Underrail Forum
Underrail => Builds => Topic started by: DerivativeZero on December 03, 2019, 01:09:32 pm
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This build focusses around the insane critical damage of a Laser Pistol coupled with its low AP cost. Using Temporal Manipulation PSI, the build can shoot 7 times per round (70 AP) at level 20, doing roughly 500 energy damage per shot. When fully built, at level 26, it does close to 650 damage per critical hit, with 74% critical hit chance (both damage and critical chance can be even higher, see below). The laser pistol has a tight spread, so your damage will reliably be close to the average, a huge boon.
Counter-intuitively, this build has DEX 14, PER 11, CON 9 and everything else 3, incl. INT. This guy is not a scientist and probably only barely finds the on-switch on the pistol. With high INT, Laser Pistols (and Plasma Pistols) can get much higher critical damage, but I would rather delete 5 critters per round instead of overkilling 2 or 3. Even at DOMINATING, few enemies have more than 600 hp, so this is a sweet spot damage-wise. For bosses, you have to shoot more than once, yes.
Playstyle is to sneak into groups and attack from stealth/blindsiding. Setting up traps and tazer for opportunist does not hurt, especially early/mid-game, when your laser pistol damage is nowhere near that high. Before being able to one-shot easily, throwing nets, traps, force field and the tazer are your friend, for big groups grenades and flashbangs. Thematically, this fits nicely into a stealthy assassin playstyle (I wish Styg would remove the PER -2 on the brown robe, it really hurts on this build). Once you start speccing into Critical Power, the whole crowd control is no longer necessary, but with PER 11 you want to be sneaking close to your enemies.
The build is smoothly playable throughout the game, with rough edges in Depot A. You should get Elwood's laser pistol before even starting Tanner's first outpost missions so you can maximize your play time with a laser pistol.
Abilities: 3/10/3/9/9/3/3, +DEX+DEX+PER+DEX+DEX+PER
Feats (in order, feats in brackets not necessary): Survival Instincts (5 specializations into critical chance, after speccing Critical Power), Aimed Shot, PSI Empathy, Recklessness, Kneecap Shot, Ambush, (Grenadier), Psychotemporal Acceleration, Sharpshooter, Critical Power (10 specializations ASAP), Blindsiding, Opportunist, (Execute), (Nimble), Pack Rathound, Srcutinous, PER+2, (Trigger Happy)
Skills: Max Guns, max Stealth, max Electro (should be 115 or so with house bonus, I think), around 80 Lockpick, 100+ Hacking (see destroyor's guide on the necessary thresholds); in the beginning some throwing (30, more if you like your nets and 'nades), rush Psychokinesis (25 for force field, then after Depot A to 45 for Imprint), rush Temporal (to 35 for Temp. Dilation from Ethan in order to get the Psychotemp. Acceleration feat at level 10; this is easy to muck up in leveling, as this will happen in Depot A, and you need the PSI ability to select the feat; post Depot A, increase to 55 for Haste from Doc in Rail Crossing), After Depot A rush Mercantile for CoreTech shop stuff; you need some Biology for Gas Grenades, Tailoring later for the +10 Critical Chance Infused Rathound Leather, Chemistry for Grenades.
Ally with Core Tech as you will absolutely need high quality gear for laser pistol and goggles.
A note on low INT: I played many builds (including laser pistol) with high INT for better crafting and the QoL of Premeditation. I did not miss it here. You will be able to craft stuff later than usual (but you will have Elwood's laser pistol from level 3 on!), will need to make use of the house bonus and you will need other sources of stun than a free Electrokinesis, sometimes at the expense of AP. This is no problem. Later on, you will not need any crowd control as few groups are bigger than five or six people, and chances are, you will have killed them all in the first round after exiting stealth.
Gear: Laser Pistol (Q150ish for 20-27 damage, but don't bother once you are in the Q140ies, important is the Circular Wave Amplifier, which in the Q140ies translates into 280%+, this is sufficient but take more if you can get it), Critical Goggles (Q160 gives you +20% critical chance, Q140ish around 18%, which is good enough for me), Infused Rathound Leather (for maximal critical chance +10%), Tabis for movement and stealth.
Critical chance: 7 (Recklessnes) 30/35 (Survival Instinct, +5 Spec.) 7 (Scrutinous) 20 (Goggles) 10 (Infused Rathound Leather) 6 (Gun) = 85% (Focus Stim gets you a perfect 100%)
Critical damage: 20-27 base damage endgame, PER 13, Gun 160 (Eff.282) = 59-80 damage. With 288% Circular Wave Amplifier this translates into 972% critical damage bonus (includes Sharpshooter and fully specced Critical Power) and an average damage of 69.5 becomes an average critical hit of 745. With Blindsiding and Opportunist you are at 1043 energy damage. With 7 shots in an accelerated round, you deal an expected amount of 6244 energy damage per round (expected damage = mix of hits and crits).
