Wasteland Wasteland 2 - Character Builds

[Pope Amole II]

Combat Initiative is retardedly strong and there's really no need to go above 8 AP for AR users. Thus the "best" combat build is probably 2,1,8,2,10,4,1. Do this on all 4 rangers and you'd have 20 initiative after your first 2 attribute points, giving you basically 2x as many turns as your opponents.

Actually, there is - 12 AP 13 CI build (9-1-1-2-10-4-1 start, then 1 point to max out COO + 2 points into awareness) is pretty much equal to the 7 AP 20 CI (you have 8 here, but that's not really different from 7). CI 20 goes 1.53% more often, so in the time CI 13 does 2 attacks, it does 3. But! AP 8 does just 1 assault rifle burst or headshot whereas AP 12 does 1 in the first turn and 2 in the second turn. So it's 2 turns with 1.5 bursts or 3 turns with 1 burst - which is better and why?

It's less about whether AP or CI is better and more about your personal preferences & your weapon demands. I call them the "sweet spots" - the ideal amounts of AP to use with each gun (most have various sweet spots, btw). I have a short guide here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280383300
Where I list them all.

 

[cvv]

Speed is more efficient than a combination of the other two. AP has some pretty bad diminishing returns

Meh, prolly a matter of taste then. In my view initiative is great but I prefer moar AP slightly. It's more room to maneuver, to reload, unjam etc. Higher initiative usually amounts to taking a bit less damage per fight. Meh. I guess on Supreme Jerk I'd prolly prefer CI but on lower diffs AP rulez.

Btw, AP has diminishing returns? Huh, not in my playthrough it doesn't. For a lot of weapons the difference between 9 and 10 AP is a difference between shooting once and shooting twice which is huge, especially with heavy and energy weapons. For example I've got two chars with Neutron Projectors, one can shoot twice and the other one only once. If only I had one more attribute point to spend on COO it would be a huge difference in the fights with dem fucking robots.

The AP gain from speed is tied into the trio of STR/SPD/INT. There's no bonus at level 2 or 6 for speed, instead you divide the total of those 3 attributes by 4 to see how many APs you get.

Don't get it, how do you mean?

5 is a terrible score for INT. Either go 1, 4, 8, or 10.

As I said, INT 5 gives you +1 SP/lvl AND +1 AP.

An extra 3 levels isn't worth the 5 more points into a combat attribute IMO. Leadership also gives 1% hit chance instead of 2% as the tooltip says. Still it can be nice to stop the annoying rogue companions.

The individual benefits of CHA are nothing to write home about but they do add up.

 

[Dickie]

The AP gain from speed is tied into the trio of STR/SPD/INT. There's no bonus at level 2 or 6 for speed, instead you divide the total of those 3 attributes by 4 to see how many APs you get.

Don't get it, how do you mean?

Bonus AP from those stats is (STR + SPD + INT)/4. There is no AP bonus just from INT.

5 is a terrible score for INT. Either go 1, 4, 8, or 10.

As I said, INT 5 gives you +1 SP/lvl AND +1 AP.

INT 4 gives the same SP as INT 5 and doesn't give AP in and of itself.

 

[Greatness]

I have a short guide here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280383300
Where I list them all.

Nice guide, I see you put a lot of thought into this stuff. I really value getting the first turn in combat since I can usually finish off an enemy or two right away, so I'd still prefer the high CI "sweet spot" over the high AP one. The 7 AP advantage over 8 is interesting though. Still may be better to stick with 8 since it makes the early game smoother and that's probably the most difficult time in wasteland2.

 

[Anthony Davis]

fyi: Toaster Repair gets you items that are used in "mini" quests. For example, the earliest and easiest, is the full can of white spray paint. Give that to the ranger scrubbing graffiti for an XP reward and a skill book.

I have found several of these so far already.

I say mini quests, because they don't show up in your log, and no one will say anything about them unlkess you have the item when you talk to them. I'm not sure if speech skills are requried as well.

Another thing I learned on accident when I restarted (again) is that PERCEPTION unlocks speech choices.

So now my point man in the game has the following skills:

assault rifle
bladed weapons

smart ass
kiss ass
hard ass
perception

 

[Bio Force Ape]

Don't see anyone mentioning weapon ranges much in this thread. Assault Rifles suck at point-blank, for example, so people saying "don't bother with anything else. just use AR's!" seems like not great advice. Or do they get better at point-blank range when you have enough skill points? At least early on, you're dealing with a ton of enemies that run right up to you and melee you, making many of the guns not great in fights like that. Shotguns, too, are a real problem in those situations since you end up blasting your teammates most of the time. Positioning just isn't an option when your party is totally surrounded by mutant rabbits.

