Build for Hard difficuty

[Billy_Wellington]

Hello. do you guys think it will work after all recent changes made to energy weapons?
I will start with:
Str: 5
Dex: 7
Agi: 3
Con: 5
Per: 10
Will: 3
Int: 7
Up dex on level ups. The idea is to use (mostly) energy pistols and wandering around with shield riot gear, focus on critical damage feats.
I also want to add persuation and mercantile to my list of maxed skills, along with obvious guns, electronics, mechanics, tailoring. Maybe some stealth, lockpicking and hacking with synergy and item boost.

[TheAverageGortsby]

It's up to you of course but you only need 105 effective Mercantile and 110 Persuasion to unlock everything - with 3 WIL & 7 INT that could free up 95 points for other skills (108 real Persuasion, 67 real Mercantile @lvl20+).  Otherwise sounds like a fine build.  Also won't quite need to max Tailoring if you don't want - with housing bonus 110 real points should be enough for anything you want to craft.

Hard is workable with almost any build as long as you're comfortable with the mechanics and have a focused build - which you do.  Sounds like it should work fine.

I should add - you may want a little more INT and to invest in High Technicalities.  I haven't played it yet but people who have and know the feats say it's very handy to have stacked with some DEX and PER for energy builds.  Sorry, forgot that point.

Late edit: fixed typo about skill points in first line

[MirddinEmris]

5 in Str doesn't really worth it. You are going for Steadfast Aim and even after buff (very slight buff mind you), it's not a very  good feat, especially now that laser pistols are 15 AP per shot, meaning that they are going to be your primary weapon and they don't really get much out of that feat. Also you should aim for 14/15 Dex eventually (and you are not gonna get it with current build), since it will get you 5 attacks per turn with lasers and that is really good. I would recommend leaving plasma alone, even with buffed damage it still has bloody 40 AP per shot, which makes it mostly gimmicky weapon for making screenshots of big numbers when you do critical hit on execute. Aimed shot from Electroshock Pistol with smart module and amplifier is a very good way to start a combat on the other hand.


No reason to max persuasion and mercantile. Check the wiki or destroyor's guide on steam for thresholds on those skills. Stealth is a must, you are not a tanky build (5 con and riot armor aren't gonna cut it) and without stealth you are a sitting duck, so unless you like to reload a lot, i would suggest putting considerable amount of points in there. I would also take points out of con and put them into Agi and invest in evasion along with stealth. That would be a better choice for overall survivability.

[MirddinEmris]

I should add - you may want a little more INT and to invest in High Technicalities.  I haven't played it yet but people who have and know the feats say it's very handy to have stacked with some DEX and PER for energy builds.  Sorry, forgot that point.

Absolutely no reason to get Int higher than 7. 1 point in Per will get you about same damage, but also will get you more accuracy. It's a good feat because it gives you a compensation for investing in Int, but that's it (still, if you have 7 Int, it's more than worth it to take said feat)

[TheAverageGortsby]

Stealth is a must, you are not a tanky build (5 con and riot armor aren't gonna cut it) and without stealth you are a sitting duck, so unless you like to reload a lot, i would suggest putting considerable amount of points in there.

I have to say, if you play carefully you don't actually need any defenses even on Dominating.  No dodge, no evasion, no stealth.  And with the build OP is suggesting, fitting in Paranoia and Gunslinger sounds workable, so that the PC would pretty much always go first. As you point out, plasma is sort of situational so it might be possible to wander around with a firearm in hand and swap to energy when fights start.   

Of course Stealth is a very useful thing to have, who doesn't love assassinating enemies by the score, but I can't believe it's a must for any build other than stealth melee, commando, or stealth sniper.

[Billy_Wellington]

5 in Str doesn't really worth it. You are going for Steadfast Aim and even after buff (very slight buff mind you), it's not a very  good feat, especially now that laser pistols are 15 AP per shot, meaning that they are going to be your primary weapon and they don't really get much out of that feat. Also you should aim for 14/15 Dex eventually (and you are not gonna get it with current build), since it will get you 5 attacks per turn with lasers and that is really good. I would recommend leaving plasma alone, even with buffed damage it still has bloody 40 AP per shot, which makes it mostly gimmicky weapon for making screenshots of big numbers when you do critical hit on execute. Aimed shot from Electroshock Pistol with smart module and amplifier is a very good way to start a combat on the other hand.


No reason to max persuasion and mercantile. Check the wiki or destroyor's guide on steam for thresholds on those skills. Stealth is a must, you are not a tanky build (5 con and riot armor aren't gonna cut it) and without stealth you are a sitting duck, so unless you like to reload a lot, i would suggest putting considerable amount of points in there. I would also take points out of con and put them into Agi and invest in evasion along with stealth. That would be a better choice for overall survivability.

5str is also to carry supersteel and tichrome shields without penalty, not only for steadfast aim. As for persuation and mercantile, who knows where it will go in expansion? And thats when i am actually plan to start a new run.