With a critical chance of 85% and 7 shots, this build translates into 595 critical hits out of 700 hits (in 100 rounds of this sort) and likely killing 5 out of 7 enemies. You are really closer to 6 out of 7, but let's play it conservatively with our calculations.
I have played a lot of different builds on dominating, but I find this one extremely satisfying to play. I wanted to share it because I sometimes read on the forums how people say laser pistols suck. They don't. Not at all.
I had a lot of fun with this build, let me know if you have questions or comments.
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Bonus mini-guide: How to get Elwood's laser pistol before starting the game.
Buy 5 lockpicks, 5 bear traps, 4 grenades from the 200 SGS credits. Go kill the Lurkers in Blaine's map. Two close to the stairs (east of it) can be killed with a grenade. Hide from the onrushing two others. Kill the sledge guy in the north east or sneak past him to the map exit north east. On this map, there is a guy with a good tactical vest in the middle (grenades and bear traps to kill). East of him, in a locked area (lockpick 10) is a guy with an assault rifle. Same strategy to kill. Beware, a knife lurker in the North east will be attracted from the noise, so kite those two south if you can. Having gotten all this loot, if you still have the damage potential, kill two rathounds and one alpha rathound through the gate in the north of this map. This room (lockpick 15) contains a crossbow and a riot armor (seems fixed). Go back to SGS, buy an omni-tool and use the boat to Junkyard to sell all this stuff for charons. Buy some bear traps and grenades. Go to the casino and kill Elwood (he can be lured into a bear trap in the middle casino hallway, through which he comes alone regularly when going from room to room). Then get Kohlmeyer's mission and sneak into the rathound caves on the harbor map. Set up lots of traps at the entry to stop the rathounds, once they bunch up, 'nade them (might require some trying as your sneak is likely quite low and they easily spot you while trapping the place). Once done, emerge in Kohlmeyer's old backyard, stealth, open the door and retreat. Put a bear trap in the entry way, then open the fight with a grenade. This lures the guy with Kohlmeyer's knife into the bear trap, where you can finish him off. Apart from the knife, he always has 230 something charons in his chest, a lot of money at this point in the game. Return the knife (unless you play a knife build, then this should hold you for a while) for the experience reward. Buy an EMP grenade and go into Elwood's home in the back alley. You need lockpicking 35 effective (so this only works for high DEX people) to open the vent. I never managed at this low level to sneak past the three sentry bots (on DOMINATING). But using the vents, you can sneak past them to Elwood's living room. Throw a first grenade into the room to trigger all mines, close the door and wait for the plasma sentry to cool down. Then throw an EMP in the room and use the two rounds of downtime to open the chest near the bed and get your very first laser pistol (I read somewhere it can also be a plasma pistol, in which case you are screwed), leave the room. If you are still good on stuff, with the pistol you might want to try and kill some of the robots, but in essence you are done.
You have your laser pistol, some good party money, should have gotten to level 3 in the process and can now start the game for real, using a laser pistol to retake the outposts for Tanner.
(This strategy also works great for knife builds and for high INT chemical people, as the money will allow you to craft your first acid pistol quite early. On difficulties lower than Dominating, you can also try and get Milton's laser pistol near SGS, but I found that the critters on DOMINATING are too hard to sneak past, especially on the Psi Goliath beetle map past the Pig Caves.)
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Should be a really strong build, I think that electroshock pistol will be useful as second weapon (versus tight groups and bots). Nearly 100 percent crit chance overweights the loss of crafting feats (also no ambush = no problems in illuminated areas). And yes, when you have a laser pistol with Circular Wave emitter and fully specced critical power, damage bonus from various INT crafting feats will be meaningless, also you have 14 per - even more damage.
Is it annoying too keep low health to trigger SI ?
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Thanks for the comments, Kiruha!
I played a non-SI build using Electroshock Pistol and Electro-Feats/-PSI in Tesla Armor (she was called Storm, a thematic build, and she looked like a Superhero in that weird armor). The thing about E-shock pistol is, you manage to kill yourself easily if you don't stand far away (or at least I did without 100% Electricity protection). So I'm kind of not a fan of that pistol. It's immensely satisfying when it crits though, but on a SI build it sounds dangerous. Also, you get about three shots per round, and what I like about laser pistol is you can recalibrate during your round. All these builds with high damage and very few attacks aren't somehow my thing.
