Starting new character for main +bonus, melee focus, advice needed.

[valium]

okay, this will be my first dedicated melee character. tried in DMS and DF, but always felt lacking, quit halfway through both times. so I am guessing I was just not looking at it from the right perspective.

starting stats: human male
body: 5
cyber: 3
quick: 1
dodge: 1
strength: 4
close combat: 3
intellegence: 3
willpower: 3
qi casting: 2
charisma: 4

my thoughts:
wanted to get a jump on body for early game shenanigans. noticed with my pistolero that quickness and dodge get a bit nerfed on hard. wasnt dodging nearly as much as previous games. but, I plan on getting to 4 quick and dodge around mid game for SOME ability to not die to ranged attacks right out the gate.

plan on using cyber claws, I like the notion of plenty of bleed + ap damage, and it coming from some chrome.

question: does killing hands increase damage with claws, or do cyber weapons straight up not function as unarmed?

plan on getting to 6 str and close combat asap for the combat 6 passive to melee range defense against ranged attacks. with 8 in both in late game for damage and chance to hit. before any chrome or gear additions.

not sure if the intellegence 3 will come into play in any convos, but I dont like the notion of my fearless leader being an idiot.

4 starting charisma is a must. first etiquette being academic, raymond educated me. second etiquette being shadowrunner, left raymond's for some freedom, chose the shadows because of the life I lived as a street rat in the barrons and shadowrunner seems a natural choice.

my characters are always silver tongues, a leader should be able to inspire his team and deal with others effectively with words. so I plan on getting to 6 charisma, new etiquette will probably be corporate. my character will pick up some new tricks to help with his new setting, and dealing with the corporations seems to be a little too frequent for his liking.

now this next part is where I need the help.

does chi strike and chi onslaught work with hand razors?

if so, I plan on getting to 7 or 8 in willpower/chi casting.

if not, I plan on stopping at 5 for stride and martial, and some moderate defense to magic.

sorry for the long post.

I would appreciate some feedback on my questions, or just general suggestions is also welcome.

[OptoNick]

1. You don't want to use hand razors (or any else) cyberware with adept character, because it will reduce your spellbook and general effectiveness of chi spells. Swords or bare hands are the only viable choice.

If you want to play with cyberweapons then get rid of willpower skills and boost yourself with cyberware

2. Melee character (especially cyber-sammy) quite fragile on its own, best way to use it in a fight is along with shaman and/or mage for buffs (armor, movement, dodge etc.), debuffs (strip armor, stun etc.) and barrier spells (to cut down enemies who could harm wide open melee fighter in the field).

3. For you Intelligence will do any good only to up some Biotech points, but it's not very important for adept. High Quickness/Dodge and Body will save you a lot more times.

4. Close Combat is important for cyber-sammy and not so relevant for adept.

[Honzou]

Personally I think if you go a cyber weapon build then invest in enough willpower to get magic resist 1 or whatever the name for the light cover bonus spell it may be counter productive min/max -wise, but shouldn't be too much of a waste.

Personally I ran an RP Cyber weapon build that focused on Cyber weapon and unarmed where mostly Unramred just used shock glove to serve as my auto stun (served me well over using spur stun+feint attack). Just know if you go Cyber weapon you'll be very Tanky cause you'll want to max Body and Cyber weapon.

[dhraiden]

You can have a very nice Cyber Adept this way:

Put at least 3 points in Cyber Affinity for the extra essence, but you're going to have to wait until you can access and afford bioware upgrades - those only cost .3 or .5 on average, vs 1 or 1.3 for conventional cyber augments. DON'T get the worse upgrades first, you never "get back" the deeper essence cost initially spent.

Once you've got your extra point to play with, go ahead and get the arm, leg, and body/skin bioware that adds passive armor, strength, quickness, etc.

that way you get to keep your 6 spell slots. There aren't enough to begin with, but by end game, this is the approach I went with: mystic armor, martial defense 2, pain resistance (I had a dwarf), plus Gobbet's blur and Mage Armor, I was pretty much unkillable. Even losing 1 spell slot is a bummer, because that's another passive (magic resistance or whatever) that you could've equipped.

EDIT: OptoNick, as Hex has said elsewhere, it's, specifically, the sub-paths of Unarmed/Melee that are not necessary for an adept. BUT, you do want to put points in Close Combat. I accidentally was putting points into CC AND Unarmed, and the extra crit % for each additional Unarmed point added wasn't stacking with my Chi-Casting Killing Hands, that gets its own boost built-in.

It wasn't necessarily wasted, however, as I'd equipped a shock glove, cestus, and Blood Calls to Blood, allowing me extra rip-armor and roundhouse kick attacks (the CD is per weapon, so you can Rip Armor with Cestus, then Rip Armor immediately again with a Shock Glove, then Rip Armor a third time etc). If I'd managed to spend more wisely, I could've gotten Disarm, which looks pretty broken if you can get its to-hit % high enough.

If I ever bother with another playthrough (and I'm too annoyed by the EE's bugs and glitches for it be likely), I'd take all the points I mistakenly put into Unarmed, and either use it to up my cyber affinity for an additional, second essence point (total 7), or just straight up put it into quickness/dodge. But even one more essence point means a lot of "bought" upgrades via more bioware.

