Melee character vs Burrowers

[intensity]

Hi guys,

Been experimenting with some builds and I really enjoyed my melee build until I tried to attack the burrower hives. My high constitution does not seem to effect the way poisoning works in any way, and to avoid being ripped to shreds by the small ones I'm wearing a steel armor, which in turn makes me slow as ass. The adult burrowers love this, as they just snipe me with their 95% poison darts and keep running away while I try to catch up to them and miss them with my puny 81% to hit. Does anyone have any tips towards melee vs burrowers? I managed the hives with difficulty as ranged, but this seems frustrating and near impossible.

[Elhazzared]

Indeed a remember a long discussion about this earlier and I belive that what was generally agreed was that. Never, under any circunstance make a character who is limited to one choice of weapon. You always need to have a backup weapon (and probably some skill on it too). In my case I like Psi and because I like to get my will at 10 it means somewhere must be cuts and usually for the Psi character it goes into the strenght. That way I can still use crossbows which are an awesome utillity tool given the special bolts and not rellying on strenght. It also allows me to use grenades which don't need a strenght value though to be honest I don't invest into throwing cause I just used one, maybe two early game and then used them as expendable mine sweepers XD.

My gun type of guy used throwing as a secondary combat skill so I could throw grenades accuratly and I also crafted the said grenades cause that's how you get the good ones.

So again, always have a secondary combat skill to complement your primary in order to be better prepared to deal with any situation.

Also on a side note for those of you who are playing this version. Have you already search the hive in the GMS compound? Is there anything there now that is worth exploring? I imagine that some oddities have been put there but aside that is there anything worth going in there for aside XP?

[Elhazzared]

Well that is a bit interesting though still a little bit sad not to be given some love for killing the burrowers which (well considering the previous experience) was by far the hardest fight in the game.

[intensity]

Everything is relative to your level but I found the lunatics and other high level goons to be the most challenging if you go at them at around lvl 8.
Especially the friendly lot near the GMS compound with the dogs. I had to lay mines, poison caltrops throw nades and use incendiary bolts and with a bit of luck I managed to take them out.

I want to leave PSI to another content patch so that I can give it a longer whirl, so for now I remade my character (after I noticed he couldn't take cheap shots) and will most likely have them tossing grenades. In the end I did manage to get through the hives, using a strong 22% /7 leather armor. I actually went a lot easier than I originally thought it would.

[Elhazzared]

Yeah those guys are a bit too strong for the area they are in, I totally agree, but if you go at them after the GMS you should be able to take them out fairly easly... Sure they dish out a lot of damage but that's where careful planning comes in, baiting them out where you want and making them take loads of damage... Psi users should aim to use stuns, others should think of grenades and caltrops help quite a lot too.

But the burrowers I think they were a lot harder, the small ones make tons of attacks, little bits of damage end up adding especially with so much attack per enemy, add any criticals which actually hit hard and it's a pain, even more so with the poison one constantly hitting you and stacking dots and more dots... Even the junkyard enemies wre easier by comparison and there are groups that can be quite the pain to deal with if you don't have the possibillity to properly set up for the fight.

[Fenix]

Well, right now I playing Psi-char, so I used a bit of bear traps.
Actually 2 bear traps, that allowed me to not be surrounded by adult Burrower specimens, which leads to premature demise of character with Constitution=3 in 1 or 2 turns.
But first you need to set it up, which may require Stealth.
So Bear traps, or Frag Mine (5 trap skill) is your choice.

[Elhazzared]

My advice, use str3 instead of cons 3. Health pool is always useful... As for the traps... I really don't think them to be that useful but that's my opinion. You'll be better by setting up a wall of caltrops which will hurt them and reduce the movement, then try stunlocking moves.

Only problem with caltrops is that they take a huge time to disapear so you either hurt yourself to walk over them afterwards or you have to give it a good time out after you end up all combats in the immediate vicinity of the entry point.

[Fenix]

My advice - use both Srt 3 and Const 3. )) At 13 lvl - Will 13. Crit ~200 with Neural Overload.

[Elhazzared]

You know you don't need to lower both Str and Con in order to have 13 will at level 13 right? The only reason I only lower my str is to get perception at 7, with snooping that's 10 to spot hidden stuff so it's always going to be a success. I only up my will cause it will do more damage. I still never managed a crit with 200 damage on overload, not even close. 100 something at best.

[Fenix]

You need it, if you want reliable, acceptable skill perfomance, and access to most feat.
My stats are Str 3, Dex 6, Agi 6, Const 3, Int 6, Will 10 at start, Perception 6 (Snooping, Nimble), + Cave Hopper boots\armor (+1 Agi), + Adaptive Goggles (+1 Perception).
Crit around ~200 with Neural Overload, because of 136 Psi skills, Psi Headband that give +24% crit damage, and Cerebral Trauma feat with Locus of Control.

[Fenix]

The only feat I lack in this build - Interloper, is solved simply by +1 to Agi from Perception.

[Elhazzared]

I go for a much simpler approuch which results a lot better for me.

3str, 5dex, 5agi, 5con, 5int, 7per, 10wil.

I don't need access to most feats, I only need access to aimed shot, maybe marksman since shroomhead is useless now and snooping which makes sure I get 10 perception for finding all the screts rooms which means more loot.

I always up will and I always fully invest into my psi skills... The best headband I had gave me +8 to all skills and no crit damage bonus but even if I had +24% crit damage I wouldn't reach 200 damage on that skill... What you skill set helps with is having more crit chance which is alright, but I don't like the trade off because the crits aren't guaranteed anyway, just a little bit more likelly to happen. On the other hand I prefer to have more HP to be able to take a slap or two... This are just different playstyles though as both seam to be reliable... I just find mine more reliable in the sense that I don't depend on getting the crits because I have HP to take a hit or two if needed be.

[Fenix]

When you get full set of Psi powers, you don't need crit, while welcomed.
I was ambushed by 3 gangster, 2 of them were very stealthy, after 1 turn (I started fight) my char was about 10 hp, and I won fight - Locus of Control, Bilocation, Force Wall, adrenaline, ect.

[Elhazzared]

The only thing that ever cut me close were the burrowers at the GMS and that was a whole can of worms to deal with. Then junkyard was hard at points but it was because for some reason my stealth wasn't working properly. I activated it but with the exception of the first or second map I was detected as if I was never in stealth in the first place... Now it could have been that my stealth was too low but actually that was not it because a character with the same stealth values in another run was able to stealth all the times and get proper engagements going so it was some sort of bug that made fights more difficult than it should have been. Still it is a bit tough with quite a few dogs and the mutants. Humans are incredibly easy to deal with once you have locus of control, bilocation and force wall, especially because you stealth into optimal position, throw the bilocation, throw the wall (cause you have enough AP for both) and it's unlikelly any will surive long enough to come to attack you and even if anyone does, you only need to make sure that when the force wall disapears they will still have to waste a bit of movement so they can't attack you. Then you got damage spells to kill them and even if they don't kill them which at this point it's as likelly to happen as a nuclear explosion inside the caves happening, your spells do have utillity stuns to them anyway... At least 2 of them.

Course I never dealth with enemies that could actually use stealth.

[Fenix]

Course I never dealth with enemies that could actually use stealth.

They appear in game later.
Also, later in game there are some tough enemies for psionics.

I also found this bug with stealth  - 1-2 times I was attacked by dog while was in stealth.