Best builds for Very Hard?

[Bollox]

I'm just about to finish my first run on normal as an Ork Mage and I'm pretty happy with how powerful magic develops by the end game. But I fancy something different for a VH run and was thinking a cyber Troll with Rifles? Has anyone else discovered powerful character builds?

[steelcoresoviet]

The overwhelming reason for a troll would be to make the buy in on the minigun easier.
If you pumped melee at the same time, you'd be a MKIV, in essence.

Sounds like fun.

[Tigris the FUN-gineer]

I used to love the minigun, but I find it lacking with the new combat mechanics. In my opinion having a good decker really smoothes the way in Dragonfall, since a lot of things can be bypassed with a good decker. Combat-wise my decker carries either pistols or SMGs and a rifle.

SMGs new flush is super useful as a support ability (flush enemy for 1AP, hit them with a full auto burst from your rifle for 2AP), and pistols are great as a crowd control weapon. Disarm is fantastic, and hitting three targets at once is also great (or more, if you end up with the Roomsweeper)

But I mean every build is really viable in VH, you just need to have good team synergy. My usual is, Dietrich buffs main character with Haste, Glory with aim. Glory runs in and flanks enemies/disables them by bringing their AP to 0, then main character and Eiger opens up on them with rifles when they're out of cover/flanked/stunned.

[Zobo]

Try a rigger. You can also be a decker/rigger. There's power in 2 drones both having 4 ap. Who can use ventilation channels to hit enemies in the rear.

[Ichthyic]

when does the minigun appear for sale? I'm up to where the attack on my homebase happens, and I haven't seen any weapon upgrades since I did the mission for the guy who sells weapons. that was like... 4 missions ago.

[Brewskin]

The minigun(5k), Ares(5k) and Ranger(3750) all become available after the attack on your neighborhood.

Just finishing a Hard run as an elf rifle/decker, with enough charisma for Corp, Gang and Security etiquettes, and agree that having a good decker toon definitely makes things easier; lots of extra info, cash, and items. Rifles are optimal, best bang for the buck, imo. I ran with Eiger, Dietrich and Blitz, and took decking primarily for the solo jacking opportunities, Blitz jacks in during combats. Doing APEX now, and am fully slotted with bioware , with all of the best gear, so money isn't an issue.

That said, decking is a big investment of karma, and Blitz is fully capable of handling the mission requirements. Investing the points used there into magic instead, or beefing up the Quicknesss related skills is my plan for Very Hard.

Might try a decker with high(6+) charisma, intelligence, wisdom, and strength; should get through most of the side stuff; play support and let the party do the killing.

[Ichthyic]

I went hybrid decker/mage/rifle on this run and it worked out very well. use bioware to boost your quckness and dodge (both legs only cost 1) use the 0 cost bioware head mod (+1 will - 1 int) and the bioware heart mk II, and move your jack to your hand.

leaves 4 essence, which is enough for 5 spell slots once you hit casting 6.

use your casting as debuffs. blind, strip, glue, forgetfulness, and a heal spell.

you should have just enough with bioware and points to get to decking 7 ranged 8 and casting 6.

charisma can only go to 3 though, so you'll have to lose out on a few charisma ops. (most are skill check 3 though).

and strength only goes to 3. No, you're not going to play with vindicator with this build.

but hell, it can handle ANYTHING, and do it solo.

use glue to keep tough enemies from advancing, or running to cover. blind to take out mages and conjurers or grenadiers on your first turn.

stip armor and full auto for everything else.

use glory to flush your pigeons from cover, dietrich to haste, or use jazz.

it works quite well, and covers so many bases.

probably not viable on very hard though; you need specialists to overcome the hit handicaps there.

[Sinocelt]

Mage is best, actually, considering your teammates. But with my Shaman I could basically solo in VH, thanks to stacked barrier spells. The best is still to swap Dietrich's spells for barrier spells, then blast all the enemy trapped in the same small area with AOE spells (as a Mage), but barrier spells in themselves were often enough to kill my opponents. The only fight that makes barrier spells near useless is the last one, and there the Creator Totem allowed me to have two more allies (one I summoned, one Dietrich summoned) and win on my first try.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

The overwhelming reason for a troll would be to make the buy in on the minigun easier.
If you pumped melee at the same time, you'd be a MKIV, in essence.

Sounds like fun.

it did indeed.

i decided to try it out, and built an exact copy of the MKVI (called him Frank) for play from the start (albeit a much lower level than the original, who had like 160 hps!), and am running it through hard mode right now.

Used a save editor to do it. Started with an axe and the vindicator... but with very low ranged score so he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with it at first; took about 4 missions before it even started becoming at all useful.

the cyberware puts him at -3 essence (yes, that's the cyberware that the MKVI was using!).

what that means is that you cannot be targeted by spells. period. you cannot be buffed by your teammates' spells or abilities. you cannot be healed by spells or abilities, only by medpacks.

so, there's a negative.

in fact, essence below 1 (effectively "0" magic) also seems to block you being able to get buffed by your teammates.

also, the cyberware the MKVI was using had negatives to charisma, so you start off pretty damn unpopular.

and... no decking. you're a combat monster, no slots left for decking. no essence left to perform surgery to change an item to a datajack, even if you wanted to. meaning you're stuck with blitz for the duration if you need to hack anything.

postives... you're REALLY FRIGGEN STRONG, starting off at 9 strength! you have fantastic armor (base 5, buck naked), and a lot of hps (80!). close combat is really strong, and your axe looks pretty awesome. The vindicator at the beginning is actually less accurate than your melee, even at point blank range, by 40%. but it sure looks impressive.

bottom line... it's fun, but pretty one dimensional. not gonna pass many speech checks :)

still working on trying to change the model to teh one for MKVI without success, though I did manage to get his portrait right.

EDIT:

Huzzah! finally got the model figured out as well. Now I have an exact copy of the MkVI as my main character. well, minus half the hps and half the quickness and ranged scores, anyway.

even on very hard, the MKVI at full level would roflstomp just about everything unless it's tweaked down a bit. it's actually level 14 when you find it (the original I mean)! I lowered the stats to where it would be if it were about level 4 or 5 when you start. and even then, would recommend hard or very hard.


quite happy. took me a few hours of tweaking to get it right; mainly figuring out how to get it too look exactly like the original.

[steelcoresoviet]

Wow! That's awesome. I did a melee/minigun troll run, but you actually edited the MKVI in!

I don't have much experience with editing models, although I too changed my portrait out. (made a street sam with the bartender's portrait)

You definately gave me some food for thought. Someone skilled with the editor could probably make the model port over correctly, either through adding an item (MKVI armor plate, restricted to trolls) or making a dragonfall with a set PC...

[Incomparable Groan]

You can pretty much go with any build, although you'd be wise to focus your karma. Since your accuracy is greatly reduced in VH, you'll want to make sure that you're doing everything in your power to stack the cards in your favour. Personally I'm really fond of any combination of Rigger or Conjurer, since Drones and Spirits seem to be bullet magnets.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

Wow! That's awesome. I did a melee/minigun troll run, but you actually edited the MKVI in!

I don't have much experience with editing models, although I too changed my portrait out. (made a street sam with the bartender's portrait)

You definately gave me some food for thought. Someone skilled with the editor could probably make the model port over correctly, either through adding an item (MKVI armor plate, restricted to trolls) or making a dragonfall with a set PC...

it turns out it wasn't so much a need to remodel anything, as to find the right code for the model you want to use, and figure out which field it goes in.

I can provide details if you want. It should work for any model that has a full set of animations; so basically any humanoid model that can actually engage in combat should work.