[Fallout New Vegas] Bad Weapon Academy: Bozar 

You know, with this weapon being from Fallout 2, it working best in VATS makes a ton of sense.

When is dad weapon academy? where you rate weapons based on how good of a father figure they would be.

I think it's worth bringing up that in Fallout 2, the Bozar is probably the single strongest gun in the game. It has the single highest damage per shot of any gun in the game, and it fires in a 15-round burst. The only guns that outclass it in damage are the miniguns, and those fire more shots in a burst, which means they do less damage than the Bozar against armored targets (which is most of the enemies in the endgame). Essentially, the Fallout 2 Bozar was the unholy hybrid of a machine gun and a sniper rifle, and it showed; there was very little in the game that could take a burst from this thing and live. Even the final boss would go down pretty quickly if you had the right perks.

Recently, I was devastated from mitten squad and paul's death, just seeing new Vegas suddenly grace me in my recommendations brings a bitter sweet feeling.

A few notes: The Trigger Discipline Trait doesn't reduce the fire rate of automatic weapons while it still grants the accuracy bonus. This actually makes it the ideal trait for Burst-style Guns and Energy Weapons builds (SMGs, Automatic Rifles, Miniguns, Gatling Lasers, etc). The reverse is true - Fast Shot Trait doesn't increase the fire rate of automatic weapons, but does make them less accurate (which is ideal for accurate weapons with slower rates of fire like the Lever-Action Rifles, Anti-Materiel Rifle and Sniper Rifles). The 5.56mm ammo type also has the Match rounds that which can be made with the Hand Loader perk which grants accuracy and small damage bonuses. Also, and I'm sure FSOAS is aware of this although it wasn't mentioned, but weapon damage and critical hit rate in NV is partially tied to a weapon's condition: condition 75% and higher = more damage and critical hits compared to condition lower than 75% and scaling down until 0% condition. The "Ultimate refinement of the sniper's art" blurb is from the Bozar's weapon description from Fallout 2 where in development the weapon was intended to be Fo2's designated Big Guns Sniper Rifle, similar to New Vegas's Anti-Materiel Rifle (note how the Bozar resembles a greeble'd Barrett M82). However, this was allegedly changed during development so now that the Bozar, instead of being a single-shot Sniper Rifle, became the death machine it's known as in the Fallout community. Fallout 2's Bozar fires 15 rounds per burst with each bullet having a damage range of 25-35. This is augmented by the fact that the .233 FMJ ammo type has modifiers that grant a -20% to an enemy's Damage Resistance and a -20% to an enemy's Armor Class: making it so that in layman's terms the gun has built-in armor reduction and an accuracy bonus. This damage would typically be increased further by taking the Bonus Range Damage perk twice. The perk adds +2 damage to the upper RNG a weapon can do. So for example, the Bozar's damage range of a single bullet is 25-35, but with one rank of Bonus Ranged Damage it becomes 25-37 and with two ranks, 25-39. This doesn't sound like much on paper, but for burst-fire weapons this interaction would usually end up doubling or tripling their damage per burst. Finally, Fallout 2's Bozar is also one of the easiest Big Guns to actually acquire in your standard playthrough of the game -- being available as early as either the NCR, where it can be purchased for a fairly modest price of $5250 from the merchant Buster or stolen from his guards, or from the player's return trip to the Toxic Caves near Klamath where it can be grabbed from the lower level. As well as the fact that .233 FMJ is commonly sold in bulk quantities throughout the game, making it one of the most common ammo types besides 10mm JHP and notably compared to NV's Bozar which has an 8 Strength requirement, the Strength requirement of the Bozar in Fallout 2 is only 6. New Vegas's director Josh Sawyer has spoken about NV's Bozar before. He has stated that he tried to make NV's incarnation similar to Fo2's incarnation, but as evidenced by this video's existence, it wasn't quite up to snuff. The two weapons are indeed very similar and NV managed to retain a lot of the weapon's unique aspects, but I think the major flaw is quite simply a lack of damage. 19 base damage is just pitiful for an endgame tier weapon and is 6 points less than the lower limit of the Fo2 Bozar's RNG damage range. The weapon had no right to be weaker than several of the other 5.56mm weapons: the Light Machine Gun, the 5.56 Pistols and the Marksman Carbines and I'm not exactly sure what Sawyer was going for with such a low base damage. He would be aware that the weapon would not be able to interact with the Grunt perk from Honest Hearts, so unless he thought that the Damage Per Second from the rate of fire would be able to compensate for the lack of Damage Per Shot -- as is the design intent with many of the weapons in New Vegas -- I see no reason why it would be so low. Even the ability to chamber Armor Piercing and Match rounds to slightly boost its effective damage and accuracy does little to compensate for the fact that it's just too weak at base in combination with its incredibly demanding skill and strength requirements and that fact that it is one of the most expensive weapons in the game. It's unfortunate that the Bozar in NV lacks a real niche (Let's be honest, almost every weapon is good in VATS because of the slowdown, auto-aim, crit rate increase and player damage resistance bonus) despite otherwise being a very unique design (Scoped Automatic Rifle) and having one the of the best and most versatile ammo types in the game. One of my favorite ways to play through Fallout 2 is with a Fast Shot Burst Build and turn large portions of California and Nevada into chunky salsa, so I think it's a shame that New Vegas's Bozar just does not live up to the legacy of Fallout 2's Bozar.

