Underrail Best Build Naga-Killing

We are with you with our underrail best build guide. In this guide, we will teach you the Naga-Killer build. The best underrail build with every detail is here.

Underrail Best Build Naga-Killing

I’m seeing a lot of guides that throw a premade build at you, or shove an encyclopedia worth of info at you all at once, so this guide will try to get new players knowledgeable enough to make their own builds quickly. I will detail all the tools available for you to make a build that can kill everything in the game.

I am not going to explain every basic mechanic, only important, non-obvious ones. If you do not have at least one failed play-through attempt, you may not understand this guide.

Some of the info may be wrong or only partially accurate. A fair amount of this guide is based of wiki info and this guide.

New Player Tips

Controls

Hotbars: You actually have 3 hotbars. The 2nd appears when you hold Shift, the 3rd appears when you hold Control. Open your ability menu with F, and drag everything you want to use onto the hotbars. Drag consumables from your inventory onto the hotbar too.

Highlight Interactable: The Tab key highlights most interactable objects in the world. The Z key does the same, but makes objects underneath other objects easier to click. A lot of important objects are easy to miss visually, so regularly hit Highlight and scan the map.

Gameplay

How to Avoid Getting Stuck: Underrail has many critical items and characters that are well-hidden. Loot every container, loot the remains of every enemy, search every unrevealed corner of the map (that you are leveled enough to handle), look at every vendors’s inventories, look at what every item does, talk to every character you can.

Backup Saves: Keep regular backup saves in case you waste all your resources, because you can get yourself stuck if you run out of money or ammo in a bad place.

When to Restart :If your build can’t handle Depot A (The final area of the early game) without perfect RNG, then something is wrong with your tactics, equipment, or build. Look at all the alternate items you could be using, and look for alternative ways to approach the encounters. If your build is at fault, restart the play-through. It doesn’t get any easier, and may get much worse if you try to push through anyway.

Basic Mechanics

Dodge and Evasion

Characters with evasion have a chance to avoid attacks from guns, crossbows, and throwing knives, depending on the ratio of the attacker’s gun/crossbow/throwing skill and the defender’s evasion skill. Dodge does the same for melee attacks, using the attacker’s melee skill and the defender’s dodge skill.

• The miss rate is calculated as: Miss% = Defender Skill / Attacker Skill * 30%.

The max miss rate evasion can give is 60% (defender’s skill 2x attacker’s), and the max miss rate dodge can give is 90% (defender’s skill 3x attacker’s). The minimum miss rate is 5% (attacker’s skill 6x defender’s).

• Evasion also provides -25% Area of Effect damage per 100 skill, capped at -85% at 340.

Some armors human characters can wear have an Armor Penalty %, which reduces their effective Dodge and Evasion by the percentage.

When a character is under any status effect that disables movement, effective Dodge and Evasion are 0. This includes Immobilization, Stun, and Incapacitation.

Armor

For each damage type, each character has a Damage Resistance (% reduction) and Threshold (flat reduction). Incoming damage is reduced by their resistance % or by the threshold, depending on which would make the damage lower.

Here are some armor levels from select enemies.

Aegis Sec-Trooper:

Representative of most enemies in the game: slight mechanical resistance, but with a threshold large enough to cause problems for melee and guns with small damage per individual hit (Fists, knives, pistol, SMG, assault rifle).

Burrower Warrior:

Characters with heavy mechanical resistance are common, but only have minimal to moderate resistance to other damage types.

Industrial Robot:

Robots appear regularly, they are nearly immune to mechanical, heat, cold, poison, and thought control.

Naga Protector:

The toughest enemy you will see. Close to immune to everything.

Initiative and Stealth

Normally, when starting combat you and the enemies roll for initiative to see who gets to go first in a round. However, you can manually begin combat with the Enter key before the enemy aggro’s on you, to guarantee you get the first move.

