Messages

46

Builds / Re: Opinions on this Spear / Nade / Temporal Build?

« on: April 11, 2020, 11:55:06 am »

The one I used looked like this: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?Hg8GBwUDAwcAAADCoMKgwqDCkFdaAABTcgBcZgAAAAAAAFgkKDEAwpQGwpPCksKsSxINKSbCtl3ChcKdwq3CnsKf4p2NB-Knvgbis44C378
It was played in hard, that Dodge/Evasion style would fail in dominating. Also, I wanted to play a "pure" melee build, so I did not pick Temporal Manip and Throwing, but it would obviously make the build stronger. The build was overall extremely strong for hard difficulty, except in a few parts where the enemies spam rooting attacks. I should have included escape artist in the build, it would have been better. Also, I did not pick trap because I know where they are, but I don't recommend doing that ^^

Now if you want to take a look at existing builds, this excellent topic talks about something closer to your idea: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=4106.0

47

Builds / Re: Opinions on this Spear / Nade / Temporal Build?

« on: April 10, 2020, 10:48:05 pm »

The build is fine, it will probably be very solid for normal and comfortable in hard.

They are a few issues I can see. First the details:
- You have too many points in Hacking, Lockpicking, Mechanic, Electronics, Tailoring, Temporal Manipulation. A few points in Traps never hurt when you have low PER to help detection.
- Persuasion is not great, mercantile is generally a better pick (and on higher difficulty mercantile is extremely good to have).
- Snooping is (sadly) useless in the long run, you can find every secret with 3 PER as long as you can craft certain items.
- I would take cheap shots and crit power as soon as possible, those impale crits amazing, especially on a STR spear build. They also both work with spear throw, and a crit spear throw is a death sentence.
- With that much Throwing, Three Pointer is a solid option, but you'd need to lower your STR to get one more DEX.
- 25 points in Psychokynesis to get force field is always the best investment possible. It feels a bit cheap to abuse it though...

Now another problem I see is: it is a melee build with low init, no stealth, high armor penalty and low base movement points. Enemies will often get first strike, and running after them will be annoying as hell. On top of that, you will also need to move to your thrown spears to pick them up. I'm not saying the build wont work, just that it will be awkward to play at times. Personally, I would go for a light armour and get some stealth, but that would be another build.

Hope that helps, I've played quite a bit of melee spear, but not much spear throw, so my input might not be fully accurate

48

Builds / Re: What do you guys think of this Shotgun/Sniper Evasion Build?^^

« on: January 08, 2020, 07:50:11 pm »

Well, I might have pushed a personal preference as an objective improvement of the build. Going from 11 to 16 PER gives 15% more damage. I value that a lot, while I generally consider health near useless. But the thing I overlooked, and was pointed out above, is that shotguns ans snipers are kinda noisy, and you'll end up fighting large packs of enemies. So my bad, keep points in CON.

Imo, 100 (counting tools) in lockpicking is enough to get most of the good stuff.

Alright, but how can you sleep after letting a random locker unchecked? Gotta loot everything!

49

Builds / Re: What do you guys think of this Shotgun/Sniper Evasion Build?^^

« on: January 07, 2020, 03:10:17 pm »

First: in Normal/Classic your build WILL work, so feel free to ignore any of the following.

There are a couple of things I would change. The most glaring issue is having only 10 PER. For a build focused solely on guns it cant be good. At the bare minimum get 11 for Scrutinous, and quite frankly I wouldn't settle for anything below 14.

You took some burst feats, but bringing SMGs or ARs in the build doesn't look necessary.

I think high Electronics makes perfect sense for this build: with low health and high evasion you'll want a high quality high frequency shield emitter. High Electronics is also useful to craft good cloaking devices and use smart modules in crafted rifles.

Maxing throwing skill is near useless, unless you really want to throw knives (you don't).

Biology is incredibly strong, but requires a bit of work. Maybe consider it.

Here is how I would modify your build: http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgYGBwMOAwfCoDwAAMKgwqDCoEVKAABfXwBAXwAAAAAAAFgBOSQWNTEzwpZLwpDCmMKwwo9-wqTCtV3CncKtwp7Cn-KkjgXip74K378

Without going into details, max lockpicking check is 130, max hacking check is 135, but the vast majority are below 110. Standard tools can give you +10, a missable tool gives you +15, and a non-missable DLC armor gives you +10 (on top of whatever tool you use). Check Destroyor's guide for more infos.

50

Builds / Re: Feedback on knife build for Dominating

« on: January 06, 2020, 01:12:42 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.