I don't know about S.I. builds in general. It helps if you know the meta (where the traps are etc.) but I never managed to pull off satisfying non S.I. builds in the sense that even at full health, there is always a number of enemies who can kill you easily, stun you etc. As I can't bring myself to grind for some 95% resist armor set (and find them slow and ugly on top of it), I find stealth and active defense more appealing. Your hitpoints don't matter for this then.
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That mini guide is pretty damn useful. I never noticed that the XP is enough to get 35 lockpick that early. Is it classic?
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Very well-formulated guide, thumbs up.
Some information, from having played many times (on Hard, Oddity):
-Underpassages, in the locked area with the rathounds and the alpha rathound on the second map, there can be a set of riot gear, but it is not guaranteed.
-Elwoods locker can contain either laser, plasma or electroshock pistol, I have seen them all. If you really want to bother with reloading you can probably reroll the chance by saving before you climb down to the basement.
-Give Old Jonas his watch back for free, and he will sell you batteries (ammo) at a decent price.
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Anybody saying energy pistols suck has no idea what they're talking about. Easily the best weapon.
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@ cypherusuh, yes, Classic. I have no idea about Oddity, played it only in my Pacifist Run and that one wasn't trying to get a weapon early ;) Problem with 35 Effective early is you need DEX very high. I'm glad you find the mini-guide useful, it seems like information that was in the forum in various places. I enjoy playing the beginning of Underrail immensely, where money is tight, you can really screw up easily and everything is like a puzzle: you can really predictably do most of the stuff in the guide despite RNG and character build. Reminds me of SubterminalOptimization's approach to the game.
@ Bruno, thanks! Ok, I was lucky I guess on the RNG (the tac vest of the guy is also everything from DR1 to DR7, at least what I've seen, with DR7 making GMS close to trivial). The type of loot you'll get in those rooms will probably also have a bearing how long you can keep going, down there, if you need to restock grenades and bear traps. A pistol build at that point potentially doesn't really have a good pistol unless they go Persuasion for the .44 in the armory. (I find triggering Jack's FedEx quest can give better pistols but it's one more grenade to waste early on the ambush guys and potenially luring rathounds to block the tunnel entrance, so mixed bag).
@ harperfan7: Yes, that was my impression, too. Which created the big dissonance with offhand remarks by some people here and on Steam/Reddit. I think the Circular Wave Amplifier/Critical Power+Specializations thing is key, but maxing Critical Chance with S.I. and Speccing Critical Power makes so many builds really shine (I was thinking of posting a similar guide for acid pistol. I played both a non-critical and a critical build, and while both are so incredibly fun and viable, the damage increase through Crit-Power is useful even on that base crit. damage 100% pistol, of course, in conjunction with Sharpshooter only).
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Anybody saying energy pistols suck has no idea what they're talking about. Easily the best weapon.
The only weapon choice when you want someone dead, really dead.
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I am brand new to the game and I am following this guide as well as I can. I didnt get laser pistol till lvl 5 but other than that im following it well. But I am confused on what Q150-140 means exactly I couldnt really figure it out on my own. But other than that this guide has been super easy to understand for my first serious playthrough.
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I am confused on what Q150-140 means exactly I couldnt really figure it out on my own.
Component quality. Most pieces required to make gear will have a quality value, that you can see on the information window for the component. Higher quality is (almost always) better, in that it will have stronger effects; however, higher quality also requires higher skill to craft with. q150 means quality 150. Quality is only applicable to components, not to finished gear. The finished gear has no quality value associated with it.
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At what level does this build really come online? - im atm level 9 going into depot A and I must say I'm getting horribly molested,managed to kill some humans and dogs on first map but mutants and acid dogs are just no go, can't kill even 1 dog with full round of point blank shooting, got laser pistol from elwood hause at level 3 from your mini-guide but even following build to the latter so far it really hits like wet noodle (talking 19-20 dmg and 40+ crits but also miss a lot like 30 % of times). The only thing that carries me so far is spamming traps and granades - grenadier is probably the most important perk so far for me so I dunno.
Either this build should be called "end game only laser pistol build" or I've done something wrong? At what level should I craft a better pistol?
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At what level does this build really come online? - im atm level 9 going into depot A and I must say I'm getting horribly molested
OP does say it has some rough edges around Depot A. That is, after all, generally the winnowing grounds for most builds.
You don't need to be doing the Depot at level 9. Even if you're playing Oddity mode, you can absolutely get one more level before you need to deal with the depot proper. If you're on Classic mode, level 12 isn't too much trouble and even level 13 is possible without any significant grinding. I would encourage you to go pick up another level if you're having such a hard time. And make sure, if you aren't doing this already, that you equip some sort of acid resistant armor, like Mutated Dog leather or Siphoner leather. It makes a world of difference on those mutant + dog maps.
