Help with a spear/shield build

[Crogus]

I'm looking to actually make a spear and shield guy, but trying to look for builds that are semi consistent when it comes to spear/shield is kinda hard.
I want to use Strength since I already beat the game as a DEX man, is this viable for a hard mode run? If not, could you guys give me a viable alternative for a STR spear build?

Here's my original level 1 boy:
https://underrail.info/build/?AQgHAwoDAwYADwAPAAAADw8AAA8PAAAAAAAADw8AAGMI378

I don't have much of a plan for later, so I'd like to be educated on some level.

[ShoggothWhisperer]

https://underrail.info/build/?AQoGBgYDAwYADwAPAAAADw8AAA8PAAAAAAAADw8AAN-_
Something like this would probably work better. At minimum you want 6 dex for cheap shots and 6 agi for sweep, you don’t need much Con since your armor is focused on DT instead of DR. Riot gear, spear, and shield should protect you very well from all melee and any ranged weapon weaker than an AR. Sprint is very good to break line of sight against snipers, and you should use boots with striders or tabis to gain more mp. You could drop int to 5 and raise con to 7 if you want to run juggernaut and a heavier riot armor set, but then you have to give up premed. Spear throw is pretty good, you should aim for about ~120 throwing skill to have 100% accuracy against incapacitated targets at 10 tiles away. Use specialization on shield bash and you can get a 0 ap attack that can daze and proc opportunist. MT could be a decent investment as well so you can Impale+shatter bosses, although this only is really useful on Dominating when bosses have massive hp. As long as you focus on damage and mobility you should be fine.

[ringring]

If you want to do spear and shield, you need iron grip, which is Strength 11.  Assuming you want to get the build off the ground quickly, you should probably take 10 strength and add a point at level 4.  I prefer juggernaut to conditioning, but thick skull is one of the best level 1 slots in the game, probably one of the better feats in the game as well.  Shield Arm ups your block from 30%-45%, and you can take it very early as well.  I'm guessing you want cheap shots and weaponsmith, hence the high int.

I tweaked your build just a little, lowering dex to 5 and int to 5.  If you take str at level 4 and int at level 8, you can take iron grip and cheap shots at those levels.  After that you can put 1 point in aji every 4 levels until you reach level 20, so you can get sweep.  Its a long wait but its probably worth it, though if you wanted to ditch sweep and put your points elsewhere that could work too.  If you don't take weaponsmith or cheap shots, you can dump your int a bit too.

I made a build guide up to level 12, hopefully its what your going for.

https://underrail.info/build/?DAsGBAoDAwYADwBGAAAADw8AAA8PAAAAAAAADw9GAGNVwoLCr8KUBsKTwqvfvw

[ringring]

here is up to level 16.

https://underrail.info/build/?EAsGBAoDAwYADwBaAAAADw8AAA8PAAAAAAAADw9LAGNVwoLCr8KUBsKTwqvCgVLis44B378

from here you could go into throwing and equip throwing knives and become a spear chucker.  or you could go into psi, but if thats the case you might be better off taking some psi feats earlier, depending on how your run plays out.

[ringring]

here is to level 20.  for some reason i had int set to 6 instead of 5, not sure why.

https://underrail.info/build/?FAwGBgoDAwUAbgBuAAAADw8AAA8PAAAAAAAADw9LAGNVwoLCr8KUBsKTwqvCgVLClcKs4rOOAuKzogPfvw

>yell
>dirty kick
>sprint
>opportunist
>grenadier
>shield bash

mostly a bunch of low level feats that synergize well but don't scale as well as if you took them earlier.  Again, cheap shots is a stat bottleneck, most people take it for crit damage but i usually take it for the incapacitate chance.  Without out it you could drop your dex to 5 and your int to 4

[ringring]

Use specialization on shield bash and you can get a 0 ap attack that can daze and proc opportunist.

Daze counts as slow for opportunist?

[ShoggothWhisperer]

Use specialization on shield bash and you can get a 0 ap attack that can daze and proc opportunist.

Daze counts as slow for opportunist?

Yes. Any effect that reduces mp counts for opportunist.

[DieGo]

Hey, I took this build to lvl 22 on hard and it's very consistent: https://underrail.info/build/?HhAGBgUDBAYARADCoAAAAFlVAABgf0NbdQAAAMKgAAB4Jjlhwq8SK8KqwqzCh8KIwpTCgsKrwoYawpPCtnIq4p-EAeKxjAXis44C4ra1AuK2tgPit4oC378

This guy is relatively good at staying alive but he's dead the moment he's stunned or gets incapacitated. Number one enemies are psi users and crossbowers with shock bolts/throwing nets. Snipers can be dangerous if you let them shoot you, but if you use temporal dilation on them it can prevent them from shooting at all. Crawlers can be dealt with caltrops and having their poison availabe is very neat. Meleers with combat gloves and sledgehammers have a chance to stun/incapacitate but they need to reach me to do anything and I just don't let them. Even if they do, I block so much mechanical (melee) damage that I'm not particularly scared.
No throwing spears because I don't really like the concept. Picked Continuum Ripple to experiment with it and I also wanted some cheap ranged AoE. Also I use a shaded visor because it makes bad positioning a bit more forgivable and movement points are at a premium without stealth. Someone talked about having free shield bash and it's really true and you get 2 free shield bashes if you used LTI that same turn. The damage on them is kind of lacking imo but the daze effect is really worth it. Do note that sometimes you need to expose weakness first because if no damage goes through then it's a waste. Having dazed, temp dilation, caltrops, taser, flashbangs, and throwing nets as options means that your enemies have a really hard time getting anywhere and you should always have opportunist. Temporal dilation in particular is very good because it's so reliable and versatile.
Currently finishing up Acid Hunters quest (should've done it way earlier but I got distracted exploring and doing literally everything else). Still haven't done expedition. Still haven't done Free Drones questline, kind of scared of SRO fight but it's probably ok.

Current gear:
-Shaded solid padding steel helmet, or preatorian lawgiver. I made a temporal manipulation headband but never used it.
-A choice between 3 riot shields - one steel shield if I ever need the extra block amount, the other two with psi beetle carapace because spamming PtC and LTI is psi hungry. In terms of vest, one is regenerative, one is galvanic, and one is biohazard. Kevlar cloth is very good when there's bullets involved, otherwise I liked having one with aluminized cloth as an option. All of them have laminated fabric ballisitic panels.
-Kevlar tabis or mutated dog tabis as an option
-Doctor's pouch because I go through many psi bosters mid combat. Alternatively, I have a utility belt and a lifting belt at hand.
-Shock steel spear although I want to upgrade soon. Jacknife in the other hand, which also comes in handy to dispel pseudo-spatial projections.
-For utility, taser, flashbangs, grenades, caltrops, throwing nets, molotovs, toxic gas grenades are all great. The last one was especially good in combination with crawler poison caltrops for the Kill the Beast final encounter. Do take attention to your psi reserves between waves, you can heal and charge battery in combat, but you can't use inhalants at any other time.

Notable hard encounters: Lurkers dog fighting ring, there's a stealthed sniper at the far end, many psi users and a crossbow. I could clear half of the Ironheads but I'm still having trouble with some areas that are very open and I get overwhelmed. Psi beetles are very deadly if they get lots of stacks going, so I have to wait for the group to kind of get all near each other and use a flashbang.
Most of my problems are mainly because I wanted to try having a playthrough without stealth to see what that was like.

Forgot to mention, Carnifex was done in one turn in one try, so that was very gratifying. I usually have to beat him in initiative.