Dominating Expedition Psi Build > Advice needed

[Sat]

Hi,

looking forward to start a new run for the expansion. I am thinking about a psi build for dominating. I have been playing a bit on Dominating (after Depot A but can't remember until what point). Combat were tough, this is why I would like to have versatility of a full psi.

My idea is to have a build like that:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDBgkDEAYATgAAAADCggAAAABVblAyVcKWwpbClsKWAAA-YlArLBQqZz1mIcKEwocfCMK3csKnOeKjiQXirIwK378

It is a classic Psychosis build > 3 3 6 9 3 18 6
With Max psi, a bit of throwing, reasonable crafting and able to craft grenade and some drugs (up to Bullhead).

I have few questions:
is this build manageable on Dominating?
is Mercantile worth investing? Is 72 a nice threshold to reach?
Are Sprint and Conditioning better feats than Stoicism and Mental Subversion?
Is there a reason to dumb Agility and focus on other stats? (Intelligence for more Crafting, Constitution for Survivability,...)
Am I going to miss a lot of lore with this build in the new expansion?

Thanks in advance for your help and feedback.

[TheAverageGortsby]

To answer your questions:
Yes, it's DOMINATING-viable
Yes, Mercantile is excellent for crafting builds.  The threshold you want to hit is 105, but keep in mind you'll have +2 Int drugs available and a +3 to all skills food, so factor that in accordingly. Once you touch the threshold, it's perfectly fine not to have your skill be that high when you interact with the merchant every following time.  You just need to unlock the merchandise tier and it stays unlocked.
Sprint is of almost no use whatsoever to a psi build, and Conditioning sounds good but because it applies after all your other DR/DT (and not alongside it) it's not really all that big a deal. It's not worthless, mind, it's just underwhelming.
Yes, dump Agi, drop Sprint, and take Int to 9 so you can craft better
Nope, you shouldn't miss any lore at all in Expedition with that build.  You will however miss a lot of possible avenues to solutions - but you'll be able to take advantage of others. Expedition has truly wonderful permissivity for various character builds, so no matter what your build (OK, *almost* no matter what) you'll miss out on a lot of possibilities but be able to make use of many others.

EDIT: Oh, and some unsolicited , min/maxing advice  that you should feel free to ignore- take all those points out of Throwing, put a few in Mercantile so you can get that 105, put most of the rest in Persuasion until your effective skill is 87,  put 25 in Intimidation, and use the remaining 20 to cap psychokinesis and Metathermics.  You can also safely pull Thought Control down to 75 if you want to free up more points, but you may not need to because your Chemistry is way too high - pull it down to 45 or lower.  All you need is to be able to make Mk IV grenades.  The jump to Mk V will be so late in the game that your psi powers will have come into full form and you won't even remember to use grenades because you'll be too busy destroying the world with your magical cave wizard powers.

If you do pull TC down to 75, you could pick up enough Hacking to get 130 effective and *still* have 25 points left over.

[Tamior]

Sprint is of almost no use whatsoever to a psi build,

Eh? Works just fine for keeping yourself out of harm's way in my experience. Cut a corner or just plain put some distance forcing enemies to run to your instead of attacking.

P.S. I would rank sprint as one of the best feats in the game overall. It also has amazing synergy with stealth as with it you can attack from stealth and STILL move behind cover  the same turn.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Eh? Works just fine for keeping yourself out of harm's way in my experience. Just cut a corner or just plain put some distance forcing enemies to run to your instead of attacking.

Well, OK, I'm not going to try to argue because you're objectively correct, but since the OP asked about building for the expansion, I spoke to the expansion.  Since i saw their build had Temporal Manipulation and Psychotemporal Acceleration, I knew that they'd have access to psi haste, which is basically a zero-AP, three-turn Sprint that also gives you bonus AP.  With that in your toolbox, there's no value to stacking Sprint on as well; you'll almost never need 100MP.  60-70 will do just fine.

[Omni]

TheAverageGortsby,

Thank you for the helpful information!  I have a similar build plan to Sat for the launch of Expedition and am also looking for advice on it.

