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1

Builds / Re: Feedback on knife build for Dominating

« on: January 08, 2020, 06:43:25 pm »

I've been experimenting a bit with knives lately, and I can only approve what was said above, in particular:

- Going 100% crit is mostl likely the strongest choice, especially because Cheap Shots and Critical Power specializations are incredible and stack multiplicatively.

- Investing 70 Temporal Manipulation and 45 Psychokinesis would make the character strictly better (which is true for any build at the moment)

I would also add that:

- Cut Throat and Eviserate look nice on paper but I find them mediocre at best in practice. Humans are not the main issue when playing knife, and by the time I stack enough bleed for eviscerate to be useful the target is generally dead.

- I played through the DLC once with a full melee build without Escape Artist, never again. I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned in the previous posts to be honnest, am I missing some strats here?

- Probably obvious, but just in case: knives used to have a lot of problems against bots and heavily armored targets, but now we can have a TiChrome/energy edge backup to deal with them.

Your build is quite balanced and very viable on hard. On Dominating, you ll be hitting a wall due low damage output and cc options.
Everything that Sfzrx said is totally accurate. Only thinking it is not worth investing on triggering happy, you have high initiatives, you may use root soda when needed. Regarding traps, you will detect everything even with 3 per if you dont play on high speed and run everywhere blindly.
Regarding your feat selection, you may replace eviscerate (serrated have only 25% chance to cause bleeding) and crippling strike (Kukri that you will use until level 14-16 at least will do it better). These are good feats but you may find something better. Quick tinkering will be very useful and should be taken early enough.
For Dominating, you have to compensate the weaknesses of Knife to have a bit of fun. To give you an idea, a max melee at level 14 with Kukri is really not sure to kill a burrower in 1 round with adrenaline and psi temporal acceleration/contraction.
You may want to revamp it to a crit build with 100% chance at high level (max dex, 6 agi, 9 con, 6 int or to even dump agi, for rising will to 5 and int to 7). For feats, it is Survival Instinct, Recklessness, Weaponsmith, Critical Power and keep the base of your feats (Sprint, cheap shots,...). With high dex, it is worth going for max throwing and 3 pointer (with veteran investment in 3 pointer, it becomes easy on dominating to finish off enemies with knives), your throwing knives will finally be effective and fatal Throw is an extremely good feat. Versatility will open up energy and chemical pistols that will be almost necessary for dominating expedition and bots fights among others.

I hadn't considered a crit build! It doesn't quite fit my idea for the playthrough but I'd be willing to give it a go! How does this look like?
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?FAMPBQoDAwYATQBuAABQLRYZI1xbOSlaAC0ARgAAACsnYmMWMAYqMcKHSwA-378

I've noticed I'm quite starved for feats so I gave up on sure step (I'll use throwing knives for the crawler poison instead of caltrops, can't fit fatal throw by level 20 but would take it at 22), expose weakness (HE grenades instead) and sprint/fancy footwork/blitz. Skill points are tight as well so I dropped Mercantile (it was either that or a crafting skill, which realistically could only be Electronics as I REALLY don't want to drop Tailoring). I also pumped con up to 10 for thick skull since it seems way too good to pass.

Alternatively, I've refined my original build quite a bit, trimming out the fat:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?FAMPCgMDAwgAJABuKABGIBQZH1VLMiRVAC0ARgAARisnYTlOFhMGRyrChwsw378

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Builds / Re: Feedback on knife build for Dominating

« on: January 07, 2020, 01:05:52 am »

I consider persuasion to be generally pretty useless, you can save buzzer by saving hugo first, grenade the entrance to bypass the persuasion check and spend 1k charons, I can't think of any useful persuasion checks throughout the entire game.

Thanks for pointing this out, I had no idea! I think I'll be dumping persuasion and some crafting and picking up some Psi. I reckon I'm probably in for a rough ride either way but that's kind of the point, since my current playthrough is a bit dull.

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Builds / Feedback on knife build for Dominating

« on: January 06, 2020, 12:53:29 am »

Hi y'all,

After beating the game in Normal with both pure PSI and science pistols builds, and 80% through my current Sniper/Metathermics playthrough, I'm already planning my next character and wanted to share my build and ask whether you think it would be Dominating-viable (on Oddity).

So here's what the build looks like:

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?FAMPCgMDAwgAHgBuKABZKiEeGVpaMiRaAAAAADIASyc5YQkWBhI8C0IQE-KdvwPfvw

Some explanations and comments:

1. Sure Step is non-negotiable since Stalker poison caltrops are the best thing ever.

2. Persuasion is there only because I want to save Buzzer (since none of my previous playthroughs did that), but I could consider dropping it.

3. Dodge is only there for Fancy Footwork (and probably Blitz at level 22), but I'm considering dropping it.

4. Traps is just high enough to use MK4 mines, but I'm considering dropping it to (40).

5. Biology and Chemistry because grenades and Stalker poison are just too good. Flashbangs have great synergy with Cut-throat as well.

6. 8 Int because of how many points I'm investing into crafting and I think 2 extra int (I'm not going below 6) will make a bigger impact than 2 extra con.

Mostly I have two questions: first, do you think this build is Dominating-viable? And second, should I drop dodge and some traps to pick psi-empathy and go for TM instead?