Bleed based unarmed build viable for dominating?

[jubisloviu]

Hello there folks, i need help theorycrafting a decent bleed based unarmed build for dominating.
it all started when i was doing the institute quests and stumbled upon the Ripper's Glove on my psi monk playthrought.
and now i wonder how viable is it for dominating but honestly i've never played with bleed based builds so i have absolutely no idea what feats besides the generic ones (cheap shots, expose weakness, etc) i should take and what order should i get them.
Of course i'm fully aware i'll have huge problems dealing with enemies that have high DT/DR or enemies that can't bleed, but i suppose i can always use bear traps/grenades/power fist to deal with them.

[Ploluap]

Is there a typical "bleed" build out there ?

I'd say there are multiple ways...

You must first ask yourself if you'll use fist weapons (since you plan to the claw) or knives (for eviscerate) [EDIT : sorry i didn't read you post title properly, but maybe you were considering eviscerate ? It seems to be the utlimate bleeding skill].

Using both seems cool but maybe hard to optimize (lots of different feats to take., also knives require 5 will for ripper).

I'm pretty sure you can get your build viable for dominating in any case.

With fist weapons you'll basically want lightning punches, cheap shots and taste for blood asap, then expose weakness, vile weaponry and probably combo.

One thing to consider though is whether or not you'll take quick tinkering and grenadier, and when.

Those are extremely powerful feats for dominating, especially early on, but they will delay greatly the core of you build if you take them at lvl 4 and 6... (that matters only if you play oddity though)

[jubisloviu]

i think getting quick thinkering early will be alright, using it for crowd control purposes and to proc bleeding on targets with bear traps sounds good and helpfull on depot A.
i can live without grenadier if i plan ahead what to do, even thought it's really good it's more of a quality of life than necessity.
Eviscerate looks really good but sadly it's for only for knives.
after fiddling around the build planner i think a 3/10/6/10/3/3/5 is around the sweet spot between mobility with sprint and survivality with thick skull.

[Twiglard]

Stupid question -- how is bleed viable if in most cases you have to ice the guy right in front of you in one turn?

[jubisloviu]

Stupid question -- how is bleed viable if in most cases you have to ice the guy right in front of you in one turn?

That's a good question, bleed is great not just because of the DoT you'll be applying to enemies, but because the more DoT's you apply the more buffs you get out of it, stuff like vile weaponry and taste for blood are great to amplify your damage per turn, and with fists you'll have plenty of ways to stun/incapacitate/lock peoples in place while snowballing out of the debuffs/buffs.

[MirddinEmris]

Stupid question -- how is bleed viable if in most cases you have to ice the guy right in front of you in one turn?

That's a good question, bleed is great not just because of the DoT you'll be applying to enemies, but because the more DoT's you apply the more buffs you get out of it, stuff like vile weaponry and taste for blood are great to amplify your damage per turn, and with fists you'll have plenty of ways to stun/incapacitate/lock peoples in place while snowballing out of the debuffs/buffs.

For Taste for Blood unarmed character you don't really need anything over simple glove with serrated blade. And not even high quality serrated blade, any one will do since you'll only care about chance of bleed, not the damage, and the chance doesn't change. With just that (and maybe Ripper Glove to start your buff quicker) you already set up to have your maximum buff of 50% damage to be in effect in almost every combat. Same with Vile Weaponry. Also Vile Weaponry is way worse than Taste for Blood, since it applies debuff to an enemy rather than buff to you, so the only thing that you will have "snowballing" is the Taste for Blood and you can get that pretty quickly anyway.

Bleed is bad because it requires you to keep enemies alive for the damage to apply. Incapacitate from Cheap Shots is good, but too inconsistent to make it as a part of planned tactics. Stun from taser is once per 3 turns and cost 10 AP which is about 2.5 times AP you spend per attack on high end, so it is a bit costly, and often easier to just spend those AP to finish the guy.

Overall bleed is not something you should rely on to kill your enemies, it's too suboptimal.

[Fenix]

Yeah, bleed can only serve as an auxiliary source of damage, not mine.
It is still minory useful, if you got bleed on pneumatic strike - you likely will get ~30 bleed per turn, and with incapacitation it allow to just forget about those who have ~100 hp left.
But not more.

[Twiglard]

May it be the case that there are very few Melee weapon types and none are too useful? Just asking.
I'd rather avoid bleed-causing melee unless it's changing things enough.
With robots, why not have an electricity melee weapon in one hand for those filthy creatures? It won't stun, but the armor resist question becomes pretty moot.

Yeah, bleed can only serve as an auxiliary source of damage, not mine.
It is still minory useful, if you got bleed on pneumatic strike - you likely will get ~30 bleed per turn, and with incapacitation it allow to just forget about those who have ~100 hp left.

Now that'd make Eviscerate deal some serious damage with the right weapon, right? Is Eviscerate a game-changer? The one-turn cooldown looks tasty. What's the typical damage for optimal 120-130+ pneumatic gloves?

Too bad bladed armor doesn't proc on sledgehammers, ha.
Ranged builds have a single-target murder by means of plasma pistol with amplifier. But that depends on crit (either heavy crit build or simply Aimed Shot), and can't be shot twice a turn anyway without Amphetamine Shot...