With an adequate stealth score, you can use stealth to get closer to the enemies without pulling aggro, so you can look around and prepare before you initiate combat. You can also use stealth to find isolated enemies that you can kill with silent weapons without pulling aggro from the rest of the map, to thin down the crowd before combat.

What a Good Build Needs

Damage per turn: Your build needs a way to put out heavy damage per turn to clean up the mobs.

Pierce Armor: Your build needs a way to put down adequate damage against enemies that are resistant to your main weapon type.

Pierce dodge/evasion: Sometimes, you will face enemies with extreme dodge/evasion. You need a weapon that ignores dodge/evasion, or a way to consistently immobilize them to remove their dodge/evasion (Certain feat abilities, grenade types, psi abilities, and tasers immobilize and cannot be dodged/evaded).

Survivability: You likely won’t be able to kill all enemies in one turn, so you will need some tools to survive to your second. Don’t over-invest in defense, because you need a good way to kill the enemies you are defending against.

Health, energy shields, dodge, evasion, armor, kiting short range enemies, hiding around corners, after an attack, traps, and crowd control (psi, grenades, others) are the main ways.

Builds Combat Skills

Details on what you get out of maxing each skill, and common thresholds to pass skill checks. Each skill has a Stat it scales with, which gives you a bonus +8.5% for every point above 4 you have (Minus -10% per point below 4) to your effective skill value. Since you have a limited number of skill points, you will want to prioritize skills that you have a stat bonus to, unless you really need that skill for your build. Skills are also important for unlocking feats: The points needed to unlock a particular feat use base, not effective skill.

Combat Skills

Guns (Perception)

• Max to improve your gun damage and resistance to enemy evasion
• +70% base damage per 100 skill

Throwing (Dexterity)

• 123 for max precision grenades, caltrops
• Max to improve your throwing weapon damage and resistance to enemy evasion.
• +70% base damage per 100 skill (Does not affect grenades)

Crossbows (Perception)

• Max to improve your crossbow damage and resistance to enemy evasion
• +70% base damage per 100 skill

Melee (Dexterity or Strength)

• Max to improve your melee damage and resistance to enemy dodge
• +70% base damage per 100 skill

Thought Control (Willpower)

• Max to improve strength and success rate of thought control abilities

Psychokinesis (Willpower)

• 45 to cast all utility abilities (base, not effective)
• Max to improve strength of psychokinesis abilities

Metathermics (Willpower)

• Max to improve strength of all metathermics abilities

Temporal Manipulation (Willpower)

• 70 to cast all utility abilities (base, not effective)
• 166 for minimum psycho-temporal contraction backfire chance
• Max to improve strength of all temporal manipulation abilities

Defensive Skills

Dodge (Agility)

• Max to improve chance to avoid melee attacks

Evasion (Agility)

• -25% AOE damage per 100 skill, capped at -85% at 340
• Max to improve chance to avoid ranged attacks

Stealth (Agility)

• Reduced by your armor penalty %, and increased by some equipment
• Some enemies have True-Sight and cannot be hidden from
• 130 to avoid instant detection from most common enemies (Death Stalkers need 130, AFAIK the highest detection non-boss)
• Higher than minimum will buy more time to detect Death Stalkers before they see and approach you
• 160 to avoid instant detection from all enemies (Black Crawler needs 160, AFAIK the highest detection enemy)

Traps (Dexterity)

• 95 to be able to place all types of traps
• 165 to disarm all enemy traps (AFAIK)
• 185 to recover all enemy traps (AFAIK)
• Makes your traps harder to spot by enemies (IDK how much is needed)

Supporting Skills

These skills allow you to get much better equipment and items than you’d otherwise be able to.

Mercantile

With enough mercantile, certain vendors will sell you much better equipment, components, and consumables. Scales with intelligence.

