DOMINATING Laser Pistol Critical Build: 7 shots/rd., 5+ dead, not a scientist ;)

[DerivativeZero]

Yeah thanks for all the tips tho. Now I stockpiled on cryo, toxic nades and magnesium nades so I got tools to push forth. Proly will have to reload here and there but its not as hopeless as depot A felt where I had no damage, no money for more traps, nades and it all felt like end of the line. I have a feeling enemies that have a jump on you will make me reload the most and also scripted fights where you can't setup your fight properly maybe?

You're welcome! Glad you feel better about the character now Scripted fights (with lots of enemies) and higher initiative are the bottlenecks. Some of them can be fun, but if you are unlucky and have to repeat them ten times due to a lucky shot out of nowhere (or one your shield doesn't absorb, or a misplaced grenade turning allies hostile) ... well, I screamed in some of the scripted battles in Expedition...   

[Phyriel]

One more thing about crafting pistol, do you opt for smart module to increase special attacks damage? or high energy converter / polarizer?

I'm thinking about high energy converter to not waste time reloading so often.

Also one thing about plasma pistol - I've read that high enough quality of polarizer in plasma pistol can actually apply 2 stacks with 1 shot with close to 100% chance. Wouldn't that make it a good off hand weapon to open up fight with against bosses?

[DerivativeZero]

Yes, usually the energy efficiency seemed more desirable. I've crafted a second laser pistol with smart module to play around with execute a bit, but it never seemed strictly necessary. It might help on lower levels though.

I have zero experience with polarizer, but if you one-hit adversaries, the increase in crit chance doesn't add anything.

Plasma pistols do so much damage (especially with smart module and execute) to one-shot bosses, i think. I never liked plasma pistols for their high AP, so my experience with them is limited. Most (I think "all" is more correct) bosses go down after seven shots with a laser pistol. The gain from one shot with plasma in terms of polarizer might not be big. You should have 70%+ crit chance in any case and could add a focus stim or hardcore chips for boss fights. I never had too, so this might be overkill. Also, the sound of the plasma pistol makes my skin crawl

TLDR: high energy efficiency converter & amplifier combo rules

[Sat]

To build on DerivativeZero answer:

Plasma is not AP efficient versus Energy. They may have a better ratio damage per AP but you cant fire a lot so you will waste AP. With 18 dex, a regular energy shot will do from level 25 around 750+ for 9 AP, a regular plasma shot will do 2000+ for 24 AP. You rarely need to spend 24 AP to kill 1 enemy. Energy pistol is far more efficient. If you count the possibilities not to crit and not to reach, it is better to miss with energy than with plasma. On your build, you will end up with 14 dex, this favors even more Energy over Plasma. Other points for Energy over Plasma, it is that Plasma has half damage on heat that is more widely resisted than energy and it is shorter range.

A pistol that is very useful on energy crit build is Electro pistol. It is very interesting because it may kill 4 enemies with 1 shot.

Regarding the module, amplifier is obvious on a crit build, smart module is interesting as it may replace Plasma when you Aimshoot, energy converter is a must in my opinion as it could reduce consumption from 11 to 3 energy per shot (numbers are estimations with high quality component). You will almost never lose AP for reloading in a fight.

Polarizer is very useful for enemies with energy resistance. You may see particularly nasty enemies with very high energy resistance later. With a polarizer, they will die in 1 round. Very situational.
One last point on Polarizer, a high quality one will have 50% chance to add +3% crit chance so it is very very small. The good point is that it decreases energy threshold in 50% so next shots will be painful for unprotected enemies.

The best set up could be: Amplified Efficient Energy + Amplified Smart Electro (For super high opener that will kill 3-4 enemies).

[Phyriel]

Ok I'm here to report my progress.

I got pretty dope pistol with 280+ crit amplifier and its a night and day difference between this one and old one I had with 210crit. Now indeed I can kill 4-5 enemies in 1 turn while before I was getting swarmed and had to rely on mass traps, choke points.
It's deffo been a struggle mid game tho when my pistol was hitting like a wet noodle and I'd need 6-7 shots to down single enemy or fish for crits but even then it'd take 3 crits to kill some beefier gunners etc. This build heavily relies on traps/granades in mid game, at some point I barely used pistol but kited to buy time for nades cooldown.

Having low int is not a big struggle as high level components that are worth using come late anyway when you don't spend skill points on much else, there is an argument to be made that having higher int would improve midgame and actually make it a pure laser pistol build (without being a trapper, grenadier for good few levels) but I think this build is only viable to be played that way in high-end scenario aka if you can't thin down the crowd by 4+ with early mid game crafted pistol then it's not improvement at all because you'll gonna get demolished as you can't tank damage from multiple enemies that early anyway.  So I'd say going low int is very intelligent (pun intended) decision and it ramps up late game power much more by having fuckton of high dex low ap shots.

That being said I tested out plasma crit pistol with polarizer and its a very good albeit not needed addition to the build as you approach 20+ level but dont yet have mechanics, tailoring needed for goggles and crit armor (so you're floating at much lower crit chance) With it you can set up an aimed shot against dodgy/evasive enemy with stun/incapacitate and just demolish a guy - I pretty much one shotted Carnifex with that gun.