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The build as many builds based on critical will shine from level 14 with critical power.
If you have a good smgs, you should use it (more damaging per ap) with a lot of molotovs, flasbangs, and grenades. I used laser only for bots before completing depot a.
Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).
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Yeah I'll need to grind few more levels, thanks for tip on armor, I only played on normal classic prior to this using pure psion but got bored early in Core City (whole Psion feels like cheating at times and not using all the weapons, gadgets etc feels bad for first playthrough even tho its recommended).
I have hard time deciding when to invest in crafting - around what level / progress you generally begin to craft gas granades, incendiary etc? I assume crafting pistol with crit thingy is pure late game correct?
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I have hard time deciding when to invest in crafting - around what level / progress you generally begin to craft gas granades, incendiary etc? I assume crafting pistol with crit thingy is pure late game correct?
Generally speaking, crafting should come last. You should usually try to raise crafting only when you need it. Incendiary and gas grenades have tiny requirements though and can be done fairly early. Likewise, it can be very helpful to rush 25 or 50 effective skill in Tailoring and Mechanics just to be able to break some things down and make repair kits. But aside from those early low thresholds, crafting should usually be the thing you invest in only when you have points to spare.
At the very least you should probably wait to craft your own pistol until after you've completed the Depot A quest. No sense blowing all your money on expensive parts that will only be half or even a third of the quality you can get just a few hours of playtime later.
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Sorry to hear you have a hard time in Depot A with the build. It's the part that annoyed me the most, too, with this specific char, as I wanted to use Laser as much as possible, but it did hurt a bit here.
In general, as all the experienced posters before mentioned: try to get as much done outside to level up. I usually even try for Abram's Maura quest etc. Playing only on experience, not oddity, so I don't really know how much you could do.
Meta helps as well: for instance, the dog maps usually have good choke points (the one with the turrets has the control room door, lure all dogs there, open, force field, wait, grenade, close, repeat; the old trick really takes the edge off). Many other groups also can be put into choke points with doors, where two or three bear traps help with CC.
As said above, with Critical Power LPs become powerful (Sharpshooter, Blindsiding, Opportunist around that level mitigate the fact that you cannot craft the best Amplifiers yet), before you have to rely on nets, traps, nades, and all and finish the trapped enemies off with a far from powerful laser pistol. Things get much chillier after Depot A, but tbh Depot A is really a bit of a spike.
Crafting on this char is the biggest disappointment for people playing higher INT characters (that and lack of Premeditation). You can really wait a bit. To give you a sense: I did level only Electronics below Lv10 on a regular basis. On Lv10 I had Elec 45, Chem 30 and Mech 25. It's not a crafter. Later on, Bio 20 for Gas Grenades, more Electronics, but INT 3 always means you are late to any crafting party and will want to rush the housing bonus.
Hope this helps a bit. I can post more damage numbers on different levels from my OCD excel sheet if that is of interest ;)
EDIT to add: The one thing I always crafted whenever money and parts allowed was a new laser pistol with the best amplifier I could put into. You cannot find laser pistols with higher crit damage bonus than 100.
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Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).
IIRC correctly all turrets can be attacked with laser pistol and then moved out of their range. Might be a bit grindy if you have to use Electrokinesis to get some more time for that, but hacking would not be strictly necessary. But I think it is hacking 60 that is needed for the console.
I get the point on Quick Tinkering, but this seems QoL, especially now that it costs AP. Conveniently placed bear traps beforehand go a long way.
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Thanks for replies guys.
I left depot A for now to grind some more exp (im on classic exp).
I went for Silent Isle quest first but quickly deserted from there too, need some more on demand punch for that place and when I saw Goliath right at the start I was like "yeaa nope". I went exploring around GMS compound and just cleared a big group of Lunatics using about 10 traps and 6 granades, I put some points into traps because there are a lot of traps around these tunnels than can be recovered.
Anyway most of my money goes into restocking on bear traps and nades atm but it pays off as I get investments back killing big packs of psychos who carry meds, nades and more money.
I think I'm back in tracks for now.
Will report back after Depot A.
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Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).
IIRC correctly all turrets can be attacked with laser pistol and then moved out of their range. Might be a bit grindy if you have to use Electrokinesis to get some more time for that, but hacking would not be strictly necessary. But I think it is hacking 60 that is needed for the console.
I get the point on Quick Tinkering, but this seems QoL, especially now that it costs AP. Conveniently placed bear traps beforehand go a long way.