• 105 to unlock all vendor inventories
• 140 to unlock all bonus quest rewards
• Boosting equipment: Waist pack +10, large waist pack +15

Crafting

Lists the crafting requirements for the most important recipes. Some crafting components range in quality from 15 (level 1) to 160 (level 30) (sometimes a bit higher but it’s rare), and the skill needed to use them is a percentage of their quality as specified below. Some additionally have small flat skill requirements to use, double check the recipes you want to use on the below wiki links. I have skipped listing some of the useful, but non-build critical items you can make with each skill.

Mechanics (Intelligence)

• 96%: Assault rifle, sniper rifle, combat shotgun
• 80%: Knife, spear, sword, sledgehammer, metal combat gloves, metal armor/helmet/boots, pistol, SMG, regular shotgun, crossbow
• 60%: Ballistic vest, riot gear
• 40%: Goggles
• 20%: Infused leather (for leather armor/boots/tabis)
• 16%: Chemical pistol
• 30: W2C bullets

Electronics (Intelligence)

• 80%: Energy shield, psionic headband, energy pistol, goggles
• 135: All plasma grenades, mines
• 105: All EMP grenades, mines
• 60: Shock crossbow bolts
• 30: Shock shurikens

Chemistry (Intelligence)

• 80%: Chemical pistol
• 112: HE, frag grenades/mines
• 80: Chemical crossbow bolts
• 60: Incendiary grenades, incendiary crossbow bolts
• 50: W2C bullets
• 20: Toxic gas grenade

Biology (Intelligence)

• 28%: Psionic headband
• 150: All poisons (For throwing knifes, caltrops, crossbow bolts, bear traps), all consumables
• 70: Hypercerebrix
• 20: Toxic gas grenade

Tailoring (Intelligence)

• 80%: Boots, tabi shoes, leather armor, ballistic vest, riot gear, metal armor/helmet, balaclava, leather combat gloves

Enhancements:
Some recipes have optional enhancements that have extra requirements, listed below.
Note: Some have special skill requirements, requiring more skill than to just pass the component’s skill check. For example, see the Boots recipe:

The enhancement “will increase the total skill requirements by 10% of the occupying item’s requirements.” So, if the enhancement was a Boot Spring requiring 100 Mechanics, you would need 100 Mechanics + 10% of 100, for 110 total Mechanics. For recipes with multiple enhancements, each one adds a percent of its skill requirement over the baseline skill needed to use each component on its own.

• Assault rifle/sniper rifle/crossbow: 30 Electronics for advanced scopes
• Metal armor: +8% Mechanics per enhancement, 52% Biology/Electronics for regenerative vest, 12% Chemistry for biohazard vest
• Metal helmet: 88% Electronics for headlamp
• Ballistic vest: 80% Mechanics for armor plate (+20% Biology for carapace armor plate), 52% Biology/Electronics for regenerative vest, 88% Tailoring for cloth overcoat, 12% Chemistry for biohazard vest
• Riot armor: 80% Mechanics for shield (+20% Biology for carapace shield), 52% Biology/Electronics for regenerative vest, 88% Tailoring for cloth overcoat, 12% Chemistry for biohazard vest
• Boots: 88% Mechanics for boot spring/other enhancement, 20% Biology for serpent skin
• Leather armor: 88% Tailoring for cloth overcoat, 20% Biology for serpent skin
• Knife/Sword/Spear/Sledgehammer: 96% Electronics for electroshock/energy blade, 88% Mechanics for spikes/serration (Sledge only)
• Energy shield: 104% Electronics for second shield modulator
• Goggles: 88%+4 Electronics for night-vision module
• Combat gloves: 20% Biology for serpent skin, Up to 94% Mechanics, 96% Electronics depending on enhancements (Metal enhancement: 80% Mechanics, Electroshock/Energy core: 80% electronics each, Pneumatic hammer: 80% Mechanics, 52% Electronics)
• Chemical blob traps: Minimum 60 Chemistry, 12 Mechanics, but may need up to 80% Chemistry, 12% Mechanics (You need 75 quality parts for max tier, but you will not find parts with exactly that quality, you have to use whatever you can)

See below links for the miscellaneous other recipes:

• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blueprints
• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mechanics
• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Electronics
• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chemistry
• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Biology
• https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tailoring

Other Skills

The below skills sometimes provide alternate ways to complete quests, bonus loot, and bypass combat encounters. However, most fights are unavoidable, so make sure your build is ready for combat before investing in these.

