Sniper with a firearm pistol

[Vokial]

Hi there. Did some research and just about to start my first plathrough. Still uncertain in a few points and I thought it's best to ask them here.
The build I decided to go with starts off as a Pistoleer. I am aware that these weapons are not considered as powerful, but I just find them the most appealing firearms and the feats associated with them seems much more interesting to me than those of other weaponry. Craftable bullets with diferent effects are also something I look forward to and excited about.
I wanted to make a rogueish gunslinger character at first that uses firearm pistols only, have high dex, later with th implementation of Steadfast Aim, I decided to shift a little toward the sniper archetype. Lowering my dexterity in favor of perception seemed more reasonable, trading AP cost from pistols for more damage and better aim with both guns.
Eventually I ended up with this:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgUICAMQAwPCoDwAAADCoMKgTSo8KsKGdUg-woYAAAAAAAAAMSgXJjoeARECM0t-NRZAwqTCteKkjgXip74K378



Now I am aware that my build might have a few questionable choices from the viewpoint of seasoned players, so allow me to explain in advance:

 - I know firearm pistols are considered inferior compared to SMG's or AR's or whatever, but aside from me liking them the most, there are some feats that benefits both handguns and sniper rifles, like Sharpshooter for example. Their feats allow them to have a better chance to crit and just seems much more fitting as a reliable sidearm than any bigger guns that does not really resembles this role.
 - I do NOT plan on using ANY psi, despite probably benefitting from them.
 - Yes, 3 Intelligence seems low especially while having 8 Agi. Although I still have enough crafting skills to make decent gear, greanades, meds and poisons for my traps. 105 Electricity for EMP warfare and assembling a decent smart module, 70 Chemistry for Mk IV grenades and mines. And I look forward to have high MP and 40 initiative while holding a pistol by default (again +1 for handguns as sidearms), some fights probably start off within close proximity and I would like to shoot first.
 - I took Trap Expert instead of Quick Tinkering because tossing traps while in combat seems very unrealistic and there's a good deal of bonuses with the former feat. It's nice to deploy less detectable traps and the convenience to quickly arm them out of combat, especially in cases where I plan to set more than one after another while being in stealth mode.
 - I also planned to have subterfuge skills to a certain extent. As you can see, I'm nowhere a master on any of them, just to get by and crack most locks, steal a few items and with the help of some equipment, raise my Traps to an effective 115 to retrieve all traps upon disarming them.



Now despite all the above, I want to mention that ALL feedback is welcome, so don't hold back on any ideas, you might have something to point out that I did not though of, so feel free to convince me about any alterations that you think I should do.

Although I look forward to have answer to the following questions:
 - Should I take Blindsiding instead of being able to perform Kneecap Shot with a pistol? Is that skill a must in order to cripple incoming melee attackers? How about Point Shot and Rapid Fire? Both seems very sweet and I planned to have them before I included the use of sniper rifles in my build.
 - Should lowering my Pickpocket skill to 60 worth to get Biology from 65 (for having anti-psi poison) to 80 and be able to craft Bullhead pills?
 - Do I need Mercantile or I can be okay without it considering that I prefer to get the most out of my 120 points in mechanics and tailoring?
 - Also, what kind of armor do you recommend? Leather armor, overcoat or vests, maybe something else? For headgear I'll plan to use certain googles of course.


Thank you very much for all the insight you might provide.

[cypherusuh]

First of all, you seems to be researching quite well and deep regarding character optimization, I'm impressed
As for your build, everything is looking good, although I'd remove Paranoia, swap it with Aimed Shot, then take Rapid Fire or Point Shot, depending on your AP per shot
I'd say that for pistol and smg user, it's better to max dex and take Versatility, while maxing Melee. You'll get decent Guns skill that way AND very low AP consumption, although maxing PER is still quite viable. You should check on Dexterity AP table to makes sure you're able to shoot good enough times per round
Wee bit of spoiler regarding Point Shot, JKK equipment will reduce its AP to 75%, making PS very cheap, if you run low Dex build.

