[Build] Nisha is law....and you are crime

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Nisha the Lawbringer
#1

I originally started this as a reply to @Chuck80’s excellent Deputy Nisha thread but then realized that this build had diverged enough for its own thread. This build doesn’t quite have the same level of Jakobs shotgun love–think of this one as more of Jakobs + Chronicler of Elpis + Tombstone/Trick Shot shenangians. This has become my go-to Nisha build. It’s main weakness is a lack of survivability compared to some other builds–well, that and the fact that all the clicking makes my hand hurt. :smile:

Overview: The basic idea here is to use Jakobs guns’ inherent multiplicative crit modifier with freeze (which further benefits crits) and Tombstone. Most encounters follow a similar formula: Fridgia > Dual Maggies for first kill > Showdown > Fridgia > Striker. Once you’ve got your first kill, you can clear a room or Holodome wave pretty quickly afterwards.

Build: http://thepresequel.com/Nisha/4101410100000554110041105501113241

Explanation of select choices:

  • Law & Order tree: Standard 12 points for Order stacks.
  • Bottled Courage: 4/5 for survivability, which I found I wanted more of in Holodome. That said, I think these are the four points most up for debate and can see them in Saddle Up instead.
  • Faster N’ You and High Noon: 1-pt wonders because of the COM. The effects aren’t significant enough to warrant more points.
  • One for Each of Ya: Makes Maggie beastly. I think Maggie gets a 25% multiplicative crit bonus, too–more to love about her.
  • Crack Shot: 1/5, which came from a lot of Holodome runs with it at 4/5. While the explosive effect can be quite helpful (and justifies 1 point), I was struggling sometimes with Coach Gun and Striker, particularly for the first kill. See next.
  • Hot Lead: 3/5, mostly because points are tight in Riflewoman. This one surprised me. After switching from Crack Shot, though, I noticed that my ammo efficiency and kill speed against Iwajira were about 20% better, and I wasn’t scrounging as much in Holodome. (i.e. Both indicating that I was doing noticeably more damage.) I’m unsure if this is correct math-wise, but empirically, I’m definitely noticing a big difference.
  • Trick Shot and Tombstone: 2/5 and 4/5. Tombstone gets my vote for most insane skill in any Borderlands game. Tombstone gets 4/5 because it’s critical to the build’s DPS.

Gear:

  • Fridgia: As discussed in @Sljm’s Coldsplosion build, Fridgia is the best Cryo gun in the game. My preference is Flying (bullet speed) with a Dahl grip, as Fridgia’s main job is freezing, so DPS isn’t as critical. (Props to @Ha_Na for setting me up with the Flying one.)

  • Maggie: Dual-wielded Maggies put out a huge amount of DPS, and have a 25% multiplicative Crit bonus…which gets doubled when you have two of them. (Critical hit bonus types and explanations here.) They get insane fast, and are great for your first kill to set off all your kill skills. I’d recommend Dastardly with a Jakobs grip. (Although, I’m using a Loaded Maggie with a Jakobs grip.)

  • Striker: Striker is beastly. With a critical hit accessory (Doc’s) and it’s inherent crit bonuses (including 15% multiplicative bonus), Striker’s will tear stuff up with Cryo + Tombstone. As an example, last night, I cleared Badass Holodome Wave 6/7 (Gargants and Ophas and flying dudes) in one long, uninterrupted kill skill streak by swapping between Fridgia and Striker.

  • Rocket Launcher. I use a Fire Badaboom, but feel free to favor your “Oh ■■■■” button of choice.

  • Chronicler of Elpis: It’s easy to underestimate this COM, but it boosts Nisha’s two best skills (Trick Shot and Tombstone), helps with freezing, and provides other useful bonuses to boot. This mod is critical to the build.

  • Adaptive Shield: From a survivability standpoint, these shields are top notch. I prefer maxing shield capacity and health, while trading off elemental resistance and recharge delay/rate, due to the Bottled Courage and Bona Fide Grit.

  • Tranquility Oz Kit or 3DDI.3: Tranquility is a nice base damage bonus, and it’s easy to stay topped up on O2 to keep it high. That said, 3DDI.3 does provide some nice survival benefits, such as the increased shield, occasional health/shield regen, and care packages.

  • Transfusion grenade: For me, this is mostly just lifegain, and the occasional cryo. Kiss of Death and Leech also fill the lifegain role nicely.

Glad for feedback or thoughts.