You are right about turrets, you can do without hacking them. Plasma are very very long to get down. It is QOL definitely, it will save a lot of resources.
For quick tinkering, it is more than QOL. It helped me to CC Depot A enemies with guns or crossbow. It is one of many solutions to clear peacefully some maps. It depends on your playstyle, you can finish the game without using it. I found it very convenient for early stages as your damage output per round is low.
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Quick tinkering would be missing for me. It is useful at any level and helps to block enemies on a door.
It is also important to have enough hacking for disrupting plasma turret (55-60 needed?).
IIRC correctly all turrets can be attacked with laser pistol and then moved out of their range. Might be a bit grindy if you have to use Electrokinesis to get some more time for that, but hacking would not be strictly necessary. But I think it is hacking 60 that is needed for the console.
I get the point on Quick Tinkering, but this seems QoL, especially now that it costs AP. Conveniently placed bear traps beforehand go a long way.
You are right about turrets, you can do without hacking them. Plasma are very very long to get down. It is QOL definitely, it will save a lot of resources.
For quick tinkering, it is more than QOL. It helped me to CC Depot A enemies with guns or crossbow. It is one of many solutions to clear peacefully some maps. It depends on your playstyle, you can finish the game without using it. I found it very convenient for early stages as your damage output per round is low.
I don't want to diminish QT at all, but for the build it's not necessary and there's not a lot of room for feats. For Xbox, counterintuitively, QT did not a lot for me, as the Shock Bolts are so great at CC, I stopped using traps altogether on that build ;)
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Thanks for replies guys.
I left depot A for now to grind some more exp (im on classic exp).
I went for Silent Isle quest first but quickly deserted from there too, need some more on demand punch for that place and when I saw Goliath right at the start I was like "yeaa nope". I went exploring around GMS compound and just cleared a big group of Lunatics using about 10 traps and 6 granades, I put some points into traps because there are a lot of traps around these tunnels than can be recovered.
Anyway most of my money goes into restocking on bear traps and nades atm but it pays off as I get investments back killing big packs of psychos who carry meds, nades and more money.
I think I'm back in tracks for now.
Will report back after Depot A.
Phyriel, that's definitely a good idea, I never thought of these Lurkers, but there is a lot to be found on the maps.
Let me add one other thing (I don't think you wrote what difficulty you are on): Even on dominating, many areas can be also stealthed for better gameplay. If you gone for the build I sketched and maxed stealth, and maybe found some stealth gear, here is what you can also do:
Silent Isle can be completed without killing anyone (or only the rats) and you stealth either west or east (depending a bit on luck) to the the west coast oddity and north west coast quest object plus oddity. You can always come back later to kill the bugs. Or not. Just make a named save before entering the Isle as stealthing can be a bit luck dependent. Grenades can also lure the bugs on one end of the isle and you go the other way.
Depot A can also be stealth without killing anyone (!!!). A guy did it in 15 min or so on youtube and I stealthed it in my pacifist walkthrough. If you don't kill everybody, all of the sudden, Depot A gets much much much less daunting. For instance: The acid dogs on the mine field map (not Wyatt's map) can be ignored. You just sneak into the control room, open the two computer operated doors and leave the map. The mutant and dog map that you access from the gangster's hideout (not the one from the wormhole) by going North twice, is completely optional, too. When you enter that map from the fenced off area, acid dogs and mutants team up and completely destroy most builds, so why bother. (Entering it from below ground in the north gives you a better choke point, but it still sucks as hell and half my builds just ignore that map.) You can even sneak past the acid dogs and mutants on Wyatt's map, but it also takes some luck and practice. The dogs and muties below ground are all that remains and they are much less troublesome.
And you can always come back later, but on oddity, why bother killing them at all?
Hope that also helps.
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Plasma are very very long to get down. It is QOL definitely, it will save a lot of resources.
OPs build has Temporal Manipulation, so all you really need to do is dance in and out of LOS and lay down 4-stacks (should be 7-stacks but without Tranquility and Premeditation, 4 is the best you can do without buffing AP) of Temporal Distortion. It takes a while but it's resource-free. There are no turrets in early-game that can't be easily LOSed.
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Well I'm playing on Dominating because I wanted to go for hardcore experience having played pure psi build only before up to Core City, and on normal so yeah... on normal I wasn't really forced to utilize many tools nor plan ahead that much.
But I'm here to report I finished depot A and got haste and imprint which are massive boost to my fighting capabilities, also got parts for first crafted pistol - only 169% crit but I bet it will be a huge boost also. I'm probably gonna do harold and big bret quests now before heading to rail station.
