Let's talk about augmentation choices. Below I review all the augs individually. For build ideas I have a couple:
-Level 5 hack capture with level 2 hack stealth. Later points into jump, slow fall, and cloaking.
-Ignore hacking, get aim stabilization, lots of inventory room for cool weapons, dermal armor.
Sadly I can't think of a build that would make heavy use of the energy improvement augs. Just ones adding cloak with recharge timer to another build. This probably doesn't matter, I suspect it will be possible to acquire all of the useful augmentations in one play through.
Legend:
[Cost] - [Name] [Rating]
[My thoughts]
Cranium Augmentations
2 praxis - Social Enhancer & Emotional Intelligence Enhancer :/
Cool idea, not required to solve any dialogs. Part of the UI is visible in all conversations and I find that too annoying to ignore. Save and try it out on the cop at the desk to see it fully in action.
1 praxis - Wayfinder Radar 2 :dizzy:
Useless. Would cause extra beeping if enemies are alerted.
7 praxis - Stealth Enhancer Tree :dizzy:
Adds UI clutter. Provides information the player already has.
Hacking Augmentations
1x4 praxis - Hacking Capture 2, 3, 4, & 5
Hacking gives XP, more if you are careful to get all the cube nodes. It's hard to say whether or not it will ever be a net positive amount of XP, given that you will have to spend 5-6 praxis to be capable of hacking everything. (30,000 XP) These make exploration and chronic breaking and entering much easier. The mini-game is fairly enjoyable and they made a ton of the hacking levels. I only remember seeing repeats in the FEMA base.
1x2 praxis - Turret Domination & Robot Domination
In the first third of the game there are only two hackable turrets. It's possible that the (only) bot can be hacked, but the grenade on the box was much more expedient. Possibly worth more later. Will depend on what types of anti-bot weapons exist. Though if you don't care about stealth, the Typhoon is probably better.
1x2 praxis - Hacking Fortify 2 & 3
Unless I'm a dolt, there is no way to use hotkeys to speed up hacking input. That means the time gained for fortifying a node is often at the expense of the time to click on it. It can still be useful, but generally due to the high chance of detection it is not a good preventative measure. It's not a bad thing to do, it's just not worth making better and stop worms have a hotkey.
1x3 praxis - Hacking Stealth 1, 2 & 3
This is a lot more useful than it sounds, and I would spend points here before Fortify. Combined with use of the disconnect option, it is often possible to almost complete a hack before being detected. I also find this aug makes hacking more strategic and less about clicking quickly.
1x2 praxis - Hacking Analyze & Analyze All :dizzy:
Total garbage. Percentages are determined by node level, which is already visible and easy to learn. Nodes are always XP, credits, or hacking consumables. So, the only use for this aug would be to tell you that a node contains worthless credits. Instead of wasting 2 praxis, one could simply capture the node and disconnect.
Torso Augmentations
1x3 praxis - Energy Level 1, 2, & 3 :/
Not sure if these are worth it. This aug would be better balanced with the recharge ones if you recharged half of your total cells instead of just one. You get energy back by going to a safe place like your apartment, but recharge items are fairly rare. Most of the time you are sitting on the one bar that you recharge. Could be required for a character that wanted to use a lot of an activated aug like stealth.
1x2 praxis - Energy Recharge 1 & 2 :/
Two praxis here will reduce cut recharge time in half from 40 seconds to 20 seconds for one bar, but not the number of cells that recharge. Might be a nice convenience, but I can't think of any situation that requires a 20 second recharge that can't be done with a 40 second recharge.
2 praxis - Implanted Rebreather & Chemical Resistence
Way too expensive. I only came across harmful gas twice in Detroit. Might be worth one point just because gas kills so fast on hard difficulty. If later enemies use gas grenades instead of emp or frag ones this could get better.
1x2 praxis - Hyper-oxygenation 1 & 2
The doubled sprint duration is nice, but not worth 4 points.
2 praxis - Typhoon Explosive System & Light Damage :/
This kills guys around you as advertised. Not very useful on its own because you need to be in the middle of a lot of enemies to make the most of it, and not be in line of sight of others once the animation finishes. Could potentially be combed with cloak for better results, but then you have to add the cost of an energy bar to the special ammo and energy cell this costs.
1 praxis - Typhoon Heavy Damage :/
If this can kill anything in the game as advertised it is probably worth a look. In most situations, standing next to a heavy bot is a bad idea.
