Best character build for beginners? And early routine?

[BigLie]

Why people always recommend Eskrima?

Combination strikes have a pretty solid damage output. Stunning enemies is nice too.
Silat is nice too with its ‘you send the %enemy% reeling …’

What would you folks recommend? I have seen recommendation for Tiger style; haven’t tried it yet.

[Coolthulhu]

What would you folks recommend? I have seen recommendation for Tiger style; haven’t tried it yet.

Ninjutsu has amazing damage bonus for all cutting weapons - 2x cut/pierce damage on a crit (you’ll crit more often than you not with any melee build).

By the time any technique starts shining, you’re already far past the time you need a good technique, though. Melee very quickly turns from painful necessity into hulk stomper (unless you lowered your dexterity). If you start with 20 dexterity, melee becomes a hulk stomper at the exact moment you lower your torso encumbrance to 0 (I’m not joking here).

My usual choice is nothing at start, then getting boxing from a gym and using it with a punch dagger. Boxing scales with dexterity, which is the most important stat for melee. Punch dagger is a really nice weapon, because it’s tiny, activates unarmed techniques and attacks quickly. It’s basically an unarmed buff in item form.

[KA101]

[quote=“BigLie, post:21, topic:8091”]What would you folks recommend? I have seen recommendation for Tiger style; haven’t tried it yet.

Ninjutsu has amazing damage bonus for all cutting weapons - 2x cut/pierce damage on a crit (you’ll crit more often than you not with any melee build).

By the time any technique starts shining, you’re already far past the time you need a good technique, though. Melee very quickly turns from painful necessity into hulk stomper (unless you lowered your dexterity). If you start with 20 dexterity, melee becomes a hulk stomper at the exact moment you lower your torso encumbrance to 0 (I’m not joking here).

My usual choice is nothing at start, then getting boxing from a gym and using it with a punch dagger. Boxing scales with dexterity, which is the most important stat for melee. Punch dagger is a really nice weapon, because it’s tiny, activates unarmed techniques and attacks quickly. It’s basically an unarmed buff in item form.[/quote]

If you start with 20 DX, that’s going to make things way too easy in the melee field, yeah. We tend to expect folks to start with 14-15 DX max.

[Coolthulhu]

If you start with 20 DX, that’s going to make things way too easy in the melee field, yeah. We tend to expect folks to start with 14-15 DX max.

Dexterity scales really well early on. It’s the closest thing to difficulty setting right now: lowering dexterity will almost certainly gimp a character (much more so than lowering any other stat), stacking it is the best way to get through early game without weakening the character in long term.

Other stats can be safely decreased: low perception will only affect snipers, throwers, unlucky players (minefields) and lab challenge starters (8 is enough for dissectors), low int will make things more tedious without a big effect on difficulty (easier crafting and early CBMs are more convenient than actually helpful), low strength has a minor effect on hp and damage and only serious downside of low str is the carrying capacity.
Low dex is crippling and forces the player to carefully engage anything that can punch through armor. Plus it multiplies the - already significant - damage from getting smashed.

[system]

Plus it multiplies the - already significant - damage from getting smashed.

IMHO, smashing has made hulks and particularly brutes too powerful. If I have a fast character, I should be able to dart in and poke at hulks and brutes. After all, I can do that with normal – and presumably faster – zombies. Instead, I see a brute stumble into a bush, dance up to give him a poke with my katana, expecting to slide away before he can get free and… suddenly I’m a half-block away and all my clothes have fallen off like Charlie Brown getting hit with a line drive, my pain has reduced my strength to the point where my equipment is too heavy to move at anything faster than a crawl, and I’m dead before I can drop even half my gear to run.

[Valpo]

Good to hear.
So dont meele them if your to weak.
And not beeing able to cheese hulks to death is a + in my book.

[Tineen]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:24, topic:8091”]Plus it multiplies the - already significant - damage from getting smashed.

IMHO, smashing has made hulks and particularly brutes too powerful. If I have a fast character, I should be able to dart in and poke at hulks and brutes. After all, I can do that with normal – and presumably faster – zombies. Instead, I see a brute stumble into a bush, dance up to give him a poke with my katana, expecting to slide away before he can get free and… suddenly I’m a half-block away and all my clothes have fallen off like Charlie Brown getting hit with a line drive, my pain has reduced my strength to the point where my equipment is too heavy to move at anything faster than a crawl, and I’m dead before I can drop even half my gear to run.[/quote]

Parkour expert defiantly abates this problem.

[Coolthulhu]

Brute smashing damage isn’t very high if your dexterity is in melee fighter range (not less than 12), provided you don’t hit anything on your way. Hitting even a paper wall will probably deal more damage than landing at full speed would.

Smash landing is multiplied by 8/dex (capped at 200%). Worst case landing damage (from a hulk smash) is 32 (24 from brute).
At 24 dex (achievable with meth and good base dex), that’s just 10 landing damage (from a hulk!). Even cloth armor can stop that.
At 4 dex that’s a deadly 64, which will punch through any single armor that doesn’t have “power” in its name.
Landing on deep water also deals no damage, but that’s extremely situational.

So a typical unharmed, sober but also unspecialized melee character (14 dex) takes at worst 18 damage (per body part) from a hulk smash landing and 13 from a brute smash. That’s before armor.