I started with mindless' amazing guide (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1335455899) and then adjusted it a bit from Sat's build and your advice to him.  Here is my resulting build:

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDBgkDEAYAAAAAAABnWmUAAEZkADxgwqDCoMKgACEZSCtiOSwUKhxlZiHChB8oXwjCt3LCp-KjiQXirIwK378

For purposes of reaching key effective skill values the build assumes the crafting table bonus (+15% crafting skills), Eel Sandwich (+1 Dex->+Lockpicking) or Under Pie (+3 all skills), Tchorist Noble Robe (+1 Will->+Persuasion), Jackknife (+7 Lockpicking) and Huxkey (+15 Hacking/Lockpicking).

Logic:

• Generally speaking I like playing powerful builds while also accessing all of the content that I reasonably can.  So I want to keep Hacking and Lockpicking.
  
• I'm not interested in any of the Temporal Manipulation psi abilities (https://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Temporal_Manipulation) except Psycho-temporal Contraction and possibly Stasis, so I dropped it for the skill points.
• Sprint seems to be a must without Psycho-temporal Contraction so it replaced Psycho-temporal Acceleration.
• I dropped Chemistry for the skill points since mindless's build did not have it.
• The Subterfuge, Technology and Social skills have effective levels that align with what you and mindless recommend.

Questions:

• According to the wiki, Psycho-temporal Contraction requires 55 skill to use.  Would investing 7 skill points into Temporal Manipulation be worth it in order to use it at that low skill level?
• How difficult will the early- to mid-game be without crafting frag grenades?
• Do you have any suggestions of where to put the remaining 50 skill points?
• Do you have any other min/max suggestions?

Thanks.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Questions:

• According to the wiki, Psycho-temporal Contraction requires 55 skill to use.  Would investing 7 skill points into Temporal Manipulation be worth it in order to use it at that low skill level?
• How difficult will the early- to mid-game be without crafting frag grenades?
• Do you have any suggestions of where to put the remaining 50 skill points?
• Do you have any other min/max suggestions?

Learning skills requires base value, not effective value.  7 points won't get you anything but the basic ability, Temporal Distortion.  But there's no value to going so deep into Thought Control.  With 18 Will, and - one would assume - a Uni-psi headband and Psi Beetle/Psi Crab carapace tac vest, your effective skill in TC is well over 200 with just 75 points in.  That will clear Resolve checks everywhere even on DOMINATING, and the scaling on TC is such that the abilities that are more than just pass/fail (in particular your mirror images and your Neural Overload) are over two thirds as effective at 75 real points as they will be at 160.  And you won't really be using Neural Overload for anything, without Cerebral Trauma, anyway.  Pull those points back.  If you want to min/max, then don't go 76 points into TC, go 75.

You won't miss frag grenades at all. If you don't have *any* molotovs whatsoever, you will miss those.  But if you really don't want to craft your own, you don't have to.  Me, I'd go 21 in Chem and 64 in Bio; that'll let you hit an Under Pie and still craft up stacks of Thermite Grenades (which, at 0.35 apiece, are lighter than either of those other incendiaries.  0.15 isn't much but that's 1.5 for a full stack and with 3Str and no Pack Rathound, carry weight will be at a premium) and Super Health Hypos.  Other than that, your build is really lean.  Snce it looks like you're going to be playing a SI build, you might find it worthwhile to dump all your remaining points into Temporal Manipulation.  Reason is, one of the top-end TM powers is a flat % to dodge and evade.  With all your spare points in TM, plus your gear buffs, you're looking at a 30% reduced hit chance for your enemies.  If you're skating along at low health for that SI crit boost, you might find it worthwhile to further reduce the chance that someone gets a lucky shot in.

I'm not sure Iron Will is really going to help that character.  I'd much rather have Fast Metabolism from an early level, for the +33% to psi booster effectiveness as well as help overcoming the healing malus from Hard+.  I know you want to keep your health low, but since you'll probably be wearing a Sturdy Vest so you don't Regen Vest heal out of optimal SI territory, there's going to be a wide enough window at 9CON to keep a high crit bonus even if you pop a Super Health Hypo when things get dangerous.