Hacking (Intelligence)

• 130 (without hacking tools) to unlock all quest alternatives
• Boosting equipment: Lemurian engineer suit +10
• Boosting tools: Huxkey +15

Lockpicking (Dexterity)

• 130 to open all locks
• 50 to open all vents (base game, no tool bonuses)
• Boosting tools: Huxkey +15
• Boosting equipment: Lemurian engineer suit +10, Jackknife +7

Pickpocketing (Dexterity)

• 120 to steal all unique items (Uncertain)

Persuasion (Willpower)

• 110 for all skill checks (Uncertain)

Intimidation (Strength or Willpower)

• 100 for all skill checks (Uncertain)

Stats

When making a build, you usually set your stats to meet the stat requirements on your selected weapon and feats. However, some of the stats have side benefits to be aware of.

Strength

• Bonus melee damage per point (% bonus at each strength level depends on weapon type)

Dexterity

• Light weapon attack’s AP cost reduced 3% per point above 5 (Rounded up to nearest whole number)
• +1% melee crit per point above 5
• +1 to initiative roll per point (Compared to base of 5 + 1:15 roll)

Agility

• +3 MP per turn per point above 5
• +1 to initiative roll per point (Compared to base of 5 + 1:15 roll)

Constitution

• Bonus health: 4 + Level * 1.2 HP per point (Compared to base of 30 + Level * 4)

Perception

• Increases detection score, allowing you to detect stealthed enemies quicker (Bonus of 1 + Level * 0.5 per point (Compared to base of 10 + Level * 3))
• Stealthed enemies are instantly detected when their stealth is under 40% of your Detection
• Bonus to trap detection (Uses 75% Detection or 50% Detection + 75% Trap skill (IDK how much you need to adequately see traps))

Will

• +0.5 psi regen per turn per point (Compared to base of 5)

Intelligence

• +0.5 psi regen per turn per point (Compared to base of 5)
• +1 psi ability slot per 2 points (Compared to base of 2)

Weapons And Offensive Feats

Mechanics Guns

These guns deal mechanical damage. They have multiple ammo types with different properties. Since enemies resistant to mechanical damage are common, the ammo types W2C Ammo and 3p Tungsten Shotgun Shell are very important, because they partially ignore mechanical resistance (require crafting to acquire in good quantity) (Static spawn is from Kevin at Foundry with 80 mercantile, Fraser at Fort Apogee with 45 Mercantile, maybe Oculus?). Range will be specified by their max optimal range, though they can shoot a bit further.

Pistol

• Light weapon
• Ignores 40% of target’s Evasion at close range
• Medium range (~7 tiles)
• Common feats: Aimed Shot, Execute, Bullet Time, Gunslinger

SMG

• Light weapon
• Can burst-fire
• Medium range (~6 tiles)
• Common Feats: Spec Ops, Commando, Suppressive Fire, Opportunist

Assault Rifle

• 6-7 Strength to equip depending on type
• Can burst-fire
• 5% accuracy penalty after moving on a turn
• Long range (~10 tiles)
• Common Feats: Concentrated Fire, Commando, Full Auto, Suppressive Fire, Opportunist

Sniper Rifle

• 5-6 Strength to equip depending on type
• 25-40% accuracy penalty on close targets (depending on type)
• 15-30% accuracy penalty after moving on a turn (depending on type)
• Long range (~14 tiles)
• Common Feats: Aimed Shot, Shooting Spree

