"Styg gives his toughest battles to his strongest builds"Do you like using TC, but wish you could deal with robots? Do you like poisons, but wish there was a better way to apply them besides bear traps, caltrops, and crossbow bolts? Do you like making a lot of high damage attacks, but hate using burst builds or flurry? If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then this is the build for you:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgQQAwMDCgcAwqAAwqAAAEZZMQAAYGBTVwDCoAAARgAASCsvJ8KVJlhRw5NcXiEqEj4WwrN2wofin4QB4qi6A-KouwPis6ID4r2OBd-_ I firmly believe that this build is the best TC build hybrid and that it is superior to solo TC builds. This build has everything you could ever want out of an offensive build:
- High Damage Attacks-At 370 Skill, Throwing Knives deal 52-97 damage, with a 275% damage multiplier to damage that passes through armor against Organic Targets.
- Low AP Cost-7 AP per knife at 18 dex, 5 AP per knife at 23 dex with All In and SSD, and you throw 2 knives for the price of 1 with Split Spare.
- Extra AP-Fully Specced Fatal Throw gives an extra 27 AP if you can proc it, and with adrenaline that brings your total AP up to 97 per turn (103 with vitality powder). If you take 70 Temporal Manipulation, you can go up to a maximum of 123 AP per turn (with fatal throw, vit powder, contraction, and the psycho temporal acceleration feat)
- Crowd Control (LOC+ Enrage for humans and creatures, MK 5 Frag Grenades+Three Pointer for Robots or Spilt Spare+Pinning+Crawler Poison Throwing Knives for anything else.)
- Robot Killer- This build can deal with robots, although it isn’t the greatest at it. Rusting Acid is the best option against bots, since you can throw vials for 15 AP at 18 dex or 12 AP at 23 Dex. Anything weaker than a Plasma Sentry can be killed with throwing knives, and Corrosive Acid can be used to take down Nagas.
- Initiative- With 27 Initiative, you’ll consistently outspeed everything short of Carnifex and Death Stalkers.
This build comes online at Level 14, and from there only gets stronger as your damage scales high enough to bypass DT. Carnifex was zoned out at Level 18, and Lurker Base, Epoine Labs, and Emporion Shopping Mall were all cleared before I reached Level 22. As a disclaimer, all of the information presented in this guide was tested with a slightly different build that I played until Level 26:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMQCgMDBQYAwqAAwqAAAENfNwAAZ2cLZmfCoAAAAAAATSs5LybClVhRw5NcXipHEg0_wrN2wqbip5cD4qi7A-KzogPis6QB4r2OBd-_Enemies frequently resisting TC abilities and being required to use the fursuit in order to throw the Javelin led to the former build being revised into the current build. LOC is better than Blitz, the extra 20 AP once per combat at the cost of shitty TC abilities simply isn't worth it.
GearThe gear for this build is pretty simple, mainly taking advantage of some of the newer gear added in recent updates:
- The two weapons you want are Knife Thrower’s Glove and Javelin. Knife Throwers Glove is used with Throwing Knives, and to apply Expose Weakness. Javelin costs 1 AP to throw with fully specced spear throw, and deals ~500 damage when thrown at max range, making it extremely AP efficient.
- Recommended Utilities are MK 5 Frag Grenade and as many standard throwing knives as you can carry. You burn through throwing knives incredibly quickly, so poison knives should only be saved for special occasions. Of the poisoned knives, the only ones that matter are Black Dragon, Crawler, and Leper Knives, since they have good secondary effects. The poison damage is negligible since the base knives deal so much damage. Shock Shurikens are a waste, since their damage doesn’t scale with throwing skill. You’re better off throwing Rusting Acid or Corrosive Acid (buy from Tchortist Chemist with 120 Chem check) at robots. AI Scrambler is also quite good for forcing robots to fight each other.
- Recommended Headwear is Psionic Transceiver, since it gives a larger boost to TC skills than any crafted headband with just a single psionic enemy nearby. Muffled TC psi headband is also a good choice. Night Vision Goggles are also excellent to have for dark areas, as throwing knives suffer a precision penalty in darkness.
- Rathound Regalia provides extra MP and is usually your best bet, although the Tchortist Noble Robe provides a boost to TC and Will. CAU armor with biohazard boots are quite useful, as they allow you to have 100% acid resistance, which helps when farming rusting acid.
- Ninja Tabis are generally the best option for footwear, as they improve MP and stealth. This build was originally intended to use Jumping Stilts, but as of writing this build they are currently bugged and don’t spawn in game.
- Large Merchant Belt is usually the best belt, since it allows you to carry extra throwing knives, but utility belt and doctor’s belt are also good options.
Game Plan Most encounters go something like this:
- LOC+Premed+Enrage as many enemies as possible.
- Throw knives until the nearest enemies are pinned and you run out of AP.
- Break line of sight and end turn, let enraged enemies draw agro.
- Subsequent turns, throw a grenade if enemies are clumped up, throw javelin at highest health enemy, then throw knives to finish enemies off. If only a single dangerous enemy is left, use frighten or PSP to avoid attacks.
