Mad Trapper - Dominating difficulty
https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8HCgMDAwUyUADCoAAAwqAAMADCoF19aGwKAAAATgAAaCsnLzkWLUAbQhJhHTAmN8KFDcK24qKMA-KktgLippAK374 Variant of build next on my list to experiment with:
https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8HCgMDAwUAAGAAwqAAAMKgRDIAwqBPfWhsAAAAAEYAAGQrJ2EvFkAbQh0wORIoPsKDwojCtsKm4qKWBeKmkArfvA(The above one drops Pummel/Blind siding/Dirty Kick for high initiative with Trigger Happy and Paranoia, Future Orientation for lower cooldowns over all, higher mobility with Strider for easier getaways and maneuvering, and drops Spec Ops spec and Opportunist spec for Pack Rathound spec. Without carrying the sledgehammer except in extreme cases and adding Pack Rathound spec, you can carry way more traps. Power fist and Butchers Cleaver will be your primary weapons, as they are much lighter. Combo the Cleave ability (reduces mechanical resistance) with Expose Weakness for massive damage. I am gonna test this on my next run.)
Summary: Melee Strength rogue with a hard focus on traps.
The premise of this build was to see if trap expert spec is a meme. On paper it looks worthless, but in application its actually quite powerful as I've found out. Proctorate base, Black Crawler Cave, Heavy dutys training room with all soldiers released, Carnifex and the quad naga room was easy with this build. You aren't going to play this like a normal run though. Its pretty cheesy but a lot of fun as it turns Underrail into a different kind of game. Your goal is to kill as many enemies out of combat mode in the most efficient way possible on a single pull, either by letting them get to orange on their radar or by using an explosive(TNT is extremely useful for this build, more later). You make sets with a variety of traps as close as possible to the enemy, sometimes assassinating them with burrower bear traps, heartbreak bear traps, or land mines under the other enemies noses. Its a game changer with many scenarios with how close the Trap Expert spec allows you get to set up your traps and mines. In addition, you can plant mines in combat if you incapacitate enemies with flashbangs.
For instance, with Nevil and the robots, I was able to EMP/Plasma mine all the entrances and in between the lines of drifts for the robots before the first wave came in, and continually lay mines and traps for the robots to walk into. After a certain point, I could ambush them with my sledgehammer and Vanishing Powder grenade to wipe the rest out. You can carry hundreds of traps unencumbered, and if you want to, can walk encumbered late game with the power first with 612-615 carry weight with additional traps if you are gonna do a long trip and have alot of enemies to kill.
To enhance your traps, using molotovs, toxic gas and caltops will make your elaborate ambushes deadly. Before starting your ambush with TNT or a grenade, try throwing a few toxic gas grenades in your trap areas if you need extra killing power.
Contrary to what most people think, strength is the real hidden character stat for traps. Carry weight is the main limiting factor for a trap heavy toon. As long as your dexterity isn't abysmal and your trap skill is high, you can trap all enemies. Thus, to build a trapper, a high strength score is a must.
Because you have such a high carry weight, you can afford to carry tons of caltrops to pepper the map. With an agility score of 10, rathound regalia, ninja tabis, crawler tattoo and maxed stealth skill, my normal stealth rating is 353. With my cloaking device I'm around 420. I'm sure I could push it higher if I got a better cloaking device but I don't need it. The agility is also awesome for the skill checks so that you can get in good spots to set ambushes. The lunatics underground base in upper underrail being a good example.
You need such a high stealth because you are setting traps (takes one second in game to set one with full spec) right in the enemies face and have to walk away once you are done. Quick Tinkering is used more for an instant trap laying as some enemies have an absurd detection, or the map is layed out in a way that makes it difficult to set up an ambush. You will see what I mean if you play it. With Quick Tinkering, you can fill in holes in your ambush in a pinch if the enemies are patrolling or lay one on the move with an enemy in front of his path. Its a obviously a great escape tool in addition to your flashbangs. Which leads me to my next point.
I also took Spec Ops and its 2 spec points, in addition to 3 points in Opportunist Disabled damage spec. If you flashbang, and exit combat, you can lay 4-5 traps if you are fast enough under a group of enemies if you get them all incapacitated. Its extremely deadly with 4-5 plasma mines. With the Opportunist spec and your Dirty Kick feat with taser, you have incredible single target lockdown and dps with your 18 strength toon with a high end super steel sledgehammer(picked for lower weight) in case you have a few prey left over from your ambush. You also deal with robots well, including nagas, with expose weakness and corrosive acid. HE mines must be apart of your trapping arsenal for high DT enemies. With temporal contraction, adrenaline and sprint, you have tons of mobility and power, and can extend these buffs and your Blindsiding buff with Stasis to extend your melee alpha strike in case you have more enemies. If you are scoping a place out with a huge pack full of traps and have your hammer ready, and come across lone guards or small groups you can very easily wipe them out, and if you need it done even more silently, use your power fist. The power fist has a double usage as a way to extend your carry weight, especially when carrying encumbered.
