Luck or Speed?

[Captain Kirk]

So I am min/maxing my (4) core characters, and I've decided to max Coordination (for APs), Awareness (for Range) and Strength (for Melee and CON). Now that these are all maxed, do you recommend I start buffing Luck or Speed?

[Heau]

depends on more variables than what you provided in your post. Namely your character weapon proficiencies, and on whether you tend to die in combat with some of them on your difficulty setting,

Speed's pretty valuable on melee/brawler. But it's more a defensive than offensive stat. On ranged classes, you usually only care to look for some mobility breakpoints, hardly more.

Intel is probably the stat that will give you the most damage increase on average but it is especially true if the weapon proficiency has some passive crit chance or crit damage increase in the build. E.g. brawler debuff stacks crit so it scales very well with the added crit multiplier from intel. Rifles have guaranteed crit on 2nd shot on same target so again, big crit multiplier, even though the crit chance is slightly wasted, is pretty potent. There are probably other crit synergies I forget.

Charisma is weaker on average but gives you higher frequency controlled burst which may still improve your overall success chances (a different abstraction of min/maxing). Although it's more valuable invested in early. I don't think the exp increase is retroactive.

Luck is maybe a little more on the weak side mostly because the penetration stat can be entirely circumvented by elemental and explosive modifiers for weapons which eventually kick in the late game.

[UnluckyNoob]

1. Charisma. Main stat in the game, you should start with 10.
2. Strength. With less than 10 you'll be one-shotted a lot, at least on max difficulty.
3. Coordination. The more AP the better.
4. Whatever you want. I prefer Intelligence for additional skill points and damage boost.

[ElPrezCBF]

You should optimize more than one attribute for a specific build from the start. Like a melee build would need decent strength, speed and coordination from the start. Snipers need high coordination, awareness and luck. Luck to increase the chance for a free shot if they miss their single shot and for higher crit chance. Coordination, awareness and speed would be important for other shooters, though you may consider buffing up strength a bit for characters fighting at close range to the enemy with pistols and SMGs, though not as much as your melee build.

[Meowella]

Intelligence > Coordination > Luck > Strength/Awareness > Speed

Int offers 20% crit and 1.1 dmg multiplier. When stacked on top of existing crit it can easily be worth tons of damage - not to mention the skill points, which can be put into weird science or toaster repair (for the 25% fire damage perk) as extra damage.

Coord means you get 11 ap instead of 6, which is huge. Very powerful and close to Int in terms of importance, but the skill points from Int tend to push it over the top.

Luck - 10% crit, 10% MEGA crit (triple a crit), 10% for the ap of the action to be refunded (reminder: if you spent 11ap to move and punch for 1ap a lucky action refunds all 11ap. If you know you're going to punch someone, always move and punch in the same action)

Str/Awa - straight damage, bit of hit chance. Decent but nothing special, especially when you consider the fact a Toaster Repair 7/Weird Science 10 Elite Pyro suit wearer with the right perks has about 150% bonus damage already.

Speed - Moving a bit further can be extra damage.. but it's like bottom of the barrel.

I left Charisma out because it's VERY dependent on the weapon used. Some weapons, like a shotgun, rely heavily on a full focus meter to be effective or the stun benefit from brawling fists... but other weapons don't really need to care about it. Big Guns can benefit from it, but ultimately you're more likely to risk friendly fire and just plain overkill if you worry about charisma on these.

Finally, concerning Strength - Strength is only worth worrying about on your Brawler, it's not worth wasting damage points taking it on other characters particuarly. When it comes to spending points you're aiming for about level 25 when finishing (with up to 28 depending on DLC and such), which is 44 points total.

44 total points is 10 in 4 abilities, 2 in one and 1 in the final two. Using CLASSIC system (strength then speed for those not too familiar with the order) I like to go:

So my group would look like: (progression shown from level 1, if no number listed it's taking it all the way to 10)
Sniper - 6/1/1/1/1/10/1 Coord > Luck > Aware > Cha 2
Brawler - 1/1/1/6/1/10/1 Coord > Luck > Str > Cha 2
Auto - 6/1/1/1/1/10/1 Coord > Luck > Aware > Cha 2
Explosives - 1/1/6/1/1/10/1 Coord > Luck > Aware > Cha 2
Big Guns - 6/1/1/1/1/10/1 Coord > Luck > Aware > Cha 2
Shotgun Ldr - 1/1/1/1/1/6/10 Int > Coord > Luck > Aware 2

Notice Strength 1 on lots of them - if you're trying to survive hits, you're wasting a lot of time. Set up better defences, ensure they target your Brawler if need be, Improve surprise use and decoy throwing and ensure that you're not left in a slugfest, because you'll lose.

