Underrail Forum
Underrail => Builds => Topic started by: TheAverageGortsby on July 25, 2019, 06:50:21 pm
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Heads up to newcomers: psi just got changed a lot. This guide remains current for folks not playing the experimental branch, but a few posts down I have updated recommendations for this New Psi.
So you're new to UnderRail and you want to know how to make your psi character the best? Or maybe you've played before and don't know why you'd ever want to take one feat over another? Welcome! Here I'll try to explain what makes psi builds great, and why.
At a very surface level, I just want to start by saying that full psi might be the most powerful build in UnderRail, but it almost certainly is the build that will allow you to see the most that the game has to offer. Not only is psi going to give you a whole host of abilities to play with so that in almost any situation you have the best tools for the job, but a full psi build will have heavy investment in both Will and Intelligence, which are the two stats that boost the "soft skills" in UnderRail; Persuasion, Intimidation, Mercantile, Hacking, and all the crafting skills. So by building into psi, you're also building into the skills that give you so many other options in the game world.
Alright, put on your robe and your cave wizard hat. Time to build a character.
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You're probably going to want to start with a stat distribution like this. If you're really, really certain that you don't want Fast Metabolism, you can even run with 3 Constitution but for high difficulty levels or new players, that extra health from more Con is really going to be worth it. While 10 Int is my strong recommendation, you can get everything you need with just 6. If there's some feat you just can't live without, you've got some points to spare. Those extra points can go anywhere you like. More Con is a popular choice. If you plan on being very stealthy and dumped Con in favor of being the glassiest of cannons, then you'd probably want to put points in Agility. And as anyone who has been killed by Death Stalkers a thousand friggin times can tell you, Perception isn't a bad place for a few points, either.
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Once you've placed your stats, you need to set your skills. For full psi, it's pretty easy. The core of your starting skill set should look like this, because there are several Persuasion and Mercantile checks in the very early game that will get you some nice things. I usually put my remaining points in Hacking and Lockpicking, because the very first quest you get sent on will have several hackable and pickable boxes with loot. Don't forget to buy some lockpicks, as well as a Haxxor plus one battery. You should be able to get those and still have enough credits to pay for your first ability in both Temporal Manipulation and Psychokinesis, which you are going to want to have before you walk out the front door of SGS into the caves.
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With both stats and skills done, it's time to think about your starting two feats. Here there are some good options, and a few that underwhelm.
Fast Metabolism: Always recommneded if you have the Con for it. The bonus healing is nice no matter what, and since it also increases the healing from Regen Vests, you'll get benefit from it even if you rarely pop healing hypos. The +33% to psi booster effectiveness is really excellent. Especially for Psychosis builds, you're going to be running low on psi all the time. You may see people telling you that Psychosis shouldn't take the feat because you don't get a deeper psi pool, but I have to disagree. Any time you use a psi booster and get more than 75 psi, you're benefitting from this feat.
Snooping: While absolutely not necessary, Snooping is handy for finding hidden things in the world. While you can - with every possible buff active at once - find all secrets with just 3 Per and no Snooping, you'd have to wait until you were almost done with the entire game to get to secrets that you could have found much earlier. Consider Snooping if you want to see everything, or if you want to level up quicker when playing Oddity mode.
Pack Rathound: A popular choice. Many full psi builds will only have 3 Strength, so carry capacity won't be terribly high. Though psi doesn't need much equipment, you'll still find yourself overburdened often if you like to pick up all the loot you see. Pack Rathound will help you get around the world more quickly and with less hassle.
Paranoia: A good support feat. Psi usually doesn't have very high base initiative so that +5 is nice; psi usually doesn't have terribly high Perception so that +20% is nice. And psi usually doesn't wear metal helmets so the crit reduction is nice.
Sprint: If you have the Agility for it, why not? Full psi doesn't need it at all, though, because full psi gets an ability that gives more movement points than sprint, lasts longer, and also gives bonus action points. Don't feel like you need Sprint. But if you've got a high Agi anyway for maximum sneeki, you might want to think about picking up Sprint.
Conditioning: if you're going with a very high-Con build, Conditioning isn't terrible. However, it is worse than it looks on paper. Not a complete waste, but not recommended either.
Nimble: If you know you're going to be a sneaky ninja this can be OK. However, most full psi builds aren't going to put points in Dodge or Evasion, so Nimble is weaker for full psi than for most other builds.
Ninja Looter: If you want to pickpocket, this is a reasonable choice. Picking pockets is more helpful on Oddity mode than Classic mode for psi, because you don't have much gear cost and thus don't need the free ammo. But some NPCs do carry Oddities.
Sure Step: This feat will feel very useful in Depot A, and will always be nice if you plan to use caltrops or acid pistols. However, by mid-game your psi skills will have grown to the point that you won't need to relocate through acid puddles, and caltrops will be serving you better when thrown far away.
Quick Pockets: For psi builds, not really worth it at all. You won't be as reliant on grenades because you'll have options that mirror many of the effects of grenades; you won't be as reliant on a taser because you'll have multiple abilities than can stun.
Versatility, Opportunist, Expertise: Unless you're veering into hybrid build territory, these should offer no benefit to your character so probably don't pick them up.
There may be other feats available to you, depending on what skills you decided to pick up. While I do recommend Snooping and Fast Metabolism, especially for first-time players, if there's another feat you've just got to get, go ahead.
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Here come the levels! Power, fame, and glory! Or, at least, a bunch of corpses to loot, and some more skills and feats to gain. What are the important Psi feats? Glad you asked.
Level 2: Tranquility or Psychosis. Here's where you set the tone of your playthrough. Psychosis excels at direct damage, and on the three easier levels can often kill entire groups with an opening salvo of psionic power, ending the fight before it even begins. Tranquility reinforces a cautious play style, shaving Action Point costs off of psi abilities while your character is at full health and allowing you to do more things in a turn. Either one will get you through the game just fine, so pick whichever you think will be more fun to play. Pick one of these two feats at level 2; you cannot have both, so the other will be excluded.
Level 4: Force User. No matter what it looks like to you on paper, this ability is a game changer. The four-turn force field alone would be worth it; the increased TK Punch damage is just icing on the cake, but that icing is going to be very important time and again as you progress through the game. Take this feat at level 4; it is so powerful that there is no other feat you can have available at that level which would compare favorably.
Level 6: Premeditation. Any full psi build without Premeditation is suboptimal. There are no exceptions. You need this feat. Robots or animals clawing at a door, trying to kill you? Open the door (25AP), Premeditate a useful psi ability (0AP!!), and close the door again (25AP). Non-psi builds would kill to be able to abuse such a simple mechanic. Enemy just out of range? Premeditate. Not quite enough psi points to use an ability that would really save your life? Premeditate. Used up all your AP but one enemy is still left alive? Premeditate. Always take this feat at level 6.
Levels 8, 10, 12: Here you have some room to personalize. Pyromaniac is an excellent choice - most early and mid game enemies are living, and living creatures hate being set on fire; they panic and run around, taking extra damage and not attacking you. Pyromaniac not only increases the average damage of your fire abilities, but it can provide amazing crowd control when fighting large groups. Other great choices include Meditation/Psionic Mania, which are the follow-on abilities for Tranquility and Psychosis, respectively. Psionic Mania is a must-have for Psychosis; Meditation, while very nice to have, is not a must-have for Tranquility so can be skipped if you see something else you just have to have. If you've got Expedition and thus Temporal Manipulation, you may wish to consider Psychotemporal Acceleration which will turn your psi haste and slow from half-decent abilities into amazingly potent ones. Future Orientation will let you use all your abilities more frequently, whatever they are, by getting in more LTIs - grenades, healing hypos, psi boosters, psi abilities, anything with a cooldown. Psychosis builds may wish to consider Neural Overclocking and Psychostatic Electricity for more frequent, bigger crits. Thermodynamicity will let your character activate more psi abilities per turn as long as you alternate hot and cold - that can result in a lot of psi points spent, so it may be worth it to hold off until you've got some psi cost reducing gear, later.
Cerebral Trauma, Continuum Ripple, and Cryogenic Induction are not worthless but they are decidedly less useful/powerful than other feats named here. If you like the sound of them, please do feel free to experiment and explore, but if you're having a hard time with the game, set those aside and go with some of the stronger feats to help you out.
Level 14: Locus of Control. Like Premeditation (and, to a lesser extent, Force User) Locus of Control (or LoC) is such a powerful ability that nothing else can compare to it. Make sure you have 75 points in Thought Control, and then take this feat at level 14, always.
Levels 16,18,20,22,24: More room to personalize your build. Anything you wish you could have picked up in the levels 8-12 "free zone" can be picked up here. Any crafting feats you absolutely can't live without, now is the time to get them. If you've been exploring and completing quests, you'll have gotten to level 16 in a reasonably short time, certainly long before you've even seen all the areas in UnderRail, much less played through the content. You'll also be strong enough to handle going to Black Sea, if you've got the Expedition DLC.
You may have noticed I haven't mentioned Hypothermia, Mental Subversion, or Telekinetic Undulation. I would not recommend these abilities for an optimal psi build. They do have their place in niche situations, but overall, they are the very bottom tier of psi feats. If you wish to experiment with them, as always, do so. They are useful for builds which focus very heavily in a single psi school.
Level 26: Advanced Psi Empathy. Whether Tranquility or Psychosis, whether quad psi or focusing heavily on just one or two schools, psi cost reduction is worth the health pool reduction. You can certainly swap this and my suggestion for the next feat out if you would prefer the higher effective skills right away, though.
Level 28: Increased Will or Empowered (school of choice). By this point in the game, you've probably worked your way near to the end of Expedition (unless you're playing DOMINATING Classic mode in which case you might not even be done in Core City yet) and are starting to prepare for the long trip into the Deep Caverns. It's time to make those psi abilities that you use most often even more effective. Either of these veteran feats will serve you well.
Level 30: Whatever you like. Congrats, you have become a cave wizard of epic powers, a veritable Mushroom Merlin. You've certainly put enough time into your character to know what will serve you best.
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How should you assign skills during character growth? A snapshot of level 1 and then one of level 30 isn't always going to be the most helpful, especially for players who find themselves a little lost in all the possibilities UnderRail has to offer. Here are a few suggestions for how a good build might look. This is not by any means the only way to build your character, but if you're looking to see and do as much as possible in the game, this will get you close to optimal results without requiring an excessive amount of metagaming and foreknowledge.
Level 4: http://underrail.info/build/?BAMDAwYDCwoAAAAAAAAAHh4AABQAAAAAAB4eHh4AD1A2Kz8U378 (Tranquility)
http://underrail.info/build/?BAMDAwkDCwkAAAAAAAAAHh4AABQAAAAAAB4eHh4AD1A2KywU378 (SI Psychosis)
A few points into Mechanics early on will let you repair something that you'll find while doing some early quests. You don't need to put points there. If you don't care about it (all it does it provide a slightly faster route to move between maps that you'll possibly never come back to again) then you've got points for another skill - perhaps you wanted Stealth, Traps, Throwing, or something else. "Where'd Thought Control go?" It's not important to have any TC skill just yet. If your build concept requires that you have some other skills early on, you can ignore my previous recommendation to go 4x15 in psi skills, and leave TC and even TM at 0 for now. But soon you're going to need some TC, so that bill will come due one way or another.
Level 8: http://underrail.info/build/?CAMDAwYDDAoAAAAAAAAAMjIAACMADwAjIzIyIx4AD1A2Kz8UKi7fvw (Tranquility)
http://underrail.info/build/?CAMDAwkDDAkAAAAAAAAAMjIAACQADQAkIzIyIx4AD1A2KywUKmXfvw (SI Psychosis)
Your early foray into Persuasion gave you access to an easy solution for a quest, and though you didn't *need* to get your Thought Control to 35 before going on the second quest for the Eels, it sure did make that quest easier and more immediately profitable for you. Some Mechanics and Tailoring will let you start recycling items into scrap to make Advanced Repair Kits; that's a big help when you've got five sledgehammers you can't carry back home. Add in a touch of Chemistry and you can start making your own molotovs which are always nice. You may want some of that skill for crafting other things, too, before too long.
