Ultimate hammer guide

[rafner]

Hey everyone!

I'm completely new to the game so I'm kinda lost on how I should distribute my skill points. As far as I can tell the guide doesn't go into that kind of detail. I'd appriciate if someone could put together one of those character sheets with https://underrail.info.tm/build/. I want to build that Hammer Wizard character (Tungsten and Psy), but I have no idea what crafting skills (if any) I should focus on, or if I should put any points into dodge/evasion. Any help would be appriciated

[Hammer Wizard]

>I'm completely new to the game so I'm kinda lost on how I should distribute my skill points.
As rule of the thumb, you always max out your most relevant offensive skills every level.
For a Hammer Wizard, these skills should be Melee and Psychokinesis.
Then you have secondary skills like crafting, lockpicking, hacking, persuasion, intimidation, mercantile, etc; these skills you boost depending on your progress on the game and the direction you want your build to take.
My personal go to skills to boost are, besides Melee and Psychokinesis; Persuasion, Intimidation and Lockpicking, crafting skills are also necessary but you decide when to invest in them or not. But if you want to invest in Crafting, Mechanics and Electronics are the most crafting skills of a Hammer Wizard, second Tailoring and third Biology/Chemistry

>if I should put any points into dodge/evasion.
Do NOT put points in Dodge or Evasion, reason why: Armor Penalty. Is the game mechanic that rules how 'unwieldy' and 'heavy to maniobrate' your current gear is, metal armor is very heavy and has high AP (Armor Penalty), it's capped at 95%, which means your Dodge, Evasion and Stealth effective skills can be reduced by your current Armor Penalty you're wearing, and you will easily hit 95% AP with metal gear.
To view your current AP, open the Stats window and click on the Defense tab, it will tell you your current AP, among other useful stats you should definely should learn to understand.

[barrosoman]

Hey, wanna try your build (Tungsten Tank) but I don't understand how can I get 15 on Strenght, 10 on Con, 7 on Will, 6 on Agility and 5 on Intelligence, should I put extra points on Will at the beginning?

[Hammer Wizard]

Hey, wanna try your build (Tungsten Tank) but I don't understand how can I get 15 on Strenght, 10 on Con, 7 on Will, 6 on Agility and 5 on Intelligence, should I put extra points on Will at the beginning?

You dont.
Using the build calculator, you can see you can get, by level 28 (easily attained if you were scrutinous enough with oddities):
14 STR (12 base + Veteran Increased Strenght feat)
10 CON
7 WILL
6 AGI
5 INT
3 PER and DEX

The conundrum lies on rolling with 5 INT but 3 WILL or 3 INT but 5 WILLat the start of the game.

With 5 INT 3 WILL start, you will have relatively quick access to Expose Weakness, a must take feat for all melee builds, EW will give you an easier time taking down robots and sentries such in GMS and in facilities in Junkyard/Old Junkyard. In Dominating, starting hammerers do struggle on quickly taking down sentry bots, Expose Weakness makes it more easier, it's possible, using Rathound Barbecue, Adrenaline and Sprint, to take down a Sentry bot in 3 swings in 1 turn. Also Sentries tend to have considerable mech DR that will absorb a decent chunk of your hammer damage. Also, 5 int will give you decent crafting and mercantile.
On the other hand, with 3 WILL, your PK will be very underwhelming, which also will negatively affect Persuasion and Intimidation. You will rely more on melee brawl and tools rather than PK, at least prior to Depot A.

With 3 INT 5 WILL start, you will have a decently strong PK from the get go, and at level 8 you can get 7 WILL to get Force User, which will make TK punches much, much deadlier but also make your Force Fields last longer. Also higher resolve to resist incaps and other things. The biggest powerspike lies after Depot A, after you get TK Proxy, your 'Proxy Punch' as I like to call it, will almost guarantee an instakill on squishy enemies. Will also greatly boost Persuasion and Intimidation, having some decent Persuasion, while not mandatory, does eases some problems during the game, and gives better quest/story outcomes early in game.
Problem being lack of Expose Weakness will make fighting Robots and Sentries much, much harder, you can still brute force your path out, but you wont have the luxury to take sentry bots in 1 turn or to take out Turrets in 2.
On the other hand, EMP grenades, HE grenades and even electrokinesis can help you with that.

