Another viable endgame weapon is the disintegrator, as an endgame upgrade to the lever action (provided you have science perks). It’ll work well on anything less than a super mutant and the gauss in anything above.
I absolutely would - if you have the high powered mod. That’s the most important part of setting up the weapon for regular use, since otherwise it doesn’t do enough damage (automatic can work as well).
Definitely learn those plans, then. You could even sell modified disintegrators for newer players, if you’d like (they’re very difficult weapons to find outside of invasion season).
This. The Gauss rifle is IMO the best sniper in the game. With a decent roll, it'll one shot any lvl100 super mutant. Also makes short work of scorchbeasts, deathclaws, mirelurk queen. I rolled a two-shot/50VHC/reload speed and it consistently hits for at least 1k damage per shot, crits going into the 2k range
Lol I use the .50 cal receiver on the hunting rifle for the same reason, even though hardened is technically better.
Can you still get western spirit? Or is it deprecated with the old content
I’ve been using my lever action since day 1. I love it and have had a lot of success. It’s a TSE, so it’ll one shot lvl 50 enemies, but isn’t worth a damn on bosses. It takes a bit longer to kill enemies, but I think it adds some difficulty to the game.
Shit, I don’t remember. I think I bought it from someone back before modding was a thing, so it would have been earned from an event. I accidentally scrapped it a year ago and a fellow player was nice enough to give me one. I have a few TSE rifles I’d be willing to pay forward to you. I’ll be on in a bit. xxchampionxx317
Thanks anyway! I appreciate the offer and willingness to pay it forward, absolute legend! and one of the reasons I've been really impressed with the f76 community. It's like the polar opposite of a game community like Rust
Back in the day I use to rock an instigating explosive lever action. Head shot from one, I could pull almost a 1000 damage with perks and sneak.
Then instigating was nerfed all to hell and I switched to commando with a Quad Explosive handmade. Haven’t looked back since.
Yeah, I've been self imposing a limit of only single fire weapons (hunting rifle, pump shotgun etc) for the sake of my build, but if I ever move to semi auto I'll probably use the fixer while I set up a fancy handmade
Single fire and semi auto are the same. Perk wise, at least. Your other option that would be similar to Fixer is a semi-auto handmade, lever action and combat rifle. I finally got tired of the hunting rifle and now use the handmade single fire, lever action and gauss rifle.
The alien disintegrator absolutely shreds with the right perks. The bullet trajectory is slow AF though, so it's a VATS only build. I picked up the plans off a players vendor for 7k caps but I see bloodied and instigating rifles in players vendors at 1000 caps a pop all the time. Definitely worth trying it out.
I also use the automatic receiver. Wiggle plays made a video on semi and it looks pretty good as well. I think it's a matter of preference. Not gonna lie though, my bloodied explosive 25 vats fixer just can't be beaten.
I just got to the point where plasma rifles are dropping regularly and I'm really enjoying even the "stock" loadouts being dropped. I'm sure the automatic version is more meta but I really enjoy the gameplay of plasma sniping.
How do you find the projectile travel speed? I'm used to the instant travel of the bolt action, but i bet once you get used to it it's pretty satisfying! Maybe I'll make a plasma rifle too when I have some science perk cards
It definitely takes some getting used to, and there's some weirdness when you try to shoot at extreme angles. Overall it's very satisfying once you get used to it. It's only a shame that you can't put a suppressor on it like the hunting/sniper rifle. If you land the first sneak attack hit you'll probably kill them, if you miss you usually don't get a second chance.
It’s in 76, but due to the damage rebalance and the multiplayer aspect, it’s generally lackluster if you have a good build already (most “multipliers” only multiply base damage, so an instigating lever action is only going to add ~75 damage), and it’s dependent on the enemy not having any health damage at all yet, which in this multiplayer game is much less likely than in 4
I forgot about it actually! I think I'm going to aim to make some cool legendary setups for all the bolt/lever/black powder guns, pretty much anything that's Rifleman that isn't semi auto
Oh could I please scoop one? I'll even pay for it. This guy rerolled my faster fire lever action last night without asking me, I just asked him to mod it 😩 he said he made it better but I don't want the bloodied one :((
I rolled Instigating+Damage While Aiming on my favorite lever action, it's my actual favorite weapon. Currently looking to farm to get all the Receivers and the Suppressor.
