So I have a list with N'Dru in the standard build with cluster missiles, chips, Glitterstem, but only have one point left for an EPT (Lone Wolf will not fit, no way, no how). That seems to leave me with 4 options:

1) Veteran Instincts (making her PS 9) to fire the missiles before she dies

2) Crack Shot to push an extra damage through

3) Rage for the re-roll that would have been afforded by Lone Wolf, but at the expense of alot of stress and a focus token I would not need

4) Cool Hand to dump the Glitterstem stress and pick up an evade to help keep from dieing before shooting the clusters.

I am leaning towards #1 or #2, but your input would be appriciated.

Deadeye is a possibility too, no? If not, VI or Crackshot imo. Both are very useful; VI for letting him fire simultaneously with most aces, so even if he dies he shoots, or crackshot for obvious utility.

I thought about Deadeye, but that seems most useful for low to mid pilot skill when you cannot get close enough to high PS to get the target lock due to movement order. VI fixes this, plus is useful all the time.

Crackshot.

Have you thought about dropping Glitters for Lone Wolf? I know the alpha suffers, but at the same time, you have a EPT that's useful through the entire game.

Otherwise, I'd go VI. Shooting before the ever growing list of PS8 pilots will be far more beneficial. And it does give you something that's useful for the entire game.

If you want to drop Glitters for LW, you may consider moving to Homing Missiles. Still get the extra die, they can't use evade tokens, and it's a range 2-3, allowing for a good alpha from further away. Chimps only works once per round, so you aren't losing any benefit there, and yes in total it's 3 less dice thrown, but gives you a bit more flexibility in firing them.

As a thought...

N'dru is all about the alpha. Lay the hate first and early. After that, she's an overcosted blocker/skirmisher that people are going to ignore while trying to recover from that alpha. Use her to harass flanks, but keep the points in the Alpha strike.

VI or Crack. Depending on what you're expecting to face, but the meta is weighting fairly heavily towards PS8s right now so I'd be inclined to VI.

Attanni mindlink!!!!

Guidance chip

Attanni mindlink

Homing missiles

And my personal favorite hot shot cannon

Veteran Instincts will help you out through the long run.

But I endorse exchanging Glitterstim for Lone Wolf.

And N'Dru (or Andrew, if you prefer) is a dude.

Veteran Instincts will help you out through the long run.

But I endorse exchanging Glitterstim for Lone Wolf.

And N'Dru (or Andrew, if you prefer) is a dude.

With clusters and chips I suspect Stim is actually worth more offence, and that's the important part for N'Dru. The Lone Wolf offensive reroll is nice, but it usually winds up conflicting with Chips in my experience. I've never failed to get 4 hits with cluster missiles with him, and rarely needed to chip anything, so lone wolf is probably more replaceable than stim in that regard.

Long term it's much better than VI or Stim, obviously, and for survivability before you alpha it's aces.

I'd be surprised if there's not one more point in the build to get Lone Wolf anyway though. What's the rest of it like?

The other alternative would be Adaptability and a point of bid, but that's a tough choice depending hugely on the rest of the list.