Author Topic: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs  (Read 13709 times)

newageofpower

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A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« on: January 03, 2016, 08:05:13 pm »
I see many "Help me!" threads floating around. Most of these builds look unoptimized, or even directionless; they look like wannabe Jacks of All Trades. Jacks of All Trades are harder to play.

I suggest your starting character be an Assault Rifle/Heavy Armor/Crafting build.

>Pros:
-Almost invulnerable at endgame!
-Good damage output vs both multiple targets and single targets!
-Sees very large amount of content in game (due to high Perception, Hacking, Lockpicking)
-Crafted gear is super OP late game

>Cons:
-You never go first unless you manually initiate combat!
-Slow as f***!
-Not a Stealth build!
-Doesn't scale into super OP damage output like optimized Glass builds do.
-Lots of time spent on grinding and repeatedly visiting shops to sell loot & look for superior components!

***Minor Spoilers***

You dump AGI and DEX, spec into 7 STR. Pump INT to 7 so you can take the crafting feats. Start with at least 7CON & 7 PER; IIRC, about 12 Perception combined with boosts allow you to find practically all the secrets in the game; now you have 1 point remaining to do what you wish with; more CON, PER, are decent choices.

It might be tempting to dump WIL but most n00bs will have serious problems in many parts of the game without a decent Resolve score.

Do not take the Psionic pill. It will reduce max HP by 25%! Not worth it for noobs who are not building pure Psi!

On level ups, you will aim for 8 STR maximum, (for Super Steel Metal Armor). If aiming for Thick Skull, get to 10 CON; or 7 WILL if aiming for Stoicism. Dump the rest into Perception. Higher Perception is very powerful!

Skills: Prioritize Guns (duh), Mechanical, then Tailoring, Electronics, Hacking & Lockpicking. If you like different carrier vests, take a few points in Biology (if Regen vest) or Chemistry (if Bio vest) mid-game. Hacking and Lockpicking should not exceed ~120 since advanced haxors and lockpicks can take care of almost all the locks from that level. Pump excess points into whatever else you desire.

Combat Feats: Suppressive Fire, Opportunist, Full Auto, Expertise, Commando are absolute MUST HAVE. Your DPS will suck without them. I very strongly recommend  taking Juggernaut, Conditioning, Concentrated Fire. Also of use (but somewhat less powerful/synergistic in this build than the previous three) is Doctor, Fast Metabolism, possibly Stoicism & Thick Skull... but remember, you have to take Crafting feats too!

Crafting Feats: Armor Sloping, Gun Nut. Consider taking Ballistics & Power Management; but I would rather have Doctor + Fast Metabolism. Ballistics is super powerful early game if you miraculously find decent armor pieces, but somewhat falls off late game. Power Management is very powerful on Shield Emitters, but that's basically the only set of active electronics you are using in this build.

Other Feats: Snooping is very strong for discovery, but otherwise useless. Recommended for a first-play-through.

During the beginning of the game you save up and buy a tactical vest. As you progress into the game you should consider crafting assault rifles (either at or after Junkyard). You should be able to loot a shield emitter & decent riot gear in/at end of the Junkyard. IMHO, do not spend money on crafting metal armor until you have cleared the Foundry.

In combat, you want to position yourself out of range of melee opponents if possible (so they will have to spend 1 turn just moving) and then you mow them down like rows of corn using assault rifle bursts. Use Adren when fighting a large battle, so that you can burst repeatedly in a single turn. Before you get a very high Guns skill, you will probably need single-shot against targets farther away, but once you reach end game you can just burst everything away.

Consider making specialized ammo; sometimes, standard armor piercing is not available and the opponent resists conventional munitions.

Your mid-end game (post Foundry) objective is to gather the following quality materials:

~120 Q: Assault Rifle frame, high frequency modulator (x2), plasma core, high efficiency converter, Insulated Padding, Galvanic Padding, Carrier vest

and

~160Q: Super Steel Plates (4+)

It is difficult to get 4 quality ~160 Super Steel plates. Each super steel plate costs 3000 charons, and you can have the Foundry guy craft 3 plates in an hour. In my experience, 1 in 3 plates is 140+ quality; 36,000+ Charons exceed most player's total income in the game, so spend wisely and save nonstop.

Craft a quality ~120 assault rifle, preferably Hornet, using Rapid Reloader (-20% AP Cost) and Barrel Compensator (+15% burst precision). Combined with Adren + Commando, you can easily burst 3 times in 1 turn!

Once you've done so, use a ~120 quality carrier vest and 4 high quality super steel plates to make an Metal Armor (Insulated vest is easy to get and can often be found in high quality towards end game, Bio Vest is one of the few ways to resist Bio, Regen Vest is very strong on Tank Builds) depending on your preferences. Congratulations! You now have a ridiculous amount of Mechanical, Heat, and Energy resistances!

If you are not a compulsive minmaxer just use the next best plates to make a helmet and boots set.

If you're a compulsive item perfectionist, you will probably have to grind up more charons to turn into more near-perfect plates.

