Underrail Forum
Underrail => Builds => Topic started by: Hammer Wizard on January 06, 2020, 08:12:08 am
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Hello, I have come to share my rather encyclopedic guide I have been cooking for some time, depicting my knowledge and experiencie on my 3 hammer runs I have done recently, targeted to both rookies and veterans.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zQSM74I8lvzYsGQzfn19-UXWsWiMTAYnnewBNuN_K38/edit?usp=sharing
Discussion and opinions are greatly encouraged, any observsation or contribution is highly appreciated.
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[suspicious]Snort.[/suspicious]
Play a hammer wizard.
For real, the first build listed is a very solid build with few weaknesses and plenty of options.
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Really nice guide. Thumps up!
I like the Berserker variant, though all 3 examples are interesting.
I wonder what Oligarch to support with these hammer guys?, Leaning towards JKK for the Berserker, and Praetorians for the other two.
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Nice guide and good initiative, I went through it but not deeply. It will be good to see the builds in the character creator or indicate how to build them fully. You are offering a lot of possibilities, it may be good to narrow them to the most efficient ones based on your runs. It will be nice as well to have a short introduction on what hammer are good at and not good at
Few remarks/questions:
versatility does not increase throwing.
you do mention about critical damage on Tungsten build but not how to increase critical hit chances? And if it is or not a relevant way to build your sledgehammer.
for Nimble Leather build, it looks like you are maxing dodge and evasion, why not considering greater siphoner for max evasion and dodge? you could even reduce your con to reach 10 Agi.
with SS metal armor at 40 threshold and a low quality shield emitter, you will resist smgs, pistols, knife, most assault rifles. Most poison will also not reach you.
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Really nice guide. Thumps up!
I like the Berserker variant, though all 3 examples are interesting.
I wonder what Oligarch to support with these hammer guys?, Leaning towards JKK for the Berserker, and Praetorians for the other two.
Correct, Praetorians is always a choice for metal armor wearers because Lt. Straford also sells carrier vests, besides explosives and other goodies that, despite being a hammerer, you will still find Praetorian gun shop still good
And I was kinda at lost for my Berserker, I went JKK because I assumed it has good stealth stuff, and since JKK are quests mainly revolving Stealth, I went for them
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Nice guide and good initiative, I went through it but not deeply. It will be good to see the builds in the character creator or indicate how to build them fully. You are offering a lot of possibilities, it may be good to narrow them to the most efficient ones based on your runs. It will be nice as well to have a short introduction on what hammer are good at and not good at
Few remarks/questions:
versatility does not increase throwing.
you do mention about critical damage on Tungsten build but not how to increase critical hit chances? And if it is or not a relevant way to build your sledgehammer.
for Nimble Leather build, it looks like you are maxing dodge and evasion, why not considering greater siphoner for max evasion and dodge? you could even reduce your con to reach 10 Agi.
with SS metal armor at 40 threshold and a low quality shield emitter, you will resist smgs, pistols, knife, most assault rifles. Most poison will also not reach you.
>versatility does not increase throwing.
Noted, will change.
>you do mention about critical damage on Tungsten build but not how to increase critical hit chances? And if it is or not a relevant way to build your sledgehammer.
There's no much you can really do to increase critical hit chance, 3 DEX you can't get Cheap shots, you can Weaponsmith sure, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. This is my opinion tho.
>for Nimble Leather build, it looks like you are maxing dodge and evasion, why not considering greater siphoner for max evasion and dodge? you could even reduce your con to reach 10 Agi.
At first I mainly ignored Dodge and Evasion due how skill point hungry this build was, so it made no much sense to go for Siphoner.
Besides, I don't like to be at RNGesus mercy, you can be the highest Dodge and Evasion, but more often than not enemies will still hit you, it's not reliable; however, being tanky, with a lot of HP, is always reliable.
Besides, while still lightweight, you're still a tank, you still favour endurance over dodge and evasion. Dodge and evasion are just 'side bonuses'. Again, my opinion.
>with SS metal armor at 40 threshold and a low quality shield emitter, you will resist smgs, pistols, knife, most assault rifles. Most poison will also not reach you.
Once again, not always reliably, knife users tend to critical hit a lot with crippling strike I noticed, while I do helps, I'd not bank my survival on it. Still, is always advisable to have a Low Low shield and a High High shield
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Solid guide - maximum effort. :)
Couple comments:
Disagree with Super Slam being a core feat, especially on Dominating. At Con 10, with psi empathy, Juggernaut, not using sturdy vest you have 550 hp. Super slam will get you 110 extra mechanical damage every three turns (two turns with LTI) which is usually reduce by enemies' mechanical resistance. There are usually better feat choices other than Super Slam.
... Pummel feat, its ability to reduce enemy dodge/evasion to 0 is already useful, despite its half damage penalty, it has a very low Action Point penalty
I think you meant "Action Point cost"
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Really nice guide. Thumps up!
I like the Berserker variant, though all 3 examples are interesting.
I wonder what Oligarch to support with these hammer guys?, Leaning towards JKK for the Berserker, and Praetorians for the other two.
Correct, Praetorians is always a choice for metal armor wearers because Lt. Straford also sells carrier vests, besides explosives and other goodies that, despite being a hammerer, you will still find Praetorian gun shop still good
And I was kinda at lost for my Berserker, I went JKK because I assumed it has good stealth stuff, and since JKK are quests mainly revolving Stealth, I went for them
Inspired by your guide, I have started the "Berserker" hammer variant, now lvl 11 having returned the drill parts. (Hard difficulty, Oddity mode)
So far, I love the combination of being a nimble, agile, dodgy character who rely on stealth and traps, and the ability to full berserk in hand-to-hand, drugged up and quite tanky.
I consider a decent traps skill important, in order to detect and not step on all the mines.
It is not that it hurts that much with 10+ CON, good evasion for the level and damage resistance, but the noise alert all the enemies on the map, wich is not cool. (Also you can recover a bunch of useful traps to set yourself, wich is very cool.)
Skill distribution is indeed very tough, I have so far sacrified all social skills, tailoring, throwing and electronics in order to have decent dodge, evasion, traps, stealth, biology and mechanics. Working on improving tailoring first.
Feat distribution/lvl:
1 - Sprint
1 - Nimble
2 - Doctor
4 - Interloper (+1 AGI)
6 - Conditioning
8 - Fast Metabolism (+1 STR)
10 - Thick Skull
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Really nice guide. Thumps up!
I like the Berserker variant, though all 3 examples are interesting.
I wonder what Oligarch to support with these hammer guys?, Leaning towards JKK for the Berserker, and Praetorians for the other two.
Correct, Praetorians is always a choice for metal armor wearers because Lt. Straford also sells carrier vests, besides explosives and other goodies that, despite being a hammerer, you will still find Praetorian gun shop still good
And I was kinda at lost for my Berserker, I went JKK because I assumed it has good stealth stuff, and since JKK are quests mainly revolving Stealth, I went for them
Inspired by your guide, I have started the "Berserker" hammer variant, now lvl 11 having returned the drill parts. (Hard difficulty, Oddity mode)
So far, I love the combination of being a nimble, agile, dodgy character who rely on stealth and traps, and the ability to full berserk in hand-to-hand, drugged up and quite tanky.
I consider a decent traps skill important, in order to detect and not step on all the mines.
It is not that it hurts that much with 10+ CON, good evasion for the level and damage resistance, but the noise alert all the enemies on the map, wich is not cool. (Also you can recover a bunch of useful traps to set yourself, wich is very cool.)
Skill distribution is indeed very tough, I have so far sacrified all social skills, tailoring, throwing and electronics in order to have decent dodge, evasion, traps, stealth, biology and mechanics. Working on improving tailoring first.
Feat distribution/lvl:
1 - Sprint
1 - Nimble
2 - Doctor
4 - Interloper (+1 AGI)
6 - Conditioning
8 - Fast Metabolism (+1 STR)
10 - Thick Skull
Yes, that's the long hardship of a Berserker, you will be always be starved on skill points, myself I get 50 Stealth and then I'd try to get 50 more stealth by gear bonuses, such as Soft Padded/Black Cloth leather armor and Black Balaclava, and I left Evasion mostly unattended, and from time to time raise dodge
In my opinion, what urges more is getting a good TiChrome hammer and a good L L shield and a H H shield, which will help you survive.
I dont think investing in traps is a good idea, you can just memorize where they are and just avoid them, and in reality you just regular bear traps, they will do the job just fine. In any case, caltrops are the ones that do most of the heavy lifting, specially crawler caltrops. Sure Step is highly suggested, makes life much easier.
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Hey, I just want to say that, as a complete noob to this game and having restarted multiple times because of build, I must say your tungsten can hammer wizard is the most beginner-friendly build I've tried. Unlike the Psion build which requires you to properly juggle all the tools at hand to achieve best result or the tin can AR build which kinda suck until you get a real AR and solve the early game ammo shortage, your build get online the moment I got a hand on a sledgehammer and only get better from there.
What do you think about adding temporal manipulation to the hammer wizard build? Currently it is working out fantastically for me due to a combination of Sprint + Temporal Contraction eliminating almost all mobility issue for a few rounds. There is also Entropic Recurrence which I theorize will work great for echoing and amplifying the big boy crits, but I haven't been able to get much use out of it because I've been using a shockhammer. I plan to ditch the shock component eventually, but right now I'm not critting very often so they make up a pretty big part of my DPS.
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Hey, I just want to say that, as a complete noob to this game and having restarted multiple times because of build, I must say your tungsten can hammer wizard is the most beginner-friendly build I've tried. Unlike the Psion build which requires you to properly juggle all the tools at hand to achieve best result or the tin can AR build which kinda suck until you get a real AR and solve the early game ammo shortage, your build get online the moment I got a hand on a sledgehammer and only get better from there.
What do you think about adding temporal manipulation to the hammer wizard build? Currently it is working out fantastically for me due to a combination of Sprint + Temporal Contraction eliminating almost all mobility issue for a few rounds. There is also Entropic Recurrence which I theorize will work great for echoing and amplifying the big boy crits, but I haven't been able to get much use out of it because I've been using a shockhammer. I plan to ditch the shock component eventually, but right now I'm not critting very often so they make up a pretty big part of my DPS.
>What do you think about adding temporal manipulation to the hammer wizard build?
Time Magic makes everything a little more viable, regardless of build, so yes, you can in theory slap TM on a hammer wizard to get even a little more of it. I personally not use TM so I can't say much.
>but I haven't been able to get much use out of it because I've been using a shockhammer.
>I plan to ditch the shock component eventually, but right now I'm not critting very often so they make up a pretty big part of my DPS.
Why would you ditch an electroshock hammer? If you think it works like Energy Edge weaponry, you must know that electroshock generator does not reduce mechanic damage from your melee weapon, like Plasma Spears, Swords or Knifes for example, thus it doesn't reduce your damage output, even less critical damage, so there's quite literally no reason, whatsoever, to ditch a good lighting hammah.
The purpouse of a electroshock hammer is to cause splash damage, and not really add direct hit damage, that'd be plasma melee weapons, but sadly hammers dont get such thing.
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Don't ditch electroshock just for entropic recurrance; chances are if you crit with an electroshock sledgehammer, they're likely dead anyway. If you used Balor's hammer, you wouldnt have to worry about it ruining the spell, but again, they're not going to survive the crit.
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So I decided to try the heavy armor build but I went with grenades instead of psi since I've never done much with them before. I went with
9 str
9 cons
7 dex
6 agi
And 3 for everything else.
I made it to level 8 and spent my first 2 bonus attribute points on bringing both con and str to 10. Should I spend my next 2 building up int for expose weakness or focus on getting str as high as possible?
Also, I'd love it if you'd mention what the core skills we should be leveling are.
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A sledge doesnt *need* expose weakness, but it sure helps. Since you won't have high enough str to reliably use balors hammer, I suggest getting it. If you take improved strength you'll still have 14 at the end, before food and drugs. That's enough.
Core skills are melee, throwing, all crafts (but not maxed), and then whatever you like. Hammer Wizard likes to have Persuasion and Lockpicking, whereas I prefer Lockpicking and Hacking.
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So I decided to try the heavy armor build but I went with grenades instead of psi since I've never done much with them before. I went with
9 str
9 cons
7 dex
6 agi
And 3 for everything else.
I made it to level 8 and spent my first 2 bonus attribute points on bringing both con and str to 10. Should I spend my next 2 building up int for expose weakness or focus on getting str as high as possible?
Also, I'd love it if you'd mention what the core skills we should be leveling are.
I always suggest to take Expose Weakness, the reason why being enemies with very high mechanical DR will be hard to take down without EW, such as Bladelings, Industrial Bots, Naga Protectors, etc; some hammer builds can get away without Expose Weakness but these are the kind of builds that dump all stat points into STR, betting on raw brute force, in this case, you dont have enough STR to brute force your way out (15 STR and above), thus highly recommending to pump int to 5 to get EW.
If you're going as a tin can, you always boost mechanics along melee, and in your case, throwing; also electronics is a good candidate to boost, as well mercantile and/or persuasion, in reality you just need Melee/Mechanics/Throwing maxed every level , the rest you figure out and adapt as you progress the game.
Like Harper said, I personally like Persuasion, Lockpicking, and obviously Mercantile, also hacking helps too, but the more important thing is finding a playstyle that personally suits you the most.
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Hey everyone!
I'm completely new to the game so I'm kinda lost on how I should distribute my skill points. As far as I can tell the guide doesn't go into that kind of detail. I'd appriciate if someone could put together one of those character sheets with https://underrail.info.tm/build/ (https://underrail.info.tm/build/). I want to build that Hammer Wizard character (Tungsten and Psy), but I have no idea what crafting skills (if any) I should focus on, or if I should put any points into dodge/evasion. Any help would be appriciated :)
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>I'm completely new to the game so I'm kinda lost on how I should distribute my skill points.
As rule of the thumb, you always max out your most relevant offensive skills every level.
For a Hammer Wizard, these skills should be Melee and Psychokinesis.
Then you have secondary skills like crafting, lockpicking, hacking, persuasion, intimidation, mercantile, etc; these skills you boost depending on your progress on the game and the direction you want your build to take.
My personal go to skills to boost are, besides Melee and Psychokinesis; Persuasion, Intimidation and Lockpicking, crafting skills are also necessary but you decide when to invest in them or not. But if you want to invest in Crafting, Mechanics and Electronics are the most crafting skills of a Hammer Wizard, second Tailoring and third Biology/Chemistry
>if I should put any points into dodge/evasion.
Do NOT put points in Dodge or Evasion, reason why: Armor Penalty. Is the game mechanic that rules how 'unwieldy' and 'heavy to maniobrate' your current gear is, metal armor is very heavy and has high AP (Armor Penalty), it's capped at 95%, which means your Dodge, Evasion and Stealth effective skills can be reduced by your current Armor Penalty you're wearing, and you will easily hit 95% AP with metal gear.
To view your current AP, open the Stats window and click on the Defense tab, it will tell you your current AP, among other useful stats you should definely should learn to understand.
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Hey, wanna try your build (Tungsten Tank) but I don't understand how can I get 15 on Strenght, 10 on Con, 7 on Will, 6 on Agility and 5 on Intelligence, should I put extra points on Will at the beginning?
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Hey, wanna try your build (Tungsten Tank) but I don't understand how can I get 15 on Strenght, 10 on Con, 7 on Will, 6 on Agility and 5 on Intelligence, should I put extra points on Will at the beginning?
You dont.
Using the build calculator, you can see you can get, by level 28 (easily attained if you were scrutinous enough with oddities):
14 STR (12 base + Veteran Increased Strenght feat)
10 CON
7 WILL
6 AGI
5 INT
3 PER and DEX
The conundrum lies on rolling with 5 INT but 3 WILL or 3 INT but 5 WILLat the start of the game.
With 5 INT 3 WILL start, you will have relatively quick access to Expose Weakness, a must take feat for all melee builds, EW will give you an easier time taking down robots and sentries such in GMS and in facilities in Junkyard/Old Junkyard. In Dominating, starting hammerers do struggle on quickly taking down sentry bots, Expose Weakness makes it more easier, it's possible, using Rathound Barbecue, Adrenaline and Sprint, to take down a Sentry bot in 3 swings in 1 turn. Also Sentries tend to have considerable mech DR that will absorb a decent chunk of your hammer damage. Also, 5 int will give you decent crafting and mercantile.
On the other hand, with 3 WILL, your PK will be very underwhelming, which also will negatively affect Persuasion and Intimidation. You will rely more on melee brawl and tools rather than PK, at least prior to Depot A.
With 3 INT 5 WILL start, you will have a decently strong PK from the get go, and at level 8 you can get 7 WILL to get Force User, which will make TK punches much, much deadlier but also make your Force Fields last longer. Also higher resolve to resist incaps and other things. The biggest powerspike lies after Depot A, after you get TK Proxy, your 'Proxy Punch' as I like to call it, will almost guarantee an instakill on squishy enemies. Will also greatly boost Persuasion and Intimidation, having some decent Persuasion, while not mandatory, does eases some problems during the game, and gives better quest/story outcomes early in game.
Problem being lack of Expose Weakness will make fighting Robots and Sentries much, much harder, you can still brute force your path out, but you wont have the luxury to take sentry bots in 1 turn or to take out Turrets in 2.
On the other hand, EMP grenades, HE grenades and even electrokinesis can help you with that.
So in the end, it's a matter of choices really, maybe you can tank some STR and/or CON to get 5 INT and 7 WILL from the get go, as I stated before, this is a guide, not a build order, adapt and modify your build as you find it more comfortable.
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Also, don't forget to max out your temporal manipulation score.
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Can I make good use of grenades without 6 dex? I want some kind of ranged option, but I also want to actually be able to use Balor's Hammer.
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I played a slow full-armor sledge tank with no psi and no grenadier. It can be done.
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Can I make good use of grenades without 6 dex? I want some kind of ranged option, but I also want to actually be able to use Balor's Hammer.
Grenades are always useful no matter the build, having 3 DEX means you will take a skill penalty when investing in Throwing, which will require A LOT of points to get up to 100 effective throwing skill, the skill treshold in which you can throw grenades with relatively consistancy.
Alternatively, you can get 6 DEX and 3 AGI and get grenaider, trading range accuracy for mobility, risky but it could work, and at 7 DEX you could get Three Pointer for even more damage.
If you're one of the two tin can archetypes however, you have certain benefits as a sturdy character.
For instance, Tungsten, TiChrome and SS have from decent to very high Heat DR, which will absorb great quantities of fire damage. You can throw incendiary damage at your feet, both heat blast damage and getting set ablaze will be largely reduced by your whooping Heat DR.
Frag grenades work in a fashion that, upon detonation, mini shrapels fly all across the area of explosion, these dont do much damage, but also there are quite a lot of shrapels, which is devastating to squishy unarmored targets, like the natives. Having very high both mechanical DT and mechanical DR will absorb largely, if not all fragmentation grenade damage. Throw a frag grenade at your feet when you're completely surrounded by a mob of enemies.
Flashbangs are very useful too because of shaded visors will protect you from flashbang incap, throw it at your feet to incap everyone around you.
Lastly, by the way Gas Grenades works, you can simply throw a gas 'nade at your feet where the enemy will congregate, for example on a doorway, and simply walk away, when you end your turn, the gas will start to spread and contaminate everyone, and being a very tanky, sturdy tin can you're not in a real rush to move, taking your sweet time.
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My respect to Hammer Wizard!
How about Sledgehammer Magic in leater armor(abbreviated S&M Leatherman)? Take psi invulnerability combo from Force User(Force Wall)+Future Orientaton(Stasis+ spam Limited Temporal Increment); take Stoicism(5)+Morphine+Aegis. Throw away dodge-evasion, and face-to-face with sweet pain!
Also Condtioning 15% mech res+LiBe 5% res+ Ancient Rathound armor 5% and tabi 5%=30% mech res, but not that important.
Sprint replaced with Psycho-temporal Contraction.
Something like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?Hg4DAwoDBwYALQDCoAAAwqAAAAAAWnlNWm4AwqAARkwATV8IK2kUKhIfwodjwohQS2IowrYAMeKhhgTiorUC4quGBd-_ Not sure in feats order, and maybe stealth replace with Hacking and Lockpicking
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I've got a bit of a noob question about the tungsten tank hammerer:
I see lots of increased critical strike damage. But where is the critical strike chance coming from? I assume gear, but I am a bit of a noob and am not finding a large source of it.
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Crit chance is low. It stays at 5% unless you took weaponsmith, are using focus stim, or have survival instincts.
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My respect to Hammer Wizard!
How about Sledgehammer Magic in leater armor(abbreviated S&M Leatherman)? Take psi invulnerability combo from Force User(Force Wall)+Future Orientaton(Stasis+ spam Limited Temporal Increment); take Stoicism(5)+Morphine+Aegis. Throw away dodge-evasion, and face-to-face with sweet pain!
Also Condtioning 15% mech res+LiBe 5% res+ Ancient Rathound armor 5% and tabi 5%=30% mech res, but not that important.
Sprint replaced with Psycho-temporal Contraction.
Something like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?Hg4DAwoDBwYALQDCoAAAwqAAAAAAWnlNWm4AwqAARkwATV8IK2kUKhIfwodjwohQS2IowrYAMeKhhgTiorUC4quGBd-_ Not sure in feats order, and maybe stealth replace with Hacking and Lockpicking
I do not have experiencie playing a hammer build solely focused on stacking mech damage reduction/inmunity, on the hand I never play with Time Manipulation. Ever. So I'm afraid I won't be much of a help here.
However, are few things I'd like to mention:
>No Evasion, No Dodge
As far as I know, high mech damage reduction comes very late, and given you wont be wearing metal armor, have low mobility, having no avoidance, even with 3 Agility, sounds like a bad call to me. Stealth is a good call. If you take avoidance, get Nimble.
>Paranoia
Luxury feat, in my opinion. Feat slot better spent elsewhere.
>No Pummel, No Super Slam
No Super Slam I can understand, you will have low HP so it won't do much, however Pummel is incredibly helpful, specially when you get it's AP spec'd. This is a No-No.
>Weaponsmith
On a build with very low to non-existant bonus critical damage (No Heavy Weight, for example) a slight increase on critical chance seems rather pointless to me. Also that both feat slot could be better used elsewhere, and that 1 point on INT could be used on STR instead. On the same line of thought, I wouldn't go Critical Power since you have no real bonus critical damage.
>No Dirty Kick
Kicking someone in the boulders is incredibly helpful, specially when you discover it's amazing synergy with Stealth.
If you attack someone during stealth, if you're undetected on your first attack, you will ignore the enemy dodge rating on your first strike, making it a guaranteed 95% hit. This combos really well with Dirty Kick and Pummel.
>Recklesness
Once again, redundant to go for critical chance when you have zero critical damage. Also it will make you vulnerable to attacks, putting yourself on risk, taking more damage, goes AGAINST the role of a tank. You're closer to being a Glass Cannon than a tank.
Give it a try, but I'd give it a serious second thought to your build. Seek another approach.
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I've got a bit of a noob question about the tungsten tank hammerer:
I see lots of increased critical strike damage. But where is the critical strike chance coming from? I assume gear, but I am a bit of a noob and am not finding a large source of it.
Like Harper said, it stays at normal 5% or maybe if you take Weaponsmith or other feats or foods/drugs you could increase it, but being realistic, you don't seek out critical chance.
A hammerer seeks high base damage, not high critical chance. The idea is to crater someone without the need of crits, by having a sheer amount of brute force. By having brute force, you will be 1 hitting all puny weaklings in 1 or 2 strikes, and everything else that does not dies in 1 or 2 strikes, such as Bosses or stronger robots (Industrial Robots and Naga Protectors), you will have to tank and swing repeatly, eventually, a crit will happen, and you will DEMOLISH that tought enemy in a single crit.
Think it this way, a tank can afford to be patient, wait and roll for crits repeatly since he can take the beatings, afterall, you still look for high survivality.
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Ultimate Hammer Wizard guide
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UAyOi08w5io8fbEyeWHWrdrjD3X8mJbE/view?usp=sharing
Any thoughts and opinions are well welcomed
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https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8DAwoDBwUAwqAAwqAAAAAAAAAAdHQ5VV8AwqAAAFPCoFcrUGktY1UUEg1EH18IYFTCp8K2S-KfhAHioYcE4qOTBd-_
Here's how I'd build one. It's almost exactly the same as Hammer Wizard's. He says the last 5 spec points should go to corporeal projection, I lean towards stoicism. Persuasion and mercantile are personal preferences.
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Reviewed everything - the initial post and HW docx - good job and I agree with everything. However I just want to add one thing: Damage immunity using Stoicism + Aegis + Morphine.
If you put 5 points in Stoicism spec - you'll get 36% damage reduction @ 4% health;
Aegis: Reduces all damage taken by 15% for 8 turns (no cooldown)
Morphine Shot: Reduces damage taken from all sources by 50% for 3 turns. After the effect expires the character takes damage equal to 50% of their missing health. (10 turns cooldown)
So at 4% health you are immune to all damage (36% + 15% + 50% = 101%) for 3 turns or for 4 turns if you use Stasis. You'll also survive Morphine's aftereffect at 28% health (Aftereffect = {[(100% - 28%)/2] * (1 - 0.27 <- Stoicisum damage reduction)} = 26.28% health damage from Morphine). How you get from 4% health back up to 28% will depends on the build, game difficulty and gear setup. This option is available to all your builds IF you put 5 spec points into Stoicism.
In addition, it's possible to take advantage of this and build a high mobility, zero defense, pure offensive build (i.e.: stacking critical chance + critical bonus such as using infused rathound leather armor/Rathound Regalia + Death Grin + cheap shot + critical power, etc, etc) gambling on finishing every fight within 4 turns. This is entirely possible even on dominating. I have also added this post + your link to my Steam In-depth FAQ. Again, good work Hammer Wizard!
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Hi,
I started a new melee oriented character and I wanted to try a hammerer. I used the Hammer Wizard doc as my blueprint but it seems that I'm starting to hit a bit of a roadblock and it may be because of my tactics.
Main differences of my build: I decided to take Biology and Intimidation because I wanted to craft my own drugs instead of buying them and for the early YELL perk. Aside from that I'm also levelling both Hacking and Lockpicking, although I regret the latter.
Currently I'm level 7: perks that I took, corporeal spatio projection, expose weakness, dirty kick. Fast metabolism and Conditioning from the start. Psy Empathy from the start for the force punch.
Gear: I got an electric hammer from the GMS compound and Antithermic, Insulated, Antirifle Overcoat (65% encumberance). The latter is the one that is saving my life in nearly every encounter I do.
Right now I'm stuck in a few fights: GMS compound, the raiders in the bottom cave led by Gerhard Page. I'm overwhelmed by the damage, the best I can do is use molotov cocktails to keep the enemies separated but there are still too many and I die.
Burrowers in the GMS compound. I'm overwhelmed by the DPS, i can't kill 1 in 2 turns and I can't clear my poison fast enough.
3 Raiders north of Junktown: I can stun 2, focus on one but I don't deal enough damage, they heal in between stuns and between critical shot, shock bullets and poison I'm killed. Caltrops, flashbang and molotov are not enough to control their movement.
Syphoners north of Junktown: I can't do enough damage to burn through their healing and I don't have the movement points to run away.
My questions:
1) Do I need to start burning through my morphine and adrenaline drugs? I'm playing on hard but I wanted to hoard as much as I can for Depo A
2) I have 2 options to buy metal armor in Junktown: one is 65% encumberance the other is 98%. I have tried with both and I'm seeing little difference compared to my overcoat.
3) Is biology a good strat? If I'm using morphine, adrenaline and late game drugs in each fight it made sense to pick them up.
4) Do I need to craft my own metal armor? My tailoring is at 0 and I wanted to keep it at 0.
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I'm starting a psi-less berserker hammer myself (on Dominating), and I'm not sure about Biology myself. I'm not super good with pre-med, and without the Doctor's Pouch I tend not to med much in combat either, besides Jumping Beans and the occasional Focus Stim. I might stop at 50 effective, hopefully I can get a decent bone carver pretty quick.
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Would y'all recommend Guard on a leather hammer build? It seems decent enough to me, but the guide doesn't mention it
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Melee enemies should not be an issue for you, you should have mobility advantage over them. I would put it at low prio personally, if taken at all. Its not reliable enough.
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I want an EYE Divine Cybermancy character so I need YUGE Hammer and Psychokinesis stats.
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I've been having success with the Rathound Regalia as the primary armor for the light armor hammer build. Compared to the recommended pig armor, you do lose +1 con (and the infused leather health bonus), and lose some mech resist. But you do get +1 strength, which is also good for the build, and the +10 MP and the fear immunity are a nice plus. With 0% armor penalty from armor and tabi boots, you have 15%/25% free AP for wearing a big helmet, like a shaded metal helmet or the Warm Trapper Hat, without losing your Nimble bonus.
I still keep a pig armor in my inventory for fights where I have no choice but to tank lots of damage (especially Fire damage), but I think for most encounters, I prefer the offensive bonus.
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I still keep a pig armor in my inventory for fights where I have no choice but to tank lots of damage (especially Fire damage), but I think for most encounters, I prefer the offensive bonus.
Another good armour set for the build is infused ancient rathound armour. If you combine that with the obligatory lifting belt, mushroom brew, (infused) ancient rathound tabi and conditioning you end up with 40% mechanical damage reduction and +1 strength from the brew. The armour itself has excellent resistances and can be combined with a super steel helmet/trapper hat to have the player character taking around 30% damage through damage resistance and reduction before even taking into account evasion, dodge, morphine or Aegis.
I swear by my ancient rathound hides as a leather-clad hammerfag, plus they're available in up to 114 quality without even infusing them.
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Hi,
I started a new melee oriented character and I wanted to try a hammerer. I used the Hammer Wizard doc as my blueprint but it seems that I'm starting to hit a bit of a roadblock and it may be because of my tactics.
Main differences of my build: I decided to take Biology and Intimidation because I wanted to craft my own drugs instead of buying them and for the early YELL perk. Aside from that I'm also levelling both Hacking and Lockpicking, although I regret the latter.
Currently I'm level 7: perks that I took, corporeal spatio projection, expose weakness, dirty kick. Fast metabolism and Conditioning from the start. Psy Empathy from the start for the force punch.
Gear: I got an electric hammer from the GMS compound and Antithermic, Insulated, Antirifle Overcoat (65% encumberance). The latter is the one that is saving my life in nearly every encounter I do.
Right now I'm stuck in a few fights: GMS compound, the raiders in the bottom cave led by Gerhard Page. I'm overwhelmed by the damage, the best I can do is use molotov cocktails to keep the enemies separated but there are still too many and I die.
Burrowers in the GMS compound. I'm overwhelmed by the DPS, i can't kill 1 in 2 turns and I can't clear my poison fast enough.