3 Likes
Nisha without Jakobs = Fail
#2

While this may have started as a reply of sort to my Deputy build, I can tell you that I think that yours is much better for UVHM :blush:

This is a pretty good way to take advantage of cryo + crit. And I love skill distribution (Though I would personally move a point from tombstone to trick shot, because it’s a better thing to hit when you shouldn’t than it it to crit when you would only hit) …my opinion of course. I would also go either full hot lead or full crack shot. But this is just nitpicking at this point: VERY solid build

Gear choice is also rock-solid. :+1:

There is one gun which might be an interesting choice to test, since you’re already button-mashing using the maggie, a Cryo gwen’s other head might serve the dual purpose of multiplicative crit boost and freeze tool, without the need to swap. It also has even higher type A crit bonus than the maggie (75% instead of 50% when dual-wielding) of course, the gwen’s head necessitate a higher investment in trick shot to keep that stray side pellet in line. (I wonder if you keep the dual crit bonus when you ADS … )

As a rocket launcher of choice, since you’re already using cryo, an explosive Badaboom might be better overall than a fire one. Also, if you’re putting those points into crack shot instead of hot lead, a Nukem would take advantage of that more efficiently.

#3

Thanks, Chuck. :smile:

I’ll give Gwen’s Head a try–I’ve never even thought about it. May also convince me to finally move more points over to Trick Shot. That said, I may be too blinded by love for Tombstone.

Also a good suggestion on the Nukem or explosive Badaboom. I was mainly playing with my new toy, but you’re right–explosive would be much better with all the cryo going on.

#5

Can you please explain why maggie is strictly preferred as the first kill weapon, and the striker for showdown, and not vice versa?

#6

Sure, glad to. :slight_smile:

It’s mostly ammo consumption for long fights. (e.g. Holodome) If you only could pick two weapons critical to the build, Fridgia and dual Maggies would be it. But, to spread out ammo consumption, another gun type is good. With all your kill buffs, Striker becomes as good as Maggies and possibly better. Here’s how I came to this conclusion in practice:

Holodome wave starts, so no Order stacks or kill buffs. I go after a Gargant or Opha. With only seven shots–and no Tombstone for crits–Striker takes a long time to kill the target. Moreover, I spend a lot of time reloading because I can’t kill a Gargant or Opha in one clip. (Basically, it’s ~1.5s to empty seven shots, ~2.0s to reload.) While that’s happening, I’m taking a lot of damage.

I found Maggies have better DPS output without the kill buffs. Once you’ve got the kill buffs plus Showdown, though, Striker becomes much easier to use. In particular, Tombstone + all your Critical buffs (Bona Fide Grit + Hot Lead + 125% from Striker) get insane, and your reloads become more manageable at <1s. (Reload buffs: 125% from Showdown + 35% FnY + 20% from Impatience)

Again, I think you could probably use Maggies all the time, as long as ammo consumption was something you were ready to deal with.

#7

Since the striker is there as ammo relief, I would suggest you also add Gatling to the possible guns. AR ammo is plentiful and gatlings hurt just as much as the striker.

#8

I like your approach. As far as I remember this is the first build with a different showdown gun concept. Good build by the way.

#9

Cryo T4s-R could work with this build. It’s a slightly lower fire rate and freeze chance (24% vs 30%) than the Fridia. Since it’s a Hyperian pistol you’d be wielding 2 of them, so wouldn’t that give a higher fire rate? Plus it has an 8% bonus to crits.

#10

@Chuck80 Yeah, a Gatling would be a decent replacement for the Striker (or even the Maggie, if you have a Striker). Two others that I’ve tried are a non-elemental Critical Development or Coach Gun (back to the original inspiration!). I probably should do an alternates section, after some testing. Maybe Moonface or Wallop, too?

@akdere1 Thanks! Yes, that’s a good way to think about Striker–it’s your “Showdown gun” (“Showdown cannon?”). Any high damage, low capacity, slow reload gun could play this role (i.e. like the Coach Gun or Critical Development), because it really benefits from all the kill skills and Showdown.

@Monthar Cryo T4s-R can be beastly. I actually tried a Redundant one for a while. The damage, fire speed, freeze chance, and reverse recoil are all quite nice. The biggest constraint, I think, is ammo consumption–when I was stress testing in Holodome, I would run out of ammo really fast with dual T4s-Rs, as the Maggie (x2 with OFEoY) is already a bit of an ammo hog. If I had unlimited ammo, I would say that Cryo Redundant T4s-R and Maggie are the only two things you ever need.

If you really wanted to use T4s-R–which I think is possible–you could skip the Maggies and do something like: Cryo T4s-R + Striker + Gatling/Hammer Buster/Skullmasher/Dastardly Iron. That would address the ammo consumption problem for long fights, I think.

#11

I was thinking the T4s-R in place of the Maggie so you get your freezing and some crit bonus all in one. Plus I never cared for Jacobs weapons, because I prefer to just hold the trigger instead of having to click for each shot.

#12

The point of this build is to take advantage of the multiplicative crit bonus Jakobs pistols have, and to double it with OFEOY, applying a huge bonus to the base crit bonus provided by cryo. replacing the maggies with Tasers kinda kills that purpose. Although, the tasers are pretty good at applying cryo in the first place, they could reasonably replace the Fridgia…but not the maggie.

Best guns for this build when it comes to damage dealing are Maggies, purple Irons or Longarms( hyperion barrel) and Gwen’s other head, preferably in cryo or fire.

You could do a great pistol build around the Taser, but it’s not what this build is about IMO.

