Author Topic: Sledgehammer build  (Read 3415 times)

bati

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Sledgehammer build
« on: January 10, 2018, 01:32:42 pm »
As per MirddinEmris' request I'm creating a new thread for the build to see if it's viable for Domination (or anything else :D)

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GQoHBwoDAwYASwDChwAAAF5kAMKHYWFFKGIAAAAAwocACDEZVTkAYx8DVDAWS0Q

This is just a rough outline - again, feats are taken out of order and some I'm not sure about - like Bone Breaker and Yell. Feats I wanted to fit in but couldn't find space - Paranoia, Fast Metabolism. I'd also like to know two things - does Armor Sloping effectively lower the crit dmg bonus from Heavyweight, and two - is the movement bonus from Boot Spring static? Ie, if I have for example 98% armor penalty, am I still going to get flat movement point bonus from boot spring, regardless of penalty? I've only played a heavy armor build once back in Early Access and then never again.

Gear will likely be metal helmet with visor so I can throw flashbangs at my feet, metal armor, lifting belt, metal boots, shock super sledge.

Starting stats are a little problematic, especially since I'd like to get Quick Tinkering asap. I was thinking of dropping Hit and Run to somewhat combat this and have starting stats of 8 str, 6 dex, 6 agi, 10 con, 3 per, 3 will, 4 int. First point would likely go to dex, second two to int, then 2 to str and 1 to agi.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 01:35:59 pm by bati »

MirddinEmris

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2018, 02:57:05 pm »
First big problem: Str is too low, almost any sledg build should aim for 14-16 strength anyway and on dominating difficulty you would loose your biggest advantage of dealing damage in large spikes if you don't have max Str, which is unacceptable on this difficulty.

Second big problem: no stealth. You can't win dominating without stealth. Enemies hit hard and there are lot more of them. Even if at some point you get best super steel armor, psi enemies can still ignore it and there is at least one unavoidable fight with a LOT of them. Without stealth you just die even with all that hp and Thick Skull. You can be a heavy sledg, but you still need stealth and some stealthy clothes to use on such occasions.

Third problem: No Cheap Shot and Expose Weakness. Boi, you are in trouble. Those a must have for any melee characters. First one gives you 50% crit damage and without it your Critical Power feat is absolutely pointless, since you gonna have only base 100% crit damage bonus unless you wield tungsten sledg. Expose Weakness is a must because mechanical damage is the most resistant damage on this game and it's your only way of mitigating this. There are plenty of enemies with heavy mech resist (like bladelings, bots and so on) and you will have a very hard time killing them without this feat.



Small stuff: Bone breaker is mostly pointless. Even on dominating your crits will kill most of the enemies (with critical power and chep shots) or at least leave them with little health, so 25% increase in damage will not be useful 99% of the time. And enemies that have this much health often are immune to this debuff since it works only on targets that have ribs (so, no robots for example). There are exceptions on dominating difficulty where it can be useful, like a couple of human boss characters (Carnifex springs to mind), but it still is a VERY situational feat. Taste for Blood on the other hand is much more useful since you get buff, instead of giving debuff to the enemy, and you get one stack of it for every enemy you kill. In battles with lots of enemies it's not hard to get constant +50% damage buff on your character.

Yell can be actually useful since it's less known effect is getting affected enemies out of stealth. Probably not an intentional effect, but a very useful one, since it has a pretty big radius. You can get crawlers/gaunts/stalkers out of stealth with it much easier than with flares.

No Armor Sloping is a problem, since even with Sprint and Hit and Run (btw gains from Hit and Run are affected by armor penalty iirc) you gonna move like drunk tortoise if you want to get yourself good metal armor.

Here is a character that i finished the game on dominating with, if you want some reference

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GRAGBgYDAwYAAADChwAARmdXADLCgGQAcG4AAABpAFAABg4SJCgtMTk8RUtQVA

P.S. Sorry for misspelling and typos. It's late and i'm slightly drunk and too lazy to check the text twice.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 03:01:21 pm by MirddinEmris »

bati

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2018, 03:44:35 pm »
Good call on Cheap shots, no clue how that one slipped by me. As for crit dmg - I'd get quite a bit from Heavyweight, hence why I took Crit Power too.

