Good character builds?

[Inconspicuous]

One of the most difficult parts of playing Cataclysm (for me) is creating a character. Trying to pick the right stats, skills, and traits, so that I can survive the first week or so of the apocalypse. So, I was wondering if you could share with me some of your favorite/good character builds.

[vicirdek]

i usually can survive the first day with night vision and some melee skills

[bhauptman]

Just started with a new template and I think I like it. I took most of the mods, including stats through skills. It makes sense to me that someone doing lots of physical stuff gets stronger, IQ related stuff gets smarter, etc. Just the basic survivor.

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“MARTIAL_ARTS2”,“PACKMULE”,“TRUTHTELLER”,“QUICK”,“HYPEROPIC”,“ROBUST”,“TRIGGERHAPPY”,“MYOPIC”,“FORGETFUL”,“HEAVYSLEEPER”,“BADHEARING”,“NIGHTVISION”

Str: 12, Dex: 8, Int: 10, Per: 10

First times I ran this build, I went to get a rock and got killed by a Slave Fighter and then a Moose immediately outside of the shelter. 3rd time around, I’m doing okay, got a longbow and I’m killing dogs, Moose, coyote and a few of the mild zombies. I’d love to get skills up enough to add eye-mods to get rid of the near/far sightedness, but until then I’ll keep collecting bifocals.

[Noctifer]

The bionic assassin, while costly, is ready to go when it comes to melee. The cqb bionic is all the skill you need with it.

Just spend your remaining points (if any) on stats and traits and ignore skills and you should be fine. If you can’t ignore skills just upgrade the dogging.

[Telkoth]

I’ve seen a number of people suggest trigger happy to get those extra points, cuz what does it matter if you’re not going to use an automatic right? But I’ve found more often than not at the start of the game I’m using whatever guns and ammo I can find. When that gun is an Automatic with one clip it’s nice not to unload the entire clip on the first moose that gets too close. By the end of the game you’ll probably have your perfect choice of weapons and can work around it easily. But at the start it may hurt you more than it helps.

[John_Candlebury]

A good min-max character for starting out is

Scoundrel profession
Stats:
-12 strenght
-10 dex
-8 int
-8 per

Traits
Quick
Night Vision
Insommiac
Lightweight
Animal Discord
Addictive Personality
Sleepy
Truth Teller

Skills

-Dodge

Makes you competent in melee, grants you very good starting gear, and none of its negative traits is a hinderance for combat.

The low int might be a slight problem if you want a high tech lategame, but this class is good for learning the basics of early and mid game.
Per does nothing particularily useful, its sort off usefull if you want to use long range guns, but thats not really an optimal playstile.

[Telkoth]

When you say problem for high tech game. Is that just for CBM Installation and reading speeds?

[SpadeDraco]

My slightly unorthodox powergaming build:

Profession: Hacker

Str 8 (only raise this above 8 if you want to do serious archery)
Dex 8 (If you don’t plan on hunting artifacts or installing many CBMs without cheating, raise this to 14 and dump Int to 8)
Int 14 (for robot hacking\cbm installing\ amigara murdering\ unarmed fighting)
Per 8 (only raise this above 8 if you want to do serious gun or samurai stuff)

Traits Positive:
Night Vision OR Fleet Footed (If you’re a Night or Day raider respectively)
Indefatigable
Packmule (Never trade volume for protection ever again)
Quick
Zui-Quan OR Dragon Kung fu (Defense or Offense respectively)
Spiritual (Morale? What’s that?)

Traits Negative:
Addictive Personality
Far Sighted (You start with glasses and the condition is corrected by an easy to find cbm)
Near Sighted (ditto)
Heavy Sleeper (This one is basically a positive trait)
Poor Hearing (ditto)
Lightweight
Truth-Teller
Junkfood\Lactose\Wool Intolerance

Skills:
Mostly personal preference, but +1 to computers will open up alot of doors for you that aren’t available to any other profession on day 1. Like the ability to walk into police armories.

Notable Starting Items:
Caffeine Pills (Extremely useful no matter how you build your character)
Laptop Computer (Rare item that will eventually make robots and turrets a non issue)
Messenger Bag (Has a good amount of storage for low encumbrance, especially when combined with Packmule trait)

Good Mutation Lines:
Alpha (pre thresh)
Elf
Medical
Slime

Kannushi is a good starting class if you’re on the more noobish end of the scale. Can start with 3 in both fabrication and tailoring without any point investment.

