Any fine tuning I can do on Axton right now?

Borderlands 2 Axton the Commando
#1

So I had played through BL2 when it came out on the 360, had all the pre-DLC characters at max level and tons of goodies. Bought THC on PS4 because some buddies and I were talking about doing some coop but I also created a solo character, Axton, for when they’re not online. I got him to level 50, entered UVHM and found that my one ass kicking build was suddenly like throwing marshmallows at Doc Mercy. So I’ve leveled up to 57, then did some research and respecced to the following build:

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55050154010000000000005050055051

I grinded until I got a 57 homing Bonus Package and just got my first ever Unkempt Harold to drop. I’m now once again feeling a bit stronger but am starting to look for ways to improve my DPS even more. What should I be looking for to improve my character and are there any tweaks to my build that would be worthwhile?

Just a few more bits to add to the info:
I’ve not touched any of the DLC content yet so I don’t know which weapons to look for in which DLCs, but if you mention a weapon I’ll gladly do the research to discover where it drops
On my UVHM playthourgh I just got back to Sanctuary after the phase shift
My primary playstyle right now is toss out turrets and use my Harold to clean up anything that’s slagged
I LOVE my nades, since my first playthrough ever netted me a Sticky Homing Bonus Package I’ve always been in love with the Bonus Package mod and can’t imagine anything else taking its place
I always play with a health regen class item

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!!!

#2

Fix that, and you’re damage will go up immediately. Health regen COMs in this game generally boost weak skills (offensively speaking) or don’t do much to aid your survivability. I’m assuming you’re using the Pointman COM, which is pretty bad damage wise, maybe Axton’s worst COM in that regard.

For your build, try to find a Grenadier, Legendary Soldier, or an Engineer class mod. If you feel too fragile with these COMs, you could try a tactician. It has a nice emphasis on shield recharge and boosts some nice skills.

As for DLC weapons:
Captain Scarlet- Pimpernel, Sandhawk, jolly roger
Torgue- Slowhand, Kitten, Meteor Shower grenade
Hammerlocks- Leadstorm (attainable from the seraph vendor just kill Pyro Pete for the crystals)
Tina- Antagonist shield, Blockade shield, florentine, every grenade

Those should be fairly easy to obtain (Pete is a pushover for the most part) for where you’re at now. There are some other goodies that drop from the raid bosses and chubby enemies that do really good for Axton, but those are most of the quest reward or seraph vendor items that I can recall that Axton does well with.

As for the build, its fine. Maybe you could move those points from Grenaider to Onslaught since the gme generally fills up your grenades well, but that’s a pretty minor nitpick. If you’re using the harold, Onslaught won’t make much of a difference.

#3

I would say that as far as grenades, get yourself a chain lightning and 4x magic missile from the Tina DLC. They both regen nades, and the Missile can pretty much take care of slagging for you, while the Lightning, when used with Grog Nozzle in hand fills your health instantly. As far as shields, I like the Bee, when its usable, The 94% Sham is near-invulnerability against enemies who are all using guns, and keeps you from running out of ammo. The Evolution, from Hyperius is a superb ememental-resistant shield, and as covered, the Antagonist.

My tree is quite a bit different, and is geared toward my Legendary Soldier COM, which is damage-directed. I dislike Grit, on principle, and find Longbow and Maglock for my turret indispensable. I skip all kill skills, and skills that increase my max health, as they only make it harder to healthgate, and some enemies healthgate you in one shot no matter how much you have. My tree stresses damage, shield regen, and healing, without increasing health. I have 15 nades available, and doubleup, as well as rockets and slag. I make heavy use of relics, usually “Ancient” ones from Loot Midgets. Many of them are incedibly useful. My healing stratege is centered around the Grog Nozzle, which when you get it from the mission in the Tina DLC, I stronly urge you to keep by completing but not turning the mission in.

As far as guns, I have a few go-to things: DPUH, flying sandhawks, in fire, shock and corrosive, Casual Sworsplosion, Barking Pimpernels in fire, shock and corrosive, shock and corrosive practicable conference calls, Grog Nozzle, Redundant Shock Lady Fist, Floated Hornet, Fire and Corrosive Swift Lead Storms, Consumate Florentine, I don’t use launchers much, but sometimes use a shock 'Fleet or explosive Badaboom.

