Versattility build, common Questions

[Dismas]

Hey guys. I've finally did it and bought this game. Based on what I watched/heard about character creations and leveling, its easy to mess it up, so I wanted to consult with those who already walked this path before. Here is what I have in mind:

I would start with few things I would deemed essential for what I want in this build. First- yes I have every intention to craft my weapons/gear. For the cornerstones I see grenades/throwing (to be able to deal with wide variety of enemies and hordes), traps (mostly for the disarming capabilities), chemistry for drugs and handmade explosives, melee (undecided between knifes & swords,), guns (undecided between shotguns & pistols), in general undecided between lock-pick and hacking. I don't really intend to increase my speech options (if I have some points to spare, maybe mercantile), no intention to go stealth (unless you guys would advise me against it) and spent whatever I can spare to temporal manipulation for them buffs. From the prime stats, I believe intelligence and dexterity should be high. with some points to strength & willpower in minor capacity (endurance too, but that is obvious).

I know this does not cover all of it, but it represents what I wanted to make this build about. I am still messing with calculator to see what numbers I can put in, but I don't have ingame knowledge/experience which would better explain to me what to look for and what looks good on paper, but in reality it would be of little to no use. Of course I would be glad for any and all advises you have for me.

[Easyprey]

Hey, I'm kinda new too, but I guess It couln't hurt to point out a couple of possible mistakes you seem to be about to do.

First off, choose one kind of damage just one. You want swords? Go melee. You want shotguns? Go guns. Not both.

In that regard, Versatility is kind of a trap. There are builds that use it, yes, but very specific builds. Don't expect to damage with both shotguns and knives(swords).
One of the two will be better, and progressively you will ditch the worst one when faced with tougher encounters.

You can take a bit of throwing though, 30 points to get the granadier (and 6 dex) for the granadier talent. Really cuts the cd on granades.

Same story with stats. When you create your character ( or in the builder) drop to 3 all the stats and then raise only the ones you really need.

If you're doing a knife build, I guess dex is your main stats.
You really should leave willpower to 3 on the other hand.

Intellect helps you with crafting, mostly. Or psi. 6 for premeditation, really useful. 7 for crafting talents.

Can't tell you much about shotguns, really.

I can tell you you should chose if you want to create a tanky character, or a glass cannon. Middle ground doesn't work much.
Either you move out of harm's way or you prepare to take it.

Stealth is your friend. It really shines in this game, it gives you control to engage in fights only when you can win. It lets you overlook initiative. Let's you gap close if you're melee.

You can do without, of course. But I wouldn't advise it for a first run.

Hope this helps untill someone more experience comes by.

[Dismas]

 This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you mate. Yep, I agree with int and will. But I am afraid I hopelessly made my mind about versatility and I know you are right, but I really want to try it. But you helped me made my mind about how- since stealth would be very useful, I will take it and weapon wise go for guns and knives, since they both profit from dex and require little strength. While shotguns and swords sounds cooler, but there is little overlap things that I can utilize. Throwing is a must, especially crafted grenades.

[TheCONMan]

Agree with Easyprey that Versatility is kind of a trap. First note of importance is that the Versatility feat alone provides only 60% of your highest weapon skill, and is generally not enough to provide a satisfactory experience in combat. Typically you have to equip the Commando Belt (+10%), and/or invest specialization points into Versatility (2% per point, up to 20%) to pump your non-base weapon skill high enough to be effective in combat.

Also, thanks to specialization points and Commando Belt, any versatility build only starts to come online at level 20 onwards. Before that, you would be stuck with your base weapon. For example, if you level Dex and melee skill, and use Versatility to increase your guns skill, you would probably be stuck using melee weapons for a good part of the game.

Also, weapon skill is only part of the equation. Feats and attribute requirements also determine whether your Versatilitied weapon can be effective or not. For example, in one of my past builds I max strength and melee skill, and used Versatility to provide good guns and heavy guns skill to use assault rifles and lmgs. With no investment into perception, I was not able to get powerful AR and LMG feats. Also, even with Versatility, I still had to invest 80 points into Guns and Heavy Guns each to fulfill the requirements for 2 AR/LMG feats that does not need perception.

Currently, the most successful Versatility build that I have seen is knives/SMGs. It involves over investment into Dex and melee skill, and minimizing investment into Per. The high Dex provides melee skill, crit chance and ap reduction for knives, and also ap reduction for SMGs. The only missing piece of the build is the low guns skill caused by low per, which is fixed through Versatility.

Have fun with your builds!

[Dismas]

Thank you, this is very helpful. One more question though, why SMGs and not handguns? Is it rate of fire or anything else that gives it an edge?

[TheCONMan]

Handguns need a lot of feats to work, and those feats have quite high perception requirements, like 10 Per for Sharpshooter or 11 Per for Scrutinous. With perception stat that high, Versatility is not needed at all, perception already provides a big bonus to Guns skill.

SMGs are quite perfect for Versatility, because max. 6 Per is required for the Suppressive Fire feat. The Suppressive Fire feat is usually comboed with the Opportunist feat for a free 15% damage bonus against organic targets for burst builds. Other than that, the only core feats that are required for SMGs is Spec Ops, which require 6 Agi, and Commando, which requires 80 Guns skill. In fact, in my own theorycrafting I would ditch Suppressive Fire as 15% damage is not really game changing (while Spec Ops is), and dump Per all the way to 3, thus saving valuable attribute points for other stats.


Reply to Dismas in the Shotgun + Claymore thread:
Versatility is good for weapons that do not have many feat requirements. For example, I've played sledgehammers too much to know that sledgehammers do not need any supporting feats at all. So a LMG/Miniguns build, which already has the strength required for sledgehammers, can use Versatility to be able to use sledgehammers. (But if your strength is already that high why not just invest skill points into melee and skip the feat point and specialization points) So, SMGs is another candidate, as it only requires 2 core feats, Spec Ops and Commando, of which Commando does not even have attribute requirements. The Stunner is another good candidate for Versatility, foregoing feats like Point Shot, and relying on extreme Dex investment to minimize its ap cost.