Now I'll talk about ambush set ups. When you have a large crowd of enemies, it's best to lay lines of bear traps, and put a line of mines behind this. This works great with cheap mk2 or 3 mines, as it doesn't waste your more powerful ones and the chain effect of them all going off once the first enemy breaks loose kills most enemies. You can layer these lines over and over depending on the map. Sometimes between these layers, you can put corrosive acid blob traps to capture boss mobs or other tricky enemies. You want to root enemies in place before their buddies come in and trigger your explosions. If you position mines outside of your main avenue of approach, once the initial explosion goes off enemies will wander around investigating the secondary explosions. This can trigger a chain reaction of other mines and bear traps hitting the other enemies.
Sometimes, you will want to stagger your traps though to make sure that they don't all go off. Set two mines and 2 bear traps lined up with each other and use the highlight option for your existing type of mines you are using to map out the explosion radius for your minefield. When you are sneaking around enemies, try to get in corners and throw caltrops into the main areas. They won't see you. Once you have set intermittent ambushes in the general areas, next to the enemies, entrances and exits, go back to a spot you want them to investigate and set off a grenade or TNT. TNT is very useful as you can make all the enemies investigate a spot if you don't have enough space to throw a grenade or if you wouldn't have enough time to sneak away. TNT is also the loudest distraction I know of and you can pull entire bases out into your ambush. Throw toxic gas grenades before ambushes if enemies are tough to in spots where they will pass through. Entrances are great, as well as choke points you make with bear traps.
You really want to avoid wasting large mine explosions on singletons. If you can't guarantee a bear trap/mine combo, stagger your mines and bear traps in small combos together. Each combo will kill a small group at a time and you won't set off all your mines. Playing a good trapper is using your mines and traps wisely and not being wasteful. Know when and where to use caltrops.
Set off multiple TNT charges in different areas when you have an area mined, and you can have the mobs wander all over the map getting entangled and blown up investigating the explosions, on top of investigating the mines they set off. Its all pure chaos and very satisfying to watch. This is why movement speed is so critical for the build.
Early game, try to get the Rathound King Regalia as early as possible. Its a huge power boost for mobility(since you live in stealth mode), carry weight, stealth and melee damage. The best part of that quest is the traps the kind king has laid for us. You will have a massive arsenal and XP boost after disarming all his traps. Which will make the mid game even more fun when you go after the coil spiders for the power fist and the Iron heads.
With the quad nagas, I just brought tons of high level HE mines, mined all around them in a minute, started the fight, and my computer almost froze from the explosions. That's a thing you will experience alot with this build btw, so if you have a weak computer don't try this lol.
With electro spiders, use landmines. They die super easily to a well coordinated landmine ambush. You have such a high stealth that you can set up on them in the game easily. Stagger the mines in different spots in the cave, set off TNT, and they will all die.
Same goes with burrowers. Corrosive traps for the big ones. Or just sneak away and don't fight them. You have alot of ability to choose who you want to kill.
Its extremely satisfying to watch the ordeal unfold and watch enemy after enemy perish in your planned ambush, hearing the mines go off one by one and seeing your XP meter fill quickly and combat log spammed without ever going into combat. You will easily wipe out encounters that would be a long battle in normal builds.
From what I can tell, Trap Expert spec is the only way to get the trap-kill designation Leg Breaker Arena name(idk the female name). It's hard to kill enough enemies with traps in the arena with out getting other names. Carnifex was cake, but I had to get a few reloads cause my initiative is low. Rethinking this build, I think dirty kick and blindsiding would be fine swapping for trigger happy and paranoia. I was unsure how good the melee attacks would be with this build and how the traps would work out, but I think if I play this again I would do that. It would also pair well with flashbangs better so that you can lay traps at enemies feet consistently by making sure you always get the first move.
Now, for the cons of the build.
1. Your offensive power is traps. With respawning enemies, this is a problem for your expensive traps.
2. This build sucks with jet skis. Mainly cause you have to carry alot of traps. I got the freighter, and used the the tchortist scrubber, acid boots, and Chemical Assault unit armor to farm heart break poison.
3. Early game is definitely the most lack luster portion of the playthrough. It speeds up(literally) mid game.
4. You will be buying lots of traps and parts. Theres no way around it. Thats why you have such a high mercantile score cause you absolutely need it to break even at the least and make money.
