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Builds / Re: Sheepherder's Shiv Melee Build - Advice/Sugesstions - Normal Difficulty

« on: June 17, 2021, 06:05:05 pm »

Well the good thing is you can always also fall back on knives if the shiv doesn't shank shit properly.

I want to say Beckett has them grenades without Mercantile but I'm not sure. My gut says yes, as its part of the special faction merchandise.

Those grenades come late and also not in huge quantities, so honestly: don't build too much on this. You can get people to bleed using Bear Traps, cool and easy to do. Can lay 'em in combat if you take the feat Quick Tinkering. Or prep the battle field ahead. You can, and that's how I did it for my shiv build, also just carry a serrated edge knife and use that until the first stack of bleed comes, then you switch immediately to shiv to exploit the low AP of the shiv, building the 10 stacks of Taste for Blood quickly. Alternatively, you could also use Leather gloves with serrated edges or the unique Claw or Ripper's Glove later on to initiate the bleeding (Leather Gloves trigger bleed with 35% as opposed to 25% of a knife, Ripper's Glove has three insane chances for bleed which add up to above 50% bleed trigger per attack!). Sorry for stating this if you know it already, but TfB just requires one stack of blood and you hit that guy 10x and are good to go for your 50% damage boost.

More throwing earlier is great, yes, good choice.

One thing about your build: you take Premeditation and Only TM psi stuff. That's a shame. Go 30 points psychokinesis or 45 so you get Electrokinesis (which is a free stun with Premeditation) or even the Electro-Trap you put on the ground and whose name I'm to lazy to google right now. The increase in PSI cost doesn't really matter for you. Force Field can also help in a pinch, so Electrokinesis with low investment ain't that bad to try out, especially since you can cast stuff AP neutrally later on.

As to energy edges: if you want the pure masochistic shiv experience, shun them. If you want to play a shiv build who isn't above using other stuff if required, why not use knives with electro damage or energy edge (the latter ones can't be bought and require some Electronics to crafT). Energy edges deal energy damage and hence are great against robots and tin cans. (A typical knife crit build could go with energy edge TiChrome serrated knife that has 11 AP and hence at high Dex hits for 5 to 6 AP, deals extra energy damage which is usually not well resisted and triggers bleeds and hence TfB, all in all leading to quite insane damage outputs).

My only caveat: if you use one of those high damage knives ... you might be tempted to chuck the shiv and just go knife.

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Builds / Re: Sheepherder's Shiv Melee Build - Advice/Sugesstions - Normal Difficulty

« on: June 16, 2021, 10:02:35 am »

Okay, so, I tried to recreate Sheepherders Shiv Build - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9IQOO7gGZI&t=363s - with Lockpicking & Hacking & Crafting & Persuasion in mind.

I've put 5 points per Level into Temporal Manipulation and I mainly did that so I can reach Psycho-temporal Acceleration & Future Orientation in time (level 10 & 20) without having to invest much into it. I never truly played PSI before, so do you guys think that investing in it as little as possible is a good idea or should I invest more heavily to make more us out of it?

I did Merchantile mainly because Sheepherder did it and I'm not sure If that's just a Dominination Difficulty thing, or if having better stocks available is actually crucial to the build.

I left Throwing at an effective skill of 35 for most of the build. I mainly did that 'cause leaving it at 30 in the early game has been enough so far. But do you guy's think that I should put more into it early on? (I continue to level Throwing at level 25 again - that's quite late)

Can I ditch Merchantile in favor of Throwing to ensure that my Nets & Stuff hit the target mid. to late game?

My Build has like zero trap skill and no Perception. Is having an Trapper's Belt & Tracking Googles equiped enough to actually spot shit?

And.. what should I wear in my Headslot? 'Cause Goggles don't increase Melee Damage.


Long post I know but I hope you Guys can give me some advice. Maybe tell me ouright if it sucks and doesn't work.
Thanks

Hi Kristin,
I'll give you my 2cts on the Shiv build. I play one myself right now, with a slightly different focus. I'll answer your questions first, then add some of my observations

PSI: Sheepherder is using specific combinations of temporal manipulation to always have acceleration going. This is very useful but only late game. In the beginning taking PTA for instance adds one attack, but taking damage feats early might make more sense. So after Depot A you want Temporal 55 to buy the PSI Speed mentor in Rail Crossing, but PTA could wait as feat.

