My idea for this build is to make a Dominating-capable punchman psi-user. I've never played Dominating before and I would really like some suggestions and advice for this build idea. If it's not hardcore tweaked for dominating, don't be surprised, I've never made a Dominating build before. This build will be a strength-focused melee fighter who uses temporal manipulation and Psychokinetics as well as a shield.
Base Stats
Strength - 14
Strength 14 to maximize the damage bonus of both the metal combat glove and psychokinetics via Corporeal Projection. Having strength this high will also maximize the effectiveness of intimidation and make yell much better. This will also allow us to wear heavy armor. Strength will also allow shield feats.
Dexterity - 3
I know that a lot of the really good melee and fist feats are dependent on dex (as well as the ap reduction) but I decided to apt into higher strength instead.
Agility - 7
It might seem strange to make a tank build with 7 agility, but I want to try to spec into a sort of nimble-can aspect of the build. Melee is a lot more effective if you're able to move around. Agility 7 is for both sprint and Hit and Run.
Constitution - 7
High Constitution is to tank. You know what's up.
Perception - 3
What melee build cares about perception.
Will - 7
Will 7 is for stoicism as well as the psi-bonuses. Will also allow us to get Outer-Visions.
Intelligence - 7
Intelligence 7 will let us cop Philosophy 3. It's also just nice for the crafting bonuses.
SKILLS
The skills we will be maxxing out are Melee, Psychokinetics, and Intimidation. With about 130 effective Temporal Manipulation. And investments in all crafting skills (except chemistry) as well as 80 lockpicking and hacking and 90 effective mercantile to unlock all the special inventories.
FEATS
Wrestling(5/5) - I don't see a lot of builds take this feat, but it seems really good to me. It also makes procing Opportunist very easy.
Corporeal Projecting - We have high strength, that'll make our Psi Better
Fast Metabolism
Juggernaut
Hit and Run
Sprint
Shield Arm
Stoicism
Yell (3/3)
Dirty Kick
Shield Bash (Action point cost 3/3)
Boarding Up
VETERAN FEATS
Increased Strength
Body Weight Training
Fight Response
ARMOR
Helmet - Super steel helmet / Psi-head band (Psychokinetics)
Armor - Riot Armor w/ Shield (Sturdy Vest)+(Kevlar Vest)+(Either Ballistic Panel they don't seem that different to me)+(Super Steel Shield Plate)
Boots - Super steel boots w/ the Boot Springs and Dense padding. Tabis might not be that bad either for the melee AP reduction but I think metal boots will be better for DR and TR as well as Dirty Kick.
Shield Emitter - I think an amplified high-medium frequency shield emitter will be best because our shield should be able to take all the melee hits pretty easily.
Belt - Idk the Groid Guard I guess? Don't know if any belts really compliment this play style. Just pick whatever you want.
Weapons
Powerfist until you can craft a better one. That Strength bonus is pretty good too.
For a crafted one I was thinking a (Tungsten/Super Steel) + (Tungsten Steel Spikes/another metal plate) + (Pneumatic Hammer)
While you're here, what does adding another plate even do for combat gloves? The wiki doesn't say and it would be nice to know.
PSI
Alot of the Psychokinetic abilities have a lot of synergy with a punchman playstyle. The only ones I probably wouldn't recommend are Force Emission (It seems poopy and I'm not doing unarmed anyway). The main ones that should probably be used are Telekinetic Punch, Force Field, Electrokinesis and even Psychokinetic Chain seems really good for a Psi-Build.
Temporal Manipulation will be speced up to like 130 effective to limit the drawbacks of using the TM abilities. Psycho-Temporal Contraction is a must-have (it's META!!!!!!!!!), I'm particularly privy to Entropic Recurrence, it seems it would be especially useful if you can pair it with the final hit from a Pneumatic Fist weapon. Stasis is also useful to stop enemies from being annoying or even to give yourself some breathing time.
The Strategy
I've never played Dominating before so I don't know much about good strategies for it. How I guess it would go is drugging up + Psycho-Temporal Contraction and just beating the snot out of the biggest guy first. You could also preemptively use Telekinetic Punch to stun him or Force Field to filter the enemies out. Adrenaline Rush & Contraction should let you get in 4 hits for the Pnuematic Hammer proc which should hopefully be doing big amounts of damage. Give me advice for this part.
ALTERNATIVES
If using a shield turns out to be trash, I'll take out all the shield feats to get Metal Sloping and Nimble and use Super Steel armor to get the highest DR+TR to Armor Penalty% Ratio.
Some other feats I was considering for this build:
Force-User
The TK Punch and Force-Field improvement is very nice, but the Force Emission sucks, because we won't be using it.
Psychosis + Psionic Mania
These two feats are very good for Psionic damage. However, the plan for this build is that the Psi abilities are to be used for their bonuses and a CC abilities. The only psi we would be using regularly to do damage is TK Punch as far as I can tell. Temporal Manipulation can't even crit.
Premeditation
Pretty good feat, so, you know.
Psychostatic-Electricity
The bonus crit chance would be the main reason to take this ability, would be good to get crit punches.
Recklessness
More Crit-chance never hurts
Bone Breaker
This will be complimented by both Psychostatic Electricity and Recklessness. And considering that fists are blunt weapons that usually don't instantly kill on crits (like sledgehammers do) you should be able to get some use out of this.
Psycho-Temporal Manipulation
The bonus action points and duration of psi abilities would be pretty useful.
Future Orientation
Could be good.
Psychokinetic Elasticity
both bonuses would be useful.
Heavyweight
Could also be good, but seeing as we're trying to minimize Armor Penalty to 50%, we might not get much mileage out of this.
