This build is for Experimental Branch with Version 1.0.3.13, Hard difficulty.
Synergistic Glass Cannon of All Trades v 1.0.3
The goal was to make a build that can do everything but i abandoned PSI due to low WIL and max HP hit.
PSI is mostly just a weapon and we're going to use other combat tools. Many of them.
It's not a build for beginners as it lacks defense. Well, passive defense, at least.
I'm playing on Hard + Classic exp, so far it's doing fine except some early game pain. Zero passive defense can make you die incredibly fast, but our active defense can carry us.
Weapon type that fits best into this build is pistols, specifically energy and chemical.
This build has good initiative, good secret detection, good traps detection, excellent fishing, good active defense, can open any doors and pickpocket many pockets. It's great for exploring the game but you need some experience with combat or you'll die.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMQAwMKAwjChzcAAAAAwodaMCMyK2RYWFQAAAA_ADwBJiQwAlbCkSlLWsKaXTMWAbility scores:
STR 3
DEX 10 (+6)
AGI 3
CON 3
PER 10
WIL 3
INT 8
We're starved for ability scores, hence no Steadfast Aim for us. But it's not very important for this build. We'll manage.
Enough PER for Sharpshooter, max DEX for attack speed and skills. 3 AGI on a stealthy character pains me but one extra point of INT is necessary since food can no longer give INT.
130 carry capacity is bad for a trap user but on Hard difficulty i'd rather not pick convenience feats like Pack Rathound especially since we are feat starved due to using both energy and chemical guns. Infused pig boots with +30 capacity will help.
16 DEX is important for all our guns. Even for laser because with +1 from food we will have some AP to spend on meds or we'll be shooting plasma pistol twice per turn!
Skills:
Guns 135
Throwing 55*
Stealth 135
Hacking 90
Lockpicking 48
Pickpocket 35
Traps 50*
Mechanics 43*
Electronics 100
Chemistry 88*
Biology 88
Tailoring 84
Persuasion
52 63**
Mercantile
72 60
*6 unspent skill points left. They will go either into Mechanics for better Seekers, Chemistry for uber chemguns in DC or Throwing/Traps.
My goal is crafting using best pre-DC components but there's enough electronics to craft energy pistols from best components game has to offer.
We harvest some real benefits from our godly DEX: throwing, traps, lockpicking and pickpocketing can be half skills and still effective late game. We get some benefits from synergies as well. We also gain significant combat benefits. Marvelous.
But our INT is just as good as we develop all 7 INT related skills. Enough mechanics to craf adv. repair kits, breaking things apart and using metal plates for traps. Mechanics level is enough to craft midgame Regenerative Tac Vest with black overcoat which is especially valuable on Hard due to healing consumables penalty.
Early game we can craft 35 AP sniper rifle, quaff adrenaline shot to have just enough STR and shoot twice per turn. I haven't try this but it's and option to consider.
Enough Hacking and Lockpicking for endgame checks with the best tool. You'll need food for hardest locks.
Bio/Chem get sweet synergy bonus. We'll be able to craft the best stuff. Fishing for components is very easy with our DEX (and x5 speedhack). We'll also benefit from crafting chemical pistols. Synergies of this build just don't stop to amuse me.
There's no need for more Tailoring after infused leather quality nerf.
Pickpocketing to steal some keys, meds and tons of bullets. Bullets sell well at general stores.
Hint: You need 90 traps to recover Spoiler King's traps. Jackknife and Trapper's Belt can help.
60 in Persuasion is enough to pass many checks in this game and all checks i wanted to pass. There's one 110 check in DC but it only allows to skip a fight that is easy for this build anyway.
Mercantile synergises nicely with Persuasion and fits name of this build very well.
With skill level of 106 Religious Faction's shop starts to sell great chemical pistol parts or not really, it looks like i was mistaken for some reason. I raised Persuasion and lowered Mercantile.
**With certain +1 WIL robe we can pass 75 Persuasion checks. One is in the Institute and one in Ninja HQ.
Feats:
Aimed Shot - Our bread and butter ability. Needed for Sharpshooter.
Opportunist - There will be many... opportunities to use it coming from traps, taser, cryogun/acidgun/shockgun, crawler poison, net.
Nimble - Good for our sneak and movement points. We can even get some extra dodge/evasion from tabi boots.
Quick Tinkering - Good active defense, great vs melee. Helps enabling Opportunist.
Ambush! - Crucial feat for our primary tactics.
Mad Chemist - Mandatory for cryogun - 2 turns of iceblock are MUCH better than 1. Increases DOT damage for 2 other guns which is nice for acid and very good for pyro.
Cooked Shot - AoE and reasonable cooldown, good stuff. Great for hitting hard to hit enemies, especially those new beetles.
Power Management - Crucial feat for our defense as it buffs energy shields. We need defense badly. Will also make reloading your EW more managable.
Critical Power - Crucial feat for our primary tactics.
Practical Physicist - Useful for all energy guns that we are going to use.
High-Technicalities - Let's make use of our high INT.
Sharpshooter - Same as Practical Physicist but includes all chemguns as well.
Other considered feats:
Skinner - To craft some badass leather armors. Skip if you prefer regen tac vests but leather armors is what i recommend.