MErcantile allows you to buy better components when crafting knives. Since you use Shiv which is independent of quality, you could completely ignore it in the beginning. One exception: Blaine (Merc 25 and 45 I think) quite early offers Shiv blueprint and good knife components so this could make things easier. If you use a backup knife with energy edge this makes you good against robots. Energy edges are extremely rare early game, if you find one, awesome!

Throwing: The build is not too skill-points starved (since you would not need to craft much except your critical leather armor quite late), so throwing is a good investment to make your nets stick even with mobile enemies. I would continue putting points into it. Nets are another good shot you have a triggering opportunist and crowd controlling enemies.

Headslot: Not a lot to do in the beginning, maybe Balaclava for stealth, which helps to get close to your targets. Later on maybe in combination with Brutality feat you could use the Death Grin thing. Brutality would give you a bit more crowd control, but late game.

Detection is shit in a PER 3 build, not a lot to be done, meta game knowledge can help.

Now for my experience with a Shiv build with slightly different focus, which takes Fancy Footwork and Damage early.
It starts with stats: 3 10 6 9 3 4 5, you add AGI then WILL, rest in DEX
Feats in order: Recklessness, Survival Instincts, Expertise, Opportunist, Fancy Footwork, Cheap Shots, Ripper, Taste for Blood, Critical Power, Expose Weakness (maybe this one earlier!)

If you spec the build that way, you have very early on enough shiv attacks but here comes the good part: you are extremely agile and already do good shiv damage earlier than in the original build: you tase your enemy, shiv it a lot, then use all the MP you gained to run away and kite them. With so many attacks and Cheap shots, you are also getting an Incap every round, so for most non robot enemies, a shiv can even on low level do a good job, even though it takes you many rounds to kill off the single enemy. Groups are annoying of course. I think the alternative build comes into its own a bit earlier than Sheepherders and it was fun playing it so far.

Sheepherder's dictum however is valid: don't play a shiv build
(it's slow and weak compared to a dex crit brawler or normal knife build even and you need a lot of meta knowledge)

Kidding aside, if you know what you are getting into, it's fun however! For me, mostly the fancy footwork running thing was cool.


(edited to correct starting stats distribution)

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General / Re: Fan art

« on: October 15, 2020, 09:13:19 pm »

epeli, I think you are missing some... Newton in the beginning (by lying to him about the bugs) or alternatively the bugs to save Newton. Apart from the Arena fight, the Oligarch quest lines also require killing. JKK can be done with only killing Bogdan, so the headcount is a little bit bigger. Don't know about Expedition, though... and I've never tried whether the first Arena missions would be doable as a bystander letting the other challengers dirty their hands

You can return to SGS and say you couldn't find Newton. If memory serves, it's also possible to flee from Bogdan and complete the mission without killing him. The early arena matches are tough for a real pacifist. You'll have to get violent to help your buddies, but it's possible to avoid killing anything yourself.

Good to know about Newton, but fleeing from Bogdan did not work for me

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General / Re: Fan art

« on: October 15, 2020, 07:17:48 pm »

That actually makes me wonder... for a... ''pacifist'' playthrough, how many things do you have to kill? Three, four or five?

Couple of arena fighters, a mushroom and a big eye.

epeli, I think you are missing some... Newton in the beginning (by lying to him about the bugs) or alternatively the bugs to save Newton. Apart from the Arena fight, the Oligarch quest lines also require killing. JKK can be done with only killing Bogdan, so the headcount is a little bit bigger. Don't know about Expedition, though... and I've never tried whether the first Arena missions would be doable as a bystander letting the other challengers dirty their hands

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Builds / Re: Guide - Sniper/Crossbow/Psi Hybrid Build

« on: September 22, 2020, 08:42:29 pm »

But after spending 3 hours of resetting the shops, Camp Hathor is probably the best place for a chance to buy it

Ressetting the shops? What do you mean? Is there a way to quickly reset the shops?

No, just wait 20-30 minutes for the reset, clean your flat or read a book meanwhile Bolt Quivers are plenty in the Expedition area, for instance Pirate Pinners have them all I think

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Builds / Re: SMG Spec Ops

« on: September 17, 2020, 10:00:40 am »

Excellent build!

I can confirm how much your build kicks ass as I have by coincidence just played a similar build with SMGs, Versatility and Power Fist. It's completely DOMINATING viable and loads of fun.

I'd just thought to add that you could also go for a variant with AGI and PER at 3 and CON at 9. You loose Suppressive Fire and Spec Ops but you gain Survival Instincts, so Steel Cats 7.62mm bursts at the end come at 18 instead of 12, but with Critical Power and Specialization this packs an incredible punch (I would say this should hold despite the nerf for Crit Power).