Level 12: http://underrail.info/build/?DAMDAwYDDQoAAAAAAAAAMkYAACMADygjRkZGPB4AD1A2Kz8UKi5kPd-_ (Tranquility)
http://underrail.info/build/?DAMDAwkDDQkAAAAAAAAAMkYAACQADCkkRkZGPB4AD1A2KywUKmVnZt-_ (SI Psychosis)
Got to get that TC up so you're ready for Locus of Control at level 14. Picking up some Bio is helpful so you can carry around ampoules and flat beakers and do on-the-spot reduction of heavy biological tissues into their refined compounds. However, if you need those points elsewhere for your particular build, you can certainly do without. In all likelihood you haven't quite yet picked up very many good blueprints for making drugs and medicines anyway. In all likelihood, somewhere around here you've gone to Depot A and come back with the quest item, opening up the world. Now you can *really* start to explore UnderRail.
Level 16: http://underrail.info/build/?EAMDAwYDDgoAAAAAAAAAMloAACMyDygjS1paPB4APFA2Kz8UKi5kPSHCiN-_ (Tranquility)
http://underrail.info/build/?EAMDAwkDDgkAAAAAAAAAMloAADIADy0yS1paSx4APFA2KywUKmVnZiFi378 (SI Psychosis)
You've picked up Locus of Control and are now essentially unstoppable. Psychosis has plenty enough health to start feeling safe running around under 30%, so it's time to pick up SI and become a mobile crit bomb. Lockpicking is nearing max useful value. It's a good time to start picking up Mercantile if you've got points to spare, because you're going to be playing UnderRail for a while and merchants are going to restock, so you'll have anywhere from several to a lot of inventory restocks to look through, depending on how quickly you get through the game. You may not be able to craft a q156 item yet, but if you see it for sale, you grab it up and stash it. From here on out, you work on your psi skills, fill in any Social or Subterfuge category skills you want, and then just start piling points in crafting. You're going to need, at a minimum, Electronics, Mechanics, Tailoring, and Biology to make all the gear you're going to want to wear, so be prepared to spend a lot of points in Crafting. You have to start worrying about overinvesting, now, because you're high enough level that some of your skills will exceed any check in the game. As a rule of thumb, if you don't want to metagame and get spoiled, just don't level skills like lockpicking, hacking, mercantile, and crafting skills until you see a need for them to increase.
This isn't to say these are the only two ways to build a character, of course. There are myriad paths to success. But builds somewhat like the two examples here will give a player the ability to see so very much of what the game has to offer. And, should what you find be hostile, plenty of ability to blow it up with your mind.
edited to update build links after character builder move
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Updated recommendations for New Psi
Current as of: 29 September 2020 and patch 1.1.2.4
Newest update: No changes to psi build/play theory
General Info
With psi points now being globally scarce, and psi ability variety being restricted during combat, it is now extremely important that a "full psi" build be highly efficient. Not only do we need to specialize in our desired school and abilities, we need to make sure that we use them in maximally efficient ways. The good news? The learning curve for psi just got very, very flat. The bad news? Unless you just want to challenge yourself, there is now One Correct Way To Play Psi (though depending on what school(s) you want to focus most on, the specifics change slightly).
Psychosis built full psi is once again weakened. It is still DOMINATING-viable but Tranquility has been nerfed less than Psychosis in the current iteration of the patch - though again, depending on how you want to play you may be able to duck the worst of the nerfs.
Building a New Character
You still want 10 Will to start, but now you have a very real choice to make - 6 Int will be the minimum sufficient, 8 Int will be ideal, and 12 Int will be more than needed for optimal play. You need to figure out what other stats you want and where you want your Will to end up, before setting your Int. If you have no idea what you should do, play 8 Int. That will get you, currently, 6 readied abilities which as I will show below, is plenty for the entire game.
I do recommend 6 Dexterity now, if you can fit it into your build, because Grenadier is about to become your best friend. For those who play with truly extreme efficiency, Grenadier is not necessary, but you will want a fair bit of throwing (unless you're OK with reloading on misses) because you're going to need to rely on correct grenade placement when it counts.
High Constitution is more valuable than ever before. Get as much of it as you can spare, but hopefully at least 7 points.
Put skill points into two psi schools. I recommend Metathermics and Psychokinesis. You can leave Thought Control and Temporal Manipulation at 0 if you like - unless those are the schools you plan to play heavily, obviously. However, I'm going to try to make a case that Metathermics (possibly plus one other school) is probably the best way to play under the current rules.
Levelling Up
Stats: As before, Will is very important for a full psi character, but it's possible that some builds will want to rush to 12 Int before boosting Will. There are currently only 8 slots with the final unlockable at 12 Int, but even at the starting value of 10 Int seven of the eight slots will be available. Because you will have a limited selection of psi abilities during a fight, it is more important than ever that those abilities be as useful and powerful as possible. Thus, I believe Will is now more important than ever for full psi, and I really don't recommend running a full psi build with under 14 Will.
Skills: We're going to be using a lot of grenades, so fit in some Throwing as best you are able. A little bit of Stealth is going be more useful than before, so maybe try to find a way to fit that in, as well.
Feats: Tranquility/Psychosis at lvl2, Premeditation at lvl6, and Locus of Control at lvl14 are still must-have. Force User is still must-have if you're going to use Psychokinesis primarily. Meditation is now must-have for Tranquility, as Psionic Mania is must-have for Psychosis. Thermodynamicity and Pyromaniac are now must-have for Metathermics. Cerebral Trauma is now must-have for Thought Control. Temporal Distortion is no longer an efficiently viable damage source on DOMINATING but on other difficulties, Continuum Ripple is now must-have for TM. Neurology will be an increasingly useful QoL feat. Hemopsychosis will be very valuable for all builds, especially for non-SI builds with Regen Vests. If you did roll with 6 Dexterity, Grenadier may be an attractive choice as well. Veteran Empowered feats are still useful but require additional long-term thinking in their application; I don't strongly recommend them but they will be valuable for some players and builds. The new Optimization and Flexiblity feats may be useful depending on how you intend to build and play your psi character.
Specialization points: Premeditation is more valuable than before, both cooldown reduction and cost reduction. Take both. Thermodynamicity spec is no longer especially attractive but is still useful if there's nowhere else you'd like your points to go. Force User spec is attractive especially stacked with a headband module to increase punch damage, much like Cerebral Trauma spec is attractive for Premeditation+LoC+Neural Overload nuke builds (but these should be less powerful with the increase in damage blocked by Resolve, so beware).
Combat in the New Psi, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Metathermics
Metathermics is currently the best school of psi to play if you want to get through combats with the greatest psi efficiency. You only need 3 abilities to make this work (though I'd recommend 4), and in the entire game, there are only five fights that are highly resistant to this school (counting all native invasions as one, for purposes of grouping, even though certainly depending on how you play there may be several invasions). Psychokinesis and Thought Control are viable primaries as well. Temporal Manipulation, while technically possible, is not an ideal choice as a primary due largely to the need to cast many spells quickly to get the most out of its main damage spell.
ThermoD was "nerfed" in a most curious way, this patch. It does less damage, but its damage mechanism wasn't changed, so it still scales out of control if you can group up enemies. It also requires fewer Action Points to use, making it reasonable for use without Premeditation. This leads to an inescapable conclusion.
Innervate Cryokinesis, Thermodynamic Destabilization, Pyrokinesis, and Pyrokinetic Stream. Find a chokepoint, and lay down as many bear traps as necessary to make yourself safe. Now, make some noise; you might use a grenade, or perhaps you'd like to carry around a firearm. In any event, what you want is to gather enemies up, which the AI will gladly do. At this point, you should
Place ThermoD on the highest health enemy you can easily kill and which is near the middle of the group (5-10 AP, 30 base psi cost)
Cast Cryokinesis on the target most likely to survive the explosion (7-10AP with unspecced Thermodynamicity, 15 base psi cost)
Throw a grenade (15 AP)
and if necessary,
Premeditate a Pyrokinesis (0 AP, 20 base psi cost with unspecced Premeditation)
After the explosion, as needed
Cast Cryokinesis (7-10AP, 15 base psi) on any stubborn survivors and if you like
Throw another grenade, or
Cast Pyrokinetic Stream.
Congratulations! You have mastered New Psi!
If you would prefer a more classic Psychosis approach, then Innervate Cryokinetic Orb, ThermoD, Cryokinesis, and Pyrokinesis, and after you've acquired a group as you prefer,
Premeditate + Psionic Mania + Cryokinetic Orb (0 AP, 30 base psi cost) and if anything survives
Cast Thermodynamic Destabilization (5 AP with unspecced Thermodynamicity, 36 base cost) and either
Throw a grenade (15 AP) or
Cast Cryokinesis (10 AP w/unspecced Thermodynamicity, 17 base cost) on a secondary target if needed, then end with
Pyrokinesis (17 AP, 48 base cost) or
Throw a grenade.
Congratulations! You have mastered New Psi!
In the event you're dealing with highly flame-resistant enemies, I would suggest:
If dealing with robots, throw a grenade (EMP, plasma, or both)
If dealing with Bladelings like during the Beast fight, then after you've laid down a lot of traps, you should throw grenades down into the kill zone - gas grenades and HE are a great combo, and as the gas debuff ticks on them, even incendiary grenades will do damage.
If dealing with heavily armored enemies, then you should throw a grenade or two to augment your ThermoD damage.
Of course, you don't need to use Metathermics at all. Other builds will also be viable.
For Psychokinesis builds, you'll be working with a lot of stuns. Your psi will do very heavy point damage but not much AoE damage, so you should probably throw some grenades to clear up the weaker enemies while you Innervate and use Proxy + Punch/Implosion and Electrokinesis + Electro Trap. I'd recommend something like:
Lay down traps to create a chokepoint, and make some noise. When the enemy comes running,
TK Proxy (5-10AP, 15 base cost)
Force Punch on a hard target (5-10 AP, 50 base psi cost) then
Premeditate an Electrokinesis (0 AP, 18 base psi cost) to get an additional stun. Then you should probably
Throw a grenade (15 AP) to kill off weaker enemies, and if necessary
Throw another grenade to incapacitate any survivors. At this point you've probably burned through most of your psi pool, so probably take a booster and end the turn. On the following turn, clean up by
Moving the Proxy (5-10AP, 15 base cost) and/or
Electrokinesis (25-30AP, 35 base psi cost). If there are still survivors, you may want to escape LoS so that next turn, thanks to Grenadier, you can
Throw a grenade to clean up what's left.
Congratulations! You have mastered New Psi!
Similarly, Thought Control is still quite viable. You'll only need to Innervate two abilities: Enrage and Neural Overload. Anything else will be QoL. For easier fights against groups of organics, you may want to just
Lay down as many traps as needed to create a chokepoint, make some noise, and
Premed + LoC + (Psionic Mania if Psychosis +)Neural Overload (0 AP, 7 (9) base psi cost) then if anything survives,
Throw a grenade (15AP).
For harder fights against living targets, it might be wise to
Create chokepoint as before,
Premed + LoC + Enrage (0 AP, 25/30 base psi cost) and then
Throw a grenade (15AP) to get some damage down. Keep out of LOS, so you aren't targeted by the enraged enemies, and when enrage drops,
Throw a grenade (15AP) thanks to Grenadier, and if needed,
Throw another grenade (15AP) and/or
Cast Neural Overload (13/18 base AP, 15/18 base psi cost)
Congratulations! You have mastered New Psi!
Even Temporal Manipulation should be possible on any difficulty, though it'll be a good bit more expensive in inhalers and psi boosters over the course of a game. Innervate Temporal Distortion and Entropic Recurrence, as well as Limited Temporal Increment and Psychotemporal Contraction. TD really requires that it be cast a lot of times in quick succession, and preferably on large groups to get the best effect from Continuum Ripple, so Tranquility is really the only good choice for a TM primary build. Probably the most efficient TM cycle would be:
Lay down as many traps as necessary to create a safe chokepoint. Make some noise to gather a group, then
Throw a grenade (15AP) to put some damage on the enemy then
Throw another grenade (15AP) to incapacitate them if organic or stun if robotic. End the turn.
Stack as many TDs as possible on one target and end the turn.
Stack as many TDs as possible on the same target (or another, if you're doing weak group cleanup and would rather Ripple than use more grenades) and get out of LoS/get your shield up. On the following turn,
Throw a grenade (15AP) and, if you've got a strong enemy causing you trouble,
Entropic Recurrence (5AP, 15 base psi cost) to echo that heavy grenade damage. From here on out it's just a matter of playing keep away until your TDs / ER ticks wear them down.
Congratulations! You have mastered New Psi!
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Any opinions on Thick Skull for high Constitution builds?
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Any opinions on Thick Skull for high Constitution builds?
Never take Thick Skull for a high-CON psi build. LoC will allow you break out of a stun with no lasting effects, but a Thick Skull trigger will put Daze on you, and LoC will not break daze.
Never take Thick Skull as psi if you are capable of taking LoC.
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Nice build.
For Begineers, you're not strictly bounded to this build. This is pure psi build.
For example, You can bring psi-monk with this one. Put some point on dex and bring some points to Trap - Quick Tinkering(pretty nerfed, though).
Lightning Punches and AP Reduction from DEX makes a lot of damage to
Lightly-armored ones,and with expose weakness, you can bring down everything. Espacially.. Large Eye thing.
Oh, and LoC and Pneumatics and Combo makes a lot of CCs, so no worry bout that. and..TC Mirror Image thing offers almost 100% defense chance against almost everything(Not AOE).
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Good work!
Fast Metabolism: Always recommneded if you have the Con for it. The bonus healing is nice no matter what, and since it also increases the healing from Regen Vests, you'll get benefit from it even if you rarely pop healing hypos. The +33% to psi booster effectiveness is really excellent. Especially for Psychosis builds, you're going to be running low on psi all the time. You may see people telling you that Psychosis shouldn't take the feat because you don't get a deeper psi pool, but I have to disagree. Any time you use a psi booster and get more than 75 psi, you're benefitting from this feat.
With Expedition it's even better for Psychosis builds since there's now a new way of increasing PSI pool that doesn't cost feats or item slot.
spoiler: Philosophy feat
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Thank you for the detailed guide! The reserved post could be used to highlight useful abilities (spells) as I don't see them mentioned elsewhere. What's good and what isn't sort of.
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Also, could one squeeze in a stealth build alongside psi and what do you think it would cost? Some crafting? Less con?
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Also, could one squeeze in a stealth build alongside psi and what do you think it would cost? Some crafting? Less con?
If you keep your crafting fairly high, you can get by with 3 Agi and 60 points invested in Stealth, as long as you're willing to swap out gear. A stealth set is really light, anyway - about 7, assuming you're wearing a cave hopper stealth overcoat (or rathound regalia), black cloth balaclava and ninja tabis. Add in a cloaking device and you're going to be able to sneak past nearly everyone. Later on, if you wear infused hopper leather, it gets even better. An agility steak plus, maybe, Jumping Bean to move you along a little faster and you can stealth through Emporion Mall on DOMINATING.
Where do you get 60 points? If you're willing to squeeze your crafting skills tightly and give up most of your chemistry, you can pull it all out of crafting without sacrificing a single thing. All you need to do is always go back home and buff up with Hypercerebrix before you craft really top-tier stuff.
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And as anyone who has been killed by Death Stalkers a thousand friggin times can tell you, Perception isn't a bad place for a few points, either.
Not sure a few points in PER matters, at least on DOMINATING. My 15 PER dominating build (will hit 17 level 26) with almost 400 detection tried exploring the caves across the river from Hathor... And promptly got ganked. I had to put on q150 motion detection goggles to even see the crawlers, and it wasn't reliable.
I think relying on torch spam and traps may be more consistent than 2-3 points into perception, if even a 15 perception score doesn't feel like its enough (without specialized goggles, at least).
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Not sure a few points in PER matters, at least on DOMINATING. My 15 PER dominating build (will hit 17 level 26) with almost 400 detection tried exploring the caves across the river from Hathor... And promptly got ganked. I had to put on q150 motion detection goggles to even see the crawlers, and it wasn't reliable.
If you aren't stealthed, then you only have a second or so to see them before they get close enough to activate combat - no amount of Perception will really do in that terrible case. But since we're talking about psi builds here, I figured I could assume some psi shenanigans. 5 Per (or 3 + Paranoia) is plenty enough to reliably see a Death Stalker on DOMINATING in two turns, which is as long as your force field will last even if you haven't picked up Force User. So hopefully you looked around, saw skeletons, red dreams, bone piles, or other hints of Crawler activity, then made some noise, manually entered turn-based bode, and barriered up. Your noise pulled the DS which kept you in turn-based combat mode, and by the time your force field dropped, you could see their outlines and deny them their main advantage - the first strike.
No amount of stats will overcome ineffective play, but you can do a lot with just a little as long as you're playing cautiously.
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Just accept the fact that death stalkers are meant to be cheesed. Throw a few molotovs around or back into a corner and spam quick tinkering+trap or the psychokinetic imprint.
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Hello there. New player starting my second playthrough here. I royally screwed up my first one (playing Destroyor's tin can burst AR build) and had to say fuck it once I realized that Deep Caverns was going to be miserable with the Faceless hostile. I wasn't particularly enjoying the burst playstyle anyhow, it was rather boring albeit extremely effective. So I poked around this forum a bit and found this thread. I now have a level 10 psychosis character who has just finished Depot A and the Black Eels epic slaughter of the Scrappers. It's been a real blast to play, completely engaging and drastically different than the Tin Can. I'm wondering if you could give me any pointers on gear choices however, since my previous 60+ hours of playtime revolved around acquiring/crafting the best metal armor and assault rifles I could and not much else. Currently I'm just carrying around Kohlmeier's Lucky Knife for the defensive buff and rocking Siphoner tabis and the best insulated vest I could buy thus far. I have a decent pair of mutated dog tabis and armor that made Depot A almost trivial compared to my first run through that dump. Also using a lifting belt and a universal psy headband since I didn't see any real better options. Also just found a pretty nice med freq shield at the end of Depot A. What goodies should I be looking out for as I venture forth into the greater underrail both in the short term and the long?
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- Drugs. Focus Stim, Aegis and Trance. For the Trance/Aegis ingredients, go foundry's mines. For blueprints, Aegis is sold by Fixer (Junkyard), Focus Stim and Trance by Heidi (Core City). Need a 70 biology investement.
- A better energy shield emiter ie. invest in electronics and craft thy own.
- Detection googles. Invest a bit of mechanics and a lot of electronics and craft them. Help badly with traps and stealthed humanoids.
- A doctor's pouch. Reduce Drug usage to 2 ap, down from 10. Really help for long fights or just popping a Psi booster at the right time then using an AP-costing ability. I don't know if there is a fixed place to loot one (outside SPOILER BY CAREFUL Deep Cavern SPOILER OVER IT'S FINE) or if it is sold by a particular vendor.
- An universal psy headband WITH enhancements. So hop hop invest in electronics/biology (already done for your drugs)
- If you're a full PSI (you invest in all 3 or 4 psi schools), futher psi abilities sold by easy-access doctors : Enrage and Temporal Contraction in Rail Crossing, Thermo destabilization in Foundry, Telekinetic Proxy in Core city
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- A doctor's pouch. Reduce Drug usage to 2 ap, down from 10.
Thank you! It makes a huge difference. Appreciate your reply and help. Any thoughts on armor? Sturdy Tac Vest with Psi Carapace a viable option here? If so, is a Super Steel Sheet a worthwhile option on it or should I not bother? Planning on Infused Siphoner Tabis for footwear. Got my hands on some Boxing Gloves already too. I'm loving blowing everyone up and causing chaos with this character! :D
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Any thoughts on armor? Sturdy Tac Vest with Psi Carapace a viable option here? If so, is a Super Steel Sheet a worthwhile option on it or should I not bother? Planning on Infused Siphoner Tabis for footwear.
Tac vest with psi beetle is probably the best choice for a psi character (maybe riot gear if you happen to have enough strength, but generally speaking tac vest). Sturdy vest is a good starting vest; Regenerative Vest is probably the better choice down the line, especially with Fast Metabolism.
I don't like grinding Super Steel because the quality spread is so wide and with decent Mercantile you can reasonably expect to get a decent panel of 150+ quality - but that said, if you don't mind the grind, super steel is great. YOu probably want a little for infusing leather, anyway.
If you don't mind the penalty to stealth, you might even like Infused Pig leather striders. +30 carry capacity, +1 Con, +move points, no increased chance of getting critically hit. But siphoner tabis are great.
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Any thoughts on armor? Sturdy Tac Vest with Psi Carapace a viable option here? If so, is a Super Steel Sheet a worthwhile option on it or should I not bother? Planning on Infused Siphoner Tabis for footwear.
Sturdy vest is a good starting vest; Regenerative Vest is probably the better choice down the line, especially with Fast Metabolism.
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If you don't mind the penalty to stealth, you might even like Infused Pig leather striders.
Regarding Regenerative Vest, doesn't that defeat the purpose of running SI? Figured Sturdy would be a better choice so I had a higher health pool overall to work with at that magic 30% threshold.
As far as boots go, I don't mind the stealth hit at all (I've been playing this char pretty loud tbh) and I LOVE the extra carry capacity. Infused Piggies it is! Thank you for the information sir.
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Regarding Regenerative Vest, doesn't that defeat the purpose of running SI? Figured Sturdy would be a better choice so I had a higher health pool overall to work with at that magic 30% threshold.
Absolutely, I didn't see you mention SI in your previous post (though I did see you mention Psychosis so perhaps I should have assumed). Clearly if you're running SI then you don't want a Regenerative Vest.
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Regarding Regenerative Vest, doesn't that defeat the purpose of running SI? Figured Sturdy would be a better choice so I had a higher health pool overall to work with at that magic 30% threshold.
Absolutely, I didn't see you mention SI in your previous post (though I did see you mention Psychosis so perhaps I should have assumed). Clearly if you're running SI then you don't want a Regenerative Vest.
Ah, my apologies for not making that clearer on the outset. I suppose Sturdy vest is the best option then after all. Since we've touched on SI, I guess it's appropriate for me to ask if you think Specialization in SI is worthwhile? Or is it a no brainer to pump the points into Psychosis itself? Locus of Control cooldown as well as Premed both look juicy too. There are so many routes to go with Spec points I feel somewhat overwhelmed as to what is optimal.
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Since we've touched on SI, I guess it's appropriate for me to ask if you think Specialization in SI is worthwhile? Or is it a no brainer to pump the points into Psychosis itself? Locus of Control cooldown as well as Premed both look juicy too. There are so many routes to go with Spec points I feel somewhat overwhelmed as to what is optimal.
I think Premeditation cooldown reduction is the best 2 points you can spend as psi. I tried LoC cooldown reduction but didn't much like it since I rarely had fights go long enough to use it twice even with the reduction. SI Psychosis specializes in SURPRISE YOU'RE DEAD and that doesn't really lend itself to needing cooldown reduction; you just wait for your psi to regen and by the time you're topped off, most of your cooldown are good to go, too.
I'm not impressed by psychosis specialization either, but I haven't ever (that I can recall) played a psi character without Biology so I always have a great stash of drugs for when I want buffs. The bonus crit isn't what gets you to 100%, and you'll have plenty of psi cost reduction from gear so that extra 5% won't make a noticeable difference.
SI spec might be good. The additional health buffer gives you room to make some mistakes - though I've read from some of the veteran players here that they were able to run most of the game at 1HP and just never get hit, I don't recommend that sort of zero-margin playstyle unless you just know you want to do it. Again, the bonus crit will be something you sort of need to decide for yourself, but it doesn't impress me.
You've got Psionic Mania for a guaranteed crit when you need it; you've got Trance and Focus Stim for when you need more than one big heavy hit at a time. And even as Psychosis, you're still going to be using quite a few abilities that either cannot crit, or don't really need to. I would say put your first two points in Premeditation cooldown reduction and see if your playstyle doesn't show you where you need to take it. You'll be level 17 by the time you have to think about where else points should go, and I'd bet you'll have figured out a bunch of things regarding how you play the game.
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I think Premeditation cooldown reduction is the best 2 points you can spend as psi. I tried LoC cooldown reduction but didn't much like it since I rarely had fights go long enough to use it twice even with the reduction. SI Psychosis specializes in SURPRISE YOU'RE DEAD and that doesn't really lend itself to needing cooldown reduction; you just wait for your psi to regen and by the time you're topped off, most of your cooldown are good to go, too.
