Help with my build

[Shadowraine]

Hi there, I am a new player playing on dominating. It is the first time playing the game so i might not understand the game mechanics, or the reason why i thought this or that is a good idea or not. playing on Oddity mode without grinding for oddities because im too lazy. I have no idea how much talents i can even get or the max level character. Balors hammer 20 strength WTF

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edited build (by switching to test character) :
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After this poor guy was begging me to acknowledge my build was shit, loaded my testing save instead and adjusted things, backtracking areas . so i am probably struggling Greater something Coils at JKK (probably just do it again) warehouse and some lab (always stun you first likely die in the 2nd hit of it anyway) , almost any areas with death stalkers. i wish i knew i was supposed to buy fish from the fisherman xDDDDD starting the gauntlet now

Level 16 Build At the moment

https://underrail.info/build/?EAMGCgMEDAYAHgAAPDwAQUUACwAAAA8AS0ZQQTwAPCsoDsKDFi4aKhw_IUfiorUB378

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-----------------------------------I was thinking of probably adding some of these--------------------------------------
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neural overclocking i suppose its better then nothing
opportunist worthwhile or better with a weapon?
force user extra 2 cooldown turns might help against death stalkers but then again there are like 8 coming at you?
expertise or cooked shot or quick tinkering or just take meditation   seems chem pistol might be okayish as a base weapon
hemopsychosis might make battles faster but might be too risky for dominating
escape artist is this required to play on dominating?
nimble currently 20% penalty but 15% increase sounds very low
thermaldynamicity might be heavy on psi but probably can do 3-4 actions a turn if i have the PSI
rathound pack

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**************Current Equipment***************
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uni-psi headband +38% crit damage or 5% crit chance? carrying gas mask incase
anti thermic galvanic overcoat /7 mech /heat 11 /ele 7, penalty on 20% seems to be one of the only 3 element resistance armor below 25% penalty
lifting belt for +30 weight
pig tabi boots  +1 con or cave hopper +1 agi
bieretta 99 5mm / zc 99 9mm pistol since it has options for w2c rounds :O or maybe acid blob pistol
conservative med frequency shield (i was looking for a very low one in hopes that i dont need melee +100% resistance in the armour (riot gear))

[TheAverageGortsby]

That's a fairly general build.  UnderRail rewards specialization.
7 Will means your psi won't be very strong.
10 Dex means your melee will only be average - and using swords, you're not benfitting from a high-ish Dex so much because swords don't have AP reduction from Dex.  Also, only 40 points in Melee at level 14?  That's never going to work.
7 Agi on a build with no Agi feats and minimal investment in Dodge and Evasion is a waste of both stat and skill points, further hurting your character.
You really need to focus this build.  Better stats to support your main skills, full investment in those skills, and better feats (Hypothermia is pretty poor, as feat go; Recklessness isn't any use for psi so is only barely useful for psi hybrid builds)

Why are you struggling on Depot A but also talking about post-Depot content?  If you haven't cleared the Depot, there's no reason you should be worrying about Carnifex or Coil Spiders or JKK missions.  If you have manged to get into the world without clearing the Depot first, then do the easier stuff in the world before going to the harder stuff.  Foundry is nice because it's only hard until you figure out the trick, then it's easy no matter what your build, what level you are, what gear you have.

Basically, this is a terrible character, and unless you're playing on Easy I wouldn't even recommend you try to recover it.  I'd recommend you just reroll.

If you want to play a primarily psi character, I'd recommend following my psi guide: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=4149.0   If you want to add melee in to that, there's room in my suggested build for that, or you could ask specific questions in that thread if you'd prefer.

If you want to play a psi/heavy melee hybrid, I'd personally recommend something more like perhaps this build: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=5526.0   It's spears, not swords, which I think is a better choice for a psi hybrid build.

If you really want to play a sword build with psi support, there are several threads about that.  Start there and work your way toward something you want to play.

[Shadowraine]