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Well I'm playing on Dominating because I wanted to go for hardcore experience having played pure psi build only before up to Core City, and on normal so yeah... on normal I wasn't really forced to utilize many tools nor plan ahead that much.
But I'm here to report I finished depot A and got haste and imprint which are massive boost to my fighting capabilities, also got parts for first crafted pistol - only 169% crit but I bet it will be a huge boost also. I'm probably gonna do harold and big bret quests now before heading to rail station.
Congratz! I think the worst is behind you.
With the open world now there is a lot that can be done. Harold and Hathor are a sane choice. On the more insane level, you could also rush Core City now, the electronics dealer can have stuff for the laser pistol. In Core City, CoreTech faction missions are doable but require cheese and open up the best electronics dealer. For that you need mercantile 90 and having access to gas grenades for the third CoreTech warehouse mission, which is amongst the most difficult missions on low level without directly beartrapping the entrance cheesing the crap out of that one. Core City Gorsky preparation missions should also be doable for a shield emitter and good XP. Marty in upper underrail might also sell good stuff. The world is your oyster from now on ;)
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Core City it is then :) Don't have quite enough chemistry to craft gas nades yet but will do in one level, one question regarding gas nades, I found liquid nitrogen at vendor is SGS but where do I get fillers for toxic gas granades? on wiki it says its in toxic barrels but havent found any yet. Can you buy them somewhere?
About cheese, man this game is made to invent new ways to cheese stuff, I hardly even fight anything yet without completely blocking choke points with traps, feels kind of bad sometimes but snipers one shot me and xbow lunatics net -> stun is nasty. Atleast those kind of enemies can be cheesed, however I decided to explore some caves with TNT and got myself into caves filled with death stalkers, well... I reloaded pretty fast to say the least. I don't have good energy shield yet for mechanical/slow stuff, I only found some generic high energy shield so far so I think gorsky mission is my first stop in Core City.
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where do I get fillers for toxic gas granades?
Sometimes general goods vendors like Harold (I think that's his name) on the Engineering level of SGS will have them. You can also sometimes loot them from toxic barrels in the world. For example, if you go into the Underpassages near SGS, there's an area with some toxic gas spewing out of some barrels. One (or maybe more?) of those barrels has what you need.
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Went for Gorsky mission
but I need to pass it... I have to go through vent system and get past guess what... death stalkers. I can't deal with them at my level, they just molest me in 1 turn.
Edit: not when I pass stealth check and drop few traps for them to walk in and then pour some gasoline over their heads. Nasty fuckers.
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Yeah, DOMINATING is about cheesing and meta. Think about Newton directly at the beginning, how can you kill all the bugs in a "normal" fight?!
Different builds do different things, so tin cans might not get one-shotted or stunned, but a glass cannon like this build will never deal well with getting hit at all. Shields may later mitigate some damage, a good tac vest, too, but the better strategy is not get hurt at all. Know where the mines are etc.
Same for Crawlers. Once you know where they are, you cheese around it. It's fun to think about these strategies though, even if role-playing immersion is gone, but I think most people have played the game a couple times before they go dominating, so the story is known and the tactical aspects become more interesting. ;)
The closest toxic barrel is in the Core City Sewers (entrance at dock map), once in there, go West once and there's a steaming barrel. Gets enough grenades but there's also more barrels down there.
If you have trouble with the CoreTec missions, I can give you some hints, but you seem to have things covered now :)
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Yeah thanks for all the tips tho. Now I stockpiled on cryo, toxic nades and magnesium nades so I got tools to push forth. Proly will have to reload here and there but its not as hopeless as depot A felt where I had no damage, no money for more traps, nades and it all felt like end of the line. I have a feeling enemies that have a jump on you will make me reload the most and also scripted fights where you can't setup your fight properly maybe?
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Yeah thanks for all the tips tho. Now I stockpiled on cryo, toxic nades and magnesium nades so I got tools to push forth. Proly will have to reload here and there but its not as hopeless as depot A felt where I had no damage, no money for more traps, nades and it all felt like end of the line. I have a feeling enemies that have a jump on you will make me reload the most and also scripted fights where you can't setup your fight properly maybe?
You're welcome! Glad you feel better about the character now :) Scripted fights (with lots of enemies) and higher initiative are the bottlenecks. Some of them can be fun, but if you are unlucky and have to repeat them ten times due to a lucky shot out of nowhere (or one your shield doesn't absorb, or a misplaced grenade turning allies hostile) ... well, I screamed in some of the scripted battles in Expedition... >:(
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One more thing about crafting pistol, do you opt for smart module to increase special attacks damage? or high energy converter / polarizer?