Why Throwing Knives over Neural Overload? For the longest time, there has been a sentiment in the Underrail community that throwing knives were the worst weapon. Up until recently, this was true. If you played a throwing knife build when Expedition first released, the lowest AP cost you could get was 9, and there was no modifier to damage that goes through armor. Now, Throwing Knives have received the largest buffs of any weapon in the history of Underrail, with the addition of the bonus to unresisted damage, Knife Throwers Glove, Remote Surgeon, and the removal of the Base Ability Score Cap at 20. Below is a comparison between Throwing Knives and Neural Overload, using sheepherder’s Tranquility NO build for the comparison. Crits are not factored into the comparison, since both builds have the base 5% crit chance.
https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=6139.0 Neural Overload - At 370 skill, average of 261 Damage per NO, with all of the relevant stat boosting gear (Hoddurform, ~50% damage boost Magnifying Filter, Mental Trauma with Spec, assuming 5 Int)
- Bonus damage against high Int targets
- No damage against robots, TC completely useless against robots
- Damage ignores DR and DT
- Attack never misses
- 6 (7 with outer visions) range
- 13 AP Per Cast (With Tranq), giving 9 casts on first turn, and 6 casts on subsequent turns.
- ~20 damage per AP
- ~3393 Damage First Turn (Assuming 4 targets in LOC), ~1556 damage second turn.
Throwing Knives - With 370 skill, average of 206 (257 with opportunist) damage against an unarmored organic target, 126 (157 with opportunist) against a burrower (30% DR), 27 (73 with opportunist) against a closed shell Goliathus (50 DT/55% DR), and 0 (25 with Opportunist) against Psi Crabs (65 DT).
- Can reliably get +25% damage from opportunist with Pinning, stingball, ect.
- Can be poisoned with every variety of poison.
- Effectively instantly kill any enemy hit at 24% hp or less, with 100% crit chance from fatal throw and 175% crit damage from ripper (without opportunist at 24% HP, 566 damage vs unarmored target, and 88 average damage vs Psi Crab)
- With 307 Skill, average of 26 damage against Plasma Sentries, 4 damage against Industrial Bots. Additionally, throwing skill allows the use of acid vials against robots.
- 130% DR and DT penalty
- Attacks can miss, but immobilizing a target with pinning gives 95% chance to hit. Attacks are very accurate even without pinning thanks to the precision bonuses from Knife Thrower's glove and Expert Throwing
- 8 Range
- 7 AP per throw, throw 2 knives if 2 targets are nearby, gain 27 AP upon killing an enemy, 17-34 knives thrown per turn.
- Damage per AP (regular knives)- ~27-73 damage against unarmored, ~17-45 against burrowers, and ~3-21 damage vs Goliathus.
- Damage Per Turn (regular knives)-~3502-8738 against unarmored, ~2142-5338 against burrowers, ~459-2482 against Goliathus.
Since there is no benefit to overkilling enemies in Underrail, making many weaker attacks is generally better than making a few powerful attacks, as long as you bypass DT. Throwing Knives outperform Neural Overload against unarmored targets, moderately armored targets, and robots, while Neural Overload only outperforms Throwing Knives against heavily armored organic targets. 18 Dex is better than 18 Will since Dex boosts initiative and gives more skill points, while Will only boosts Resolve, Fortitude and Psi skills. At 10 Will you have more than enough TC skill to get enemies to consistently fail their resolve saves against your TC abilities, so the extra TC skill from 18 will isn’t worth it.
Maximum Potential Warning: The following information is completely hypothetical and speculative. Recent studies show that Hercules may cause adverse side effects, and it is highly recommended that you consult your local physician before consuming Hercules. If you really want to fly too close to the sun, you can throw up to 122 throwing knives in a single turn and throw Javelin. For whatever reason, Throwing Knives don’t have the standard 4 ap minimum cost, so you can go down to 2 ap per knife with 18 Dex, All In, SSD, and Hercules. If attacking 2 infinite HP immobilized unarmored creatures next to each other, you would deal ~38000 total average damage with all knives and the spear throw. If those targets were at 1% hp with full stacks of leper poison, and every knife hit for max possible damage, you would deal ~236,000 damage.
ConclusionGive this build a try if you're interested in throwing knives or TC. This build has an incredibly easy time against any humanoid or critter enemies, and for the most part doesn’t struggle too much with Robots. So far I’ve had no trouble clearing out Port Zenith, and I anticipate I won’t have too much trouble clearing out Fort Apogee and Faceless Commander. Since this build can use Corrosive Acid, Quad Nagas shouldn't be too difficult either, since the Corrosion debuff will dramatically increase the damage of the plasma turrets. The only encounters I could see this build struggling with are the Robot Waves with Rassapphore Nevil, the massive Strongman horde in the Lemurian Health Center, and any of those nasty encounters with 6+ Psi Crabs. Throwing Knives are now arguably one of the strongest weapons in Underrail (I'd say stronger than Shotguns, pure unarmed, and pure PK) and with this build you should have no trouble dealing with Dominating's hardest encounters.