The other feat I kinda dislike is Steadfast Aim. On paper, it's nice to have 8-10 extra crit chance, but it's counter intuitive with light gun. If you have lower AP, it means you could shoot more, and which, increased your total crit chance per round. And you can't really relies too much on crits. Unlike Energy Pistol / crossbow which could stack up more than 500% crit damage, pistol usually only has ~200
Instead, in my opinion, you should rely on "Smart" module, which increased your "special damage", basically any ability that has cooldown. Pistol has loads of em. But, some free crit are still nice addition beside your smart bonuses

Trap Expert imo is total garbage, unless you only put mediocre point on your Trap skills (even then, it's questionable why would you pick either TE or trap skill). Quick Tinkering is better in any case, because you could just stealth, activate QT, and instantly put the trap right beside your enemies. It would be very hard with TE, unless you have significantly higher stealth. Most enemies usually won't disarmed your trap if you have ~60 trap skills (unless it's "Trapper" enemies, even if they did noticed, you could just block a pathway with bear trap and their AI will forced them to land on em.

Blindsiding is nice for sniper shot, but not necessary. Only took it if you could somehow put it in without sacrificing other feat. In this case, I'd say keep kneecap shot, it's very helpful to kite melee enemies, and the bleed is fairly strong.

Lowering pickpocket is fine, 50 will allow you to steal at least 1 item from most NPC, and it doesn't really do much. Most NPC items are kinda trash, and the only good thing they have is Ammo, which translate to cash, which usually be very plentiful after few hours of gameplay. Only SMG and "all-oddities" run actually benefit pickpocket.

Mercantile is nice, but not sure how you could put it in your build, since you need at least ~90 to get the good stuff before end-game, and 105 in end game shop. It's one of the skill where you can't be half-assed with it

And lastly, what makes Firearm Pistol such a garbage tier, is how retardedly annoying Hammerer is, and you'll need to use it if you wanna get some thicc number action. But that bullshit is painful when you roll 20 crit damage at lv 18

[Vokial]

I always planned my build in Fallout 1 & 2, and I heard that it's kind of a must here. Upon finding the character builder tool, I was stuck with it for days:) It is enjoyable to use it and try to make different versions of possible characters. As for your reply, thank you that was the info I hoped to see. What I based my build is only speculation, I wanted to read an opinion that's from experience.

Still I don't think I would max my melee if I'm not going to play as a close combatant without Dodge and the feats to complement the playstyle. Reduced AP consumption seemed nice, but ultimately I choose to put my trust in raising perception instead as it will benefit both guns I'll use - although in a different, but just as useful way.
With high dexterity Steadfast Aim might be a bad choice, but here I hope it will help me make my more limited amount of shots count. I'm interested to try out this unique pistol called Wasteland Hawk with this build and see how it fares compared to a self-crafted handgun.
Upon crafting, I do want to use smart modules on both weapons especially since Execute can benefit from this mod a lot and knowing that Snipe can't critical. By the way, does that mean that special attacks can critical too, so a smart moduled Execute, or Rapid Fire can also crit increasing it's already high damage even further? If so, then I'm going for all the crit chance I can get with pistols:) Also, this might be a stupid question, but does Aimed Shot benefit from a smart module? Description says, it only makes your shot auto-crit, so I guess not... but if it does, that would be awesome.
I guess I'm keeping Kneecap shot, It will be useful against strong melee fighters, especially if I don't plan to take Quick Recovery and deploy traps while in combat.
I do not want to use a Hammerer, the same reason I do not plan to have Gun Nut. It's not reliable to have a high damage spread and I want to save myself the frustration from performing low damage shots in a row - wanna keep savescumming to a minimum.

Two questions if anyone knows, is it worth to aim to 80 biology because of Bullhead pills? Seeing the ingredients, I can imagine it being rare to craft, but I kinda suspects them being useful. Otherwise, I can put my points to Lockpick for that sweet 110 effective amount I saw you mentioning in another post and be Expansion-ready:)

[cypherusuh]

Actually, all offensive skills damage / accuracy only determined by the skills, while base stats increased "skills" bonus. With 18 Dex, you'll have so much Melee skill bonus, that Versatility could gives you gun skills as equal as 14 PER max gun, while having very minimal AP cost. Although, you still need some PER and Gun skill to unlock feats.

