Tier 3 Battle: Twelve O'Clock High

Borderlands 2 Krieg the Psycho
#1

I need to beat this quest for the Motorhead achievement on my level 47 Krieg. As you may know, even in NVHM all of the Tier 3 quests are level 50.

I can’t kill buzzards worth crap with my pure Melee Krieg. I can connect a thrown axe about 5% of the time.

My current set-up:
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500212010050500005145100000000000

  • Diesel Sickle +30% Melee, +3 FtB, +2 EtR, +2 StV – Best I can find for total +% Melee after skills
  • Level 36 Rough Rider
  • Level 46 Torgue Ravager
  • Level 30 Corrosive Rapier
  • Level 43 Corrosive Maliwan SMG – Getting pretty weak now, mainly used for slowly killing buzzards / generating BL stacks before BXR.
  • Level 30 Slag Norfleet – From my one and only Hyperius kill for achievement purposes. Equipped for novelty and occasionally used to slag in FFYL.
  • Level Noob Slag Lobbed Singularity – But I never toss grenades anyway
  • 20-25% Explosive Relic

I’m thinking I’ll need to switch to Hellborn to have any shot at finishing within the timer:
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#00000000000000550000000005555150051

The main strategy would just be to use Corrosive guns (Maliwan SMG? Sniper? What?) and just unload on the stupid Buzzards. Use Elemental Empathy to heal off of the DoTs

I’ve kept a good variety of Blue and Purple COMs that I’ve found along the way, but I have no idea which one would work best for this quest. I think I’ve kept 1-3 of each type (Toast / Reaper / Blister / Torch / Sickle / etc.). No Legendary COMs as I’m still in TVHM.

As for shields, I’ve basically tossed / sold everything except my Rough Rider (which is horribly underleveled but gets the job done) and some random Roid Shield that I think is 2-3 levels under me. Looking like Rough Rider is the better choice for this mission since my shields will be down due to flames anyway, and I won’t be doing too much melee damage against Buzzards.

For relics, I’ve horded a +20% Melee damage, +34% Max Health, +% Resistance (4 types in one relic), +20-25% Explosive, +17% CDR, and I think one other thing. Some of these are pretty low level (e.g., level 21 proficiency relic), but they’re all Blue or Purple.

Grenades… I don’t think I have any offensive Legendaries close to this level on any char. I’d probably swap it out for a level 35 Magic Missile (currently on another char), but I’m not sure how effective those are at catching Buzzards…

Can’t really do much farming since I haven’t completed the story line on TVHM yet (just beat Sawtooth Cauldron), otherwise I’d grab the Hornet and probably be good to go.

Also, I’d prefer to do this solo.

So… what do you guys think? Skill point changes? (Put a few points into Blood-Filled Guns from somewhere?) Easy-to-find gear recommendations?

#2

Shotguns are love, shotguns are life.

Well, the only thing that scales in the RR is the Health, the 20% dmg resistance is constant, from lv1 to OP8.

Hyperion shotguns are always great against buzzards my friend. Go spend some golden keys or go to farm a Conference Call or something similar. That’d be great. A Hornet could do if nicely as well, never tried it though.

On Buzzards, Hyperion is your friend. Oh, and I would start farming on-level gear.

Oh, and also, downing buzzards with the BX it is hard, trust me xD

#3

For real. That Torgue Ravager wrecks face with the Melee build! Especially with max Salt stacks. Kind of hard to hit Buzzards with the gyrojets though.

The main reason my guns are so lacking is because I’ve been pure melee. 95% of time was spent in BXR literally running through maps. Only reason I even kept that Corrosive Maliwan SMG was because I knew the BNK-3R was coming up… but I ended up axe’ing it to death anyway.

Like I said, I’d love to farm a Hornet, but since I haven’t beaten the TVHM story, it’d be like level 30 or so.

Looking like I’ll just need to keep pressing through the main story and trying to upgrade my Corrosive guns along the way. And keep an eye out for a Corrosive elemental relic too.

#4

Try with something Jakobs. Purples should do it fine.