I ended up balancing points between things like snipers and pistols, or assault rifles and a melee weapon as a result. Long range? Shoot them with snipers. And a round later when enemies are humping your legs you switch to melee or pistols so you can 1) have a chance of hitting the enemy, and 2) not blast half your party in the process.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Shotguns, too, are a real problem in those situations since you end up blasting your teammates most of the time. Positioning just isn't an option when your party is totally surrounded by mutant rabbits.

You do know that you can shoot on the ground, do you? Through all the AG center my shotgunner not even once had a situation where she couldn't fire because of her template touching someone else in party. And, obviously, you just build your shotgunners with the maxed out speed and an extra AP or two beyond what they need (their perfect number is 10), just so they have the maneuverability.

And assault rifles point-blank penalty is also more or less fixed by the end-game weapon mods. And your solution of melee or pistols will, once the time comes, prove itself not very effective as the pistols turn into crap as the game goes and melee requires total dedication to be effective (and even then it's mostly a variance choice).

 

[Bio Force Ape]

How do you shoot the ground? Free Aim? That didn't seem to do it.

And end-game mods aren't going to help in the early going when you're surrounded by rabbits and your assault rifle's chance to hit at point blank is 12% or something.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Yeah, free aim. You click on the shotgun rifle icon, you move your mouse over the ground (just avoid touching enemies - it resets the free aim mode for some reasons), you select the perfect cone position. Works like magic. Just try a little bit more.

And, well, how much points do you have invested into your primary shooting skills?

 

[Bio Force Ape]

I'm thinking it's not such a big deal to invest in 2 weapon skills per character, since even with 4 intelligence you seem to get a decent amount of skill points. With companions providing various non-combat skills, 2 weapons per ranger doesn't seem so bad. Or am I crippling myself for late game?

 

[Pope Amole II]

Well, that depends on the difficulty you're playing. And it's less about late game and more about early & middle game - while yeah, you gain enough skillpoints to max out 2 weapon schools eventually, in the Arizona you really want to get your primary weapon to the high levels quickly. And even if you do secondary skills, you don't want to be investing into either melee or handguns - best sidearm option here is definitely energy weapons (and while they don't do much against rabbits, I've found that dynamite and pipe bombs really help in those encounters, so much that they turn from challenging into effortless).

 

[Shadenuat]

Best and overall useful char for me so far was sniper with Demolitions+Safecracking+Lockpicking. If I knew beforehand what safecracking can do though (it also works on various bunker doors) I'd pump it to 10 while leaving else at 5-6.
I think every party should have char like that to keep sanity levels in check. Perception can be on any other char but I hate switching between chars. Brute force? Eh, grenade it. Alarms? Ha! Shove it in their ass. Kill them all and then loot, let alarms go off.

Shotguns, too, are a real problem in those situations since you end up blasting your teammates most of the time

Install -cone %, +rng choke weapon mod, enjoy scalpel precise long range shotgun.

 

[set]

This is the optimal party set up if you want to be a completionist:

Ranger A - African Female - 10 CHA, 10 INT, rest of points in Luck (for evasion and health per level); CHA goes well with int because you level up 40% faster or so, meaning you can basically dump points into: Anything but Computers/Surgeon (you can go Surgeon 1 for early game, not a bad idea); no weapons, dedicated grenade tosser / rocket lawnchair user (they take zero skill to use); first aid is recommended heavily on this guyas well as hard ass 4, kiss ass and smart ass are barely used in the beginning
Ranger B - Asian Male - 8 INT, 10 Awareness, rest of points in whatever you want, 1 CHA/LUCK is best - Lockpicking/Safecracking, Sniper
Ranger C - Anything - 8 INT, 10 Awareness, rest of points in whatever you want, 1 CHA/LUCK is best - Demolitions, Perception, SMG
Ranger D - Anything - 8 INT, 10 Strength, rest of points in whatever you want, 1 CHA/LUCK/Coordination is best - Melee weapons suck huge ass, but you do want a tank, so Shotgun is okay, pistol is probably better in the long run, energy weapons aren't bad
Rose - Surgeon/Computer expert, she will max them out quickly, Pistols are fine with her, but it's not a bad choice to level up Assault Rifles or SMGs, they are better weapons overall
Ralphy - Whatever the fuck, replace as soon as possible, but he contributes sufficient CHA/tank to be not-a-burden
Sotchimo - Whatever the fuck, he's not too shabby but skill up a secondary weapon to compliment his awful shotgun investment; you can replace him mid game

Pretty much Cha is totally useless except on one character, which you can dump into it for good synergy with intelligence. It's just more experience. One character with 10 is sufficient with recruits to recruit everybody.

