[faket15]

Attributes
You can't have AGI 9, Exceptional Attribute lets you break your racial maximum only by one point. Even after reducing AGI to 8 you spent 2 attribute points more than you have.

Skills
Everyone is talking about them. I will pass.

Ware
WR2 is only marginally better than WR1 for a much higher cost. You can pick Alpha WR1 and free up 1.4 Essence and more than 100k nuyen.
The cyberarm is making you less effective. You need to upgrade its agility.
You can also change some of your alphaware to standard (Muscle Toner/Augmentation are  the first ones that come to my mind). Upgrade MT to level 2.
You already causes lethal damage with your fists, you don't need the hand blades.

Other Gear
You want your armor to have nonconductivity and/or chemical protection.
You may want to have licenses for some of your ware.
You probably want shock gloves and a taser or some non-lethal ammunition.

[Stepping Razor]

Looks like I derped up my Attributes when I made a change. Thanks for spotting that!!! 

Will adjust my attributes to match the 20 points available.

Thanks again.

/goes back to drawing board.

[Crunch]

If you wouldn't mind Razor, could you post where you're spending your finishing Karma? It would make the character easier to evaluate.

[Stepping Razor]

@Crunch

I'd fouled up my numbers after making the switch from Intuition Exceptional Attribute to Agility. Doh!

Finishing Karma is 25 for Edge 1-3, 10 Spent on 20K Nuyen

Attributes are fixed now, just need to double check Limits.

Spent B1, A7, R4, S1, C0, I4, L1, W2 = 20 Points

Hopefully, I have this listed correctly on the Sheet now

[Kincaid]

For a SWAT character (as opposed to a SpecOps character), I would almost be inclined to go Attributes A, Resources B since most SWAT guys in various SR books are attribute/skill guys with a smattering of cyber--giving everyone on SWAT 400k of alphaware gets too expensive.  To make up for the lowish cyber, have him focus on teamwork and tactics in-game.  Wires 2 is great and all, but there are diminishing returns going from 1 to 2 and a character that can reliably ambush the opposition is going to be much more dangerous.

For example, here's 151k worth of cyber I figure a SWAT guy might have, leaving you lots of cash and essence to add on.

Smartlink
Datajack
Plastic Bone Lacing
Wired Reflexes 1
Internal Air Tank 1
Muscle Toner 2, used
Muscle Augmentation 2, used

With 24 attributes (from going A, assuming you still spend your karma on Edge)

Body 4(5)             
Agility 6( 8 )           
Reaction 4(5)     
Strength 6( 8 )     
Willpower 5     
Charisma 3   
Intuition 5         
Logic 3       

Initiative 10+2d6.  On average, this will allow you to Dodge once and still go twice.

Add in a reflex recorder, and he's rolling 17 dice to shoot people with an automatic, which isn't too bad for a starting character.  His punch hits at 9M, which is also pretty respectable.  Unarmed combat and strength in SR5 really needs to be invested in, or ignored.  Armor makes it too easy to ignore punches from a Str 4 person.  A Str 8 also fits the image of a guy who can kick down a door, toss in a gas grenade (which your air tank helps you ignore), and kick ass.  He's also much more willful, which will help vs. magic and on a good initiative roll, makes Full Defense attractive.

[Stepping Razor]

@kincaid -- I may revise the description a bit. SWAT/Fast Response was the first thing that popped into my head. My main goals with cyber is getting lots of speed out of her and some decent damage soak. She'll "hopefully rely on firearms more than punching people, but the Cyber arm at 8P should be OK (Leads with Cyber arm rule).

@All Thank you so much for all the suggestions. I'll keep reading them and keep making adjustments!!!

[Crunch]

That's much closer to the approach I would take for my personal character, although I'd probably drop the Internal Air Tank and consider the virtues of Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 (1.6 Essence for 60k Nuyen) as opposed to the Muscle Toner 2 Muscle Aug 2 combo (.8 Essence for 123k Nuyen).

Alpha Wired 1 1.6 Essence 46,800 Nuyen
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 1.6 Essence - 60 K Nuyen
Smartlink .2 Essence 4000 Nuyen
Datajack .1 Essence 1000 Nuyen
 
Comes in at 3.5 Essence and 111,800. That would leave you almost 30K leftover on Resources C.

A Att, B Skill, C Resources, D Elf would look pretty good for a SWAT guy.

[Kincaid]

That's much closer to the approach I would take for my personal character, although I'd probably drop the Internal Air Tank and consider the virtues of Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 (1.6 Essence for 60k Nuyen) as opposed to the Muscle Toner 2 Muscle Aug 2 combo (.8 Essence for 123k Nuyen).

Alpha Wired 1 1.6 Essence 46,800 Nuyen
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 1.6 Essence - 60 K Nuyen
Smartlink .2 Essence 4000 Nuyen
Datajack .1 Essence 1000 Nuyen
 
Comes in at 3.5 Essence and 111,800. That would leave you almost 30K leftover on Resources C.

A Att, B Skill, C Resources, D Elf would look pretty good for a SWAT guy.