Dodge and evasion in this game is pretty bad, even maximizing it doesn't really show how it's worth, compared to just simply kite them and don't let them to even attack you.
I'm not sure if special attack could or couldn't crit, probably can't. What I know is all abilities with cooldown will be affected by Special Damage modifier, which most likely include aimed shot

Bullhead is a nice drug, it's basically gives you stun immunity, but you don't really need it, due to very rare case of enemies stunning/incap you. And as all drug, it's possible to just skip it and buy from vendor. Only very few exceptional drug which has limited stock / craft only. One of them is Hypercerebrix, it increased your INT by 2,very good to min max crafting skills, and it need 70 Bio.

[Bruno]

Your original character looks very solid.

I would not use Versatility, it is a very bad idea in this case.
A sniper needs high perception, and has little need for dexterity. For a dedicated firearm user you go for decent to high perception, and maxed guns skill.
(Versatility only give you mediocre skill with other weapons, not at all good enough to reliably hit anything at long range.)

Because of your excellent initiative, stealth and great detection (because of high perception) you will almost always go first in combat, a major point of a gunslinger character. As such, drugs like bullhead, aegis etc while westing a doctor's pouch is of great benefits for you, as you can take them before you get hit.

As for evasion, you need this, badly. Max it out. With 3 constitution and light armor, you are deader than disco if you get hit by a grenade, unless you have evasion. Not to mention steppinh on a landmine (it will happen even with great detection, trust me). With some tabi boots, and use of nice drugs like jumping bean and possibly adrenaline, your chances of survival are good against ranged enemies too.

Feat wise, you might try to cram in trigger happy as well, just to be 100% sure of winning initiative, against almost everyone. But only later on, if you feel like it, this is a matter of practical experience.

I would, however, switch trap master with quick tinkering. The ability to drop a bear trap and retreat if things go south (and they will) is priceless, and it helps a lot with sneaking in a trap in an enemy posistion quickly. I used to like trap master myself, but in practice, it is convinient but not really a must.

Traps skill I recommend going a bit higher, as the chance of recovering traps is not based on the trap difficulty, but by the hidden traps skill of the NPC that has set the trap. It is also not cool to have enemies avoid your traps.

[cypherusuh]

For trap skill recovery, I found that 110 is nice enough to recover almost anything pre-DC btw
Also, my SMG dex versatility still able to shoot pretty accurately with sniper rifle, 95% on well-lit around 8 tile ahead, although it depends on how underleveled / high evasion enemies, but it's good enough for combat opening / lure mechanic

[Bruno]

Yeah, I have also played a high dex melee->guns versatility SMG character. This character get great use of versatility, and mainly shoot bursts at very close/point blank range. I also used a sniper for initiating combat sometimes, or trick shots at turrets out of range for example, and with a bipod and regular scope, you can hit easy enemies quite well.

But I believe, if you want to be serious as a sniper and kill difficult-to-hit targets at long range, you need to focus on high perception and excellent guns skill. It will only be frustrating otherwise. You also want to exchange your bipod and scope for a smart, rapid, anatomically aware variant, so you get more firepower at the expense of aiming assistance.

Also, a 3 con light armor guy pretty much have to have as good detection as possible from the start, else you get slaughtered by stealthed enemies.


(Btw, I will play with a mathematical excercise, if I get this right...:

For example, at lvl 16, with maxed dexterity and maxed melee skill, you have 14 dex, and 90 base skill => 166,5 effective melee weapon skill
Vith Versatility you get effective skill * 0,6 => 99,9 effective guns/crossbow skill

This is the equal of having about 5,3 perception and maxing out guns skill.
To me, this seems too low to be of any use as a sniper.)

[Vokial]

Yep, that is why I eventually added Paranoia to the list. I thought that with that immense detection and nice initiative bonus it is worth the feat slot and seemed like a better choice than Trigger Happy if I can only pick one out of those two. I also like rounded numbers:) Yet, with the current setup and both taking Paranoia and Trigger happy with a Twich drug and the JKK Tactful Jacket, it's possible to reach 60 initiative but that's probably overkill of course.

Also I just recently discovered this wonder of an armor and now uncertain if it's even worthful to raise my tailoring skill higher than 50 (for repair kits). It's defense capabilities are as of a high quality Galvanic Vest, but has some crazy bonuses in addition. Gray Spec Ops Armor also looks amazing. Crafting armor is the territory I'm the least informed about. Should I stick with the idea of having 120 effective tailoring skill because crafted armors is the way to go instead of these two or should I spend those 70 points on other skills?