Use either Galvanic or Insulated Padding (depending on what you chose as Carrier Vest Material), ignore soft padding since stealth is not used in this build; if you have high quality plates for every piece of armor you should be around 90% Mechanical & Heat res, 70%+ Energy resist; alongside ~40% Electric and ~20% cold resist. 

Finally, make the Energy Shield. You should have over 1000+ shield capacity and hundreds of Very High and High absorption. With the sheer amount of armor resist you have, you probably don't need to turn on energy shield except when fighting extremely tough opponents (... like masses of Faceless).

Congratulations! Your character can kill most of the bosses in 2 turns or less, can easily handle small squads of enemies, is practically invulnerable to 95% of the game content, and when that's not enough, you turn on your shield generator! The only thing you have to watch out for is Bio damage, some forms of Psi, and Acid attacks.

Have fun.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2016, 08:14:02 pm by newageofpower »

Frank

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2016, 03:50:55 pm »
You just made the build unnecessary grindy. 4+ 160Q plates? Are you insane?
I consider myself a minmaxer and even I wouldn't do that.

A lot of the things in this build seem unnecessary. 8 str 10 con 10 can solve most of the problems in the game. Even with a crappy metal armor and jug you get around 550HP at level 25 on hard  and if you opt for 16 con you get around 850hp. Crafting has severe diminishing returns so the 3 int and junkyard surprises should be enough, and the gimped int is more than offset by the high con.

Wildan

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2016, 05:42:32 pm »
Gun nut is probably the most overrated feat at this point. People will gladly waste whole 4 stat points on intelligence that could've been used in perception, it's crazy. Also Balistics is not the best choice for metal armors. It's much better suited for tactical vests where you can essentially get +9 damage threshold against bullets. Power Management is also not the best choice if your main weapons are firearms.

Imo the only good reason to invest into int on a metal armor build is to get Armor Sloping which can give you low enough armor penalty to use dodge/evade and stealth.
A most noob friendly build would probably be a stealthy sniper/AR guy which also has solid con.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2016, 05:45:38 pm by Wildan »

player1

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2016, 05:55:17 pm »
Noob friendly build should not be focused on crafting. Crafting is for min-maxers, essentially for those who understand game mechanics good enough to make good use of it properly.

Frank

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2016, 07:02:36 pm »
Gun nut is probably the most overrated feat at this point. People will gladly waste whole 4 stat points on intelligence that could've been used in perception, it's crazy. Also Balistics is not the best choice for metal armors. It's much better suited for tactical vests where you can essentially get +9 damage threshold against bullets. Power Management is also not the best choice if your main weapons are firearms.

Imo the only good reason to invest into int on a metal armor build is to get Armor Sloping which can give you low enough armor penalty to use dodge/evade and stealth.
A most noob friendly build would probably be a stealthy sniper/AR guy which also has solid con.
Ballistics is probably the worst crafting feat, that +3 becomes almost nothing very quickly.
Gun nut is definitely not as good as some people think but it's alright. Sometimes it's like going with 8 STR if you want full auto, it's only 1 more point so why not?
Armor sloping is the best crafting feat in the game.

player1

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2016, 07:26:05 pm »
Ballistics is only for builds that prefer vests (+9DT).

Frank

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2016, 07:49:06 pm »
Ballistics is only for builds that prefer vests (+9DT).
Even then it sucks. With higher quality plates that's nothing. Whether you go for a heavy vest or a light one it's a waste IMO.

Leosky

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2016, 07:57:31 pm »
Traps are a bit underrated i think, espcialy for noobs. It allow to control the amount of mobs you get at once and with some trap management, you can even blow mobs in groups.

When traps are placed without management, most of the time, the explosion only hit the first opponent. But if you put a bear trap for exemple just before and the explosion trap, you are sure to hit at least two ennemy. It can be handy for a sniper build to control what get closer.

Power Management is also not the best choice if your main weapons are firearms.

Power Management is good if you rely on energy shield for defense but I agree with you for the other cases.

(sorry for bad english and the double post :x)
« Last Edit: January 04, 2016, 08:00:22 pm by Leosky »

player1

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2016, 08:43:44 pm »
Ballistics is only for builds that prefer vests (+9DT).
Even then it sucks. With higher quality plates that's nothing. Whether you go for a heavy vest or a light one it's a waste IMO.

Power curve is important through the whole playthrough. If something is weak near end of the game, it does not mean it was a bad choice if it helped a lot in first 66% of the game, for example.

In fact, something that only helps near end of the game is usually not great choice for the build.

newageofpower

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2016, 09:53:58 pm »
Bingo. Ballistics is amazing in the first arc of the game, mediocre past that, and awful endgame.

I believe I said that in my opening post. Gun nut is actually quite good if you're going crafting already. Given this build has 3 agility, armor sloping lets you keep a higher amount of the 0 movement points you have; 4 SS plates with a non-heavy (i.e. Galvanic) vest is under 70% encumbrance. Getting 12 plates takes about 4 hours in game; which is about the time it takes from doing the foundry quest to getting q120 parts. Heck, the faceless-foundry quest gave me a q115 (I think) plasma core.