Good call on the alpha replacement.  The internal tank is the result of the paranoia associated with having a GM finding new and interesting ways to try to suffocate PCs and is entirely optional.  However, if you see your GM reading the page on Engulf more than once, take it.

[Stepping Razor]

@Crunch @Kincaid This REALLY simplifies the character, but numbers-wise, what I'm looking for is tons of speed and a truckload of DMG output. I guess I should revise the title to
fit that. Any ideas? The character will end up more nuanced, of course; but from the get-go I wanted to make sure she went high in the Initiative Roll and could deliver on that when her turn comes.

Thanks!

[faket15]

That's much closer to the approach I would take for my personal character, although I'd probably drop the Internal Air Tank and consider the virtues of Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 (1.6 Essence for 60k Nuyen) as opposed to the Muscle Toner 2 Muscle Aug 2 combo (.8 Essence for 123k Nuyen).

Alpha Wired 1 1.6 Essence 46,800 Nuyen
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2 1.6 Essence - 60 K Nuyen
Smartlink .2 Essence 4000 Nuyen
Datajack .1 Essence 1000 Nuyen
 
Comes in at 3.5 Essence and 111,800. That would leave you almost 30K leftover on Resources C.

A Att, B Skill, C Resources, D Elf would look pretty good for a SWAT guy.

Last week I created a Sam with a Resources B "Advanced Version" of this pack.

Alpha Wired Reflexes 1
Alpha Reaction Enhancers 2
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2
Aluminium Bone Lacing
Alpha Smartlink
Alpha Datajack
Orthoskin 3
Reflex Recorder
Platelet Factories

Costs 5.97 Essence and 211k nuyen



To the OP.
WR1 lets you get a third pass only 40% of the time while WR2 gives you the third pass 90% of the time, but if you really want to be fast you can always spend Edge to blitz. In this case you will have a third pass almost 100% of the time and a fourth one half of the time.

[Kincaid]

Speed is still really important in SR5--not to the same extent it was in SR2, but it's always worth having.

Initiative passes are a force multiplier.  It's always worth it for any gun character to have a guarantee of 2 passes, and this isn't hard to accomplish with little-to-no nuyen.  The problem is that it's very hard to reliably hit 3 passes without a major investment.  3 passes is great and represents a force multiplier, but there are other ways to try to gain that force multiplier for much less nuyen.  Most of them involve playing with other people who are smart.  If that's not an option, get as many wires as you can and hope for the best.

But assuming you are playing with people who are smart, or at least people who can follow a plan, you can focus on things like suppressive fire, ambushes, and setting up an environment in anticipation of a fight.  The back of SR5 mentions how secguards won't fight in the open and will retreat to a defensible position asap.  Runners should be just as choosy about where they fight too.  If you can set up overlapping fields of fire from positions with hard cover and you can control the lights, that all counts for a lot more than an extra initiative pass.

All of this is to say that having a goal of a "high" initiative roll is great, but it's a little vague.  Think of it as # of initiative passes + likelihood of being able to Dodge (or whatever) without sacrificing passes.

Damage output relies on a few factors, but obviously the big one is how many dice you're rolling.  I'm not sold on specializing off of Automatics just because there are a lot of places that aren't assault rifle-friendly and Automatics gives you a really nice small/medium/large choice between machine pistol/SMG/assault rifle.  I wouldn't gimp any two of those to specialize on the third.  You can totally gimp longarms to specialize in sniper rifles, but I don't think it's as feasible with automatics.  Once you get into the 17+ dice range and have enough recoil comp for an accurate long burst, you should be able to hit *very* hard.  If something somehow survives that, switch to an airburst grenade.  If something somehow survives that, run away.

As with initiative, getting your dice from 17-ish to 20+ is possible, but requires a certain amount of diminishing returns.  (I'll ignore stupid things like Agi 1 characters with Agi 9 cyberarms here).

But if the concept is Mr. Twitch, then go for it.  Speed is effective and fun.

[Crunch]

1) For sheer speed in 5E you cannot beat phys ads. Conversely Samurai can get reasonably fast, and are much better at stat mods and damage mitigation (as opposed to avoidance) than adepts. But if you have a need for speed look to a SWAT adept as an option. A power mix of Imp Ref 3 (3.5 PP), Combat Sense 1 (.5 PP), Imp Ability (Choose Automatics, Pistols or Long Arms) 3(1.5PP), Attribute Boost Agility 2 (.5PP) and a couple of Qi Foci to mix and match things like Danger Sense, Kinesics, Rapid Healing, Traceless walk etc would give you a pretty stout ability to rock the "I go first" Olympics.

