Build
https://underrail.info/build/?HgUHBRADAwfCoF8AAB7CoGQAAGQebm5GS24AAAAAAABUYyRhFk7CsMKWU10IKVBiSMKyc-KzrAXit7AF378
Yes, its a 3 PER shotgun build, at level 30 with 160 skill points into guns this build has an effective guns skill of 143. Some underrail veterans must be having a seizure right now.
This build came about as a result of me searching for a build with the least amount of investment, in terms of feats and ability points. For most builds, it is required to push an offensive stat (e.g strength or dexterity for melee weapons, perception for guns and crossbows, will for psi) as high as possible to grant large bonuses to a core offensive skill (melee, guns, crossbows, psi skill, etc.). As offensive skill governs both chance to hit and weapon damage, having a low weapon skill = low chance to hit + low damage even if hit = exponentially more frustrating playing the game.
That is until I saw Leading Shot.
Leading Shot: Your shotgun attacks ignore 65% of target's evasion as long as there are no enemies in melee range to disrupt you.
(Ignores 90% of target's evasion when fully specialized)
I can't understate how much of a game changer Leading Shot is. With only 3 perception and 143 guns skill at level 30, a random passerby with 200 evasion will be breakdown-inducingly hard to hit. With fully specced Leading Shot this drops to 20 evasion, which makes it nigh impossible to miss even with such a low guns skill.
In practice, I've seen my chance to hit jump from 15% to 50% as soon as I got out of enemies' melee range. Its the difference between taking 15 shotgun shells to kill, versus taking just 2, with my tactical short vindicator.
Having low perception and low effective guns skill also results in low shotgun damage, but that can also be mitigated by another feat: Sixth Shell. A fully specced Sixth Shell will grant 20% more damage every shot up to 5 shots, with the 6th shot dealing 300% damage. In practice, the first opening shot is typically very lackluster (at least until the crafting of an end-game shotgun), sometimes going as low as a third of a mob's health bar, but the damage ramps up very quickly, and mobs start dying in 1 to 2 shots even before reaching 5 stacks of Sixth Shell.
So in all, everything that this builds needs is simply:
- 5 strength for equipping shotguns
- 5 dexterity as requirement for Leading Shot
- Leading Shot (5/5 spec points)
- Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points)
- Max out guns skill
Another feat that is sort of mandatory is Escape Artist. The whole build revolves around Leading Shot, which requires no enemies to be present in melee range. If the character gets entangled in the presence of melee enemies, he/she will simply be a sitting duck for the entire entanglement duration, which most likely is a death sentence. This feat is highly recommended to prevent an F9 button press every time the character gets entangled.
With Escape Artist the requirements for this build is bumped up to:
- 5 strength for equipping shotguns
- 7 dexterity for Escape Artist
- 30 dodge for Escape Artist
- Leading Shot (5/5 spec points)
- Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points)
- Max out guns skill
Which still leaves a boatload of ability points and feats to invest into other aspects of your character. You can easily go 18 Agi and be unhittable, go 18 Wil and multiclass a Psion/Shotgunner, go 18 Int and do the max skill point challenge in this thread:
https://stygiansoftware.com/forums/index.php?topic=9633.0, or go 18 Str, carry a large waist pack, get Pack Rathound feat and roleplay as Al Fabet or something. Guess which attribute I went with =P
Buffing Perception Although this character only has 3 PER, it is still advantageous to buff perception through buffs and equipment. The effect of a +3 Perception buff is more strongly felt when perception is low rather than when perception is already high. Refer to the following numbers for weapon damage:
3 per = 143 guns = 200% weapon damage
4 per = 160 guns = 212% weapon damage
5 per = 173 guns = 221% weapon damage
6 per = 187 guns = 231% weapon damage
7 per = 200 guns = 240% weapon damage
8 per = 214 guns = 250% weapon damage
9 per = 227 guns = 259% weapon damage
10 per = 241 guns = 269% weapon damage
11 per = 255 guns = 279% weapon damage
12 per = 268 guns = 288% weapon damage
15 per = 309 guns = 316% weapon damage
18 per = 350 guns = 345% weapon damage
Going from 3 per to 6 per means going from 200% weapon damage to 231% weapon damage = (231%-200%)/200% = 15.5% increase in damage. In contrast, going from 15 per to 18 per only gives (345%-316%)/316% = 9.17% increase in damage. At 3 per, buffs to perception is well-worth it.