#5

Oh god… The memories… I had to do this in TVHM against the buzzards in Sawtooth, had no good corrosive weapons at the time… It really sucks having to do that… Worst part? The last buzzard dropped a corrosive Plasma Caster :dukeangry:

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#6

Heh. I just did that fight in my last play session. :stuck_out_tongue: I ended up ignoring the first couple of Buzzards in Sawtooth at the top of the hill… died 8 times trying to kill the ones around Boombringer before blitzing the button and running out of there before the Buzzards killed me… then spent like 10 min trying to kill 5 Buzzards while hiding in the elevator lol.

That’s why I’m looking for a different build for the only mission left between me and Motorhead that I think will give me problems. (Also still need to do Bar Brawl, but after doing Sawtooth solo, I think I can handle it just fine Melee).

#7

Well, if you want to see how the world goes BOOM, go Bloodlust. If you want to melt bandits and tank like a boss, go Hellborn.
And a little advice. Go hellborn when you reach 57, some skills can set you on fire and leave you with a great DoT in your MEAT MAN and leave you with a low health (where RtB can be quite useful). By now, go Bloodlust/Mania.

#8

I started off 1-25 in Mania. Switched to Hellborn at 26 once I had Elemental Empathy. Said TY to the warrior every time he lit me on fire. Switched back to Mania around level 33/34 or so and started OHKO’ing and blitzing through TVHM with RtB. Tons of fun.

In my fantasies, Krieg will hit OP8 solo and I’ll try out every build. In reality, I’ll probably hit 72 on him in June 2016. lol. (I’ve had the game since Dec 2012, only took a break for about 8 months where I played BL1 & COD:Ghosts… and I still only have a 69 Solo Axton, 65 Duo Maya, and 47 Krieg.)

It probably had something to do with becoming a new father somewhere in there. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#9

I did it. Ran OP8 Solo with a Hellborn build.
My build is in the community Krieg guide.

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#10

By “fantasies” was referring more towards having enough time to play to physically accomplish the feat… not that I thought it was impossible. :smile:

#11

As mentioned above you should be looking for hyperion weapons, corrosive hyperion shotguns with matching hyperion barrel (with “Thinking” as name) or any hyperion smg’s will do the trick.

These words make me proud…

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#12

If you’re that far through Torgue, you’ll have completed both quests in the arena backstage “ring”. There are several red chests in that ring you can easily farm now, since the loaders won’t respawn. Anything you get there should be closer in level; I’ve lucked out and got some nice plasma casters there a few times.

#13

At this stage, I think I’m just looking for a Corrosive Hyperion Shotgun / SMG without caring about the parts.

I was doing it in NVHM for the “easy” achievement… mainly for making Pyro Pete be a level 30 chump. I did most of the quests back at level 40-42 (leveled twice doing the whole DLC lol), and I’ve been playing through the TVHM story to level up to do the Tier 3 quests.

Unfortunately this means those chests would be full of level 30 stuff. :frowning:

#14

If you can manage the ammo I swear by the Butcher- the ludicrous rate of fire should help take down the buzzards with a swiftness…

#15

The problem with the butcher is the time needed to acquire one just for a couple of missions, it is however one of the best options against buzzards tied with the conference call (at least in my opinion).

#16

Yeah, I’ll try to get a Butcher long-term, but that’s definitely not doable for this purpose. Especially under level 50. :wink:

I’ve found two of them… level 56 Incendiary and a level 67 NE Bladed one.

Semi-off-topic: Do +50% Melee damage bladed weapons make Krieg do less damage? I think I read somewhere that they did after a certain level… unless you were using a Roid shield. One of them said level 44 was the breakpoint, and the other claimed level 60 something.

#17

yeah, he has a special melee damage formula when he’s not using bladed weapons, I belive it’s level 47 where you want to stop using 50% blades unless you’re using roid.

Also remember that you always put your guns away when you rampage anyway.

#18

With a +50% melee bayonet you’ll do less damage at lvl44 and beyond unless you’re using roid shields, with a +100% or +200% melee bayonet acc. however you’ll aways do more damage even without roid.

ninja’d while double-checking some values…

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#19

Lol, don’t wory about it, because you were right :stuck_out_tongue:

#20

Thanks guys. I’ve known the Law and Rapier were always good. Just didn’t know 100% about how true the level 44 cutoff for +50% was.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these forums, it’s that the wiki lies…