level enough , it sux really but it's good to have many options . On my EW build i used mostly gauss and plasma defender . On guns i got to switch between cowboy repeater , ranger sequoia and am rifle . Sequoia and repeater did most jobs . Sniper was just bad , 400 shots and it's melted in parts , and his critical is crap now .
But that aside , unarmed has beautiful weapons that have less weight , are quieter and holdout and can ignore DT if needed . Only problem i think is you need to do vats a lot more or just click aimlessly ... but i hope it's not that bad .

How does repair work for unarmed build anyway , i'm guessing you don't need it as much as shooters do ?

 

Most unarmed weapons needs constant repair, specially the powerfull ones like Ballistic Fist and Displacer Gloves. Pushy is very durable on the other hand, but you need 100% skill for using it.

But the common ones, like Power Fist and Spiked Nuckles are very cheap to fix and very easy to maintain, so it's not a concern.
Ballistic Fist has only 80 HP, so you better carry A LOT of repair kits, that's why I don't like this weapon unless is for a specific use, like cleaning Quarry Junction.
Power Fists at 75% unarmed skill are pure beasts and don't let Love and Hate fool you, since it's a spiked nuckles, it's a very powerfull weapon and can be repaired with only brass nuckles.

The trick with Unarmed is not let yourself became overwhelmed with too many enemies, because you don't have too much room for manuvering.
VATS is needed for when a person start to run from you, as soon she start to run you enter in VATS and finish her.

Or when you are fighting powerfull foes, like Deathclaws.

But what I really want for unarmed/melee VATS is the same ability of guns/EW, choosing an specific part of the body for targeting.

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Read on the WIKI.

You need to be over level 12 to buy it from anywhere other than the Crimson Caravan. At the CC you have to be level 16, so my guess is it appears more often there.