I'm thinking about high energy converter to not waste time reloading so often.
Also one thing about plasma pistol - I've read that high enough quality of polarizer in plasma pistol can actually apply 2 stacks with 1 shot with close to 100% chance. Wouldn't that make it a good off hand weapon to open up fight with against bosses?
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Yes, usually the energy efficiency seemed more desirable. I've crafted a second laser pistol with smart module to play around with execute a bit, but it never seemed strictly necessary. It might help on lower levels though.
I have zero experience with polarizer, but if you one-hit adversaries, the increase in crit chance doesn't add anything.
Plasma pistols do so much damage (especially with smart module and execute) to one-shot bosses, i think. I never liked plasma pistols for their high AP, so my experience with them is limited. Most (I think "all" is more correct) bosses go down after seven shots with a laser pistol. The gain from one shot with plasma in terms of polarizer might not be big. You should have 70%+ crit chance in any case and could add a focus stim or hardcore chips for boss fights. I never had too, so this might be overkill. Also, the sound of the plasma pistol makes my skin crawl ;)
TLDR: high energy efficiency converter & amplifier combo rules :)
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To build on DerivativeZero answer:
Plasma is not AP efficient versus Energy. They may have a better ratio damage per AP but you cant fire a lot so you will waste AP. With 18 dex, a regular energy shot will do from level 25 around 750+ for 9 AP, a regular plasma shot will do 2000+ for 24 AP. You rarely need to spend 24 AP to kill 1 enemy. Energy pistol is far more efficient. If you count the possibilities not to crit and not to reach, it is better to miss with energy than with plasma. On your build, you will end up with 14 dex, this favors even more Energy over Plasma. Other points for Energy over Plasma, it is that Plasma has half damage on heat that is more widely resisted than energy and it is shorter range.
A pistol that is very useful on energy crit build is Electro pistol. It is very interesting because it may kill 4 enemies with 1 shot.
Regarding the module, amplifier is obvious on a crit build, smart module is interesting as it may replace Plasma when you Aimshoot, energy converter is a must in my opinion as it could reduce consumption from 11 to 3 energy per shot (numbers are estimations with high quality component). You will almost never lose AP for reloading in a fight.
Polarizer is very useful for enemies with energy resistance. You may see particularly nasty enemies with very high energy resistance later. With a polarizer, they will die in 1 round. Very situational.
One last point on Polarizer, a high quality one will have 50% chance to add +3% crit chance so it is very very small. The good point is that it decreases energy threshold in 50% so next shots will be painful for unprotected enemies.
The best set up could be: Amplified Efficient Energy + Amplified Smart Electro (For super high opener that will kill 3-4 enemies).
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Ok I'm here to report my progress.
I got pretty dope pistol with 280+ crit amplifier and its a night and day difference between this one and old one I had with 210crit. Now indeed I can kill 4-5 enemies in 1 turn while before I was getting swarmed and had to rely on mass traps, choke points.
It's deffo been a struggle mid game tho when my pistol was hitting like a wet noodle and I'd need 6-7 shots to down single enemy or fish for crits but even then it'd take 3 crits to kill some beefier gunners etc. This build heavily relies on traps/granades in mid game, at some point I barely used pistol but kited to buy time for nades cooldown.
Having low int is not a big struggle as high level components that are worth using come late anyway when you don't spend skill points on much else, there is an argument to be made that having higher int would improve midgame and actually make it a pure laser pistol build (without being a trapper, grenadier for good few levels) but I think this build is only viable to be played that way in high-end scenario aka if you can't thin down the crowd by 4+ with early mid game crafted pistol then it's not improvement at all because you'll gonna get demolished as you can't tank damage from multiple enemies that early anyway. So I'd say going low int is very intelligent (pun intended) decision and it ramps up late game power much more by having fuckton of high dex low ap shots.
That being said I tested out plasma crit pistol with polarizer and its a very good albeit not needed addition to the build as you approach 20+ level but dont yet have mechanics, tailoring needed for goggles and crit armor (so you're floating at much lower crit chance) With it you can set up an aimed shot against dodgy/evasive enemy with stun/incapacitate and just demolish a guy - I pretty much one shotted Carnifex with that gun.
I gotta confess tho that I probably played this build wrong and always healed myself to full thus wasting survival instincts, you really gotta man up with this build and walk around <30% hp and heal only when you know you gonna get ambushed by some invis lurkers, crawlers.
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I gotta confess tho that I probably played this build wrong and always healed myself to full thus wasting survival instincts, you really gotta man up with this build and walk around <30% hp and heal only when you know you gonna get ambushed by some invis lurkers, crawlers.
