Help Crafting a Comprehensive Sword Guide

[NumberTJ47]

Hey there, I've recently beaten dominating for the second time with a sword build that uses no psi or crafting. I've created and tested 4 sword builds in total, though the first two weren't that great. I think I'm ready to create a decent guide for the sword, but it's hard to feel qualified to give advice in a decade-old community that has people that can beat the game without dying a single time.

With the amount of experience I have with swords I'm confident that my guide would be mostly correct and helpful to plenty of players, but I still feel like there's a ton of sword builds I haven't tried. If I tested every build I had in mind to make the guide I'd be spending 300 hours playing builds that feel really similar, and I'd probably just be confirming my own biases.

My guide would mostly be made for people who want to play dominating for the first time, so I'd would really appreciate some feedback so I can avoid misleading newer players. Swords make good use of all the OP tools a new dominating should use, such as traps, stealth, crafting, and TM. They also have lots of damage for those 400% HP bosses. The final boss is an absolute cakewalk when you use the sword, though the weapon tends to struggle against groups of armored enemies.

Sorry if I gloss over some stuff. I'm assuming that if you're reading this you've either played a sword build on dominating before or have enough experience playing melee to get what i'm talking about.

Build Priorities

Every time I start thinking of a new sword build I use this template. It primarily contains feats and skills I consider mandatory on a sword build, such a as flurry and critical power. I usually remove a skill or feat here or there though (Usually TM). I always increase strength or dexterity to at least 12 for psi builds and 14 for Versatility builds. Template: https://underrail.info/build/?HgUGBgMDAwYAADwAwqAAADIyMgAAAAAAAAAAAABGAABQKzE5wowSBhZLwo3Ch-KyiAXisokC37w

The sword has a few weaknesses you'll want a secondary weapon to deal with:

• Accuracy issues.
• Little to no AoE.
• Bad vs armor.

These are the best secondary weapons/abilities that I've found to mitigate these weaknesses:

• Grenades and traps (obviously)
• Electrokinesis with Psychostatic Electricity.
• Versatility with the Thumper, or the Punisher for strength builds.
• Temporal Distortion is good early on. Haven't tested Continuum Ripple yet.
• Knives are helpful early if you're playing a dexterity build. They don't need to commit to a single target and don't require a 95% chance to hit to function.

I'm certain you can beat the game using only the sword for damage, but it'd be a lot more tedious. Most of the weapons above don't require heavy investment to be useful.

Testing

Here's some of the builds I've been wanting to test. Keep in mind that these builds are very much in the works. Most of my crafting skills are temporarily set to 90 when I'm prototyping. I also haven't ordered the feats super well for each level. Didn't fiddle around with the Special points much.

Taste For Blood + Bladed Metal Armor + Chainsword: https://underrail.info/build/?Hg4HCgMDAwYAAGkAwqAAAABkZABGWlpaWloAAABGAABaKzE5wqPCjBIGFkvCjcKHPEJFMCR8wrbisogF4rKJAt-8
I have confirmed that the chainsaw specially ability can proc the bleed. Might be the only decent non-flurry sword build, though I'd still say there's no reason not to take flurry.

Sword + Energy Pistol/Chem Pistol: https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQBgMDBQgjADgAwqAAAGRaNwAyWlpaWloAAADCoAAAWisxOcKjwowSBjAWS1zCjcKawocpWsK04rKIBeKyiQLfvA
In theory, energy pistols should cover all the main weaknesses of the sword. The electroshock pistol can stun and do AoE, and having electric and energy damage will help bypass armor. Blob pistols should also help with the accuracy issues due to their ability to root enemies.

Sword + Crossbow. No build for this one. I've never used the crossbow so I have no idea if it'd be good with the sword.

There's also some feats that could be good that I haven't played with much:

• Continuum Ripple
• Decapitate - The exposed head things kinda always kept me from taking this.
• Hit and Run - Doesn't proc from psi kills. Could be really good with blitz.
• Fancy Footwork - If this works with chainsword it could be pretty amazing. I'd worry about killing enemies too quickly and not getting enough movement points.
• Dirty Kick - Only just thought of this, but the stun could be really useful. Because unarmed damage scales with melee damage this should do decent enough damage to get the stun past the enemy's mechanical threshold. (As I recall, stunning attacks have to deal damage to enemies to apply the stun, but don't quote me on that.) Might be useful if you're not using the taser.
• Blindsiding - Doesn't look like a very significant damage boost, but I've seen it in a few people's builds.
• Monster Slayer - There are a few creatures that swords can struggle against. This one is hard to evaluate due to the sheer number of creatures in the game. Doesn't work with psi.
• Decommissioner - Swords really struggle against robots, so this could be somewhat useful. Doesn't work with psi.