@Frank, Player1

Many Underrail noobs I've spoken to (via the Steam forums) feel insulted by a build with low progression; i.e. simple pure combat build. I've had the same experience with Age of Decadence noobs; few of them wanted to play a simple Block/Weapon tanky dps build.

Crafting builds have good synergy with a mid-tier combat build; this build has no real weaknesses late game and is fairly forgiving due to the high survivability and consistent, flexible DPS. Higher perception is indeed very powerful (as I stated in my guide), however, crafting your own gear is not only strong but fun.

Having goals outside of the questline enhances replayability; and going for q160 build is optional, lol. Not everyone wants to play IndestructoTank ; )

@Leosky

Traps, Crossbows, Throwing Knives and other Special Tactics style builds can be hilariously fun, flexible, and powerful. The problem is that mistakes with these builds can be brutally punishing.

The Heavy Armor/Assault Rifle/Crafting build has few weaknesses and fairly straightforward combat. Hell, once you have Heavy Metal Armor going, you could step in bear traps left and right. At ~90% Mech resist, you ignore both SMG and sniper rifle fire. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another build that can survive as much energy weapons fire .

Leosky

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2016, 02:10:47 am »
@Leosky

Traps, Crossbows, Throwing Knives and other Special Tactics style builds can be hilariously fun, flexible, and powerful. The problem is that mistakes with these builds can be brutally punishing.

The Heavy Armor/Assault Rifle/Crafting build has few weaknesses and fairly straightforward combat. Hell, once you have Heavy Metal Armor going, you could step in bear traps left and right. At ~90% Mech resist, you ignore both SMG and sniper rifle fire. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another build that can survive as much energy weapons fire .

I'm wondering about Heavy Armor. is that it may need a little nerf or other defenses need a buff ? :x

newageofpower

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2016, 02:51:54 am »
@Leosky

Traps, Crossbows, Throwing Knives and other Special Tactics style builds can be hilariously fun, flexible, and powerful. The problem is that mistakes with these builds can be brutally punishing.

The Heavy Armor/Assault Rifle/Crafting build has few weaknesses and fairly straightforward combat. Hell, once you have Heavy Metal Armor going, you could step in bear traps left and right. At ~90% Mech resist, you ignore both SMG and sniper rifle fire. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another build that can survive as much energy weapons fire .

I'm wondering about Heavy Armor. is that it may need a little nerf or other defenses need a buff ? :x

Eh. 4 high quality SS Metal Armor takes hours of grinding to get, and completely obviates evade/dodge/stealth. Other end-game defenses could use a buff, but such buff should come in cost - to get godlike SS Metal Armor, you will burn 36k charons (on average). Getting a Very Good SS Metal Armor is less still going to be at least 18,000 charons.

Meanwhile an all q-120 tacvest/riotgear is not going to exceed 3,000 charons in component cost! A very good Infused Leather gearset >9,000 charons, but only because of supersteel variance and cost; clearly, there is a big disparity in the amount of grinding needed to get very high quality end game gear; a sane player should just get a full high quality TiChrome set with maybe 1 SS plate in the mix, it's not as beastly in terms of raw mitigation, but is still very hard to kill.

Leosky

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #12 on: January 06, 2016, 08:43:27 am »

Eh. 4 high quality SS Metal Armor takes hours of grinding to get, and completely obviates evade/dodge/stealth. Other end-game defenses could use a buff, but such buff should come in cost - to get godlike SS Metal Armor, you will burn 36k charons (on average). Getting a Very Good SS Metal Armor is less still going to be at least 18,000 charons.

Meanwhile an all q-120 tacvest/riotgear is not going to exceed 3,000 charons in component cost! A very good Infused Leather gearset >9,000 charons, but only because of supersteel variance and cost; clearly, there is a big disparity in the amount of grinding needed to get very high quality end game gear; a sane player should just get a full high quality TiChrome set with maybe 1 SS plate in the mix, it's not as beastly in terms of raw mitigation, but is still very hard to kill.

Bheu, all thoses charons just remember me having to do way to much travel between traders :/.

Frank

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2016, 03:19:31 pm »
Ballistics never helps a lot. If you want high bullet defense just make a heavy tactical vest and be done with it. It's a waste of a perk throughout the whole game.

Tygrende

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Re: A response to "Help me threads"; A build for n00bs
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2016, 10:32:27 pm »
Power Management is also not the best choice if your main weapons are firearms.

My 1500-2000 capacity energy shields disagree with you.

While I agree that Gun Nut is not very good, (if it would be 20% more minimal/total damage instead then it would be much better imo) but it's a nice addition to Power Management,  which is fantastic on any build with electronics.

Not to mention 3 INT means you won't be able to craft anything decent before reaching high enough level, basically making you play with underleveled gear for the most of the game. You don't start at level 25, you need to consider how your build performs through the whole game.