I gotta confess tho that I probably played this build wrong and always healed myself to full thus wasting survival instincts, you really gotta man up with this build and walk around <30% hp and heal only when you know you gonna get ambushed by some invis lurkers, crawlers.

[DerivativeZero]

I gotta confess tho that I probably played this build wrong and always healed myself to full thus wasting survival instincts, you really gotta man up with this build and walk around <30% hp and heal only when you know you gonna get ambushed by some invis lurkers, crawlers.

I gotta agree  

Now I understand your frustration with early and midgame. I played the build from Lv3 as laser pistol; I guess we found the problem now.

[Stavrophore]

Three agility on dominating? No stealth i presume? Unless you kill all enemies on sight as they appear, you will get toasted.

[DerivativeZero]

Three agility on dominating? No stealth i presume? Unless you kill all enemies on sight as they appear, you will get toasted.

Not at all. Max stealth, as I wrote, and AGI 3 is completely sufficient to sneak around, even on dominating. The build is able to stealth and meant to play that way without any issues.

[Stavrophore]

Ok, sorry ive omitted stealth by accident. So with rathound armor you get 27 movement points? Any other armor recommendation or uniques? Let's say you don't kill a group, how do you escape? Pop a forcefield? With small amount of movement points, without sprint you can't really move much, you get 57mp with haste.

[DerivativeZero]

Ok, sorry ive omitted stealth by accident. So with rathound armor you get 27 movement points? Any other armor recommendation or uniques? Let's say you don't kill a group, how do you escape? Pop a forcefield? With small amount of movement points, without sprint you can't really move much, you get 57mp with haste.

Depends a bit. In the beginning, when the laser pistol is weak, you use all you have at your disposal: bear traps to prep chokeholds around corners, taser, nets, the environment. Later you get Imprint, can stun with electrokinesis if you need it badly. The movement has always been plenty (and restealth grenades might also work, though, I never used them), sure, high AGI builds have much more and that gives you much better mobility, but you do have plenty of options if you realize a fight doesn't go well. I used the stealth to scout and know where enemies are and get close enough to have a good hit chance.

Also, laser pistol is not too loud, so often stealthing around, picking off individual enemies can prep a fight well in your favor as well. But yeah, if you think real big groups like lurker prison, you better prep a nice choke hold and lure people there.

In terms of armor: infused rat hound for crit.chance, not so much movement. I preferred the light tac vests as they look better, but if you want to max crit. chance, definitely this.

I think I also always had some stealth gear (black cloth armor, stealth generator) around, but can't remember ever needing it. For what it's worth, I played the Balor mission (which is a typical sneaky mission without any problems with the build).

Edited to add: energy shields also help. Picking off targets so that in the worst case people remain, who can't penetrate your shield.
Edited again to add: Force Field is also excellent to block damage, if people have to move around it first or it creates the chokehold you need for imprint or traps
Edited yet again: Grenades and flash bangs against big groups help too. If you have seven shots and expect to kill five, this does cover most groups, so if you come against a really big group, all of the above should be an option as you won't likely have run out of flash bangs etc.

[Stavrophore]

New experimental patch nerfs the critical power, so the build will definitely not one shot enemies now

[DerivativeZero]

New experimental patch nerfs the critical power, so the build will definitely not one shot enemies now

Possibly. Haven't done the calculations yet, but with opportunist on rooted or tased enemies, damage is still quite high. And most enemies even on dominating have less than 600 HP and the numbers given in the OP weren't the maximum possible. But yes, the new patch might be bad news for many critical builds, including all snipers using rapid spearheads... kinda sucks. I downloaded the current game files via GOG so I can continue to play with the current rule set

If you want to try a critical build, NOW is the time 

[Kruk190]

I am a new player and i dont know for real. I mean i am sure your build have so much sense and is very good late game. Few months ago i finished the game on DOM playing crosbow build with traps and i rly enjoyed that so much. As for your build i am in corecity rn and i am having problem with quests there. As far as i remember so much into the game with crosbow i was almost twoshoting anybody that steped into my trap. Rn i need to use same play style with your build with sad crits and very low dmg.  To be honest my main dmg comes from granates,mołotovs and traps that my char is not skilled in at all. Maybe as u said u need good energy pistol cuz the one i crafted myslef is not rly good. I mean criting the lunatik greneadiers for 1/5 hp after they steped into my trap and i hapens so rarely i dont rly see it very much. Dont get me wrong your guide was rly good inc the early enegry pistol. and i rly enjoyed my playtrough inc Depot A that went like a smoothie compared to my crosboww build nightmare there. But After depot A and geting oportunist game went rly smooth there with crosbow and here it got so much harder i am thinking of reroling my build. Maybe i will rush Coretech story line to get ebter pistol i dont know. PS. i got decent componets for laser pistol but guess what bcs of low int and 0 mechanics i cant craft anything hahahaha.

[Richter]

This kind of builds begins poorly, especially with low int. Laser pistols needs to be amplified to get good. You're in for a slog till level 14 for Critical Power and probably 16 for good pistols (assuming you unlock benches and hypercerebrix around this point).

It will end up very strong, though.