Wasteland Wasteland 2 - Character Builds

[flushfire]

I don't think 8 is less optimal than 10 because you are still drowning in skill points at 8 and really don't need even that many. Might as well boost other things.

Drowning in skill points is irrelevant, it doesn't change the fact that going from 4 to 8 gives you less per point than 8 to 10. A party that has all 8s in int essentially just wasted 4 stat points compared to one that has two 4s and two 10s in int.

 

[hiver]

It doesnt really matter.

the mechanics of the game are fundamentally broken.
the purpose of that was just to make you spend more attribute points. not to be balanced.

 

[Mystary!]

How about this, then:

I'd suggest dropping Leadership, Field Medic and Weaponsmithing from your first guy and give those to one of the backliners, and grab "opening" skills instead to avoid the char-switching. It really saves alot of hassle. Also grab a long range weapon, like assault rifles or sniper rifles, because you will want to initate combat from afar without having to switch.
The number of skill points you get translates roughly in to how many skills you'll be able to max, so 3 skillpoints means 3-3½ maxed skills. But not all of them need to be maxed, like outdoorsman, field medic, leadership or a secondary/backup weapon, so mix those with skills that require heavier investment, like ass and opening skills, if you have low intelligence.
Coordination is meh, but keep it at 2 or 4, because of how AP is calculated, (Coordination/2) + (Strength+Intelligence+Speed/4), so keep those at even numbers aswell.
As others have said, base your AP on your weapon choice. For instance Assault Rifles have a burst most that costs 8 ap, you wont need more than that most of the time.
13 Charisma is enough, most dont have a charisma requirements and those that do either have 12 or 25. In Arizona (first half of the game) the highest is 22, but you can reach that with NPCs: Rose(+3), Ralphy(+4), Angela(+2).

 

[Gnidrologist]

Want a little gameplay tip. I know that the red redheaded lady (forgot name) that we can recruit at the base camp will leave. Is it worth to tag her along till she dismisses herself or better to leave her at the base and take Scotchmo right as he becomes avialable? I would gladly keep her until the end of the game, but don't want to 'suddenly' loose her with all the heavy great she's carrying and with no one to replace her right away.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Want a little gameplay tip. I know that the red redheaded lady (forgot name) that we can recruit at the base camp will leave. Is it worth to tag her along till she dismisses herself or better to leave her at the base and take Scotchmo right as he becomes avialable? I would gladly keep her until the end of the game, but don't want to 'suddenly' loose her with all the heavy great she's carrying and with no one to replace her right away.

She'll only leave when you first enter the canyon map.

 

[Early_Grave]

After about a week of numerous restarts I finally settled on a team. 2 skill monkeys and 2 combat dudes. I focused on getting skills to to open all containers because I'm curious, but most of the loot is shit - due to bad luck? - so that was probably unnecessary.
I also like to keep things simple the first time around so no additional recruits, mainly because I don't know who they are so I can't plan around them, I leave them for a subsequent play through.

Infiltrator

CLASSIC: 2 1 4 4 6 10 1
AP: 9
CI: 12
Weapon(s): 2 points in SMG from the start, leaning towards Energy now.
Skills: Perception, Demolitions, Lockpicking, Alarm Disarming.

Doctor

CLASSIC: 2 1 6 2 6 10 1
AP: 8
CI: 14
Weapon(s): Sniper Rifles, Handguns as back up.
Skills: Surgeon, Field Medic, Computer Science, Mechanical Repair.

Tank

CLASSIC: 2 1 4 10 6 4 1
AP: 9
CI: 12
Weapon(s): Shotguns.
Skills: Hard Ass, Brute Force, Safe Cracking.

Assault

CLASSIC: 4 1 6* 6 6 4 1
AP: 9
CI: 15*
Weapon(s): Assault Rifles.
Skills: No main focus except for Weapon Smithing, just leveling stuff when need, got random points in Outdoorsman, Animal whisper, Toaster Repair. Had to OH SHIT!-level Surgeon when my doctor died and noone else could spare the skill points.

* +1 Thanks to Aberforth!

