Good afternoon Southgaters, this is something I've been wanting to do for a while now, but wanted to at least beat the game on normal first. Today I will be discussing one of
my own builds created with little outside references, what I did that was terribly wrong but expected, and my thought process on improving it for higher difficulty.
Before I made this, I had been running Kiruha's dominating crossbow build, because I wanted to experience the game and learn its intricacies. The build had offered a path
I knew would not fail, coming from a much more experienced player and being meant for the dominating difficulty.
Knowing this didn't sit well with me, because for me, it didn't feel like /I/ was beating the game. Getting stuck in a cultist basement with all hostiles and having my last
save be 3 hours ago also encouraged starting over. Surely enough, the high critical damage from that build stuck with me, and made me want to have it in whatever I planned
on doing. After that I picked up a spear and went into the underrail build tool. From the start I was certain I did not want to use a shield, just a spear, and caltrops.
As a final note before we begin, I did not do any Expedition content in this playthrough (even though I'm using a spear, weird right?). I will also summarize my build
and go into how it works before we focus on improvement, which should be much shorter, and more to the point. I hope new players will take something from this thread that
helps them enjoy Underrail like I do.
The Build
https://underrail.info.tm/build/?GwcPBgYDAwYAwpEAwpEAAAAYQwAceHhAaHQAAAA3fAAwNlDClcKSYcKUwpMxS8KsBj4rwocWwrPinY0I4qe-AuKzmALfvwGear
Weapon - Shock Tungsten Steel Spear(AOE) & Energy Tungsten Steel Spear(Single) Clear obvious choices, want as much critical bonus dmg as you can get.
Head - Kevlar Balaclava(200% bullet and shotgun shell resist, does that stack with riot gear?), Gas Mask (for hazardous environments)
Body - Your personal preference of Riot Gear, in the early to mid game I crafted whatever I needed at the time. In the late game I ended up with Kevlar Regen Overcoat.
Shield - I carry one of each for specific impact speeds. Dual High Efficiency. Snipers and crossbowmen are real pain in the butt for this build.
Belt - Utility belt. The four combat utility slots are not to be slept on. Carry around a trapper's belt too.
Boots - Solid-Padding Ancient Rathound Leather Striders. Mech damage taken reduced by 5% is enough to make me wear these. Make striders as soon as you can for sweet movepoints.
Combat Utility
As these will change as you progress through the game, I will generalize each slot.
Caltrops - My god what an amazing item. The level of abuse you can reach with these pronged pokers is unreal. Big mean Ironhead hammer dude who just got off the forum about
to clobber you? Caltrops. They will choose the path of least resistance, even if that means going around an entire building, buying you precious time and cooldowns.
This also means you can force them to step on caltrops if you are in between two piles, maybe three. Standing in a pile will always result in direct movement to you.
I can't tell you how many times I've used caltrops in this run, when you start crafting your own, with poison, it just gets better (spirit poison caltrops pls styg).
In the mid to late game you won't rely on these as much, but still has its uses.
Incendiary- Useful for anyone, I would imagine. Any kind of CC that's also AOE, can leave a DoT, and give light? Man, that's a done deal right there. With a mere 40 chemistry
you can start pumping out magnesium nades pretty early on, a significant step up from molotovs. This doesn't need much explanation.
Frag - Since we are maxing throwing alongside melee here, using these make group fights trivial (unless they are damned lunatics). Plain and simple, AOE damage.
EMP Nade - It's not that we have much trouble with robots, but those two Free Drones aren't going to care about your fire much with their low frequency shields.
Honorable Mentions - Gas Nades: You could just as easily swap these out with emp or frag should the situation present itself.
Throwing Net: Yes, kind of a meme, but it does help with kiting early game.
ChemHaze Nade: Should you decide to work for Praetorian Security, this bad boy acts similar to a gas nade but has no wind up. Incredibly useful against ranged
opponents.
Flashbang: Maybe there's a group that just keeps zonin' you out, and you're damn tired of it. The flashbang could be for you. A nice, 2 turn or
10 sec out of combat CC. Stealth users love using these to restealth, like true ninjas.