Arm Augmentations
2 praxis - Aim Stabilizer & Aiming Motion Control 1
In addition to improving the time it takes for the aiming spread to minimize, this aug also stabilizes scoped weapons like the sniper rifle. The alternative to this upgrade path is to equip your weapons with a laser sight. Laser sights will make a weapon always 100% accurate, but I find the laser graphic distracting and you need one for each weapon you plan to use.
1 praxis - Aiming Motion Control 2
With this aug your accuracy is always at maximum.
1 praxis - Move/Throw Heavy Objects
You can't really jump with heavy objects or take them in vents and DX3 has fewer items that you can move around. In cases where a heavy object blocked a path there was always another way around or the heavy object could be destroyed. Might be possible to build some interesting stuff with boxes and garbage bins.
1 praxis - Punch Through Wall :/
Hard to say how useful this is. I didn't have it for most of my time and it is required to see the places where it could be useful. A shame, since those places can also be destroyed with conventional explosives. Probably worth picking up to find all the secret areas, but only if you are using object highlighting. (Something better could have been done with the design of this and the x-ray vision aug.)
1x2 praxis - Recoil Compensation 1 & 2
I never tend to use SMGs in games like this. The only other gun I can see this as useful with would be the assault rifle, and that seems to work just fine without it. Unless this has an unexpected benefit or some very exotic weapons with lots of ammo are available later, this is a poor investment.
1x3 praxis - Carrying Capacity 1, 2, & 3
Yeah, it's a bitch to spend an aug point on inventory space, but as you can see from the aug list so far, items are where real power comes from in this game. The only options in the game not directly tied to expendable resources are take-downs and hacking. One or two points here will be a must if you want to carry anything cool or varied.
Eye Augmentations
2 praxis - Smart Vision & Wall-Penetrating Imager :dizzy:
Garbage. The compass provides this functionality without costing energy. Does not show items behind destructible walls.
1 praxis - Cooldown Timer :dizzy:
A waste. Only redeeming quality is that it displays near the compass, so at least it doesn't clutter the screen. However, it will only activate after you look at someone for a while. Usually a time when you are about to be found or about to take them out.
1 praxis - Flash Suppressant
Similar to the lung aug, this could be useful if enemies use a lot of flashbangs later. At least it doesn't cost 2 points.
Back Augmentations
2 praxis - Reflex Booster & Multiple Take-Down
This plays a cool animation and saves you an energy cell, but requires two enemies near each other. Without this aug, I found stun gun + awesome button took out two guys just fine. Could be useful if you were planning to ghost everything. Hard to tell if in right position without the take-down popups on.
2 praxis - Icarus Landing System & Descent Modulation System
The default fall distance makes AJ very fragile. Only drawback to this is sometimes you can't tell if a drop will be third person or not. If you press fire at the wrong time, you will shoot your gun on the way down instead of doing the stun.
Skin Augmentations
2+1x2 praxis - Dermal Armor & Damage Reduction 1, 2, & 3
Likely 'required' by the end of the game if not taking a strict stealth approach, especially on harder difficulties. Not something I would invest in first.
1 praxis - EMP Shielding :/
Good if you have the pre-reqs for it already. I saw more EMP grenades than any other type. Best choice of the three special damage type defense augs.
4 praxis - Cloaking System
This is extremely effective, but I wouldn't purchase this unless you have the points to buy the whole tree. At 7 seconds of cloak per energy cell it is a lot more feasible to partially use a cell and let it regen or use multiple cells to bypass a larger area.
Leg Augmentations
2 praxis - Cybernetic Leg & Jump Enhancement
Being able to jump higher is very nice and opens some new paths. Be careful unless you also have the Icaraus Landing System.
1 praxis - Sprint Enhancement
You can notice the speed increase but its not really enough to let sprinting do what it couldn't before. Unlike DX1 and DX2, this is not the best aug in the game.
1x2 praxis - Run Silently & Sprint Silently
Energy consumption on this is very annoying because it means it can't be used to sneak up and do a take-down without having more than one energy cell available. Also, you usually want to be crouched to avoid being seen.
1 praxis - Jump and Land Silently :/
Unlike the other silent movement augmentations, this lets you do something you couldn't do before. Sadly, due to pre-reqs and energy activation cost, it's not worth it. Getting this requires an investment of 5 points and I can only see doing that if one already has some of them for another reason.