3 Raiders north of Junktown: I can stun 2, focus on one but I don't deal enough damage, they heal in between stuns and between critical shot, shock bullets and poison I'm killed. Caltrops, flashbang and molotov are not enough to control their movement.
Syphoners north of Junktown: I can't do enough damage to burn through their healing and I don't have the movement points to run away.
My questions:
1) Do I need to start burning through my morphine and adrenaline drugs? I'm playing on hard but I wanted to hoard as much as I can for Depo A
2) I have 2 options to buy metal armor in Junktown: one is 65% encumberance the other is 98%. I have tried with both and I'm seeing little difference compared to my overcoat.
3) Is biology a good strat? If I'm using morphine, adrenaline and late game drugs in each fight it made sense to pick them up.
4) Do I need to craft my own metal armor? My tailoring is at 0 and I wanted to keep it at 0.
1) Yes, Strenght boosts Melee (Both Melee and bonus Sledgehammer damage), Telekinetic abilities and boosts Intimidation which in turns boosts your Yell and Brutality, rushing 50 effective biology to mass produce your first adrenaline shoots is a massive powerspike, when you can use your adrenaline all carefree, the only thing you need to do is merely collect everything from the animals you slain, and you have a lot of animals to slain with rathounds packs.
2) Neither, both looted and purchased gear in general is terrible, only bother crafting your own, for Depot A either use quad tungsten metal armor with reinforced tungsten boots and dense tungsten helmet, or use mutant dog dense padded leather armor and dense strider mutant dog boots, Id encourage the latter because it's easier and more affordable to get it, you will be very resistant to acid but mutants can still tear you appart, becareful, just because you're a tank doesnt mean you can afford to be careless
3) You should NEVER -NOT- priorize your main skills (in your case Melee, PK and Intimidation), you NEED to max out your relevant combat skills in order you get by, after that, I'd priorize Mechanics and Electronics, then biology, after that Mercantile/Persuasion then Hacking/Lockpicking, also tailoring
4) Yes, crafting your own armor is your goal, a good tin can with a Regenerative vest is your goal, having tailoring at 0 is a huge mistake you will later regret.
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Would y'all recommend Guard on a leather hammer build? It seems decent enough to me, but the guide doesn't mention it
No, it's pretty bad on a leather build
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looking at the stats for doing a grenade focus on the tank hammerer, i was wondering if you think giving up 1-2 con to get 7 agl or giving a str is more important or i should just stick with 6 agl and get +1 at 4 to get three point throw. ofc con vs strength is somewhat preference but idk if i would be missing some vital feat not having one or the other maxed
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looking at the stats for doing a grenade focus on the tank hammerer, i was wondering if you think giving up 1-2 con to get 7 agl or giving a str is more important or i should just stick with 6 agl and get +1 at 4 to get three point throw. ofc con vs strength is somewhat preference but idk if i would be missing some vital feat not having one or the other maxed
Going Agility on a tungsten tank build is kinda redudant, the rest is all valid, I'd get enough DEX to get three pointer/grenadier, get enough CON as you please then dump everything else on STR
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oops lol i meant dex
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A new development: jumping bean, drifter tattoo, and strider all ignore armor penalty, which makes Hit & Run a viable feat for tungsten cans. Those three together is +30mp, so H&R +2 spec points means you get 30 mp everytime you bonk someone to death. With sprint active, you can take advantage of all five spec points to get 40 mp per kill. Finally, a tungsten hammercan that can move without TM.
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While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and add to the thread with some relatively new ideas.
Spiked sledges are the best, and Quake is the new best unique. Tichrome spiked sledge, Quake in the other hand. Spiked are the best because:
1. each spike adds Super Slam damage separately. Yep.
2. each spike adds the bonus from Taste for Blood separately.
3. each spike crits separately (but I think only the spikes damage is multiplied, still pretty good)
Also, you can poison spikes, which is nice. You have crawler for delayed stuns, black dragon for psifags if you don't 1hko them, and the best imo is leper which increases your damage on successive hits. You can also put anticoagulant on them, at the same time.
So either use nail bombs or replace one plate on your metal armor with serrated blades to build up tfb.
Quake has an 18 ap attack cost like super steel, and has a sweet AoE that does kinda decent damage, but more importantly dazes everybody around you. This not only decreases incoming damage, it procs opportunist from you (for 15%), and if the shockwave kills an enemy, it counts as a kill from you for TfB. It can also bust rocks and broken walls. You can put CACs on Quake but not on a spiked sledge, whereas you can't poison/anticoag Quake. You can put a blasting cap on either.
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Alright, I believe this is about the best non-psi hammer build. Playing my 10 agi hammerbuild, the biggest and most glaring weakness was the lack of escape artist. Strider comes too late to be a mainstay of the build, and while blitz is nice, its by no means crucial. So here you go, 7 dex, 7 agi. It has grenadier because flashbangs and nailbombs are both highly beneficial, due to shaded visors and taste-for-blood, and we now have 7 dex so we can take it. 7 dex also lets you have trigger happy, if you are disposed to taking it; initiative is always nice. 7 agi for Hit and Run only costs us 1 point of str from the build (and we're not using balors or barbaton, so not a big deal), it also lets us take advanced naval combat if you join the pirates. H&R lets us make much more use of sprint while its active, and since we have drifter and can eat jumping beans, we'll usually have 15mp to work with anyway.