#13

I wonder if the multiplicative crit bonus on the dual maggies can outperform the Cryo-explosive element matching.

@JonnyDeeWSC how’s your experimenting with the Fragnums and Slappers going? Any data on explosive pistols vs crit maggies? [Marcus] I happen to have some Damage prefix Maggies in my shop right now[/Marcus]

#14

That depends on a lot of factors, but generally, a flat 3X damage is hard to beat. Still…

How fast you can click that trigger on the maggies ? are your kill skills activated, can you aim at crit spots reliably, are you also hitting crits in the explosive scenario… ?

without anything else as crit bonus, and assuming your maggies deal as much damage as your slapper/fragnum. (let’s say they both deal 100 damage)

Slapper/Fragnum: 3 x (100 X 2 X (1. + 2.0) + 100 (splash)) = 2100

Maggie: 100 X2 ( 1. + 2.0) (1. + .5) = 900

That’s per bullet, and assuming all bullets crit

Of course, the more crit bonus you have, the more the maggie will catch up with the Torgue

#15

I certainly agree with you, Chuck, that getting rid of the Maggie would reduce the effectiveness, but reduced effectiveness is still boatloads of bullet fun for everyone. :slight_smile:

As you’re saying, one of the main synergies of this build is doubling the multiplicative crit bonus through OFEoY. There are other strengths to think about, too–I’d generalize the weapons in the build to look something like this:

  • The Freeze: Main role is to freeze stuff, and swap out quickly to your primary damage dealers. DPS is secondary.
  • The “Catalyst”: The gun for your first kill–a reliable, versatile and all-around good DPS gun (i.e. good at taking down high hit point dudes without kill-skill buffs).
  • The “Showdown Cannon”: The gun you swap to that really takes advantage of your kill skills and Showdown to shine. This also helps alleviate ammo issues for your guns above.

(Yeah, okay, the names are kinda hokey, but I needed something for reference. ;))

In my original post, Fridgia, Maggie, and Striker fill these roles respectively. As you’re suggesting, Chuck, due to the double multiplicative crit bonus, Maggie is great as BOTH Catalyst and Showdown Cannon, as long as ammo isn’t an issue. Monthar, I think you’re proposing that T4s-R would be good as both Freeze and Catalyst. Even if I think it’s more efficient to specialize by using the Fridgia and Maggie, it would take a pretty beefy mob (e.g. Gargant or Opha) for the ammo and DPS difference to become more painful.

As Hana hinted at, I’ve also been playing around with explosive guns. I tried a Fragnum (i.e. as “Catalyst” in place of the Maggie) last night, and really liked it. The ammo consumption was noticeably higher, but the first kill DPS is definitely faster. It was harder to tell the difference once in Showdown with kill skills, though. This loadout felt more like a combination of my original post and Coldsplosion. Another noticeable( (re-)adjustment was the slow bullet speed on explosive guns–it’s not uncommon for the enemies to be spread out, and I sometimes found the slow bullets annoying for medium ranged combat. The Maggies do fine at distance.

In terms of the actual math…I’m too tired to actually think about it right now. :slight_smile:

(Edit: Also just did a run with Fridgia, Fragnum, Critical Development/Doc’s Coach Gun. I basically ran out of ammo for shotgun by Wave 2, and switched to Coach gun, which was awesome. Definitely comparable to Striker. Fragnum ammo started feeling scarce by Wave 4, even though I never had to open any ammo chests until the very end.)

1 Like
#16

Well, I’d say with 5/5 in Maginificent Six and 3/5 in Hot Lead as in the OP build, the Maggie damage should look slightly better. I’m curious to see how the testing turns out. Especially when going with trickshot, bouncing Torgue projectiles off surfaces will accelerate them to normal bullet speed, which might be interesting.

#17

This is where more points in trick shot would come in handy, and where tombstone is less vital (since you get the boost from explosive out of cryo anyway)

Try the same thing, but with a purple slapper instead of the Fragnum.

The Fragnum is BAD

#18

Yeah, for the explosive pistol testing, I used 4/5 Trick Shot, 2/5 Tombstone and 4/5 Crack Shot (0 in Hot Lead). Coach gun definitely liked 4/5 Crack Shot. :slight_smile: Mag6 doesn’t benefit as much in this setup, and Saddle Up might be more generally useful.

Did two runs: Fragnum + Critical Development/Coach Gun vs. loadout/build in original post. Anecdotally, they were similar. Fragnum ammo usage was worrisome, but steadier DPS pre-kill and without headshots. Critical Development’s ammo usage was really bad, but fun; Coach Gun was much better. Maggie is still insane–I didn’t even notice Flame Knuckle until the Nukem flew out. Also, had to remember to aim at face with Maggie when not in Showdown. :slight_smile:

Without more math, I didn’t find a compelling difference between the Fragnum and Maggie.

Marcu…er, Ha_Na found some nice Slappers, so I’ll be testing those, since Chuck insists on reminding me that the Fragnum is not actually good and survives purely based on DPUH nostalgia. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: