Underrail Forum
Underrail => General => Topic started by: Zeroo on December 31, 2015, 01:16:26 pm
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Hi, I just bought the game on steam after hearing so many good things about it and I'm going to start playing soon. I plan to build a sledgehammer character wearing heavy armour and I was wondering if the following stats and skills are a good idea:
To start with I am thinking about
Str 9
Dex 4
Agi 5
Con 10
Per 4
Will 4
Int 4
Then putting a point in agility at level 4 for sprint and after that just continue putting points in strength.
As for skills I plan to put 15 in melee, 15 in throwing, 15 in traps, 15 in mechanics, 15 in electronics, 15 in chemistry, 15 in biology and 15 in tailoring. And trying to max all those skills. (or up until maxing them any further wouldn't be worth it any more). The plan is to be able to craft really good sledgehammers and armor for myself, plus crafting all my bombs and traps as well.
I have no idea about what the essential feats are for a sledgehammer build. What are good feats to take?
Do you think with this build I can play through on hard mode? Any things I should keep in mind or change in my starting stats? Or any other useful tips?
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My rule of thumb is: Never put a stat at 4. Seems like a good idea at first in order to avoid the -10% skill penalty but it's a big mistake as those points will be dearly missed on other important stats, even if it means just one extra point of endurance. With the exception for your offense (either strength or dex for melee skill, perception for guns/crossbows, will for psi) and defense (dodge, evasion, endurance) NEVER waste a precious stat point just to boost your skills. Raise other stats only for the purpose to obtain a certain feat. For example raise intelligence only till the point where you can pick your desired crafting feat or whatever feat you need that also requires int.
Will 4 for example only gives you a tiny bit of resolve against psi attacks and that's it. You won't be using any social or psi skills so there is no point with it anyway. Leave it at 3.
Same with perception, you won't use guns and as for discovering secret passages 1 point won't get you anywhere (putting more for this reason would be even worse). Dump it to 3 as well.
Dexterity: 4 will give make your lockpicking a bit higher but you won't need to max that one anway, the same with traps. In fact you can dump traps completely on a metal armor build providing you didn't dump endurance. The ONLY good reason to raise dex above 3 on a pure Sledgehammer build is the Cheap Shots feat that requires 6. (15% chance to incapacitate on hit, +50% critical hit damage). It's not mandatory though.
Intelligence: 4 alone is also not of good use but you'll probably want to raise it to 5 or 6 anyway because of some good feats. Cheap Shots needs 5, Expose Weakness as well, Armor Sloping and Weaponsmith need 6 and both are good choices.
Strongest sledgehammer build relies on bleeding buffs and debuffs. It means you must be able to procc bleeding on enemies via serrated blades on your metal armor because of:
1.) Taste for Blood feat (buffs you with up to additional 50% extra damage when you hit a bleeding enemy + you hit slightly faster) and
2.) Vile Weaponry feat (up to 30% extra damage -75% healing on bleeding enemies).
Pair that with full strength (+1 on each stat levelup), Expose Weakness (-50% damage resistance and threshold on enemies), Bone Breaker (crtical hits put up to 50% damage debuff) and you'll smash through metal armored guys like through paper.
There are two different builds I'd recommend. One is more offensive:
10 Str (end with 16 at level 24)
6 Dex
7 Agi
5 End
3 Per
3 Will
6 Int
The other is a more defensive max hp Jaggernaut/Super Slam build:
10 Str (end with 16 at level 24)
3 Dex
6 Agi
10 End
3 Per
3 Will
5 Int
I can gladly give you a detailed build with feats/skills later when I get back home.
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I can gladly give you a detailed build with feats/skills later when I get back home.
I would very much appreciate it.
Thank you very much already for your help!
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This is the offensive build:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/e7ba/6mxianxfcz9ssa4zg.jpg?size_id=5)
I recommend these skills: http://underrail.info.tm/?build=AwGlEYBYQJgVhOAbCFB2ECDMIctGghFguCYueMKEgnEWBadY1U46Jx0A
Note that I didn't put any feats in as this is purely for skill distribution.
This one is more defensive and probably a better choice for the hard difficulty (I'd still advise you to start on normal for your first run):
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/2537/nv6pzzpx51bend1zg.jpg?size_id=5)
http://underrail.info.tm/?build=AwGlEYBYQJgVhOAbCAzCF5TvQ0B2PRVI8ExGADhHwJVAnLKLk3IbE4aA
Both rely on stealth and after attacking from it you lose all movement points so that's why sprint is important. You'll notice that despite metal armor I took both defensive skills for the first build. Thanks to the Armor Sloping your armor penalty wont be terrible and you'll have still good use from it. Just make sure to not use any additional plates on metal armor and don't forget the serrated blades, also don't bother raising throwing/biology until you can craft the best armors and sledgehammers possible at your current level. You'll need mechanics, tailoring AND electronics for that. Electroshock sledgehammers are a must.
I skipped dodge for the defensive build because your armor penatly will be too high anyway (you need 50+ for Juggernaut) and dangerous foes will hit you anyway. This is where Guard feat comes in and thanks to Thick Skull it will never become useless. You can squeeze it into the first build too by replacing Nimble and moving it to an earlier level.
Evasion is still good to have even when around 60 or so armor penalty as every little bit of it reduces the AoE damage. Besides, ranged enemies have a more difficult time to hit you compared to melee because of more harsh modifiers like distance, max gun range etc.
I don't like taking chemistry on melee builds because you'll have plenty of granades and special ammo is useless to you anyway. Making own stims and some drugs is useful for hard diffuculty but still not a must. You could let it at 10 and use the rest for the throwing skill to be a bit more accurate with granades and compensate for the fact that you're not as manouverable as the offensive build.
The order of feats is not set in stone but I'd recommend to stick to it as much as possible.
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I've finished game once with stealthy sniper psi and it was breeze. Looking forward for some more challenge and would really interested to play pure melee/heavy armor/sledgehammer build. Your second build looks pretty interesting, Wildan, but may I have some questions about it. How would you manage to avoid all these traps, especially these annoying coil spider's, with such low perception and zero investment into trap skill? You've mentioned stealth plays important role for this build, and I do agree stealth is awesome, but I simply cannot see how would you use stealth if you use heavy armor most times. Should I plan to use particular secondary weapon, because I found it very difficult to progress at early stages with sledgehammer when you can perform only two or even one attack per turn :/
Some tips would be appreciated.
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I've finished game once with stealthy sniper psi and it was breeze. Looking forward for some more challenge and would really interested to play pure melee/heavy armor/sledgehammer build. Your second build looks pretty interesting, Wildan, but may I have some questions about it. How would you manage to avoid all these traps, especially these annoying coil spider's, with such low perception and zero investment into trap skill? You've mentioned stealth plays important role for this build, and I do agree stealth is awesome, but I simply cannot see how would you use stealth if you use heavy armor most times. Should I plan to use particular secondary weapon, because I found it very difficult to progress at early stages with sledgehammer when you can perform only two or even one attack per turn :/
Some tips would be appreciated.
Hello, for traps, with the synergies it will be achieved for the minimum points for see traps without using any points in that ability. For stealth, you can use it with heavy armor if you combine the nimble feat and sloping armor. for secondary weapon, I use fists more "Force Emission" but if you do not use psi ... Maybe the "the claw" combat glove is equally useful.
And watch out for merchants, can offer tichrome bars (for the hammer) before foundry.
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I've finished game once with stealthy sniper psi and it was breeze. Looking forward for some more challenge and would really interested to play pure melee/heavy armor/sledgehammer build. Your second build looks pretty interesting, Wildan, but may I have some questions about it. How would you manage to avoid all these traps, especially these annoying coil spider's, with such low perception and zero investment into trap skill? You've mentioned stealth plays important role for this build, and I do agree stealth is awesome, but I simply cannot see how would you use stealth if you use heavy armor most times. Should I plan to use particular secondary weapon, because I found it very difficult to progress at early stages with sledgehammer when you can perform only two or even one attack per turn :/
Some tips would be appreciated.
Traps? You walk over them. Well, not deliberately but with a solid super steel armor, preferably with a sturdy vest (100% of quality translates to bonus hitpoints), infused siphoner leather tabbis, 10 CON and Juggernaut your hitpoints and resistances will be good enough to survive the worst acid traps easily. As for the frag (Mk V) mines, while they have the highest damage potential, most of it is mechanical damage and you have exceptional resistance against it. Not just because of the armor but also because of the resistance that gets applied after it.
These stack together: Conditioning, Stoicism, lifting belt, infused ancient rathound leather (5% on armor and tabbis each), mushroom brew, aegis and morphine drug.
You'll have: Conditioning 15% + lifting belt 10% + mushroom brew 10% = 35% resistance against mechanical damage that you will have all the time. With the armor and this alone, Carnifex - the last arena opponent will do little harm as he deals only mechanical damage (plus he can't stun you with Combo).
In encounters where you expect alot of mechanical damage (like after your shield goes dry) and have full or close to full health you can take the morphine drug to bring it up to 85%. But watch the side effects with it. With aegis it will bring you to 95%. A full sniper critical hit will only scratch you at this point.
One downside of using drugs with this build is that it always costs you 10 AP vs 2 AP if you were wearing a doctor's pouch, which is better than the lifting belt but as a sledghammer fighter you need the belt. Pure sledgehammer builds benefit more from the mushroom brew then anybody else. You don't only get the 10% damage resistance but also +1 STR and the -2 DEX malus won't hurt you at all because you don't rely on DEX and you couldn't care less about PSI. In the recent patch food duration was increased but mushroom brew still lasts quite a bit shorter so make sure to hoard on it. You can buy it from the barkeeper in Rail Crossing but it's also found in food loot now and then.
Thanks to infused siphoner leather tabbis (seriously these are so OP) and Thick Skull, coil spiders are no threat as they no longer can stun or immobilize you.
For trap detection you don't have to rely on traps skill: http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Traps
A good pair of motion detection goggles will boost your natural detection (which scales with your level) enough to detect not all, but still most common traps.
Just because you wear metal armor it doesn't mean you have to walk around with 95% armor penalty. Super steel armor with a blade or two on it will be good enough to keep close to half of your stealth skill and still qualify for Juggernaut.
As you surely know, there are other means to bump your stealth besides putting points in it: Cloaking device, black balaclava and if really needed you can switch to ninja tabbis occasionally. Unlike a sniper you don't need high stealth for damage, you only need enough to get into melee range.
Don't plan to use a secondary weapon if that means for you to alter the build by wasting stat or skill points into something you won't use later anyway. This is how I like to start with a sledgehammer build:
After doing the initial quests in SGS I go straight to Junkyard and buy a lifting belt which brings your 25 AP sledgehammer swings down to 20 AP so you can hit with two regular hits plus one with Pummel. If you have tabbis at this point use a serrated (shock) knife for 11 AP per swing. That way you can always hit 2 times with the hammer (2x19 AP) and once with the knife. If you don't have the tabbis simply leave your second slot empty and use fists fot 10 AP.
If you can afford it either buy or craft a tactical vest with an armor plate in it. It will be superior to metal armor at this point and makes more sense for the upcomming encounters in GMS compound. You're likely to be immune against most bullet hits, even from those AR bandits in the 3rd level caves and because your armor penalty is above 50 you can plan to take Juggernaut for extra hitpoints at level 4.
Later when you go back to Junkyard to get the drill parts you can focus on making a proper metal armor.
Looking at my chart above I think it would be better to rearrange some other feats as well and make a focus on super steel sledgehammer stuns (15% chance). Critical hits are mostly for Bone Breaker so Heavyweight can be swapped with Opportunist:
(http://i.imgur.com/RPvY7m4.gif)
This brought me to an idea about a new build: A critical hits/damage focused PSI Sledgehammer build.
The basic idea is to get as high as possible critical hit chance and damage while still being mobile and hard to kill. Being able to cast Force Field in order to bottleneck/ cut off enemies is immensely valuable as well. I took all the critical hits/damage feats including Weaponsmith but unfortunatelly Survival Instincts became unavailable because of 7 CON. To bring it back to 9 would cost 2 STR which is not worth losing. 1 point in STR had to go anyway to bring INT to 6 which is needed for Weaponsmith and more imprtantly Premeditation. It's used for 0 AP stuns with Electrokinesis which, thanks to Psychostatic Electricity debuff, gives you +15% critical chance against the main Electrokinesis target (providing there is one other target for the bolts to jump).
So to sum it up:
Basic critical chance is: 5 from the Sledgehammer + 5 from Weaponsmith + 7 From recklessness + 1 from DEX = 18% - That's nearly 1 critical in 5 hits. When you use Eletrokinesis and have 2 near targets it climbs up to 33% (initial hit + 4 jumps = 3 hits against the first target = 5*3 = 15%) - That makes on average 1 of 3 hits a critical. This is very good already. If you take the focus stim drug (second best drug in the game) it will jump by another 15% making a total of 48% chance to hit critically. That's almost every other hit. Now we're talking. Thanks to Cheap Shots, Heavyweight and Critical Power a tungsten steel sledgehammer will do about 425% (!) critical damage. That might be even more damage then snipe. Downside of this build is that the hitpoints are considerably lower thanks to 7 vs 9 CON and PSI so Superslam falls out, especially on hard difficulty but I'm convinced that insane critical chance and damage can make up for it. Skillwise you don't have to invest alot into Psychokinesis and thanks to 6 int you need less for crafting. Just get enough so you can qualify for Telekinetic Imprint which is awesome to have.
(http://i.imgur.com/Gac2Bvw.gif)
In any case of a pure sledgehammer build always use a TiChrome sledgehammer for your second slot. It has 3 less base AP cost. With the belt + tabbis it will get down to 16 and when you reach maximum Taste for Blood stacks it will get further down to 14 AP. At that point when you pop in an adrenaline shot you will be able to swing it for 5 times within the 70 AP pool - pretty sweet. In case of the PSI build, when you get the fatigue penalty just cast Force Field and maybe the Imprint to block the enemies and try to get a distance. Till they catch up with you fatigue will be over in most cases. The same applies to situations where the enemy uses adrenaline shot but you're unlikely to kill or stun him in one round. Cut him off with the field and let him cool off to fatigue. :P
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Hey, Wildan, thank you so much for such thoughtful and detailed explanation. Some really nice tips and ideas you have there. I will definitely try a no-psi build, because already played one, but your second build also looks very interesting :)
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Your advice on this was seriously helpful, Wildan. Thanks a ton, man.
I just hit level 20 with your more defensive build from your first post and the game has been very enjoyable with it. Tanky builds are my cup of tea in most games and this one was excellent.
I intend to try your psibuild as well on my second run and then will head to hard mode.
Would you suggest the defensive build from your first post over the psibuild from the second (or either of your second builds, really) for hardmode? The concept of being a tank is very appealing and from what I gather about hardmode would be very beneficial.
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Would that hammer build be good?
10++++++/7/6/5/3/3/6
1.Recklessness
1.Sprint
2.Pummel
4.Quick tinkering
6.Cheap shots
8.Weaponsmith
10.Bone breaker
12.Taste of blood
14.Critical power
16.Expose weakness
18.Heavyweight
20.Opportunist
22.Conditioning
24.Vile weaponry
Tactic would be to use bear trap and lure enemies into tight corridor. Only problem with it, after two turns when sprint wears of you will be using action points to move because of 95% armor penality. But because you wont be spending any points into stealth, evasion or dodge there will be lot of points for chemistry and biology.
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I'm not sure that Bone Breaker is really good for Sledgehammer. Unlike Taste For Blood which gives you damage buff (so it stays with you even when you kill an opponent), Bone Breaker gives debuff to an opponent and it needs a critical hit to activate. Crit from hammer will kill most of you opponents anyway, so it's a bit of a "win more" ability for this build. Works great for str+dex unarmed build though.
Vile Weaponry has same problems - since you rely on high damage and small amount of hits, you don't benefit that much from such debuffs.
P.S. Though it may be less true for DC, never played hammer build that far.
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Keep in mind that vile weaponry kicks in from bear traps, serrated blades from armor which you will be using. So once monster gets into trap and get hit once with weapon it will have 3 stacks already. And i dont see any replacement for bone breaker. Mayby guard.
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Armor Sloping is a good choice. You don't need 95% armor penalty to get good criticals, at this point mobility is more important.
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Pure sledgehammer builds benefit more from the mushroom brew then anybody else.
So, you are saying that a good sledgehammer user is always hammered?
*ba dum tss*
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Armor Sloping is a good choice. You don't need 95% armor penalty to get good criticals, at this point mobility is more important.
Whole idea behind this build is to crit as hard as possible. At 270 melee skill your hammer will get 290% dmg bonus and tungsten steel hammer will have 425% multi and 18% crit chance. So 28-50 x 290% =81-145 x 425 =344-616. And thats just from 55 quality tungsten steel and without other feats that give 155%. With higher quality steel i guess dmg will go up to above 1k, which means with 3 hits with adrenaline dmg will be around 2-4k per turn. Thats really good.
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Armor Sloping is a good choice. You don't need 95% armor penalty to get good criticals, at this point mobility is more important.
Whole idea behind this build is to crit as hard as possible. At 270 melee skill your hammer will get 290% dmg bonus and tungsten steel hammer will have 425% multi and 47% crit chance with survival instincts. So 28-50 x 290% =81-145 x 425 =344-616. And thats just from 55 quality tungsten steel and without other feats that give 155%. With higher quality steel i guess dmg will go up to above 1k, which means with 3 hits with adrenaline dmg will be around 2-4k per turn. Thats really good.
There are no mobs in the game with that much health, so what's the point? If you can't move to their position then the damage will be not 2-4k, but 0 ^_^
Also, you can have more than one armor. Have something like Super Steel armor with only serrated blade upgrade when you need mobility and heavier armor when you need this crit damage and better defense.
And you can have 3 hits/turn without adrenaline if you have belt + tabi + tichrome hammer.
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The tactic for this build is obvious, lure them back behind corner or stay in doorway.
A sniper with high quality clothes and sharpshooter will have 550% bonus with Snipe and 290% from gun skill, with reaper rifle from wiki thats 932 dmg. But i guess high quality frame and gun nut would make it even bigger.
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The tactic for this build is obvious, lure them back behind corner or stay in doorway.
A sniper with high quality clothes and sharpshooter will have 550% bonus with Snipe and 290% from gun skill, with reaper rifle from wiki thats 932 dmg. But i guess high quality frame and gun nut would make it even bigger.
You won't be able to pull this tactics off every time, you know) Well, it's your character anyway.
And yes, it's a "bit" more than 932 dmg. Felt like total overkill.
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There are no mobs in the game with that much health, so what's the point? If you can't move to their position then the damage will be not 2-4k, but 0 ^_^
Health is usually not the issue, mechanical damage resistance is. There are critters and heavily armored guys near mechanical damage immunity. Unlike somthing like a xbow user, a sledgehammer build is actually very good in overcoming it because it ignores damage threshold, damage is done in large spikes, bonus electrical damage is really good and Expose Weakness turns everybody into a paper bag. I'd still say you can never have too much damage. :)
Mobilty can indeed become a problem. There are many open areas with little to no opportunities to kite behind a corner or a doorway. Stealth pays off big in Underrail, even for a 50% armor penalty guy. Anything above 60% is not worth it for melee IMO. Heavyweight critical bonus is of little use if you need most, if not all of your AP to reach the target. One exception that comes into mind is the arena boss.
For medium/high armor penalty builds it's actually better to use striders instead of tabbis (beware of sneak penalty). Movement speed increase scales with spring quality, eventually reaching 30+ % in speed increase. That's alot better than 10% tabbis have. Sledgehammer also doesn't really need to rely on tabbis -1 AP bonus. The only thing that becomes unusable is hitting 3 times/turn with a tichrome hammer because of 17 AP per hit. Still not a big deal as you can use the supperior tungsten two times + Pummel and for the turns where you don't have Pummel you use a tichrome serrated knife as your secondary weapon. With as little as 6 DEX (you need it for Cheap Shots anyway) you hit with it for exactly 10 AP - perfect alignment with a 20 AP tungsten hit and same AP like consumables. However I have a few problems with a knife in this build: Weak synergy with STR and they don't apply for neither Bone Braker and Heavyweight. A leather combat glove is naturally much stronger here and in the case of the two unique leather gloves if offers great debuffs.
The problem with the gloves on the other hand is, at 7 DEX without tabbis they hit for 11 AP so doesn't fit with a 20 AP tungsten hit. Luckily food offers flexibility here. The solution is to keep both, good striders and tabbis on the character and mix accordingly with either eel sandwitch or rathound barbeque.
When you need mobility: Eel sandwich -> 8 DEX + striders -> 10 AP hit for gloves.
When you need damage: Rathound barbeque -> 16 STR + tabbis -> still 10 AP for gloves.
At this point in buildcrafting it might be a good investment to sacrifice Pummel for Wrestling. When you fight vs. dangerous 1-2 enemies you can't kill quickly it's usually better to put strong bufffs/debuffs first - Taste for Blood, Vile Weaponry, Bone Breaker, contaminated (the Claw) and Wrestling which is good vs both melee and ranged. Cth debuff is flat - it can't be compensated with high skill and I don't think that anything is immune to the tackle debuff. All other Feats are still more important so I'd take this as the very last one. If you'd prefer Pummel instead of Wrestling take it at level 2 and Opportunist at level 22. As a heavy trap user I'm personally sticking to early Opportunist.
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/0785/t76d1udw402w5bezg.jpg)
It's too bad that Juggernaut doesn't count total armor penalty but only the suit. Otherwise this build would be best played with an infused rathound leather armor with 50% armor penalty (would be possible with metal helmet). Top quality can reach up to 15% critical chance which would in this case double the chance! Good critical damage is only as good as the critical chance it requires.
It can be done by going low on armor penalty and dumping Juggernaut along with Heavyweight, favoring DEX instead of CON for even better critical chance but then it doesn't make sense to focus on sledgehammer anymore as there is much less hitpoints without metal armor + sturdy vest. It would suit better a metal glove/power fist build.
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For the record, Tabi boots were updated to have their Movement Speed dependent on cloth quality. High quality infused leather sets can reach into the 30% as well.
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For the record, Tabi boots were updated to have their Movement Speed dependent on cloth quality. High quality infused leather sets can reach into the 30% as well.
Movement speed doesn't have anything to do with combat. It is safe to say you can ignore that....
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Hey, for those who prefer to walk a little faster ( and haven't gotten around to cheat engine yet) every little bit helps.
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I play Wildan build now, and i agree that you cant have enough dmg. So far i did 220 with tungsten. Also i wont craft metal armor until i get Juggernaut. With sniper i did 300-500 on lvl 6 so it is not that brutal, but its only lvl 9.