Shotgun

• 5-6 Strength to equip depending on type
• Can burst-fire
• Short range (~4 tiles)
• Common Feats: Sixth Shell, Leading Shot, Full Auto, Suppressive Fire, Opportunist, Barrel Stare

Other Guns

Energy Pistol

• Light weapon
• Deals Energy, Heat, or Electric damage depending on type
• Medium range (~5-7 tiles, depending on type)
• Common feats: Aimed Shot, Execute

Chemical Pistol

• Light weapon
• Deals Acid, Cold, or Heat damage depending on type
• Chance to entangle, freeze, or fear target depending on type
• Short range (~4 tiles)
• Extremely rare, crafting is necessary to obtain
• Common feats: Cooked Shot, Mad Chemist, Aimed Shot, Execute, Opportunist

Crossbows

• Light weapon
• Deals mechanical damage
• Can put Special Bolts in utility slots that deal Acid, Electric, Heat, or Poison
• 10% accuracy penalty on close targets
• 10-15% accuracy penalty after moving on a turn (depending on type)
• Common feats: Aimed Shot, Elemental Bolts, Marksman, Special Tactics

Melee

Melee deals mainly mechanical damage. This makes the Expose Weakness feat very important: It is a melee attack that reduced mechanical resistance. Each melee weapon can also get electroshock or energy blade attachments, to partially sidestep mechanical resistance. They are also nearly unaffected by energy shields.

Combat Glove

• Light weapon
• Incurs 140% of enemy mechanical armor
• Common feats: Combo, Lightning Punches, Heavy Punch

Knife

• Light weapon
• Incurs 125% of enemy mechanical armor
• Common feats: Taste For Blood

Sword

• Requires 5-6 strength to equip depending on type
• Incurs 125% of enemy mechanical armor
• Each hit applies a stack of Carved Up, increasing crit chance (Except against robots)
• Common feats: Flurry, Onslaught

Spear

• Requires 6-7 strength to equip depending on type
• Incurs 75% of enemy mechanical armor (Except against robots)
• Attacks give substantial block effect vs. enemy melee
• Common feats: Impale, Sweep, Spear Guard

Sledgehammer

• Requires 8-9 strength to equip depending on type
• Common feats: Pummel

Psionics

Reduces Max HP by 20% to have. Usually paired with the feats: Premeditation, Tranquility, Psionic Mania. Nearly all abilities are unaffected by Dodge/Evasion.

Thought Control

• Useless against robots
• Enemy resist chance based on your Thought Control skill vs. their Resolve, meaning skill must be high to consistently use crowd control
• Common Abilities:
• Neural Overload: Damage ignores all armor/energy shields, medium range (6 tiles)
• Frighten, Mental Breakdown, Enrage: crowd control, medium range (5 tiles)
• Pseudo-spatial Projection: damage avoidance
• Common Feats: Locus of Control, Cerebral Trauma, Mental Subversion

Metathermics

• Common abilities:
• Pyrokinesis/Pyrokinetic Stream/Cryokinetic Orb: AOE heat/cold damage, long range (10 tiles), Evasion reduces AOE damage of first, might for 2nd/3rd
• Cryokinesis: Slows and deals mechanical/cold damage, long range (12 tiles)
• Common Feats: Thermodynamicity, Pyromaniac, Hypothermia

Psychokinesis

• Common abilities:
• Electrokinesis: Deals electrical damage, stuns (if not resisted), long range (8 tiles)
• Force Field: Puts up a big barrier enemies must attack to remove
• Common Feats: Force User, Psychostatic Electricity

Temporal Manipulation

• Common Abilities:
• Temporal Distortion: Partially armor piercing mechanical/energy damage, ignores energy shields, long range (10 tiles)
• Psycho-temporal Contraction: Boosts AP/MP, does not require maxing skill to be useful
• Limited Temporal Increment: Reduces all cooldowns, does not scale with skill
• Stasis: Cast on self to become immune to damage until your next turn, status effects do not decay while waiting, 2 turns pass for cooldowns (Does not scale with skill)
• Precognition: Boosts Dodge/Evade chance
• Common Feats: Temporal Ripple, Future Orientation, Psycho-Temporal Acceleration