Parkour halves landing damage, but that would already count as some degree of specialization.
Only armor reduces “smashed against things” damage. And this one is much higher than landing damage in most cases.

[Nighthawk]

If I have a fast character, I should be able to dart in and poke at hulks and brutes. After all, I can do that with normal – and presumably faster – zombies.

I really don’t understand why people expect large monsters to be slower. Bigger does not = slower. Bigger = longer stride = faster.

Anywho, staying on topic:
I don’t think a strong, specially tailored super awesome build is necessary early on as far as survival, unless your stats are just absolutely abysmal. My most recent character started with these stats:

STR: 7
DEX: 10
PER: 9
INT: 9
Traits: [glow=green,2,300]Fast Reader, Light Eater, Stylish, Pretty,[/glow] [glow=red,2,300]Flimsy, Lightweight[/glow]
Maid profession gives points in tailoring, cooking, and driving. No other points spent on skills.

Currently my melee and dodge skill are at 8 and I’m beating zombies with level 3 unarmed, which I only recently started training. Granted, my Dexterity is decent, but 10 DEX is nothing compared to the builds you guys are suggesting, and my traits aren’t really anything special. I opted to take more in-character traits for roleplay rather than taking truth teller and trigger happy for free points.

tl;dr - With a bit of luck and some caution, you can win with even a flimsy maid.

[spoiler=EDIT - Tactics]I used typical early survival tactics - stick to the outskirts of cities until skills are higher, use safemode a lot to avoid getting murdered by something before you’re aware of it, etc. I utilized early morning/night to creep around the city a bit for extra supplies, but I only did that once. Got seen by a couple of brutes during the day, but I ran away and ducked through some buildings, lost them pretty easily.

Haven’t yet tested my melee prowess against a brute or hulk, and I don’t intend to. Even with 8 skill in melee and dodge, taking on something that can deal so much damage in one hit to my flimsy character is just stupid. I’m going to get myself a firearm before I take those guys on.[/spoiler]

[EditorRUS]

Currently, I have high-lvl melee character (doesn’t have lots of CBMs (as I have not stormed a lab yet) nor mutations except road-runner given from flubbed installation of CBMs) with 13 melee and 9 cutting weapons skill, armed with reinforced wakizashi (CUT: 30).

Hulks are PAIN. Even though my character is able to strike quickly, nevertheless I usually stun (by using taser) those guys because they are unpredictable and can smash you when you don’t expect that. I also used RX knife, but lost it (FUCKING SPITTERS WITH THEIR ACID, HOW DARE THEY!).

Brutes are not hard, though. 2-3 slashes and they are done. A hulk needs about 7 slashes.

[Tineen]

At 6 archery and marksmanship I found short bow deals with brute’s pretty reliably, hulks I tend to use a gun but I have beaten one in melee with 7+ skill and a baseball bat, hurt though. This was with parkour however for the throws.

[Valpo]

I murdered a hulk in meele barehanded with a str 8 dex 10 char at skill lvl 6 in melee.
Was thrown into a wall 3 times.

no drugs were used and no kittens got hurt.

[Tineen]

hulks can certainly be inconsistent in how “tough” they are. To be honest I usually find spitter’s the most annoying just because they damage gear.

[TheFlame52]

To be honest I usually find spitter’s the most annoying just because they damage gear.

YES

[Valpo]

Thus i climb fences if i can and figth the blasted spitter jerks from there.
Or i shoot em with a railgun… they deserve it .

Or both…

I realy wanna be able to jump on rooftops and shoot stuff from there.

[Tineen]

I have honestly used up a LAW just because I couldn’t be arsed dealing with the spitter’s troll acid splash wreck your socks attack.

[Nighthawk]

On the topic of Hulks again, I think it’s perfectly fair that they should take a good number of hits to bring down even for a highly skilled character. Especially considering they’re huge and you (probably) can’t reach their heads with any melee weapon, forcing you to hack at their legs and bodies until they flop over.

It’s only logical that you should use a gun to bring them down. Realistically (and yes I know Cata is semi-unrealistic, but it still plays by some real world rules), no one in their right mind would even TRY to fight something that big in melee.

[Valpo]

If i was backed into a corner i d try. Or be paralysed by fear. IRL.
But i d definatly not accept death willingly just cause of bad odds.

Okay but if i saw a tiny chance of running away id try that first.

And yes i think that melee combat is op. especialy unarmed combat.

If 8 is average strength you shouldn t even be able to hurt the average z with punches. at that str. A normal human would suffer from pain and perhaps internal bleeding after beeing hit a lot but a z…
And breaking bones with average strength isn t gunna hapen unless you place a hold on the enemy… not with basic punches.

[system]

If 8 is average strength you shouldn t even be able to hurt the average z with punches. at that str. A normal human would suffer from pain and perhaps internal bleeding after beeing hit a lot but a z…

On Walking Dead, they can stroll up to zeds and casually pith them with screwdrivers without even using full strength. Zeds are much weaker than a living human, not stronger. It’s only their numbers and relentlessness – and the threat of a bite – that makes them dangerous.

[Valpo]

pith and what does that do? and a screwdriver isnt unarmed. strength doesnt nessesarily make you more durable.