Your favourite builds

[Dr. Med. Bullet-time]

Hi there!
I'm somewhat familiar with the game (about 25 hours), and trying to beat it on UV now, which proves to be a higher jump in difficulty than from medium to hard.

I was wondering -- perhaps to steal some ideas for my own runs -- what your favourite builds are. With which class/trait combo did you have the most success, or was most fun to play?

My victories in other difficulties so far have been with sniper and pistol builds if I remember correctly. With hacker and melee builds, I've had no luck so far, i simply die too quickly.

Regards

[Fenix-Venix]

Sharpsooter tech with pistols is easiest to win.
Sniper scout with rifles too.
Melee I think require unhealthy amout of tries.

[Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow]

Here's my four best builds that I have the most success with:

Scout Gunrunner:
Eagle Eye -> Hellrunner -> Hellrunner 2 -> Dash -> Dodgemaster -> Gunrunner -> Gun Hoarder -> Whizkid -> Gunrunner 2 -> whatever -> whatever -> Gunrunner 3

I use whatever is available early game while stocking up on three Accuracy mods. Go to Asterius Breach for the guaranteed good armor and helmet and then pick up a plasma shotgun in Io 1. Get Target Tracking on both armor and helmet and Optimized on the plasma shotgun. combined with a shotgun amp or just the Gunrunner rank 2 bonus range, the plasma shotgun hits for 100% at max range and only takes 25% of a turn if you fire after moving. Any time you see an enemy, fire the shotgun at it and step backwards. It will step towards you and not shoot. Fire and move backwards again. Congrats nothing in the game can touch you and you can do this with any weapon not just the plasma shotgun, the plasma shotgun just benefits the best from the fast firing and auto-reload when moving.

Scout Sniper:
Eagle eye -> Pinpoint -> Pinpoint 2 -> Dash -> Gun Hoarder -> Sniper -> Whizkid -> Whizkid 2 -> Sniper 2 -> whatever -> whatever -> Sniper 3

Stock up on two Bulk mods to put into a plasma rifle as soon as you get one on Io 1. put fast reload on it and then Triggerfinger with whizkid 2. This makes it do 48 base damage per shot. The damage from Sniper mastertrait will take care of the rest. Obliterate every enemy as it enters LOS, but try to make sure they are appearing at vision edge instead of next to you... watch for ambushes.

Technician Entrenchment:
Hunker Down -> Sustained Fire -> whatever -> whatever -> Incoming! -> Entrenchment -> whizkid -> whizkid 2 -> Entrenchment 2 -> whatever -> whatever -> Entrenchment 3

A free flowing build with good defense and a big benefit for auto-weapons by saving their ammo. You can take whizkid earlier if you find a lot of mods you want to use and an early chaingun you'd like to deck out. A suped up chaingun, plasma rifle, or hyperblaster are your best weapons here, but the build is flexibile so you can take traits and weapons as they interest you and still have a solid build base to work with.

Marine Bulletstorm:
Son of a Gun -> Son of a Gun 2 -> Gunslinger -> Gunslinger 2 -> Army Surplus -> Bulletstorm -> whatever -> whatever -> Bulletstorm 2 -> whatever -> whatever -> Bulletstorm 3

Get two plasma pistols, or two 7.62 sidearms, or a mix. Put Longshot 3 and Calibrated on them. I believe this is the strongest pistol build in the game as it just puts out absurd damage. You can take some defensive traits, whizkid, or reloader to shore up whatever weaknesses you are experiencing. Done right this build kills any enemy in two shots. Just watch out for that firing time. Every shot you take is 150% firing time with both Gunslinger 2 and Bulletstorm. so be mindful in a crowd and try to fire from cover.

[Dr. Med. Bullet-time]

Thanks for the responses! I think I'm gonna try Bulletstorm next

[sylph]

My favourite is Technician "Wizard" with toxicologist.
Packrat -> Grenadier -> Hacker -> Hacker2 -> Skilled -> Wizard -> Powerjack -> Toxicologist -> Wizard2 -> Skilled2 -> Whizkid -> Wizard3

1. Take remote hack if necessary, but not too late - bots cease in 'beyond'.
2. You can switch round 'Packrat -> Grenadier' and 'Powerjack -> Toxicologist', and even trade either set out for 'Hunker Down -> Incoming' depending on playstle or 'angel of' challenge.