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Every resource spent on rising damage higher than it's needed to kill toughest creature is a wasted resource.
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Well i read somewhere that hardest enemy in game has 700 hp. But you have to count resistances too.
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Gave the build another go and it seems the option with 2 x tungsten + 1 x fist can't go vs 3 tichrome sledgehammer hits. Buffs/debuffs are great indeed but they can't make up for the loss of damage because of 2 vs 3 hammer hits/turn.
This sledgehammer was crafted with a 119 quality tichrome bar, 104 electroshock generator and 134 plasma core. It's still not top quality but it already greatly outdamages a 2 x tungsten + fists combination.
(http://i.imgur.com/ar4PaSQ.jpg)
So the classic strategy remains the best - keep both, tungsten and tichrome hammers in active slots and use Pummel when you can. Another advantage of tichrome is you can throw a grenade and still hit twice with the hammer.
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I use taser + 3x tungsten hits with adrenaline.
Btw, striders even with low quality does 40 penality to stealth, making them very poor choice.
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Later on it's not that much of a problem as you can actually afford to max stealth and the penalty can be reduced with soft padding, not to negate the string but it helps. But yeah 3 x tichrome hits demand tabbis so best to stick with that anyway.
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It could be possible to get blitz and get 90 ap which would mean 5 attacks with tiChrome and one with pummel.
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Yes but it requires 10 AGI which means dumping either DEX, CON or significally weakening STR and thus damage/precision. Neither a good option IMO, at least not for a crit based sledgehammer build. 1 x 20 AP every 10 rounds is just not good enough here, unlike for snipers/xbow guys that can additionally utilize stealth for Snipe and generally profit from 0 armor penalty. Dodge/evasion at 10 AGI and 50 - 60 armor penalty is lower than with 3 AGI at 0 armor penalty, that's too much of a waste.
It could be ok for a glass canon though but I can't tell. I never played melee glass cannons except for PSI monks which heavily relied on CC with psi, Combo and Fatal Throw. Those are nerfed now so not even that is reliable anymore.
Maybe you could do 10+++++/7/9+/3/3/3/5 and swap between infused syphoner and rathound leather whenever you need critical chance vs extra dodge/evasion. Juggernaut gets replaced by Nimble for 0 armor penalty so Heavyweight is out. This way you're trading critical damage for critical chance.
Major problem is you can't cause bleeding with leather armor so probably a better option would be to go for 6 INT, take both Nimble and Armor Sloping for quite low armor penalty and still get hp bonus from the sturdy vest + bleeding from one serrated blade.
How ever you turn it around I still think that a heavy CON based sledgehammer build makes more sense and that weapon seems to be built around it.
Next time I do a sledgehammer run I think I'll try the psi mix again for max possible critical chance (still with metal armor). With adrenaline it's 3 tungsten hits + pummel on a stunned, strongly debuffed target thanks to Electrokinesis + Electrokinetic Imprint. Pretty much the PSI build I posted a while ago but with PSI feats earlier and Taste for Blood later as it doesn't offer AP reduction anymore.
One nice advantage is how easy you can get around that dangerous adrenaline fatigue debuff. When you get it you can cast Force Field and often force enemies to wait their turns out or walk around (and waste time) until fatigue wears off. Force Field is also very beneficial vs ranged enemies when you have problems closing in because of medicore movement points caused by high armor penalty or when you can bottleneck a larger group to go through a one tile wide corridor you created and set on fire with a molotov, and pick them from the corner one by one. Underrail is not always about everybody standing in the open and you killing them before they kill you. "All we need is just a little patience... patience... mwmmmhmhyeahhh." :P
[edit] I'll have to ditch Bone Breaker in future. It's usefulness is just too limited for sledgehammers. Most things that (actually have ribs) end up dead in one hit anyway because of the crit damage. It used to be pretty good for a DEX based monk that could hit for 4 AP with metal gloves - before the DEX and TfB nerf.
