Build changes in the 10-Year Anniversary Update (v1.3)

[NumberTJ47]

Hey everyone. In case anyone missed it, a new major update has just dropped. Looking forward to seeing what build people make with the rocket launcher, but I mostly want to focus on the feat changes and how they affect our builds.

"Changed the crafting requirement base from fixed 80% of component quality to ranging from 77% to 112% component quality, scaling with the quality itself (curving up); Tweaked the specific modifiers for various components."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this means that we'll need to put far more points into our crafting skills to get the highest tier equipment. With the new intelligence feats I'd imagine that crafting great equipment will be extremely costly for low int builds now.

I don't know much about a lot of high DEX builds, but I'm pretty sure this tweak is a big deal: "Minimal weapon usage action point cost changed to 5 (up from 4)"

It looks like there's been a lot of changes to the feats we use for melee builds. Expose Weakness, Fancy Footwork, and Cheap Shots have all been given big nerfs. Stasis has also been nerfed (finally.) Looks like my idea of using psi or guns to support melee builds might become much more viable. There'll be a ton to experiment with now that Exothermic Aura can help resist some CC and Psychokinesis is getting buffs.
This might also interesting for melee builds: "High-Technicalities now also increases damage from energy edge and electroshock modules".

Contaminated, and therefore Toxic Gas Grenade, has been nerfed to require 20 stack instead of 10 to reach 100% increased damage taken.

Other tweaks that might interest you:
"Reduced damage of grenade launchers across the board by about 20%"
"Forcefield now has resistances that scale with skill"
"Psychosomatic Predation - killing the target now also resets the cooldown"
"Skill-based damage bonus for light weapons (those that have their AP cost reduced by Dexterity, which are: pistols, SMGs, unarmed, fist weapons, and knives) changed from the standard 0.7% per skill to 0.5% per skill"

Hopefully everyone's handling the nerfs well. Personally I'm happy that hard mode is has more of a reason to exist and dominating might actually feel hard again.

[12]

Let's be fair, the fist and knife builds were a bit silly.

[Antalos]

Personally, I believe the Domination difficulty level should live up to its name, dominating and challenging less experienced players. However, as with more experienced players, this mode shouldn't be too friendly, but should instead continually offer increasingly sophisticated countermeasures against unbalanced formations, forcing and training players to think tactically and giving them the satisfaction of winning in this mode they deserve. Therefore, I personally agree with the changes in the new patch that increase the difficulty of this mode  =)

[harperfan7]

The changes are good.  Some builds have to actually try now, and there are now alternatives to many of the existing meta builds (mainly, 10 int). 

[Vagabond]

I'm currently retrying my Jin-Roh build on DOM from square one, ditching CON and it's feats for the new INT ones. First impression - Polymath is amazing alongside hacking, I am never sleeping on it again. But in general, the only difficulty spike I've noticed is with the HP increase which does hit bullet based weapons early on the most, with psi bugs and robots and their high DR/DT, you now need more bullets and I had to switch guns and ammo types a lot, right until I was able to get the Unique Bren. Good thing there is just enough money to stock up on bear traps, caltrops and nades, but it did feel like a F5-F9 slogfest up till Junkyard, after that it was a rather smooth sailing.

[ugo]

Not sure if I'm understanding this correctly: It seems like the melee build took a brutal nerf in 1.3. Hit and Run and Fancy Footwork now grant about half the MP, while the minimum AP cost increased by 1, reducing damage output opportunities by nearly a 1/4. In comparison, the reduced damage bonus from skills seems insignificant.  Is pure melee build even viable anymore?

[NumberTJ47]

Not sure if I'm understanding this correctly: It seems like the melee build took a brutal nerf in 1.3. Hit and Run and Fancy Footwork now grant about half the MP, while the minimum AP cost increased by 1, reducing damage output opportunities by nearly a 1/4. In comparison, the reduced damage bonus from skills seems insignificant.  Is pure melee build even viable anymore?

In short, yes.
Though it depends on what you mean by "pure melee" and "viable". Melee without using any psi, traps, or grenades has never been practical, and any build that does use them is gonna work fine.
I've played melee builds that didn't include Hit and Run or Fancy Footwork, and only 50% of melee builds use DEX over STR, so those aren't affected by the minimum AP cost changes.
It's a significant nerf for sure, but unless you're on dominating and really wanted to play a non-psi glove or knife build, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Also, Hit and Run and Fancy Footwork haven't had their movement points halved, they work exactly the same way as before the first time they get activated in a turn. Fancy Footwork can only give 36 MP without specialization, and 55 MP with it. That's obviously worse than before, but that's more MP than Sprint can give, so it's definitely worth taking. Not sure how the rounding works for Hit and Run, so I don't know how much MP it can give per turn, but it's never been as consistent anyway.

[harperfan7]

Hit & run is half; 25, then presumably 12, 6, 3, 2 or 1
specced its 40, 20, 10, 5, 2 or 3, 1