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1

General / Am I Crazy for Thinking Pack Rathound Is Good?

« on: April 01, 2025, 04:27:15 pm »

I first started thinking about this when I noticed that I almost never take off my large waist pack once I get it. Unless a belt was perfect for my build, having extra carry weight let me carry items into combat that were more useful than any other belt.

That got me thinking about all the things Pack Rathound could let me carry INTO combat, not just how much loot I could carry out. In most games (fallout) I think about carry weight as simply being how much loot I can bring back, but I've realized how flawed this is after playing my first high strength build.

It's not that I think it belongs in many builds, I just don't think it belongs in the same tier as truly useless feats like Snooping and Shield Arm. I can certainly imagine playing a build that has 3 strength and a filled belt slot and really needing that extra 50 carry weight.

EDIT:
I just remembered that it's April 1st XD.
This post isn't an April fools joke though. I'd actually like to hear your thoughts on the feat, or any other feats you think are underrated.

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Builds / Re: Unarmed Nimble Tin Can

« on: February 27, 2025, 07:10:29 pm »

Hello, could you make a printscreen of the build, I can't open the page with the builder.Thanks

I seem to be able to open OP's build in the builder. Here's a screenshot of it if that's what you wanted.

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Builds / Re: First time playing dominating. Survival Instincts sword build. Feedback welcome.

« on: February 25, 2025, 08:38:38 am »

I am baffled you got past the psi beetles with a sword but, maybe I just got annoyed by them too fast on a Sledgehammer run I did way back.

If mechanical damage stuns are an issue, you might be able to eek the flat damage with a "low-type" energy shield emitter, maybe even the low capacitance, better flat value version instead of total shield "hp" upgrade.

Dex might also be better on this build over Strength potentially.

Not sure which psi beetles you mean, but the large groups of goliathus beetles in the upper caves are pretty annoying for me, though their low detection makes it easy to sneak around them.

I've always increased the capacity for my shields, but with this build on this difficulty I'd say that you're probably right about increasing the shielding instead. Gonna give it a shot for my next shield generator.

As for strength vs dexterity, I have mixed feelings about which one is better. I'm the kind of player that takes a lot of equipment with me, so I really like the extra carry weight. Plus strength lets me use the claymore and chainsword, boosts my damage a bit, and adrenaline shots will temporarily raise str by 2, increasing my accuracy and slightly balancing out my build's low strength.
I've done a dexterity based sword build before though, and I know how convenient it is to have a knife as a secondary weapon. Dexterity also boosts more skills than strength, so along with ripper and escape artist it's quite possible that dexterity would've been better, but I had to choose one or the other at the start of the game, and I wanted to try strength.

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Builds / Re: First time playing dominating. Survival Instincts sword build. Feedback welcome.

« on: February 16, 2025, 05:54:32 am »

I went for a nimbler setup rather than conditioning/stoicism, my approach was f9-heavy and I wouldn't recommend Survival Instincts(or any 3 CON) builds for learning dominating in either case.
Fancy footwork and Critical Power must be taken ASAP, Expose Weakness and Escape Artist for the midgame are essential. Future Orientation is neat but isn't mandatory as you cannot use Increment twice for the same 3 turn flurry cooldown, good synergy with grenadier in your case. Tailoring and more PK for psychostatic electricity were things I wish I could get but I overinvested into other skills, rathound regalia and bought tabis are good enough... right?
Flurry AP costs/cooldown are essential, EW duration, critical power spec is the best one for your remaining spec points, yielding the best results for all swords except super steel and black blade who theoretically perform better with a 3/4 split between it and cheap shots(7 and 16% crit damage respectively).
875% damage Red Dragon criticals are a sight to behold, decapitates are funny and can delete bosses but ultimately aren't worth the feat point in my experience.

Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately there's only so much I can do to change my build now this far in, but I do have a few questions about a few things.

Swords can't bleed, so why taste for blood?
Opportunist is a great level 1 feat, but I've never thought about taking it after the first few levels.
I'm curious whether fancy footwork works well with swords. I don't personally feel like I need more movement points.

Why so much stealth? I've found that having good crafting negates the need for putting points into stealth because I can just make a second set of armor that uses black cloth, then make a cloaking device. Then again, crafting is pretty boring and expensive sometimes.

I'd never thought about yell before, but it seems like a great option for a non-psi sword build. Reducing the enemy's dodge, taking them out of stealth, and reducing their chance to hit all seem pretty insane. I'd definitely drop survival insticts for more agi or strength and make a build that's quite different than the one I currently have though. Yell would also make guns more usable, so I'd use versatility to use heavy guns. Having a ranged option is always nice.
Now that I think about it, yell might actually make more sense for a sword build than a sledge build. An 85% chance to hit is inconvenient for a sledge build, but crippling for a sword build.
I'd still use 3 CON though, I've always put it at either 3 or more than 7, never between.

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Builds / First time playing dominating. Survival Instincts sword build. Feedback welcome.

« on: February 02, 2025, 02:29:14 pm »

Hey there, I'm relatively new, having only really made two characters and beaten the game once. I have played on hard before, but the game got too easy by the late game and I decided to try dominating. I decided to make a sword build because even if I'm terrible I can still crit flurry 6 times in a row and win anyway, even if I have to save scum like crazy.

I'm past junkyard and am level 11 now, but I've been struggling to figure out where to spend my skill points first.
The build I went for is a bit strange, and uses survival instincts with the sword's high crit damage.
I've also put some points into temporal and psychokinesis with psychostatic electricity for even more crit and damage vs robots.

The build has conditioning and stoicism in it so I can achieve -100% damage modification with aegis and morphine (Irongut and Mutie Stew also). The problem with that idea is that I'm pretty sure mechanical damage has a -95% damage mod cap, and I'll only be invincible for a few turns, so stuns are a serious issue. I'm debating whether I should take Iron Will or just kill any psionics before they stun me and use the extra feat for something else. I know that a lot of attacks need to damage a target to stun, but if there's any exceptions I'd like to know.

I knew this build would take a while to really go online, but it's been a struggle. I wanna get powerful enough to take Maclander's Claymore, but I just don't have the gear to take him on yet, so I've also been trying to find easy quests I can do to level up. I also want to finish phreak's quests for the Chainsword, but I don't know whether I can acquire the blueprint for aegis before finishing the oligarch questline.

Apparently, I can't post a link to my build on underrail info, so I've attached a picture of it instead.