[Roboplus]

Cyber-Adapts can be badasses, due almost exclusively to the 2 essense you can gain. I went Shock Glove/Hand and it was awe inspiring. Like dhraiden said, those separate cooldowns are incredible. Between 2 Rip Armors (which damage AP), 2 melee Stuns, and a third stun cast as a skill, I could shutdown up to 4 enemies in a single turn.

If you get both essense points, you can get any Cyberweapon (except the whip) and Wired Reflexes and still come out with 6 essense or less.

As a side note, HIGHLY recommend JoltAlert on any melee character. 0 essense cost.

I woudn't think Killing Hands would work on claw Cyberweapons, since they don't use unarmed to calculate anything. I can tell you it DOES work with Shock Hand, though.

Don't know about the Chi abilities working with Cyberweapons, but it shouldn't really matter. You can just bring a sword with you. The lightening attack from the Emperor's Sword made it worth carrying around for the whole game on Gaichu, even after he gets his new sword.

[grasida]

Adepts definitely work best with swords. There's little reason to take qi casting if you're going to use cyber weapons and plain unarmed kinda gets the shaft because of qi focus/onslaught.

I just finished HK and the bonus campaign on hard with a cybered-up shaman adept and it worked really well. Final stats were as follows:
6 Body/Cyberware affinity
6 Quickness (boosted by 2 with cyberware; taken for access to haste 4)/3 Dodge (only taken at the very end, I went elf just because, but if I had gone human, I would have had enough karma for either close combat 8 or melee 5 by the last mission)
11 Strength (boosted to from 9) / 7 Close Combat (very important, you need it to hit and use your best weapons!) / 0 Melee (Not so important, it would have been nice to get 5 melee for cleave, but It wouldn't make a huge difference
1 Intelligence (actually 2, reduced by one by the pain editor as a way to save karma)
7 Willpower / Qi casting (again, actually only 6 will power, boosted by the pain editor)
7 Charisma / 7 Conjuring / 3 Spirit summoning (cobra totem) - Charisma can't be boosted by cyberware for the purposes of dependent skills, so don't bother with tailored pheromones

My cyberware was 2 muscle augmentations for +1 str/quickness, a pain editor and wired reflexes. I'm not sure wired reflexes was worth it, staying at 3 cyberware affinity and taking cyber eyes, or going to six and taking reflex trigger and cyber eyes might have been better. Still, accuracy was never an issue, even with Qi onslaught as long as I had Gobbet buff me and occasionally had Is0bel paint the target with her laser.

The basic idea of the build was maximum AP per turn. With haste 4, wired reflexes, racing fulmination and a couple of kills, jazz and cram it's easily possible to have over 10 AP. High conjuring also gives you Shadow, which is just crazy powerful because it means your whole team gets a free turn at the start of every fight.

[valium]

okay, read through, made my decision.

going with:

7 body
7 cyber
6 quickness
6 dodge
8 strength
7 close combat
6 charisma
3 spirit summoning

I really want to use the cyber claws, so all those points in willpower and chi casting dont seem worth it, and as im now a few missions in, compound attack and the other claw moves more than make up for the lack of the chi attacks, and I can use a cyber leg for the much needed movement boost.

it will be:

straight to 6/6 str/cc for the passive defense boost, then it will be 6/5 on cyber, then 6 in charisma, then 3 in spirit summoning, then 8 str, then 7 cc, then 7/7 body/cyber, then 6/6 in quickness/dodge.

the really late game karma will all go str and cc, but I didnt include them earlier because the points come too late to really matter in the main campaign.

2 weapons will be cyber claw, and shock glove.

not planning on shredding all my essence, would like to keep some of my humanity. but, with the bioware and lack of funds to actually shred my essence to nothing, I think I can get what I need and still have 3 or more essence left.

[Honzou]

Looks like a solid build. I imagine the +3 summoning is for the spirit animal alone, unless ya picked up Dove for the free spirit Control.

Aside from that it looks okay.

[dhraiden]

Nice build. I use the buff of two extra essence points to get bioware wherever, once you can afford it. Adepts don't really spend on weapons, so that's money saved. Then you've got the best of both worlds.

[grasida]

The spirit summoning is definitely worth it. Three spirit summing is six karma, and gets you a lot of nice potential boosts. Cobra totem, for example, is +6% chance to hit +1 damage, which is about what you'd get out of a point of strength. After you have 6 base strength, it's cheaper to get the cobra totem than it is to get more strength if you have the charisma already. Leopard totem is wonderful for melee as well and fish totem is great for anyone who's stacking a lot of dodge (like this build).

[jewfro3000]

Originally posted by grasida:

Adepts definitely work best with swords. There's little reason to take qi casting if you're going to use cyber weapons and plain unarmed kinda gets the shaft because of qi focus/onslaught.