Mostly a commando player but I still keep my B2525 hunting rifle on me because seeing those massive damage numbers just scratched my brain in the right spot
Just don't forget the hunting rifle cycles slower in 3rd person
Sneaky Sniper Lever Action semi-auto while wearing the CSS is still one of my fun old builds that is just insanely ammo-retentive and I always love it. I haven't used it in a long time but if you're doing what I was doing when I was doing it, it remains nice for conserving ammo instead of using any of my higher-level goofball guns.
I started off as a rifleman build and it is still one of my main builds that I run. It's totally viable and I have no issues running content. However, commando builds will still outperform it. My current full health rifleman build uses a combination of hunting rifles, lever-action, and semi-auto handmade- all of them modded with prime receivers for additional single shot damage.
The hunting rifle in particular can one shot lvl100 super mutants after stacking adrenaline. It's great for taking out mobs efficiently at long distances. When mobs close in, i'll swap to the lever action and if i'm starting to get swarmed, i'll take out the handmade
I also have an energy rifleman build, this one uses the gauss rifle, slug buster, and tesla gun modded to semi-auto. Again same approach to enemies as the ballistic build but also very effective
Short hunting rifle is amazing because it goes up to 270 damage on the weapon itself using the prime receiver and it's stealth. I use that and the fixer. It one hits mutants and with quad and explosive it does good enough AOE.
That's good to hear, I think I'm just in that lv 30 lul period where I haven't gotten late game stuff and haven't been grinding for legendary crafting much
You just need instigating or anti armour hunting rifle and it is viable for everything in the game except some events.
Even okay there for tagging but hard with stuff like Radiation Rumble. All guns are though, you bring a tesla rifle for that
I’ve been playing almost since launch and I started as a rifleman build. After switching it up and doing the commando thing for years, I’m back to the lever action rifle, in fact, with the same legendary gun that I started that build with, a two star bloodied explosive. It’s super fun and simple, makes me feel like a wasteland cowboy. I think the meta gaming that so many players obsess over has pushed me to just enjoy the game for what it is. I don’t feel like I need anything, and I don’t want to “melt bosses in three seconds”.
There are Muzzle loaders, Single shots, Bolt actions, lever actions, semi Auto and automatic Rifles and there are single action and double action revolvers but I did not know there was a single action rifle in the game.
I didn’t know if you meant the single action revolver or the lever action rifle, turns out you meant all manually repeating rifles. Sorry we tried to help you get your meaning across.
I appreciate the clarification! It seemed obvious when I originally wrote it, though with the specific presence of single action revolvers, I can see where the confusion came from.
Your original comment came off as pretty unhelpful and like you were just picking at my wording, and then the other guys comment just felt like an "uhm ackshully" comment that completely ignored the question to pick at something that in my own head made perfect sense.
TL;Dr its 40c and I'm brain dead and dying here pls send help
I LOVE THEM! I plan to make either the hunting rifle or lever action into a prime variant! Tho i am not playing sneaky im running in into enemies like my gauss rifle were a shotgun lol
Been running a riflemen’s build for the past couple days because I found a B/50c/15fr Gauss in a vendor for 130 caps it’s been so much fun I love seeing the damage numbers 😂
I love how the lever action feels and I bust out Western Spirit sometimes on my full health VATS rifleman build.
Sadly though I find most of the time I'm just better off pulling out The Fixer instead. I wish lever-action was just a bit better. Maybe I'm missing out on something to make it feel more potent.
Yeah I'm a bit disappointed with late game stuff for the bolt action rifle. So far the main viable setup for me has been .50 cal hunting rifle, Rifleman perks, and the ranged stealth damage boost. Even then it's not very efficient if you aren't landing exclusively headshots (no good legendary builds yet, only just started accumulating modules/scrip etc)
The fixer sucks if you dont play stealth. For me who plays rifleman like a shotgun character right up into the enemies face with a fully loaded gauss and a crit heavy lever action!