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I would say put your first two points in Premeditation cooldown reduction and see if your playstyle doesn't show you where you need to take it. You'll be level 17 by the time you have to think about where else points should go, and I'd bet you'll have figured out a bunch of things regarding how you play the game.
Once again, many thanks for your insights. Premeditation CD does seem like the biggest bang for your buck investment by a large margin. The character is 16 now, just took the first point. She's been burning, shattering, frying, and terrifying everything in her path with reckless abandon. I'm leaning towards the SI health threshold buffer for the future, simply because I feel it will allow for a slightly more aggressive and dynamic combat style. The number of resources and tactics that a psy character has at its disposal is insane and I find myself wanting to put as many of them to good use as possible, as often as possible. My biggest fear now is how will I ever go back to playing non-psy in the future now that I've tasted such power?
Thoughts on shield emitters? What's ideal for a psy char? My Tin Can just stuck with the highest quality efficient low-high he could manage crafting for early/mid game and then transitioned to an efficient low quality single low once he was in Super Steel. For this psy girl wearing far less armor and having far more mobility and utility I'm not sure which of the shield flavors is the best option. I'm leaning towards an amped low-low (or med-med perhaps?) because the scariest opponents are generally xbow users. Just not familiar enough yet with crafting SEs to know what's best.
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Thoughts on shield emitters? What's ideal for a psy char? [...] I'm leaning towards an amped low-low (or med-med perhaps?) because the scariest opponents are generally xbow users.
I don't use shields on my psi characters. I find shields to be too powerful as they are; coupled with psi, it trivializes the entire game. However, if you want to use shields, I'd say go with efficient high/high or high/medium. You're not going have anybody come in close enough that melee will be a concern; the only thrown weapon that's going to damage you will be grenades and that's high speed damage; and your alpha strikes are going to disintegrate lightly-armored crossbow sorts so again, all you need to worry about is enemy tin cans with ARs, enemy snipers, and maybe the occasional stealthed enemy when you get too cocky and start making mistakes ;D
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I don't use shields on my psi characters. I find shields to be too powerful as they are; coupled with psi, it trivializes the entire game. However, if you want to use shields, I'd say go with efficient high/high or high/medium. You're not going have anybody come in close enough that melee will be a concern; the only thrown weapon that's going to damage you will be grenades and that's high speed damage; and your alpha strikes are going to disintegrate lightly-armored crossbow sorts so again, all you need to worry about is enemy tin cans with ARs, enemy snipers, and maybe the occasional stealthed enemy when you get too cocky and start making mistakes ;D
It's possible for player characters to do thousands of damage with Snipe/Aimed Shot or Plasma Pistols. Even a very high quality shield won't help much vs that kind of attack, though I haven't seen it on enemies.
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Great guide-make some more! I learned a lot with the details this contains!
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I'm currently playing a tranquility build on classic Dominating difficulty, level 16 right now. I was thinking about experimenting with some feats to make a spammable neural overload strategy since the ability got a buff with the spirit staff from the DLC, the build is going to look like this. http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDBgYDEAkAAAAAAADCmzxjAABGZAA-WsKgwqDCoEYZAEU5UCs_FCouZD0hZsKHwohXBcK3csK7wp3iorUC4qaGCuKxoAPfvw
So with 10 spec points in tranquility it will drop neural overload's cost down to 11 action points and with 90 actions points from haste and adrenaline shot I will be able to cast it 8 times in one turn. Empower thought control should take my TC skill up to 540 and with the 35% bonus damage from the spirit staff and cerebral trauma I'm hoping the damage will be quite significant. Just a strategy to use to clean up a fight or finish off a boss. Don't think I would activate Empower until around 50% Psi.
Any thoughts?
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Any thoughts?
If you're just doing this for the Neural Overload lulz, then you'll get more effect from Neural Overload damage spec than you will from the Tranquility spec. Of course the Tranquility spec will help with all your other abilities, but I can't help but think that for a typical combat scenario, your better bet still would be to drop five points out of Tranq spec, finish up Future Orientation spec (so your haste/slow/LTI are instant again), and put the last three in Neural Overload psi reduction spec so you peel off 25% of the targets max psi per cast. Sure, you're only getting eight NOs per turn instead of nine, but you're getting more actions in per turn thanks to instant TM abilities. Since you'll be spamming so many actions per turn, even with good psi cost reduction you'll need to guzzle psi boosters regularly, so it's good to have 4-6AP per turn not used on abilities. That lets you really go nuts on the harder fights with double haste, hit Trance+Focus Stim, chain out your NOs, and guzzle a psi booster before tapping LTI and ending the turn.
All that said, Neural Overload is going to be hella disappointing when fighting mindless enemies. It's why you should only play with TC as your primary nuke if you just want to do it for the keks
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For a Psychosis build, what is the most optimal placement of Specialization points?
Neural Overclocking 10/10
Psychosis: Psi Cost 5/5
How about that? Any better ideas?
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For a Psychosis build, what is the most optimal placement of Specialization points?
Neural Overclocking 10/10
Psychosis: Psi Cost 5/5
How about that? Any better ideas?
Forget the psi cost reduction. Go 2/2 into Premeditation cooldown reduction, 5/5 into Future Orientation, and 8/10 into Neural Overclocking. You premeditate, wait ten seconds or so, then manually start combat. You've got 2 turns left on the Premeditation cooldown; you use Premed on a powerful opener, LTI that turn, and Premed again in the following turn. There's nothing left at that point.
You'll have plenty of psi cost reduction from gear - and if you need it, psi beetle brain soup. Don't waste spec points on it. Psi boosters grow on trees mushrooms in UnderRail, anyway.
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Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found. Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?
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Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found. Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?
Psi isn't very gear dependent. You could get by fine all the way to Junkyard just with your starting clothes, barefoot, and weaponless. Still, especially for new players, I do recommend you visit the Underpassages outside of GMS and kill the bad guys lurking there. One of them is wearing an aluminized tac vest, and you should probably grab that for yourself. It'll do you just fine all the way up to Depot A, where you'll want to change it out for a crafted suit of Mutated Dog or Siphoner leather armor. Then you'll probably want to craft a Psi Beetle Tac Vest for the psi cost reduction.
Don't rush to the Underpassages at level 1 or you'll die badly. I usually do it after Hopper Round Up, on the way to GMS. Having that tac vest is going to be very helpful when you get to the second level of GMS.
In GMS, you'll probably find a unique item, the Jackknife. That may as well stay in your hand all the way until you go to Expedition content and find one of the tasty psi weapons there. Maybe carry Kohlmeier's Knife or Boxing Gloves or something like that for the enhanced defense, or a lightweight empty pistol for the initiative bonus if you've decided to go with Gunslinger. But me, I just use the Jackknife.
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Thanks so much for this, will be following your psychosis build as after scouring the web this is the best guide I found. Just wondering what gear to go with from the get go?
Psi isn't very gear dependent. You could get by fine all the way to Junkyard just with your starting clothes, barefoot, and weaponless. Still, especially for new players, I do recommend you visit the Underpassages outside of GMS and kill the bad guys lurking there. One of them is wearing an aluminized tac vest, and you should probably grab that for yourself. It'll do you just fine all the way up to Depot A, where you'll want to change it out for a crafted suit of Mutated Dog or Siphoner leather armor. Then you'll probably want to craft a Psi Beetle Tac Vest for the psi cost reduction.
Don't rush to the Underpassages at level 1 or you'll die badly. I usually do it after Hopper Round Up, on the way to GMS. Having that tac vest is going to be very helpful when you get to the second level of GMS.
In GMS, you'll probably find a unique item, the Jackknife. That may as well stay in your hand all the way until you go to Expedition content and find one of the tasty psi weapons there. Maybe carry Kohlmeier's Knife or Boxing Gloves or something like that for the enhanced defense, or a lightweight empty pistol for the initiative bonus if you've decided to go with Gunslinger. But me, I just use the Jackknife.
Thank you so much, really helped me so far!
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Just a query, you start with 15 mercantile but then it shows zero in your level 4 and 8 builds etc....do I have to start over already....?
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Just a query, you start with 15 mercantile but then it shows zero in your level 4 and 8 builds etc....do I have to start over already....?
Hm. Shouldn't. I just went back and double-checked those links again and the character progression links all appear to me to keep the Mercantile investment. I did drop Thought Control in the level 4 links, because I wanted to show that if you needed those points for something else, you can get through the first 4 levels no trouble without investment into TC or TM.
Anyway, to answer your question, no of course you don't need to restart. Taking Mercantile and Persuasion early on was so that you could take advantage of the nice freebies in SGS, but if for whatever reason you didn't invest in them, that's no problem. What matters most is that you survive the first 4-6 levels. They can be tough, especially for new players who are learning the game. As long as you're investing in skills that you expect to use for the whole game, it isn't extremely important what order you invest in. My suggestions are only that - suggestions for one good way to try to keep your stats (edit: I meant skills) high enough to have as many options as possible at all stages of the game. It's really up to you to modify things as you like. You shouldn't take my builds as ironclad, do-this-or-fail guides. UnderRail is so full of options and second chances that it would be a shame not to explore your charcater build as you see fit.
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Thanks so much mate, got it!
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What about Survival Instincts for a Psychosis route? I tried it before Expedition, but I found it is too tedious for me to run with low health all the time. And it wasn't really helpfull at all, because I used to wipe out crowds with Thermodynamic Destabilization, Force field and critical Telekinetic punch (Mania) with proxy. I am thinking to start again with high CON, but instead of SI take fast metabolism and craft regenerative tactical vest with psi beetle armor carapace (I think that this one is better than the psi crab one)
Maybe someone has better experience with SI and psychosis route?
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I believe that Psychosis and SI are a smoother way for Dominating than Tranquility, for lower difficulties, you do not need to crit that much. End Game, you will be at 80% chance with a focus stim and a good psiband. You do not need to be always below the limit (Hemopsychosis can help to monitor). You can take Fast Metabolism and SI, they synergise well together.
Psi crab could be useful for some hybrid build/fights but the armor penalty........
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Thanks for the great guide TheAverageGortsby.
I played UnderRail in 2017 and my last playthrough was with Wildan's psi build (https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2162.0) which I really enjoyed. Recently, I picked up Expedition and am itching to start a new playthrough. Since Expedition added a lot of depth to an already amazing game I wanted to ask if there are any changes you would recommend with regards to the aforementioned build?
Thanks again!
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I wanted to ask if there are any changes you would recommend with regards to the aforementioned build?
I wouldn't play that build in Expedition. You've got psi haste, so you don't really need Blitz; you've got Precognition if you go deep into TM so you don't need Dodge/Evasion or the associated feats and thus the Agility; you've got higher quality components than Wildan could have gotten back in early 2016 and you've got more need for crafting in general so you don't need to invest in stealth, which leads to the next point; Junkyard Surprise no longer can give +2 INT like it could back when Wildan wrote that post so you're going to either have to wait a lot longer to craft stuff (you won't get Hypercerebrix nearly as early as you can get JyS) or else you're going to need to go deeper in INT - which is what you should probably do.
I'd recommend the builds I recommended in this guide, rather than that one. It's very, very, very out of date. My recommended builds are designed so players can see the most that Expedition has to offer. I'm certain you could do just fine with that build as Wildan suggested it years ago, but you'll do even better with a build designed around how the game is today.
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Snooping: While absolutely not necessary, Snooping is handy for finding hidden things in the world. While you can - with every possible buff active at once - find all secrets with just 3 Per and no Snooping, you'd have to wait until you were almost done with the entire game to get to secrets that you could have found much earlier. Consider Snooping if you want to see everything, or if you want to level up quicker when playing Oddity mode.
Can snooping help me with the mines/traps in Depot A if I only have 3 PER?
I bought this game two weeks ago and my first character was a sneaky Psi with just 3 CON and PER. I don't need to say that those Depot A mines wrecked my ass. :'(
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Can snooping help me with the mines/traps
No. As the feat describes, it only helps you clear Perception thresholds for finding secrets in the game. If you need additional trap detection, the most effective ways to go, from most to least effective, are:
Wear motion detecting goggles (a significant % of your raw detection score is added to your trap detection score)
Increase your Perception with buffs
Take the Paranoia feat
increase your Traps skill
(edit: though it should be obvious, I was wrong not to include this other option: just level up some. Your detection also increases with character level)
I've seen a bunch of people talking about how you should put one point per level into Traps to make sure you can detect mines, but that's nonsense. You can see for yourself either on the wiki or in the Builder tool that such a tiny increase in Traps has almost no effect on your trap detection. So if you're going to use the Traps skill to increase your safety against mines, be prepared to sink a bunch of skill points, in order to have a noticeable effect.