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Speaking of melee critical hits; would Shiv with ripper, cheap shots and critical power build work? It would be possible to do 27 attacks with fatal throw, blitz and adrenaline.
3/10/9+/5+++++/3/5/5
Sprint
Recklessness
Opportunist
Quick tinkering
Cheap shots
Ripper
Blitz
Fatal throw
Critical power
Expose weakness
Vile weaponry
Survival Instincts
Taste for blood
Thick skull
Base dmg 1-7 x 210% from weapon skill, 50%taste of blood, 30% from vile weaponry, 25% opportunist - thats 3-21 with huge critical multiplier
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Never played a character built around the Shiv but I like your idea. Having both 10 AGI and CON and still be able to maximise attacks per round is someting unique indeed.
The only issue is being extremly dependant on critical hits which means dealing very little damage against creatures like bladelings but luckily there is Expose Weakness. Another thing is Shiv having not all that great critical hit chance. Together with 10 DEX and Recklessness it's only 20%. That's far from good. Survival Instincts is 30% but it kicks in when you're good as dead. To be effective you'd need to implement all critical chance you can get. Infused rathound leather armor can give you up to 15%. It's a long road until you can craft it but once you have it you're around 1 in 3 hits a critical.
Focus stim is 15% but it's situational so you'd have to craft lots of them.
Psychostatic Electricity also has a potential of another 15% but the problem is you need Premediation in order not to waste AP casting Electrokinesis so not only do you need 2 more free feat slots, you also need 6 INT. It can be done by leaving DEX at 9 and using the eel sandwich. The actual stack limit for Psy. Electricity is 5 so you could get up to 25% if you have two targets and you cast Electrokinesis on each. One is free and the other one costs 30 AP so you'd have 20 AP left but if you use Blitz and adrenaline you'll have 60 total allowing for 15 attacks - pretty good.
All in all if you maximise the critical chance potential (not including Survival Instincts) you would have a max chance of 75%. Survival Instincts would raise it over 100%. With Cheap Shots, Ripper and Critical Power, depending on enemy health Shiv can deal anything between 625% and 870% of damage. With 10 DEX the weapon damage at level 25 is 242% so the Shiv will deal 2 - 16 damage (depending on if damage is rounded or trucated). A critical will deliver between 12 - 100 and 17 - 139. If we include maximized Taste for Blood and Vile Weaponry the damage should pretty much double. This is only end game circumstances but overall not bad for a little piece of junk.
Like I mentioned it's very dependant on actually scoring a critical so I think that investing into Psychostatic Electricity might pay off, more than in any other build. With only 10 DEX the chance to hit against high dodge enemies are smaller than with 16 DEX so stunning enemies is even more important. I'd replace Fatal Throw with this feat because at 10 DEX a throwing knife costs 15 AP while refunding 18 - that's not even one extra melee hit. In order to get room for Premeditation, Opportunist would have to go too. Unfortunately because with all the Electrokinesis stuns it's great. Fancy Footwork is better than Sprint but it can't be taken at level 1 so it's required to take both Survivial Instinct and Thick Skull very early. Because of stat distribution as the last feat you have to take either Ripper or Blitz. Ripper is far superrior so Blitz gets the last call.
As a secondary weapon the unique glove Ripper would be best because sometimes you'd need to initiate bleeding by a weapon and as all other bleeding melee weapons have either 11 or 12 AP you want to make a bleeding wound and switch to shiv as fast as possible. Ripper does this very well - it's a 58% chance to make at least one bleeding wound. Taste for Blood is pretty late so it's not a priority weapon. Thanks to psi there is also some extra damage from Force Emission. My guess is that it's still inferior to a 16 DEX critical hits based monk but that one can't max both AGI and CON.
So this is how I'd progress the Shiv Assassin:
(http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/21c7/8kr7j8ulbp8nbnqzg.jpg)
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I play it now, but i will pick expose weakness on lvl 6 for the sake of Depot A.