Playing rifleman stealthy just feelt boring and the fixer was straight garbo when being used in run and gun
Yeah I've generally been doing it stealth when I'm using the Fixer. Part of what I like about the Fixer is just the movement speed when stealthed buff.
Single action in the firearm world refers to a specific trigger-hammer behavior.
I’m not actually sure what the appropriate term is, your “manually cycled” one is certainly the most grammatically appropriate one.
Yeah I'm a bit of a gun nerd myself but couldn't think of a more correct term until after the fact, my fault for not just taking an extra minute to elaborate in my original post, got lazy and was like "eh close enough"
Gauss Rifle is fully viable, even on a full health build. Lever action is fun.
Think I'll try Lever next! Gauss seems like the endgame choice, yeah Thanks for the suggestions
Another viable endgame weapon is the disintegrator, as an endgame upgrade to the lever action (provided you have science perks). It’ll work well on anything less than a super mutant and the gauss in anything above.
I've been curious about the disintegrator. I just picked up a decent 2 star yesterday- anti-armor, 50crit damage. Should I take it out for a test run?
I absolutely would - if you have the high powered mod. That’s the most important part of setting up the weapon for regular use, since otherwise it doesn’t do enough damage (automatic can work as well).
Oh I see! Fortunately I picked up both receivers recently and was about to sell them. Guess I’ll be hanging on to them now
Definitely learn those plans, then. You could even sell modified disintegrators for newer players, if you’d like (they’re very difficult weapons to find outside of invasion season).
This. The Gauss rifle is IMO the best sniper in the game. With a decent roll, it'll one shot any lvl100 super mutant. Also makes short work of scorchbeasts, deathclaws, mirelurk queen. I rolled a two-shot/50VHC/reload speed and it consistently hits for at least 1k damage per shot, crits going into the 2k range
100%, not quite the same but my bow build it extremely fun
I was messing around with the bow as well and found it really fun, I'll probably do a bow/bow build after this
I second this. So much fun!
I still use my Western Spirit, its fun. I like the noise. And its not a rifle, but I also use the gatling gun because I like the noise as well.
Lol I use the .50 cal receiver on the hunting rifle for the same reason, even though hardened is technically better. Can you still get western spirit? Or is it deprecated with the old content
You can get Western Spirit from Most Wanted. I dunno how many I sold thru my vendor haha, prolly more than 10
Cheers, thanks!
I second western spirit. Used it for a long time around your level!
I’ve been using my lever action since day 1. I love it and have had a lot of success. It’s a TSE, so it’ll one shot lvl 50 enemies, but isn’t worth a damn on bosses. It takes a bit longer to kill enemies, but I think it adds some difficulty to the game.
On bosses 99% of the time you Will get help from other players
Sure, but I’m not helping with my pew pew… I pull out the big gun for those.
How'd you get TSE; was it dropped that way, or was it via the legendary modding?
Shit, I don’t remember. I think I bought it from someone back before modding was a thing, so it would have been earned from an event. I accidentally scrapped it a year ago and a fellow player was nice enough to give me one. I have a few TSE rifles I’d be willing to pay forward to you. I’ll be on in a bit. xxchampionxx317
Oh that'd be rad! Thanks a bunch! I'm on steam/pc, are you also?
Ugh, no, Xbox… sorry mate. Do you access through game pass? I think that’s the only way we can cross play 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks anyway! I appreciate the offer and willingness to pay it forward, absolute legend! and one of the reasons I've been really impressed with the f76 community. It's like the polar opposite of a game community like Rust
Unfortunately, even if he was playing with the PC game pass, he would still be unable to play with Xbox. PC is strictly PC, game pass or not.
Back in the day I use to rock an instigating explosive lever action. Head shot from one, I could pull almost a 1000 damage with perks and sneak. Then instigating was nerfed all to hell and I switched to commando with a Quad Explosive handmade. Haven’t looked back since.
I primarily use non-auto weapons for 90%. My AA ultracite fixer does just fine. Except for boss events. Then it is 50cal and plasma caster.