Also note - Speed 1 on everyone. This is because there are plenty of ways to improve speed. I get a cyber implant on my Brawler for 1.0 speed, on top of the 0.8 from leg armor improvements and the speed benefit from rank 10 brawling. All of this combined means speed just isn't that important when it comes at a cost of survival and damage.

[Captain Kirk]

Thanks for the replies. Right now I have (3) Assault Rifle / Melee builds and (3) Sniper Rifle builds. I will most likely warm up to the environmental damage and explosives due to no regard to armor, but I am still scarred from Wasteland 2 (and Wasteland 1 from before it back in '88 - bought it brand new from the game store). The armor penetration stat made some weapons practically useless in Wasteland 2 once you got to Cali and all the enemies had high armor stats.

Looks like they fixed some of these issues for Wasteland 3.

[Heau]

All elemental mods set weapons to 99 penetration baseline. That would be your end game fix for heavily armored targets in W3.

Energy weapon mods for high armored robots
Fire or frost mods for high armored flesh ennemies
explosive mods to be good against both but slightly less strong against each.

The game really favours specializing in a single weapon proficiency to have a more diverse set of high level secondary skills for RP checks but if your hybrids felt fine then more power to you.

For a rifle/brawler hybrid, I'd definitely go speed. I assume currently you mostly do ranged AR but use your melee or brawl vs enemy melee catching up your front line. Speed would really improve their survivability while also giving them enough mobility to do a run in for a good AoE stun special without wasting almost all their AP on movement. Not a big damage increase but a very big utility increase.

[Captain Kirk]

Originally posted by Heau:

...The game really favours specializing in a single weapon proficiency to have a more diverse set of high level secondary skills for RP checks but if your hybrids felt fine then more power to you...

So of my (4) main characters, (1) does Weird Science, Melee and Assault Rifle, (1) does Mechanics and Explosives, Melee and Assault Rifle (this one is the toughest on point distribution), and (1) does Lockpicks, Hacking and Sniper (secondary Melee). The fourth does Sniper (secondary Melee) and can use remaining points for whatever is needed. My other (2) additional characters handle Weapon and Armor Modding. Right now we are around level 14 and the skill points don't seem to be an issue.

[Heau]

Yeah so you may be missing a few secondaries for RP chat options. It's not gamebreaking by any stretch, they sometimes gate some loot or give you either a non-combat exit to a situation or the initiative in a combat encounter.

If anything it gives you an excuse for subsequent playthroughs. I'm just used to seeing min/maxing threads discuss using mule characters for armor/weapon modding and barter which is frankly an unnecessary hassle, the game isn't difficult enough to require it even on SJ. But it's along those things people do to maximize their RP options and/or maximize their combat damage by lining up multiple damage multipliers on most characters.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Heau:

Yeah so you may be missing a few secondaries for RP chat options. It's not gamebreaking by any stretch, they sometimes gate some loot or give you either a non-combat exit to a situation or the initiative in a combat encounter.

If anything it gives you an excuse for subsequent playthroughs. I'm just used to seeing min/maxing threads discuss using mule characters for armor/weapon modding and barter which is frankly an unnecessary hassle, the game isn't difficult enough to require it even on SJ. But it's along those things people do to maximize their RP options and/or maximize their combat damage by lining up multiple damage multipliers on most characters.

I think min maxing is just for fun. I agree the game isn't difficult enough that you need to do it even on SJ, unless you have permadeath enabled. But if you do that, it becomes too dependent on RNG since even high strength characters seem to be rather brittle if the enemy gets a lucky crit. An extreme example is the racetrack bar fight where the enemy will always get the first shot and your rangers have nowhere else to go but the kill zone. That's when an unlucky RNG hit with permadeath could ruin everything or leave a very bad taste.

[BSNB]

imo, it depends on the difficulty you play at. Normal difficulty it doesn't seem to matter much. I did max out coord on all chars. Aware near or maxed for most ranged units. Leader had max char. Sniper had max int. Healer had max speed.

One thing I'd def do if I were to replay on the harder difficulty is to invest more in strength and speed. It's kinda like xcom where you need to strike first and fast or the tide of battle turns quick.

[Meowella]

When it comes to skills, you may not need to min/max but if you want to here's a good suggestion:

1. SUPER LEVELLERS.
Chars level at different speeds, influenced by charisma and by skill checks. The following skills are great for bonus xp to level chars fast:
Explosives, Sneaky Stuff, Lockpicking, Mechanics and Nerd Stuff
By removing and re-adding the lowest level chars to the group, their level changes to average of the group, meaning when chars reach 2 or 3 levels behind the top, visit Greatski and jiggle chars to get free levels.

2. DAMAGE SKILLS.
Weird Science adds up to 30% damage to energy/fire/cold attacks
Explosives adds up to 50% damage to explosive attacks
Toaster Repair 7 perk adds 25% damage to fire attacks
Animal Whisperer 5 doubles the value of the perk gained from a pet
Sneaky Stuff adds up to 200% damage to surprise attacks (100% from ranks, 100% from level 10 perk).

