Pre-RambleI adore shotguns, so much so that I can no longer use any other firearm type without near immediately giving up in disgust.
I've tried out using shotguns in many, many ways by now and finally have rested on the one that dominates the hardest.
Making a Dex Versatility shotgun build started out as a joke, but it turns out that the joke was on me for thinking it would be silly.
Here it is, in its janky glory:
https://underrail.info/build/?HgUQCgMDAwYUwqAAwqDCoMKgPAAXAABkZAAZZAAAADcAAEsvGcKjwrAWUVjDk14rPkfChyROwrN2J-KgigLiqLsD4rWuBeK3sAXfvwUltimate Gear U Need- Seeker/Motion Tracking NV Goggles: NV improves throwing knife accuracy in the dark
- Your Shield of Choice
- Infused Rathound/Pig Leather armour: Pig for not being squishy, Rathound for crits.
Bear in mind that crit rate of throwing knives is not affected by Rathound leather, so tanking may be the superior option.
- Tactical Short Vindicator: Obviously
- Knife Thrower's Glove
- Commando Belt
- Infused Greater Siphoner/Bison tabi: For dodgevasion and resisting kneecap shots or extra health and fortitude, depending on which you choose.
- Throwing knives
- Throwing nets
- Frags/incendiaries
- Taser
Why It's Good- You start off with 10 Agi, 10 Dex and pump 8 more points into Dex for a final initiative of 33, the highest base initiative possible.
Most enemies will be eating your dust throughout the game.
- Throwing knives are very powerful in their own right and compensate for the lack of range of a shotgun nicely.
Shotgun blasts often deal huge amounts of damage, annoyingly leaving enemies with a sliver of health that a follow-up blast would be wasted on.
Finishing them off with a throwing knife is an AP-efficient way of getting rid of them, and Fatal Throw is a bonus on top of this.
Pinning enemies to the floor can make holding choke points a walk in the park.
Pinning enemies can also be used to isolate them from groups and take them down silently without arousing suspicion, which is a great boon for a build that relies on a very noisy primary weapon.
- The drawbacks of Versatility (low accuracy, low damage early-midgame) can be mitigated quite readily.
There are no good belts for shotguns, so use of the Commando belt will give a nice boost to both your shooting and throwing prowess without taking the place of a belt that could be integral to the build.
High Throwing skill, Grenadier and Three Pointer allow you to cheese with grenades; dealing massive, reliable damage when you're still ramping up your shotgun's power.
You can also entangle enemies with throwing nets and pin enemies with throwing knives, removing their evasion and turning them into helpless fodder for your shotgun that would otherwise have little hope of hitting them.
Any turn where they're not rooted is an open invitation for a taser to the face, such that most enemies - except the spawn of Satan known as Greater Coil Spiders - can be neutered indefinitely with a bit of luck, allowing you to pump shell after shell into them at your leisure.
Cucking Carnifex in this manner was one of the highlights of the build.
Leading Shot is also available, though with the aforementioned ways of negating enemy evasion, I consider it to be a waste of a feat that becomes mostly irrelevant in the latter stages of the game.
- With a Knife Thrower's Glove, throwing a knife costs 7 AP at 18 Dex. Killing an enemy with that knife rewards 27 AP via Fatal Throw, for a net gain of 20 AP.
Blitz grants up to 20 AP
Psycho-Temporal Contraction grants 20 AP
Adrenaline grants 20 AP
Carrying over AP from a previous turn grants up to 10 AP
What does this mean? At endgame, with this build, one can have so much AP in a round that one can empty a fully loaded tactical Vindicator before running out of moves.
As far as I am aware, this is the only build that will allow such a feat, and it's not even that difficult to pull off.
Repositioning in between shots, vital for effective shotgun use, is trivialized by having the Hit and Run Feat.
This build, past a certain point, can stroll up to most any group of enemies excluding large encounters, win initiative every time, wipe them out like a crazed pinball and continue on its merry way without having to worry about ridiculous concepts like "surviving an enemy turn".
If push comes to shove though, high dodge and evasion will leave you in good stead, though Con is unfortunately lacking somewhat, an unavoidable annoyance and one of only two downsides of the build in my opinion.
- The only other downside is the fact that the Knife Thrower's Glove is not a viable weapon, though high melee skill and Dex will allow you to take down a rathound or other small fry with relative ease.
That being said, it's no match for having a second shotgun on hand. You'll have to make use of your extra AP from all of the boosts available to reload and swap shell types as necessary where otherwise you might have just switched shotgun.
Additional VerbiageI choose Quick Pockets and Pack Rathound, both of which are kind of looked down on.
However, considering the rate at which this build burns through throwing knives, the use it gets out of throwing nets, grenades and a taser and use of the 3-slotted Commando belt, Quick Pockets is a no-brainer.
Pack Rathound's utility is more debatable, but those knives are heavy, 5 Str ain't much, and by the time it becomes a considerable Feat option, you will be overpowered enough.
The QoL is just nice to have at the end of the game.
Speaking of the end of the game, Tchort got absolutely wailed on whilst his minions were held at bay behind a wall of napalm and other minions pinned to the ground with throwing knives.
I've never had an easier time taking that meatball out.
A video of the build in use, taking down a few cans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEaGRxSzf_U