[John_Candlebury]

When you say problem for high tech game. Is that just for CBM Installation and reading speeds?

Yes, that and hacking computers/robots.

But I thought 8 int prevented you from reading the lab journals and some other books, but it turns out you can still read them, just very slowly.

So 8 int is more like a mild hinderance, actually.

[StopSignal]

[quote=“bhauptman, post:3, topic:13650”]Just started with a new template and I think I like it. I took most of the mods, including stats through skills. It makes sense to me that someone doing lots of physical stuff gets stronger, IQ related stuff gets smarter, etc. Just the basic survivor.

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“MARTIAL_ARTS2”,“PACKMULE”,“TRUTHTELLER”,“QUICK”,“HYPEROPIC”,“ROBUST”,“TRIGGERHAPPY”,“MYOPIC”,“FORGETFUL”,“HEAVYSLEEPER”,“BADHEARING”,“NIGHTVISION”

Str: 12, Dex: 8, Int: 10, Per: 10

First times I ran this build, I went to get a rock and got killed by a Slave Fighter and then a Moose immediately outside of the shelter. 3rd time around, I’m doing okay, got a longbow and I’m killing dogs, Moose, coyote and a few of the mild zombies. I’d love to get skills up enough to add eye-mods to get rid of the near/far sightedness, but until then I’ll keep collecting bifocals. [/quote]

Wait, didn’t Stats Through Skills make your starting stats useless, as it’d default to 8/8/8/8?

[SpadeDraco]

Wait, didn’t Stats Through Skills make your starting stats useless, as it’d default to 8/8/8/8?

Don’t think it does that anymore.

[evilexecutive]

Bionic Prepper is great for someone who is wanting to make a survivalist/bunker character. You get a Tortion Ratchet which more or less means infinite energy, as well as an Integrated Toolset. And if you spend 3 points in Fabrication, you more or less have the ability to make anything you want right out of the gate.

So you can immediately make a decent melee weapon from any available materials, as well as cook anywhere without a fire, so long as you have a cooking pot in your inventory.

[bhauptman]

Stats through Skills doesn’t lock you to 8/8/8/8 anymore.

Glad I posted my reply. I had to use it to rebuild my character template after my game saves were lost.

[Inconspicuous]

Thanks guys! I think I’ll try a couple of these, maybe the hacker. Although, how common are wool items? And I don’t think junk-food intolerance would be very good, partially because that’s the main kind of food you get in the early game.

[Telkoth]

Wool can be relatively common but I feel like the idea behind taking it is, there is always ways around it. Like, a big thick wool coat may give 70 warmth. But so does a trenchcoat and two pairs of long underwear, which are all cotton.

Junk food? Depends on your play style. If you raid peoples fridges as your only source of food then you may be in trouble at times. I however usually hunt or forage for my food.

[_k1]

Wool allergy is a very minor problem.

Most canned food is not junk food, actually. The useful junk food you will miss: coke, for small speed buff; snacks, for morale buff, but unhealthy and probably dehydrating.

[SpadeDraco]

Yeah, missing out on junkfood isn’t a hindrance at all. People severely overestimate how difficult it is to starve in this game. The default map that is revealed when you start the game can easily contain 1 year or so worth of food. Even in the middle of the woods.

[Rot]

I’m trying a 40/40 faith and intelligence pyromancer build with a chaos infused astora greatsword/ carthus curved sword. I’m currently at smouldering lake, but my vitality and endurance are pretty low so I’m farming souls atm.

In all seriousness, quick and fleet footed really help to either escape or to fight and land hits faster.

[Catfoodbob]

If you know how to deal with labs, just grab 4 electronics and they are super easy to escape, you don’t even need to get lucky, just need to get the stuff for making emp grenades.

[deoxy]

If you know how to deal with labs, just grab 4 electronics and they are super easy to escape, you don’t even need to get lucky, just need to get the stuff for making emp grenades.

Yeah, lab starts are so easy I quit doing them. If you need an easy mode, that’s it.