So in the end, it's a matter of choices really, maybe you can tank some STR and/or CON to get 5 INT and 7 WILL from the get go, as I stated before, this is a guide, not a build order, adapt and modify your build as you find it more comfortable.

[harperfan7]

Also, don't forget to max out your temporal manipulation score.

[Threeeightnine]

Can I make good use of grenades without 6 dex? I want some kind of ranged option, but I also want to actually be able to use Balor's Hammer.

[harperfan7]

I played a slow full-armor sledge tank with no psi and no grenadier.  It can be done. 

[Hammer Wizard]

Can I make good use of grenades without 6 dex? I want some kind of ranged option, but I also want to actually be able to use Balor's Hammer.

Grenades are always useful no matter the build, having 3 DEX means you will take a skill penalty when investing in Throwing, which will require A LOT of points to get up to 100 effective throwing skill, the skill treshold in which you can throw grenades with relatively consistancy.
Alternatively, you can get 6 DEX and 3 AGI and get grenaider, trading range accuracy for mobility, risky but it could work, and at 7 DEX you could get Three Pointer for even more damage.

If you're one of the two tin can archetypes however, you have certain benefits as a sturdy character.
For instance, Tungsten, TiChrome and SS have from decent to very high Heat DR, which will absorb great quantities of fire damage. You can throw incendiary damage at your feet, both heat blast damage and getting set ablaze will be largely reduced by your whooping Heat DR.
Frag grenades work in a fashion that, upon detonation, mini shrapels fly all across the area of explosion, these dont do much damage, but also there are quite a lot of shrapels, which is devastating to squishy unarmored targets, like the natives. Having very high both mechanical DT and mechanical DR will absorb largely, if not all fragmentation grenade damage. Throw a frag grenade at your feet when you're completely surrounded by a mob of enemies.
Flashbangs are very useful too because of shaded visors will protect you from flashbang incap, throw it at your feet to incap everyone around you.
Lastly, by the way Gas Grenades works, you can simply throw a gas 'nade at your feet where the enemy will congregate, for example on a doorway, and simply walk away, when you end your turn, the gas will start to spread and contaminate everyone, and being a very tanky, sturdy tin can you're not in a real rush to move, taking your sweet time.

[Rayly]

My respect to Hammer Wizard!
How about Sledgehammer Magic in leater armor(abbreviated S&M Leatherman)? Take psi invulnerability combo from Force User(Force Wall)+Future Orientaton(Stasis+ spam Limited Temporal Increment); take Stoicism(5)+Morphine+Aegis. Throw away dodge-evasion, and face-to-face with sweet pain!
Also Condtioning 15% mech res+LiBe 5% res+ Ancient Rathound armor 5% and tabi 5%=30% mech res, but not that important.
Sprint replaced with Psycho-temporal Contraction.
Something like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?Hg4DAwoDBwYALQDCoAAAwqAAAAAAWnlNWm4AwqAARkwATV8IK2kUKhIfwodjwohQS2IowrYAMeKhhgTiorUC4quGBd-_  Not sure in feats order, and maybe stealth replace with Hacking and Lockpicking

[yickers]

I've got a bit of a noob question about the tungsten tank hammerer:

I see lots of increased critical strike damage. But where is the critical strike chance coming from? I assume gear, but I am a bit of a noob and am not finding a large source of it.

[harperfan7]

Crit chance is low.  It stays at 5% unless you took weaponsmith, are using focus stim, or have survival instincts. 