We could drop the last stand spec to take conditioning spec instead, but I lean towards last stand. You could drop the serrated blade on the armor and get a 4th plate if you would rather rely on nail bombs or kills (I prefer to have a taser equipped over nailbombs, unless I know I'm going to fight a cluster of enemies at once).
Escape artist and grenadier will greatly help reduce the weaknesses of the build and make it truly "viable". People might complain about grenadier, but remember we're not using it to directly damage enemies (we are with nailbombs, but thats more to proc tfb).
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I haven't played on Dominating but, for Normal mode, I think I have the best Nimble Can Hammer using a priority to take advantage of a min-max for str/con/agi and prioritizing generic damage via Rate of Fire and allowing mixed electro/energy/mech to output a baseline with less damage feats. The base stats are 10 Str/Con, 4 intelligence, and 7 agility. We use both an energy spear(offhand) and shock tchrome sledge, the spear mostly/early to just mix-and-match better Hit and Run pliability- and target zig-zag. Later game we have future orientation LTIncrement on a huge array of cds including: 5-turn cd sprint via infused hopper tabis, 5 turn psycho-temp-contr, 3 3-turn cds: 0 ap Pummel, Super Slam and Impale(lvl ~22), as well as eventually a 6 turn cd, "4 turn duration", Last Stand. Obviously can also help abuse medications cds too. 9 Turn CD stasis exists but, probably only cd relevant when we do a full Last Stand Loop after Stasis. We also only take Psi Empathy at level 14/15 to stall until we really want/ skill-point want, 55 TM for LTIncrement, Dilation/Contraction and Acceleration all around level 14-16 in a burst.
Now I want to touch on the INT 4. Well basically, regen vest super steel armor is exactly 50% armor penalty. Armor Sloping requires additional plates to still proc juggernaut and also will add a little bulk but typically will force us over 50%- and take a small hit to armor penalty %, and cost an entire perk slot for it. Since we have agi 7(8 with tabis), tabis mp boost and psi-contraction giving mp ratios effected by armor penalty, every 4% difference is nearly about 3 full movepoints lost on every turn. The more important difference is that it takes both an expensive perk slot and 2 points into intelligence. The only relevant psi abilities we typically cast that cost ap are LTIncrement and Stasis, 10 and 20 ap respectively after future orientation, making Premeditation nearly also not worth a slot as well. We wouldn't hate these options but we'd have to lose agi, str or con by 2 which breaks the min-max and also kills/swaps some of our best perks. I'd rather go positive mp to either psi-ap or just a little extra bulk with the tank/melee build, especially if it would cost another perk slot to do so. There is also Expose Weakness, but since almost exactly ~60% of our damage is electric(or 75% energy sometimes), and killing a single target in-range is not an issue. I ignore it for perk-trade-off reasons as well as, again, we can keep hold of the stat min-max. I'd rather do damage from other perks than Expose Weakness since even with 5.5~ attacks per turn, we rarely take a different number of hits-to-kill due to any Expose Weakness proc(at least on NORMAL). Also, high threshold enemies aren't a problem for sure, only high resistance; of which both tend to be weak to electricity, or at least energy (Impale value of 3-turn cd vs 5-turns) anyways.
https://underrail.info/build/?HhADBwoDAwQAegDCoCgAAAAAAADCoMKgeHHCoABGAEYAAGkIDjlQLVUkGWArwofCiB_ClBPCtnx74qGGBOKhhwTio5MF4quQAt-_
We don't learn any psi schools other than TM until very lategame, skillpoint-wise. Specs are prio to 0-ap Pummel, then Last Stand Duration, then CD, then the damage on Super Slam.
Our go-to combat utilities are Taser Flashbang. Taser(10ap) enables hit-rates, and the flashbang(10ap) enables cheese(use energy spear for proper abuse) and both slot nearly perfectly into our ap processes. At level 20(0ap pummel) our ap is 90 in a burst round, melee is 16ap(tichrome w/ tabis) x 5 = 80 for a 10ap utility and a pummel. Many medications are also 10 ap which is nice. Because 2 (non-spear) melee attacks are 32 ap, we can also use 3 10-ap options instead of 1; with 3 generic attacks instead of 5- without forgoing any large ap chunk. If one is a flashbang we can cd/ap abuse with the extra turns. A tichrome spear perfectly enables this for 2/3 attacks as we save 2 ap; need 2 ap to make full spear ROF (costs 1 more ap than the sledge).
Armor is Regen Super Steel(no add-ons).
Hat is swap between extra slot/psi cost down TM headband(no armor penalty and standard equip option) and a electro-protection shaded tichrome metal helmet.
Boots are a swap between 3 of: Infused cave hopper tabis(5 turn cd sprint, +3/2 extra AGI mp and our standard-equip option), Infused siphoner tabis(slow immunity) and electro-protection tichrome striders.
We also carry around blast-electro riot armor to fully armor up and fully invalidate coil spiders entirely (they disable regen-energy so always bring an electro vest one). Bringing a super-heavy tac-vest with blast/regen is what a tend to do and not use too often. I also lob-around the chem-assault armor with gas mask and biohazard boots to hit 100% bio/acid which is a weirdly insane existing defensive option.
The fried siphoner tongue can be a good food option in really long combats to stack up with Doctor and Fast metabolism too. It makes Regen Mixture w/ Vest even better.