Hard difficulty Veteran struggling to move on to Dominating

[haze1103]

I've beaten the game 3 times on Hard, and I've had a few other builds reach post level 18 without necessarily completing the playthrough. I'm pretty familiar with the tools of the game.

But any time I try to move on to Dominating, I can't make it through the beetles to Newton. I struggle to beat even one in 1v1, and anything more has me down in one round, even with 5 con and no psionics.

I get that lots of newbies make that kind of complaints about Easy/Normal, and that they're wrong and just need to get good. But I can't for the life of me figure out how I'm meant to adapt my play to Dominating. Hard for me is a walk in the park the entire game at this point, hence why I feel like I should upgrade.

Right now, I wanted to play stealth versatile crossbow/throwing/traps. Probably not a build terribly adapted to beetles, but I figured throwing and traps can probably get through everything somehow, right?
It just feels like every fight is a reload fest until the AI decides to do something silly like melee to death instead of pulling back.
Am I expected to bear trap and caltrop every fight at this point, and not save any money? Or am I just using a build that's too slow for Dominating? Like, I could take the red pill and do Temporal Distortion kiting instead. I just feel a non-psionics build should be viable somehow

[Gwadb]

I feel like most builds on dominating are going to devolve into traps/grenade spam to get through the early hurdles, crossbows in particularly are going to struggle with the beetles pretty heavily.
I find that once I'm past depot A and my build is decent enough, I eventually become less and less reliant on solving encounters with explosives. That being said I've never done Dominating without at least a little psi (Temporal too good on everyone), but I'm sure it's possible. Do note that with crossbows you'll probably still have to spam consumables in the late game, elemental bolts are pretty critical to doing damage to anything with armor.

[Tytyger]

use traps, caltops, throwing to deal with this.You can also net them and cut distance so they nibble you instead of casting

[haze1103]

I've considered going TM, but I'm not sure if it's as dead-brain good as it was on launch. Don't most buffs scale with TM skill now, so you can't just leave it at 70 with 3 will?
Maybe I'm overreacting, I haven't taken the time to try it

[ShoggothWhisperer]

I've beaten the game 3 times on Hard, and I've had a few other builds reach post level 18 without necessarily completing the playthrough. I'm pretty familiar with the tools of the game.

But any time I try to move on to Dominating, I can't make it through the beetles to Newton. I struggle to beat even one in 1v1, and anything more has me down in one round, even with 5 con and no psionics.

I get that lots of newbies make that kind of complaints about Easy/Normal, and that they're wrong and just need to get good. But I can't for the life of me figure out how I'm meant to adapt my play to Dominating. Hard for me is a walk in the park the entire game at this point, hence why I feel like I should upgrade.

Right now, I wanted to play stealth versatile crossbow/throwing/traps. Probably not a build terribly adapted to beetles, but I figured throwing and traps can probably get through everything somehow, right?
It just feels like every fight is a reload fest until the AI decides to do something silly like melee to death instead of pulling back.
Am I expected to bear trap and caltrop every fight at this point, and not save any money? Or am I just using a build that's too slow for Dominating? Like, I could take the red pill and do Temporal Distortion kiting instead. I just feel a non-psionics build should be viable somehow

The Find Newton Quest is a bit of an outlier when it comes to difficulty, so almost every build has to cheese it in one way or another. The best way to do it is with Stealth, Molotovs, and abusing the doors. After killing the first solitary beetle, stealth next to the doors, throw a grenade, and then shut the doors . This will cause all of the psi beetles to wander near the doors to investigate, bunching them up, and they lack the ability to open the doors. Then, enter stealth mode, and keep spamming end combat and end turn until you escape combat. Now quicksave, open the doors, wait 4 seconds for AP to refill, enter combat, throw a molotov, and shut the doors. Repeat this process until all the beetles are dead. Alternatively, if you don't care about Newton, shut the doors, kill the lone psi beetle, and throw a grenade in the corner of the room closest to Newton. The psi beetles will wander over to him and kill him, allowing you to turn in the quest saying that he died.

[harperfan7]

The one thing you need to handle the beetles is quintons stack of 5 mollies.  That's it.  Get them clumped up however you can and throw a molly; your build should handle the rest.

[Kekus Maximus]

You can easily get level 3 (4 on classic XP) before you even go to the outposts. By the time you enter the building with beetles, you will reach level 5. It's possible to kill all of them without bear traps, even without mollies if your weapon of choice is strong enough. I did it a couple times with hammer and spear. Get a shield from Junkyard, craft taser as early as you can, invest at least 2 effective points in throwing for nets, buy 2-3 adrenaline shots, buy a few flashbangs from Gort, possibly a few mkII grenades or mollies, and go dominate them.

>even with 5 con
5 CON is one step away from conlet.

[haze1103]

I've rerolled sledgehammer (with classic xp this time) and I'm having such a great time. Still getting owned by the first 3 beetles in the outpost, but the molly+door trick seems promising.

Let's just hope psi-less leather hammer build won't get boring 10 hours in lol

[haze1103]

Depot A going pretty well so far. I've cleared most of the underground section except for the two turrets in the long room. I'm gonna avoid the map with the two-headed mutant like the plague. I should be able to sneak into the armadillo part barrel at this point.