Fun Fact: during the development of Fallout 2 when the Bozar was going to be introduced it was originally going to be powerful sniper rifle but due to a bug that crept into the source code it instead became a heavy automatic weapon instead. With only a burst function no single or precision shooting in it. Obsidian resolved that issue when they brought back the Bozar. Sadly it was for the worse.

Do the Chinese pistol from fallout 3 next. I wanna see how to use the whopping 4 damage it fires ( i really like the look of the Chinese pistol)

I love how like, a fourth of this video's run time is basically just a tutorial for speedrunning the acquisition process for this thing.

7:36 That awkward moment when Fish calls 5.56 rounds ‘five fifty six’ and not ‘five five six’

I find it funny that, due to there being a static LMG in the quarry junction, it's possible to get few Stealth Boys and yoink it for a much cheaper, albeit much more pants-shitting regarding obtainment, weapon than the Bozar. Sure, the extended mag mod won't be available for quite some time and it's going to be inaccurate asf outside of mid-range, but it's still quite a monster to have so early.

The Bozar wants to be a cross between a sniper rifle and a light machine gun, but it's just an expensive, early game FAMAS.

On the topic of New Vegas I want to mention how bonkers hollowpoint rounds are on high single shot damage weapons. With something like Medicine stick or even a regular brush gun with the cowboy perk, the damage increase from hollow point rounds not only increases more than the dt of whatever you could feasibly be shooting, other than bosses, but it will also net you more dmg than using ap rounds even on high dt enemies.

The race to perfect Bozar%.

Please don't show me Hassan. That was uncalled for

This was my favorite weapon in Fallout 2, but I never used it in NV.

dudes will see a fallout new vegas bad weapon academy video an will think "hell yeah"

As someone who knows nothing about Fallout, I'm excited to watch Fish's video so I can criticize it's design with absolutely zero personal experience.

3:39 I too would say this if I was called a Lobotomite and got treated as a disposable asset by a mad scientist

The thing about spread on endgame weapons is that you have unlimited Steady for very cheap once you've played Dead Money and Steady actually removes all spread completely. However, said supply of Steady makes the Automatic Rifle a contender for best Guns weapon (the .45 SMG is better against low DT, notable for Cazadores, Lakelurks, Tunnelers and Ghouls) with more DPS than the miniguns (equivalent to more than 3 anti-materiel shots per second), excellent performance vs armour and a higher crit chance than other automatics...

The funny thing about the bozar to me is, whenever I used it in fallout 2 it was early game. You could pick pocket them off the guards at NCR. Realistically, it was a mid game weapon in fallout 2. So your suggestion coincidentally makes it line up with how it was best used in fallout 2. Also, I don't get why they describe it as a sniper weapon in New Vegas. In fallout 2 with how inaccurate it was it was best used as a shotgun that fire rifle rounds lol.

Nice video, I'm just surprised you didn't compare the Bozar to the All American. It fills the roll of Vats/Crit build quite well if you want to aim for that. It also has a better accuracy compared to the Bozar. Not quite sniper rifle or anti-material rifle, but close. (0.02 for Sniper, 0.015 Anti and 0.035 for American) The way to get it might be tedious in comparison with the bozar for some people. But in the long run, I've had multiple runs where all I needed to do was grab it and I was sitting pretty. If you focus on it at the beginning of the game it also allows you to also spread more SPECIAL points out on your character.