[Hammer Wizard]

My respect to Hammer Wizard!
How about Sledgehammer Magic in leater armor(abbreviated S&M Leatherman)? Take psi invulnerability combo from Force User(Force Wall)+Future Orientaton(Stasis+ spam Limited Temporal Increment); take Stoicism(5)+Morphine+Aegis. Throw away dodge-evasion, and face-to-face with sweet pain!
Also Condtioning 15% mech res+LiBe 5% res+ Ancient Rathound armor 5% and tabi 5%=30% mech res, but not that important.
Sprint replaced with Psycho-temporal Contraction.
Something like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?Hg4DAwoDBwYALQDCoAAAwqAAAAAAWnlNWm4AwqAARkwATV8IK2kUKhIfwodjwohQS2IowrYAMeKhhgTiorUC4quGBd-_  Not sure in feats order, and maybe stealth replace with Hacking and Lockpicking

I do not have experiencie playing a hammer build solely focused on stacking mech damage reduction/inmunity, on the hand I never play with Time Manipulation. Ever. So I'm afraid I won't be much of a help here.
However, are few things I'd like to mention:

>No Evasion, No Dodge
 As far as I know, high mech damage reduction comes very late, and given you wont be wearing metal armor, have low mobility, having no avoidance, even with 3 Agility, sounds like a bad call to me. Stealth is a good call. If you take avoidance, get Nimble.
>Paranoia
Luxury feat, in my opinion. Feat slot better spent elsewhere.
>No Pummel, No Super Slam
No Super Slam I can understand, you will have low HP so it won't do much, however Pummel is incredibly helpful, specially when you get it's AP spec'd. This is a No-No.
>Weaponsmith
On a build with very low to non-existant bonus critical damage (No Heavy Weight, for example) a slight increase on critical chance seems rather pointless to me. Also that both feat slot could be better used elsewhere, and that 1 point on INT could be used on STR instead. On the same line of thought, I wouldn't go Critical Power since you have no real bonus critical damage.
>No Dirty Kick
Kicking someone in the boulders is incredibly helpful, specially when you discover it's amazing synergy with Stealth.
If you attack someone during stealth, if you're undetected on your first attack, you will ignore the enemy dodge rating on your first strike, making it a guaranteed 95% hit. This combos really well with Dirty Kick and Pummel.
>Recklesness
Once again, redundant to go for critical chance when you have zero critical damage. Also it will make you vulnerable to attacks, putting yourself on risk, taking more damage, goes AGAINST the role of a tank. You're closer to being a Glass Cannon than a tank.

Give it a try, but I'd give it a serious second thought to your build. Seek another approach.

[Hammer Wizard]

I've got a bit of a noob question about the tungsten tank hammerer:

I see lots of increased critical strike damage. But where is the critical strike chance coming from? I assume gear, but I am a bit of a noob and am not finding a large source of it.

Like Harper said, it stays at normal 5% or maybe if you take Weaponsmith or other feats or foods/drugs you could increase it, but being realistic, you don't seek out critical chance.
A hammerer seeks high base damage, not high critical chance. The idea is to crater someone without the need of crits, by having a sheer amount of brute force. By having brute force, you will be 1 hitting all puny weaklings in 1 or 2 strikes, and everything else that does not dies in 1 or 2 strikes, such as Bosses or stronger robots (Industrial Robots and Naga Protectors), you will have to tank and swing repeatly, eventually, a crit will happen, and you will DEMOLISH that tought enemy in a single crit.

Think it this way, a tank can afford to be patient, wait and roll for crits repeatly since he can take the beatings, afterall, you still look for high survivality.

[Hammer Wizard]

Ultimate Hammer Wizard guide

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UAyOi08w5io8fbEyeWHWrdrjD3X8mJbE/view?usp=sharing

Any thoughts and opinions are well welcomed

[harperfan7]

https://underrail.info/build/?Hg8DAwoDBwUAwqAAwqAAAAAAAAAAdHQ5VV8AwqAAAFPCoFcrUGktY1UUEg1EH18IYFTCp8K2S-KfhAHioYcE4qOTBd-_

Here's how I'd build one.  It's almost exactly the same as Hammer Wizard's.  He says the last 5 spec points should go to corporeal projection, I lean towards stoicism.  Persuasion and mercantile are personal preferences.