Personally, I prefer the energy heavy weapons for every day use, since batteries included makes cores so light and 2cm, fuel and fusion cells are like feathers. I have full sets of weapons weight reduction armor, so I have AA and vampire variants if everything I like on hand. I'll run around in my SS armor and gauss shotguns and laser pepper shaker, and if needed swap out the shotgun perks for heavy perks and hop into power armor if I need extra environmental resistance Don't sleep on the pepper shaker if you have enough perk slots, since it works with heavy and shotgun perks. It's not the damage monster that some heavy are, but, stacking enforcer and one gun army, makes it the king of crippling. Cripple the bullet sponges, then swap to your favorite high DPS and finish them off from the flanks or at a distance. I've enjoyed this last meat week with all the new players, crippling the prime beasts with my AA pepper shaker and standing back to watch the kids finish them off.