Zoom & Boom: Agile Shotgun, Crushes DOMINATING, Very Fun

[peet]

This build is probably the most fun build I've played, and I've played a few.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUFDQMNAwTCoEgAAMKgwqBQAE8AAFpkDipkAAAAwqAAAD8rKDkkwrDClsKPR8KHSxlBMcKYwoXCpcKkwrXDjOKgigXip5YF4rewBd-_



Highlights

- Insane damage output
- Tons of mobility
- Good survivability
- Win all your init rolls (allows for a different playstyle)
- Min-maxed skills



About the Build

Fun to play
Shotguns are really fun to use. High mobility is fun to work with. Shotguns and high mobility are a great match, because you get to play around with positioning.

In addition, the high initiative lets you consistently win all of your initiative rolls. Sometimes you can do an init ambush type of play style, where you hang around a corner and kill every enemy that goes into view, then go out of combat, then the next enemy walks into view, you kill them, go out of combat, next enemy comes around the corner, and so on.

You also have stealth for a change of pace and for bonus damage later in the game.

Insane and consistent damage
Shotguns actually output pretty consistent damage due to it being averaged across all of the pellets! More pellets = more consistent damage.
They also do an insane amount of damage and are very versatile. You can easily deal with bots or with low armor enemies.

High Survivability
The build's high initiative plays into survivability. Offense is the best defense on DOMINATING, and if you always get the first shot off, you always win.

Additionally you have high evasion and dodge. I consider these skills to be pretty underrated. You can think of them as a multiplier on your shields + hp. By the end of the game if your shield is 1200, your hp is 300, and if your enemy has a 40% chance to hit, you effectively end up with a 3000 shield and 750 hp.

Most mines and grenades don't affect you at all due to evasion.



Quality Of Life

- Your high perception means you detect all mines or most mines without motion tracking goggles.
- Good subterfuge skills (high stealth and lockpicking)
- 80 throw for 90% chance at 4 tiles
- Enough crafting to craft all relevant end game gear
- 135 lockpicking with jkk jacket, jacknife, huxkey, and eel sandwich
- You walk really fast
- You can just wear the large waist pack for the +50 carry capacity most of the time, since you seldom have hard enough encounters that require more than both shotguns worth of shells.



Gear

End Game
- Weapons: 2x Tactical Short Vindicators (saves a reload)
- Armor: Infused Rathound Overcoat or JKK jacket for init
- Belt: Either shell strap belt or doctor's pouch depending on the encounter
- Helmet: Night Vision Seeker Googles
- Boots: Infused hopper tabis
- Shield: Efficient high + high and low + low shields

Early and Mid Game
- Weapons: 2x Tactical Short Vindicators (or best other shotgun frame you can find)
- Armor: Tac vest or siphoner leather armor early game, jkk jacket mid game
- Belt: Either shell strap belt or doctor's pouch
- Helmet: Seeker Googles
- Boots: Best tabis you can find or craft
- Shield: whatever you can find



Crafting and Mercantile

Crafting and mercantile is optimized to require sgs tattoo, hypercerebrix, jon's special, and your home crafting benches. With those items you can hit Constantine's level 2 check, and you can craft with components up to 160 quality. With a boning knife and the other buffs, you can craft hypercerebrix, just need to find your first hypercerebrix.

Tip: Always buy good Vindicator frames, Forward Grips, goggle frames, good seeker lenses, night vision tubes, and good black cloth so you have some handy when you need to craft.



How to Play

For regular encounters, just walk up and blast the enemies. By the way, you always get to go first.

For trickier encounters, you can stealth up to get your 15% blindsiding bonus, position yourself so that you have a couple of enemies in your shotgun's damage cone, kill an enemy to get some MP, pop sprint to get MP above 60, blitz for 20 more AP, contraction for 20 more AP, increment, focus stim and jumping bean if it's a tricky encounter, then when you're out of AP, pop adrenaline and engage stasis.

After stasis, kill some more enemies, moving and shooting, turn on your energy shield and activate precognition (that's why you have 160 Temporal Manupulation), optionally activate uncanny dodge to nullify any risk of melee attacks.

- Eat hardcore chips and pop adrenaline, focus stims and jumping beans as needed. Use root soda for bonus init
- Line up enemies to hit multiple per shot
- Use your mobility to abuse line of sight so you don't get hit
- Get close to low evasion or incapacitated enemies to get that 20% damage bonus
- Kill an enemy, then pop sprint or contraction to get >60 movement points for blitz
- 5 turn bitz and sprint cooldown with specialization and infused hopper tabis (3-4 with Limited Temporal Increment)
- Use precognition to lower enemy hit chance even further
- Pretty much guaranteed 1 turn invulnerability from melee enemies with Uncanny Dodge (>10 attacks by end of game, >13 with adrenaline, more with jumping bean). Use it preemptively to deal with deathstalkers and crawlers

Note:
- Join protectorate for the gun oil (+10% damage)
- Join JKK for the jacket or Praetorian for the ChemHaze grenades.



Leveling Up

- Raise guns, dodge, evasion, and mechanics (till 90) every level.
- Raise stealth every level early on until its around 50
- Get electronics to 20 to craft a taser ASAP, then you can ignore it for a while
- Get tailoring up to ~50 to craft siphoner leather armor before depot A
- Get TM up to 35 for Limited Temporal Increment, then stop leveling till almost done with depot A, at which point you raise it to 55
- Get effective Mercantile up to 25 to unlock level two items from Blaine ASAP
- Raise lockpicking according to the level of the are you are in, 50-60 effective by depot A

Level 10 build: https://underrail.info/build/?CgUFCgMMAwQ8DwAAPDwyAC0AADwUAAA8AAAAIwAADys5KCTCsMKWwo9H378



Early Game

- Use guns and/or Temporal Distortion until you get a shotgun
- Use those 5 molotovs that Quinton sells to help rescue Newton
- Enjoy winning once you craft your first Tactical Short Shotgun
- By depot A, you can shoot 8 shells in 2 turns, and evade/dodge a ton of attacks. Depot A is a breeze.



Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

[Turbodevil]

*Doom music kicks in*

Have you tried using Precognition with all of that evasion/dodge? Enemy chance to hit would drop to almost 10% especially when you are in the shadows (against ranged enemies).

[peet]

*Doom music kicks in*

Have you tried using Precognition with all of that evasion/dodge? Enemy chance to hit would drop to almost 10% especially when you are in the shadows (against ranged enemies).

Yep that's why the build has 160 TM and the 4 spell slots are for precognition, increment, contraction, and stasis. I'll add a "how to play" section once i have a chance.

[l0cus77]

It was tested time ago that cp and fragmentated chaos do not work tohether right? Did they fix it ?

[Pranj]

You said sgs tattoo required. Is there a way to have Booth in your game without checking all the Coral places and reseting?

[peet]

here's an updated build which uses the Beast tattoo, which, after careful consideration, is superior to the SGS tattoo. You end up sacrificing some throwing accuracy.

https://underrail.info/build/?HgUFDQMNAwTCoDoAAMKgwqBQAFEAAFxmECxmAAAAwqAAAEErOSTCsCjClsKPR8KHGUFLMcKFwpjDiMKlwrXCpOKgigXip5YF4rewBd--

you can swap out critical power (it provides a rather small damage boost) for opportunist, but i prefer critical power.

[topas25]

Hey ,could this build be used with grenade launchers instead of grenades to use those throwing points somewhere else like hacking maybe ? str to 6 and lower dex to 4 perhaps? am not sure what would be lost by this change

Uhm would carry one less shotgun I just noticed...ah well nvm will get hacking in another life