Grenadier - We can make good use of this one. Works good with Quick Pockets and Three Pointer but we're starved for feats. It's still good on its own, probably my pick.
Quick Pockets - We can certainly make use of extra utility slot and reduced cost of switching weapons. Handy, but second tier.
Three Pointer - Works with incendiary nades too but it's mostly for 1HKO from frag/HE.
Point Shot - Smart plasma pistol's best friend but this build is more about default attacks with laser and accuracy drop with range is not good for us making this feat a second tier.
Execute - Good feat and we have options to make it work but short range is bad for this build. Second tier.
Kneecap Shot - Bleed from energy/chem guns is immersion breaking. Also i'd take Point Shot and Execute before this one.
Steadfast Aim - It's now bad for laser and we have no spare points for STR.
Recklessness - Good for energy pistols if our primary tactics does not work (rarely happens) but in those cases we'll use chemguns and Aimed Shot from energy pistols.
Pack Rathound - Useful for someone with 3 STR and traps in his backpack. But with speedhack i've managed without it. Once i got infused pig boots i was doing just fine.
This build is feat starved due to using both energy and chemical pistols.
Items:
Our weapon of choice is Amplified Laser Pistol, others will be Amplified Electroshock, three chemicals and perhaps Smart Plasma. Of course we will be using SMGs early game because they just roflstomp pistols that much. We'll be using chem pistols once we'll craft them at Junkyard. SMGs will still be used due to fast attacks, burst and plentiful ammo. Laser's range is good for getting benefit of Sharpshooter and precision bonus is unique among many weapon types. It's not always the best choice tho, shockgun will be better vs clustered groups or energy resistant enemies like Spoilerless or metal armor dudes.
Our default armor is Infused Pig Leather Armor (high density padding) + Boots. On lvl 20 it adds about 170 HP ... to our 230. It's like jumping from CON 3 to CON 8. It's sick for a glass canon like us. +30 carry helps a lot. Before that it will be steathy regen tact vest and ninja tabi.
Other suit of armor is infused siphoner torso+tabi for fire and acid resist and dodge/evasion. We didin't raise dodge nor evasion but this bonus seems to be doing something.
For exploration we'll use trapper's belt. It's also good for placing traps. For combat it's gonna be either groin guard or doctor's pouch for tougher encounter. Once i crafted my pig armor i discarded groin guard. When using chemical pistols you really want those new belts, at least advanced one. Sadly they don't add utility slots.
Seeker Goggles by default. Smart Goggles recently lost some of its value, but you can keep a pair for brutal Aimed Shot alpha strikes. Smart will be used for SMG burst untils you stop using them.
How to play:
Use your stealth to start combat on your own terms, use bear traps to disable melee and hide behind a corner to avoid getting attacked.
Use out of combat gas granades for encounters you can't win otherwise. More on that later. With Quick Tinkering you can place mines right under enemy noses. You can also throw various things at your enemies, nets can be really helpful. Eat eel sandwiches if they grant you extra attacks.
Strategy 1:
Ambuscade!Stay in shadow and Ambush! enemies who are 'enlightened'. If they are not then throw a molotov and make them! I can't stress enough how much i love this feature of molotovs. Underrail rocks for allowing creative gameplay like this. This is why laser rules: your range allows you to ambush enemies at the other side of fire zone, you also don't need to move much and will get Sharpshooter bonus more often.
Ambush is rather tricky. Sometimes it wont work where you think it should. Sometimes it's the opposite. But incendiary nades were pretty consistent at enabling it, contrary to flares and pyrogun. Eat hopper steaks unless you're eating eel sandwiches for attack speed.
Stealth threshold for Ambush feat:
- 150: +65% crit chance, with good Seekers and Focus Stim we will cap,
- 200: +80% crit chance, we will cap with either Stim or Seekers, this is our target value,
- 250: +95% crit chance, possible with stealth gear and probably with very best combat gear crafted with DC components.
Recklessness is worth about 23 stealth. If we decide to take this feat we'll cap crit chance with best pre-DC combat gear.
Strategy 2: Chemical pistols
Use chemical pistols and catalyzing belts. Acid + fire is a good combo. Melee gets raped by acid entaglement, shield emitters are mostly bypassed and Opportunist is easily enabled. Entagled enemies can be treated with pyrogun - if they catch fire they won't run away, will probably die from DOTs and maybe even enable ambush for you
Fun!
Acid + cryo isn't bad either, many human enemies are immune to burning. Remember that pyro and cryo pistols cancel each other's effects (except belt debuffs).
When fighting robots equip acid and some energy gun.
When fighting Goliathi equip zapgun and pyrogun. Start combat with zapgun Aimed Shot to kill at least one. Cooked Shot bypasses Mirror Image and burning makes them run away.
Strategy 3: Gas cheese
Place yourself out of enemy vision range, enter stealth, enter combat aim your gas nade at closest enemy (or a tile not further than closest enemy), step back, end combat.
If it does not work choose a tile closer to you.
Use cont. granades if you don't care about looting health hypo (and you shouldn't since you can craft them) or ice granade if you do (in that case you need to make killing yourself but Hypotermia and iceblock make it much easier).
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