Profession Requirement Revision:
Before going too deep into this, I would like to say the point of this thread is to try to change Profession requirements so that making a build that can have a profession and actually support itself in combat is possible, and not just be another alt. Right now, professions are very unbalanced and it only leads to alts because professions just limit the possibilities of a single player.
- The requirements I refer to will be final level requirements, in most cases [3] level requirements.
- I also make these suggestions so that one can make a balanced character with a profession without the need of drugs to get the requirements.
Demolition Expert Revision: 1. Lower the Science requirement to 80. Why should more science be needed for a profession that will only require 80 Science to make the materials (HQ Gunpowder and Metal Parts)?
2. Lower the Perception requirement to 6 Perception, which is needed for Bonus Rate of Fire, among other Perks. Why should 9 Perception be needed? It makes no sense; you are in a grenade profession, not a sniper profession. Having to have a 9 in Perception is taking valuable stat points that will make your character bad at combat; no grenadier builds have 9 Perception, or at least not any good ones.
3. The only question that leaves is the Traps skill. As far as combat goes, Trap skill is really only used for blowing yourself up in NCR. It does have a combat potential that would require a strategy to do, but usually during events like Town Control, the opportunity to use Dynamite is very slim. It also can be good for committing suicide with PvE with friends, so there should still be a Traps requirement, and this is fine for now, but could be adjusted to balance out the lack of Science needed, and to balance throwing, which goes into my next point.
4. The main part of this profession is making grenades and then using the Throwing skill to use them. If the Traps requirement is lowered a bit, and the Science requirement is lowered to 80, then there could certainly be enough skill points left to put into Throwing and First Aid, for a combative character.
Small Guns Revision: The Strength requirement is good, and the Agility requirement is good. This is one of the most balanced professions in the game, because one can actually make a balanced combat build off of this.
1. 90% Science doesn’t make sense. Either make it 100% or 80%, for crafting HQ supplies.
2. Something needs to be done with the Repair skill requirement. The reason for the Repair skill requirement does make sense, since you’ll need to repair your guns once you use them, but 120% repair isn’t going to fix a lot if you are actually going to try to use him for repairing your guns. However, this thread is not about fixing a Repair alt, so I’ll leave the Repair requirement alone for now.
Big Guns Revision: This profession is balanced to about the same extent of the Small Guns profession, and has its same problems:
1. Once again, 90% Science should be changed to either 80% or 100%.
Armorer Revision: 1. Lower the Strength requirement to 6, or maybe even 5. The only weapons that require 7 Strength are the Rocket Launcher and the Miniguns. The only (in-game, not special encounter) Small Guns weapon that requires 6 Strength is the Tommy Gun, which doesn’t really matter anyway. Again, excluding drugs from the issue, having to have 7 Strength loses precious stat points that a person with Small Guns skill would need. There is no other reason to make it so you need 7 Strength, other than a Big Guns Armorer, which shouldn’t be the only option.
2. Other than the Strength, it is actually okay. The 180% Repair could be lowered, maybe to 150%, though it still wouldn’t be a fix to a Repair alt, either way, but again, I’m not going to deal with that for now.
Doctor Revision: Doctor profession is actually very balanced, because a build may already have Doctor and First Aid as tagged skills, so that part of it works out great. Still has some problems though.
1. The Intelligence requirement needs to be lowered to 7. Most builds that are combat related don’t have 9 Intelligence, by my experience. They usually have 6 to 7, unless they are a sniper, in which case they might have 8 for the skill points required, but 9 is just too much.
Energy Expert Revision: Last but not least is the mess that is the Energy Expert Profession. Many changes need to be done with this profession.
1. Foremost, exclude the Unarmed/Melee weapons from the Energy Expert Profession, put them into their own Profession(s), as already suggested a couple times, or simply make them craftable without a profession. 140% Energy Weapons should not,
by any means, be needed to craft a Ripper that requires Melee skill to use, or a Power Fist that used Unarmed skill. This part of the profession is just screaming at someone to just make an Energy Weapon alt to be able to make the weapons for their HtH character.
2. Lower Science requirement to 100, the skill level needed to make the HQ Alloys for the weapons. As said in the Demolition Expert section, more Science shouldn’t be needed for a profession than needed for the materials to make the items.
3. This isn't directly related to the Profession, but, make Small Energy Cells not need Energy Weapon skill to make. It should be an “or” situation, meaning you either need a certain amount of Energy Skill, Unarmed skill, or Melee skill, and this would be affected by the starting skill levels; again, why should Energy Weapons be needed to create ammo that an HtH build would use for Power Fists or Rippers.
Thank you for reading; I hope you agree with my points.
If I could set the priorities, I would say that the Energy Expert is the highest priority to be re-done, while Demolition Expert is next, but I hope they all will be more balanced eventually.