Coordination is an absolutely joke of a stat. Do not waste a single point in it on your gunmen.

Melee weapons are just awful. Don't even bother. There is no benefit to them, even if you go 10 SPE/10 STR like a retard.

A minimum of 6 int is best. 8 is optimal. 10 is too much skill points for combatants, ideal for non-combatants.

Ag Center is a chore to slog through, but is more rewarding overall. Highpool is boring as piss and contributes few tangible rewards. Vulture's Cry is way better compared to beta, but she's still super inferior to Rose, with her core secondary skills being underutilized by the game and her core offensive traits being easy to replace - snipers are great but you only need one, her stats aren't optimal for a sniper - your own ranger can be a way better one.

Weaponsmithing is required for optimal cash generation. Barter is completley and utterly useless, though it could be good in theory if it stacks cumultively with multiple rangers (but even then, huge investment for poor pay-off).

 

[Greatness]

This is the optimal party set up if you want to be a completionist:

Is that a joke post? You should at least read the "character builds" thread before posting (and post it there, not here) an "optimal" party. There's numerous things wrong with your "optimal" build.

A minimum of 6 int is best. 8 is optimal. 10 is too much skill points for combatants, ideal for non-combatants.

8 INT is a complete waste. By using 8 INT on all your characters you're spending 28 attribute points for a bonus 8 skills per level. Instead you could use two 10 INT rangers and two 4 INT rangers and have the same bonus 8 skills/level, but save yourself an extra 4 attribute points. And I don't even know why you recommend a minimum of 6 INT...

Coordination is an absolutely joke of a stat. Do not waste a single point in it on your gunmen.

Leaving Coordination at 1 is also stupid, you might as well raise it to 2 since that would be an extra 1AP for only 1 attribute point. Besides that coordination is sometimes necessary to reach the "sweet spot" in AP for different weapons.

Melee weapons are just awful. Don't even bother. There is no benefit to them, even if you go 10 SPE/10 STR like a retard.

Melee weapons aren't awful. Since enemies can currently move approx 9000 tiles in a single turn, you will frequently be forced into melee fights. Brawling also probably has the highest damage of any weapon skill at end game.

Weaponsmithing is required for optimal cash generation.

Outside of the early game you will make more cash from selling the weapons themselves than you would from stripping them. Weaponsmithing, if used all the time, will result in LESS cash generated.

 

[Shadenuat]

So after going through game with two 10 INT characters I noticed that, compared to them my more combat oriented chars, like 12 ap energy weapons specialist and 1 INT Brawler, while performed somewhat better, maybe 15-20% more damage, or 30% better for Brawler, did not overperform 10 INT chars by whole lot. In the endgame all were very strong and viable, and what really made any character in party was if he was carrying end game weapon or not, or how fast he got his hands on better weapon.

So what exactly stops me from running four characters with 10 INT/10 SPD, for example? I say not much stops me, except that I also want one charisma character for second playthrough.

 

[Norfleet]

So what exactly stops me from running four characters with 10 INT/10 SPD, for example? I say not much stops me, except that I also want one charisma character for second playthrough.

Not much. AP and Skillpoints are pretty much the most valuable things in the game.

 

[Shadenuat]

Endgame comparison between PopeAmole II's builds:

Spoiler

Kusanagi - energy weapons, low skill support - only medic skills and Perception
Vlad - shotgunner, high skill support, highest level in party, even if he only had computer science as most worthy skill (?)... or right he also did all Weaponsmithing
Bestia - as her name, almost none skill support (Outdoorsman), did 15000 more damage than anyone else but Shade, pure combat machine - Brawling
Shade - sniper, high skill support (all opening container skills), 10k more damage, 7k less than bestia

Kusanagi did so little damage because she used energy weapons meaning she slacked behind 1/3 game though
Vlad tells us that shotguns are a bit eh compared to sniper rifles or brawling before you get Jackhammer

Also dat difference might be due to Initiative. Bestia sometimes acted twice per turn, sometimes even like Furies from Heroes of M&M V - her portrait were in line twice in a row, 6 attacks one after another... not that anyone needs more than 3 attacks from Brawler in W2 to get rekked, if it's not a boss.

Some minor comments on skills:

Sniper Rifles & Energy weapons. These two have good chance to hit and decent range. EW only improves chance to hit, never jams and never crits, meaning you can pump them with weapon mods, crouch and have 100% chance to hit even with mediocre skill. With Sniper Rifles you can put some headshots quite reliably and also upgrade them with everything.
Meaning, these 2 skills probably can be left at low ranks on 10 INT characters, while you spend SP on something more interesting. They also don't rely on crits much, so get trinkets for +hit, -% crit, if there are trinkets like that.

