Build advice

[Safavi]

I need some advice on this build I plan to use:

STR: 6, DEX: 7, AGL: 4, CON: 4, PER:7, WILL: 6, INT: 5

Skills that I am focusing on: hacking/lockpicking, persuasion/intimidation, smg's/energy weapons/assault rifles, weaponsmithing and metathermics.

Any advice to a noob? When I first started a game I realized 3 hours in my build wasnt as good as I liked. Im currentily on vacation and wont be able to play underrial again for another 5 to 6 days, so I cant test this current build idea.

Im playing on normal with classic leveling system.

[Karol13]

Hacking and Lockpicking seems like a "must", but when you play NORMAL, you have no need to rely on Odity findings, so what is mostly hidden in locked boxes/lockers is usually $ and that is not the key to victory... I would recommend to invest in those quite few skill points (maybe 1/level ?)
Traps - that is something different, I would totally recommend investing into traps.

Persuasion/Intimidation... some conversations/sitations may end smoother and nicer, but one cannot smooth-talk his way through the game (like in F2), these two may be also overrated.

SMG, Energy Weapons, Assault rifles, that is all "weapons" that makes it easy on each level, max it up :)

havin at least one PSI is always good, I would just focus for the "chain-lightning", which stuns the first target (and works great on robots :D). While later on, most enemies have nice resistance against heat & cold (metathermics)

Low AGI + CON may make you quite vulnerable... maybe you could really consider boosting your TRAPS, not only to disarm them, but also to lay them in way of your enemies. There are also traps that may stun/paralyze the target and you could use the special perk that deals extra damage agains such incapacitated combatants.

your next decision should be about armor: heavy or light? high threshold or extra stealth? with CON 4, I would probably go for the heavy armor :)

[Gambler_Justice]

Your build is very unfocused and you will likely suffer from a lack of killing potential because of it. The key to success in Underrail is to figure out what your general approach to the game is going to be, including what you'll primarily be doing in combat, and then to select feats, skills and attributes that work together for this purpose.
It is highly recommended that you read through the entire list of possible feats to figure out what is available, and then plot your attributes based on the feats you want to use. Any remaining attributes after you've met the minimum requirement for all of your feats should typically be spent to max whichever attribute is related to your primary damage-dealing skill.

Specific problems:
- What does AGI 4 get you? It doesn't unlock any feats, and it doesn't sound like you'll be focusing on any of the agi skills. 10% extra skillpoints to skills that you won't particularly use, isn't worth all that much.

- Similarly, what does CON 4 get you? It doesn't even unlock Conditioning.

Another thing I would like to ask you is, are you certain you want to play on Classic? Oddity is default for a reason. On Classic, if you want to keep up in levels, you need to play the game rather violently, with a hunter's instincts, killing everything you can and specifically seeking out high-level enemies for XP. It can work for a character that is exactly like that, but Oddity is much more general: there's far more oddities in the game than you need to find, and oddities can only be studied a set amount of times with additional similar oddities past that granting zero XP, so the XP difference between someone who finds 100% of all oddities and someone who find 50% of them, is very, very minor. The end result of this is that you don't have to force yourself to do anything on Oddity, you can just play the game and naturally keep up in levels as you explore new areas which will have some oddities available to every single build. If you don't want to complete a specific quest, if killing someone would go against the morality of your character, you don't have to do it just to get XP. You don't even have to take lockpicking/hacking if you don't want to. As long as you're progressing in the game, Oddity gives you good XP. Classic only does so if you have a specific playstyle.

[Safavi]

Originally posted by Karol13:

your next decision should be about armor: heavy or light? high threshold or extra stealth? with CON 4, I would probably go for the heavy armor :)

Heavy armor high threshold definitley, I like absorbing attacks.

I am somewhat hesitant on doing oddity as I tend to focus on combat characters. Are you saying I should raise AGL and CON?

I guess more specifically I want a character that absorbs attacks, does lots of dmg, does hacking/lockpicking, persuasion/indimidation and one psi skill.

[Safavi]

So any specific advice for what I should do for the specific build I want to do?

[Wildan]

Study the Underrail wiki carefully: http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php especially the game mechanics pages.
No offense man, but you're pretty much clueless and Underrail is not a game where you can randomly apply your stats, skills, feats etc and expect to be successful.

[Safavi]

Originally posted by Wildan:

Study the Underrail wiki carefully: http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php especially the game mechanics pages.
No offense man, but you're pretty much clueless and Underrail is not a game where you can randomly apply your stats, skills, feats etc and expect to be successful.

Well yeah I am clueless when it comes ot underrail since im a noob :D

I am more use to Fallout 1/Fallout 2 and wasteland 2 character creation system. I find all the stats to be usefull and unsure to do oddity or classic.

[Gambler_Justice]

Ok, so let's say you want Metathermics, Guns and Metal Armor. Conceptually, this is a pretty good approach to the game. Guns have high anti-individual damage, which combines nicely with Thermodynamic Destabilization and Pyrokinesis for AoE damage. You will also have access to Cold damage, and Cryostasis as a disabling status effect (enemy can't do anything when frozen).