Throwing

Grenades

• Frag/HE/Plasma/Incendiary grenades: AOE damage in mechanical/heat/energy
• Damage reduced by enemy evasion
• Common Feats: Grenadier, Three Pointer

Throwing Weapons

• Throwing Knives: Mechanical damage, incurs 125% of armor, +75% to unresisted damage
• Shock Shurikens/Acid Vials that deal a bit of electric/acid damage (need crafting to acquire)
• Common Feats: Fatal Throw, Remote Surgeon, Split Spare, Hypertoxicity

Misc Throwing Tools

• EMP Grenades: Removes energy shields and stuns robots
• Flashbang: Chance to incapacitate enemies it hits
• Caltrops: Leaves zone that slow and possibly poisons enemies that walk over it
• Gas Grenade: Slow acting gas cloud that applied major debuffs

Other Feats

Critical Hits
Every weapon type can have their damage massively boosted by specializing your build for critical hits. However, maxing your critical hit chance and critical hit damage will take a large number of feats and equipment slots, locking you out of utility and defensive tools.

Critical Feats:

• General Feats: Survival Instincts, Reckless, Critical Power
• General Equipment: Focus Stim (50 Bio), Hardcore Chips (Common food), Infused Rathound Leather Armor
• Melee Feats: Cheap Shots, Weaponsmith, Ripper, Bone Breaker
• Psi Feats: Psychosis, Psionic Mania, Neural Overclocking
• Psi Equipment: Trance, Neuroscopic/Amplifier Psionic headband
• Ranged Feats: Ambush, Scrutinous, Bowyer, Deadly Snares, Sharpshooter, Pellet Mayhem, Fragmented Chaos, Practical Physicist, Steadfast Aim
• Ranged Equipment: Seeker Goggles

Versatility: Versatility makes your effective Guns, Crossbow, and Melee skill equal to 60% of whichever of those 3 is the highest. This lets you make some weird hybrid builds.

Honorable Mentions

• Blitz for a bit more AP
• Expertise for more damage on some weapons
• Blindsiding for more damage initiating from stealth

Armor and Defensive Feats

Armor

Lets you resist damage against certain enemies, extending the number of turns you can leave those ones alive.

Tactical vest/Riot armor

• Minimal armor penalty
• Substantially reduced damage from smaller melee/guns (Not snipers, spears, sledgehammers)

Tactical vest with armor plate

• Severe armor penalty
• Dramatically reduce damage from smaller guns (Not snipers)

Riot armor with shield

• Severe armor penalty
• Dramatically reduce damage from smaller melee/guns (Not snipers, spears, sledgehammers)
• When shield block triggers, can block large melee blows

Metal armor/heavy serpent skin leather armor

• Enormous armor penalty
• Dramatically reduce damage from all guns, melee, crossbows

Feats

Dodge/Evasion Feats
Gives you a chance to avoid damage from certain enemies, extends the number of turns you can leave those enemies alive.

• Nimble, Uncanny Dodge, Evasive Maneuvers for avoiding damage
• Escape Artist to remove immobilization and regain your dodge/evasion

Movement
Gives you more movement, so you can kite some enemies, or attack an enemy then run somewhere they can’t attack back.

• Hit and Run, Sprint, Fancy Footwork to get more MP
• Escape Artist to get your movement back
• Strafe to reduce accuracy penalty from moving with certain guns

Damage Resistance/Health
Gives you more health and damage resistance, lets you survive more turns in general

• Last Stand, Conditioning, Stoicism, Juggernaut to take more damage

Honorable Mentions

• Thick Skull to become immune to Stuns
• Quick tinkering to lay down a defensive trap mid-combat