(In case anyone is interested in the Power Fist side: you can get that one directly after Junkyard at level 10 and it has endgame specs, at DEX 18 it has 6 AP and 12 attacks with 72 AP = three pneumatic strikes, with Crit Power this really really hurts. The build is some Warhammer Inquisitor inspired Kill all the heretics build. What I love about versatility is if you get bored with SMGs, you punch for a while, and go back. And yes, I know, just crafting a 12 AP glove is even better, but you haven't lived, if you haven't played with the f**** Power Fist)

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Builds / Re: Chimera DMR Build?

« on: August 30, 2020, 08:44:11 am »

Yes, exactly. AR have single fire damage that is good enough later on, with all the critical perks and you can still burst for big groups. You should definitely consider Survival Instincts so that more of the individual shots crit.

The only thing I see with your idea is that the setup is pretty much the same as for an AR burst build, so apart from conserving ammo, most of the time, the burst should be strictly better.

You could do a similar type of setup for SMG and use the Steel Cat. Overall less punch of course, but DEX reduction would allow for more individual shots. But requires closer range.

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Builds / Re: Psy Assassin (aka Shinobi) viability check

« on: August 30, 2020, 12:29:26 am »

Yeah that sounds more pragmatic than Stasis.

Expose Weakness doesn't hurt, but it's more helpful in the beginning, as Energy Edges usually are only really coming to play at the CoreTech Faction shop. It's a bit counterintuitive but that's the best faction for you because of those edges, I'd say.

Vile Weaponry was a bit a disappointment when I tried it, as it is limited to the person you got the bleeding wound on. Compared to Taste for Blood it's really shitty and you could easily do without, I think. But flavor-wise, yes, it sounds like it should be in the build.

I agree on the crit-damage over crit-chance. I just wanted to point out that my experience is with the +30% chance from Survival Instincts build, so a non-SI build might not be as easy-peasy as one with it on DOMINATING. I still think it would be viable.

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Builds / Re: Psy Assassin (aka Shinobi) viability check

« on: August 29, 2020, 05:16:35 pm »

I've played a knife build on DOMINATING and can confirm that -at least with survival instincts and CON 9- it really works well and is a lot of fun to play. I'm not sure how reliable the knife will be without a high critical chance, though, but I guess that's what OP has thought control for.

Serrated knife with energy edge is excellent, obviously Taste for Blood, and didn't even need Expose Weakness. Would also take Premeditation way earlier for the free stun.

Have fun with the stabbing

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Builds / Re: First time player AR tank build viability check

« on: August 19, 2020, 05:19:15 pm »

Thanks for the feedback all!

If you don't have much time I would recommend playing on normal to start. Build is all over the place, don't mix sledge hammer and AR on your first build, take only AR and support / tank feats. There are plenty of builds around there in this forum you can template from.

In my head, I was thinking that I needed some amount of melee capability for enemies who were really good at sticking on me. I know some games make it so larger ranged weapons, like sniper rifles obviously but sometimes large machine guns too, were really bad at close range, but it sounds like that's not an issue here. What I'm gathering is that I really don't even need to invest in melee skill points, let alone feats.

So nobody gonna tell him that investing in dodge and evasion is meaningless because he'll have high armor penalty? Oh, nevermind, I did.

I don't think that is true. On normal, dodge and evasion can work even with 60% tac vest and take off a bit pressure (it's not like OP is pressed for skill points). For a new player, why not? Also adds the potential to wear a 10% armor penalty vest and be a bit more mobile, so OP could experiment what suits them better. With the investment in melee I'd probably also go for AGI 6 and take Sprint. I don't think OP needs a completely min-maxed build

I appreciate both of these lines of thought. I wasn't sure if having no dodge/evasion would absolutely screw me early game before I could get good armor. I'll probably try dumping my AGI completely for more CON to get some better tank/support feats. DerivativeZero is right though, I'm not terribly concerned about min maxing, so long as I'm not so far off the mark that I can actually complete the game.

Adding psi can be helpful, but build complicate your plan if you don't want to investigate too much. Not mandatory for tin can AR tho.
 

I am curious, are psi abilities worth it when trying to make a tank character? Doesn't it reduce your HP by 20%?

