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Builds / Re: No crafting Sledgehammer AR/LMG versatility build – my sidearm is an LMG

« on: February 08, 2024, 09:11:12 am »

Build explanation – Skills

This build has too many skill points thanks to a lack of investment into crafting skills.

Guns 80 (280)	80 base points needed for Commando feat.
Heavy Guns 80 (280)	80 base points needed for Mag Dump feat.
Throwing 140 (125)	110 effective throwing enables throwing grenades with 90% precision.
Melee 160 (350)	Of course, it is a melee build first and foremost. Guns scale skill off this skill thanks to Versatility.
Dodge 160	Good passive defense throughout the game, this little dodge would not drop enemy hit chance to 10%, however, 30% reduction in hit chances is still 30%. Needed since this is a no crafting build, and mechanical defenses from looted/bought armor is underwhelming. Besides, this build has too many skill points, where better to dump them?
Evasion 160	Good passive defense throughout the game, reduces damage from explosions too. Needed since this is a no crafting build, and mechanical defenses from looted/bought armor is underwhelming. Besides, this build has too many skill points; where better to dump them?
Stealth 160	100+ is my personal benchmark to be able to stealth effectively in all areas. However, this build has too many skill points, so stealth is a good place to dump them.
Biology 15 (16)	For Doctor feat.
Intimidation 160 (350)	A skill for dumping all those extra skill points. I paired it up with Yell since this build is also not feat-hungry, but did not use it much.
Mercantile 160 (173)	For unlocking end-game components to refurbish the guns with. 105 effective is enough, but this build has too many skill points. Dumping into Mercantile also allows buying those expensive jet skis at much lower prices. Details below.

Build explanation – Feats

This build is not feat-hungry. Sledgehammers do not need any sledgehammer-specific feats to be good, only Expose Weakness for armored targets. Assault Rifles only need about 5, of which 3 have been excluded due to lack of Perception. LMGs and Miniguns need more feats than Assault Rifles, but a few have been excluded due to a lack of Perception, 1 is common with Assault Rifles, and other feats also excluded for other reasons. This build has a lot of space to fit in QoL feats.

Conditioning	With 10 Con, condition provides 15% mechanical, cold and heat damage reduction. This damage reduction is applied after armor. Not great, but not insignificant either. Many claim this feat is useless, but personally I like this feat a lot, I won many encounters with only a sliver of health left, and would have died if not for this feat. Many feat points available for this build, why not.
Nimble	Used to reduce armor penalty, as movement points are crucial for a melee build.
Pack Rathound	This build already has a lot of carry capacity due to high Strength and Lifting Belt. Why not boost it further, since there are many spare feat points.
Versatility (10/10 spec)	Core of this build. Only with this feat are the guns listed above usable.
Doctor	QoL feat. When combined with Fast Metabolism, provides a lot of healing from healing items.
Fast Metabolism	QoL feat. When combined with Doctor, provides a lot of healing from healing items.
Thick Skull	All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing.
Yell	Dump feat. Too much Strength -> Intimidation skill benefits from Strength -> Yell benefits from Intimidation, may as well get it, no idea what else to take.
Dirty Kick	I love this feat on melee builds. Its a very good CC move that uses up no utility slot. Lasts 2 turns on human males, which occurs more often than not, because a huge chunk of enemies in the game are human males. Also, I always use this feat to cheese the arena. The arena consists of only human males for the gladiator fights, and a 2 turn stun is a guaranteed death sentence for all of them.
Expose Weakness (1/1 spec duration)	The only mandatory melee feat in this build. The big weakness for this build is the lack of armor penetration and electricity damage for hammers, and the lack of AP ammo for guns. Expose Weakness helps a lot, even with ranged weapons. In my playthrough I used Expose Weakness against Tchort before unloading on it with the N60 LMG.
Full-Auto (4/5 spec burst damage)	Core Assault Rifle/LMG/Minigun feat. No reason not to take this feat as this build has ample Strength, way higher than the requirement for this feat. Specialization points are invested into burst damage as it benefits both Assault Rlfles and LMGs.
Bullet Trance	One of the core LMG/Minigun feats, increases damage the longer the firefight goes. The 25% damage increase at max stacks is easily achieved for larger fights. In hindsight, maybe this feat is not really needed at all. The only time when this feat was of use in my playthrough was in the Magnar fight, when the N60 was used turn after turn after turn. In most other cases, I would get a kill or two with the LMG, then switch to using the hammer the next turn on some melee enemies, thus dropping the stack. If this feat is omitted, then 2 points into Will can be freed up to be placed into other attributes; a good alternative is to bring 4 Agi up to 6 Agi, qualifying the character for Sprint. The additional Agi can boost Dodge, Evasion, and Stealth further, and Sprint is useful in almost any situation.
Commando	Core Assault Rifle feat. Only 80 Guns skill points needed to unlock this feat, no reason not to.
Mag Dump	Core LMG/Minigun feat. Strength requirements easily satisfied, and only 80 Heavy Guns skill points needed to unlock this feat, no reason not to.
Increased Strength	Used to reach 18 Strength.
Body Weight Training	Used to reduce armor penalty, as movement points are crucial for a melee build.

Excluded Feats

Concentrated Fire, Suppressive Fire	These are great feats, but this build cannot afford to place any points into Perception, and have to exclude them unfortunately.
Heavy Metal	Non-crafted armors have underwhelming defenses when compared to crafted ones, it is not worth to trade all the dodge, evasion, stealth and movement points for heavy non-crafted armor. Without heavy armor, this feat is useless too, hence it is skipped in this build.
Gunner's High	LMGs/Miniguns are not used quite enough in this build to make use of this feat. This build can alternate between sledgehammer strikes and burst fire to save ammo on trash mobs/to tackle enemies that are more evasive and less dodgy. Besides, with Doctor + Fast Metabolism + Bioscrubber + Vathosphore Armor, even an advanced health hypo provides more healing than 10 stacks of Gunner's high, and that healing is instant, and does not succumb to a health threshold too.
Brute Aim	With Versatility, Guns now scale off the Melee skill, which scales off Strength. A higher modified Perception does not increase Guns skill for this build.

Build explanation – Equipment

Weapons – explained above.

Headgear - Tchortist Bioscrubber

Very good Bio protection, bonus health, bonus healing, 0% armor penalty. The bio protection is great against toxic gas clouds and enemies in the Black Sea. This headgear, together with the Tchortist Vathosphore Armor/CAU armor, renders the character almost immune to Locusts, Heartbreaker Serpents, and Giant Weavers in the Black Sea. 

Armor - Tchortist Vathosphore Armor, CAU armor, Galvanic Overcoat

Tchortist Vathosphore Armor is very useful in the Black Sea. Many of its denizens do Bio damage, hence Tchortist Bioscrubber + Tchortist Vathsphore Armor provides enough bio threshold, to be immune against Locusts unless crit, almost immune against Heartbreaker Serpents, almost immune against Giant Weavers too. The 38% mechanical resistance is useful against Strongmen and Handmaidens. The extra healing and health is always welcome, and Exsurge can remove an incapacitation or mental breakdown effect once every 10 turns. In my playthrough, I used this armor very much in the Black Sea.

However, in hindsight, CAU armor is even better than Tchortist Vathosphore Armor. CAU armor has the same bio threshold and even higher bio resistance than Tchortist Vathosphore Armor, it has 80% acid resistance compared to the Vathosphore Armor's 15%. CAU armor only has 25% mechanical resistance, but it is increased by 100% against melee attacks, meaning 50% mechanical resistance against melee attacks from spiders, Strongmen and Handmaidens. For all these extra advantages, CAU armor has 25% less armor penalty than Vathosphore Armor. With Nimble and Bodybuilding, CAU armor offers all these protections while standing at a final armor penalty of 5%. In hindsight, I could have just ignored the Vathosphore Armor completely; CAU armor is THE non-crafted unique armor for general use.

In my playthrough, apart from the two unique armors above, I used a randomly looted 1770 durability Galvanic Overcoat for general use where specific damage type protections, like bio or acid, are not needed. With Nimble, the character has 0% armor penalty when wearing this armor. Galvanic Overcoat is also worn when fighting against coil spiders.

Belt - Lifting Belt for most occasions, Bullet Strap Belt when choosing to use a Assault Rifle frequently. Large Waist Pack when hauling extra loot back to merchants.

Shoes - a durability 2400 ninja tabi boots  bought from Constantine. Appeared as special merchandise, unlocked via Mercantile.

Energy shield emitter - a 1000+ capacity efficient low frequency shield emitter, bought from Constantine. Appeared as special merchandise, unlocked via Mercantile, after refreshing many, many, many times (Constantine sells shield emitter only half the time, and each time, only has 1 in stock as special merchandise. Had to refresh many times until an efficient one comes up).


Pros

• No crafting!
  
  • Many excess skill points due to lack of investment into crafting skills
  • Vast majority of loot can be skipped over, no need to check loot containers for crafting components
• With 18 Strength, Lifting Belt and Pack Rathound feat, this build spots a carry capacity of 360 while in combat gear. While in looting mode, swap equipment out with Rathound Regalia, Power Fist, and Large Waist Pack, and this build can carry up to 400 weight. This character frequently carry whole dungeons' worth of loot back to the merchants. 
• Excellent healing economy. This build has too many bonuses to healing: Doctor, Fast Metabolism, Tchortist Bioscrubbber, and Tchortist Vathosphore Armor. My other characters, playing in Hard difficulty, has to stand around waiting for Health Hypo cooldowns in order to heal up; not this build.
• Healing Salves are perfect for this build, they can even be used in combat, as the Perception and Dexterity drawbacks do not affect this build. The weight (0.20), double that of an advanced health hypo (0.10), is not a concern due to the high carry capacity of this build. Raids of the Black Sea natives also provided so many healing salves that there is no more need to buy health hypos or bandages. In my playthrough, I brought about 200 healing salves into Deep Caverns, could not finish them all. 
• Unlike other melee builds, entanglement does not turn this character into a sitting duck. This character can fire back with an LMG or Assault Rifle when entangled. This is especially important when facing spiders in the Black Sea.

Cons

• No crafting!
  