51

Builds / Re: A blind laser pistol build (aka Stormtrooper)

« on: December 25, 2019, 12:59:10 pm »

Short answer regarding spec points: it was my planned allocation and I sticked to it. I don't know how it would have been without those spec points in Versatility, but in my playthrough I only had accuracy issues in the Black Sea, against locusts, submerged serpents and a certain ghost. For all of these there are easy workarounds, and I had 95% chance to hit against the vast majority of enemies (I also played on DOMINATING/oddity).

I'm still happy with that point allocation though, because gun skill gives damage on top of accuracy. As gun skill is not amazingly high in this build, it's less subject to diminishing returns, so the damage boost from Versatility specialization is quite noticeable. Some figures at level 30 with a 315% crit power gun:

• 10 Versatility / 5 Critical Power: +20% base damage from Versatility, +25% crit damage from CP, +50% total crit damage
• 5 Versatility / 10 Critical Power: +10% base damage from Versatility, +50% crit damage from CP, +65% total crit damage

While the overall damage is higher with full investment in Critical Power, it is not that amazing (+10%). I prefer having higher accuracy, as well as slightly higher base damage for crit immune targets. It's also worth noting that the build already overkills most ennemies by a fair margin. Still, both options are most likely perfectly fine. A few spec points in Survival Instincts might also be okay for those who value reliability and want to reach that sweet 100% crit chance.

Regarding feats, Three Pointer is clearly a solid pick, probably better than a few feats I chose (Last Stand, Skinner). I originally planned for it, but I just found myself not using damage dealing grenades at all after I got the build on tracks.

52

Builds / A blind laser pistol build (aka Stormtrooper)

« on: December 23, 2019, 03:11:47 pm »

This is a versatility build, taking advantage of the DEX->melee->gun conversion, and using a laser pistol as primary weapon. The core idea is to dump PER completely, which may look like a terrible idea but is actually not a problem at all. Our gun skill is perfectly fine thanks to versatility, and we don't miss on any significant feat. This allows us to meet the CON requirement for Survival Instincts while also getting hight INT. This stat allocation (max DEX/high INT) gives the build high skill point efficiency, and it ends up reaching most skill thresholds in the game.

Finished build link:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQAwkDAwkZOQDCoAAAwqBKMEIwS2RCQFoAGQBGVgBCKygmwqMWMMKaYlpLKR8xwocqwrNdwoXCneKnvgXita4K378
Stats: 3/18/3/9/3/3/9
Core feats: Versatility(+10), Survival Instincts, Critical Power(+5), Practical Physicist, Hight Technicalities, Recklessness
Equipment: amplified efficient laser pistol, seeker goggles, infused rathound leather armor

pros:
- Very high and continuous damage output
- Amazing skill point efficiency

cons:
- Only starts working around mid game
- No defenses

To give some figures, on the finished character I have a 9 AP laser pistol (8 with eel sandwich). At 8 AP we attack 8 time on a single haste round (adrenaline or PTC) and 11 times on a double hasted round (adrenaline and PTC). The gun does 56-77 base energy damage, +32% unconditional boost from High Technicalities (+48% with hypercerebrix!), 88% crit chance (6 base + 30 SI + 7 Recklessness + 18 goggles + 12 infused rathound leather armor + 15 stim focus), 796% critical multiplier (Amplified + Practical Physicist + Critical Power). So, on a typical round, out of 8 attacks we can expect 6 criticals dealing about 800 damage each. If we go all in (hardcore chips, adrenaline, super soldier, hypercerebrix), factoring blindsiding in: expect 9 criticals dealing 1080 damage each.

The skill point efficiency is ridiculous: my character can pass all lockpicking, hacking, pickpocketing, trap, persuasion and mercantile checks, has max accuracy on grenades throws and can craft any useful item with max quality components. And despite having 3 AGI, he ended up with about 200 effective stealth.

Of course the character is extremely fragile and anything going through the energy shield is pretty much a death sentence. But nothing should ever hit you with high stealth, high initiative, Force Field, Stasis, and 6 killing blows per round.

However, the character does have one major issue: it takes a long time before it actually works. At the start of the game, versatility is too weak to be effective, the available energy weapons are considerably weaker than the crafted ones, no critical multiplier is 90% of our DPS missing, we don't have Aimed Shot and our crit chance is low. So, early on we play a suboptimal knifer/grenadier/trapper. It gets the job done, but it would certainly be a miserable experience as a first character. The build starts shining at level 16, and is mostly complete at level 26.

Final notes:
If you're new to the game, don't play this. There are better laser pistol builds out there on the forum. But this one is a little quirky and I like quirky builds. And it worked well for a full oddity run. As a conclusion, I'll put the full final fight log. Not as stupid as a sniper, but still...