Advices with suboptimal machete build

[tyrtix]

Hello all, i'm back at underrail after some updates and found that with the last one a lot of the game has changed.
A while ago i tried a machete+ shield tanky build, but i was not able to make it work especially because of the robots resistance, and i tired pretty soon of playing with it.
This time i'm trying again:  what i'm putting up is a melee build with shields, wich will make use of a riot armor + shield and metal boots to push up damage with shield bash (specced in the future to be free attack) and dirty kicks, then use sword to carve enemy and also use parry+ riposte.
In my old try i was almost totally impervious to melee, but i made a few errors in the build and on hard, the autoturrets were a royal pain (even if i could get around them), so this time i'll also take expose weakness a bit before junkyard.

Up to level 8 the build will look like this:
https://underrail.info/build/?CAkHBgcDAwcAHgAyAAAAKCgoHjIZFB4tAAAAAAAAAFU5Jg3CqhLfvw

I'll stop putting points in pickpocketing (playing oddity on hard with this is pretty nice..), and will probably stop with biology and chemisty too to take full advantage of the sinergy points, but my problem is: i will need parry + riposte, onslaught and probably will pick cheap shots for the huge crit bonus...

Now my doubts: i also need some more movement, because the heavy riot + shield sucks up MP...besides sprint, i was thinking at picking probably nimble or armor sloping, tho i've made the math and the former is a bit better than the latter; i've came up also that i could swap the heavy metal shields with a psy carapace, and adding boarding up will raise a lot the block bonus, giving me a lot more damage too with free bash. Anything to add or change for more movement? anything for more efficiency against heavy armors, especially non-living ones?

Oh, btw, while trying the build playing, i found that shiv is impressively fast, ande can be poisoned....huehuehue

[PaposikG6]

Sturdy Vest Riot Gear with reinforced panel, tungsten shield and antithermic overcoat gives 51% armor penalty which is just enough to work with Juggernaut. Nimble and Sprint should give you enough mobility, especially if you make boots with boot spring as long as you do not wear too heavy headgear. Later in game you can make infused cave hopper leather boots to be able to use Sprint more often thanks to its bonus.
Expose Weakness and Electroshock/Energy Machete should make short work of most armored enemies or robots.
7 Intelligence is probably unnecessary, 5 is enough to get Expose Weakness and Cheap Shots. Also instead of investing 30 points in Traps you will be better with putting the points into Dodge to get Escape Artist feat which is very useful for melee.

[tyrtix]

oh, i did wrong in the first part of the build as if i wanted to get a lighter material shield to gain MP, obviously juggernaut won't work, so i've displaced a bit that feat, and took nimble instead, as doing the math, nimble was better at reducing armor penalty with riot armor (even with both metal boots and metal shield, i got just 14% reduction if i used steel for both iirc, or maybe it was even with tungsten, while nimble is a flat 15% less no matter the armor).

Escape artist is definitely interesting and i didn't took it into my plans but may probably do, and may even add another 10 points in dodge to get fancy footwork maybe, so using a shiv to push up back MP could be viable, and will let me keep my metal boots for those nice high crit damage with dirty kicks, and retain use of poisoned caltrops...

[Krigor]

i was thinking at picking probably nimble or armor sloping, tho i've made the math and the former is a bit better than the latter;

Why not both?
What it looks like you are already suffering from lack of movement speed(normal melee jugg problem), just use both.
Body Weight Training could also be another good addition.

Movement speed is always gold on melee builds.