  • No crafting of overpowered end-game metal armor that makes the character almost impervious to damage. Such a shame, since this build has all the Strength in the world to wear metal armor.
  • No crafting of electroshock hammers. As noted above, the biggest counter to even the most powerful of hammers like Balor's Hammer is mechanical resistance, which enemies in the Compound have an abundance of. It is quite notable that my Paladin character, with an electroshock hammer and super steel armor, had an easier time in The Compound than this character (although it might to due to the difficulty selected, Paladin = Normal, this = Hard).
  • No crafting of AP ammo. This build had an awful time with the N60 in The Compound due to the soldiers' mechanical resistance. The Concentrated Fire feat can overcome it through overwhelming damage, but this feat has to be excluded in this build. AP bullets are another solution, but the inability to craft AP ammo limits the character to using standard rounds. (Unless using Cheat Engine to constantly refresh merchants' stock, Fraser stocks about 30+ 7.62mm AP rounds each time and is good for this strategy.)
• As with versatility builds, the "side" skill that relies on Versatility is only usable from late-game onwards. In this case, the guns mentioned above are only usable from level 20+ onwards. 
• You only have 3 perception, Tchorist bioscrubber reduces it by 2, and then further reduces detection by 50%. You will be stepping on every single trap in the game. Thankfully this build has enough Constitution to survive any trap, and enough bonus healing to quickly heal up the damage from any trap.

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Builds / No crafting Sledgehammer AR/LMG versatility build – my sidearm is an LMG

« on: February 08, 2024, 09:10:18 am »

Build

https://underrail.info/build/?HhADBAoDBQVQUMKRAMKgwqDCoMKgAAAAAAAAAA8AAAAAAADCoMKgJGNQDQ4SFcKjScOhw54nCETCtnzin4QB4p-iBOK1rgrfvA


Overview

Among the various unique weapons in Underrail, in my opinion, sledgehammers, assault rifles, LMGs and Miniguns are exceptionally blessed. They have multiple powerful uniques that are good enough for end game, that are also not obtained at the end of the game. This build is crafted to take advantage of this. 

And since there is no need to craft weapons, may as well bring it a step further, and do away with crafted armors, crafted medicines, crafted everything. Turning it into a no crafting build.

Played this on Hard Oddity and was smooth sailing the whole way, but gave up at Heavy Duty content as it was too hard for this build.


Weapon review

This build is first and foremost defined by its weapons. With 18 Strength this build can use every hammer/AR/LMG/Minigun in the game, Strength requirements be damned. 


Weapon review - Sledgehammers

Sledgehammers will always need to be paired with Lifting Belt. 5 less AP for every hammer swing is too good to pass up.

Quake - if I had to select just 1 hammer for the whole game, this would be it.

• Accessible very early, can be obtained immediately after Depot A. 
• Locked behind a difficult combat encounter with Gubbins and several Lurkers. However, the encounter has some narrow corridors, tight doorways and two separate groups, so cheese such as poison caltrops, bear traps, firebombing whole corridors, assassinating group by group, LOS abuse, etc. can be liberally applied to tackle this encounter, even at a low level.
• Great damage when obtained during level 10+, still decent damage even when reaching end-game.
• Good critical damage bonus that will be good for a critical build, although not done in this build.
• With Lifting Belt and Tabi Boots, Quake uses 17 AP per swing.  The 17 AP cost per swing, while not as ideal as 16 AP, is still a comfortable value to work with. Without adrenaline shot, Quake can only make 2 hits in the first turn, however, from the second turn onwards, as long as there are APs leftover from the previous turn, Quake is still able to make 3 attacks per turn. With adrenaline shot, Quake is also able to make 4 attacks from the first turn onwards. Also, Quake is still able to make 2 attacks when dazed. 
• Quake's Shockwave does decent AOE damage. Do not expect to kill whole groups by itself, however, it can be used to finish off low health enemies by attacking another enemy next to it.
• Quake can carry The Beast encounter by itself, thanks to its Shockwave ignoring mech DT and half the mech DR. The AOE damage is great since the Bladelings tend to clump up over time.
• Quake is also great for defense. The hammer itself has a 50% chance to daze upon hit, and Shockwave dazes (its description says it has a chance, but from my playthroughs it seems to be just 100%?) every enemy that it hits. Dazed enemies have less AP and much less movement points to attack the player with.
• Shockwave destroys walls and obstacles, thus saving on Charons to buy TNTs, and saving on carry capacity to carry TNTs around. Also no need to go back to civilization to replenish TNT stock after destroying a couple of walls; just replenish Quake's battery. This is a major factor why I will pick Quake as The One Hammer, and even if my character uses other hammers, I will still bring along Quake just to smash walls. 

Mindcracker – the hammer to enable the magical 16 AP hammer attacks with lifting belt and tabi boots, meaning 3 hammer attacks in a turn, every turn, even without buffs or consumables. However, Mindcracker is locked behind a hard combat encounter with numerous Azuridae Goliathus. In my playthrough, I only managed to get by this encounter after level 20, and by using the refurbished N60 Warthog to burst down the Goliathus and their Pseudo Spatial Projection stacks.
Also, Mindcracker's damage falls off late-game, in comparision to Barbaton and Balor's Hammer.

Barbaton – Excellent damage, even higher than quality 160 Steel Sledgehammer! Costs the same amount of AP per swing too! With Lifting Belt and Tabi Boots, it reduces down to 19 AP per swing, which unfortunately for me is an awkward value to work with. The attack rotation consists of 2 swings, left over 10 AP -> 3 swings -> 2 swings, left over 10 AP -> 3 swings, etc. I somehow always end up on the 2 swing turn when 3 swings are needed right in the moment. Also, when dazed, the character is left with only 35 AP and only able to do 1 swing. 
On a side note, Barbaton would be a good hammer for a crit build, since it has increased critical chance and increased bonus critical damage. Not done in this build. 

Balor's Hammer – I have seen the many legends of this hammer, but I am not keen on it, as it ties Rathound Regalia to the character's armor slot, thus denying the character valuable bio or acid protection that other armors offer. Moreover, the character has to constantly feed on rathound barbecues or bison milk; stocking these items, keep tracking of remaining stocks and their duration on the character is a hassle. Last but not least, it has a weight of 50. Together with Quake for destroying walls, these 2 hammers already occupy a weight of 75 in the character's inventory. That is easily more than half the carry capacity of 3 Str, no Pack Rathound, no Waistpack builds.
Regardless, I tried it out once in The Compound. The unarmored lunatics outside The Compound takes but 1 hit each to kill, which is excellent, while each soldier inside The Compound takes 2 hits to kill, owing to their mechanical resistance. I could see this hammer as very good for lower level content, perhaps next time I would make more use of it.


Weapon review - Assault Rifles

Assault Rifles need to be paired with Bullet Strap Belt, as their high rates of fire empty the ARs' magazines very quickly. This becomes a problem when pairing an AR with a hammer in the other weapon slot, as both weapons are competing for the same belt slot.

In my playthrough, I used the K&H KH416 to great effect decimating the natives from the safety of my Devastator Jet Ski. Steyr-Auch was also very useful during the raid into Horticulture Center. More details below.

Refurbished AKX – Just an average assault rifle. On the plus side, it uses the most common 7.62mm ammo, and is easily obtained at mid game after the Free Drones or Protectorate questline. However, its combat stats are simply average: no extra burst shots, no bonus burst precision. Moreover, Its gimmick of infinite durability is not attractive to this build, since this build can already save on durability by switching to the hammer instead of the assault rifle.

Refurbished K&H KH416 – In my opinion the best assault rifle for this build. Decent damage (felt a bit lacking due to its caliber, just a bit), 10 shots per burst with Full Auto, has +10% Burst precision, and only uses 36 AP per burst. As long as the character has 1 AP saved from the previous turn, the character can still burst when even dazed. This assault rifle also faces no competition from LMG and Miniguns, as no LMGs/Miniguns use 5mm ammo. Last but not least, this assault rifle can be obtained fairly early, at the Black Crawler base fight with Gorsky. 

Refurbished N16 – I forgot to obtain this during my playthrough, but it makes no difference for this build. It is simply inferior to the refurbished KH416: uses the same 5mm ammo, but less damage, less burst shots, less ammo capacity. N16 has higher critical damage bonus, but this build is not built for criticals. N16 also has a gimmick of improving the damage bonus of Concentrated Fire, but this build does not have Concentrated Fire. All in all, straight up inferior to KH416 for this build.

Refurbished NF F2500 – On paper, it makes an excellent assault rifle; good damage, 10 shots per burst, uses the most common 7.62mm ammo, even restores AP on shoot. I suppose Its minimal strength requirement of 4 is also a defining feature; not applicable for this build, but 3 strength builds can effectively use this assault rifle with a Rathound Regalia or Rathound Barbeque. However, among this list, it is obtained the latest in the game. In my playthrough I completed Expedition before heading to Deep Caverns, rendering this assault rifle useless even after obtaining it. 

Refurbished Steyr-Auch – this is a hard assault rifle to love. In my opinion it has the best damage among the assault rifles in this list due to its high damage ceiling, it also has the best range, it uses the abundant 9mm ammo, which the only gun competing for it is the GlaShaG-9 (which has its own problems, explained below). Being very accessible, it is also the first gun in this list that I obtained in my playthrough. Upon using it though, its flaws are obvious: no extra burst rounds, only 7 rounds per burst with Full-Auto feel subpar after using the KH416. This assault rifle also uses 48 AP per burst, which is too high, leaving no AP for consumables or grenades. More importantly, the character will not be able to burst at all if dazed, even with 10 AP saved from the previous turn. Despite these flaws, it is still a servicable assault rifle, and still better than the AKX in my opinion if nothing else is available.


Weapon review - LMGs

The main advantage of pairing a hammer with an LMG is that LMGs have high ammo capacity, and does not need constant reloads (especially when alternating between melee and shooting in a single fight). Hence LMGs do not need to compete with Lifting Belt in the belt slot. 

The main disadvantage is the lack of a single shot mode. 

In my playthrough, the N60 was used to win the Magnar fight. It was also used when fighting serpents around Fetid Marsh, and fighting spiders all around Black Sea that loves to keep the character permanently rooted in place.

Refurbished Brno LMG – the only gun in this list that uses 8.6mm ammo. Decent damage, +5% burst precision, 30 AP cost means an attack rotation of 1 burst -> save up 10 AP -> 2 burst -> repeat without adrenaline shot. Shortest optimal range among all the guns in this list. Would have used it to expend 8.6mm ammo, but the entire game is over before I can finish expending all the other ammo types that were looted throughout the game. 

Refurbished N60 Warthog – highly damaging LMG, no burst precision penalty unlike the MG3-42, lowest move and shoot penalty among the LMGs (but not by much). Uses the most common 7.62mm ammo. The biggest draw about this weapon has to be the damage; the lower bound is the same as the Brno at 38, but N60's upper bound is 72 while Brno's upper bound is only 44. The biggest drawback would have to be the strength requirement, which 2 higher than other LMGs, however, it is a non-issue for this build. I took this LMG as my main expenditure of 7.62ammo. Still can burst when dazed. With adrenaline shot, it can burst twice a turn. 

