max STR intimidating sword build (and a little bit of question)

[cypherusuh]

LInk : https://underrail.info/build/?HhAGCQMDAwYATADCoCjCoGRQRAAAZG43NgAAAAAAAMKgTTkmJMKMFgZBwotLUhLCjUTCgcK2MeKfhAHiprgD4qe-BOKyiAXisokC378

First of all, I'm fairly sure this wont be viable for DOMINATING, since its been awhile since I played sword build, and its somewhat rare to find around on its mechanic. And I hate dominating. But I'm sure it should be smooth sailing for Hard and below.
Build explanation:

• It has 0 Tailoring because I want to use Rathound Regalia and switch over to Phantom Dancer FAR away in the future. You can't craft very good tabi, but it's nothing to worry about. Blaine, Free Drones, and JKK guys sold very good Stealth Tabi and Balaclava, so at least there's that. Selling leather armor will be very annoying tho, since you can't recycle them. But you could just not be Al-Fabet. Also, would recommend maxing chemistry first. Frag Grenade MKIII could one-shot almost all the mutated dog, practically cheesing the entire Depot A. MKIV could potentially one-shot the Mutants. Maxing dodge early on is also good.
• There's 40 free skill points, basically your last level thing. You can dump it on Dodge for more Uncanny Dodge trigger. Or you could put it on Trap and swap Grenadier with Quick Tinkering.
• Stealth is our "dump" skill. You can reduce it how many you like as long it has ~100 effectiveness. Tabi, balaclava, and Rathound Regalia is enough to stealth through most encounter. and if its not enough, you can always craft Cloaking Device.

Gears:

• Balaclava
• Random leather armor (could buy Mutated Dog armor from Blaine if lucky) / Rathound Regalia post-Depot A / Phantom Dancer post-Expedition
• Ninja Tabi Boots
• TiChrome Straight Machete | Tungsten Curved Machete with Energy Edge / Red Dragon post-expedition
• Medium+High Shield Emitter
• Doctor Pouch / Utility Belt

You'll want to use TiChrome Straight Machette for tighter damage spread and 5-hit per turn on Adrenaline without Flurry. In some scenario, attacking without flurry is better for less RNG involved. You'll learn that 95% works 50% of the time after few hours playing with sword. Max STR sword build will have less crit chance, so Tungsten is only used mainly for fighting robot / tin cans and hope for the best. It's also fairly expensive to repair electronic-based weaponry.


Now for some question that I can't find the answer :

• Does Fancy Footwork works with Flurry per hit, or only per "attack" command?
• How do you get Monstrous Yell and Tattoo : Drifter?

[ShoggothWhisperer]

I ran a similar build a while ago, here are my thoughts.
1. Decapitate is shit. Maybe killing one weak enemy per combat encounter isn't worth it in my opinion. You should take dirty kick instead, since stun reduces an enemies dodge to zero and makes it easier to gain flurry stacks, along with the normal benefits of stunning an enemy.
2. You are a 3 con build. If your taking damage your likely going to die, so Guard isn't worth it, especially since the block chance is so low. Fancy footwork gives you movement points for each flurry hit, which can allow you to get out of melee range and let you break line of sight on ranged characters.
3. You are  better off lowering agility to 8 and putting the additional point in intelligence. This frees up more skill points in the build without sacrificing any feats. I personally prefer to keep biology and chemistry at 20 effective skill for gas grenades, and pump electronics up to 135 effective skill. This lets you craft MK 3 plasma grenades and high quality shield generators. MK 3 frags are good in depot A but are obsolete immediately afterwards since you can buy MK 4 grenades from Constantine and Frasier.  Mercantile to 150 is also good to sell the reef glider for the maximum amount of Charons.
4. Don't sleep on tailoring. High quality infused rathound leather can give up to 12% crit chance while providing  60+ stealth, and high quality  ninja tabis can provide 45+ bonus mp and additional stealth and dodge/evasion bonuses. The only advantage Phantom Dancer + purchased ninja tabis have over crafted gear is damage threshold against bullets, which doesn't matter on a 3 con build. Additionally, you can craft infused armor after completing kill the beast, while phantom dancer requires you to beat the expedition main quest.

I ran a build like this on dominating and shredded every non-robot encounter, but your build should do fine on dominating.

[cypherusuh]

1. I have a good experience with decapitate since its basically filler power attack when your flurry is down. It's also helps against metal armor dudes. Not 1-shot situation, Ofc. But it could if decap crit.
2. It's actually worth it for additional layer of RNG. 35% isn't that bad in practice. I find that high melee resistance is harder to get for light armored build, since even dual low energy emitter shield still sucks against some knifer / stalkers, while evasion are good enough investment since it protects against ranged and explosive. Dual high shield emitter is also enough to handle AR and below, and able to protect you from off-screen sniper, if not completely evade it
3. This one doesn't really matter much. Higher INT does removed few skill points, which can be used to other things, but the "other things" are very optional imo. Persuasion, trap, pickpocketing, stealth. Bit more agi boost makes your evasion a little bit higher and you could helps bypass some agi check on certain places without going full meta.
4. This is build decision. Balaclava are easy to craft and you'll want rathound regalia for swag and +1 str, it also have good stealth amount. Going all-in just for tabi is huge waste of skill points, which usually means you have mediocre evasion, which ain't even worth to have thanks to weird mechanics that Styg felt still fair to the player. And in a way, max STR sword doesn't really need crit chance, because the base damage itself is already huge. Max DEX sword would want all the crit chance they could have, tho, since high DEX means higher crit chance it's possible to get 95% chance or something that ridiculous.

I honestly don't want to test DOM myself. It's a chore and not fun for me