I just finished HK and the bonus campaign on hard with a cybered-up shaman adept and it worked really well. Final stats were as follows:
6 Body/Cyberware affinity
6 Quickness (boosted by 2 with cyberware; taken for access to haste 4)/3 Dodge (only taken at the very end, I went elf just because, but if I had gone human, I would have had enough karma for either close combat 8 or melee 5 by the last mission)
11 Strength (boosted to from 9) / 7 Close Combat (very important, you need it to hit and use your best weapons!) / 0 Melee (Not so important, it would have been nice to get 5 melee for cleave, but It wouldn't make a huge difference
1 Intelligence (actually 2, reduced by one by the pain editor as a way to save karma)
7 Willpower / Qi casting (again, actually only 6 will power, boosted by the pain editor)
7 Charisma / 7 Conjuring / 3 Spirit summoning (cobra totem) - Charisma can't be boosted by cyberware for the purposes of dependent skills, so don't bother with tailored pheromones

My cyberware was 2 muscle augmentations for +1 str/quickness, a pain editor and wired reflexes. I'm not sure wired reflexes was worth it, staying at 3 cyberware affinity and taking cyber eyes, or going to six and taking reflex trigger and cyber eyes might have been better. Still, accuracy was never an issue, even with Qi onslaught as long as I had Gobbet buff me and occasionally had Is0bel paint the target with her laser.

The basic idea of the build was maximum AP per turn. With haste 4, wired reflexes, racing fulmination and a couple of kills, jazz and cram it's easily possible to have over 10 AP. High conjuring also gives you Shadow, which is just crazy powerful because it means your whole team gets a free turn at the start of every fight.

I ran a very similar setup but only went as far as 3 for will so I could have a LOS cure and a armor spell for when I didn't have anything else to do... and the mystic armor of course., wasn't able to find the stride adept power for sale except at the end as a combo way outta my league

[Lampros]

Originally posted by grasida:

Adepts definitely work best with swords. There's little reason to take qi casting if you're going to use cyber weapons and plain unarmed kinda gets the shaft because of qi focus/onslaught.

I just finished HK and the bonus campaign on hard with a cybered-up shaman adept and it worked really well. Final stats were as follows:
6 Body/Cyberware affinity
6 Quickness (boosted by 2 with cyberware; taken for access to haste 4)/3 Dodge (only taken at the very end, I went elf just because, but if I had gone human, I would have had enough karma for either close combat 8 or melee 5 by the last mission)
11 Strength (boosted to from 9) / 7 Close Combat (very important, you need it to hit and use your best weapons!) / 0 Melee (Not so important, it would have been nice to get 5 melee for cleave, but It wouldn't make a huge difference
1 Intelligence (actually 2, reduced by one by the pain editor as a way to save karma)
7 Willpower / Qi casting (again, actually only 6 will power, boosted by the pain editor)
7 Charisma / 7 Conjuring / 3 Spirit summoning (cobra totem) - Charisma can't be boosted by cyberware for the purposes of dependent skills, so don't bother with tailored pheromones

My cyberware was 2 muscle augmentations for +1 str/quickness, a pain editor and wired reflexes. I'm not sure wired reflexes was worth it, staying at 3 cyberware affinity and taking cyber eyes, or going to six and taking reflex trigger and cyber eyes might have been better. Still, accuracy was never an issue, even with Qi onslaught as long as I had Gobbet buff me and occasionally had Is0bel paint the target with her laser.

The basic idea of the build was maximum AP per turn. With haste 4, wired reflexes, racing fulmination and a couple of kills, jazz and cram it's easily possible to have over 10 AP. High conjuring also gives you Shadow, which is just crazy powerful because it means your whole team gets a free turn at the start of every fight.

How is it possible to get both Willpower AND Charisma so high? Did you import a character? I also thought Haste 4 requires Conjuring 8, not 7? Or did that change in HK?

[Lampros]

Also, what is "Cyber"? Is that a new HK Attribute? What does it do?

[frdnwsm]

Two suggestions:

Jolt alert ... no essence cost at all.
Magnetic arm ... makes you immune to grenades of all types.

"cyber" refers to the cybernetic affinity skill, an aspect of body training. At certain levels, it allows you to get one or more pieces of cyberware without losing any essence or spell slots, since it will increase your current essence by one. The first gain comes at level 3 of this skill, which costs you a total of 6 karma to get.

And indeed, hold off on getting any early cyberware. Wait until the better stuff becomes available.

[frdnwsm]

"How is it possible to get both Willpower AND Charisma so high? Did you import a character? I also thought Haste 4 requires Conjuring 8, not 7? Or did that change in HK?"

He's talking about the very end of the extended game, after you thwart the Yama King, after three of the four end game missions are done, and you are running around in Tai Po. At that point, you will have accumulated 240+ karma. You can do a lot with that much karma, and some gear also gives stat/skill boosts as well.

[frdnwsm]

The bit about an AP of 9 or 10 is interesting. I went for a basically uncybered adept (cyber affinity 3 for the magnetic arm), and got some lower level spells so I could buff up people when the situation called for it. This makes my usual AP a comparatively low 5. The high AP build sounds pretty effective, although mine also works fairly decently. I'm guessing that you can race around the battlefield and hit/APstrip 3-4 targets per round?