Sprint - why is everyone so hot on this Feat, i don't get it. I fight from stealth, and with 10 DEX, 10 AGI and 0% armor penalty i can outrun anything...
I very much dislike playing against intentionally overpowered enemies just for the sake of it. But what i also don't like is breaking the game by playing smart, this just shows poor design. This is why i think Mercantile (which no one has yet commented on yet ) seems so busted to me, at least on normal.
Dominating - i simply don't see whats so good about it. The game is not fundamentally different, just more enemies that are tougher?
On my first play through with a build similar to this, i got all the way to Core City and the nearby Train stations (this was before expedition) and i was steamrolling everything from stealth. I got level 20 way before the final boss... Lunatic Mall was a breeze...they did not even register me..
Rather than just spiking the difficulty to the max, i want to intentional limit myself to Knives (melee & Throwing), Traps (Mostly Bear or whatever i can scavenge) and Poisons (all of them), to get the most Assassin feel i can get. I already see robots becoming my most hated problem. I figure without buying the more expensive stuff, Acid Flasks (however low their damage may be) are my best bet, but against high HP enemies it will be tough. And also DAMN BURROWERS. I hate them more than Death Stalkers....
Sprint is always nice to have, especially for melee fighters. However, with Fancy Footwork and a fast melee weapon you will have a lot of MPs. If you also get Psi Contraction, you have extra MPs on demand, so you really don't need Sprint.
On Classic mode, you get XP per kill, on DOMINATING there are a lot of extra enemies to kill. As mentioned above, you will level quickly. This is why I always play on Oddity (though I only play on Hard, it also has more enemies than Normal).
I mentioned the powered knifes because they go through mechanical armor and robots so well. The best are the ones crafted with an Energy Edge Emitter. They deal very high energy damage, but lower the mech damage of the knife by 10%, and cost a lot of power per hit. I recommend to craft a Tichrome Energy Knife.