The main function of such a build would be the combination of Thermodynamic Destabilization with an Aimed Shot from a high-crit pistol, or a burst attack from an Assault Rifle. Every time you run into an individual enemy, just gun them down normally. Save 10 AP in case they survive, so that you can freeze them which skips their turn. When you run into a group, cast Thermodynamic Stabilization on one of them, then kill that enemy with guns. When they die, they explode, dealing massive damage to everyone caught in the blast. If said blast kills everyone, great! If it doesn't, they'll almost certainly have lost a lot of HP, so finish them up with Pyrokinesis.

The only exception to this approach is enemies who resist heat/cold/mechanical damage.
I highly recommend crafting for this build. You will use it to craft Metathermic Headbands, Metal Armor and Guns. Crafting Pistols that deal Electric/Energy damage solves the aforementioned problem of enemies who resist your Metathermics heat/cold damage and mechanical damage from Assault Rifles/SMGs.

Here's what your stats might look like:
STR 8. For metal armor, and possibly Full-Auto.
DEX 3
AGI 3
CON 3
PER 10. For various Guns feats and additional damage + accuracy.
WILL 6
INT 7. For more effective skill in crafting, and feats like Gun Nut and Practical Physicist.

Skills are Guns, Metathermics, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, Intimidation, Mechanics, Electronics, Tailoring, Biology. You don't need to max all of these skills, so you will easily have enough points to do 10 skills instead of the minimum of 8. I would recommend leveling Lockpick/Hack/crafting on a need-by basis, enough to use the components you find, and unlock the containers you find. Max Guns, possibly Metathermics too (get at least 50 in it). Put a fair amount of points in Intimidation/Persuasion to hit breakpoints.

Focus on Gun feats, crafting feats related to Guns and armor, and some Psi feats.



I would highly recommend playing on Oddity.
You still get rewarded for killing things on Oddity, since enemies drop items and oddities. The difference between Classic and Oddity is NOT that Classic is for combat characters and Oddity is for non-combat characters. Oddity is for ALL characters, whereas Classic is for combat characters ONLY, and requires a specific playstyle to keep up in XP.

It can be perfectly reasonable to pick Classic, but I would always recommend Oddity to newcomers who are unfamiliar with the game. With Oddity you will get decent XP no matter what you do, no matter what your playstyle is. Classic requires a narrow playstyle, and you need to be good at it.

I have seen too many newcomers who complained about the game being too difficult, because they picked Classic and ended up being level 8 at an area where they would have been level 12 with Oddity. And these were combat characters. Don't pick Classic unless you're certain that it's best for how you want to play the game. Classic requires you to seek out higher-level enemies for XP if you want to keep up in levels.

[Safavi]

@yGrav Thanks for the great advice! This exactily build I was going for and I will follow the great advice! I love the game, its great and I generally have no issue with difficulty. However I dont want to screw myself over 10 hours by realizing I cant get any further.

I was rather unfamiliar with the stats, skills and etc and this first playtrhough on oddity/normal will definitley get me used to the games mechanics and possibley try something diffirent next time. Thanks again!

[Vinnie Mack]

Thanks Grav for explaining the full value of Oddity. I have been using classic because i saw so few oddities around the world. Knowing that kills and tasks cause oddities to spawn decides me for Oddity when i start again (after full release).

[Gambler_Justice]

The real genius of the Oddity system is that for every type of oddity, you can study that type for X amount of times, but the world itself tends to contain something like 4X of that oddity. The end result of this is that there is no way to break the game by getting way too much XP and being so high-level that the game loses all challenge --- and on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's no need to game the system or farm for XP either. You can just play the game anyway you want, and as long as you're progressing naturally and picking up the free oddities in every area (free in the sense of being found in open, unlocked containers), you will be at a reasonable level.

Instead of a situation where someone who picks up 33% of all oddities gets 100 XP and someone who picks up 100% gets 303 XP, the difference will be more like 100 XP vs 130 XP. You are still rewarded for having lockpicking/hacking or killing stuff, both in terms of XP and loot, but there is no build that will result in a completely broken game experience by getting either abnormally low XP, or abnormally high XP.

In most games where you can play a stealth/pacifist build, you either get way too much XP for being sneaky (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, massive XP bonus for non-lethal) or you get way too little (a lot of games make the horrible mistake of technically allowing stealth, but kills are the only way of getting reasonable amounts of XP).

In oddity, whether you're playing as a pacifist or a psychopath, you get a balanced amount of XP, and that's really, really impressive. I've played games with unbalanced, boring or ridiculous XP systems for two decades now, and it's amazing how much better this approach is. This is how XP should work in a videogame: you're kept at a reasonably balanced level, and the way it is done feels sensible, not arbitrary, and you still feel like the things you do in the game are meaningful, and rewarding. The only way to break the game on oddity is to either know where all the oddities are and rush them, or to never open a single container. None of those are going to happen on a player's first playthrough, or to anyone who is playing the game seriously, those containers have some decently valuable loot beyond just oddities.