It's a very different build than most others, but basically it comes down to poisonous gassing biological opponents, hacking mechanical opponents, and using summoned bots and grenades to deal with whatever your wizard skills can't. Towards the end of the game you don't actually do very much shooting at all, and the damage a team of 5+ security bots can put out is more than enough. The hardest part is around mid-Europa, where your drones are too weak to really fight, but there are enough robotic opponents to need more than just poison clouds, and that's why Networker is in this build - it might read like a wasted skill, but it really shores up the build at its weakest point. You can also trade out Packrat+Grenadier to get HunkerDown+Incoming, and you can take Toxicologist right at the start, delaying or forgoing Packrat+Grenadier, but the configuration above has proved best best for ordinary games for me - grenadier does more the earlier you take it, and networker is most needed around characterLevel 7-9.



Other builds I really enjoy are technician "Sharpshooter" with remote hack:
Son of a Gun -> Son of a gun2 -> Headshot -> Hacker -> Hacker2 -> Remote Hack -> Sharpshooter -> Whizkid -> Sharpshooter2 -> Hunker Down -> Incoming -> Sharpshooter3 -> Skilled -> Skilled2
This one is just so satisfying due to the active headshot skill (and it's a real boon in nightmare difficulty for all the gibbing.)

Scout "Executioner" is hard to get going, but it's just *so* much fun when you start bouncing all over the place! It took me a half hour of play before I realised that executioner doesn't require point-blank range!

Marine "Onslaught" (surprisingly powerful - a lot better than you'd think from reading it, but again possibly down to the current AI, which always tries to close the first turn it sees you, letting a hellrunner play damageless).

I'm currently exploring a marine build based on juggler. I *loved* juggler in DoomRL, and I used it lots for my 'standard' nightmare 100% kills playstyle. It's much less powerful in JH, but I'm finding ways to make it work!!

[vic]

Just finished (well, I forgot to take my medicine and let the Summonner kill me) a Wizard Toxicologist run.
I always take Hacker first, not because I'm good at optimizing builds, but because I like the flavor.
Totally enjoyed it. Had Skilled-2, a Smoke-Gen utility and an ENV helmet for Heatvision 6. Pooof! You can shoot them, they cannot shoot you.

[Fenix-Venix]

Everythig is clear about builds on UV - you can make everythink and it will work.

But what about Nightmare?
I already though about scout with Dash as first perk, and tech with toxicology.
I didn't tried it yet cause I have no idea how to survive lvl 2.

Tell me about Nightmare, marines.

[sylph]

Nightmare's main difference is that it gives a huge bump to any builds capable of critical hits. This means scouts using stealth (including 'ghost' master trait), and tech using 'headshot' get a big boost.
In most non-nightmare games, especially many 'angel of' challenges, marines tend to be a really strong class, but in nightmare, I think that scouts and tech overtake marines because of the critting, especially scouts with their tons of ways of cranking up damage with previous turns (stealth, deadly precision etc).
All that being said, it should ultimately be your goal while playing nightmare *not* to try to clear levels by gibbing everything, but instead simply getting the lions share of kills on a level before leaving, and marines are perfectly able to do that.
That said, while playing that 'last dash to the exit' in nightmare, both the tech and the scout's class abilities can really help out, where again the marine kinda lacks utility here!

Build-wise, I'm not best positioned to comment, because most of my nightmare playthroughs have been in attempts to acheive diamond badges which place further restrictions on build and playstyle, but generally I'd just say try to adjust your play style away from clearing levels, and towards trying to find the balance with the best rewards, leaving a level before it gets too taxing with exalted mobs spawning.

Also note that you can kinda set up a 'gore room' with all the corpses from your first handful of kills, and they will not respawn as long as they're in your sight. This lets you take a sort of 2-stage approach to a level, where first you try to kill as many baddies as you can in your room of entrails, then eventually when this awful room is suitably decorated with guts, you set out to explore the rest of the level before your gore room gets up and starts hunting you!