What doesn't work

There's a ton of sword builds I've written off.
If you've used a decent sword build that used any of the firearm-type guns effectively then let me know. I didn't see any way to make a good build with them. This includes LMGs and miniguns. None of the other melee weapons seem useful in a sword build. Metathermics isn't great vs robots and has no CC. I really wanted to use Thought Control, but I don't see a way to make it good.

As for feats, here are some that I really don't think are any good:

• Parry and Riposte - Having only the chance of blocking SOME of the damage coming at you isn't great. Riposte definitely isn't worth it without Captain's Cutlass, but even then you need to get hit by 3 melee attacks to get as many attacks as a single flurry. Might be okay in long fights if you miss.
• Future Orientation - Good in theory, but when I got stasis it became irrelevant. Might be good if you're using TM with stasis banned.
• Serial Killer - The sword doesn't struggle so much against humanoids. Only does 10% extra damage. Doesn't work with psi.

[Eidein]

Future orientation is pretty good if you take tranquillity on your sword build.

Serial killer is pointless, so is robot killer really, you should only take monster slayer for Tchort at 28 or 30.

Surprised you haven't played many sword builds with fancy footwork, I would consider that a core sword feat because of how stacked it can get with low ap flurry spam.

Sword ideally has a knife sidearm for when you miss flurry but outside that it can deal with mostly everything fine on its own.

[NumberTJ47]

Future orientation is pretty good if you take tranquillity on your sword build.

Serial killer is pointless, so is robot killer really, you should only take monster slayer for Tchort at 28 or 30.

Surprised you haven't played many sword builds with fancy footwork, I would consider that a core sword feat because of how stacked it can get with low ap flurry spam.

Sword ideally has a knife sidearm for when you miss flurry but outside that it can deal with mostly everything fine on its own.

Ah, so that's why I saw tranquility without meditation on your "Siphoner Man" build.

I personally wouldn't bother building around the tchort in a sword build. I think pretty much any decent level 25+ sword build can walk into the boss room and kill him without much issue. I killed him at level 22 with the claymore on my non-psi/crafting run, so I certainly haven't found it too difficult.
The damage given from Decommissioner is definitely too low to be useful for everyone. Maybe if someone REALLY hates arke power station it'd be a good choice late though.

I never really felt like I needed the extra movement points from Fancy Footwork or Hit and Run. Going by other people's builds, my tendency to undervalue movement points may be my weirdest quirk as a player.

I personally find that knives are really nice for dex builds. My alternative for strength builds is to have the chainsword as a secondary because its ability can be used so long as you have at least 5 AP. I've only recently warmed up to sword + gun builds, mostly because the Thumper is OP as hell early and you can shoot it at the ground to lure enemies to you without wasting a grenade. Before trying it out I'd have said sword + grenade launcher was a waste of time, but it proved shockingly useful throughout the entire game.

Just realised when reading expert sprint that it adds action points and not movement points. Probably gonna start taking 13 agility more often.

[Eidein]

If you mean the "Siphoner man" build in my builds page yeah, the actual credit to "Siphoner man" is harper's sword post.

And yes absolutely, sword doesn't need to build around Tchort but at lv30 what else is there to do?

[NumberTJ47]

I prefer to kill tchort at level 25, so I usually have plenty of quests left after killing it. If I like my build I'll keep playing even after hitting the level cap. I usually only stop once I've killed the tchort, magnar, and finished most of the main quests. Whatever I take in my build is whatever will let me do all of that as easily as possible.

[Eidein]

Then yeah if you finishing the game that early then any of the "slayer" feats are pretty bad. Serial killer is good for the compound but that's about it. Cant even take them till level 26 anyways.

[Kujo qtaro]

From my (limited) experience, decapitate is good, execute can be helpful and even when it doesn't work i think extra damage does.
As for riposte, you can only block melee, so no psi or gun enemies. Using up 2 feats for something that does not work everywhere just does not feel worth it.
Chaisword works good against armour and so does expose weakness.
Using flurry is anxiety inducing even if hit chance is caped(95%³ ≈ 85%).

[harperfan7]

Future orientation is a real part of my psiblade build.  You want LTI's and contractions as quickly as you can in fights that last longer than a few turns.