And if knowing where the oddities are located is a problem, you can just not abuse that knowledge. Free your mind from the shackles of having to worry about XP and just enjoy the game. Play the game however you want to because that is its own reward, you don't even have to complete sidequests if you don't want to, their XP rewards are minor on Oddity, so you should do them only if you're interested in that sub-story, which is the real value of quests --- the only necessity is to make progress and reach new areas, and if you're not exploring new areas in an RPG then you're not playing the game and you don't need extra levels.

[Enor]

Personally for me, you need to do more specializing. Too many thinned out stats that are being useless. Are you planning to focus on smgs/pistols or assault rifles/snipers.

If you use smgs/pistols, i suggest you lower that will score to 3 and get as much dex as you can. It will drastically low your ap to shoot with smgs/pistols. It also allows you to level up traps/throwing to a decent level quite easily. Probably lower strength down quite a bit unless you really want that full auto perk. Not too low because you'll still need to hold quite a bit of ammo for the burst fires. 6 agi is required for the spec ops perk to lower smg burst fire ap cost.

If you plan to go the assault rifle build, 8 strength is needed to get full auto perk. Your dex can take a big hit down to 3 unless you plan to use traps tinkering perk. You'll also need some survivbility, either con or agi. Con for more hp and make good use of heavy armor. Make sure to get conditioning perk if you do this. Agi for stealth/evasion. Dont do both. Just one or the other. Assault rifle builds don't really need any willpower so that can drop down to 3 easily. Perception at 10 and above is required because of the range you'll be shooting at. 7 int is good for any build because crafting is too good.

Sniper builds will rely heavily on stealth for the snipe shot 1 hit kill. This means more agi is better. Strength can be set at 5 to equip the sniper rifles. Agi should be high for good evasion/stealth. High stealth combined with snipe shot is pretty much one shot kill to most mobs in game. It allows you to set up a bear trap ahead of time as well for those melee will charge at you. Just make sure you have a stun/gun or electric pistol in your off hand to handle anything other melees that get too close for comfort. Nets help as well as the tinkering perk for instant free trap. Again 10 and above perception is required.

Like the guy above says. Planning is very important in underrail. Look at the list of feats that you will be getting. Then plan your attribute points around those perks making sure you meet the minimum requirements.

[Karol13]

Originally posted by Stark:

Originally posted by Karol13:

your next decision should be about armor: heavy or light? high threshold or extra stealth? with CON 4, I would probably go for the heavy armor :)

Heavy armor high threshold definitley, I like absorbing attacks.

I am somewhat hesitant on doing oddity as I tend to focus on combat characters. Are you saying I should raise AGL and CON?

I guess more specifically I want a character that absorbs attacks, does lots of dmg, does hacking/lockpicking, persuasion/indimidation and one psi skill.

Let's approach it step by step:
lot's of DMG (I would use GUNS) -> GUNS : PER
Hacking : INT
Lockpicking : DEX
Persusasion / Intimidation : WIL
PSI (any) : WIL

When you will aim for HEAVY, AGI is not your major stat, it improves dodge, evasion, move points, initiative... wearing heavy armor, all of these are quite useless... AGI is great for stealthy shady builds.. you don't really need it
CON : this is something what HEAVY should rely on... even with the strongest armor, there are armor-piercing attack or attacks that just ingore armor... standing in the fight, heavy, hard-slowly-moving... HP is your alpha and omega, of course, CON can be increased on level-ups, but there are quite few STAT increases (1/3 or 1/4 of level? )

apart Lockpicking, also throwing and traps require DEX... flashbang or a good trap may be your friends in tough battles... maybe PER is not that important, as you may go for rifles and make your strategy so that enemies will go in your vicinity... also INT is something not so great for your build...
PER is probably good for finding secrets... I, as a sniper have hight PER and find secrets... they are not so great... mostly the best thing about secrets is the extra XP you get (not if you will play ODITY style)
INT ususally also is used in conversations, but in Underrail it is more about WIL, so you could take one point from PER and maybe one or two from INT and put them into CON (and/or WIL, but PSI abilities usually get stronger very slowly... very slowly)

if you would go for throwing only, DEX would be your main stat, but apart rare grenades (well, I was able to find quite lot and create even more, but they do have that nasty coll-down after being used :( ) and throwing knives ... well... I never thought of them as a strong weapon.

what could also work, could be melee... the difference between melee and ranged (guns) is ususally not that big, a lot of enemies I shoot in melee distance (just because I do more damage with guns than with melee) .. then you would rely on STR and solid sledge hammer also ingores threshold in case of living creatures... not to mention that good HEAVY needs good metal armor helmet, which usually reduces ranged weapons accuracy :(...but not melee weapons accuracy :)

there are some perks that boos HP when you have heavy armor... check the perk list, find those perks and make sure you will meet req. Yep, that advise about learning perks before you create your char is very reasonable. There are perks that change the battles in your favor a lot.