That's a very lean build.  Sorry; I don't see much room to min/max it further.  You've cut it down very effectively yourself.

[Omni]

OK, I've followed your advice again and settled on this build:

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgMDAwkDEAkAAAAAAADChkxnAAA5UhQ6T0vCoMKgwokhGT0rYlAsFCocZWYhwoTChx8oX8K3cgjio4kF4qyMCt-_

Reincorporating Temporal Manipulation for Precognition means Psycho-temporal Contraction is back on the table, so sticking with Psycho-temporal Acceleration over Sprint like you suggested before seems to make sense.  That allowed me to dump Agi to 3 and raise Int to 9 which, in turn, raised many of my skills above their key effective values.  I dropped those skills back to their key effective values and then raised Temporal Manipulation up to an effective level of 300 for maximum Precognition, and I still have 20 free skill points left over.  I'm quite happy with this.

Do you have any advice on leveling skill order/priority beyond what is required for the listed feats?

That's a very lean build.  Sorry; I don't see much room to min/max it further.  You've cut it down very effectively yourself.

Credit where credit is due, I did not do much except start with mindless' wonderful guide/build and tweak it slightly with Sat's build and your thorough help

[TheAverageGortsby]

Do you have any advice on leveling skill order/priority beyond what is required for the listed feats?

Crafting last. Put in whatever bare minimums you need along the way, but if you explore and hit up content as you can, you're going to level to at least 16-18 in just practically no time.  You can craft the good stuff near character top-end. Early on, get your combat and world-manipulation skills topped up (things like Persuasion, Mercantile and such.  Hacking doesn't need to top get topped off until you're ready to go to DC but you should rush it to halfway, so you can loot stuff.)

[Omni]

Sounds good!

In summary, a Pure Psi w/ SI Build for Underrail: Expedition on DOMINATING.

• Level 1 - Focus on combat and world-manipulation skills first.  Raise Hacking to 0.5*(planned max), then max when ready for DC.  Worry about equipment crafting when nearing max character level.

• Level 30 - For purposes of reaching key effective skill values the build assumes (Base game):
• Crafting table bonus (+15% crafting skills)
• Food: Eel Sandwich (+1 Dex->+Lockpicking) or Under Pie (+3 all skills)
• Head: Balaclava (+5 Intimidation)
• Body: Tchorist Noble Robe (+1 Will->+Persuasion) or Tchorist Robe (+20 Intimidation)
• Feet: Mutated Dog Leather (+5 Intimidation)
• Belt: Bullet Strap Belt (+5 Intimidation)
• Hand: Jackknife (+7 Lockpicking) or Butcher's Cleaver (+20 Intimidation)
• Tool: Huxkey (+15 Hacking/Lockpicking)

• Level 30 - For purposes of reaching key effective skill values the build assumes (Base game+DLC):
• Crafting table bonus (+15% crafting skills)
• Food: Eel Sandwich (+1 Dex->+Lockpicking) or Under Pie (+3 all skills)
• Head: Pacifier (+15 all Psi skills) or Death's Grin (+30 Intimidation)
• Body: Heartbreaker Serpent Leather (+10 Persuasion) or Tchorist Robe (+20 Intimidation) or Lemurian Engineer Suit (+10 Hacking/Lockpicking)
• Feet: Heartbreaker Serpent Leather (+10 Persuasion) or Mutated Dog Leather (+5 Intimidation)
• Belt: Bullet Strap Belt (+5 Intimidation)
• Hand: Jackknife (+7 Lockpicking) or Butcher's Cleaver (+20 Intimidation)
• Tool: Huxkey (+15 Hacking/Lockpicking)
• Warning: Planning around the new DLC equipment may not be viable, so caveat emptor.