[MirddinEmris]

Now that'd make Eviscerate deal some serious damage with the right weapon, right? Is Eviscerate a game-changer? The one-turn cooldown looks tasty. What's the typical damage for optimal 120-130+ pneumatic gloves?

Eviscerate is not a game changer. First of all, knives have it worse in terms of creating bleeding wounds on an enemy than do combat gloves. First of all, they have require 2-3 AP more per strike, and second, they have 25% chance per strike instead of 35% of bladed glove. Meaning that you create bleeding wounds slower. Also it means that by the time you have enough wounds on an enemy to make Eviscerate do good damage, he is already pretty close to death. Maybe some bosses are exception to this, but it is true in 95% of your playtime. It's not bad, but on my knife user that i finished the game with i skipped it entirely and didn't regret for a moment.

With robots, why not have an electricity melee weapon in one hand for those filthy creatures? It won't stun, but the armor resist question becomes pretty moot.

Electrical damage is very small part of your total damage. It deals relatively small amount of damage in the first place and doesn't get increases from your skills, strength and buffs like Taste for Blood. So electrical damage on your knife/glove is not a good solution for robots (Expose Weakness is).

Too bad bladed armor doesn't proc on sledgehammers, ha.

If you are talking about bleed damage than it would be useless anyway since sledg user spends usually 1-2 strikes on a single target anyway. If you are talking about getting Taste for Blood buff than you can get it anyway since you get 1 stack from killing someone with melee attack. I usually take it for all my sledg builds.

May it be the case that there are very few Melee weapon types and none are too useful? Just asking.

Properly built unarmed character is in the top tier along with smg and sniper rifle. Sledgehammer is a solid weapon, on par with things like assault rifles. Knives do struggle compared to the rest of the melee, since they are watered down version of unarmed in a lot of ways.

[Hazard]

Properly built unarmed character is in the top tier along with smg and sniper rifle. Sledgehammer is a solid weapon, on par with things like assault rifles.

Offtopic, but care to elaborate why you consider ARs worse than SMGs and SRs?

[Twiglard]

Properly built unarmed character is in the top tier along with smg and sniper rifle. Sledgehammer is a solid weapon, on par with things like assault rifles.

Offtopic, but care to elaborate why you consider ARs worse than SMGs and SRs?

Bursts per turn and overall DEX lowering AP cost.
Edit: Also actual burst cost 2x (not 3x) with feat.

[MirddinEmris]

Well, sthalik is about right. The difference in damage per shot between SMG and AR is not that great, while SMG has ability to get more shots per round. A LOT more. The only downside of this is higher ammo consumption. Also SMG can be created silent which offers ability to pick enemies one by one in the area, that by itself is also a huge boost.

SR has ability to basically drop anyone in one shot for a great distance. Sniper has downside of being able to take only 2 shots per round without adrenaline, but those shots in most cases are certain kills and you also has a distance advantage on most of your enemies (often they have to take at least one turn to get close to you). Also SR has lowest cost/effect ratio, you only need 4 feats (Aimed Shot, Snipe, Critical Power, Sharpshooter), 5 Str, 10+ Per and 3 skills (out of which only guns and stealth needs to be maxed, while mechanics just needs to be at a decent level) to get almost everything this weapon has to offer. That is why it's VERY easy for anyone who has SR as main to decently invest into 1 or even 2  secondary weapons (usually SMG or pistols ot both). Sniper build is about the only build that gives me liberty to take some quality of life feats without any regrets.

[Hazard]

I could be way wrong, but to me SMG vs AR doesn't seem so clear, mostly due to Full Auto and Concentrated Fire. The former is difficult to fit into an SMG build but almost a must for an AR one, and the latter can provide a considerable damage boost against a couple of targets, though not reliably. For a tin can rifleman, taking Perception up to 16 for maximum effective skill is usually the best way to spend extra ability points, whereas SMG builds again have problems doing that if they want to get enough DEX as well. ARs also have superior range, allowing them to engage everyone (except any active enemy snipers, the cheating bastards) in line of sight without moving. But I haven't done any proper math, so this may ultimately not be enough for ARs to get even with SMGs in direct combat.

Though when stealth and hit & run tactics are considered, I've no doubt that SMG and SR builds come out on top in terms of survivability and flexibility, if the player is any good.

[jubisloviu]

I've started to play around with it yesterday, i'm level 14 now, managed to finish Depot A without needing quick thinkering and i'll probably not even need it, Hand to Hand has some nice crowd control skills and gizmos, with combo, cheap shots and a pneumatic fist i'm able to stunlock enemies frequently.
there's also some nice damage spikes, if i can time it correctly i can proc combo damage bonus together with a pneumatic strike for way more damage, once i get crippling strike it'll be even better.
and while we are talking of fists, The Claw is a amazing weapon to get on early game right after the junkyard, it being able to contaminate targets is a great way to increase your overral Damage per Turn.

[Loyso]

Dumb question about unarmed (not gloves). How do I proc bleed for taste of blood? Is it possible with pure unarmed with serrated blades from armor?