I love you branching out more Fish, awesome stuff as always.

PLEASE more New Vegas And as a free idea, the Police Pistol in Dead Money has a lot going against it but I like maining it and crit-chasing to max the effectiveness of it's one upside

He became addicted to shitty wepons

Hey fish, thank you for making video. Its been a rough week for me and your videos help me get through it. Thanks man

Hand loader perk to upgrade your 5.56 ammo into Match ammo. 15% more damage and 35% less spread with no downside. Also I'm a little surprised you didn't bring up how it compares to the All American.

Bozar is cracked as hell. Any time im not using cowboy im using this beast and tearing everything apart

A good tactic for maxing your early game is even if youre not going to use repair and science. Its work taking them to repair the 9mm smg and Make the chems using the chemistry kit in doc Mitchell's. When you get to the outskirts of goodsprings, you can reassign your tag skills before confirming your character for good. So you can move them to skills you would want to use in the long run.

Everytime I see someone massacre goodspring just so they can do more powder gangers mission, I always gotta leave this comment here. You can still do Powder Gangers quest by siding w Goodsprings, if you dont kill any of the powder gangers in the fight, you wont be vilified. Also you can just head straight to the NCR correctional facility and do their mission, then come back and side w Goodsprings.

I really didn't expect this, but please make more new vegas weapon videos!

"The ultimate refinement of the snipers arts" How about you back that up with a source.

The Bozar is so weird because the Marksman Carbine exists. And even then, the AMR exists. It joes baffles me one of the most expensive items in the game is just a slightly worse version of a somewhat common weapon.

Oh please do more of these this is a very fun concept!

Excited to see a new direction and curious to see what bad weapons you do next!

Literally just started a new NV playthrough. I appreciate the video

FALLOUT NEW VEGAS? IN MY FISH VIDEO? It’s more likely than you think Please do more Fallout NV bad weapon academy videos omg this is amazing it’s not something I knew I wanted

I can hardly wait for the final few weapons that need reviewing for TF2. Like the hot hand, sharpen volcano fragment, fan o'war, etc. We're so close to covering the bad weapon basis in terms of TF2 as a whole & I look forward to that final send off this year, as we begin to move on to other games with bad weapons to review.

The virgin BOZAR vs the Chad Survivalist Rifle

would be an amazing series to keep doing for fallout, would love a few vids on melee or unarmed weapons :p

i absolutely was not expecting a fallout new vegas video oh man

Nice choice of background music, break the targets is a classic

Love your branching out to other games like New Vegas! I think this series in particular is rife with plenty of interesting candidates I'd never consider. Maybe do one on the roller next?

i never thought fish would make a video on my favorite game of all time

Ive been looking forward to a new vegas video for 2 whole days

Be real epic if fish speedran new vegas. I know id watch it.

hell yeah this is the colab that we have been neeeding

The format translated to other games pretty well! Good work.

Always happy for new fallout content

I dont even play new vegas, I have played a littlebit but found it hard to get into but I like hearing people talk about stats, perks and weapons I havent even heard of. Fun video👍

This is a pretty damn good video! Honestly, I've never used Bozar at all, so this was all new to me. By the way, there's an independent Fallout wiki that you might get better use out of! 👀

I love spreading out to other games with BWA. This version of the intro sounds so natural

I know that a lot of people don't like when a youtuber change the game but me i like when they do something original, so continue more

damn, i start playing new vegas again and this pops in my recommended. what a blessing

Hell yeah!! I love new Vegas! Keep making more stuff like this

I would LOVE more videos about Fallout Weapons

I should have guessed, last Bad Weapon video when you mentioned FNV that *this* was the gun you were going to talk about... I really cannot fathom what the intended purpose of the Bozar even is - it's just a bizarre weapon that I feel they didn't actually have time enough to test.

i love this kind of videos! i wanna now about more bad weapon in other games!

Thank you for the video fish!!

I love new Vegas and can’t wait for more fallout videos

I’m surprised you didn’t mention all the mods to fix it, giving it better damage or adding a larger mag. Especially considering this is an rpg and can be modded with ease. Also as a new Vegas fan I am incredibly happy please do more of these thank you so much.

