This is doable, yes. The example in your post has about 0 actual staying power and relies on running and also TM being OP af. In other words any build that can reliably kill at least 2-3 enemies per turn will easily dominate the game with 3 will 70 TM
tm. It is definitely very strong, but it just can't allow enemies to even breath on them; EMPs are most likely equal to instant death.
Here's my recent leather/metal gloves build. Not quite fitting, lacks raw power until late game, but still it can explain one way to approach this, sort of:
https://underrail.info/build/?HAcPCAUDAwUAeADClijClngAVS0AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAJDkmIEEGEgdDCQMxTjzCs0vinY0J4p-EAeKmrgPfvwI didn't pick Fancy Footwork on purpose. The philosophy behind this build is simple - if I can't run away, and can't kill a lot of enemies per turn, I have to do everything in my power to debuff or disable enemies, so even my mediocre defences are too much for them to overcome.
It's not tanky at all, but it can stay surrounded by enemies for multiple turns, thanks to specced Wrestling. It lasts two turns, that means you can refresh it with 1 or 2 hits, just ~5 AP. On my belt I almost always had cave ear poison throwing knives and throwing net, and the last belt slot was either for flashbang (rarely used), or molotovs, which i could throw under my feet while being in the middle of a crowd, or black dragon poison knives to disable psionics. Or sometimes cloaking device to further boost evasion. High evasion and antithermic leather armor almost completely negate grenades. Incapacitation from pneumatic hammers are really hard to resist, so most organic targets that survive after being hit by one will be disabled, usually till the very end of combat. Staying near disabled enemies prevents others (except Lunatics) from using bursts, grenades, AoE psi and flashbangs. Crippling strike is very good against snipers and some AR and shotgun users as well, sometimes crippled snipers don't have enough AP to shoot, but if they do, they have a huge accuracy penalty. Five CON is not too little, not too many to hurt damage stat; on 20+ level and with some mid leather armor and a good shield it's possible to more or less reliably survive a single sniper crit, if you let them land it; at level 20 I gave the first turn to Carnifex, and successfully survived with ~35-40% HP. Regenerative vest is a great choice for general combat, though most of the time I preffered infused rathound leather for crits and fire protection. High DEX and 8 agility means even if I fuck up stealth, I still get my first turn pretty often. Lastly, Uncanny Dodge allows to completely ignore melee enemies and focus on more dangerous targets instead; and it was a real MVP against faceless gaunts in DC.
The lesson of this playthrough was - don't fuck with Faceless before the endgame, it's not worth it. Foundry Faceless at level 16 was a single hardest fight for the build before Expedition.
In the end it is a very solid build, despite lacking a little in offence; however I struggled in DC with Faceless base so much I had too cheese it with gas grenades. On the other hand, if I faced the Faceless (badum-tss) after last boss, I would probably had a much better chance.
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I also posted Cryo Tank build a while ago:
https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=8799.0This is, in essence a very fat yet evasive psi "sniper" with occasional powerful crits and 2 very good AoE abilities. Definetely needs some tweaks tho, less WILL, more AGI (because 6 is not quite enough) and 1 additional point in INT, needs more base psi points as it runs out very quickly; I also recommended a lot of very optional items and to spec in Hypothermia, but now I think it's a complete waste of time and points, and Hypothermia doesn't work on last boss anyway.
I stormed a pirate base all on my own with this build, and only in one location I had to reload multiple times. This build has to break line of sight from time to time, and since it's a Psychosis build in some fights I had to do nothing for 1-2 turns due to huge psi costs, it can barely deal with robots until at least level 16; nevertheless I still think this is the closest I've done to your request.
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