Refurbished MG3-42 – uses 7.62mm same as N60, damage is lower than N60, more burst precision penalty than the N60. Balanced by being able to output far more bullets than the N60, since it has 5 innate extra shots per burst, and more importantly, it takes 25 AP for one burst. Implying that even without adrenaline shot, it can fire 2 bursts per turn, every turn, indefinitely. Tried it out once for Heavy Duty content at level 30, was disappointed with the damage. It was constantly hitting for 1xx damage per hit, sometimes dropping below 100, while the N60 was constantly hitting for 1xx damage per hit, sometimes going above 200.


Weapon review - Miniguns

With 18 Str, this build is well suited to handle miniguns, the biggest guns in Underrail with the highest strength requirements. However, in practice, miniguns do not gel with this build. Miniguns' wind up mechanic require constant firing in order to build up stacks, all stacks are dropped in any turn when the minigun is not used. This conflicts with the flexibility of this build to use melee or ranged depending on the situation, e.g. save ammo by using the hammer instead of a burst, or some enemies may have higher chance to be hit with melee weapons than ranged weapons. 

Refurbished GlaShaG-9 – the only unique minigun, uses the common 9mm rounds. Tried it once and never used it again, for reasons mentioned above.


Weapon selection

After clearing the base game up to DC with sledgehammers, and looted every gun and ammo along the way, with the exception of Lunatic Mall and Gray Army Base, I had:

• ~2.8k 7.62mm rounds
• ~2.6k 9mm rounds
• ~2.5k 5mm rounds
• ~1.6k 8.6mm rounds

This is from memory, I didn't take note of the exact number of rounds I had, but the order of abundance from most to least is correct.

It would be folly to carry all these ammo and all those ARs/LMGs mentioned above on the character at all times, so weapons/ammos are selected for the mission at hand.

In my playthrough, I exclusively used hammers from level 1 until level 21, clearing through base Underrail only. South Underrail is much more melee friendly than Black Sea, with narrow corridors, tight corners, doors and vents available on almost every map. I did try out the N60 once, inside Lunatic Mall. On the second floor of the Lunatic Mall I managed to kill 5 lunatics with 1 N60 burst, that was exceptionally satisfying. 

The Assault Rifles/LMGs came into play specifically for Expedition content. It is especially important for jet ski combat, since melee users cannot reach mobs on land when on a jet ski, and cannot reach mobs in/on the sea while on land. In anticipation of ranged jet ski combat, in my playthrough I bought a Devastator (the high Mercantile skill helped discounted the price to its lowest), immediately went over to Abandoned Waterway Facility to obtain and install BArm Large Jet Shocks for maximum stability on a jet ski (96%?). This turns the Devastator into a mobile shooting platform, and is terrific for skirmishes and raids against the denizens of the Black Sea. 

Riding on a Devastator, I brought the refurbished KH416 and a Bullet Strap Belt to bear against the natives. I brought an Assault Rifle, as ARs are much accurate at range than LMGs. The KH416 was chosen as it uses 5mm ammo, and I wanted to conserve 7.62mm ammo for the N60 Warthog. The slightly lower damage on the KH416 was not an issue, as the natives do not sport much armor. It was so much easier than other runs that I had done on foot. Half of the natives are melee only, and cannot reach the Devastator at all; the Devastator provides good cover against crossbow users; balistae are the biggest threat, but easily dispatched with a KH416 burst or Fusion Cannon blast; the shamans protect themselves against the AR rounds with Pseudo-spatial Projection, but PSP cannot protect them against the Fusion Cannon. Even when dismounted, the melee natives are very susceptible to the AR burst fire. Skaedars, for example, take at least 3 hammer hits to take down, with chance to hit about 83%, but the KH416 takes but 1 burst, which is at 95% accuracy, to take one down. 

Most notable is that one time the natives got bottlenecked on a bridge. One fusion cannon blast from the Devastator, and 10 were dead.

I brought the N60 Warthog against Magnar and all the natives in that one map, as the KH416 did not have enough firepower to win against Magnar. I also brought the 99 7.62mm W2C ammo that I looted throughout the game and used them against Magnar. With W2C ammo, the N60 took just one burst to burst down Magnar in his first phase. With W2C ammo, the N60 took 3 bursts to take down Magnar in his second phase.

I brought the refurbished Steyr-Auch, but without Bullet Strap Belt, to the Crimson Meadow Horticulture Center. I needed an accurate ranged attack to quickly dispatch locusts. Locusts can be scattered all around the character, and running after each of them with a hammer is too tiresome. Locusts die in 1 shot, so it makes no sense to bring an LMG either. The best candidate for this mission is also the KH416 assault rifle, as it has +10% precision, and uses 12 AP for 1 shot, hence taking out up to 4 locusts per turn. However, I had just expended 2000+ 5mm rounds for the natives, and 5mm rounds were running low. So, the Steyr-Auch is a close-second, also sporting +10% precision. 16 AP per shot means up to 3 locusts per turn, not bad. Last but not least, the Steyr-Auch has the highest range of all ARs, perfect for this mission.

I brought the N60 Warthog against spiders in LemCo, and in the spider cave. The spiders do not have much mechanical protection, and any gun will do, but I chose the N60 because 7.62mm is the most common ammo type that I had looted, and the N60 offers the most damage for each 7.62mm round. In the naval mines area I managed to kill 5 spiders with one N60 burst, that was another very satisfying moment.

I brought the N60 Warthog to Fetid Marsh to shoot down the Sea Wyrms. The N60 had enough damage that Sea Wyrms can be brought down in one burst. The locusts were a pain though, as I did not want to waste N60 bursts on them, so I ran after each of them with a hammer instead.

I used the N60 Warthog to fight Tchort. Used Expose Weakness against Tchort, and 2 N60 bursts were enough to win the fight. No solving the mutagen puzzle, no destroying mutagen tanks. The damage on the N60 is really good.


Build explanation – Attributes

18 Str	The core stat of a hammer user. Start with 10, end with 18.
3 Dex	Dump stat. Melee users could always use 7 Dex for the Escape Artist feat, but this build is an exception, since Versatility allows for ranged weapons to be used even when the character is immobilized.
4 Agi	Dump stat. Supposed to be 3 Agi, but I have one extra ability point with nowhere to go, so I placed it in Agi to remove the skill point penalty for stealth skill.
10 Con	All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. 10 Con offers a good amount of health not to die in 1 hit from all the bullshit that Underrail throws at you. Thick skull explained below.
3 Per	Dump stat. Although Per is requirement for the very useful burst feats, Suppressive Fire and Concentrated Fire, there isn't enough abliity points to go around.
5 Wil	For the Bullet Trance feat.
5 Int	For Versatility and Expose Weakness feats.

....continued in the next post

3

Builds / Re: 3 PER Shotgun Tank

« on: February 07, 2024, 04:09:21 am »

 Thanks for the shout out!

Really glorious build this is!

4

Builds / Re: Do i need a proper build to finish the game on normal?

« on: January 25, 2024, 01:09:24 pm »

More than doable for normal, bro

Some guy already beat dominating mode with nothing but a crowbar, so yeah, on Normal, pretty much anything works.

If build is bad, make it up with tactics, cheese and multiple armor sets tailored against different enemies.

But your build is not bad at all. Perception should have been lowered to 3, but a waste of 2 points isn't that bad for Normal mode.

11 Wil is doable on Normal, one of the Bloodpsican builds feature 11 wil only. Could always use more points for more psi spell damage though.

11 int is really good, you should invest more into crafting skills to make use of the synergy from intelligence. Electronics especially, to craft an excellent psi headband.

5

Builds / Re: Paladin - hammer, magic, metal armor

« on: January 10, 2024, 02:18:09 am »

Pros

• Electroshock hammers are one of the most versatile weapons in Underrail, usable against every enemy in the game.
• Lots of stuns
  
  • Electrokinesis, which is a long range stun. Pairing up with premeditation will negate its high AP cost.
  • Electrokinetic Imprint
  • Taser
  • Sledgehammer's 10% chance to stun on hit
  • Dirty Kick
• Great mobility
  
  • With only 2% armor penalty, tabi boots, Sprint and PTC, this build can reach 120+ movement points.
• Great well-rounded survivability
  
  • This build does not have the crazy high DR/DT of full tripled reinforced tungsten armor, cannot dodge/evade as well as an 1k dodge/evasion character decked out in siphoner leather armor, and does not have the 1k health pool  (in hard mode!) of my 3 Per 18(+2) Con shotgunner. Yet, this char, having a bit of everything, has a bit of defences against every situation in the game:
    
    • Maxed dodge/evasion + tabi boots + adrenaline shot  grant decent dodge/evade chances
    • 10 Con and a Sturdy vest inside the Super Steel Armor provides good maximum health
    • Super Steel Armor with Tchortist Bioscrubber provide moderate protection against each of the most common damage types in the game

Cons

• No ranged offensive capability.
• This build is very skill point intensive, so much so that crafting skills are deferred until late game. Explained above.
• The poor Paladin only gets to wear shiny metal armor towards the end of the game, early and mid game will be running around in tac vests looted from random Lunatics or Lurkers.
• You only have 3 perception, Tchorist bioscrubber reduces it by 2, and then further reduces detection by 50%. You will be stepping on every single trap in the game.
• Entanglement turns the character into a sitting duck. The Paladin does not have any ranged offensive capability, and can only wait out the duration of the entanglement. To add insult to injury, dodge and evasion are reduced to 0 while entangled. Entanglement is the Achilles Heel of this build. The Escape Artist feat would definitely be taken on this build if it does not need to divert so many precious points from Strength.
• If entanglement is the Achilles Heel of this build, then Giant Weavers are this build's worst nightmare. Giant Weavers typically come in numbers no less than three, and they take turns webbing the character, so much so that the character is forever entangled.
• Getting trapped in a Coil Spider's web implies reloading a save.
• Pseudo-spatial projection and uncanny dodge are the perfect counters to this build. Jackknife can be used to counter these two abilities by quickly removing PSP or uncanny dodge stacks.
• Sea Wyrms are the bane of this build. The sledgehammer cannot reach them if the character is on land, this build has no ranged capability, metal armor only has 5 acid threshold. In my playthough I just stealthed past them especially in Fetid Marsh.