I really like visiting the lonesome road early for the caps you can get by selling the gear of the enemies.

Fish needs to make a Chad Weapon Academy

Really nice vid fish! Would love to see more Bad Weapon FNV vids!👌

the LMG is one of our personal favs in FNV. just fun and spray and pray with a relatively powerful and fast fire rate weapon especially with the mentioned box mag, can hold the trigger for a long while until everythings gone

I love fallout new Vegas and tf2 I had no idea you did this content

Looking forward to more new vegas bad weapon academy videos.

Please do the arc welder next, as a plasma gun enthusiast, I find it horribly dissapointing for something that you can only find in the lonesome road.

I just realized this video exists and I can see this weapon coming back for the Sniper in NV video 👀

My understanding is that the guns/energy skill requirement doesn't actually do much for handling, except affecting scope wobble.

you know i never realized the bozar wasnt good considering by the time i get it i have a boatload of perks,skills, armor, and medcine that i can just ignore the downside and brute force combat

NEW VEGAS. YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS Also how about a video on how inferior Dinner Bell is to the modded Hunting shotgun? If I need a more damaging shotgun, I'll go with the Riot Shotgun.

haha, I love this premise. "We're going to whip these bad weapons into shape, or die trying!"

Another fantastic video!

Didn't expect fallout content on here neat

i remember getting all giddy buying the bozar and then realizing ten minutes after that “wow this sucks” and went back to the save before i bought it.

At least it looks pretty cool, even if a little outclassed

Fallout new Vegas is my favorite, please more videos like this.

Reminds me of that scene in the 2007 Clone Wars series where that one droid sniper's lining up his shot all perfect on a trooper, only to miss every single one bc the CIS thought an MG42 sniper rifle was a good idea.

Wow! Didn't knew you made fallout vids, definitely going to check out your playlist. Btw, is there a schedule to when you play new vegas on stream?

This video made me want to replay New Vegas the same way that the TF2 BWAs always make me want to play TF2, so I’d call this a success

In fallout 2, having 2 Bozars in your items slots, you could fuck up everybody with max agility, the right perks and a nice jet addiction.

I’ve always found the best way to make money is to do basically anything in lonesome road, there’s enough marked men to have you absolutely rolling in caps in no time and you can go through the entire dlc at lv1 with enough planning so you can save some points you would have put in luck

Yoooooo I love that you are expanding to fallout

It's weird hearing the funny tf2 fish guy talking about the NCR and various extremely realistic guns

The strange case has always been a bizarre Bozar to me. Wait

good video, I would enjoy more like this one.

i feel like euclids c-finder belongs here, as you only get to use it after completing that lucky old sun, either a: buy it from max in freeside or b: pickpocket max for it, then you can only use it once a day and outdoors

didnt expect a bad weapon academy on the best fallout game

my initial reaction for this video showed up was “wait the bozar is a bad weapon?” idk maybe i just play on too low of a difficulty lol

If you were really rushing you'd use the Chet dialogue exploit to get a shit ton of 9mm ammo to sell.

And here i am waiting for single shotgun (but also it's somehow still available if you lucky enough with stay back perk)

I think explosive weapons would be a good fit for bwa. I regularly use them in nv, but they're different than any other weapon skill because you almost have to supplement it with another skill (probably guns lol). Like, I've never really only tagged explosives as a combat skill, the close range self damage and the long projectile travel time makes it too specialized to get to the end. Now, this is not to say they're useless. In mid-range combat, nothing beats explosive weapons, but I find it strange that they have so little versatility when compared to the other combat skills, especially when the ammo weighs so freaking much. I also think the lack of crits really nerfs explosives, but your burst damage is already very high so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, loved this video, and I hope you keep making great content!

YESSS A NEW VEGAS VIDEO LETS GOOO

man, Bozar was such a beast in FO2. my fav weapon by far.

PLEASE GIB MORE OF THESE

Last thing those cazadors saw was the 5 digit price tag

Fish making vegas videos? Leeets fucking goooooo

Where is the background music from? Sounds like Legend of Dragoon.

A suprise to be sure but a welcome one

If you continue to do Fallout weapons could you do the Microwave Emitter from Fallout 3 Point Lookout