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21

Builds / Re: Help Crafting a Comprehensive Sword Guide

« Last post by NumberTJ47 on July 05, 2025, 09:23:14 am »

Future orientation is pretty good if you take tranquillity on your sword build.

Serial killer is pointless, so is robot killer really, you should only take monster slayer for Tchort at 28 or 30.

Surprised you haven't played many sword builds with fancy footwork, I would consider that a core sword feat because of how stacked it can get with low ap flurry spam.

Sword ideally has a knife sidearm for when you miss flurry but outside that it can deal with mostly everything fine on its own.

Ah, so that's why I saw tranquility without meditation on your "Siphoner Man" build.

I personally wouldn't bother building around the tchort in a sword build. I think pretty much any decent level 25+ sword build can walk into the boss room and kill him without much issue. I killed him at level 22 with the claymore on my non-psi/crafting run, so I certainly haven't found it too difficult.
The damage given from Decommissioner is definitely too low to be useful for everyone. Maybe if someone REALLY hates arke power station it'd be a good choice late though.

I never really felt like I needed the extra movement points from Fancy Footwork or Hit and Run. Going by other people's builds, my tendency to undervalue movement points may be my weirdest quirk as a player.

I personally find that knives are really nice for dex builds. My alternative for strength builds is to have the chainsword as a secondary because its ability can be used so long as you have at least 5 AP. I've only recently warmed up to sword + gun builds, mostly because the Thumper is OP as hell early and you can shoot it at the ground to lure enemies to you without wasting a grenade. Before trying it out I'd have said sword + grenade launcher was a waste of time, but it proved shockingly useful throughout the entire game.

Just realised when reading expert sprint that it adds action points and not movement points. Probably gonna start taking 13 agility more often.

22

Builds / Re: Help Crafting a Comprehensive Sword Guide

« Last post by Eidein on July 05, 2025, 08:29:51 am »

Future orientation is pretty good if you take tranquillity on your sword build.

Serial killer is pointless, so is robot killer really, you should only take monster slayer for Tchort at 28 or 30.

Surprised you haven't played many sword builds with fancy footwork, I would consider that a core sword feat because of how stacked it can get with low ap flurry spam.

Sword ideally has a knife sidearm for when you miss flurry but outside that it can deal with mostly everything fine on its own.

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Builds / Help Crafting a Comprehensive Sword Guide

« Last post by NumberTJ47 on July 05, 2025, 03:56:30 am »

Hey there, I've recently beaten dominating for the second time with a sword build that uses no psi or crafting. I've created and tested 4 sword builds in total, though the first two weren't that great. I think I'm ready to create a decent guide for the sword, but it's hard to feel qualified to give advice in a decade-old community that has people that can beat the game without dying a single time.

With the amount of experience I have with swords I'm confident that my guide would be mostly correct and helpful to plenty of players, but I still feel like there's a ton of sword builds I haven't tried. If I tested every build I had in mind to make the guide I'd be spending 300 hours playing builds that feel really similar, and I'd probably just be confirming my own biases.

My guide would mostly be made for people who want to play dominating for the first time, so I'd would really appreciate some feedback so I can avoid misleading newer players. Swords make good use of all the OP tools a new dominating should use, such as traps, stealth, crafting, and TM. They also have lots of damage for those 400% HP bosses. The final boss is an absolute cakewalk when you use the sword, though the weapon tends to struggle against groups of armored enemies.

Sorry if I gloss over some stuff. I'm assuming that if you're reading this you've either played a sword build on dominating before or have enough experience playing melee to get what i'm talking about.

Build Priorities

Every time I start thinking of a new sword build I use this template. It primarily contains feats and skills I consider mandatory on a sword build, such a as flurry and critical power. I usually remove a skill or feat here or there though (Usually TM). I always increase strength or dexterity to at least 12 for psi builds and 14 for Versatility builds. Template: https://underrail.info/build/?HgUGBgMDAwYAADwAwqAAADIyMgAAAAAAAAAAAABGAABQKzE5wowSBhZLwo3Ch-KyiAXisokC37w

The sword has a few weaknesses you'll want a secondary weapon to deal with:

• Accuracy issues.
• Little to no AoE.
• Bad vs armor.

These are the best secondary weapons/abilities that I've found to mitigate these weaknesses:

• Grenades and traps (obviously)
• Electrokinesis with Psychostatic Electricity.
• Versatility with the Thumper, or the Punisher for strength builds.
• Temporal Distortion is good early on. Haven't tested Continuum Ripple yet.
• Knives are helpful early if you're playing a dexterity build. They don't need to commit to a single target and don't require a 95% chance to hit to function.