[TheAverageGortsby]

5str is also to carry supersteel and tichrome shields without penalty, not only for steadfast aim. As for persuation and mercantile, who knows where it will go in expansion? And thats when i am actually plan to start a new run.

In that case you may want to hold off on the theorycrafting until you see what the various changes, like Specialization points, come with the expansion.  It may well be that some new build possibilities that would be absolutely suboptimal right now will be strong in the expansion.

[MirddinEmris]

I have to say, if you play carefully you don't actually need any defenses even on Dominating.  No dodge, no evasion, no stealth. 

Did you actually finished Dominating like this? What kind of build it was?

5str is also to carry supersteel and tichrome shields without penalty, not only for steadfast aim.

160 quality shield of super steel will give your armor 35% chance to block 45 mechanical melee damage. To invest 2 points of attributes for that is the definition of suboptimal. Doing this at the cost of number of attacks per round is detrimental.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Did you actually finished Dominating like this? What kind of build it was?

Yep.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMIAwMDEAoPHgAAAAAAUEIASlVkJENVS8KHwocfAEIrKBc_FCoWLj0hMGRXJCk  Flat, predictable damage.  High abuse of force fields.  Won.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMKCgMKAwfCh8KHAAAAAAAAPABuwod4VV94AAAAAABVKDEZFjA5RyZTN0k-USQ  Mostly a silly build but demonstrates that with enough explosions, all problems are solvable.  Finishing up IoT quests, no idea if winnable.

[Shoutaxeror]

I would recommend leaving plasma alone, even with buffed damage it still has bloody 40 AP per shot, which makes it mostly gimmicky weapon for making screenshots of big numbers when you do critical hit on execute. Aimed shot from Electroshock Pistol with smart module and amplifier is a very good way to start a combat on the other hand.

I think you're right for the most part. Plasma pistol is still very useful to one shoot large health pool critters with aimed shot.

Steadfast aim is indeed useless as you spam with the laser pistol. Late game it's crazy and yeah going for 14 dex must be cool.

About intelligence vs perception, maxing intel allows you to get the crafting skills very fast and I found it was useful mid game to craft op guns. You can invest in plenty of others skills. 10 perception is enough for hitting most of the critters. For the more evasive one flashbangs and taser can help. I didn't get to deep caverns yet so I might be wrong, can't remember how hard to hit critters there are.

Agility must be very handful indeed. So I made this :


You start with 5 intel and max it. No 14 dex but I think it's pretty balanced. What do you think?

[MirddinEmris]

Yep.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMIAwMDEAoPHgAAAAAAUEIASlVkJENVS8KHwocfAEIrKBc_FCoWLj0hMGRXJCk  Flat, predictable damage.  High abuse of force fields.  Won.
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQMKCgMKAwfCh8KHAAAAAAAAPABuwod4VV94AAAAAABVKDEZFjA5RyZTN0k-USQ  Mostly a silly build but demonstrates that with enough explosions, all problems are solvable.  Finishing up IoT quests, no idea if winnable.

Well ,just as i suspected. Psi build and grenade/quick tinkering focused build.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Well ,just as i suspected. Psi build and grenade/quick tinkering focused build.

Not quite.  Grenades and QT are always useful but calling that second build focused on them is wrong.  It's focused on using over 100AP a turn (with procs obviously) and creating bullet storms large enough to wash away the enemy.  For the investment cost, Grenadier and QT are awfully attractive for literally every build on Dominating, so unless you're going to call half the builds grenade/QT focused, I'd call it a lower-DEX SMG build.  I mean, the whole point of Dominating is to be hard enough that you should need to use every tool at your disposal.

But about psi, yeah.  If you're willing to forego the big damage numbers, and play the field tactically, it's always going to be strong enough to win unless it gets nerfed unbelievably.

[MirddinEmris]

Grenades and QT are always useful but calling that second build focused on them is wrong.  It's focused on using over 100AP a turn (with procs obviously) and creating bullet storms large enough to wash away the enemy.

Full investment in throwing, all available feats for grenades (Three-Pointer + Grenadier + Spec Ops), investment in chemistry enough to craft high end explosives. You took every possible character option for the grenades (except maybe full Dex), if that doesn't make your build "grenade focused" then no such build exist at all.

For the investment cost, Grenadier and QT are awfully attractive for literally every build on Dominating, so unless you're going to call half the builds grenade/QT focused, I'd call it a lower-DEX SMG build.

If you only had Grenadier and like 50 points in throwing to not miss too much, i would agree with you.

My point was that you played top tier options - Psi and Commando (SMG + Grenades). Making a conclusion that EVERY build can be played on Dominating without any defenses based on that is a hasty one in my opinion. Also, saying that you didn't play with any defenses while stating that you abused force field is tad misleading. Just because it's a defense option only available to Psi, doesn't mean it's not a defense option.