Awesome portraits, where did you find them?

 

[Gnidrologist]

Want a little gameplay tip. I know that the red redheaded lady (forgot name) that we can recruit at the base camp will leave. Is it worth to tag her along till she dismisses herself or better to leave her at the base and take Scotchmo right as he becomes avialable? I would gladly keep her until the end of the game, but don't want to 'suddenly' loose her with all the heavy great she's carrying and with no one to replace her right away.

She'll only leave when you first enter the canyon map.

I'm close to that, which is why i asked. Should i dump her before entering cannion or what. She will have loads of heavy gear that would encumber the party.

 

[Mystary!]

Awesome portraits, where did you find them?

Over at the inXile forums The Rogues Gallery (custom portrait sharing)

 

[Cyberarmy]

I'm close to that, which is why i asked. Should i dump her before entering cannion or what. She will have loads of heavy gear that would encumber the party.

Dump her before and get some other, not sure if she leaves with all her equipment.

 

[Taxnomore]

Jesus, I'm terrible at this game. Only way for me to get anywhere is to set the difficulty level at the lowest ; and I have played my fair bit of turn based RPGs. Dragonfall posed me no problem, but this is something else entirely.
There must be something I'm doing wrong. I think a clear mistake of mine was focusing on non combat skills except for one character. I had no idea this game would be so much combat intensive.

I guess I will need a second replay, to wash my dignity.

 

[covr]

It is hard to imagine, game is pretty easy after a few hours. Probably you're at wrong location, you should level up your rangers doing side quests maybe. I've got little experience playing games like this (never played X-com, UFO or JA), I've created terrible party and it's going really well on third difficulty. Combat is not so hard - you can forget about armor (enemies will almost always have stronger armor penetration than your armor), just wear the best gear and try to kill enemies one by one, not all of them at the same time. Melee characters are weak at the beginning, then become stronger. Brawling is overpowered as fuck, as well as assault weapons.
Post your party, maybe.

 

[Minttunator]

Spoiler

Lostara Yil - 4 1 6 2 10 4 1 = 9 AP / 16 CI
Assault, Smart Ass, Leader (6p)
I'm only taking Leadership for the rogue chance reduction (need 6 points to get Scotchmo to 0) which apparently isn't tied to the Charisma range, hence the low Charisma (the Leadership accuracy bonus seems really underwhelming).

Felisin Paran - 9 1 1 2 10 4 1 = 11 AP / 11 CI
Energy, Medic, Surgeon
Will take 1 more Coordination point at level 10, everybody else will just take more Awareness for more CI.

Kalam Mekhar - 2 1 4 6 10 4 1 = 9 AP / 14 CI
Blunt, Computers, some Alarms later

Korbal Broach - 2 1 4 6 10 4 1 = 9 AP / 14 CI
Brawling, Hard Ass, some Brute Force later

NPCs:
Ralphy - Assault, Toasters, Weaponsmith, maybe some Mech Rep later
Scotch - Shotgun, Locks, Safes
Vulture - Sniper, Perception, Demolition, maybe some more Outdoors

It's a nice touch that the game collects combat statistics! I finished it fairly recently and here's how my party (described in the quoted post) performed:

• Lostara Yil [Assault Rifle] - 287 kills, 61 521 damage
• Korbal Broach [Brawling] - 183 kills, 29 996 damage
  
• Kalam Mekhar [Blunt] - 131 kills, 29 647 damage
  
• Felisin Paran [Energy Wep] - 126 kills, 33 894 damage
• Ralphy [Assault Rifle] - 103 kills, 21 866 damage
  
• Vulture's Cry [Sniper Rifle] - 72 kills, 19 182 damage
• Scotchmo [Shotgun] - 35 kills, 6899 damage

This was on Ranger difficulty and before the latest balance patch (I don't know whether and how much that improved the balance situation), so there are no huge surprises. Scotchmo sucks in combat because he doesn't get to act often enough, Assault Rifles are by far the best weapons and Brawling is better than Blunt - my Blunt user (har har) only caught up near the end because I gave the Combat Shooting book to him (which does apparently work on melee weapons).