I'm certain you can beat the game using only the sword for damage, but it'd be a lot more tedious. Most of the weapons above don't require heavy investment to be useful.

Testing

Here's some of the builds I've been wanting to test. Keep in mind that these builds are very much in the works. Most of my crafting skills are temporarily set to 90 when I'm prototyping. I also haven't ordered the feats super well for each level. Didn't fiddle around with the Special points much.

Taste For Blood + Bladed Metal Armor + Chainsword: https://underrail.info/build/?Hg4HCgMDAwYAAGkAwqAAAABkZABGWlpaWloAAABGAABaKzE5wqPCjBIGFkvCjcKHPEJFMCR8wrbisogF4rKJAt-8
I have confirmed that the chainsaw specially ability can proc the bleed. Might be the only decent non-flurry sword build, though I'd still say there's no reason not to take flurry.

Sword + Energy Pistol/Chem Pistol: https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQBgMDBQgjADgAwqAAAGRaNwAyWlpaWloAAADCoAAAWisxOcKjwowSBjAWS1zCjcKawocpWsK04rKIBeKyiQLfvA
In theory, energy pistols should cover all the main weaknesses of the sword. The electroshock pistol can stun and do AoE, and having electric and energy damage will help bypass armor. Blob pistols should also help with the accuracy issues due to their ability to root enemies.

Sword + Crossbow. No build for this one. I've never used the crossbow so I have no idea if it'd be good with the sword.

There's also some feats that could be good that I haven't played with much:

• Continuum Ripple
• Decapitate - The exposed head things kinda always kept me from taking this.
• Hit and Run - Doesn't proc from psi kills. Could be really good with blitz.
• Fancy Footwork - If this works with chainsword it could be pretty amazing. I'd worry about killing enemies too quickly and not getting enough movement points.
• Dirty Kick - Only just thought of this, but the stun could be really useful. Because unarmed damage scales with melee damage this should do decent enough damage to get the stun past the enemy's mechanical threshold. (As I recall, stunning attacks have to deal damage to enemies to apply the stun, but don't quote me on that.) Might be useful if you're not using the taser.
• Blindsiding - Doesn't look like a very significant damage boost, but I've seen it in a few people's builds.
• Monster Slayer - There are a few creatures that swords can struggle against. This one is hard to evaluate due to the sheer number of creatures in the game. Doesn't work with psi.
• Decommissioner - Swords really struggle against robots, so this could be somewhat useful. Doesn't work with psi.

What doesn't work

There's a ton of sword builds I've written off.
If you've used a decent sword build that used any of the firearm-type guns effectively then let me know. I didn't see any way to make a good build with them. This includes LMGs and miniguns. None of the other melee weapons seem useful in a sword build. Metathermics isn't great vs robots and has no CC. I really wanted to use Thought Control, but I don't see a way to make it good.

As for feats, here are some that I really don't think are any good:

• Parry and Riposte - Having only the chance of blocking SOME of the damage coming at you isn't great. Riposte definitely isn't worth it without Captain's Cutlass, but even then you need to get hit by 3 melee attacks to get as many attacks as a single flurry. Might be okay in long fights if you miss.
• Future Orientation - Good in theory, but when I got stasis it became irrelevant. Might be good if you're using TM with stasis banned.
• Serial Killer - The sword doesn't struggle so much against humanoids. Only does 10% extra damage. Doesn't work with psi.

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by harperfan7 on July 05, 2025, 12:16:38 am »

As far as I know, however, heavy guns don't have melee penalty, do they?

Guess they don't, but your burst angle will only hit the guy youre shooting if you have multiple enemies in melee range, like when youre surrounded.  However, if youre using balors, you have at minimum 24ap per attack (but probably 25) unless you use pummel, vs an lmgs 25, so it isnt saving you any ap, but quake can quake (and theres blast caps); and of course a minigun *can* get down to 4ap so its really not helpful if youre revved up.  Still, I hate to burst for one guy. 
Also, sometimes youre in a fight with allies or there are otherwise some potential targets youd rather not hit; positioning can be a big issue with lmgs since they are burst-only.  Having a single target weapon available can save you headaches.

Losing conc fire on heavy guns is no biggie; they do so much damage already that you can skip half the damage boosts and still womp everything.

I tried a "minigun build" as my first HD run, before the minigun buff, and it wasnt fun.  I then ran the str vers build up to 25th or so, though I never got far enough to use balors or to upgrade my gun from the brno.  Still, the str vers one was much nicer to play.