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I'm thinking about starting dominating and wanna do it as pure psi. I already completed the game 2 times, on normal/hard with both psi builds (tranquility/psychosis). My builds were high con/will/int, but now i want to try and mix stealth in it. How good interloper is? Should i go 7 agi/4con or it's too squishy for dominating? Do i even need stealth/dodge/evasion or i can just ignore them and use same build as in normal/hard mode? I'm not a fan of psychosis after a hard playthrough, but i remember that when i played with tranquility i wished for better initiative or just better stealth.
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In my experience going agility is a waste. You are not a melee fighter or SMG user, you don't want to sneak up to melee range. You don't need to skip fights. Even with 3 agility and just 100 hardpoints in stealth with Hopper leather, Ninja Tabi, and Balaclava you have over 200 effective stealth with mediocre quality components, more than enough to start every fight on your terms, finish sneaky quests and evade a lot of stuff with careful navigation, cloaking device, and left-clicking skills.
Dodge and evade are terrible on dominating. You don't need Sprint feat. Interloper is nice and only thing worth considering but its 4 ability points for a QoL skill.
Going full tin-can with high strength and the constitution is really not that big a penalty to stealth playstyle, just switch some gear around. On the other hand, going agility blocks you from doing OP stuff like total immortality with drugs and specced Stoicism feat, metal armor with ES for practically the same, etc. There are fights that you cant start from stealth and have a really low chance to go first even with 7+ agility.
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Now that you've played through the game twice, you should be fine to play a 3 Con build through DOMINATING. I wouldn't recommend it for a first playthrough, or even necessarily a first-with-this-kind-of-build play, but your third psi character? You'll be fine.
Interloper never seemed worth it to me except for melee builds. For melee, you may want to get right up on top of someone, and that last little bit of closing in makes every fractions of a second count. But for psi, you're going to be using stealth mostly for optimal far-field placement, and for that, Interloper really doesn't shine. With infused hopper leather (+movespeed) and tabis (+movespeed) you'll be zipping along just fine without Interloper. As far as effective skill goes, 30-50 real points and 3 Agi will be fine in every situation, if you can also craft and use a stealth set. A good cloaking device alone will get you 75+ effective stealth. I stealthed Emporion once on DOMINATING with 0 raw skill and 3 Agi, though it did take a few reloads.
I'd rather go with Dexterity for a Con-dumped psi character. Not only will you be able to invest less in Lockpicking and still hit the late-game thresholds, but you'll qualify for Grenadier, Quick Tinkering, even Gunslinger (which, especially combined with the other +7 initiative feat, can get you easily up into the 30s if you want).
You should absolutely not invest in Dodge or Evasion as a full psi character. If you for some reason feel the powerful need to have Uncanny Dodge, and you're going Agi for Interloper anyway, then you can find the 40 points to unlock it. It's not necessary, but that's really the only situation where you should invest in Dodge or Evasion. The AoE reduction just isn't worth it - if you're getting blown up all the time, craft some armor with Blast Cloth.
I think Apostrophe gives a lot of good advice in the previous post.
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tfw you REALLY wanna play a full psi character because it looks versatile and powerful af (quite frankly, I just like magic stuff), but the early game is absolutely demolishing you.
Seriously, though, Depot A is absolutely demolishing me. Between having no Stealth to hide from enemies and my pitiful Initiative always making me go last, I tend to get bodied left and right. And since it's the early game, I don't have the most flexible arsenal.
I did play this game with the Spec Ops SMG build, and man it was easier. Efficient, powerful and cathartic af, but spamming Burst ad nauseum tends to get tiring eventually.
I was thinking of maybe investing in another backup skill (Stealth, Throwing, maybe even Melee) so that I couldn't be so squishy? Or maybe I should just suck it up and deal with the early game crap-between a high quality Tac vest, high quality Infused Great Siphoner Tabi Boots and a godly shield emitter, I'd be able to soak up at least some damage.
Any tips or advice would be really appreciated.
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All builds have trouble in Depot A on dominating, it is just a matter of preparation. In my opinion the hardest part of dominating run. Have 20 molotovs, Doctors belt and enough PSI boosters to eat them like candy. Do everything else before entering Depot A, you need to be level 8+ for this.
If you have STR for it you can just tin-can tank dogs with mutated dog leather boots and metal armor&helm.
Have some points in traps, stealth and trowing.
Stealth does not need to be high, just enough to be over their detection threshold so you can initiate fights from distance and have the first turn, you could do in with 3 AGI and no hardpoints in stealth with gear but that's expensive and time-consuming. Just put 50 points in stealth and use cave hopper leather armor.
Put some points into traps and use bear traps. Since you probably have PER 3 some points in traps are good to help with detection, I don't know exactly how much you need on dominating but I don't consider it "wasted" points in the long run.
Have some skill in trowing, you don't need it but it will cut on your reloads significantly so skip it if you really want super-optimized build for the rest of the game since after Depot A you don't really need to use grenades/molotovs with PSI.
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Seriously, though, Depot A is absolutely demolishing me. [...] Any tips or advice would be really appreciated.
What part of Depot A? There's the "Pre-Depot" part which is the first maps you have access to, with Junkyard Muties, a few dogs, some Mutated Dogs, and a few turrets; then, the "Depot proper" which is what you get access to once you go through the locked gate, with full-on Mutants and Mutated Dogs. If you're having trouble with the first part, then it's entirely how you're playing the psi character. For example, you say you're always going last - you need to be manually starting combat, so you go first; start doing that, and you'll see a marked improvement right there. On the other hand, if you're having trouble with the second part, it's possible you need to go pick up one or two more levels. There's no reason at all that you should ever be under level 8 when starting the Depot proper; if you're playing Classic XP, you can easily manage level 12 on DOMINATING, or even 13-14 if you really do absolutely everything first.
Pick the Pyromaniac feat at level 8 and you'll be able to crowd control the Mutated Dogs when fighting the Mutants; Mutants are immune to fear of fire but the dogs aren't and you can fearbounce them pretty reliably. Between your four-turn Force Field (because you took Force User at level 4, right?) and your Premeditated Pyrokinesis (because you took Premeditation at level 6, right?) you should be able to throw down a couple caltrops (if you made/bought a stealth set, maybe even a few traps too) and get everyone in the entire map to bunch up at the edge of your force field, then pop Adrenaline and throw a grenade, toss out a fireball, and lob out an Electrokinesis and a TK Punch to get some stuns, then hop out of LOS to end your turn. Next round, do whatever you gotta do to survive - hopefully, it'll involve killing a few more enemies, then maybe finishing with a Morphine Shot if you see that you're going to have to facetank a Mutant. With a LTI, you'll then be able to hit a second psi booster for the fight and mop up. Absolute worst case, you do stuff wrong and lose control of the fight - zone out, heal up, let all your cooldowns refresh, and go back in. It won't be as controllable the second time walking in, but at full health and with consumables and all your resources topped off, you should be able to survive one turn (again, you can pop Morphine if needed to survive that first messy turn walking into combat) and lay down the law. By which I mean murder everything.
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So I dabbled a bit into Tranquility and Psychosis and am still not sure what's the definitive way to go because I am still a bloody noob.
Over on reddit someone claimed that now with Expedition Tranq would be the way to go because of psy contration spell?
What would you experts recommend in combination with stealth?
Also, does one just need to learn every psi ability possible or are there bad ones one shouldn't use?
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[questions]
Either one is fine. Tranquility is more powerful if you're a skilled player; Psychosis is more powerful if you're still making mistakes. The reason for that is once you make a mistake and take damage in combat, you lose your Tranquility bonus (though if you can heal back to full, you can get it back) but the Psychosis bonus doesn't care. Either one will work excellently with stealth. The SI Psychosis build concept (like I described in the initial series of posts in this thread) lends itself well to being sneaky, then killing an entire room before anyone notices you were there.
There's no reason not to learn psi abilities; you don't have spell slots or anything like that. May as well catch 'em all. Every ability has use in certain situations - part of the fun of psi is figuring out what's the best or the most fun or the least risky ability for any given encounter.
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Thanks a dozen for your help and expertise.
SI psychosis stealth run initiated ;)
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Either one is fine. Tranquility is more powerful if you're a skilled player; Psychosis is more powerful if you're still making mistakes. The reason for that is once you make a mistake and take damage in combat, you lose your Tranquility bonus (though if you can heal back to full, you can get it back) but the Psychosis bonus doesn't care.
It cares more, after all you are running around with 1HP most of the time :D
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after all you are running around with 1HP most of the time :D
With the 9 CON requirement for SI, if you spec into it, you'll be running around with SI benefit with nearly as much health as a 3 CON Tranquility build has at full. Indeed, safe play would have you running around at about 50-54% health, just outside SI range, so when you hit Psionic Mania and take the damage, you drop right into the top range of SI. No point having elevated crit chance when you're not using it. That would have you running around well over the max health of a Con-dumped Tranq build. If you're playing at 1HP, you've got nobody but yourself to blame. 8)
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Yeah but healing on dominating is a pain :D
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Yeah but healing on dominating is a pain :D
Not at all.
First of all, if you're a psi crafter, you're going to have Biology because you'll need that for your gear. That means you're going to have enough to make healing hypos and advanced hypos, at least. Then all you need are a bunch of hearts, which are free, and a bunch of ampoules, which are cheap (in fact, you can just use the extra adrenaline glands you'll find to make a few adrenaline shots, and trade those in at the doctor when you're buying ampoules and flat beakers and syringes, and it should usually be a wash or even put a charon or two in your pocket) and you can heal right on up.
Secondly, once you've got Psionic Mania, you can just go back to Quinton if you're hurt, get him to heal you for free, then activate Psionic Mania a few times while you head back on out to wherever you want to go, to get your health back down into the ideal health window.
Finally, the game is just full of healing items even on DOMINATING. Crates/lockers/boxes have them, vendors have them, enemies have them. Between health hypos and bandages there's really a freakish lot of healing and if you're constantly running out, then it's because you're not yet playing well. I say that as someone whose first thread on these forums was a request for more healing options, because I wasn't playing well and thought there weren't enough hypos =)
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It just takes too long, bandages heal for nothing and hypos are on CD. It easier to just spec into stoicism and aegis+morphice+last stand when you fuck up.
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Alright, put on your robe and your cave wizard hat. Time to build a character.
Hey, just wanted to say thank you.
You basically made a game for me. Had a really good ~150 hours.
Cheers!
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Hey, just wanted to say thank you.
You basically made a game for me. Had a really good ~150 hours.
Well, I had no part in the making of the game - I'm just a beta tester. But if the build outline here helped you enjoy this great game, I'm happy to have helped. Be sure to let Styg know you like his game! =)
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Hi TheAverageGortsby,
Thanks for recommending that I follow this guide. I have been playing a tranquility build and it is great fun so far. I recently got to level 16 and have no idea how to invest my specialization points. Maybe force user or locus of control?
Is there anything you would recommend? Thanks again.
Cheers
Edit: Premeditation also looks like a good option.
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Hi Kilgore Trout,
I would recommend investing in Locus of control duration & CD, Premeditation CD (and psi reduction if you'd like), and after that free reign. Those are really your most powerful abilities as a full psi user.
Another good option may be future orientation, but TBH I haven't even taken FO on a character because Ive been running hybrid psi builds and the increased AP cost is not appealing to me since I want to use my spec points elsewhere on those builds.
Also, Idk how the math checks out but maybe thermodynamicity could be good for getting off an extra metathermics spell, you'll have to check for yourself
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Hi Shredded Cheddar,
Thank you for the reply and the suggestions. I think I might put my first point into Premeditation CD and take it from there.
Thanks again :)
Cheers
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I agree with Shredded Cheddar on Premeditation. I think it's the best 2 points you can spend as a full psi character. Conversely, I really didn't like LoC spec becuase I very rarely had fights go long enough to use LoC twice unless I was deliberately stringing them out, and the extra turn of duration is pretty meaningless. So I can't agree with SC on that, but it'll come down to how you play your character as to whether you get any use out of those spec points or not.