2) Wired 2 is expensive but doable. For a fast SWAT style samurai (which is a cool concept and I'd personally keep it) I'd look at going back to your original idea of exceptional attribute Reaction or Exceptional Attribute Intuition and dumping the Reaction enhancers. They're really expensive for what you get, and the conditional nature of their stacking with Wired makes me leary of them. For a resources heavy version try this

Wired 2  3 Essence 149,000
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2  1.6 Essence 60,000
Smartlink .2 Essence  4000 Nuyen
Datajack .1 Essence  1000 Nuyen
4.9 Essence 214,000

That's under Resources B by a fair bit, and is pretty good

If you want to go resources A and speed is your principle concern
Synaptic Booster 2 is an ouchy 190,000 but only 1 essence
Alpha Muscle Replacement 2  1.6 Essence 60,000
Smartlink .2 Essence  4000 Nuyen
Datajack .1 Essence  1000 Nuyen
Only 2.9 Essence but 255,000

Or you could just take an Adrenal Pump 2  an Edge of 6 and plan on using Blitz all the time.

As for the Cyberarm.

Mechanically you can customize your Cyberlimb up to your Natural Maximum and then augment on top of that. In this case if you keep the Agi of 8 it would cost 40,000 Nuyen to customize your Cyberarm to Agi 8 and that would set the Cyberlimbs Availability to 9. At that point if you then added Agility +3 you'd be at 59,500. My suggestion would to either take the Cyberarm and either Pistols or SMGs as a point of focus, or Muscle Aug/Toner/Replacement and stick with your shotty's and ARs (although notably cyberlimb averaging and SR rounding means that the Arm would only have to be Agi 6 to keep your effective full body at Agi 10 assuming that your base stat was Agi 8(10) with Replacement or toner 2).

Unfortunately as currently constructed the Cyberarm rules are only efficient for augmentation if you abuse the heck out of them. For characters with good stats already they're not generally a good choice for stat augmentation.

[Stepping Razor]

Thanks! I'll pour over all of the alternative builds tonight (and probably throughout the work day )  and rearrange her. 

Awesome ideas!  Think I need to print all this out and hit it with a highlighter!

Also: This build is really just a refresher for me to re-learn/unlearn the rules. I do "hope" to find an online group to play her with, but I want to have a good understanding of the rules first. As far as the direction she's going: it's perfect now. Move fast, hit hard and get out alive using SWAT style tactics mixed with Street Sam wiring.

[SoulGambit]

If you're going for a move-fast, hit hard type character, have you looked at being an Adept or a Chrome Adept? I feel like it accomplishes those goals better than the Street Samurai archtype. Out of the gate, you can nab the equivalent of Wired Reflexes 3, and you can soak up Drain for even more initiative. The Street Samurai lends itself more towards being a Tank. Some notes, assuming Street Samurai:

- You want an Augmented Strength of 7, ideally 8, in order to use your Shield and Helmet effectively.
- You're an Elf with no Charisma and no Social Skills. If this is a fluff choice, that's perfectly find. If you're picking elf for the +1 Agility, you're better off having a natural Edge of 5.
- Grab an Area Jammer 4 and a Directional Jammer 6.
- For Weapon Skills, try Longarm or Automatics / Pistols or Unarmed or Monofilament Whip / Exotic Ranged Weapon [Dart Guns] / Thrown Weapon or Heavy Weapon.
- The following things are going to wreck you: Poison, Magic, Explosives. Get defenses against all three.
- Gymnastics is an amazing skill, both for your concept and for the Dodge Interrupt.
- You really want to start from the following Priorities: Attribtues A, Skills B, Nuyen C, Metatype D, Magic E. If you go Chrome Adept then go Attributes A, Magic B, Nuyen C, Skills D, Metatype E. Vary this structure very slightly as necessary for your concept. I usually find myself playing around with where Skills are.
- The big advantage of Nuyen B, should you choose to do it, is that it lets you stack armor to truly stupid levels.
- Jazz/Kamikaze can give you that extra kick and initiative when you need it. Use sparingly.
- 15+2d6 gives you 3 Passes ~72% of the time. If you take Enhanced Attribute (Intuition / Reaction) for +1  then it gives you 3 Passes ~83% of the time. If you also spend Karma to increase the other Attribute to 6, then you're looking at 3 passes 92% of the time.



My hat in for an Augmentation / Gear list at Nuyen C...

Augmentations:
50,000; 2.0E Alphaware Muscle Replacement 2
29,250; 1.2E Used Reaction Enhancers 3
39,000; 2.0E Wired Reflexes 1
3,000; 0.25E Used Smartlink
750; 0.125E Used Flare Compensation
1,200; 0.125E Alphaware Datajack
Gear:
10,000 Basic Gear PACK
~6,000 Ares Alpha with all the bells and whistles
4,600 Armored Vest + Nonconductity 6 + Chemical Protection 6
1,350 Helmet + Vision Magnification + Image Link + Thermographic Vision
800 Area Jammer 4
1,200 Directional Jammer 6
1,200 Parashield Dart Pistol + Smartlink
5,000 Commlink
200 Gasmask
1,100 Shock Gloves x2
1,200 Ballistic Shield
~3,450 left over for Slap Patches, Gel Rounds, Normal Rounds, Narcojet Darts, Tear Gas Grenades, Flashpacks, Flashbangs, (Thermal) Smoke Grenades, Kamikaze, Jazz.

[Stepping Razor]

Appreciate all the help today! Printing this out to work on tonight!!!