-The melee was because i thought expose weakness did something other then what it said xD read it incorrectly, and since i did not take crafting there was not anywhere interesting to put it (did not decide until that first attribute point came out, of which the pistol seemed to miss more then the knife)
-swords i was just looking at the feats so it seemed like it would do multiple attacks, since knife ones seemed to be more stealth related originally intended to take crippling strike until i noticed living targets only since those sentries were giving me problems since i did not want to waste emp grenades at that point.
-DEX im sure i saw dex gives AP and Ripper needs 10 dex (*reading it again only for light weapons)
-AGi since im playing on NOT easy mode for initiative (if i went energy pistols instead i would have taken 3 initiative talents on a lower AGI)
-intelligence only on 7 because i was thinking of energy weapons, strength only on 5 because i didnt notice that ap reduction was only for light weapons (origionally after i got the first level i recreated the character according to some talents in which the will was on 9 and perception was on 6 using a pistol)
-hypothermia was because i tried to kill carnifex and could not so i tried it with hypothermia thinking his HP would go down then save overwrote after 2 times...
-recklessness was a mistake because i did not read it properly
-the dodge and evasion is only low because i changed armor to 20% penalty and did not know what that meant
-as for PSI i did not look up what skills are available in the game to know which of the 4 are useful in my play style/difficulty level
-Like i said buddy in 2 areas of depot A more then 15+ mutants come at you at the same time (2 areas means quest is complete while exploration is not)
-foundry im basically already doing the beast
-spears i thought about but didnt seem to have anything interesting besides sweep
-perception on 4 was obviously because i did not want to walk in mines every 2 secs playing in fast forward
- After this many hours not particularly interested in starting again

[Crows]

There's a lot of things here that puzzle me:

10 AGI is really high and I don't think it helps you. I assume you put it that high to get Blitz, which gives you at most 15 AP for one turn (less with armor penalty), but didn't take Future Orientation, which makes Psychotemporal Contraction go from 15AP/30MP for 2 turns to 20AP/30MP for 3 turns.

You also have no stealth investment whatsoever, which seems like a huge waste considering 10 AGI is giving you a ~50% bump in the skill. Stealth would also mean that you don't need to take two different initiative feats because you could be the one to start the fight. I'm also not sure why you need so much initiative in the first place.

I'm not sure whether you were trying to use a knife or pistol, but with no points in the respective skills, they are definitely going to miss a ton.

DEX doesn't give AP, it reduces the AP cost of light weapons (pistols, knives, SMGs, fists).

Perception of 4 will not help you find mines. You're better off investing in Traps or getting a nice pair of detection goggles.

Hypothermia will indeed lower Carnifex's HP, but each point of constitution adds like 30 HP at level 30, and Carnifex has something like 2K HP. You won't be getting very far with that.


I guess I can sum up my confusion here in one question: I'm not entirely sure why you decided to play on Dominating before you knew what armor penalty did.

[Shadowraine]

Well the 10 agi that i notice after i took it was a mistake for the only reason i wanted it, seems that i didnt notice the max AP i get is 20 or 18 and the cooldown is like 10 turns, should have just stuck to thermodynamicity... but since its on dominating i assume i can incorporate into dodge and evasion anyway

Psychotempral contradiction (**whoops** i thought it was the same as psycho temporal dilation, i did not read the "TARGET" part but for 75 psi points + psi booster ap sounds taxing)

why i chose melee in previous character was because i didnt try to spam psi boosters so i saw electric knife.

as for stealth im playing on max speed so i thought that likely i need to max it (since dominating), or else it would in IMO really get me killed unnecessarily.

the pistol is more for parts of the game that i cant take the psi booster and since i do not have force user, meditation yet, instead of waiting it out or running. (a 40 percent sounds like a miss every 3 shots to me) the only good thing i saw was that i take it off to have carry weight?? i have not seen any PSi staff or something

the +12 initiative looked like it would give me more of a chance for a flat 36 inititative roll in which most enemy scores i have seen were basically around 34. since i am not bothering to quick save and quick load just to go first especially when its a large group of enemies. so it saves me by not getting the chance to die alot??? (rounded off but mostly ends up me winning initiative rolls, even if i die from failing the next time it i get it)

the dex is now 6 dex (other character in the other reply was 10) updated the sheet since it was when i was forced to use the level ups since i went to dudes quest and needed lockpicking to do it more discreetly.

perception on 4 (this character at the beginning was thought to be made into a future pistol or energy pistol user, of which the previous guy was complaining about generic build when that one was knife/sword + psi) i just thought as an extra it would help against invisible enemies and traps detection.

carnifex i suppose i was underleveled (i tried to kill him at level 12 or 13 i think) the first 2 times i tried (was with the previous character). he is dead in his grave and managed to loot him first time aswell

I vaguely know what armor penalty is (but i did not know how it goes into the roll for example the base-penalty+ armor bonus of effective or effective-penalty) and i vaguely understand that high armour penalty is for CON users since it negates dodge and evasion. when i say i was struggling it did not mean trying more then 5 times. although really had to quicksave at the army base of "dudes quest 2" as i was trying not to kill or trigger alarms.

So out of curiostiy is there any of those talents that i really need?
i am planning on putting more points into Dodge and evasion (maybe stop at base 90 or 100), maybe about 15 or so in mercantile to get more vendors selling more useful stuff (no idea if anything is even useful to buy since i probably only buy grenades and psi boosters recently and once i saw incendiary grenades) traps seems fine for the time being (suppose now i have enough money to grenade them)