3. SUPPORT SKILLS.
Barter 3 perk saves you 20% when you buy 2 or more (ammo for example) of the same item at once. But the rest of the time you can make a char with the following skills and just leave them at base to sell/repair there: Barter, Armor Modding, Weapon Modding.
On top of this - Animal Whisperer and Survival and not necessary a lot of the time if you don't want to take them.
Leadership 5 is fantastic for the perk, but it's a personal choice if you bother levelling it more or not.

Because most of your weapons will be turned into energy/fire/cold you can have multiple chars with weird science and toaster repair (if going fire) to get free damage - hence the reason taking some skills isn't necessary as it reduces your damage by doing so.
It's also worth noting Sneaky Stuff and Explosives pair really well because it lets you rocket from the shadows, have them auto crit the person you hit in the centre (explosives perk) and get the bonus damage from stealth with Sneaky Stuff.

[Heau]

I won't be quoting the snippets pertaining to this but I will say:

-The armorsmith(10) perk is actually fantastic for early/midgame survival if you get it early. I prefer it not on a mule as someone who always plays some melee(did 5 brawler+1melee in vanilla before respec feature was added)

-Even with permadeath, optimization to the point of exploiting mules and the burden that comes with it are unnecessary. You can still chain-res and reset the debuffs your way out of the few encounters where you can't get initiative and can get trashed in the opener. And permadeath isn't ironman, you can always reload the fight. Cyborg tech instead of killing the synths for the +2 bleedout turns/crit reduction trinket is pretty much alleviating any permadeath related hassle.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Heau:

I won't be quoting the snippets pertaining to this but I will say:

-The armorsmith(10) perk is actually fantastic for early/midgame survival if you get it early. I prefer it not on a mule as someone who always plays some melee(did 5 brawler+1melee in vanilla before respec feature was added)

-Even with permadeath, optimization to the point of exploiting mules and the burden that comes with it are unnecessary. You can still chain-res and reset the debuffs your way out of the few encounters where you can't get initiative and can get trashed in the opener. And permadeath isn't ironman, you can always reload the fight. Cyborg tech instead of killing the synths for the +2 bleedout turns/crit reduction trinket is pretty much alleviating any permadeath related hassle.

Tbh, I haven't tested the game's limits on how forgiving it is although I've completed SJ. Maybe it wasn't well worded, but I mentioned min-maxing in the context of having fun. Sure, fun is subjective but my idea of it is not having your rangers downed in just one or two shots due to RNG crit randomness regardless of what strategy you play. The reason why that happens is because even high strength characters with armor are susceptible to such randomness. So in a sense, min-maxing is not so much to "win" or even create a challenge but for a smoother and more enjoyable experience. Of course, if your idea of fun is having rangers easily killed due to randomness and unable to reload, go ahead. As for cyborg tech, that sounds a lot like shoehorning players into a certain playstyle if you only want to play permadeath/ironman. Then again, what's the point of playing ironman if characters are so brittle in this game?

[Heau]

For some people, min/maxing is a core element of their fun. I will say that while cyborg tech may feel pigeon holed in a CRPG, it would be a normalized/expected behaviour of the player in a different game setting where you are expected to optimize your build (e.g. MMO PvE).

I can say from experience that if you stack crit resistance to 100% or near it, and max STR/Speed on your front line, and run the armor modding(10) perk, you really won't feel so brittle relative to how the game generally plays out anyway.

It obviously doesn't match some people's expectations of a gun fight game to just tank bullets. I'm just saying I only ever feel weak to high velocity energy weapons like some turrets or a few energy HMG ennemies. I played a game with all 4 characters having clown quirk+cyborg tech + helm mod for crit resistance (all 4 were front line ish brawl/melee/medic no weapon/HMG) and while the medic was very busy, it was almost always only to keep people afloat, not to actually revive them. Only companions needed more frequent revives. I think I can solve my energy weakness with animal 10 from steeltown manbear on one character but I hate pet AI so much I haven't bothered to push it.

I usually stand in melee on scorpitrons and usually survive the burst and heal between enemy turns to give you an example. I don't run in and out for cover. Theorycrafting/figuring out viable tanky builds was extremely fun to me. The crit resistance mechanic is a bit awkward though.

Instead of a flat reduction in damage from crit, it seems to be an RNG chance for a crit to deal 0 damage instead of full damage. So the more you have the less likely extreme outcomes will happen but you are never completely safe until 100% crit resistance which can only be reached with cyborg tech ;).

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Heau:

It obviously doesn't match some people's expectations of a gun fight game to just tank bullets.

That is the crux of the matter. I don't deny that it's possible to tank bullets. What I don't like to see in a game is to have to do it for all characters because every ranger in the team is built differently depending on their role.