Starting Attributes
Strength - 7 We go for 7 str here just so we can wield Tungsten spears. As a nice addition we also get carry weight (no slow walking here).
Dexterity- 10 No brainer, we want crits and to crit often. Spears are not a light weapon, so it hurts a little, but makes up for it in initiative and crit chance. Spills onto skills nicely too.
Agility - 5 I wanted to use a spear and riot gear but still have some mobility(more on this error later).
Con - 6 As we are melee with no stealth, dodge, or evasion we will be taking hits. This will help you be more beefy and is also a req for Fast Metabolism.
Per - 3 Guns, crossbow, detection, creepy crawlies? We don't care about them, we throw flare and spit in their face. Consider higher PER if you want to find secret areas.
Will - 3 No mystery why this is low, expect every debuff known to man to meet with you.
Int - 6 A little Int is nice all round, boosting your effective skill levels and granting some dialogue options. Usually you get Int for specific feats too.
Feats (I will try to explain my thought process as I picked the feats up in game)
Level 1 - Snooping/Fast Metabolism: Alright I won't wait till the improvement section to tell you snooping was a terrible choice here, with only 3 PER. Fast Metabolism on
the other hand I hold in very high regard, 25% bonus healing is what we benefit the most from here.
Level 2 - Spear Throw: Huh, well I got a spear, why not? A very powerful ranged attack that isn't so hot early game but dominates mid to late game, only gets better with
Throwing, more on this later.
Level 4 - Fend: For the action point cost of a regular attack, gain Spear Guard that can block 150% more damage than normal. In my eyes this was too good to pass up, use it
preemptively before fights or before Balor smashes you (you'll still die).
Level 6 - Sure Step: Safely navigate caltrops and puddles of acid. Laugh all you want, but this is core for this build, and will be core in the improvement as well.
You will be happy you have this in many encounters.
Level 8 - Impale: A melee Aimed shot, had to have it. Guarantees a crit if it lands.
Level 10- Spear Guardian: Brings your spear guard block% from 50 to 80. Unbelievably good feat.
Level 12- Recklessness: Increases your crit chance for unarmed and weapons by 7%. You are more likely to be crit by 3%. Used in a lot of builds.
Level 14- Crit Power: I took this in the xbow build so it only makes sense right? No.. no it didn't. As Tungsten spears only deal 120% bonus crit damage you are only getting
30% extra critical damage, when compared to a 185% crit damage xbow, that number would be much higher. More on this later.
Level 16- Sweep: By the time I had reached this level I was noticing the errors I had accumulated during my playthrough, but was determined to beat the game and make this
thread. Sweep is an AOE ability that applies the Off-Balance debuff, reducing enemies evasion and dodge to zero. The debuff is nice but the potential AOE
crits with Shock spears is what's appealing to me.
Level 18- Cheap Shots: Increases crit damage bonus of melee attacks by 50% and gives you 15% chance to incapacitate a target. More on this in the improvement section.
Level 20- Three-Pointer: I was really torn between this, grenadier, and hypertoxicity. Gives your damge dealing nades 10% chance to crit. This chance is increased by 1.5%
for every 10 points in throwing above 50.
Level 21- Psi Empathy: You know where this is going
Level 22- Psycho-temporal Accl: Straight buff to your psi haste and slow spells.
Level 24- Grenadier: Reduces the cooldown of your grenades. Was just trying to fill out the build at this point.
Level 26- Incr Dex: Hey man, 2 dex is 2 dex.
I did not get any higher level than 27 as I had beaten the game.
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. Definitely would have had 55 TM and/or dumped extra points in there for Psi Haste and taken 1 or 2 synergizing feats. I tried to give you good crafting capabilities (crafting is so OP, for real.), and included what should cover all hacking and lockpicking checks in the base game with corresponding Haxxor/lockpick III's. Mercantile for all the special merchandise. Invest in the workbench for your house.