And a +3 per buff is very accessible too. Perception goggles, Juice and Mushroom Salad provides +1 perception each, and Juice and Mushroom Salad lasts very long too, meaning this +3 per buff can last for many fights before needing refreshment.
For even more perception, Marsh Honey can provide an addition +2 per, although this +2 per will typically not last longer than one fight. 3 per to 8 per => 25% increase in damage.
My build explanationAttributes
- 5 str – requirement for equipping shotguns
- 7 dex – 5 dex required for Leading Shot, 7 dex required for Escape Artist
- 5 agi – required for sure feet
- 18 con – my favorite stat. No other build gives the luxury of so many extra ability points to pour into my favorite stat, I'll be damned if I don't do it for this build. 18(+2) con at level 30 + bodybuilding feat = 1030 health on hard difficulty, absolutely mind boggling.
- 3 per – the defining feature of this build
- 3 wil – useless, dump stat
- 7 int – for all the crafting feats, especially Power Management for creating powerful shield emitters
Feats
- Leading Shot (5/5 spec points) - Mandatory, explained above
- Sixth Shell (5/5 spec points) - Mandatory, explained above
- Escape artist – almost mandatory, explained above
- Thick Skull – all of my builds have Thick Skull. Getting stunned in this game is a death sentence, and I don't like using bullheads because my fights typically last longer than 3 turns, and crafting them requires fishing.
- Nimble – reduces armor penalty from wearing pig armor
- Sure Step – great QoL feat for fighting mutants and spamming caltrops
- Conditioning – at 18(+2) CON this feat provides a 25% reduction against mechanical, heat and cold damage. This feat is just too good for a 18(+2) CON build.
- Grenadier – I found this feat most useful fighting against the natives in the Black Sea. Among the natives, the Sormirbaeren Sppaeters and Oyetsppaeters are the biggest threats to melee characters, and the Grenadier feat allowed enough cooldown reduction to spam frag grenades to insta-kill these enemies on sight, before they get any chances to cast bilocation.
- Power Management – the most important crafting feat, allows the creation of energy shield emitters with monstrous 2k capacities that can tank entire enemy squads' worth of firepower for a turn or two
- Gun Nut – simply more shotgun damage
- Skinner – results in a slightly better pig armor, I took this mostly to complete the crafting feats collection because I have too many feat points
- Clothier – results in a slightly better pair of tabi boots, I took this mostly to complete the crafting feats collection because I have too many feat points
- Fast Metabolism – the biggest problem with having so much health and being able to tank so much damage is replenishing the lost health after a fight. This is especially tedious on hard difficulty with doubled health hypo cooldowns. This feat helps, if just a bit.
- Survival Instincts – at 30% health this character has more health than a 3 CON build. This feat mostly serves as a flex I guess. Should have replaced this with Doctor to pair up the healing rate increases with Fast Metabolism.
- Increased Constitution – more CON to reach my 18(+2) CON dream
- Bodybuilding – more health to feed into my 18(+2) CON dream
Skills
- 160 (143) guns – the defining feature of this build
- 95 (119) throwing – enough throwing to reach maximum throwing precision
- 30 (48) dodge – for Escape Artist. Goggles reduce dodge by 25%, it'll be quite a waste to invest fully into dodge
- 160 (173) evasion – for explosive damage reduction and ranged hit chance reduction
- 100 (108) stealth – stealth is very useful in Underrail
- 100 (125) pickpocketing – to obtain all the faction oddities in Oddity mode. Also a good source of hypos to replenish the monstrous 1k health pool after combat.
