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[ultimate26]

What class do you use and whats your perk progression for starters? why do you choose that style and what do you think is a strong build?

I love using engineer for FIN-JUG-SOB-SOB as a starter because you can use any weapon and be effective regardless of what you find.

I start with 2 shotguns to juggle between them while corner shooting till i find a chaingun to turn into an assault rifle once i have assault rifle, i try to get 2 TH to do maximum damage.

Im curious whats everyone bread and butter

Cheers

[Rajhin]

Cateye'd scout. Early Int2 for easy shotgunning through first episode, cateye by the wall, WK2 and almost guaranreed hyperblaster in armory. The rest of the game is cakewalk.

[tylor]

First I make sure that I have enough fire rate with shotguns to hold off Barons in the Wall. That is, at least Finess*2 + Reloader (or some mod packs and shell box)
Then it depends on build, but I don't know how to beat Cathedral without at least Berserk, so, berserk. Juggler is always good, especially with melee.
My favorite builds are Vampyre, Sharpshooter and Shottyhead.
Gear - I usually make "tactical" everything. Boots, armor, shotgun.

Still don't have reliable strategy for Mortuary. I know running for nuclear  BFG helps at prolonged sieges, as well as having nuclear plasma rifle, as well as clearing some patchess with skulls. And that worst case, I can do four Azrael blasts to kill all Viles, at a cost of 20 maximum health. But either way, above HNTR I end either dead (rarely) or nearly out of resources, so I have to do reast of the game with nuclear weapon, melee and handful of remaining ammo/medpacks.

[Deathwind]

For getting into harder difficulties I found the marine's ammochain build (Rel>Rel>SoaB>SoaB>Th>Th>MAc) to work very well. With this build you rely on shotguns and corner-shooting till you hit ammochain (if you clear each floor you should get it around the armory on HNTR).
I find Tac boots to be a better use of mods than the assault rifle as you will retire it for plasma but rapid fire guns tend to be lacking in accuracy so spending one A mod on your chaingun may be a good investment. The spider lair's reward is insane for this build as it removes most of your ammo worries.

[thelaptop]

Rule of thumb for chain-fire weapon is always one A-mod for chaingun, 2 A-mods for plasma rifle.  Substitute each A-mod for one EE.

[skarczew]

Rule of thumb for chain-fire weapon is always one A-mod for chaingun, 2 A-mods for plasma rifle.  Substitute each A-mod for one EE.

This man speaks the truth. I would just add that gatling gun and hyperblaster assemblies are quite good as well.

[Buzzard]

This man speaks the truth. I would just add that gatling gun and hyperblaster assemblies are quite good as well.

The gatling gun is very good for nearly every build except for people with Tech 2. You get the effects of a bulk mod (or a mod and a half, I forget what 20 more bullets in the chaingun would be equal to), a power mod, and a firestorm mod for just two bulk mods.

Hyperblaster I'm not so sure about, honestly. At least for Ammochain games, anyway. It's not that it's not good (it is), but I feel that the lower damage really hurts it. Sure, it has a shorter firing time and plus +2 accuracy, but you lose a lot on damage. I'd kind of rather just kill a heavy enemy in one long burst or so with a A1 Plasma Rifle then have to fire three or four Hyperblaster bursts. Does anyone feel what I'm getting at?

Obviously Hyberblaster is better for bunches of medium-toughness enemies, because of the firing time. But against mancubuses...

[ultimate26]

PB plasma on ammochain was pretty good :)

[Buzzard]

The gatling gun is very good for nearly every build except for people with Tech 2. You get the effects of a bulk mod (or a mod and a half, I forget what 20 more bullets in the chaingun would be equal to), a power mod, and a firestorm mod for just two bulk mods.

Hyperblaster I'm not so sure about, honestly. At least for Ammochain games, anyway. It's not that it's not good (it is), but I feel that the lower damage really hurts it. Sure, it has a shorter firing time and plus +2 accuracy, but you lose a lot on damage. I'd kind of rather just kill a heavy enemy in one long burst or so with a A1 Plasma Rifle then have to fire three or four Hyperblaster bursts. Does anyone feel what I'm getting at?

Obviously Hyberblaster is better for bunches of medium-toughness enemies, because of the firing time. But against mancubuses...

May have to rethink this. Hyperblaster does more damage in the same amount of time, but a fully modded Plasma Rifle should outdamage a Hyperblaster...

[tylor]

Compared to ATT plasma, Hyperblaster has -0.1 fire time, +1 damage per shot and +1 accuracy, but half burst size (3 vs 6)
I'd say, with Ammochain plasma is better, otherwise, especially with triggerhappy, blaster is.
Can I blaster-mod nuclear plasma, btw?

[Rajhin]

Can I blaster-mod nuclear plasma, btw?

Unfortunately not. No laser hyperblaster for you too.

Compared to ATT plasma, Hyperblaster has -0.1 fire time, +1 damage per shot and +1 accuracy, but half burst size (3 vs 6)

AAT plasma has 0.7 firetime while hyperblaster has 0.5. 2d4 isn't just 1d7+1, there are different probability distributions.