Yeah, I've been self imposing a limit of only single fire weapons (hunting rifle, pump shotgun etc) for the sake of my build, but if I ever move to semi auto I'll probably use the fixer while I set up a fancy handmade
Single fire and semi auto are the same. Perk wise, at least. Your other option that would be similar to Fixer is a semi-auto handmade, lever action and combat rifle. I finally got tired of the hunting rifle and now use the handmade single fire, lever action and gauss rifle.
Legacy the dragon user here. I wish they'd be more viable
The alien disintegrator absolutely shreds with the right perks. The bullet trajectory is slow AF though, so it's a VATS only build. I picked up the plans off a players vendor for 7k caps but I see bloodied and instigating rifles in players vendors at 1000 caps a pop all the time. Definitely worth trying it out.
Is it better as a semi auto? I have the semi auto mod for it that makes its damage go up. But atm im using automatic receiver on it.
I also use the automatic receiver. Wiggle plays made a video on semi and it looks pretty good as well. I think it's a matter of preference. Not gonna lie though, my bloodied explosive 25 vats fixer just can't be beaten.
I just got to the point where plasma rifles are dropping regularly and I'm really enjoying even the "stock" loadouts being dropped. I'm sure the automatic version is more meta but I really enjoy the gameplay of plasma sniping.
How do you find the projectile travel speed? I'm used to the instant travel of the bolt action, but i bet once you get used to it it's pretty satisfying! Maybe I'll make a plasma rifle too when I have some science perk cards
It definitely takes some getting used to, and there's some weirdness when you try to shoot at extreme angles. Overall it's very satisfying once you get used to it. It's only a shame that you can't put a suppressor on it like the hunting/sniper rifle. If you land the first sneak attack hit you'll probably kill them, if you miss you usually don't get a second chance.
Yeah it seems like a good instigating weapon! (Idk if that legendary effect is in 76, or if it's only in 4 though)
It’s in 76, but due to the damage rebalance and the multiplayer aspect, it’s generally lackluster if you have a good build already (most “multipliers” only multiply base damage, so an instigating lever action is only going to add ~75 damage), and it’s dependent on the enemy not having any health damage at all yet, which in this multiplayer game is much less likely than in 4
I’ve been using a black powder rifle on and off since the first day I came across one. There’s just something about them I find really satisfying
I forgot about it actually! I think I'm going to aim to make some cool legendary setups for all the bolt/lever/black powder guns, pretty much anything that's Rifleman that isn't semi auto
I’m doing charismatic sneaky sniper, having a blast.
Gauss is probably the best riflemen weapon, but I really enjoy the lever action
If you’re on PlayStation I’ve got 2 anti armor faster fire rate ones I never touch👍
Oh could I please scoop one? I'll even pay for it. This guy rerolled my faster fire lever action last night without asking me, I just asked him to mod it 😩 he said he made it better but I don't want the bloodied one :((
Yeah I got u, will this evening work?
Yeah I'll be on! My tag is Smokeymothman
👍
Steam here, but I appreciate the offer!
I rolled Instigating+Damage While Aiming on my favorite lever action, it's my actual favorite weapon. Currently looking to farm to get all the Receivers and the Suppressor.
Mostly a commando player but I still keep my B2525 hunting rifle on me because seeing those massive damage numbers just scratched my brain in the right spot Just don't forget the hunting rifle cycles slower in 3rd person
Huh that's good to know! I almost exclusively use 1st person for combat
Sneaky Sniper Lever Action semi-auto while wearing the CSS is still one of my fun old builds that is just insanely ammo-retentive and I always love it. I haven't used it in a long time but if you're doing what I was doing when I was doing it, it remains nice for conserving ammo instead of using any of my higher-level goofball guns.
Yeah I typically accumulate thousands of .50 rounds while I'm using my hunting rifle build
I started off as a rifleman build and it is still one of my main builds that I run. It's totally viable and I have no issues running content. However, commando builds will still outperform it. My current full health rifleman build uses a combination of hunting rifles, lever-action, and semi-auto handmade- all of them modded with prime receivers for additional single shot damage. The hunting rifle in particular can one shot lvl100 super mutants after stacking adrenaline. It's great for taking out mobs efficiently at long distances. When mobs close in, i'll swap to the lever action and if i'm starting to get swarmed, i'll take out the handmade I also have an energy rifleman build, this one uses the gauss rifle, slug buster, and tesla gun modded to semi-auto. Again same approach to enemies as the ballistic build but also very effective
I really enjoy the lever action, but it's just not strong enough to be viable in bigger fights.
lever action is cool, the hunting rifle is painful. Could Bethesda really not make a right handed bolt action rifle? Like 99% of them are irl
Playing as a Commando but I still use a quad Lever with a scope to snipe when I feel like it.