I gotta agree ;) :'( :'( :'(
Now I understand your frustration with early and midgame. I played the build from Lv3 as laser pistol; I guess we found the problem now.
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Three agility on dominating? No stealth i presume? Unless you kill all enemies on sight as they appear, you will get toasted.
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Three agility on dominating? No stealth i presume? Unless you kill all enemies on sight as they appear, you will get toasted.
Not at all. Max stealth, as I wrote, and AGI 3 is completely sufficient to sneak around, even on dominating. The build is able to stealth and meant to play that way without any issues.
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Ok, sorry ive omitted stealth by accident. So with rathound armor you get 27 movement points? Any other armor recommendation or uniques? Let's say you don't kill a group, how do you escape? Pop a forcefield? With small amount of movement points, without sprint you can't really move much, you get 57mp with haste.
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Ok, sorry ive omitted stealth by accident. So with rathound armor you get 27 movement points? Any other armor recommendation or uniques? Let's say you don't kill a group, how do you escape? Pop a forcefield? With small amount of movement points, without sprint you can't really move much, you get 57mp with haste.
Depends a bit. In the beginning, when the laser pistol is weak, you use all you have at your disposal: bear traps to prep chokeholds around corners, taser, nets, the environment. Later you get Imprint, can stun with electrokinesis if you need it badly. The movement has always been plenty (and restealth grenades might also work, though, I never used them), sure, high AGI builds have much more and that gives you much better mobility, but you do have plenty of options if you realize a fight doesn't go well. I used the stealth to scout and know where enemies are and get close enough to have a good hit chance.
Also, laser pistol is not too loud, so often stealthing around, picking off individual enemies can prep a fight well in your favor as well. But yeah, if you think real big groups like lurker prison, you better prep a nice choke hold and lure people there.
In terms of armor: infused rat hound for crit.chance, not so much movement. I preferred the light tac vests as they look better, but if you want to max crit. chance, definitely this.
I think I also always had some stealth gear (black cloth armor, stealth generator) around, but can't remember ever needing it. For what it's worth, I played the Balor mission (which is a typical sneaky mission without any problems with the build).
Edited to add: energy shields also help. Picking off targets so that in the worst case people remain, who can't penetrate your shield.
Edited again to add: Force Field is also excellent to block damage, if people have to move around it first or it creates the chokehold you need for imprint or traps
Edited yet again: Grenades and flash bangs against big groups help too. If you have seven shots and expect to kill five, this does cover most groups, so if you come against a really big group, all of the above should be an option as you won't likely have run out of flash bangs etc.
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New experimental patch nerfs the critical power, so the build will definitely not one shot enemies now :(
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New experimental patch nerfs the critical power, so the build will definitely not one shot enemies now :(
Possibly. Haven't done the calculations yet, but with opportunist on rooted or tased enemies, damage is still quite high. And most enemies even on dominating have less than 600 HP and the numbers given in the OP weren't the maximum possible. But yes, the new patch might be bad news for many critical builds, including all snipers using rapid spearheads... kinda sucks. I downloaded the current game files via GOG so I can continue to play with the current rule set ;)
If you want to try a critical build, NOW is the time :-X
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I am a new player and i dont know for real. I mean i am sure your build have so much sense and is very good late game. Few months ago i finished the game on DOM playing crosbow build with traps and i rly enjoyed that so much. As for your build i am in corecity rn and i am having problem with quests there. As far as i remember so much into the game with crosbow i was almost twoshoting anybody that steped into my trap. Rn i need to use same play style with your build with sad crits and very low dmg. To be honest my main dmg comes from granates,mołotovs and traps that my char is not skilled in at all. Maybe as u said u need good energy pistol cuz the one i crafted myslef is not rly good. I mean criting the lunatik greneadiers for 1/5 hp after they steped into my trap and i hapens so rarely i dont rly see it very much. Dont get me wrong your guide was rly good inc the early enegry pistol. and i rly enjoyed my playtrough inc Depot A that went like a smoothie compared to my crosboww build nightmare there. But After depot A and geting oportunist game went rly smooth there with crosbow and here it got so much harder i am thinking of reroling my build. Maybe i will rush Coretech story line to get ebter pistol i dont know. PS. i got decent componets for laser pistol but guess what bcs of low int and 0 mechanics i cant craft anything hahahaha.
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This kind of builds begins poorly, especially with low int. Laser pistols needs to be amplified to get good. You're in for a slog till level 14 for Critical Power and probably 16 for good pistols (assuming you unlock benches and hypercerebrix around this point).
It will end up very strong, though.