- 30 (48) traps – dump skill, no idea where else to put points in
- 110 (138, 158 with workbench) mechanics – to craft the best shotguns
- 110 (138, 158 with workbench) electronics – to craft the best shield emitters
- 100 (138, 158 with workbench) tailoring – to craft the best armor and footwear
- 70 (108) chemistry – to craft Mark IV grenades. I forgot why I went so high, 69 effective should have been enough
- 75 (119) biology – I entirely forgot why I went so high with biology
- 84 (105) mercantile – to obtain the best crafting components
Equipment
- Weapon – Tactical Short Vindicator
- Everyone says it’s the best, I didn't question it, I didn't use other shotguns for comparison, this weapon shreds and I was happy with it
- Headgear – Adaptive Goggles
- See above section for explanation. I suppose this is the only time in the history of Underrail where Adaptive Goggles is recommended as end game equipment. To be honest, crit Goggles would have been better. If the character uses crit goggles, crit infused rathound armor, Recklessness and focus stims, the damage output of this character would be through the roof. But I did not use any of the crit stuff in my build, so I just went with Adaptive Goggles instead.
- Armor – Padded Infused Pig Leather Overcoat
- I got this for the +1 CON, for my 18(+2) CON dream
- Padded for more health to feed into my 18(+2) CON dream
- Armor – Bison Leather Tabi Boots
- I got this for the +1 CON, for my 18(+2) CON dream
- Belt – Shell Strap Belt
- Shield Emitter – Efficient high/low frequency shield emitter
- High frequency mostly for base underrail, low frequency mostly for expedition
- With high mercantile unlocking the best crafting ingredients, and Power Management feat to increase the capacity of crafted shield emitters, shield emitters with 2k capacities is well within reach.
Build review Played this build on Hard Oddity. I did not expect this build to be so powerful.
The start of the run is pretty brutal though, I did not get persuasion in order to obtain the Shoddy shotgun from Lucas. Instead, I was stuck with pistols and SMGs that, with only 3 PER, barely hit and barely do enough damage. Using 2 turns to kill one rathound with a pistol is an experience I will never forget. Should have taken some persuasion instead.
However, the game suddenly became easy once I reach Junkyard and immediately crafted a short vindicator with foregrip. Depot A turned out surprisingly easy, all mobs died in 2 shots as long as there were no enemies in melee range. All my other builds abused bear traps in Depot A; this character did not use any bear traps, just caltrops.
After Depot A, went to Core City and immediately killed the gangsters there (with the help of some Mark III frag grenades). On all my other builds, the gangsters were too powerful to take on immediately after Depot A, and I would typically finish Hathor Camp, Rail Crossing and pick clean Panacea Lab before attempting to take on the gangsters.
At level 18 I obtained a quality 140+ shotgun frame from Protectorate vendor, and crafted a tactical short vindicator. The resulting damage is 74-301, durability is 2490. From that point on my character turned from having an easy time to just being overpowered. F9 button presses almost became a thing of the past. Of course, the CON and high health pool contributed a lot.
At level 23 I crafted an efficient low frequency shield emitter with 2k capacity and went to genocide the Black Sea natives. It was the easiest time I had. The 2k shield coupled with 700+ max HP meant my character easily survived every encounter, and only had to watch out for Bilocation from the shamans. And even if a shaman managed to cast one Bilocation, I had enough health to tank all hits from a single Doppelganger until it disappeared. Of note, no bear traps were used during the genocide run either.
This build was so powerful that I 3-shotted Magnar on the first try, no F9 needed. For comparison, my level 27 Naked Puncher was having a hell of a time even on Normal, abusing stealth, traps, grenade spam and quickloads against the natives.
I gave up on this build at level 23 due to the sheer boredom of being so overpowered.