• Key effective skill values are derived from a combination of mindless' guide and TheAverageGortsby's advice within this thread:
• Subterfuge
• Stealth: As high as possible with remaining points
• Hacking: 130 (pass all checks except one)
• Lockpicking: 130 (pass all checks)
• Technology
• Mechanics: 96 (craft Tactical Vest)
• Electronics: 133 (craft most top equipment)
• Chemistry: 40 (craft Magnesium Grenade)
• Biology: 100 (craft Super Health Hypo)
• Tailoring: 128 (craft Infused Leather)
• Psi
• Thought Control: 75* (sufficiently effective on DOMINATING)
• Psychokinesis: 160* (max)
• Metathermics: 160* (max)
• Temporal Manipulation: 300 (max Precognition avoidance)
• Social
• Persuasion: 110 (pass all checks)
• Intimidation: 100 (pass all checks)
• Mercantile: 105 (unlock all merchants' special inventory)
• Carrying around all of the planned equipment and food to reach these key skill values when needed may be very frustrating with 3 Str.  I'll probably spend some or all of the leftover skill points to make the equipment/food expectations less stringent.

[Sat]

I thought I replied but the amended build was not sent. I will post it in a next message tomorrow for your support and critics.

Not maxed psi skills was a non planned mistakes... Thanks for noticing.

Agility was dropped and int raised to 9 for crafting.
The feat that replaced Sprint is Power Management. Do you see better options ?

For stats, can you disclose threshold reasons for persuasion and intimidation? How fast should it be reached?

I am not for reducing psi skills.

You mentioned +5 int with drugs and food. Are there accessible from late game or earlier?

[Sat]

And one more question, I noticed on Omni build that past level 25 it is possible to choose regular feat over veteran feat. Is it correct?

[Tygrende]

And one more question, I noticed on Omni build that past level 25 it is possible to choose regular feat over veteran feat. Is it correct?

Yes.

[TheAverageGortsby]

The feat that replaced Sprint is Power Management. Do you see better options ?
For stats, can you disclose threshold reasons for persuasion and intimidation? How fast should it be reached?
You mentioned +5 int with drugs and food. Are there accessible from late game or earlier?

Absolutely. You don't have Pyromaniac, and you should.  Do you *need* it?  No.  But the burning debuff is one of the most powerful debuffs against living enemies, and it's very nice to get it as an extra proc for your fireball and flamethrower.  ThermoD too, but that usually is just a bomb that leaves no survivors anyway.

You want to get 110 Persuasion for the highest check, and 100 Intimidation for the highest check.  You won't need but half that Persuasion until nearly the end of the game, and you won't need the Intimidation until you've been exploring Black Sea for a while.  So drop some points into Persuasion fairly early if you want a super-easy resolution to a fairly early quest, and pick up Intimidation whenever you just have some spare points laying about.

If I led you to believe that, I'm sorry.  You can't get +5 INT.  You can get a brief +2 INT from a drug, and then additionally +3 to all skills from a food; they do stack.  The food is available early on; the drug usually takes a while but there's some RNG to it.  If you're holding off on crafting for mid to late game, you will probably get access to the drug around the time you reach your intended craft skill maximums.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Temporal Manipulation: 300 (max Precognition avoidance)

Precog doesn't cap at 300 skill, AFAIK. The 30% thing I said earlier was just because, with the build as you envisioning it then, 300 was about as high as you'd be able to get your TM, with gear bonuses from a Uni-Psi headband and a psibug Tac Vest.  For example, here's Precog with 368 skill:

[newageofpower]

Temporal Manipulation: 300 (max Precognition avoidance)

Precog doesn't cap at 300 skill, AFAIK. The 30% thing I said earlier was just because, with the build as you envisioning it then, 300 was about as high as you'd be able to get your TM, with gear bonuses from a Uni-Psi headband and a psibug Tac Vest.  For example, here's Precog with 368 skill:

Christ how is your upkeep cost so low? Psi beetle carapace brings it down to about 23, Max quality mufflers would bring it down to 15 or so... Advanced psi empathy?

You could walk around with it permanently on...