2 question for those who beat the game (multiple times)

[Vokial]

• Knowing what fights you can expect and tailor your build for, what do you think - as a ranged character wearing light protection and having CON 3, how screwed I am with an Initiative of merely 17? Does it even make sense to raise that to 22 (which is still kinda low) with Paranoia at the expense of Sprint? My DEX remains at 5, so no other feats can be an option. Btw, if I keep Sprint I will use the Infused Hopper Tabis for sure. I definitely intend to have Hit and Run already, so already have some mobility. But then again, I intend to max out Stealth, so already can alpha-strike in most battle - excluding those resulting from dialogue. So it's about being more mobile at the expense of reaction time or the other way around under these conditions. Did anyone play a glass cannon character with low Initiative yet and how much struggle that involved? Does raising it from 17 to 22 even make a difference?

• Secondarily, how much sense it makes to raise TM to effective 149, just to reduce the chance of getting Dilated after a Contraction from 60% to 30%? This of course ultimately matters on how many occasion is there throughout the game when you find yourself in a situation where you have to keep fighting a stream of enemies continuously for around 6-8 turns or perhaps more. Like Depot A when if you throw a grenade, it aggro's the whole map - or a fight against hordes of robots being released in a sequence. I know the general consensus is to just leave it at base 70, so you can pretty much only use it once per battle - but then it better be over within 3 turns or you're pretty much screwed. 149 would allow not just to avoid the debuff, but enjoy the full benefit of freely spam Contraction with Future Orientation without worry.

I would like to hear some of your opinions, but ideally with proper reasoning why this move is better and why the other is a waste.
After that, I will grab Heavy Duty and return to this game after a very long pause, to finally beat it for good. Thanks for all the insight in advance!

[Eidein]

Having low ini is fine, you may suffer a tiny bit in arena but just drink a root soda. You usually have the chance to manually enter combat for 99% of the combat encounters in the game.

If you are worried about dilation kickback then just use it towards the end of a fight, if you have spare points in a build why not boost your tm to avoid it.

[harperfan7]

Going from 17 to 22 init is not worthwhile.  If you have stealth you can get by with low initiative, but I'd build to be at least decently durable in that case.  There are a handful of times when you dont get to start from stealth, and some of them are easy to forget; like going down the ladder in gms.  All that said, if you are at 17, take paranoia, *and* intend to use root soda all the time, 27 is fairly good.  I played a stealthy n16 commando through the entire game with 23-25 init before root soda (so 28-30) which was my dominant food, and that was fine, though I also had a jkk vest and twitch available if I needed them. 

I max out TM on those few builds where I use it, but you can cast contraction on yourself when you're suffering from the dilation to basically cancel it out.  Also, if you are wearing infused siphoner tabis you are immune to the mp loss (but not the ap loss).  All but two of the TM spells scale with skill, so you may as well max it.

 

[Vokial]

Info from seasoned players like you is what I hoped to get, so thank you both.

I started on Dominating/Oddity and finished GMS. Had a good couple of savescumming here and there, but it was doable. I play as a sniper, now heading to Junktown with Vera's papers and about to hit level 8. While the bandits of GMS were weak, I am no match against multiple enemies above 200 HP (basically what doesn't die from either Snipe or Aim Shot). This is definitely due to me having bad gear, but for some reason I can't seem to find ANY sniper frames above q30... Zero. Which is really not how I remembered, since at level 7 and this much main progression, I should get better shop options than when I was level 1. On the lookout for ANY Sturdy or Regenerative Vest parts too. None so far - regardless of quality (however I fished out a Rapid Reloader near Mushroom Cove). Certainly hope to stumble into some usable parts before Depot A, but despite investing a good deal of skill points into crafting, I am still wearing 100% looted equipment - with one exception of a black cloth Balaclava, nothing was crafted yet because there's just nothing to craft from. However, I just did Silent Isle and it was an absolute breeze by simply stealthing past everything from one Mindshroom to the next.

While I manage with this low initiative, I tried Sprint and no matter how much I wanted to like or found use to it, still found it worthless. Should I wear a Tac-Vest with Ceramic Plate it could be useful due to the high Armor Penalty, but I intend to keep that low. So after reloading I'm leaning towards Paranoia (earliest from level 12) which I can spend my single leftover spec-point too, ending up at 23 Initiative. Meanwhile, I'm discreetly stacking those Root Sodas. On the other hand, build itself is pretty ok. My dilemma now is

• either start using Traps - aside from whatever I find littered all over the game, mainly Crawler-poisoned BT to root and Incendiary Blob to set up Ambush,
• or focus more on PSI and level Metathermics solely for Thermo-Destabilization.

I do remember loving Traps and strategically placing them in certain key points before group fights was a very enjoyable process for me. Also, there's an abundance of BT, Frag and HE mines to freely harvest everywhere - enough to use these quite generously, let alone if someone is actually crafting a few like the above. It feels like a missed asset I leave on the table even without the very alluring promise of crafted EMP or Plasma mines. The questions is either to take the undenyable advantage of freely setting them up using all the time I want before battle, vs one D2 Corpse Explosion in every 3 rounds at best - yet knowing that a single opening with that might just be all I ever need in most cases. Anyone had any experience with Thermodynamic Destabilization? It seems very devastating, yet I don't know actually how useful it is in practice. Leaning a bit towards it, just to try something new.

So yeah, basically my build is purposefully barebone yet (very export friendly in case I change my mind and restart) - without sprint or Paranoia yet, and without Traps or Metathermics, yet at a certain level already. So far I focused on fewer abilities to just excel on those (which is also reflected on my stats so far) and this allowed me to progress. Eventually (somewhere after level 12) I have to make choices though.