6

Builds / Paladin - hammer, magic, metal armor

« on: January 10, 2024, 02:17:38 am »

Build

https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8DBgoDAwYAfQDCoMKgwqBkAAAAAHh4AAB4AC0ARgAATSRjYQ0qK8KHORItRS8AYgjCtnxg4p-EAeKnggLfvg


Overview

Played this on Normal classic difficulty to try out Heavy Duty end game content.

What better to try out Heavy Duty content than with one of the new Heavy Duty weapon types, such as LMGs and Miniguns Psi hammer build. Add in metal armor. A paladin is born.


Hammer

The Paladin smites his enemies with his hammer of justice. 

Being no stranger to magic, the Paladin magically enchants his hammer (with an electroshock generator) to dish out additional magic (electric) damage with each strike.

A crafted end-game TiChrome Shock Sledgehammer is the defining weapon of this build. A shock hammer is the most versatile of weapons; it can be used against every enemy in the game. The high damage per hit means that no enemy mech DT is going to reduce its mechanical damage to 0; any armored enemy, organic or robot, is likely vulnerable to electricity damage; the only enemy type immune to electricity damage, coil spiders, are squishy and easily smashed flat. Meanwhile, a TiChrome hammer, together with Lifting belt and Tabi boots, results in the magical 16 AP hammer attacks (how is this even less than a TiChrome spear), allowing the sledgehammer user to attack 3 times a turn, on the first turn, without any buffs. A TiChrome shock hammer is simply a reliable death delivery machine, dependable when unbuffed, and devastating when used with PTC and adrenaline shot.

However, due to how skill point intensive this build is, this character does not actually get to use a tichrome shock hammer until late game. Until level 20+, this character instead relies on the excellent uniques and non-uniques found around Underrail. Right after completing Depot A, the character can immediately travel to the Mindcracker area to obtain a random durability 1500+ hammer. The area can be traversed to by going to Foundry entrance, then east, north (fight 4 dogs, easy fight), north, north, climb down the rocks, north. There will be a crashed boat in the center of the map with 4 random hammers, and at least one will be of durability 1500+. This can be a steel sledgehammer, a tungsten sledgehammer, or if lucky, an electroshock sledgehammer. And this hammer is essentially free: no hard fights, no requirements, no need to spend charons to buy. Just don't pull out the hammer at the end of this map to avoid swarms of Azuridae Goliaths. In my playthrough, I obtained a durability 1680 tungsten sledgehammer.

The next upgrade from this hammer is Quake: this is an excellent unique hammer that triggers an AOE shockwave on every hit. The shockwave does moderate damage, ignores mech DT and half of mech DR, and dazes enemies so that enemies have less AP to attack with when it becomes their turn. The shockwave also destroys rocks; so no need to purchase and carry around C4 to destroy rocks and other obstacles when adventuring around Underrail. Unfortunately, this hammer is locked behind a hard combat encounter with Gubbins at Upper Underrail. On the other hand, there are no other requirements to unlock this encounter; Gubbins can be tackled at any time after Depot A. I usually get the hammer from level 14 to level 16, depending on the cheese that I employ during the fight. After that, this hammer can essentially be used all the way until an end-game tichrome shock hammer is crafted.

Quake is so good that it alone will win The Beast fight, without any caltrops, bear traps or grenades, on Normal. On Hard a dozen bear traps and a couple of Mark III HE grenades looted from the nearby Ironheads and Lurkers are needed to avoid being pushed all the way to the end of the map with no more space to retreat to.


Magic

The Paladin has a variety of magic spells to aid in his quest. These magic spells are not his main method of slaying foes, but rather, augment his weapon and physical prowess in various ways.

With only 3 Wil, this build does not rely on psi abilities to do damage, but rather to provide CC or buffs. With 6 int, this build has a total of 5 innervation slots. The following psi abilities were chosen:

• Psycho Temporal Contraction (with feat)
• Stasis
• Electrokinetic Imprint
• Electrokinesis
• Limited Temporal Increment/Telekinetic grounding

Psycho temporal contraction (with feat) is the bread and butter in this build, I used it almost every fight. As a melee build, this character is always in need of more movement points, and the extra 20 AP every turn means 1 extra hammer swing per turn. Although adrenaline shot also provided 20 AP per turn, I always used PTC first, because adrenaline shot has no movement point bonus, and adrenaline shot always resulted in fatigue at the end of 3 turns, versus PTC where it has a chance not to. In more hairy situations, I used PTC and adrenaline shot together for 90 AP every turn, equivalent to 5 hammer swings per turn, and it absolutely wrecked.

Stasis can be used to extend the 90AP PTC + Adrenaline shot streak by another one turn.

Electrokinetic Imprint is a low AP, low psi cost stun, useful against melee enemies in particular.

Electrokinesis is often paired with Premeditation for a 0 AP, long range stun.

In my playthrough, I innervated Limited Temporal Increment but did not use it much. In hindsight, I would have gotten more use out of Telekinetic grounding instead.


Armor

What is a knight without his armor? The Paladin deserves no less than a full suit of the most expensive metal armor. 

Metal armor on a sledgehammer user is a bit of a contradiction in Underrail. Thematically it make sense for a high health character who is always in the forefront of danger to wear heavy armor for protection and become a tank in the process, but in Underrail, that heavy armor limits the movement points of the character. The heavier the armor, the less movement points the character has. The less movement points a melee user has, the less he can reach his enemies to hit them, thus lessening his ability to remove the danger. And sledgehammer users need all the movement points they can get. As such, I cheated a bit, and opted for a single plated Super Steel Armor. With fully specced Armor Sloping (2/2), a single plated Super Steel Armor has only 27% armor penalty. With 15% reduction from Nimble and 10% reduction from Body Weight Training, this character manages to reach only 2% armor penalty, while still displaying a metal armor as his avatar. 

Yes, I said expensive metal armor, but I did not specify that it has 95% mechanical DR and 99% energy DR. My quality 171 super steel armor has 58%/21 mech, 32%/13 heat and 55%/14 energy. Not great, but this is still decent protection, and all for only 2% armor penalty, allowing the character to retain almost all his dodge, evasion, stealth and movement points. And I get to pretend to still be playing a metal armor build.

Here's the combat log of my Paladin tanking a Naga Protector for several turns. The super steel armor mech DR + conditioning feat helps mitigate a fair bit of melee damage. The evasion + armor helps with mitigating damage from the Naga's fusion cannon:

Naga Protector hits Paladin for 91 mechanical damage.
Paladin resists 177 mechanical damage.
Naga Protector hits Paladin for 105 mechanical damage.
Paladin resists 206 mechanical damage.
Naga Protector hits Paladin for 124 mechanical damage.
Paladin resists 242 mechanical damage.
Naga Protector hits Paladin for 85 mechanical damage.
Paladin resists 168 mechanical damage.
Naga Protector critically hits Paladin for 106 damage (35 Energy 71 Electricity).
Paladin evades 181 damage (95 Energy 86 Electricity). 
Paladin resists 43 energy damage.

Build explanation: attributes

17 Str	The core stat of a hammer user. Start the game with 9, end the game with 17.
3 Dex	This build really needs the Escape Artist feat, but in order to do that, will have to sacrifice points from Str, thus gimping melee damage and hit chance. It is a massive pain to do without Escape Artist for this build, but will have to make do.
6 Agi	For dodge, evasion, stealth, and the Sprint feat. Would have put more points into Agi for higher effective dodge/evasion/stealth, but alas, there are no more ability points left.
10 Con	All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. 10 con offers a good amount of health not to die in 1 hit from all the bullshit that Underrail throws at you. Thick skull explained below.
3 Per	Dump stat. Useless for this build.
3 Wil	Dump stat. Useless for this build.
6 Int	For armor sloping, to achieve 2% armor penalty while in metal armor. Rational explained above.

Build explanation: skills

Throwing 125 (112)	110 effective throwing enables throwing grenades with 90% precision.
Melee 160 (336)	Of course, it is a melee build.
Dodge 160 (187)	Good passive defense throughout the game, this little dodge would not drop enemy hit chance to 10%, however, 30% reduction in hit chances is still 30%.
Evasion 160 (187)	Good passive defense throughout the game, reduces damage from explosions too.
Stealth 100 (116)	100+ is my personal benchmark to be able to stealth effectively in all areas.
Mechanics 120 (140)	For crafting an end-game tichrome hammer and super steel armor.
Electronics 120 (140)	For crafting an end-game electroshock hammer and a 1.5k capacity energy shield.
Tailoring 120 (140)	For crafting an end-game super steel armor and tabi boots.
Psychokinesis 45 (47)	For Telekinetic Grounding (30), Electrokinesis (30), and Electrokinetic Imprint (45)
Temporal Manipulation 70 (66)	For Limited Temporal Increment (35), Psycho-temporal Contraction (55), and Stasis (70)
Merchantile 77(90)	For unlocking end-game components for crafting. Wear Large Waist Pack to reach 105, the highest necessary to unlock Efreitor Hanna.

The order of skill point investment is very tight for this build, as this build needs points for everything: offence, defense, crafting, psi, stealth! It is not possible to invest evenly into every needed skill every level up, especially when there are skills that demand full investment every level up (melee, dodge, evasion). Fortunately, sledgehammer users are blessed with good non crafted hammers that can simply be looted around Underrail, as explained above, so crafting skills can be prioritised last. 

The priority of skill point allocation as follows, from highest to lowest:

• Melee, dodge and evasion, full investment every level up
• Throwing, to reach 90% throwing precision as soon as possible
• Stealth, to reach around 100+ as soon as possible (100+ is my personal benchmark, can be higher or lower as you please)
• Psychokinesis, to reach 45 as soon as possible (Electrokinetic imprint has highest requirement, 45)
• Temporal manipulation, to reach 70 as soon as possible (Stasis has highest requirement, 70)
• Mercantile, to reach 105 effective with a Large Waist Pack as soon as possible. The benefit of investing into Mercantile first over crafting skills, is that once Constantine unlocks his special merchandise, a high quality tabi boots (durability 2200+ to 2400) can regularly be bought from him. I even managed to buy a 1k capacity energy shield emitter from him by refreshing his merchandise many, many, many, many times.
• Mechanics, electronics and tailoring to craft end game gear

This skill order implies that early and mid game has to be done entirely without crafting, but in return, the character can obtain all his psi abilities by level 12, and can stealth and throw stuff reasonably well from early-mid game onwards. In my playthrough, the only equipment that I crafted were the best in slot items (tichrome shock hammer, super steel armor, 1.5k capacity shield emitter).