As for stealth, I could drop either Throwing or Traps and put them into stealth and carry an extra set of stealth gear with me - but I'd really like to see if combat would work without it.

What makes Expose Weakness that good on a sledge build? I thought that was mostly useful for fast attacking low damage builds (fists, knives) that need to lower the DR threshold to deal any damage. Sledge has a pretty high base damage so that shouldn't be a problem, much like with heavy hitting ranged weapons like crossbows and snipers generally don't struggle with DR, correct?

MirddinEmris

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2018, 03:58:03 pm »
Good call on Cheap shots, no clue how that one slipped by me. As for crit dmg - I'd get quite a bit from Heavyweight, hence why I took Crit Power too.

You can take Cheap Shots as early as lvl 6. Heavyweight is like lvl 20 feat.

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As for stealth, I could drop either Throwing or Traps and put them into stealth and carry an extra set of stealth gear with me - but I'd really like to see if combat would work without it.

It won't.

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What makes Expose Weakness that good on a sledge build? I thought that was mostly useful for fast attacking low damage builds (fists, knives) that need to lower the DR threshold to deal any damage. Sledge has a pretty high base damage so that shouldn't be a problem, much like with heavy hitting ranged weapons like crossbows and snipers generally don't struggle with DR, correct?

Incorrect for several reasons. Threshold is not the problem. Resistance is. There are enemies with as much as 80% mech resist in this game. Bladelings for example have 75% (and immunity to crits by being such fun creatures), now imagine dealing with hordes of those before you can get your hands on super steel armor. Expose Weakness unfortunately does have a cooldown, but it still helps very much. Industrial bots, tin can enemies, most of the stuff from final area, including final boss. List goes on.

Snipers don't have problem with resist because W2C ammo exists. Crosbows actually have a lot of problems with it, but can somewhat go around it by having special bolts that can deal electricity/heat/acid damage (unfortunately their most powerful attack like Aimed Shot and Snipe can only deal mech damage, which is a problem).

bati

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2018, 04:37:25 pm »
You can always gas the bladelings though. I'll try to fit in Expose Weakness, it's been ages since I've been to Deep Caverns and I'm not sure how much things changed since then.

When you say that combat won't work without stealth, what exactly do you mean? Hit and run tactics, simply getting into position or avoiding combat entirely? Because once you're out of stealth the advantage is gone, and other than getting into a good spot and manually initiating combat to get the first hit I'm really not seeing any advantage to being a heavily armored juggernaut (except vs psionics, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it). Assuming of course that both approaches use the same weapon.

Ploluap

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2018, 04:49:43 pm »
Currently playing a knife build on dominating without expose weakness, not missing it too much (i feel weak, but not really for that reason).

Bladelings especially were a non issue, you just have to fight them once and you can prepare like hell for that fight. Also with a 4turn cooldown, expose weakness wouldn't help much against this horde...

Sentries and heavy armored guys are a bigger threat imo.Don't know if that justifies picking expose weakness for a sledge build though.

I'm Potoldski on discord

Fenix

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2018, 05:39:13 pm »
Since you anyway need stealth, let's talk about stealthy sledgehammerer build.  :D

http://underrail.info.tm/build/?GRAGBAMHAwcAAADCh8KCwoLCh0xKAABkZABkZAAAAAAAACg2MS0GEgAMS10kKSYn

This build is flexible - if you don't care about secrets, throw away Snooping (and Perception stats too), also you can throw away Power Management and Skinner, also Pack Rathound is a "quality of life" feat, so you have 4 feats you can change.
If 100 Biology is too much, you can put some skillpoints in Intimidation and get Yell, because his knock-out-of-stealth ability I think work at every skill level right? Or maybe not, whatever.
I  messed up with feat sequence a little, you obviously need to take Opportunist as early as possible.
With Adrenaline, Jumping Bean, Nimble and boxing gloves you will get high dodge and evasion numbers.
Pic shows number with middle quality armor and tabi.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 05:46:39 pm by Fenix »

mattu

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2018, 06:51:34 pm »
I think DOMINATING will be extra-super difficult with 0 stealth--some fights are going to be very challenging if you can't control when they start--but someone will do it and make it work, maybe that's you.