[Fenix-Venix]

So far I coudn'teven clear out 1/3 or 1/4 of the second level and they already start to respawn.

[Dervix]

Nightmare isn't much harder than UV if you're capable of gibbing corpses, gibbing chance is usually overkill/max_hp.
The trick to successfully cross Callisto on Nightmare is learning how to gib soldiers consistently: a revived soldier is a threat, a revived imp is usually just a couple more bullets spent.
Former soldiers have 18 hp and 0 to 2 armor (guards 5), if you can do 36 damage past armor you'll get rid of all the threats.
A shotgun at point-blank will do 34 damage, 70% to 90% chance to gib;
A revolver will have roughly 40% chance to gib and so will a 9mm SMG except it varies a lot with armor;
A spun-up chaingun will gib pratically everything on callisto, but the first 4 rounds won't;
Other weapons will have trouble gibbing anything.

Scout Executioner and Tech Headshot will make gibbing easy. So will Rip and Tear, but melee isn't for everyone.

You'll have trouble gibbing high hp monsters without specific builds/weapons so don't expect to gib anything big in Europa... also repeatedly shooting down revived reavers isn't hard but it will consume lots of ammunition. I wouldn't stay too long in Europa.

In Io and forward, certain builds will output 150+ dps and once you're there Nightmare is effectively easier than UV.

[sylph]

Originally posted by Dervix:

Nightmare isn't much harder than UV if you're capable of gibbing corpses,

I'm still pretty new to JH, but I have started to gather the impression that this is the case.
I wonder, now, whether this mechanic blocks a lot of builds from nightmare play, and whether something could be done to open up more playstyles to the hardest difficulty level?

[cyrilverba]

Guys, any advice for a build for vampire >=hard run? Wizard/hacker?

[H.R. Costigan]

Here is my late game video of my successful run as Vampyre. Trait order was:

Hr->SF->Iro->RaT->RaT->MVM->Hr->TaN->MVM->Ski->Blo->MVM->Inc

I'm not saying that this is the best trait order, but it worked. Next time I probably would pick Hellrunner L2 earlier and maybe Ironman L2 instead of Tough as Nails.

In general, you need a good balance between armor (not too heavy) and melee weapon (as much guard as possible). It also helps if you have perks that reduces your dodge penalty (I had Swift and Metabolic Boost). Tracking perks and Bloodhound are nice to have so you know where your enemies are.

[Fenix-Venix]

Originally posted by cyrilverba:

Guys, any advice for a build for vampire >=hard run? Wizard/hacker?

What do you mean? Vmpire is only for marine right? I made it til Shattered byss on UV with Vampire, used Whizkid for that, started with Hellruner L2.

[Trash Player]

I recommend trying to learn melee on Callisto. Lure enemies to you with hunker and covers.
It is one of the easiest way to win N! with Scout and Marine.
This video is not recorded by me but very educational on how to melee on Callisto. I do think it is better to bait lunge from melee enemies by moving perpendicularly instead of waiting. Doing the former keep dodge and take less than one game turn(Waiting always takes 1 game turn) with move speed bonus.

[cyrilverba]

Originally posted by Fenix-Venix:

Originally posted by cyrilverba:

Guys, any advice for a build for vampire >=hard run? Wizard/hacker?

Vmpire is only for marine right?

I meant the challenge.

Originally posted by Trash Player:

I recommend trying to learn melee on Callisto. Lure enemies to you with hunker and covers.
It is one of the easiest way to win N! with Scout and Marine.
This video is not recorded by me but very educational on how to melee on Callisto. I do think it is better to bait lunge from melee enemies by moving perpendicularly instead of waiting. Doing the former keep dodge and take less than one game turn(Waiting always takes 1 game turn) with move speed bonus.

Nice one. Considering that taking two levels of Hellrunner works wonders for your survivability using dodge instead of hunker sounds like a solid strategy. A bit tired with melee marines myself - using them right now for the impatience challenge.