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback all,

KardFett

The price in HP for PSI is always worth it IMHO (1.1.1.6. even more than new experimental patch, but there as well) as PSI adds so many different helpful things, if only PSI haste (psycho-temporal contraction). But you can also pop adrenaline and ignore PSI. Other stuff: E-Imprint as a PSI stun trap (45 Psychokinesis needed), Electrokinesis, Force Field (all from Psychokinesis). Others too, but they cost more investment. 55 Temporal, 45 Psychokinesis is standard in all my build for instance.

You'll often read here: min max and specialize and for harder difficulties this is true. On normal, it wouldn't really matter to also play with a sledge or melee even though generally one sticks with one weapon and maxes or increases that corresponding stat. Builds with more than one weapon are more varied, but you get all their potential through feats later. Your AR is complete basically at Lv16 for instance.

To be frank: AR can be boring but is very newcomer friendly and allows you to just play a bit and check out what is what. Instead of listening to us to optimize your build, just experiment a bit. One truly amazing thing about the game is how many different play styles are possible. Once you went to the different places, see how traders offer different stuff, do a bit of wiki cross-checking and experimenting is half the fun.

Let me add: AR plus sledge can work, then your feats can help, but check the STR requirements for different sledges on the wiki. Same for AR, crafting for instance a Hornet with Rapid Reloader allows multiple bursts per round, crafting a powerful Chimera for the "free" Commando burst could be worth it. All not strictly necessary, but part of the fun to discover for yourself.


Edit: The game is a bit stingy giving out your first AR, it takes a couple missions; if you click on this link there's a mini guide how to find one very soon. But a bit cheesy (and your skill for it isn't that good in the beginning anyways, just in case you are impatient). https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=5086.msg27706#msg27706

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Builds / Re: First time player AR tank build viability check

« on: August 19, 2020, 03:44:02 pm »

So nobody gonna tell him that investing in dodge and evasion is meaningless because he'll have high armor penalty? Oh, nevermind, I did.

I don't think that is true. On normal, dodge and evasion can work even with 60% tac vest and take off a bit pressure (it's not like OP is pressed for skill points). For a new player, why not? Also adds the potential to wear a 10% armor penalty vest and be a bit more mobile, so OP could experiment what suits them better. With the investment in melee I'd probably also go for AGI 6 and take Sprint. I don't think OP needs a completely min-maxed build

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Builds / Re: First time player AR tank build viability check

« on: August 19, 2020, 08:06:29 am »

https://underrail.info/build/?FAcDBQcPAwVuAABubm4AbgAAAG5uAAAAAAAAAG4AAVVEOxVbSgNJSy1S

As the title says, this is my first time playing UnderRail. I actually played a stealthy crossbow person a little bit of the way through like a year ago, but I didn't really get that far, and I found myself annoyed at having to worry about popping in and out of stealth. I've found I don't really care about being as completionist in games as I used to be, as I have much less time to play them. For that exact reason, I would like to ask before I get too far in if this is a viable build. I just want to go in guns a' blazing and tank whatever I can't kill quickly.

I would love suggestions, both on the build specifically or if there's a playstyle/weapon focus that anyone would recommend. I'm a little hesitant to do psi builds because I feel like that's a lot of abilities to keep track of, but I'm open to hear people's recommendations. I made the build up to level 20 because I don't have the DLC (I'd like to see if I can even beat the main game first before putting more money into it), but I honestly have no idea how far out I should plan.

Hi kardfett,
I'd agree that Opportunist and Suppressive Fire early are great on top of Full-Auto, Commando, Concentrated Fire. Aimed Shot can work, Rapid Fire is bit redundant and Bone Breaker, Pummel, Guard are useless unless you really want to use a Sledge Hammer on top. But bursting the AR is usually enough. Maybe put points in Tailoring to make a heavy tactical vest and you are good to go.

With high CON (and AGI 5 a bit pointless unless I am missing something), you could also think about CON 9 and Survival Instincts, Recklessness and Crit-Chance Goggles to really increase your crit.chances. Adds quite a punch to the AR if you craft ones with anatomically-aware goggles. But makes the build a bit glass cannon as you run around below 30 percent health. (obviously, you can have the feats and only run aound in low health for a difficult encounter where you need more damage)

Hope this helps!