Build explanation: feats

Nimble	Used to achieve 2% total armor penalty while wearing Super Steel armor. Explained above.
Thick Skull	All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing.
Sure Step	A nice QoL feat that I take on my builds when I have feat points to spare. Caltrops is a very good tool that I abuse, and Sure Step saves me the headache from having to traverse my own caltrop filled corridor after winning a fight, or traversing through the caltrop corridor to chase down an enemy. Sure Feet also lets me survive Depot A, with its mutants spilling huge puddles of acid everywhere during and after a fight.
Dirty Kick	I love this feat on melee builds. Its a very good CC move that uses up no utility slot. Lasts 2 turns on human males, which occurs more often than not, because a huge chunk of enemies in the game are human males. Also, I always use this feat to cheese the arena. The arena consists of only human males for the gladiator fights, and a 2 turn stun is a guaranteed death sentence for all of them.
Premeditation	Pairs very well with Electrokinesis to become a 0-AP, long range stun for 1 turn. On other smaller fights where I knew I would not be using Electrokinesis or Stasis, I would use Premeditation on PTC to save some PSI points.
Psycho-temporal Acceleration	This feat was chosen as soon as it became available, it is too good. With this feat PTC becomes a mainstay of the build, used in almost every fight.
Sprint	A staple on melee builds. When situations call for it, I would use PTC and Sprint together. With 2% armor penalty, the movement points from tabi boots, PTC and Sprint, this character reaches well over 120+ movement points.
Expose Weakness	Only for very armored targets such as Dreadnaughts, Industrial Bots and Naga Protectors. Moderately armored targets such as heavy armor users, plasma sentries, and handmaidens do not need Expose Weakness at all. Even against Strongmen, this feat was not needed as the electricity damage from a electroshock hammer will decimate them. As such, this feat can be taken later in the game, and even postponing its acquisition to level 20+ is possible.
Pummel (5/5 spec in AP reduction)	A fully specced Pummel works like a free attack every 3 turns, and is great for finishing off foes with just a little health remaining. Pummel works best with electroshock hammers, as Pummel's 50% reduction in damage does not apply to the electricity damage.
Armor Sloping (2/2 spec)	Used to achieve 2% total armor penalty while wearing Super Steel armor. Explained above.
Quick Pockets	Lifting belt is mandatory for sledgehammer builds, but it does not provide any additional utility slots. For sledgehammer users, Quick Pockets is a good QoL feat, as the character can have 3 utility slots instead of 2.
Conditioning	With 10 Con, condition provides 15% mechanical, cold and heat damage reduction. This damage reduction is applied after armor. Not great, but not insignificant either. Many claim this feat is useless, but personally I like this feat a lot, I won many encounters with only a sliver of health left, and would have died if not for this feat. I only take Conditioning if there are spare feat points though.
Weaponsmith, Survival Instincts, Super Slam	There are the dump feats; this build does not rely on crits, so Weaponsmith and Survival Instincts are simply bonus damage from time to time. I took Super Slam at level 30 on my playthrough, but by then the game is already over. Should have swapped one of these feats for Fast Metabolism though.
Increased Strength	Necessary to reach 17 Str total.
Body Weight Training	Used to achieve 2% total armor penalty while wearing Super Steel armor. Explained above.

Build explanation: equipment

Weapon 1 – Random hammer looted around Underrail (early game), Quake (mid game), TiChrome Shock Hammer (end-game)


Weapon 2 – Jackknife 

Used as a low AP attack to eat away Pseudo-spatial projection or uncanny dodge stacks if any enemy casted it.


Headgear – Tchortist Bioscrubber

Very good Bio protection, bonus health, bonus healing, 0% armor penalty. The bio protection is great against toxic gas clouds and enemies in the Black Sea (locusts, cough cough). This headgear and a super steel armor offers decent protection against a variety of combat encounters (except foes with acid damage), resulting in the character needing less armor sets to carry around and change into.


Armor – Sturdy Super Steel Armor

As explained above, a single plated Super Steel Armor for total 2% armor penalty. Super Steel Armor offers modest protection against mechanical, heat and energy damage. Sturdy vest was chosen over other vests primarily because it adds no additional armor penalty. Could have chosen insulated vest for protection against one more element (Tchortist Bioscrubber covers Bio, Super Steel Armor covers mech, heat and energy), but cold damage is rare, and the health bonus from Sturdy vest is not insignificant.


Belt – Lifting Belt

The only belt for sledgehammer users.


Footwear – Infused Greater Siphoner Tabi Boots 

Infused greater siphoner tabi boots would be the best footwear for this build, due to the slow immunity, more heat and energy resistances to compliment the super steel armor, acid resistance which is lacking from the other armor pieces, and extra dodge and evasion higher than other tabi boots. Unfortunately I was too lazy to craft one during my playthrough and I ended the game with a black cloth tabi boots.


Energy Shield Emitter  - 1.5k capacity shield emitter

With high electronics skill this character is able to craft a 1.5k capacity end-game shield emitter.

...continued in next post

7

Builds / Re: 3 PER Shotgun build - can't aim, dominate anyway

« on: October 19, 2023, 04:36:45 am »

I'm stumped. Fully stumped

8

Builds / Re: 3 PER Shotgun build - can't aim, dominate anyway

« on: October 19, 2023, 01:49:51 am »

Lemme guess
4 str + Rathound Regalia = meets strength requirement of sniper rifles?
Versatility = grants enough melee skill points for Expose Weakness to have a decent hit rate?
Infinitely useful because w2c is hard to come by/craft while Expose weakness only has a cooldown? And also Expose Weakness can reduce mechanical resistance by up to 60% while w2c ammo can only reduce mechanical resistance by 35%? Or maybe if you use both Expose Weakness and w2c ammo, mechanical resistance can be reduced by up to 95%?!?!?

9

Builds / 3 PER Shotgun build - can't aim, dominate anyway

« on: October 13, 2023, 12:49:20 pm »

Build

 
https://underrail.info/build/?HgUHBRADAwfCoF8AAB7CoGQAAGQebm5GS24AAAAAAABUYyRhFk7CsMKWU10IKVBiSMKyc-KzrAXit7AF378


Yes, its a 3 PER shotgun build, at level 30 with 160 skill points into guns this build has an effective guns skill of 143. Some underrail veterans must be having a seizure right now.

This build came about as a result of me searching for a build with the least amount of investment, in terms of feats and ability points. For most builds, it is required to push an offensive stat (e.g  strength or dexterity for melee weapons, perception for guns and crossbows, will for psi) as high as possible to grant large bonuses to a core offensive skill (melee, guns, crossbows, psi skill, etc.). As offensive skill governs both chance to hit and weapon damage, having a low weapon skill = low chance to hit + low damage even if hit = exponentially more frustrating playing the game. 

That is until I saw Leading Shot.

Leading Shot: Your shotgun attacks ignore 65% of target's evasion as long as there are no enemies in melee range to disrupt you.
(Ignores 90% of target's evasion when fully specialized)

I can't understate how much of a game changer Leading Shot is. With only 3 perception and 143 guns skill at level 30, a random passerby with 200 evasion will be breakdown-inducingly hard to hit. With fully specced Leading Shot this drops to 20 evasion, which makes it nigh impossible to miss even with such a low guns skill.

In practice, I've seen my chance to hit jump from 15% to 50% as soon as I got out of enemies' melee range. Its the difference between taking 15 shotgun shells to kill, versus taking just 2, with my tactical short vindicator.

Having low perception and low effective guns skill also results in low shotgun damage, but that can also be mitigated by another feat: Sixth Shell. A fully specced Sixth Shell will grant 20% more damage every shot up to 5 shots, with the 6th shot dealing 300% damage. In practice, the first opening shot is typically very lackluster (at least until the crafting of an end-game shotgun), sometimes going as low as a third of a mob's health bar, but the damage ramps up very quickly, and mobs start dying in 1 to 2 shots even before reaching 5 stacks of Sixth Shell.   

So in all, everything that this builds needs is simply:

• 5 strength for equipping shotguns
• 5 dexterity as requirement for Leading Shot
• Leading Shot (5/5 spec points)
• Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points)
• Max out guns skill

Another feat that is sort of mandatory is Escape Artist. The whole build revolves around Leading Shot, which requires no enemies to be present in melee range. If the character gets entangled in the presence of melee enemies, he/she will simply be a sitting duck for the entire entanglement duration, which most likely is a death sentence. This feat is highly recommended to prevent an F9 button press every time the character gets entangled.

With Escape Artist the requirements for this build is bumped up to:

• 5 strength for equipping shotguns
• 7 dexterity for Escape Artist
• 30 dodge for Escape Artist
• Leading Shot (5/5 spec points)
• Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points)
• Max out guns skill

Which still leaves a boatload of ability points and feats to invest into other aspects of your character. You can easily go 18 Agi and be unhittable, go 18 Wil and multiclass a Psion/Shotgunner, go 18 Int and do the max skill point challenge in this thread: https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=9633.0, or go 18 Str, carry a large waist pack, get Pack Rathound feat and roleplay as Al Fabet or something. Guess which attribute I went with =P


Buffing Perception

Although this character only has 3 PER, it is still advantageous to buff perception through buffs and equipment. The effect of a +3 Perception buff is more strongly felt when perception is low rather than when perception is already high. Refer to the following numbers for weapon damage:

3 per = 143 guns = 200% weapon damage
4 per = 160 guns = 212% weapon damage
5 per = 173 guns = 221% weapon damage
6 per = 187 guns = 231% weapon damage
7 per = 200 guns = 240% weapon damage
8 per = 214 guns = 250% weapon damage
9 per = 227 guns = 259% weapon damage
10 per = 241 guns = 269% weapon damage
11 per = 255 guns = 279% weapon damage
12 per = 268 guns = 288% weapon damage
15 per = 309 guns = 316% weapon damage
18 per = 350 guns = 345% weapon damage

 Going from 3 per to 6 per means going from 200% weapon damage to 231% weapon damage = (231%-200%)/200% = 15.5% increase in damage. In contrast, going from 15 per to 18 per only gives (345%-316%)/316% = 9.17% increase in damage. At 3 per, buffs to perception is well-worth it.

And a +3 per buff is very accessible too.  Perception goggles, Juice and Mushroom Salad provides +1 perception each, and Juice and Mushroom Salad lasts very long too, meaning this +3 per buff can last for many fights before needing refreshment.

For even more perception, Marsh Honey can provide an addition +2 per, although this +2 per will typically not last longer than one fight. 3 per to 8 per => 25% increase in damage.