 

[Eirikur]

I'm getting into this game for the first time, and would appreciate some feedback on my planned party (on Ranger difficulty).

Bear in mind that I don't like making purely min/maxed characters, but prefer striking a balance between that and more 'realistic' ones. In example, I don't want a sniper to have low coordination, or a leader or shapely womyn to have shit charisma.

... and yeah I can be a bit OCD about making spreadsheets when planning things like this.

Someone will train energy weapons, eventually. I'll leave that to mid-game spontaneity.

I've looked up the recruits, and plan to get these ones to supplement my skills:
- Vulture's Cry (sniper rifles, animal whisperer, outdoorsman)
- Chisel (blunt weapons, hard ass, brute force)
- Scotchmo (shotguns, safecracking, lockpicking)

All three are obtainable very early in the game right? Incidentally I'll get the toaster kid temporarily, for toaster runs.

I've read that ARs are most powerful, but would like to diversify my weapons on the first playthrough. More interesting to me that way.

Have I made any major blunders that'll haunt me for the rest of my life?

 

[Jimmious]

Before we get into builds etc (btw I think you're pretty well set) I am wondering why aren't you postponing your playrhrough until Director's Cut comes out. I highly suggest it as the game has issues esp. after the first half

*Yes you mostly can get all of them pretty fast, but I would go for Lockpiciking and safecracking asap, you'll miss them otherwise(or have to run back at places all the time)

 

[Akratus]

I think it's a good idea to finish the game in this way now, and have the director's cut provide you with a more exciting and improved second playthrough.

 

[tindrli]

Ok BROS im trying to start directors cut and i need advice. my initial team is below.
Any suggestions will heavenly apreciated. i didnt look for any NPC companion but would like to use them as many as i can so suggest me what to change and where to go first to get them

Thanx

S!

 

[Wizfall]

Quick question, do you gain 1 attribute point every 10 levels or every 5 levels (as stated in the DC manual) ?

 

[Excidium II]

Ok BROS im trying to start directors cut and i need advice. my initial team is below.
Any suggestions will heavenly apreciated. i didnt look for any NPC companion but would like to use them as many as i can so suggest me what to change and where to go first to get them

Thanx

S!

I think your skills are too spread out, general recommendation is 2-3 unless you have max Int.

 

[Black]

I found 4 skills per character (8 int) is fine, especially if you use npcs like Rose.

 

[tindrli]

I think your skills are too spread out, general recommendation is 2-3 unless you have max Int.

I found 4 skills per character (8 int) is fine, especially if you use npcs like Rose.

so instead of using 6 skills its down to 4 if char INT is 8. got it..
now the question what to use and what to drop.. i assume that depends of recrutable NPC so can you suggest where to go first from the start and what do i need to recruit them ?

seems like getting Rose is essential..

crap.. few years before i would simply create and play and then restart and restart till i get it done..nowdays with kids i just dont have time to do it..

 

[tindrli]

Ok bros i culdnt wait any longer.. im gooing with this..

the thing that i worries me is that brawler coz he has most initiative and i to tell the truth i didnt plan tu rush with him and other thing is that i think i should forget sniper and go with 2 assault/energy later but will see

wish me luck

@Wizfall @Excidium II THANK YOU for suggestions

 

[Black]

Quick question, do you gain 1 attribute point every 10 levels or every 5 levels (as stated in the DC manual) ?

10.

 

[ArchAngel]

I tried using custom pictures but while they looked OK on character screen, they were too low res and unrecognizable in their little boxes on bottom of the main game UI.

 

[WhiteGuts]

Need some general character building tips men. What skills are mandatory ? And equipement ?

 

[Black]

Combat: ass rifles, bladed weapons, snipers are good. Handguns are only okay. Shotguns still suck, don't know about smgs, brawl or blunt.
As for non-combat skills, all are useful so ideally you'll want your team to cover all of them. But if you want to recruit npcs take their skills into consideration, for example I went with Rose so I skipped computer science and alarm disarming on my rangers.