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« Last post by Ploluap on December 31, 2025, 08:27:39 am »
Hey, interesting topic, cut-throat builds are my favorites though i didn't have much time to play this update yet,
My experience with the feat is that it's very good for the "base game" that has a lot human fight/bosses (also worth noting cut throat works against mutants) and starts to fall off in expedition and DC when you face more robots and creatures, and the tougher humans have Thick Skull (like skaerders or faceless commander). Thick skull prevents the stun effect, so it's much less useful here but you still get the bleeding effect,
The change to 15 ap is very nice, and makes the feat overall more useful throughout the game, even in The Compound.
For a cut-throat centric build you indeed need to spec into it to the reduce CD, and you need ways to proc it, which are :
- stealth and only when unnoticed (unlike snipe which works even if the enemy sees you through stealth) ;
- incapacitation, which can come from : cheap shots (but it has been severely nerfed), flashbangs (8 turn cd), mental breakdown (8 turn cd) ; tranq bolt (12 turn cd (!) ) or pneumatic hammer (every fourth hit). Freezing effect does not work for cut throat (i say this because otherwise it kinda works like an incapacitation) ;
- butcher's hook, which is good for being unconditionnal, but has 5% reduced precision and less damage.
One of the strongest option is to rely heavily on flashbangs, causing an area of effect incap for 2 turns.
So IMO a very powerful Cut-throat centric build would use Grenadier, Spec ops (with 2 specialisation points) and LTI to reduce the cooldowns of both Cut-throat and Flashbangs to 2 turns, allowing you to incap, stun and bleed to death a lot of people before they can react.
For the exact build i have no idea what's best, you could do a 10 int cut-throat build this patch and it would be good since speccing into cheap shots and crit power will skyrocket your DPS.
But there are a lot of possible variations like using versatility and SMGs or any other ranged weapon, or psi-versions. 10 Will Knife cut-throat with Thought controls skills is cool for example. I also really enjoyed playing a Knife cut-throat/electrokinesis character, though it has no obvious synergy it works fine and the imprint in particular is always useful for more control.