I really do like Thermodynamicity spec for min/maxing. It's the greatest output-increasing specialization you can have, and I'd always put 5/5 there before putting anything into LoC. Remember that the Thermodynamicity AP reduction is applied to the base ability cost, then the flat tranquility reduction is applied to whatever the modified AP cost is. So, for Tranquility builds, 5/5 Thermodynamicity can enable you to throw 8-9 abilities in a turn. It's simply devastating, if you have enough psi reduction to make it all work.
My Tranquility specialization point loadout, in order, is:
Premeditation cooldown reduction 2/2
Future Orientation 5/5
Thermodynamicity 5/5
(whatever I feel like) 3/?
If you have no other idea what to do with your points, try that. It'll probably impress you.
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Thanks for the detailed reply TheAverageGortsby, it has given me a lot to work with.
Cheers!
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Fist off, thanks a lot for the guide, I am currently on my first run trough the game, enjoing the psi build massively.
Now secondly, could you show what lvl30 should roughly look like? I am way past lvl16 and kinda afraid of either over or underspecing my skills, i.e. wasting points I will never need or ending at lvl30 with no chance to craft / buy the high end gear I want to have.
What should I aim for in equipment? Psi Headband, Psi Vest and Tabi Boots?
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Now secondly, could you show what lvl30 should roughly look like? I am way past lvl16 and kinda afraid of either over or underspecing my skills, i.e. wasting points I will never need or ending at lvl30 with no chance to craft / buy the high end gear I want to have.
What should I aim for in equipment? Psi Headband, Psi Vest and Tabi Boots?
I didn't really want to give a level 30 build in this guide because I was hoping people would explore the game in their own style rather than follow a complete cookie-cutter build. I can honestly say that if you've followed either of my build recommendations to level 16, and just put the rest of your stat points into Will and kept your psi skills topped up, you've got a good enough character that there's nothing to really worry about.
If you want to know what the skill thresholds are, I still think the best resource is probably destroyor's FAQ on the Steam forums. Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843557165 There's a skill threshold section in the section index on the side.
Psi headband is always yes (I suggest Muffled Uni-Psi headband with an extra component of your choosing - I usually use the TK Punch module, myself, but Cryo Orb or either bonus crit module can be very nice for Psychosis builds), tac vest with psi beetle (or possibly psi crab) is yes, footwear is more of a "whatever you feel will be most helpful" situation. Tabis are an obvious and easy choice. Personally, I prefer Infused Pig Leather Striders for the bonus carry capacity and bonus Con, but that's not really an option if you're relying heavily on stealth. Even TiChrome or Super Steel boots can be helpful if you find yourself taking physical damage hits regularly or walking across caltrops all the time - and if you've gone with psi crab carapace, your armor penalty is already so high that the extra from the metal boots is really meaningless.
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I'm trying to work with the Psychosis build, but i'm being shredded like cabbage by the rats in the first mission, they usually go into really big numbers and the pack bonus towards me.
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I'm trying to work with the Psychosis build, but i'm being shredded like cabbage by the rats in the first mission, they usually go into really big numbers and the pack bonus towards me.
Even with high Constitution, psi isn't a great choice for face tanking. How about you play in such a way that the rathounds don't get the chance to bite you at all? You've got psi powers, and rathounds don't have opposable thumbs. Try to keep a gate between you and them at all times, when possible. For the one place there where you can't do that, bring a flare to buy yourself two turns.
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Remember that regardless of build, you still able to use bear trap.
Technically, you could clear SGS Outpost with only bear trap and stealth (and maybe some ranged attack to explode the barrel).
But for psi, cryokinesis should be good enough to stall them, and TK punch usually 1-shot / almost kill rathound
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Gotta try, it's my first time playing this game and i'm still getting the feeling of the game, it's a bit regretable but the rathounds in question are camping the transition after i run away, hahahaha.
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Don't worry too much about it. Makes sure to play on Normal / Easy difficulty until you grasp the general mechanic. Also, focus on Metathermics and Psychokinesis, they have the big number early on compared to other Psi School.
Tbh I recommend Tranquility build for beginner, it's much more "fun" compared to Psychosis, due to more lenient skill spamming vs min-max 1shot damage on Psychosis, which usually ends up just using very few skills to optimize psi usage
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Thanks bro, i tried to start with the Jug Spear build in the topic, but the Psi really hooked me.
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Ye, psi becomes much more fun after you unlock other town, since there's so much psi skills that could do many OP things, you can't get bored with the combination and possibility
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Nice guide, but I disagree on points spent on agi being a waste if you want to go the stealth route. Sure you can get decent stealth with just gear but it is already annoying just swapping between your detection goggles, balaclava and psi headbands. Adding to that armor and boots? No thanks. I rather go with 5 agi and permanently run around with ninja tabi and my sturdy psionic overcoat. Takes some points to get to around 100 stealth baseline but I rarely have to swap anything. Also constant armor swapping is extremely cheesy. Trigger Happy feat needs 6 dexterity which means you either have to sacrifice from int or from will meaning the points you get in from dex are already lost and going just 5 dex to shave off a few points in lockpicking which can be boosted enough with Jackknife, Huxkey and dex food imo. Mind you I am not saying it is a bad thing going 5 or 6 dex, just that I do not think that 5 dex is better than 5 agi. 6 dex is better than 6 agi on the merit that you cannot get Interloper. I saw that you think that Interloper is only good for melee but I disagree. It was very helpful on my PSI Sniper opening up with Snipe then move behind the corner and no Hit&Run is not as good because there is that annoying 5% to miss and sometimes you want to move a bit more than just one square but I digress.
I also think that you seriously underestimate TM as a school for damage. Especially early nothing destroys singled out bots harder than a few stacks of TD. Most importantly, despite sound feedback it is almost completely quiet and pairs well with Cryostasis. Tranq builds can easily go Premed-> wait two turns -> Crystasis -> 3 stacks TD -> 3 stacks TD -> kills most singled out enemies. Once you get Implosion you want to lead with Implosion but taking in Balor and his minions is not easy early on.
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5 Agi doesn't make any sense. You free up another point and get Sprint. 4 or 5 in any stat is usually not a great choice - 5 Str being the most obvious exception, with 5 Int for Expose Weakness trailing slightly. The reason I said Interloper isn't much use is that all it does is speed you up slightly in stealth - which you don't need if you're wearing tabis and Infused Hopper Leather since you're already zooming around - and gives you a few movement points; but with both Sprint and psi haste, you've already got tons of MP when you need them. The real benefit of Interloper - the ability to spend less time very close to enemies where they detect you faster - is lost on ranged builds if they're played properly.
Your TM cycle also seems woefully suboptimal. For organics, you'd want to lead with TK Punch for the damage and stun, while also saving psi points compared to Cryostasis; after that, with a heavily damaged enemy, it's much more efficient to just use Cryokinesis or Pyrokinetic Stream for the kill. For robots, Electrokinesis or later on the electro trap are much better than Cryostasis for the stun effect, and much more efficient if you can get two or more robots at once. Then you can use your Premeditation on another stack of TD - why would you ever set up a cycle to just use 6 stacks? Even against Burrower Warriors, probably the toughest enemy you'll face pre-Depot, you don't want to use 6-stacks of TD - you're better off using an Electrokinesis stun and applying Pyrokinesis/Pyrokinetic Stream to get some extra DoT damage to tick on it while you're hunkered down behind a force field.
I assure you I don't underestimate TM as a damage outputting school =) I lobbied to get it nerfed in fact back in Beta because it was so overwhelmingly powerful. Play around a bit with Entropic Recurrence; even as it is now, it's a much better damage source than TD, even with Continuum Ripple (unless you're playing single-school TM, in which case, no; TD takes the cake).
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What do I need Sprint for when I got PTC which is vastly superior? At most Sprint is nice to have for early levels until you get it but clever use of LoS and unstealthing around the corner before doing your opening does the trick easily. As to TK Punch it seems to be not as quiet as Cryostasis or TD. Best example for that is the experience I once had was with the guard patrolling outside the surveillance room in the Protectorate base where you have to bust Maura out. Using TK Punch has in fact drawn in his attention and made him come in. Neither TD nor Cryostasis have ever done that here. Ergo TK Punch makes more noise -> higher risk of alerting enemies. Though at least TD makes some noise as it has drawn in an opponent once. So yeah sure if I do not care about Noise opening up with TK Punch, or Implosion against super high HP targets, is of course superior. I am a huge silent killing fan and enjoy wiping out maps without ever alerting enemies a lot though that is of course not always possible.
Electrokinesis against single robots is woefully low damage. You need at least two robotical opponents for it to do good damage. Sure Imprint is better, once you get it. Too bad it is well hidden in a certain base and not that easy to get especially early. What then? TD is vastly superior against single robotic enemies. That Plasma Walker patrolling one of the rooms in Depot A? Trap in its path -> TD 6 times -> finished. Same with the lone sentry bot in front of the hatch in GSM base to the third floor. TD > Electrokinesis against singular robots every single time. Imprint has a CD and cannot be spammed. So you open up with 3*TD, or more if needed with Adrenaline and PTC, and let the bot run into it, next round load up some more, boom.
5 agi is perfectly fine. 6 Con for Fast Metabolism, 10 Int and 10 Wil is really all you need for Tranq build unless you want to go Blitz but that one is meh on pure PSI. Those two points are essentially free bees and affect your character only to a minor degree. Opting for more stealth is not a waste and it does make sense. I rather have maximized PSI and 10 Int than waste another point in agi just so I can Sprint which would replace another good feat like Paranoia for exmple.
Yeah but healing on dominating is a pain :D
Not at all.
First of all, if you're a psi crafter, you're going to have Biology because you'll need that for your gear. That means you're going to have enough to make healing hypos and advanced hypos, at least. Then all you need are a bunch of hearts, which are free, and a bunch of ampoules, which are cheap (in fact, you can just use the extra adrenaline glands you'll find to make a few adrenaline shots, and trade those in at the doctor when you're buying ampoules and flat beakers and syringes, and it should usually be a wash or even put a charon or two in your pocket) and you can heal right on up.
Secondly, once you've got Psionic Mania, you can just go back to Quinton if you're hurt, get him to heal you for free, then activate Psionic Mania a few times while you head back on out to wherever you want to go, to get your health back down into the ideal health window.
Finally, the game is just full of healing items even on DOMINATING. Crates/lockers/boxes have them, vendors have them, enemies have them. Between health hypos and bandages there's really a freakish lot of healing and if you're constantly running out, then it's because you're not yet playing well. I say that as someone whose first thread on these forums was a request for more healing options, because I wasn't playing well and thought there weren't enough hypos =)
Just a minor mistake but the doctor's name is Pasquale. Quinton is the biologist which teaches you metathermic PSI.
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Since we've touched on SI, I guess it's appropriate for me to ask if you think Specialization in SI is worthwhile? Or is it a no brainer to pump the points into Psychosis itself? Locus of Control cooldown as well as Premed both look juicy too. There are so many routes to go with Spec points I feel somewhat overwhelmed as to what is optimal.
SI spec might be good. The additional health buffer gives you room to make some mistakes - though I've read from some of the veteran players here that they were able to run most of the game at 1HP and just never get hit, I don't recommend that sort of zero-margin playstyle unless you just know you want to do it. Again, the bonus crit will be something you sort of need to decide for yourself, but it doesn't impress me.
Could someone explain to me what does this exactly mean for SI specialization?
Increase the health threshold by 2% for each specialization point
Solved, it means that crit bonus now happens at 32% or less health and every point of specialization brings that up by 2% up to 40% max. Which is neat.
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Hi,
I've followed the guide just to get a general direction, and I've invested points in all 4 Psi schools, lockpicking/hacking, and persuasion + mercantile. Will I ever be in a position to invest in one or two other non-combat skills from crafting/mechanics/mech/electronics/bio/chem etc? Maybe lockpicking/hacking are only useful up to a certain point for example.
Thanks! Linking to my stats below.
https://i.imgur.com/G2TBdOl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/F542y5Y.jpg
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I may not be the first one to tell this but: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
You basically permitted me to enjoy the game, my first build was a suboptimal smg build I wasn't pleased with and I quickly abandon with the game altogether.
I was quite reluctant to use the psionic powers. But I actually enjoyed it A LOT thanks to your recommandation.