My build explanation

Attributes

• 5 str – requirement for equipping shotguns
• 7 dex – 5 dex required for Leading Shot, 7 dex required for Escape Artist
• 5 agi – required for sure feet
• 18 con – my favorite stat. No other build gives the luxury of so many extra ability points to pour into my favorite stat, I'll be damned if I don't do it for this build. 18(+2) con at level 30 + bodybuilding feat = 1030 health on hard difficulty, absolutely mind boggling.
• 3 per – the defining feature of this build
• 3 wil – useless, dump stat
• 7 int – for all the crafting feats, especially Power Management for creating powerful shield emitters

Feats

• Leading Shot (5/5 spec points) - Mandatory, explained above
• Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points) - Mandatory, explained above
• Escape artist – almost mandatory, explained above
• Thick Skull – all of my builds have Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing.
• Nimble – reduces armor penalty from wearing pig armor
• Sure Step – great QoL feat for fighting mutants and spamming caltrops
• Conditioning – at 18(+2) CON this feat provides a 25% reduction against mechanical, heat and cold damage. This feat is just too good for a 18(+2) CON build.
• Grenadier – I found this feat most useful fighting against the natives in the Black Sea. Among the natives, the Sormirbaeren Sppaeters and Oyetsppaeters are the biggest threats to melee characters, and the Grenadier feat allowed enough cooldown reduction to spam frag grenades to insta-kill these enemies on sight, before they get any chances to cast bilocation.
• Power Management – the most important crafting feat, allows the creation of energy shield emitters with monstrous 2k capacities that can tank entire enemy squads' worth of firepower for a turn or two
• Gun Nut – simply more shotgun damage
• Skinner – results in a slightly better pig armor, I took this mostly to complete the crafting feats collection because I have too many feat points
• Clothier – results in a slightly better pair of tabi boots, I took this mostly to complete the crafting feats collection because I have too many feat points
• Fast Metabolism – the biggest problem with having so much health and being able to tank so much damage is replenishing the lost health after a fight. This is especially tedious on hard difficulty with doubled health hypo cooldowns. This feat helps, if just a bit.
• Survival Instincts – at 30% health this character has more health than a 3 CON build. This feat mostly serves as a flex I guess. Should have replaced this with Doctor to pair up the healing rate increases with Fast Metabolism.
• Increased Constitution – more CON to reach my 18(+2) CON dream
• Bodybuilding – more health to feed into my 18(+2) CON dream

Skills

• 160 (143) guns – the defining feature of this build
• 95 (119) throwing – enough throwing to reach maximum throwing precision
• 30 (48) dodge – for Escape Artist. Goggles reduce dodge by 25%, it'll be quite a waste to invest fully into dodge
• 160 (173) evasion – for explosive damage reduction and ranged hit chance reduction
• 100 (108) stealth – stealth is very useful in Underrail
• 100 (125) pickpocketing – to obtain all the faction oddities in Oddity mode. Also a good source of hypos to replenish the monstrous 1k health pool after combat.
• 30 (48) traps – dump skill, no idea where else to put points in
• 110 (138, 158 with workbench) mechanics – to craft the best shotguns
• 110 (138, 158 with workbench) electronics – to craft the best shield emitters
• 100 (138, 158 with workbench) tailoring – to craft the best armor and footwear
• 70 (108) chemistry – to craft Mark IV grenades. I forgot why I went so high, 69 effective should have been enough
• 75 (119) biology – I entirely forgot why I went so high with biology
• 84 (105) mercantile – to obtain the best crafting components

Equipment

• Weapon – Tactical Short Vindicator
  
  • Everyone says it’s the best, I didn't question it, I didn't use other shotguns for comparison, this weapon shreds and I was happy with it
• Headgear – Adaptive Goggles
  
  • See above section for explanation. I suppose this is the only time in the history of Underrail where Adaptive Goggles is recommended as end game equipment. To be honest, crit Goggles would have been better. If the character uses crit goggles, crit infused rathound armor, Recklessness and focus stims, the damage output of this character would be through the roof. But I did not use any of the crit stuff in my build, so I just went with Adaptive Goggles instead. 
    
• Armor – Padded Infused Pig Leather Overcoat
  
  • I got this for the +1 CON, for my 18(+2) CON dream
  • Padded for more health to feed into my 18(+2) CON dream
• Armor – Bison Leather Tabi Boots
  
  • I got this for the +1 CON, for my 18(+2) CON dream
• Belt – Shell Strap Belt
  
  • Yup
• Shield Emitter – Efficient high/low frequency shield emitter
  
  • High frequency mostly for base underrail, low frequency mostly for expedition
  • With high mercantile unlocking the best crafting ingredients, and Power Management feat to increase the capacity of crafted shield emitters, shield emitters with 2k capacities is well within reach.

Build review

Played this build on Hard Oddity. I did not expect this build to be so powerful. 

The start of the run is pretty brutal though, I did not get persuasion in order to obtain the Shoddy shotgun from Lucas. Instead, I was stuck with pistols and SMGs that, with only 3 PER, barely hit and barely do enough damage. Using 2 turns to kill one rathound with a pistol is an experience I will never forget. Should have taken some persuasion instead.

However, the game suddenly became easy once I reach Junkyard and immediately crafted a short vindicator with foregrip. Depot A turned out surprisingly easy, all mobs died in 2 shots as long as there were no enemies in melee range. All my other builds abused bear traps in Depot A; this character did not use any bear traps, just caltrops.

After Depot A, went to Core City and immediately killed the gangsters there (with the help of some Mark III frag grenades). On all my other builds, the gangsters were too powerful to take on immediately after Depot A, and I would typically finish Hathor Camp, Rail Crossing and pick clean Panacea Lab before attempting to take on the gangsters.

At level 18 I obtained a quality 140+ shotgun frame from Protectorate vendor, and crafted a tactical short vindicator. The resulting damage is 74-301, durability is 2490. From that point on my character turned from having an easy time to just being overpowered. F9 button presses almost became a thing of the past. Of course, the CON and high health pool contributed a lot.

At level 23 I crafted an efficient low frequency shield emitter with 2k capacity and went to genocide the Black Sea natives. It was the easiest time I had. The 2k shield coupled with 700+ max HP meant my character easily survived every encounter, and only had to watch out for Bilocation from the shamans. And even if a shaman managed to cast one Bilocation, I had enough health to tank all hits from a single Doppelganger until it disappeared. Of note, no bear traps were used during the genocide run either.

This build was so powerful that I 3-shotted Magnar on the first try, no F9 needed. For comparison, my level 27 Naked Puncher was having a hell of a time even on Normal, abusing stealth, traps, grenade spam and quickloads against the natives. 

I gave up on this build at level 23 due to the sheer boredom of being so overpowered.

10

Builds / Re: Build that can utilise the Chainsword?

« on: October 04, 2023, 07:37:23 pm »

Does using this weapon together with Expose Weaknes result in ignoring 100% DT/DR?

11

Builds / Re: The Naked Puncher - wear nothing, punch everything!

« on: September 28, 2023, 05:32:11 am »

"what else is he going to spend his skill points on?" - Mercantile, Persuasion? For extra conversation options and free money if nothing else.

Yep, of course, I'm just too lazy to figure out the question on which other skills to spend on

"Expose Weakness – this character's only tool against armored enemies": Corrosive Acid. Throwing is a skill for this build, i read? These benefit from high Dex, too.

After 500 hours of Underrail I learnt something new today! Thanks! But I doubt it would have helped my run as I did Expedition before DC.

"thankfully belts have no durability" - well, crowbars don't have any as well. And AKX (unique assault rifle), too. Maybe a naked high-Dex / Versatility AKX trooper / unarmed puncher could be a thing? Solves all that trouble in Expedition when unable to hit unreachable (for a melee) things.

Actually, I have another level 25 character who is also naked but uses the AKX only. He is the direct predecessor to this build. He exclusively uses the AKX so that I have no need to manage durability (assault rifles are notorious for durability problems). But that character keeps running out of ammo, and ammo management becomes a problem. I thought, what if I don't have to manage both durability AND ammo? Ended up with a naked puncher.

Crowbars have no durability....wait what??

12

Builds / The Naked Puncher - wear nothing, punch everything!

« on: September 28, 2023, 02:57:33 am »

Start a new game, take off the shirt that the character has, congratulations, that is the equipment that this character will use for the rest of the game. No weapons, no clothing, no magic; with only bare fists, punch thugs, soldiers, champions, mutants, beasts, robots, serpents, gods as the character journeys through the entirety of Underrail.

(Except the belt, just use any belt to your liking. I used Large Waist Pack for carry capacity)

The impetus for this build is because I am very lazy, and one day I got irritated too much constantly repairing my weapons and armor and keeping track of the number of repairs kits in my inventory. I decided to make this build psiless too because too lazy to keep track and maintain the two bars (PSI points and PSI reserves) and the items to replenish those two bars. Also no crafting skills at all, I'm too lazy to keep track and gather ingredients and recipes. 

 
Build

https:// underrail.info/build/?HgMPBwoDAwUAwqAAwqDCoMKgwqDCglDCoG4AAAAAAAAAAAAAAABPJGMgHQ1OFsKoBhITB8KzDD454p-EAeKfhQXiqKYF4ragBN-_


Build Explanation

Attributes

• 3 str - although every point of strength above 5 will increase bare fists damage by 5% MULTIPLICATIVELY (meaning at 15 strength it is a straight +50% damage, its huge!), this build does not have spare attribute points to invest into strength. Bare fists related feats which have strength requirements (e.g. Wrestling) are also not as important as those bare fists feats with dex requirements. So strength becomes a dump stat.
• 17 dex - increases melee precision and damage, decreases AP cost of punches, increases multiplier of multiple useful skills (throwing, melee, lockpicking, pickpocketing, traps), fulfills the dexterity requirements of some of the best feats in the game (Cheap Shots, Grenadier, Escape Artist). With 17 dex and the Lightning Punches Feat, without any Tabi Boots, AP cost of bare fist punch is reduced to 4. Dexterity is the best stat!
• 7 agi - fulfills agi requirement of 2 important feats: interloper and fancy footwork. Rationale for feats explained below. As a bonus, increases multiplier of dodge, evasion and stealth, the 3 skills included in this build.
• 10 con - all of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. 10 con offers a good amount of health not to die in 1 hit from all the bullshit that Underrail throws at you. Thick skull explained below.
• 3 per - dump stat. Useless for this build.
• 3 wil - dump stat. Useless for this build.
• 5 int - Solely for 2 extremely important feats: expose weakness and cheap shots. Rationale for feats explained below.
  