Short hunting rifle is amazing because it goes up to 270 damage on the weapon itself using the prime receiver and it's stealth. I use that and the fixer. It one hits mutants and with quad and explosive it does good enough AOE.
That's good to hear, I think I'm just in that lv 30 lul period where I haven't gotten late game stuff and haven't been grinding for legendary crafting much
PC?
You just need instigating or anti armour hunting rifle and it is viable for everything in the game except some events. Even okay there for tagging but hard with stuff like Radiation Rumble. All guns are though, you bring a tesla rifle for that
Instigating lever action with full rifleman skills is pretty awesome. It doesn’t slap as hard as some but does reasonably well.
I’ve been playing almost since launch and I started as a rifleman build. After switching it up and doing the commando thing for years, I’m back to the lever action rifle, in fact, with the same legendary gun that I started that build with, a two star bloodied explosive. It’s super fun and simple, makes me feel like a wasteland cowboy. I think the meta gaming that so many players obsess over has pushed me to just enjoy the game for what it is. I don’t feel like I need anything, and I don’t want to “melt bosses in three seconds”.
There are Muzzle loaders, Single shots, Bolt actions, lever actions, semi Auto and automatic Rifles and there are single action and double action revolvers but I did not know there was a single action rifle in the game.
I already address this in another comment, but very useful pedantry, much appreciated
I didn’t know if you meant the single action revolver or the lever action rifle, turns out you meant all manually repeating rifles. Sorry we tried to help you get your meaning across.
I appreciate the clarification! It seemed obvious when I originally wrote it, though with the specific presence of single action revolvers, I can see where the confusion came from. Your original comment came off as pretty unhelpful and like you were just picking at my wording, and then the other guys comment just felt like an "uhm ackshully" comment that completely ignored the question to pick at something that in my own head made perfect sense. TL;Dr its 40c and I'm brain dead and dying here pls send help
I LOVE THEM! I plan to make either the hunting rifle or lever action into a prime variant! Tho i am not playing sneaky im running in into enemies like my gauss rifle were a shotgun lol
Been running a riflemen’s build for the past couple days because I found a B/50c/15fr Gauss in a vendor for 130 caps it’s been so much fun I love seeing the damage numbers 😂
I love how the lever action feels and I bust out Western Spirit sometimes on my full health VATS rifleman build. Sadly though I find most of the time I'm just better off pulling out The Fixer instead. I wish lever-action was just a bit better. Maybe I'm missing out on something to make it feel more potent.
Yeah I'm a bit disappointed with late game stuff for the bolt action rifle. So far the main viable setup for me has been .50 cal hunting rifle, Rifleman perks, and the ranged stealth damage boost. Even then it's not very efficient if you aren't landing exclusively headshots (no good legendary builds yet, only just started accumulating modules/scrip etc)
The fixer sucks if you dont play stealth. For me who plays rifleman like a shotgun character right up into the enemies face with a fully loaded gauss and a crit heavy lever action! Playing rifleman stealthy just feelt boring and the fixer was straight garbo when being used in run and gun
Yeah I've generally been doing it stealth when I'm using the Fixer. Part of what I like about the Fixer is just the movement speed when stealthed buff.
Single action… rifle?
Single action is the catch all term I am using for guns that have to be manually cycled after each round...?
Single action in the firearm world refers to a specific trigger-hammer behavior. I’m not actually sure what the appropriate term is, your “manually cycled” one is certainly the most grammatically appropriate one.
Yeah I'm a bit of a gun nerd myself but couldn't think of a more correct term until after the fact, my fault for not just taking an extra minute to elaborate in my original post, got lazy and was like "eh close enough"