However, as many before me, I still do not agree with the statement that Tranquility surpasses SI Psychosis. I think it is quite the opposite. I was able to kill Naga protectors with one maniaed TK Proxyed punch when I was fully specialized in Force User, and was also able to wipe out rather easily full maps of ennemies (the savage ones) thanks to other AoE attacks including a maniaed tranced LoC Neural Overload.
I don't think you can do so with tranquility and some cooldowns would surely make thermodynamicity a bit underwhelming with the absence of criticals. However I do think it could be more fun to play because of course you could do more during each turn. I think that is the real point here?
Well, SI psychosis is still fun to play if you try not to use the force field + TD + TK punch cheese too often. Maybe it is inferior if you want to play with definitive death of course because of the lack of regenerative vest and the health requirement for Survival Instinct to actually work.
So here is my final build anyway :
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDAwkDEAkAAAAAAADCn0VcAABFZAk2U8KgwqDCoEYjADxQYissFCplH8KHIcKEZj0FLsK3csK5wq7CneKfmAnioYYE4qK1At-_
It is not original AT ALL but I will explain it for the newcomers anyway, the thresold parts for crafting/lockpicking/hacking skills will most certainly answer the questions which had been posted just before my intervention :
The gist being to compensate the drawback of psychosis (being the very high psi consumption from both direct penalities associated to the feat and from the absence of muffler because I really wanted to enhance my criticals and damages on TK punch for the garantied one shot kill on very high health ennemies or on Neural Overload for the powerful late game AoE attack) with the AMAZING Hemopsychosis and Last Stand synergy. I didn't have to heal ONCE (well I had a few reloads and I used the Enter trick to engage combat during the Carniflex fight) passed lvl 16 thanks to that and never run out of psi thanks to it and one or two 2 ap (doctor's pouch is mandatory of course, but I tend to find it quite early in most cases) psi booster for the REALLY long fights. Hemopsychosis and Last Stand is NOT just for quality of life. It will raise your maximum damage output during the alpha strike AND the next few turns.
I did take Empowered PK but Empowered TC may be a good choice also because the TK punch does not really need it to work while Neural Overload would greatly benefit from it. The 9 points in Force user specialization could be put elsewhere (for example in Future Orientation which is detrimental without it without Tranquility in my opinion and if you wish to sacrifice Pyromaniac which is not THAT great - eventhough it is mandatory for me being way to fun to miss out -) or even on Neural Overcloaking for a more balanced damage output repartition. Also, I put some points in chemistry for the sole purpose of beating the Foundry quest more rapidly with gas grenades (with house bonuses and a mere underpie). It may come in handy as well with mass neural overload shenanigans during some healthy end game genocide in expedition.
Crafting : With hypercerebrix, house bonuses and underpie you reach maximum theorical thresholds for the highest requirements
- tactical vest (128 mechanicals for psi crab/psi bettle + strudy vest + SS sheet + black overcoat.
- infused leather armor (156 tailoring), but you don't need as much for either Infused Hooper Leather Soft Padded (Black) Overcoat or your tactical vest (Sturdy Vest and Black overcoat), still making some great infused leather armor may be helpful from time to time.
- best theorical energy shield (186 electronics. They could be further enhanced with the Power Management feat were you to sacrifice Pyromaniac, Neural Overload for examples, but I'd rather not personally because psion have already a lot of way to defend itself with no shield at all anyway. High electronics is still important for the psionic headbands : you'ill need 135 electronics for the more advanced ones)
- And enough biology to craft hypercerebrix, trance with no bonuses, bullhead (and GAS GRENADE) with just an underpie and everything else which is relevant except regenerative mixture with house/hypercerebrix.
Those numbers were found on the great Destoyer's in-depth FAQ : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843557165
121 Hacking with an underpie and Lemurian Engineer suit is there to make a certain endgame area bearable. 110 persuasion with heartbreaker shoes and armor has the same purpose (eventhough it should NOT work in that VERY CASE, I mean... Come on, it does not make any sense). With hypercerebrix you pass the highest 'computer hacking' (no tools involved) in the game (130, it is NOT mandatory, it just permits you to have some more lore, nothing else, it doesn't even permit you to change any ending slide, etc. I was wondering when I first read about this...) and also the highest 'chest opening hacking' check in the game (135, but it is not worth it at all so you may lower a bit hacking...) with the right tool (and if you don't have it just use hypercerebrix)
130 lockpicking with an Eel Sandwich (easy to find, DO NOT be afraid of food management, it is NOT time consuming or tiresome at all, food merchants are many and easy to find), Lemurian engineer suit and best tool (which is easy to miss out, but without it you still get 125 which is enough for most checks anyway), and 100 is enough to steal some jetskis for a certain quest if you make certain choices...
105 effective mercantile with hypercerebrix and underpie, which permits you to have access to the best endgame shop for tactical vest parts (not essential at all but still nice), 95 is MANDATORY if you want to get good quality shield emitters and psionic headbands in a certain shop which is once again easy to lock.
On low TM investment: I think this school is mostly interesting for Tranquility build for it may have more psi consumption reductions and can keep activated Precognition all the time. I don't really know how to use Temporary Rewind. I think, with the exception of Temporal Distortion which is clearly underwhelming for a non Tranquility psion, those are the only abilities that do scale linearly with skill points. 160 base (180-190 with psi beetle caparace) points is enough to ALMOST maximize Entropic Recurrence (according to the wiki) which I do not need to use that much anyway. 70 invested points is mandatory if you want to get a certain abilities (which has VERY GOOD synergies with our current build, because it permits us to keep the double haste and hemopsychosis+last stand state for another turn and is easy to manage with LoC feat : i'm speaking about Stasis)
Another aspect which is great with PSI builds is that there is no faction you are required to work with in order to optimize your build. Well except maybe a certain well hidden organisation which won't prevent you to join any other one whatsoever anyway. I mean: sure Coretech will give you from time to time some cool googles and psi headbands components, but it is quite rare and you can find them elsewhere in most cases. They mostly will give you energy shield components but someone else does to... Sure the Praetorians and Protectorate can give you the good laminated fabric ballistic panel and sturdy vest but once again someone else does on a fairly regular pace too.
In fact in most of my runs, the only merchants I DO miss when I choose not to join their factions are Katya for some of her good medicinal components and Becket from the Free Drones for his unparalleled high qualities Black Clothes stock (But I really don't like the latter ones or their questline and I actually prefer to have to defend the expedition camp eventhough I like the pirates as well) . But you won't need neither being a pure psi.
Also I am quite hesitant on the ideal end game armor. For the boots, I do think either ninja tabi boots or infused pig leather striders whether you accept to sacrifice stealth or not (I sure don't!) are optimal. But I am not really convinced abouth the Sturdy Vest + Laminated panel/SS sheet + Psi Beetle Caparace + Black cloth choice. Sure it looks good but the psi abilities bonuses while not negligeable are not that important after some point in the game. It is quite cool being able to stall SMG bursts from the pirates but you're still dead if you don't take cover. And the psi consumption bonuses are meaningless with hemopsychosis and fully specialized Last Stand and Advanced Psi Empathy. I really tend to enjoy the Infused Hooper Soft Padded with black overcoat more for the few extra movements points, the quality of life of better stealth and the velocity of my character outside of combat. But it looks really bad so I still tend to keep the first one and switch to second one when needed. (For example in the dreaded Crimsom's Meadow Horticulure Center... It makes me uneasy just to remember what a calvary it was when I tried the brutal approach...) And finaly Psi Crab Caparace seems detrimental except maybe for jetski fights. But Sea Wyrm leather or CAU armor are far superior in that very case against snakes. And for sole look purposes (because it DOES count) had I not pick the Jack Quicksilver's portrait, I would pick either Phamton Dancer or Tchortist Robe (I do like the Tchortists for many reasons btw).
Well I did speak too much so :
TLDR Stealth SI psychosis may be the most noob friendly build to play if you buy the psionic imprints from doctors and go visit a certain Ironhead camp early on. It is plenty of fun, gives you access to most content of the game and really DIFFICULT not to build well if you follow the nice advice from TheAwesomeGortsby right here.
PS Please excuse my bad english. It is not my mother tongue, but do not hesitate to point out any mistake by private messages if needed.
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Will I ever be in a position to invest in one or two other non-combat skills from crafting/mechanics/mech/electronics/bio/chem etc? Maybe lockpicking/hacking are only useful up to a certain point for example.
Yep. If you take a look at my suggested build growth links back on the first page, you'll see that you can start branching out fairly early. By mid-game you'll probably have hit the maximum useful investment for hack/pick/persuade, so even if for some reason you choose to remain hyper-focused on those eight skills, by about level 10 you can stop investing in Persuasion, by about 12 in Mercantile, and by about 16 in Lockpicking and Hacking. Personally, I'd branch out more and pick up some crafting, and only level up Lockpicking, Hacking, and Mercantile when you see a use for them.
The post following yours copies some info out of a very very useful (but very very spoiler-y) FAQ by destroyor, so feel free to scroll up a bit and see some useful skill thresholds, if you're worried about over-investing.
I may not be the first one to tell this but: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
You basically permitted me to enjoy the game, my first build was a suboptimal smg build I wasn't pleased with and I quickly abandon with the game altogether.
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However, as many before me, I still do not agree with the statement that Tranquility surpasses SI Psychosis. I think it is quite the opposite.
Glad to have been of help. It's a really good game, so I'm glad you came back to it after bouncing off. It's not the absolute easiest game to dive in, and it doesn't pretend to be, but as you found, there's a lot of worthwhile stuff once you get going.
Psi is strong enough that whether Tranq or Psych is "the best", either one is absolutely good enough to be considered top-tier if played well. Sounds like you have Psychosis down pat.
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Thanks for your reply - I'll start branching out soon then (am at level 6 now).
I went with the tranquility feat, the AP cost for the psychosis feat seemed to be pretty high to me.
And thanks for your guide :)
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I keep seeing builds with low PER and no investment in traps skills all around, but whenever I play one I can't even get past Deport A, can anyone explain me the secret of trap detection/survival? Or does everyone just savescam and metagame?
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Slow and cautious, if you've got low Perception and low trap detection. If it's really bothering you, then tailor yourself a suit of armor using Blast Cloth as soon as possible, but early on, even on DOMINATING, you'll be able to spy the traps before they kill you as long as you move carefully. If you aren't all done up in heavy metal armor and boots with high Con, then it pays to be cautious as you move through new areas.
If you're psi, you can always spam fireball to clear the way ahead of you, too. Costs nothing but a few seconds to regen your psi pool.
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Slow and cautious, if you've got low Perception and low trap detection. If it's really bothering you, then tailor yourself a suit of armor using Blast Cloth as soon as possible, but early on, even on DOMINATING, you'll be able to spy the traps before they kill you as long as you move carefully. If you aren't all done up in heavy metal armor and boots with high Con, then it pays to be cautious as you move through new areas.
If you're psi, you can always spam fireball to clear the way ahead of you, too. Costs nothing but a few seconds to regen your psi pool.
I ran a test on low perception char on normal difficulty- u can't spot a mine next to u even if u stand facing it for over 5 minutes. Not to mention that if u detonate a mine, then the whole area of enemies will come after u. Even if u survive the explosion- u r dead.
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I ran a test on low perception char on normal difficulty- u can't spot a mine next to u even if u stand facing it for over 5 minutes. Not to mention that if u detonate a mine, then the whole area of enemies will come after u. Even if u survive the explosion- u r dead.
Simply not true. Even on DOMINATING, a 3 Perception character with no Traps skill can spot mines everywhere with a good pair of goggles. If you pick up the Paranoia feat it becomes even quicker, and in most places you then don't need goggles. I like to play my psi characters with 5 Perception (it's where my extra points go, rather than more Con, once I've got the other stats I want) and Snooping so I can easily find secret areas. Try it - try to free up two points for Perception. It'll help with your trap detection frustration.
You do need to make a character that's good at surviving, but you don't need to metagame. If you're getting blown up all the time, then that's good feedback on how your character design could use improvement.
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I ran a test on low perception char on normal difficulty- u can't spot a mine next to u even if u stand facing it for over 5 minutes. Not to mention that if u detonate a mine, then the whole area of enemies will come after u. Even if u survive the explosion- u r dead.