Serial killer is probably the best level 30 feat if you intend on slaughtering the compound.

I have designed a sword + acid pistol build, but I've never tried it.  I tried designing a sword + epistol build a few times over the years but it always felt suboptimal to just sword + knife.

[NumberTJ47]

I tried designing a sword + epistol build a few times over the years but it always felt suboptimal to just sword + knife.

Yeah, I was worried that the amount of investment required for epistols would kill that idea. They're great vs robots, but those are mainly only an issue early and it takes a while to get an energy pistol anyway. I'm surprised you didn't try blob pistol first due to their ability to stall for temporal acceleration. I'll really have to try that after I'm done trying your siphonerman build.

[harperfan7]

I wanted to make a hyperlight drifter build, but it just doesn't work.  The idea with chempistols wasnt to stall, it was to root for easier flurrying; cooked shot a group and go to town.

[Kujo qtaro]

I wanted to make a hyperlight drifter build, but it just doesn't work.  The idea with chempistols wasnt to stall, it was to root for easier flurrying; cooked shot a group and go to town.

Drifter in Underrail!?
Anyway, on my mid build i use taser and grounding to root.
Secon one is questionable, but does not require much investment so why not.

[dddmemaybe]

Am I wrong for thinking the Swords should be considered good against armored enemies since you can use the electroshock generator and crit against their very low dodge, of which, dodge is actually the very worst weakness for sword builds? Crafted, a Tichrome shock machete actually has way higher electric damage than mechanical, it's not even close. I think it's likely better to min-max around options that remove enemy dodge to 0 like an extra utility slot for taser + throwing net + flashbang, ect. If you have a lot of combat utilities and/or psi powers to overcome enemy dodge, then limited temporal increment (probably without future orientation) could help to sustain lock-down availability for extended fights, although not strictly a priority.

Also, I played a dedicated tank temporal distortion build that was solo TM. I think continuum ripple is not good here as its best advantages would be lost if you're not doing 90% of your damage on the build from temporal distortion explosions alone. Distortion will never be good aoe as a back-up weapon, even with continuum ripple, just use it to help snipe one enemy (or build pre-damage and run about in annoying boss encounters) in addition to grenades and whatnot.

If you have a rough time versus robots and metal armor foes, I think Grenadier + base LTI is the strongest idea (especially since you're typically already DEX 6+) as the emp grenade goes from 6 turns to 3 turns without LTI, and 2 turns with LTI. If you have any other effective stalling tools on that robot, you can dance around them and chip away at them (EMP stuns are long and can go to 3 turns at MK III). The metal armor enemies can be left there with flash bang which helps a lot if you can out-maneuver and re-flashbang later too, effectively ignoring them until fully isolated.

Also, if you're taking INT 10, DEX 16, and versatility, you should probably take High Technicalities for laser pistol as it would deal 40% more damage for just 1 perk slot and works good as bonus 5% accuracy ranged back-up compared to other options in general. The electroshock pistol only stuns the primary target, at optimal range: 5, so you'll often be better off just using something else as the second-hand slot is really expensive to eat up for just 1 turn ranged cc that will have way worse accuracy and ap cost than throwing net, taser or flashbang . For example you could equip both the Chainsword to ramp up your Onslaught and Taste for Blood, then slam enemies with an option that ignores mechanic threshold while still being fully ramped like an energy or shock sword (probably carry all 3 at once with you in general). In any case though, I would always dodge INT above ~6 unless it's a crossbow (bowyer), full PSI, or dedicated laser pistol min-max build. If you put those 4 points into Agility you could have Blitz, Fancy Footwork, +12 MP, and easier stealth. +4 in CON, you'd have like 60% more health. +4 STR would be like 21% more sword damage.

This demo build I made should be reasonably easy to deal with Depo A acid dogs and scale to deal 219% damage from strength alone (23 with vitality powder + strength food) even though it sucks at crits. I think dropping all of the crit perks is a good idea if your dex isn't high as you'll be missing like ~13 raw crit chance as well as Ripper access. Cheap Shots also the incapacitation will be interrupted by flurry re-hitting a lot. As well as Flurry just killing without a crit with high strength.
https://underrail.info/build/?HhAHCgMDAwQAeADCoCgAbhkyUADCh8KHKSZkAEYARgAAajlhKxnCjBNOLxY8RybCh8KNwovCtiR84qeXA-KxvwXisogF4rKJAt--