I am trying out a pure body/quickness + whip build and fill out rest in cha. Word of warning to people you need to muck around with your build to start with the right weapons if you take two things. I made a throwing + close combat cyber start and I got a throwing knife and no option for hand razor. Similarly made a body + quickness with some rifle and got hand razors instead of starting a rifle. Easiest start for quickness + whips is to not invest in body at all on creation and save the point so you start with a rifle then immeidately invest the points. Since STR does nothing for whips starting with hand razors will kind of suck.
The whip may have no special attacks but it also essentially gives you good performance on any gun for free and also give you extra avoidance based defense and you need like spurs + 10str to do the same damage. However Hand Razors do get a really nice 2 hit 1AP special that probably makes them better really. I dunno if whips knock people out of cover though like melee and throwing do. If they don't then that is a pretty serious mark against them.
I doubt its actually as good as a serious close melee thign with a few key adept powers but it seems possibly interstingly versatile.
Whip knocks people out of cover, it has an attack that hits adjacent targets which is on a one turn cooldown, and a nuke which is also a cc.
I don't really get the idea behind spurs, I took them on a dude that started with blades and felt it was a straight up downgrade. The point seems to be that you get one disable per turn unlike the 1 per 2 turns you get with claws, that seems meaningless when claws usually stun for 2 turns anyway, and they get an aoe. haven't tried the stun fist cyber weapon yet.
Whip versus melee is interesting. I think if all you do is use the weapon they might be about the same. You should consider the fact that movement bonuses are practically non-existent. You have stride in chi casting, some passive cyber bonuses, but no more armor bonus and the sprint leg buff only work for 1 rnd now, down from 3. Whip is not only a great weapon but it has the added benefit of being governed by ranged so rifles and shotties are easy to use minigun requirement lowered from 7 str to 5 so it's easy to grab too. Main problem with melee is the same it always was, during large fights the guy either runs in and gets killed or sits back and barely contributes. So far I had one battle that put me between 2 groups who are fighting each other, 6 guys on each side. I had Gaichu and my guy was pure melee, neither of them did much.
What do you guys think of the companions? Duncan seems to be insane. I used Gaichu and the rigger just to try them out and I wasn't too impressed. The coolest thing about Gaichu is the ability to execute a stunned opponent, but Duncan has that ability too. depending how you spec him he can independently set it up and do it every 2 turns. But the greatest thing he has is the 99% to hit chance ability, that thing is a godsend. I tried running without the shaman and that was just shit. She's practically mandatory. The decker chick is also cool as fuck with the mine nades, and seeing how the new matrix works building your own decker seems like a waste unless you want to grab different NPC's.
Did someone go heavy on etiquettes? I try to keep track of what skill checks pop up often and so far I only saw academic, and gang quite a few times but only in early missions. Security popped up twice but what it did might have been huge. There are a few random ones here and there. Biotech twice, will probably twice. If you want to use skill checks grab at least one point of spellcasting or conjuring, those popped up a bunch of times and I think all you need is just one point. Charisma 3 gets used often, I saw a 4 and a 5 once. Strength 5 get's used a lot too.