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by Zonermaxxer on July 04, 2025, 08:58:12 pm »

The only legit build Ive ever seen that combines melee and guns in a way where you actually use both is a strength-versatility heavy metal build.  It has quake or balors in one hand, and an lmg or minigun in the other.

This is probably one of the most promising ones. Versatility heavy guns (tank) build seems to be able to achieve more ranged skill than a non versatility-one, and having a clean-up weapon that doesn't ruin "Heavy Metal" maybe not technically required, but sure as hell appreciated. As far as I know, however, heavy guns don't have melee penalty, do they?

Not having access to Concentrated Fire seems like a big hit to minigun's single-target perfomance, however. And Heavy guns do have some (seemingly) nice specs that will have to be sacrificed into Versatility.

Still, build sounds solid.

I would say the opposite, why use the smg? But yeah like I said, its vanity, if you were playing and building optimally you would only ever use one.

Pretty much it. Skill allocation of Versatility SMG build can allow for some knife play and vice-versa, but knives require a lot of feats to get going. If you do get those feats, however, they become so good that off-hand SMG will sit there for vanity and those 2-3 Sea Wyrm fights in mainland that you can't melee.

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by Eidein on July 04, 2025, 02:22:00 pm »

I would say the opposite, why use the smg? But yeah like I said, its vanity, if you were playing and building optimally you would only ever use one.

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by harperfan7 on July 04, 2025, 01:57:29 pm »

the problem with smg/knife is why would you ever use the knife?

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by Eidein on July 04, 2025, 02:34:12 am »

SMG/Knife is a pretty good combo together. Still complete vanity since one is better without the other but still good together.

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by harperfan7 on July 04, 2025, 12:50:03 am »

The only legit build Ive ever seen that combines melee and guns in a way where you actually use both is a strength-versatility heavy metal build.  It has quake or balors in one hand, and an lmg or minigun in the other.  Quake for AoE melee, like when surrounded by numerous weak enemies like burrower spawn, but mainly balors for the bigdick mech reduction (you have to switch to it at the end of every turn).  One thing I disliked about the first heavy guns build I played was that when you have one or two weak enemies to kill, or some melee'er in your face, it sucks to waste a burst on them (and you have close-quarters penalties too), so having a hammer to bonk them with is really nice. 

For one, strength versatility really works here; heavy guns need to split up between str, con, and per.  This makes it a lot simpler; you max str and get however much con and per you need for feats, and it doesnt matter if you wear a shaded visor helmet, drink brew, etc; you arent using per.  You need high str for balors anyway.  You can even use the industrial exoskeleton (big str boost, mp that ignores armor penalty) since you have such higher reduction and generally wont *need* the best armor.  You can even wear a lifting belt since you dont need to reload very often with the big guns (but for the bigger fights you better stick to a bullet belt).  All the strength boosts will directly help your heavy guns accuracy and damage; you can legitimately have 28 strength while attacking with a gun. 

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Builds / Re: Melee & Gun hybrids?

« Last post by NumberTJ47 on July 04, 2025, 12:12:16 am »

If you don't want to use Versatility then you could use a dexterity based build that uses either pistols, SMGs, energy pistols, or blob pistols because they're all light weapons. Your melee weapon would also be a light weapons, so unarmed, fists, or knives. So yeah, the taste of blood idea seems solid. I'm certain it's possible to beat dominating with a build like this, but I personally don't think I'd find it that interesting because it wouldn't play much different from a Versatility build.

You could also use a minigun build. Heavy guns scale with perception but require strength. It'd probably be fine to put some points into melee, especially if it's a melee weapon that'd compensate for the minigun's shortcomings. I haven't played with heavy guns enough to know for sure which melee weapon would be good, but the sledgehammer seems like a decent bet.

Also, I wouldn't say that underrail punishes you for using more than one weapon, it punishes you for not choosing a primary weapon. Ignoring throwables and traps, grenade launchers and blob pistols don't take much investment to be situationally useful. If you have skill points in guns and have strength, grab a grenade launcher for extra AoE and the stun from Concussive Grenades. If you have dexterity instead then you can grab a blob pistol and you suddenly have access to acid damage and a root, a DoT heat damage gun, or a weapon that can slow and freeze targets.

I've actually played a few swords builds that rely on versatility for the grenade launcher, and I'm testing a sword + energy pistol build right now. Energy pistols do require quite a bit of investment to be good, so I'm not sure how it'll go.