Here's my current build so far: https://underrail.info/build/?CgoDCAoDAwUAJgA8PDwyAAQAACUPExQlAAAAAAA8FAgkOWNEQS3fvw

Dominating is pretty fun so far! I've not hit any hard blockers since Newton, but I do hit roadblocks all over and have to improvise sources of xp. I hope I'm gonna be able to reach a decent midgame with this build, too bad I can't get Grenadier or Three-pointer to complement it. My options are mostly Pummel out of stealth and bashing hard. Maybe with a low penalty armor like a frog suit I might be able to run a shaded visor or something

[ShoggothWhisperer]

Depot A going pretty well so far. I've cleared most of the underground section except for the two turrets in the long room. I'm gonna avoid the map with the two-headed mutant like the plague. I should be able to sneak into the armadillo part barrel at this point.

Here's my current build so far: https://underrail.info/build/?CgoDCAoDAwUAJgA8PDwyAAQAACUPExQlAAAAAAA8FAgkOWNEQS3fvw

Dominating is pretty fun so far! I've not hit any hard blockers since Newton, but I do hit roadblocks all over and have to improvise sources of xp. I hope I'm gonna be able to reach a decent midgame with this build, too bad I can't get Grenadier or Three-pointer to complement it. My options are mostly Pummel out of stealth and bashing hard. Maybe with a low penalty armor like a frog suit I might be able to run a shaded visor or something

Sounds like you want the warm trapper hat, since it has good heat and cold resistance, increases con and fortitude, and comes with a shaded visor. You can get it right after Depot A from the utility tower dungeon in upper underrail, and it’s not too hard to get if you have armor with decent cold resist. Lemurian security marine armor is the best non crafted option, and you can get it early by meeting the rathound king, buying the jet ski from Tappy in Camp Hawthor, and going to coordinates L2 in the Black Sea and opening up the gate with a strength check. From there the utility tower is pretty simple, just light a fire or throw a Molotov at your feet whenever you need to remove stacks of frigid environment.

[haze1103]

> you can get it early by meeting the rathound king

As a first time Dominating player, I'm kind of scared of the Borrower warriors in the Hathor mines lol. I could probably do them 1v1 with Expose Weakness and an electric hammer, but fighting them with 3-4 burrowers and an army of spawns is probably not gonna work.

Oh wait, I don't need to do the mines to do the kidnapping quest, do I? Alright, then I might just go do that next.

[haze1103]

You know, Dominating seems very front loaded in terms of difficulty. I'm not exactly complaining since I actually like the balance, in that for the first time I'm actually using meds and food to beat some fights (unlike Hard where your normal build clears literally everything), and normal encounters aren't a slog to get through. But I do find it weird how you see Industrial Robots and Azuridae Goliaths before beating Depot A, and by the time you've cleared all the base game that's still the big enemies you encounter.

At least, the 400% boost to bosses is a welcome addition. I thought it would get tedious, but at least my sledgehammer build has no issue clearing them in 2-3 turns regardless.

It's also my first time playing Classic xp, and I find it weird how much easier the level curve is by the endgame. I'm used to being level 24 by the time I've cleared everything but DC and Black Sea, but right now I'm halfway through level 27 and I still have a bunch of content left undone. I might try playing Oddity next time, even if I can't afford to pick any subterfuge skills; not sure you miss out on that much oddities, in the end.

[ShoggothWhisperer]

You know, Dominating seems very front loaded in terms of difficulty. I'm not exactly complaining since I actually like the balance, in that for the first time I'm actually using meds and food to beat some fights (unlike Hard where your normal build clears literally everything), and normal encounters aren't a slog to get through. But I do find it weird how you see Industrial Robots and Azuridae Goliaths before beating Depot A, and by the time you've cleared all the base game that's still the big enemies you encounter.

At least, the 400% boost to bosses is a welcome addition. I thought it would get tedious, but at least my sledgehammer build has no issue clearing them in 2-3 turns regardless.

It's also my first time playing Classic xp, and I find it weird how much easier the level curve is by the endgame. I'm used to being level 24 by the time I've cleared everything but DC and Black Sea, but right now I'm halfway through level 27 and I still have a bunch of content left undone. I might try playing Oddity next time, even if I can't afford to pick any subterfuge skills; not sure you miss out on that much oddities, in the end.

Yeah, Dominating turns early game into mid game and mid game into late game. The extra enemies and stronger enemy variants also leads to a massive xp increase on classic, particularly with high level enemies like greater coil spiders which spawn in huge numbers. It’s perfect for power leveling a build in 2-3 days.

[haze1103]

God dammit the sormirbaeren invasions are kicking my ass (as usual). Seems like I'll have to either 1) figure out the fastest way to activate the naga protector 2) rush upgrading Phil's chip to activate the plasma turret 3) rush the native massacre

Not even sure I'm gonna make it through the 2nd invasion. Let's hope switching from nades to mollies will turn the fight around. As a tanky melee build, what's kicking my ass is mostly the casters, since my only option against their evasion is to wait for it to expire, and their neural overload is the only thing doing me any real damage. I can't really afford to sit back and wait, the crossbows are killing all the Aegis soldiers, including Yahota

[Timevir]

Just a cool trick for this specific section that may work for you:

Close the door immediately and expend some resources just to kill the first beetle when inside the Newton building.

To make this work, you will need a pistol that you can effectively shoot with 10 AP or less. You also ideally need Aimed Shot (can be done without Aimed Shot but expect extremely boring gameplay and way more resources).

Next, when you get to the door, bank 10AP. After this, you can now open, shoot and close the door. Spend another turn to bank. Repeat as much as you like. You will be able to kill all the psi beetles and never get hit. If requested I can post a video doing this.

If you accidentally get out of combat, just reengage, do a door open and close for 50 AP and just repeat the process starting at banking AP. It's a bit finnicky sometimes because I've had the beetles not see me at all when opening and closing the door.