I rely on grenades a lot, including the aforementioned Magic Missile and Chain Lightning. Also awesome are longbow crossfires in shock, slag and fire. The power of the Fastball has to be seen to be believed and even in OP8, hit does incredible damage, oneshotting many enemies. The explosive variant simply makes skeletons evaporate.

Hope some of this is food for thought. My Axton is very effective in different situations and fun to play.

#4

The reason why you aren’t doing much damage is that you haven’t even put a single point into Axton’s ‘damage’ skill tree, Gunpowder. Not only that, but it looks like you haven’t invested in any skills that increase gun damage!

Since you really like grenades (I love throwing them, too) and the Harold, putting points into “Steady”, “Battlefront” and “Impact” will immediately help you with your damage. Weapons (such as the Harold) that get grenade damage boosts will benefit even more from this setup as well.

As you can probably imagine, going down that far into the Gunpowder Tree will mean that only 1 of the other trees (Guerrilla and Survival) will be able to be maxed out, so you’ll have to decide which one to fill out.

#5

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55050154015005014010005050000000
Since you get slag with Double Up I left it in- and once you get to level 72 try Triad_Thunder’s Last Man Standing Build- I thought I would miss having Gemini but so far I’m up to the Opportunity missions in my all OP8 play thru and have had no problems with any enemy- and as far as a FFL weapon I use an OP8 Explosive Fastball 95% of the time (the last 5% takes a DPUH).

#6

If you’re finding it hard to obtain good weapons, the Lascaux is always available in Frostburn Canyon. I ran through UVHM myself with this weapon, and if I’m correct, it always stays on-level (that is, every time you level up, the same level Lascaux will spawn).

#7

If you don’t want to start the DLC’s in UHVM yet, you can always go back to NVHM and farm a Magic Missile, it will only have 2 Orbs, but I have 1 on a 60 Krieg and a 54 Axton, both MM’s being level 36-38 and while they don’t do much damage, they never fail to slag.

#8

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I’ve taken some of it and put it to use and am feeling like much more of a threat than before. Ditched the health regen class mod and threw one on that adds a massive boost to grenade damage (still farming tubbys and chubbys for a legendary mod) and was lucky enough to have an item that added +5 to the impact skill so upon hitting level 58 I immediately had a 28% boost to my gun damage. I’ve been trying to farm for a few things but RNGesus wasn’t on my side last night sadly. Thanks again!!!

#9

Axton is my favorite character to play as, idk why but It seems like I get the most loot on him. For instance, yesterday I was bored so I ran around on Axton in Arid Nexus and Eridium Blight and ended up getting 6 legendaries within 1 hour. I got 2 bees, badaboom, a random whisky tango foxtrot, and 2 Leg. Soldiers from tubbies. :slight_smile: I’m currently looking for some people to run Terra on with my new Commando, lvl 49 but will be lvl 50 by today!

Xbox 360, Borderlands 2, WiggedDrake53

#10

Looking at your original build, here are my thoughts:
Pretty good overall, but I see some missed opportunities for synergy and a few skills that don’t have good synergy. You have Quick Charge as well as Willing and Pressure. The latter two are nice together but they don’t make much sense with Quick Charge. Here’s the scenario, either you’re not taking damage, and thus having QC is moot because of quickly your shield recharge will kick in, or you are taking damage, and those skills won’t matter (except reload speed on Pressure if you’re still fighting). I’d pick one of QC, or P and W, ditch the others (I like QC personally, and it has nice synergy with Preparation’s shield capacity buff).

The missed opportunity is Healthy, you have Able and Grit which are both skills the heal a % of max health, why not run what is the 2nd strongest health skill in the entire game? Fantastic synergy between Healthy, and Able and Grit. The points in Pressure can go to Healthy, and those from Willing might as well get you Onslaught, a nice skill that will help your damage some.

With the changes suggested, the tree is now:
http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55005154010000000000055000055051

I agree with the advice of others on class mod, might as well pick up something with more dmg on it, the flat health regen mods are only good for healthgate abuse which is a very niche build-type.

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