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Development Log / Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update

« on: August 15, 2020, 10:10:08 am »

On the topic of fun, I do have more comment on this as it had been bugging me for a while now:

There's a very thin line between having challenging mechanics and annoying, extra tedious "work".
The increased weight of repair kits means you need to return to base for repair far more often, breaking game flow making it annoying. Seriously have you try playing a pure AR tin can and watch your gun's durability take a sky dive after every fight? Or play a 3 STR SMG char trying to use trap? Locus? I know they were reduced after much outcry. A certain powerplant not letting you power everything in one go? I know you are trying to drain player resources by making them backtrack to confer a sense of hopelessness and dread - but all these changes and the design philosophy behind them, imho, had crossed this line and ventured firmly into annoying, tedious territory making the game feels like work sometimes and do not, again imho, increase the fun and challenge of the game. This trend is indeed worrying especially with Infusion currently under development and I suspect Styg is using Underrail as a test bed for future system.

Getting a bit off-topic, but I have to concur. Styg has slowly been losing sight of the fun factor over the years. It's the little things that are starting to add up. You bring up some good examples of things that slowly add up during a long playthrough and may not come up in the devs' internal testing. Some annoyances also arise as side effects of well-intended changes, for example preventing armor changing in stealth. It stops the exploiters just fine, but now everyone else has to deal with yet another cooldown, and a rather pointless one at that. Things of that nature.

There is some built-in tedium in the overarching design principles and core gameplay as well and I believe the dev team acknowledges that, but that a different thing altogether. I suspect some things are too big to change even in Infusion which builds on Underrail rather than reinvents it, as I understand it.

Now that destroyor and epeli have posted this, upon reflection, I do also agree a bit with this increasing tedium issue. I've played SMG builds recently and the constant repairing/heavy weight of repair kits leads to some cycle of fighting, and then having long down-time picking up all stuff, recycling it, making kits, repairing own stuff ... ten minutes later the journey continues. But SMGs already suffer from needing so much ammo, why also have the degradation? Other examples have been mentioned by destroyor and epeli. So, yeah, it feels like the game gets more complicated and more tedious in some ways, and maybe Styg and the devs could really look a bit into this from the player perspective for a future update. This is not about power, but much of the nerfs could probably be also achieved differently as in less tedious, for instance with PSI, instead of adding another layer of complexity with PSI reserves, why not just make normal PSI not regenerate automatically. I'm sure this requires balancing but the balancing for new PSI right now seems extensive, too. Same about the nerfs that increase tedium. I love playing the game, but I don't think it should become ever more complex, tedious and focussed on every build doing the same amount of damage at each level.

One quick suggestion on reducing "recycling" tedium: Add a button "recycle all" to the loot window, and if clicking it, the protagonist tries to recycle every item in the loot window they can recycle automatically and then just adds the resources. If the skill isn't high enough, the item just remains intact. That way, when looting, you first pick what you want to keep, then recycle the rest in one click and leave what you can't turn into resources. Might really take the edge off a bit.

Edit to add: or have some sort of repair mode, where you just drag a similar item on the one to be repaired and the dragged item will be scrapped and added to the durability. So if I want to repair my AR, I can use any AR I find and just drag it over it to repair (probably needs some tweaking on the exact way this happens, but this would also speed up a bit the tedium of repairing your stuff)

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Builds / Re: New Player Friendly Energy Weapon Builds

« on: July 31, 2020, 10:54:31 pm »

Maybe this guide can also help you: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=5086.0

It details stats and feats for a critical build with energy weapons (mainly laser pistol) and what you can expect in terms of damage, gameplay etc. It's written for DOMINATING, which means that using it on lower difficulty should make for relaxed gameplay

The second post also gives a small mini guide allowing for a headstart in terms of getting a laser pistol before even going on the first quest given by Tanner. Using this gives you early easy cash on top of a laser pistol and can really take the edge off early gameplay difficulty.

If you play sneaky, a glass cannon build with survival instincts may be your thing, but I don't know whether you'd consider this new player friendly. The thing about laser pistols is, they only work with criticals and suck without them (i.e. doing normal damage), so speccing around critical power and survival instincts allows great damage potential.

Hope this helps!

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Builds / Re: An Average Explanation of Outstanding Psi Builds

« on: July 22, 2020, 11:15:35 pm »

Excellent outline on the new PSI mechanics!

Looks a bit like the most useful new PSI ability is "Throw a grenade" and "Lay bear traps" ;(

I've always preferred and played true psi hybrids. The best Psi skill is, indeed, ''Throw a grenade'', but only when its follow by big Pyrokinetic fireballs.

I think for hybrid builds (which I also like dearly), this is fine. For a Cave Wizard, battle field control via Bear Traps when a Force Field could also do it seems just less fitting. I guess it just takes getting used to the new system. Tamior playing it right now on Twitch helps grasping the details.