5. No ranged attacks except grenades.
Stats:
Strength: 17(18)
Dexterity: 7
Agility: 10
Constitution: 3
Perception: 3
Will: 3
Intelligence: 5
Tattoo: Black Crawler
Side note on how to kill the black crawler. Make sure to have decent motion tracking goggles and Fine Tuned feat. Stealth into the top floor, bear trap a perimeter around yourself quickly. Use normal bear traps as your bug holders. Your goal is to make sure you don't get initiated on. From there, disarm and arm a protection circle and expand it out. Bait the crawlers by unstealthing, or using a grenade. Burn them out and keep using cheap grenades to draw them in. Once you get to the black crawler drop, go in stealthed and go to the top left corner. You can make a protection pocket with bear traps and can lure them in. Pop them one at a time with your sledge or whatever strength weapon you have. The chain sword makes mincemeat of the black crawler once he's in a bear trap. This strategy is unique to the Trap Expert spec as you can lay a fast protection circle and hide until they detect you or you reveal yourself. Collect their poison sacs for caltrops.
Weapons: Super steel shock sledge, power fist, chainsword in mid game as it scales great with poison and your strength. Great ambush weapon too. With high strength, you can deal 1.5-2k dmg on one rev up. The Butchers Cleaver special move Cleave goes great with your sledge/chain sword and expose weakness for high single target damage. It also has insane strength scaling.
Armor: Rathound regalia for move speed, especially in stealth, strength bonus for carry weight and melee damage. Chemical assault unit armor, acid boots and Tchortist Bio Scrubber for jet skis.
Head: Motion detection goggles and balaclava
Feet: Ninja Tabis
Shield: Doesn't matter, but I have an amplified high frequency shield emitter.
Belt: Lifting belt for melee fighting, Large Waist Pack most of the time for your trapping. Utility belt if you are on skis or need extra utility. Trapping belt in early to mid game when enemies can still see your traps. You need max level traps in this build at a level of 200 as you will be surprised with some of these hunters and enemy trappers and what they can see and disarm.
Utilities: Toxic gas grenades, molotovs, flash bangs, taser, cloaking device, Vanishing Powder grenade from oculus for high risk trapping, nets in early game, mk 3 frags for early game mutants, and cheap grenades/TNT later in the game as sound distractions to pull your enemies into your traps. Burrower, cave ear, and crawler caltrops are also used.
Traps:
Mk4 frag mines is your go to most of the time as you can make way more of them than mk 5. Plasma mines are your deadliest tho and work decently on some robots too. Use HE for robots. Emp mines are actually a waste most of the time in my opinion. They just don't do enough damage unless you stack enough of them, but they are only really good against one type of enemy. Explosive or plasma mines are great against everything. As far as acid blob traps, I like the corrosive the best. They do fantastic damage and hold them in place. I never had a good use for regular acid blob, or ice or fire ones unless I got a few high level fire or acid blobs at a vendor and I had nothing better. Mines are great cause you can kill multiple enemies and bear traps will "collect" them in place and remove their evasion for a big explosion in the kill zone. Bear traps, unlike blob traps, are also immune to mine explosions and you can carry more of them. Keep 10-20 corrosive traps for tough enemies as they do work well on individual enemies. They combo great with your sledge hammer and blindsiding/opportunist spec. Stack up on as many burrower poison traps early to mid game and use normal bear traps as your first line immobilizer traps when doing the bear trap/mine combo. It's a waste early game as the enemies aren't tough enough to justify that much damage. Late game start saving heart break bear traps up and build your burrower trap stock pile. Buy all the hexogen, tnt, corrosive acid, plasma mine parts, and poison that you can.
Your goal is to develop an armory of traps. Rift walking is a must for this build.
Get the biochem belt and the boning knife before heading to expedition so that your Biology can reach 150. I did the DLC late game. You want the chemical assault unit armor, tchortist bioscrubber and acid boots before you hunt serpents for the heart break poison.
Factions: I chose coretech for plasma mine parts. I did the phreak quest for the items before hand. I chose the free drones but if I had to do it again I would choose proctorate as they have loads more mines and hexogen. I kinda did the hard way by choosing free drones lol. But I got to wipe out proctorate so it's fun either way.
I also chose pirates over the expedition. I wanted access to the poisons and acid the healer lady has for my traps. When you do the pirate missions make sure to bring plenty of toxic gas, molotovs and flashbangs and they are easy. The Eel rig is a joy to booby trap.
The Tchortists have corrosive acid, so make sure to get that.
To end this cheesy build, I will leave a tip on how to cheese all the exo soldiers in the training ground. Because you can carry a ton of traps and sneak around, enter the training ground and lay intermittent heartbreak poison bear traps and plasma mines outside of the training cells ALL around it and all around the inside. Stagger them so that they will explode with out setting them off. You can even use 6-7 cheap mk3 frag in a few spots if you run out. Hit the button to release ALL the soldiers, run out of the enclosure before the walls go down, and stealth. Walk around the entire map while the soldiers follow you. You will wipe them out as you walk in a circle and they follow you around the map. You won't even go into combat mode if you do this right. I messed up and had to whack a single techno medic in my spirit poison bear trap at the end cause all my traps were triggered. That was it. I did this before killing the boss when they still had the buff. During this, I was laying traps and plugging holes in my set up while I was luring the exo soldiers to their death, sometimes with them right behind me stalking.
Happy cheesing.