I agree that if you're going sledge you probably want to pump STR.

You noted this already, but I don't see much point in Quick Tinkering for only the tail end of the game. I'd find a way to bring it in earlier or give up on it altogether. It's hella good, but you don't have to have it.

Effective Traps of 169 seems really high, and I doubt you've got the Chemistry (or whatever) to support that level of traps anyway. Be careful not to overspend.

I would take Grenadier earlier. I threw soooo many grenades on DOMINATING, and I was over and over waiting for the cooldown to expire on them. I took Grenadier late on that char, but it was a mistake to wait so long. Very valuable on DOMINATING.

Other little things I'd do differently but these are the things that leap out at me.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 06:57:15 pm by mattu »

MirddinEmris

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2018, 07:25:56 pm »
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When you say that combat won't work without stealth, what exactly do you mean?

Ability to pick the enemies in the area one by one (or by two-three sometimes). Ability to fuck with enemies using traps and noise. Ability to ignore some fights until later while having the ability to pass through that area. It's VERY important on dominating.

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You can always gas the bladelings though.

That was just one of the examples, also the easiest one. There will be plenty of enemies that are much harder, immune to bio and don't leave you room for preparation (especially if you don't have stealth). And if you have no Expose Weakness + pretty low damage for sledghammer build due to having only 10 Str (meaning you lack both skill increase to accuracy and damage, and damage increase from having Str > 8) + no stealth, you can just forget trying to play on Dominating.

Also, you should really use TiChrome setup for 3 strikes per turn.

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Since you anyway need stealth, let's talk about stealthy sledgehammerer build.  :D

Did you finish the dominating difficulty with this build? IIRC you didn't even finish Hard with it.

Leaving aside my usual snide towards you, this is a thread where a guy asks about validity of the build for dominating difficulty, not a thread about quirky fun-builds.

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I would take Grenadier earlier. I threw soooo many grenades on DOMINATING, and I was over and over waiting for the cooldown to expire on them. I took Grenadier late on that char, but it was a mistake to wait so long. Very valuable on DOMINATING.

COME WALK THE PATH OF EXPLOSIONS WITH ME!

Yeah, grenades are almost a must on this difficulty.

TheAverageGortsby

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2018, 09:12:28 pm »
You can't win dominating without stealth.
Oh, I have to disagree.  I've died a few times (three, maybe?), so it's not an Ironman run, but I'm 100% certain that I'm going to win with my zero-defense, zero-stealth character.  It's just going to be a while since I can't pour hours into the game like I could have a while ago.  At the very least, I'm finding DC manageable and for my other character, Tchort was easier than DC.

MirddinEmris

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2018, 09:39:18 pm »
You can't win dominating without stealth.
Oh, I have to disagree.  I've died a few times (three, maybe?), so it's not an Ironman run, but I'm 100% certain that I'm going to win with my zero-defense, zero-stealth character.  It's just going to be a while since I can't pour hours into the game like I could have a while ago.  At the very least, I'm finding DC manageable and for my other character, Tchort was easier than DC.

Are you playing some sort of sledg build?

TheAverageGortsby

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2018, 10:32:49 pm »
Are you playing some sort of sledg build?
Ah, no.  Must have misread your comment, sorry.  I thought you meant in general, Dominating can't be won without stealth.  I'll try a sledge run once I win with the current character, but the current one is psi with traps and grenades.

Fenix

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Re: Sledgehammer build
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2018, 11:50:52 pm »
Did you finish the dominating difficulty with this build? IIRC you didn't even finish Hard with it.

Hard, not Domination. I stopped in Institute, started pistol build. Now I'm doing kungfu martial build.

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not a thread about quirky fun-builds

My build is much more viable then what he supposed, it do damage enough for Domination, good aginst melee.
I cleared moll with it (on old Hard) in stealth, the only open fight happened near barbecue where were 3-4-5 lunatics.
It's a good build.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 12:02:12 am by Fenix »