Skills

• 160 (336) Melee – of course
• 160 (200) Dodge – Defenses for a naked guy without any protection from equipment
• 160 (200) Evasion – Defenses for a naked guy without any protection from equipment
• 160 (336) Throwing – for all my other builds I find 110 effective to be enough, but for this character, what else is he going to spend his skill points on? A minor benefit with such a high throwing skill is, even when intimidated by yell throwing skill remains high enough to retain 90% precision.
• 160 (200) Stealth – for all my other builds I find 100 effective to be enough, but for this character, what else is he going to spend his skill points on?
• Pickpocketing – 160 (336) - for all the faction oddities and health hypos. For all my other builds I find 160 effective to be enough, but for this character, what else is he going to spend his skill points on?
• Lockpicking – 135 effective is enough for the whole game
• Hacking – 135 hacking is enough for the whole game
• Traps – still too many points left over, dumped leftover points into Traps. Allowed me to retrieve Plasma Traps from Black Sea to use against the Natives in my playthrough. 

Feats

• Expertise – Bare fist damage is so low that expertise can account for about half of the damage output of this character at times. This build probably does not work without this feat. Take at level 1.
• Expose Weakness – this character's only tool against armored enemies. Without this feat, it's 0 damage against Colossal and Psi Crabs, Strongmen, Dreadnoughts, Naga protectors, etc.
• Lightning punches – Combined with 17 dex reduces ap cost of bare fist from 10 to 4, resulting in 12 punches a turn.
• Cheap Shot – For one on one combat against an organic target, this feat allows one lone mob to be incapacitated indefinitely while being punched to death. If lucky, sometimes this feat can also incapacitate a small group of 2 or 3 all at once.
• Fancy Footwork – Allows kiting of slow moving mobs. Punch a mob till movement points are maxed out, run away, mob spends all AP chasing the character down and can't attack, repeat. Abused this especially for the Black Sea against crabs and strongmen.
• Combo – double damage every third hit. The double damage can be useful in overcoming armor sometimes. For example, a normal hit can hit for 4 to 5 damage, the combo can hit for 40+. Helps against some armored enemies when Expose Weakness is on cooldown. The stun also procs more than I expected and helped quite a bit.
• Improved Unarmed Combat – More damage, get it.
• Thick Skull – all of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing. If I am too lazy to manage durability on armor and weapons, I am definitely too lazy to fish for fish to craft bullheads.
• Nimble – More dodge and evasion, the only defenses this character has.
• Interloper – the stealth speed increase turns some unavoidable fights into avoidable ones. It also allows for way easier sneaking up to small groups to assassinate them.
• Dirty Kick – I love this feat on melee builds. Its a very good CC move that uses up no utility slot. Lasts 2 turns on human males, which occurs more often than not, because a huge chunk of enemies in the game are human males. Also, I always use this feat to cheese the arena. The arena consists of only human males for the gladiator fights, and a 2 turn stun is a guaranteed death sentence for all of them, except for the last one, because he has a very high mechanical DT that is hard to overcome with this build.
• Escape Artist – Getting entangled means being a sitting duck while ranged enemies freely throw machine gun fire and magic spells at the character. Dodge and evasion also drops to 0 when entangled, further cementing the character as a sitting duck. This feat is very important not to be a sitting duck.
• Grenadier – I found this feat most useful fighting against the natives in the Black Sea. Among the natives, the Sormirbaeren Sppaeters and Oyetsppaeters are the biggest threats to melee characters, and the Grenadier feat allowed enough cooldown reduction to spam frag grenades to insta-kill these enemies on sight, before they get any chances to cast bilocation.
• Deflection – Great against a multitude of dangerous mobs: crawlers, melee natives in the Black Sea, strongmen, crabs, etc. 
• Sprint – I had encountered many situations which Sprint would have helped, but with this build being so feat hungry I somehow managed to get to the end of the game without using this feat. Still recommended though.
• Increased Dexterity – Dexterity is best stat. This build also requires this feat to reach 4AP attacks.
• Expert Unarmed Combat – More damage, get it.

Specialization points

• 1/1 Expose Weakness: Duration – The most important specialization point. Some mobs require more than 2 turns to kill.
  
• 5/5 Expose Weakness: Resistance – Going from –50% DT/DR to –60% DT/DR does not seem like much, but considering this is the one and only utility against armored foes, may as well. 
  
• 4/5 Improved Unarmed Damage – Just more damage
  
• 5/5 Expertise – Each point of damage counts, considering how low base unarmed damage is. 
  

Equipment

• Weapons – naked! Nothing in this slot
• Helmet – naked! Nothing in this slot
  
• Armor – naked! Nothing in this slot
  
• Belt – thankfully belts have no durability, so I equipped this character with a Large Waist Pack for increased Carry Capacity. I would prefer Utility belt for an additional belt slot, but with 3 strength and no pack ratbound feat this character has a very limited carry capacity. 
  
• Boots – naked! Nothing in this slot
  
• Energy shield emitter – naked! Nothing in this slot (don't tell me shield emitters have no durability, I still have to charge it after every combat encounter, too lazy for that)
  

Why no crit feats?

Because both the damage of bare fists, and the critical damage bonus on bare fists are abysmal. A normal hit with expertise hits about the same as a critical hit. The following combat log shows it best, note that my char is at level 25, with 5/5 spec points expertise, 0/5 spec point cheap shot and no critical power perk:

Naked Puncher hits Sormirbaeren Krigsfar for 54 mechanical damage.
Sormirbaeren Krigsfar resists 9 mechanical damage.
Naked Puncher critically hits Sormirbaeren Krigsfar for 58 mechanical damage.
Sormirbaeren Krigsfar resists 10 mechanical damage.


Build Review

 I played this on Normal Oddity difficulty.

Pros

• No need to manage ammo, durability, repair kits, scraps, medicine components, Psi reserves and inhalants, etc. 
  
• No need to worry about wasting durability/ammo on trash mobs such as rathounds.
  
• No need to worry about a certain high level mob ruining your armor with rusting acid. What armor?
  
• Damage scale as your level. No need to look for higher quality crafting components to upgrade your weapon damage, as unarmed damage automatically scales with level.
  
• Enjoy 4 AP attacks by level 26.
  
• Very good DPS against unarmored targets, especially when approaching late game. 
  
• Able to indefinitely lockdown a single mob with cheap shots incapacitation. With up to 12 hits per turn and 15% chance to incapacitate per turn, this character can reliably proc cheap shots incapacitation one or two times in a turn.
  
• Unarmed inflicts a dizzying array of status effects. 
  
  • Cheap shots has a 15% chance to incapacitate per hit
    
  • Combo has 20% chance to stun every 3 hits
    
  • Improved Unarmed Combat has a 5% chance to daze per hit
    
  • Expert Unarmed Combat has a 5% chance to stun per hit
    
• Silent assassinations: unarmed is one of the most silent attack types. Stealth up to a lone mob, kill it in 1 turn. Stealth up to a group of 2, kill 1, incapacitate/dirty kick the other, kill it in the second turn. 
  
• You are Evelyn's worst nightmare.
  
• Go anywhere, unlock anything and everything. With no points in crafting, lots of skill points are available to invest in lockpicking, hacking, pickpocketing, stealth. Faction oddities can be stolen, containers can be picked to get oddities, doors can be hacked to access oddities lying around in locked rooms, vents can be opened to get around to secret areas. This build is very suited for an oddity run.
  

Cons

• Biggest bane of this build has to be groups of armored enemies. Armor drastically reduces the damage output of this build. Expose weakness is the only thing mechanism available to counter armored enemies, and it is on a 4 second cooldown. When there are multiple armored mobs, this character can only kill one, then employ other tricks to delay mobs until Expose Weakness is available again. 
  
• This build performs great on base Underrail, but Expedition is downright treacherous for this build for reasons:
  
  • Expedition is full of armored enemies that commonly appears in groups:
    
    • Crabs: this character does 0 damage to Colossal Crabs and Psi Crabs without Expose Weakness. With Expose Weakness, this character still need 2 turns flailing on a Colossal Crab to kill it. Psi Crabs are the worst; with Expose Weakness, this character still need an adrenaline shot and 2 full turns flailing on a Psi Crab to kill it. 
      
    • Strongmen: does 0 damage to strongmen without Expose Weakness. Thankfully, they walk slow and have no ranged abilities, hence it is easy enough to kite them using Fancy Footwork while waiting for Expose Weakness to cool down.
      
    • Plasma turrets: usually come in pairs, does a lot of damage, and have a long range.
      
    • Naga protectors: Nagas are so heavily armored that even with Expose Weakness, half of my attacks still did no damage. Only Combo hits did some decent damage. Had a lot of trouble against the 2 Naga fight on Normal difficulty, used 9 EMP grenades and 6 Mark III HE grenades total. And that was with the help of the plasma turrets, activated via hacking.
      
  • It is difficult to fight on maps which feature both land and water. (Actually this applies to all other melee builds) i.e.
    
    • Sormirbaeren temple – Sea wyrms spawn in the pools around the map. No jet ski in this map, totally cannot reach and attack them.
      
    • Fetid Marsh – Sea wyrms, serpents, and locusts roam the waters adjacent to the land that the character walks on, melee attacks cannot reach them while they spit all kinds of spits at the character
      
    • Parts of native village in Black Sea – forced to make beach landings while in full view of the natives
      
    • Abandoned Waterway Facility – there will be enemies in the water riding jet ski shooting guns while the character is on land, and there will be turrets and snipers waiting on land when the character is riding a jet ski.
      
• With 0 DT, this character is especially vulnerable to mobs spamming light attacks, e.g. SMG fire and the locusts in Fetid Marsh.
  
• No looking forward to upgrading the gear on the character as there is no gear to upgrade.
  

All in all, I had too much fun with this build, so much so that I managed to complete the entire campaign for both the base game and Expedition, something which I had not been able to do with other builds that I made.  [/list]

13

Builds / Gluck 17 build

« on: December 02, 2022, 02:02:18 pm »

Overview

One video to capture the essence of this build: youtube dot com / watch?v=0Z6LwBz3vow

The entire build revolves around one ability: Pistol Burst. This ability is only present on the Gluck 17 unique pistol, effectively turning this into a Gluck 17 build.

Pistol Burst: Rapidly fires 3 bullets (5 bullets once Gluck 17 is refurbished) with reduced precision. This is an unconditional special attack.

Important notes about its mechanics:

• Pistol Burst does not benefit from Commando, Full Auto or Suppressive Fire feat (haven't tested it personally though, feel free to prove me wrong)
• Pistol Burst is an unconditional special attack which does not benefit from Smart goggles
• The action point cost to fire it is the greater of 30 AP or 200% of active weapon's AP. As such, enough Dex and/or Gunslinger feat to reduce the AP cost of the Gluck 17 from 21 to 15 would be enough to lower the AP cost of Pistol Burst to its minimum.