I can also decrease biology to 50 and pickpocketing to 50 in favor of increasing other subterfuge skills to something like this:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgUICAMQAwPCoDwAAADCoMKfWDgmOMKGdUoswoYAAAAAAAAAMcKDKBcmOh4BEQIzS341FsKkwrXipI4F4qe-Ct-_


Btw thanks for the information given, you were all very helpful.

[Bruno]

Yep, that is why I eventually added Paranoia to the list. I thought that with that immense detection and nice initiative bonus it is worth the feat slot and seemed like a better choice than Trigger Happy if I can only pick one out of those two. I also like rounded numbers:) Yet, with the current setup and both taking Paranoia and Trigger happy with a Twich drug and the JKK Tactful Jacket, it's possible to reach 60 initiative but that's probably overkill of course.

Also I just recently discovered this wonder of an armor and now uncertain if it's even worthful to raise my tailoring skill higher than 50 (for repair kits). It's defense capabilities are as of a high quality Galvanic Vest, but has some crazy bonuses in addition. Gray Spec Ops Armor also looks amazing. Crafting armor is the territory I'm the least informed about. Should I stick with the idea of having 120 effective tailoring skill because crafted armors is the way to go instead of these two or should I spend those 70 points on other skills?

I can also decrease biology to 50 and pickpocketing to 50 in favor of increasing other subterfuge skills to something like this:
http://underrail.info.tm/build/?HgUICAMQAwPCoDwAAADCoMKfWDgmOMKGdUoswoYAAAAAAAAAMcKDKBcmOh4BEQIzS341FsKkwrXipI4F4qe-Ct-_


Btw thanks for the information given, you were all very helpful.

Well to be honest, you can avoid this question of taking tailoring skill or not.

The character builder is slightly misleading in that you can see the lvl30 end game character, but playing the game, you have less skills than this to actually spend per level.
You need to max out skills like throwing, and all the subterfuge skills in the beginning, otherwise they are useless to you. It is only further into the game that you can divert skills to branch out more.

If I were you I'd leave tailoring at 0, and buy perfectly fine ninja tabi boots, black balaclavas, and stealth tactical vests from the shops as needed, or find them.
Late game you have extra skills to put into crafting if you so choose.

Btw if you want to be a serious sniper, I'd take the Snipe feat earlier. It is very deadly, and in character. Alternatively you could simply skip it, as you are focusing so heavily on critical damage, wich does not help Snipe at all.

[cypherusuh]

I guess we saw it through different angle, Bruno.
I saw it as pistoleer which transition to sniper mid-game, while you saw it as sniper with pistol sidearm, and as Bruno said, versatility build is bad if you play sniper too early, while it's perfectly fine on higher level for very long ranged Snipe. Plus you get far better mileage on your pistol

As for Paranoia and Trigger Happy, I don't really like them on stealthy char, because Alpha Strike from stealth = bypassing initiation roll. The only important initiation roll afaik is very early on GMS compound and later on Arena vs Carnifex. With decent dex and agi, reload pre-fight and maybe with stuffed bat food will allow you to have a chance to win initiation without spending any feat. And with decent PER, I think your detection would be good enough for trap, and you could use Motion goggle for massive boost. Paranoia is less useful in practice imo.

As for tailoring, you could skip it altogether, because rathound regalia and phantom dancer is a very good unique light armor, and JKK is great for point shot. But you should check on Infused Leather wiki first. Some of them provides pretty dank bonus.
Also, increasing it for repair kit ain't worth it imo. Money is pretty easy to came by, and you could just buy loads of em on merchant, both normal and advanced repair kit, and armor rarely requires repair unless you somehow managed to tank a lot of enemies attack / grenade..... Unless you played on dominating, I guess

[chimaera]

Hi there. Did some research and just about to start my first plathrough. Still uncertain in a few points and I thought it's best to ask them here.
The build I decided to go with starts off as a Pistoleer. I am aware that these weapons are not considered as powerful, but I just find them the most appealing firearms and the feats associated with them seems much more interesting to me than those of other weaponry. Craftable bullets with diferent effects are also something I look forward to and excited about.