With EW you want to get to Mezon Cannon ASAP during Arizona play, that can be aquired easily in mutant village if you have a decent sniper rifle and high Safecracking or Computer Science.

Brawling, since 10 points give you 100% chance to crit, if I would make another Brawler I woud go for 4 INT, because it is so important to get to that rank. Plus it's potentially 3 maxed secondary skills, like Outdoorsman or Brute Force.

Alarm Disarming & Mechanical Repair. I had those but they never did much for me. I fixed a well or two and I think that's it. Even in funny interactions like getting money from slot machines, Computer Science can be used instead of Repair. Alarm Disarming was useful one time - to get a recipe from bank, but if you help mayor there, all guards and NPCs from bank vanish, meaning it probably won't matter if you have skill or not.
I would change those for Smart Ass & Kiss Ass cause those are at least fun and I think they are checked a wee bit more often than Hard Ass, or at least checked in more important dialogues.

Field Medic&Surgeon. FM doesn't seem to have any checks in quests, but only checks if you can use medkit or not. Thus this skill should only be upgraded when you collected enough next tier medkits, and NPCs stop selling low tier medkits. So when you're out of pocket and small medkits, but accumulated enough big medkits, invest in it enough to use them. This means that, perhaps, it's usefulness expires after you have 6 ranks in it, since 8 rank medkits only fall as loot at the very endgame.
Surgeon is sometimes checked in quests. At one point of the game tier 1 surgeon kits would vanish, making your surgeon 1 characters obsolete. So I'd say it's either all or nothing skill. I heard Rose has it though so if you go AG, you might not need it.
For just using it in combat, 4 points I believe will be enough for whole game.

Lockpicking&Safecracking. I don't know if it is a RNG based item, but I had an item called Burglar's Mask, I got it in a safe in Rodia. It is a +2LP&SC, -3STR item. Plus books. So ~8 points in these skills may well be enough.

Computer Science. Godly skill because you can turn robots on your side. If you're going to max it to 10, give to char with high AP, spd and initiative.
I think I noticed that, at 10 ranks, you can hack standing 1 tile away, not sure if bug or feature.

 

[set]

My first part with the release build was total garbage - I made a balanced party with balanced stats, no min/max. I could barely get through ag center. I had almost no reliable damage.

I rerolled after clearing ag center and min/maxed everything and the game was suddenly easy mode doing ag center.

 

[Bradylama]

Your squadmates are the blank slate the narrative is thrust upon. They're not going to do any actual roleplaying so there's no point trying to balance their stats. They're the closest thing Arizona gets to General Issue.

 

[Shadenuat]

Holy shit assault rifles
Why use anything else
Made a bunch of skill monkeys with 7 AP, good In, playing on Supreme Jerk, still kicking ass
Get a bunch of AKs, burst em down with ambush, 3 shots, use Leadership & squat for extra edge
It's like Fallout Tactics again

Also made Bestia 2.0 (brawler) with 10 INT and she doesn't suck for some reason (9 ap, In ~13, combat speed ~2, will pump Awareness). It's kinda funny but with these skill points she quickly got to 100% crit in melee, buy knuckles, hit em for damage fast and crit

 

[Rhalle]

How exactly does CI work?

I understand that it lets you attack first and more often, but can anyone be more specific?

 

[Shadenuat]

It might be kinda like HoMM V, where every unit stack "runs circles" making turns tepending on their CI, faster you are, faster you take turns. You can read Pope's guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280383300
It explains it at least a bit

As a rule of thumb I found that you either go for ~12 CI and best AP for your weapon, or 15+ CI and sweet spot AP (like 7 AP allows for 1 rifle burst). But really, more Initiative the better.

 

[Rhalle]

It might be kinda like HoMM V, where every unit stack "runs circles" making turns tepending on their CI, faster you are, faster you take turns. You can read Pope's guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280383300
It explains it at least a bit

As a rule of thumb I found that you either go for ~12 CI and best AP for your weapon, or 15+ CI and sweet spot AP (like 7 AP allows for 1 rifle burst). But really, more Initiative the better.

Yeah I spent some time last night reading his guide and playing with builds and came to your conclusion, with 12ci as a minimum for combat characters. He favors 12ap 12c+i for his ar chars apparently.

Here's this thing, if it hasn't been posted:

http://wl2-rct.appspot.com

 

[nine]

How does Charisma's XP bonus work?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

How does Charisma's XP bonus work?

Modify all quest reward XP and all skill usage XP by 5% per charisma point.
No effect on combat XP.