Assuming enough Dex and/or Gunslinger feat to reduce the AP cost of firing the Gluck 17 to 15, a typical attack rotation is like this:

• Turn 1, 50 AP: Pistol Burst (30 AP), eat meds/do whatever (10 AP), save up 10 AP for next turn
• Turn 2, 60 AP: Pistol Burst x2 (30 AP x2)
• Turn 3 onwards: repeat

With adrenaline shot, the attack rotation can be like this:

• Turn 1, 70 AP: Pistol Burst x2 (30 AP x2), eat meds/do whatever (10AP)
• Turn 2, 70 AP: Pistol Burst x2 (30 AP x2), eat meds/do whatever (10AP)
• Turn 3, 70 AP: Pistol Burst x2 (30 AP x2), eat meds/do whatever (10AP)
• Turn 4, fatigued, 35 AP: Pistol Burst (30 AP), 5 AP left over
• Turn 5, fatigued, 35 AP: Pistol Burst (30 AP), 5 AP left over
• Turn 6: repeat

AP cost of 30 means Pistol Burst is still possible once per turn even when dazed.

Comparison to other burst builds:

• Vs SMGs:
  
  • Gluck 17's damage is inferior to late game SMGs
  • Late game, with enough Dex reduction, Spec Ops and Commando feats, SMGs can output far more bullets per turn than the Gluck 17 ever will
• Vs assault rifles:
  • Gluck 17's damage is far inferior to late game assault rifles, especially when combined with Full Auto and Concentrated Fire feats
  • On average, performs less bursts per turn than assault rifles. Assault Rifles can consistently burst twice per turn with the Commando Feat, maybe even more if using a crafted low AP assault rifle with rapid reloader.

The only advantage the Gluck 17 has, is that it ignores up to 40% of the target's evasion at close range.

In conclusion, Gluck 17 is a bad weapon for burst.

   
So what's the point of this build if the Gluck 17 is so bad?

Man... what the hell? Have you learned nothing so far? Why do you live if not for the journey of life itself? Do you stare at a lovely butt so that you can just say that you saw it, or to, like, appreciate the curves and the firmness, man. Do you swear at passers-by just to see them walk away, or to find amusement in their confused and agitated expressions. Do you drink just to get drunk, or to become a better man? The point is not what you should care or even think about. What do you want? Some abstract thing that will make you feel like you've accomplished something? You don't need that - you need to absorb yourself in the journey and enjoy it while it lasts, man. That's life, man.


Build considerations

I played on Hard Oddity.

• Pretty bad to build the Gluck 17 for crit, since its base critical bonus is only 90%. => Aimed Shot (6 Per), Sharpshooter (10 Per) and Scrutinous (11 Per) can be omitted
• Since most AP will be spent on Pistol Bursts, very little AP left to perform other pistol feats => Kneecap shot (7 Per), Point shot (6 Per), Rapid Fire, and Execute can be omitted
• Since all the Perception related feats are omitted, the only purpose of Perception is to boost Guns skill, which is quite the waste of attribute points. Instead, all the points can be moved from Perception to Dexterity, and turn this into a Versatility build.
• Since not building for crit, and the Gluck 17's damage is low by late game, and up to 10 bullets can be fired in a single turn, Expertise would be greatly beneficial. 10 bullets * 20 damage at level 20 = 200 damage

This means only 1 feat and 1 weapon is essential for this build: Expertise, and the Gluck 17 pistol.  Everything else can be customized to fit one's own playstyle. This is my build: underrail.info/build/?HgMQBgoDAwUoNwDCoMKgwqBkfTw8PAAAAA_CggAAAAAAAFNPY07CowgkYVANwrMoDsORFhdAEuKopgXita4K378


Build explanation

• Attributes
  • 3 str – strength not needed to hold a pistol
  • 18 dex – used to boost melee skill as high as possible, so that guns skill can remain high after the penalty from versatility. Dex also increases 4 useful skills: throwing, lockpicking, pickpocketing and traps, and at 18 dex it is a more than 2x multiplier on these skills, saving me many skill points.
  • 6 agi – Originally took 6 agi to take the Sprint feat, but in the end made do without the Sprint feat. Could have dropped this to 5 agi for only the Sure Step feat.
  • 10 con – All of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. 10 con offers a good amount of health not to die in 1 hit from all the bullshit that Underrail throws at you.
  • 3 per – No need for perception since this is a versatility build, and guns skill scale off melee skill and Dex instead.
  • 3 wil – No PSI here
  • 5 int – Originally intended to do some crafting, but in the end just used all non-crafted equipment.
• Feats
  • Expertise – great for this build. Explained above in build considerations.
  • Thick Skull – all of my builds have 10 Con and Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing. I rather be killing than fishing.
  • Nimble - more dodge and evasion when wearing light armor. Also negates the armor penalty from light armor.
  • Conditioning - many would say this is useless because the damage reduction is applied after DT/DR, but this is one of my favorite optional feats. At 10 con, Conditioning provides 15% damage reduction of the most common types of damage, effectively extending my HP bar by (100% / (100%-15%)) - 100% = 17.6471%. I have won many fights with just a sliver of health left, and would have been dead without this feat.
  • Sure Step - I take on my almost all of my builds. Caltrops is a very good tool that I constantly abuse, and Sure Step saves me the headache from having to traverse my own caltrop filled corridor after winning a fight, or traversing through the caltrop corridor to chase down an enemy. Sure Feet also lets me survive Depot A, with its mutants spilling huge puddles of acid everywhere during and after a fight.
  • Fast Metabolism - another QoL feat. Heal more = heal up faster, because the cooldown on health hypos on hard difficulty is equivalent to watching paint dry. And thanks to pickpocketing I have too many health hypos to use. This feat stacks with the Tchortist Bioscrubber too.
  • Dirty Kick - a very good CC move that uses up no utility slot. Lasts 2 turns on human males, which occurs more often than not, because a huge chunk of enemies in the game are human males. Also, I always use this feat to cheese the arena. The arena consists of only human males for the gladiator fights, and a 2 turn stun is a guaranteed death sentence for all of them, including the last one. (The last one still took me an additional flashbang though.)
  • Gun-Fu - perfect fit for versatility build because melee skill is already maxed out. However, in hindsight, the damage bonus is not significantly noticeable.
  • Grenadier - clutch for hard difficulty and above
  • Gunslinger - more initiative and less AP cost for Gluck 17's regular shots. Why not?
  • Trap Expert - another QoL feat. Saves me time planting fields of bear traps before a fight, and disarming the remaining traps after the fight.
  • Expose Weakness - Apply onto armoured enemy, immediately followed by Pistol Burst. Works great for armoured enemies, saves some W2C ammo.
  • Doctor - another QoL feat. I could always heal up faster after a fight. I thought of substituting this with Trigger Happy, which coupled with Gunslinger and Paranoia and 18 Dex would result in insanely high initiative.
  • Paranoia - a QoL feat that some people swear by, but I picked this because I have no idea what else to pick.
• Specialization points
  • Its straight forward, simply invest fully into the two feats crucial for this build.
    • Versatility 10/10
    • Expertise 5/5

Equipment

This build is very flexible in equipment, because nothing synergizes with Gluck 17, so you can wear anything. This is my equipment:

• Head: Tchortist Bioscrubber
  • Very good Bio protection, bonus health, bonus healing, 0% armor penalty and the penalty to perception does not affect this build, as the Guns skill scale off Dexterity thanks to Versatility
  • I wanted to try a Unprojector since not building for crit, but unable to find one
• Armor: anything, I'm wearing Spec Ops Gray Armor because it looks cool and has decent protections against bullets
  • Also switch out to a random Galvanic vest looted from somewhere for fighting spiders
• Belt: Commando Belt/Bullet Strap Belt
  • Commando Belt before level 20. Before both getting very high Dex (16 to 18) and investing many specialization points into Versatility Guns skill is quite low and needs the boost from Commando Belt. After level 20 can switch to Bullet Strap belt to reduce AP cost of reloading, which can be quite frequent in prolonged fights.
• Feet: anything, I'm wearing durability 2400+ antithermic tabi boots bought from Oculus
• Shield Emitter: I didn't use one for the entire game.
• Hands 1: Gluck 17
• Hands 2: anything, I'm using Kukri
  • Mainly using it for the passive Expose Weakness feat on the weapon. Sometimes when fighting armoured enemies and my own Expose Weakness feat is on cooldown, I would stab until it triggers Expose Weakness then blasting the enemy point blank with Pistol Burst
  • Another idea is to use Wicked Hook + Cutthroat feat for a 25 AP 3 turn stun?

Build review

I tried this build expecting it to be a meme build, but it's surprisingly decent and fun. The low feat requirements (only 1 Expertise is sort of mandatory) mean I can take as many QoL feats as I want (e.g. Dirty kick to cheese the arena, Trap Expert for faster spamming of bear traps on the battlefield, etc.). Versatiliy builds also free up many attribute points, which I invested entirely into dex to save many skill points in throwing, lockpicking, pickpocketing and traps.

Early game, from start until the completion of Depot A, is played as a mediocre knife user. After Depot A, I immediately went to Panacea Lab to acquire the Gluck 17 pistol. At level 10+, guns skill is so low that the pistol is still quite useless. I used it to take pot shots at enemies when my knife cannot reach them, but is never used as the main killing weapon.

Only after refurbishment and getting to level 16 or so, and equipping the Commando Belt does the Gluck 17's Pistol Burst becomes potent enough to kill at melee range. And potent it is, since pistols ignore 40% of the target's evasion at point blank, enemies tend to get hit by all 5 bullets at point blank range, which is enough to kill most enemies with 1 Pistol Burst. Except for Sormirbaeren Skaerders, they take 2 Pistol Bursts to take down.

Pistol burst is not good at range. At more than 4 tiles away its precision drops to below 20% and is a waste of bullets, unless it is used to spray a group of mobs in which case the 5 bullets will hit everyone else but the intended target.

However, Gluck 17 is surprisingly decent when performing regular shots at range, thanks to its inherent +10% precision. At higher character levels it precision can hover around 90% even when shooting at targets 10 tiles away. When this character reached higher levels and the AP cost of Gluck 17 dropped to 12 and below, I find myself doing regular shots at targets at range, usually killing them in 1 turn with 3 or 4 shots, then blasting enemies with Pistol Burst at point blank once they got too close.

Have already completed all content in the base game up to DC, and already performed genocide in Expedition. Again, I played this on Hard Oddity.