Take grenadier asap and move recklessness somewhere lower. Imo spamming grenades will be of more use than that 7% critical chance increase in the beginning, especially if you are new to the game. I'd also drop paranoia for sprint; a character with high perception won't benefit from the detection boost that much and if you plan on setting up ambushes using traps & molotovs, you'll likely be initiating combat from stealth anyway. But guns have short range, so sprint helps.

Btw, you won't be levelling that quickly in the game, so 24+ level feats are a bit like the cherry on top and not the cake. Which is why my recommendation would be: aimed shot & sprint at level 1, then gunslinger, then grenadier.

Also, you could drop both agility and perception by 2 points and use that to raise dexterity to 12. Eating an eel sandwhich gets it to 13. If you craft your self a .44 hammerer with a rapid reloader (and with the gunslinger feat) you should be able to shoot 3 times in a turn, I think.

[A_Clever_Monocle]

My personal advice would be to consider running a versatility/crit build with dex as your main stat and melee as your main skill.

There are 2 reasons why you want to do this

One: versatility+ melee is a roundabout way of.making your guns scale off dex (while reducing pistol ap cost)

Two: many of the feats you have chosen tlrequire either minimal investment in the guns skill or are redundant

Be warned however as you will need to invest a good 5 points or so into the versatility specialization in order to really make this work.

Ive spent a lot of time messing around with versatility over the past.month you probably won't have a hatlrd time finding a relevant post.

Also consider taking shooting spree instead of snipe (its a fantastic feat if you arent using TM

[Vokial]

I might not know it correctly, but if I remember right, then high dex only influences the critical chance of melee attacks, not ranged.
Still there has to be some validity in that suggestion if more people recommend it, but I can't bring myself to do something like this. If I want to play a gunslinger, it would be kinda strange to max melee instead just because of capitalizing on this mechanic, it's just doesn't feel right.
And raising dex can't be better than perception for a shooter. Something like this is not supposed to happen. I would still raise dex though if I would've been with a pure pistoleer. But since I plan on using sniper rifles too, I plan on raising the stat that's benefitting them both.

Also, I thought that Paranoia is exceptionally good for builds with high perception, since the bonus they get is significantly higher than what others might get. Wonder if I will be able to detect Crawlers and Stalkers while wearing some Motion Tracking Googles and hit them while they're stealthed for that extra 30%.

Also, are grenades that common in this game so that I can take advantage of the Grenadier feat as early as level 4? I always thought of them as utility from time to time when the situation demands it.

[DerivativeZero]

I have to agree with Bruno, it seems weird in this build to go Versatility. If you did max DEX you have DEX 18, Melee 160 and Effective Melee 350 at the end, and Effective Guns through Versatility 210. Shooting more often with small arms might mitigate the damage loss, but if you pick Sharpshooter (PER 10) and Scrutinous (PER 11), your Effective Guns just from holding those Feats would be 255. So the two feats alone make picking Versatility obsolete. Unless you want to Spec 10 point for 80% Versatility (which puts Effective Guns at 280), so a bit better than you had with PER 11 anyways. And you wasted a full feat and 10 Spec points for this on a build (sniper) that will want to go Critical Power and 10 Specs into that.

Grenades (especially if you craft them with good investment in chemistry) coupled with Grenadier can trivialize many group encounters. You can see that in two ways: you are constantly tempted making life easy by spamming them, killing a bit the fun of the original play idea (snipers/pistols are prone to this, as it takes a while till they have the crit damage to one-shot enemies, at least on DOMINATING difficulty). Or you can see it as having a panic button, if you retried a difficult fight ten times and got tired, you do it with grenades to progress. I guess it depends on your self-control.

[cypherusuh]

Also, are grenades that common in this game so that I can take advantage of the Grenadier feat as early as level 4? I always thought of them as utility from time to time when the situation demands it.

You could buy like, 16 grenades right after you left your room, implying you have the cash for it
Higher tier grenade are fairly low on stock, but always showed up. You could easily stock em up, since most well-placed grenade could either halfed group of enemies' health, or straight up killed them, especially with some lucky frag grenade hit