Simply not true. Even on DOMINATING, a 3 Perception character with no Traps skill can spot mines everywhere with a good pair of goggles. If you pick up the Paranoia feat it becomes even quicker, and in most places you then don't need goggles. I like to play my psi characters with 5 Perception (it's where my extra points go, rather than more Con, once I've got the other stats I want) and Snooping so I can easily find secret areas. Try it - try to free up two points for Perception. It'll help with your trap detection frustration.
You do need to make a character that's good at surviving, but you don't need to metagame. If you're getting blown up all the time, then that's good feedback on how your character design could use improvement.
Maybe my game is broken or there is a bug or something. Because even my low per 100+ effective trap skill chars won't always spot a trap. Also where to get that good goggles before deport a? Wont wearing goggles instead of a headband hurt psi character? Wont investing points into perception also hurt psi character? I will try to record a video for you. Is there any known bug, that may cause all my character to be unable to spot traps?
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Also where to get that good goggles before deport a? Wont wearing goggles instead of a headband hurt psi character? Wont investing points into perception also hurt psi character? I will try to record a video for you. Is there any known bug, that may cause all my character to be unable to spot traps?
You can certainly loot or buy some +1 Perception goggles very early on. If you are capable of crafting goggles, then you can make some Motion Detecting goggles (which are the kind you want, for finding traps), or you can perhaps loot them off some of the NPCs - I don't recall with total clarity, but between the Lunatics, the Trappers/Lurkers, the GMS raiders, and the Eels, you can kill off a great many human NPCs and get their loot. I know some of them wear goggles, and I think I've looted Motion Detecting goggles from that group.
Why would investing in Perception hurt a psi character? 10 Will, 10 Int, and 6 Con still leaves you two free stat points at character creation. And I don't think I've ever worn a psi headband before Depot A; they're just not powerful enough with those low-level components to make a meaningful difference. Early on, I wear whatever I can find that might help me, and usually that means a +1 Per goggles on my character's head.
I don't think there's a known issue with detecting traps, no. It's just how you're playing. If you know you're rolling with a very low Perception score, you need to make choices that will cover for that weakness; Paranoia, goggles, trap busting, or just a willingness to eat the pain.
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Thanks for the advice. I took you up on making intelligence 10 cause of all the crafting I need but I'm not sure about dumping the leftovers into CON. Psi makes you loose 25% of your health anyways and I need those points for DEX so I can unlock stuff. I also don't want to dump PER and AGI completely because it made navigating minefields a crap-shoot and made combat challenging with such a limited pool of action points.
I also want at least a little starting stealth so enemies don't see me immediately and it can be built on through cloaks.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMGBAQEDwoARAAAAAAPSF0AAEtMACRZwofCh8KHMyU_KDYrPxQqBQpkIT0cLicW
Goals for this build:
- Ability to craft psi bands and psi tac vests that will carry you through the game (Open to divesting points to put into traps and pickpocket, don't need the best, just great)
- Be able to spot mines without tripping over them
- Make every speech check. Unlock, and hack everything
- Save psi points by using grenades
- Good stealth with a crafted cloaker.
I'm concerned about the lack of action points tho.
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Do you not have the expansion? Your original post about building a psi character mentioned that you wanted to give the expansion a go, but every time you link to a build you're thinking about using, you link to a build that isn't using Expedition.
If you do have Expedition, then you should probably reconsider your build progression since there'll be another psi school for you to consider, several new feats, and an increased level cap.
For what it's worth, with 10+6 Will, 10 Int, 6 Con, and 5 Per, you will still have enough skill points to get all your crafting, lockpicking, hacking, persuasion, mercantile, and intimidation thresholds while maxing at least two of the schools of psi. You don't need Dex or Agi for your build. Very minimal investments ultimately are wasted, because if you can succeed with 15 points in a skill, you can succeed with 0 points in a skill. It's the same reason you never want a stat to be 4; if you can succeed with a stat of 4, you can succeed with a stat of 3 and reclaim that stat point to put somewhere else.
Regardless, ultimately, if you want to build to your own liking, then you should do that and play. Don't get so mired in the theorycrafting that you never get around to playing the game ;D
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Do you not have the expansion? Your original post about building a psi character mentioned that you wanted to give the expansion a go, but every time you link to a build you're thinking about using, you link to a build that isn't using Expedition.
If you do have Expedition, then you should probably reconsider your build progression since there'll be another psi school for you to consider, several new feats, and an increased level cap.
For what it's worth, with 10+6 Will, 10 Int, 6 Con, and 5 Per, you will still have enough skill points to get all your crafting, lockpicking, hacking, persuasion, mercantile, and intimidation thresholds while maxing at least two of the schools of psi. You don't need Dex or Agi for your build. Very minimal investments ultimately are wasted, because if you can succeed with 15 points in a skill, you can succeed with 0 points in a skill. It's the same reason you never want a stat to be 4; if you can succeed with a stat of 4, you can succeed with a stat of 3 and reclaim that stat point to put somewhere else.
Regardless, ultimately, if you want to build to your own liking, then you should do that and play. Don't get so mired in the theorycrafting that you never get around to playing the game ;D
No i don't have the expansion. I think I meant I'd give the expansion a go if I could complete the base game, but that's looking less and less likely to happen anytime soon...
Taking your advice, I made this build.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMDAwYFEAoAAAAAAABISHkAAEtLACRLwofCh8KHMSRAKDYrPxQqBQpkIT0cLidQ
Able to craft everything I want and pass all checks in the base game, as well as max out psi abilities. I dumped leftover points into stealth cause I think that comes in handy time-to-time.
I'd really like to take the points in CON and dump them into DEX so I can level lockpick more efficiently and perhaps go into pickpocket or traps, but the lack of health was making me pull my hair out. That and I' want to have lockpick 50 by the time I get to the GMS Compound with all the sentry bots, as otherwise its a massive pain in the ass.
Honestly, theory-crafting is more fun than the game right now. Even on normal its absolutely punishing.
EDIT:
Here is a 3 CON 6 DEX build I made:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMGAwMFEAoAAAAAAAAXSF1NAEtLACRLwofCh8KHMSRAKDYrPxQqBQpkIT0cLic
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No i don't have the expansion. I think I meant I'd give the expansion a go if I could complete the base game, but that's looking less and less likely to happen anytime soon...
I' want to have lockpick 50 by the time I get to the GMS Compound with all the sentry bots, as otherwise its a massive pain in the ass.
The Expedition expansion is both add-on and add-in. There's stuff available from the first few minutes of the game, so there is absolutely no reason to feel that you need to finish the base game before getting the expansion. Obviously, if you want to, then you should do what you want.
GMS is super easy to get through as psi. Just make sure you're level 6 so you have Premeditation and you'll find you have all sorts of crazy shenanigans at your disposal. If for some reason you want to be extra double safe, then before you go to GMS, go into the Underpassages (that's the area accessible by heading out the SGS gate and going down the stairs in that first map with the rathounds patrolling around) and look around for a bit. You'll find someone wearing a tac vest. Even if the RNG gives you a really crappy tac vest, any tac vest makes the GMS robots easy-peasy. 30 effective Lockpick skill is plenty for GMS. What you really want is 50 effective Hacking for the tasty psi-mushroom hoards.
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What is the rational for dumping DEX and AGI completely in favor of CON? Its nice not being completely made of glass but as a Psi user you are still pretty fragile only now you shoot second, third or fourth, which has often meant insta-death for me. Nothing makes you want to rage-quit more than zoning in and instantly being gibbed by some Ironheads.
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What is the rational for dumping DEX and AGI completely in favor of CON? Its nice not being completely made of glass but as a Psi user you are still pretty fragile only now you shoot second, third or fourth, which has often meant insta-death for me. Nothing makes you want to rage-quit more than zoning in and instantly being gibbed by some Ironheads.
It's very hard (though not impossible, with one or maybe two exceptions) to avoid getting hit in UnderRail, so you're going to take some damage. That's doubly true early on, when you're learning the game. You'll step on mines, you'll fail to position yourself correctly, you'll put a frag grenade at your own feet. It'll happen. So it's nice to have enough health, especially for a first play-through, to survive those little mistakes.
If you aren't going first in combat (with two, or maybe three exceptions) then that's because you are letting the combat come to you, rather than starting it on your own terms. You should almost always be starting combat manually so that you go first. When you start combat manually, your initiative doesn't matter, just like starting combat from stealth. So you don't need Dex or Agi, because you don't need initiative, and your Dex and Agi fed skills are low-investment anyway.
You've said you want to play a character with stealth. Why wouldn't you stealth up before zoning into a new area? Caution is what keeps you alive reliably.
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Thanks for posting this. I used this to shape my first run to level 30 with a psychosis build. I did wonder if it was worth it to put some points into firearms or throwables for something to use when you're out of psi and cooldowns to restore it. A filler action so to speak. Going to be going through my second run to catch things I didn't do before.
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I do not recommend advanced psi empathy for light/medium armored mages.
On paper it sounds ok, but in practice it is not worth it IMO.
With the health cut I feel like I am back in the early game where everything would chunk the shit out of me. And the only pay off I can feel is the fact that I don't need to use psi boosters as much....when I already had a 100+ to burn so ya....
The benefit is limited by your action points in all honesty. Even WITH psi acceleration AND the feat for that. Sure you feel like you aren't running out of psi every other turn as easily but its just not worth it. With the philosophy + psi headband crafting feat it felt fine. With advanced psi, it feels like I have a good amount of psi which is...fine, but the cost of being 1HKO with my armor that made me feel like a tank just before the feat is NOT worth the trade off.
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I do not recommend advanced psi empathy for light/medium armored mages.
On paper it sounds ok, but in practice it is not worth it IMO.
With the health cut I feel like I am back in the early game where everything would chunk the shit out of me.
Full psi builds have a ludicrous number of options to just not get hit. If you're getting hit hard regularly, then you're not playing psi well. It's really that simple. Little hits here and there, sure; but you should only be getting hit when you want to, if you're playing full psi.
Hide behind a force field; set up mirror images and cryo shield; debuff enemy hit chances so they have no prayer of landing a shot; slow and chill melee enemies so they can't get to you; AoE incapacitate/fear/enrage enemy groups; stun organics and robotics alike; lay down powerful stunning traps; make yourself immune to fire damage; make yourself immune to all damage.
There's so much. Your HP pool is just a curiosity piece once you know how to play psi reasonably well. And once you begin taking advantage of Thermodynamicity, you'll be able to trigger 8, 10, even 12 abilities a turn. You'll want all the psi cost reduction you can get, at that point.
I know you mostly show up to troll the forums both here and on reddit with stories of your own failures, but if your concern is genuine, then know it's because you haven't learned how to play psi well yet. Keep at it; there's plenty of advice out there to get you up to speed.
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To any newcomer looking for PSI builds, this thread is pretty much obsolete now with the massive changes to PSI.
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O, ye of little faith.
Updated post now for current experimental branch psi mechanics.
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Excellent outline on the new PSI mechanics!
Looks a bit like the most useful new PSI ability is "Throw a grenade" and "Lay bear traps" ;(
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Excellent outline on the new PSI mechanics!
Looks a bit like the most useful new PSI ability is "Throw a grenade" and "Lay bear traps" ;(
I've always preferred and played true psi hybrids. The best Psi skill is, indeed, ''Throw a grenade'', but only when its follow by big Pyrokinetic fireballs.
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Excellent outline on the new PSI mechanics!
Looks a bit like the most useful new PSI ability is "Throw a grenade" and "Lay bear traps" ;(
I've always preferred and played true psi hybrids. The best Psi skill is, indeed, ''Throw a grenade'', but only when its follow by big Pyrokinetic fireballs.
I think for hybrid builds (which I also like dearly), this is fine. For a Cave Wizard, battle field control via Bear Traps when a Force Field could also do it seems just less fitting. I guess it just takes getting used to the new system. Tamior playing it right now on Twitch helps grasping the details.
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O, ye of little faith.
Updated post now for current experimental branch psi mechanics.
We already had a hotfix with noticeable changes so that post will probably be obsolete soon again. If you really want to make a guide it will probably be better to create a new thread once we are past the beta/experimental stage which might take a while.
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We already had a hotfix with noticeable changes so that post will probably be obsolete soon again.
There's a reason I list the "current as of" date in the updated recommendations post. Don't you worry; I'll keep things current as long as this thread stays relevant.