[tylor]

AAT plasma has 0.7 firetime while hyperblaster has 0.5. 2d4 isn't just 1d7+1, there are different probability distributions.

Oh, right, I was thinking T is -0.2, not -0.15. But 2d4 is actually one more damage on average than 1d7 (5 vs 4)

[Rajhin]

But 2d4 is actually one more damage on average than 1d7 (5 vs 4)

Yes, 2d4 is 2-8 and 1d7+1 is 2-8 too, but latter has uniform distribution while previous is closer to normal distribution. In practise you have only 0.25^2=6.25% chance to do 2 or 8 damage, 12.5% for 3 and 7, 18.75% for 4 and 6 and 25% for 5 damage per shot with hyperblaster. 1d7+1 gives you equal probability (12.5%) to do 2-8 points of damage. You certainly don't want to do low damage, but high is uncomfortable too because of knockback that may move your enemy out of fire range.

[tylor]

But it is a burst, so it is actually 6d4 vs 6d7 (sans traits). Distribution is not that different to normal in both cases.  Traits, on the other hand, make a lot of difference. EE and SoB (and especially MAc) contribute more to plasma, Triggerhappy - to blaster. Power mod give more to blaster, but you can use one at best. Etc, etc.

As for knockback, And you need 12 damage per non-shotgun shot for it, AFAIK. 5 SoB and/or Power Mod for 1d7. I'm not even sure you can have more than one Power Mod on plasma. So it's rarely  problem.

[Buzzard]

So overall, Plasma is better with Ammochain? It's hard to tell.

Also I wouldn't say that knockback is bad, if the enemy is knocked back it can't hit you but you still have a chance of hitting it.

[ZicherCZ]

Also I wouldn't say that knockback is bad, if the enemy is knocked back it can't hit you but you still have a chance of hitting it.

It may be bad. If the first shot knocks the target back in the wrong direction, the rest of the burst goes into nowhere amd is pretty much wasted. Most notable with AoMC, this can be a serious issue.
Plus, if the enemy is knocked back, it can still hit you if it wasn't on the edge of LOS before being hit.

[ultimate26]

well isnt hyperblaster great with trigger happy? adding 2 shots to a volley then shooting twice per turn is great i believe.

I love having a assault rifle/hyperblaster technician with THx2, I feel like im accurate without using EE and my damage per shots are higher

[singalen]

I love using engineer for FIN-JUG-SOB-SOB as a starter because you can use any weapon and be effective regardless of what you find.

My rule of thumb is to go for a master trait ASAP, and use shotgun cornershooting and pushback until then.
If master trait path includes early SoB or EE, I could switch to chainfire weapons on trait level 2. Other than that, I rarely put a shotgun down: I switch to chaingun to save shells (normally need this on Arena), and to rocket launcher to break walls or when desperate.

[ultimate26]

As technician I dont feel that any of the master traits being worth my effort, while if i choose the marine, Army of dead and ammochain are completely game changing.

I like technician being able to go for Whizkid whenever I please, as marine if I aim for a master trait then whizkid gets pushed back.

Do some people play without any assembled weapons sometimes?

[2DeviationsOut]

I've done it, it's not fun. As far as my strategy for the higher difficulties goes, I'm really really partial to SoB->SoB->TH->TH->Rel->Rel->MAC->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->whatever else

[Evilpotatoe]

@2dev :
What about the CatEye build, or more generally, the replacement of MAc with a nanomachic plasma rifle ?
I don't know it it's worth changing class if you don't go for MCe : Scout's speed bonus is quite interesting, but marine's HP and powerup duration bonus are great too. Well, for you, HP aren't necessary since you prefer playing damageless :o))
Anyway, from my point of view :

Pros :
-No need to put 2 points in Rel -> mastery and WK2 got faster (in fact, you can even skip the mastery... I did it once on a MAc build, to get EE instead, and with a nanomachic plasma rifle, it's insane :)
-Never need to reload. Can continuously chainfire in front of mancubi or barons until the vile beyond appears
-No need to save ammo anymore, you can radarshoot whenever you need it. Wasn't a problem in 0.9.9.6 with nuclear plasma rifle, but now, it makes some difference.

Cons :
-Need to reach HA and get Shambler's head to get unlimited ammo, and you're not 100% sure to have 3 B-mods by that time. Without nano, you're quite screwed
-Nano could have been used for antigrav boots, or some other shiny assembly.
-Nanomachic things can be modded only once, instead of 5.

Btw, as of version 0.9.9.7, this is probably harder, since monster's position in HA is randomed, and Shambler's head in lab looks quite impossible (I went trough only once, but jeez... ). At least, mods are more commons.
Also, I wonder... don't you have a guaranteed nano in the lab ? Bah, I'll know that soon.

So, writing it, I understand this is probably just not reliable, compared to MAc, but I wonder if delaying the MAc pick of a few levels (just to wait for HA's result) isn't a good choice. If you get a nano, you can just skip MAc and replace it with EE... no ? Did you try this already ?