[BUILD] Discipline (Absolute Jakobs Allegiance)

Borderlands 2 Zer0 the Assassin
#1

[BUILD] Discipline (Absolute Jakobs Allegiance)

##Build Summary

There were no absolute Jakobs builds in Zer0’s Master Build List, so here’s a short version of Discipline, my Jakobs-only allegiance build.

If you’re an old pro, gear up and go punch some bad guys in the dick. If you’re new to the game, or to Zer0, you may benefit from the more detailed breakdown that follows this summary.

Skill Calculator: http://bl2skills.com/assassin.html#505351014050050155515500510000

Slot 1: Bowie Maggie (Jakobs grip, blade attachment)
Slot 2: Rustler’s Twister (Jakobs grip, Hyperion stock)
Slot 3: Boss Bekah (Jakobs grip, Dahl stock)
Slot 4: Skookum Muckamuck (Jakobs grip, Dahl or Hyperion stock)

Shield: Rough Rider
Class Mod: Legendary Sniper
Grenade: None available
Relic: Jakobs Allegiance Relic (mag size, recoil reduction)
Backpack: Captain Scarlett’s Greed (for missions requiring a fire weapon)

“IF IT AIN’T JAKOBS, WE AIN’T USIN’ IT”

After spending several months testing and playing my Jakobs hybrid build, it was time to step it up a notch. I approached Discipline as a “Challenge Build” to test Zer0 with a stringent rule set.

Absolute Jakobs allegiance leaves our assassin with: (1) No slag weapon, (2) no grenade mod, (3) no roid damage, (4) no Moxxi healing, (5) few elemental weapons to choose from, and (6) a shield with zero capacity.

What makes this an exciting and rewarding build is overcoming those shortcomings with top gear and smart, strategic game play. So I’ve filled each weapon slot with best-in-class Jakobs guns, and I’ve tried get the most power out of Zer0’s available skill points. The following setup will give you surprisingly powerful attacks from any range, but with Innervate and health vials as your only sources of healing, you’ll need to play smart and fast. Failing to kill quickly will often leave you exposed, and controlling the range of your enemies will be more important than ever.

“JAKOBS GUNS DO ONE THING REALLY WELL: POWER…”

Any preferred parts or prefixes are suggestions only. For extraordinary power, use the best Jakobs steel you can find, and use each weapon at its ideal range.

SLOT 1: BOWIE MAGGIE (JAKOBS GRIP)
Maggie offers the most power and utility among Jakobs sidearms. Six pellets per shot, great stats, add a bayonet for stronger Killing Bl0ws. Medium or short range death dealer. If you find yourself frequently Executing for the Killing Bl0w, you may want to swap in an Ornery Law for the extra melee damage.

SLOT 2: RUSTLER’S TWISTER (JAKOBS GRIP, HYPERION STOCK)
The biggest, baddest Jakobs shotgun available. The Twister is certain death for melee attackers who have closed the gap or for clusters of enemies gathered around your decoy. It has amazing 0ne Sh0t potential, and even without a lucky B0re shot, a huge double-blast coming out of Decepti0n will destroy the biggest badasses on Pandora.

An easier farm: Hydra, purple rarity Coach Gun/Bushwack/Quad

SLOT 3: BOSS BEKAH (JAKOBS GRIP, DAHL STOCK)
Bekah is god-tier Jakobs steel, and following your opening sniper shots with a barrage of medium-range AR bullets will leave few enemies standing. Learning Bekah’s optimal range and carefully aiming for crits will be handsomely rewarded. A steady, even fire rate is all you need to keep her on target for the whole mag. Read more about the Bekah in Derch’s detailed Bekah thread.

An easier farm: Purple rarity Jakobs Gatling Gun, Hammer Buster

SLOT 4: SKOOKUM MUCKAMUCK (JAKOBS GRIP, DAHL OR HYPERION STOCK)
Muckamuck is the strongest non-unique Jakobs sniper rife. It’s got the power to one-shot most trash mobs, especially when fired from Deception at the last possible moment. Use the Muckamuck to kill as many distant enemies as possible before switching to the Bekah for medium-range attackers.

IN YOUR BACKPACK: CAPTAIN SCARLETT’S GREED
There are only a few things your equipped weapons can’t do. Like setting fire to a volleyball net. Or lighting up three varkids to help Mordecai with his hangover. Or sending five Incinerators to the heavenly beyond. With Greed on-hand, you’ll have no need for Tinderboxes.

Your equipped weapons are among the best Jakobs has to offer, but if you’re shopping for Jakobs gear, check out Troubled’s excellent compendium.

“…AND HONESTLY, WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED?”

SHIELD: ROUGH RIDER
The only Jakobs shield available. This zero-capacity shield increases your maximum health and gives you a flat 20% damage reduction. You’ll need to fight like a bull moose to survive Pandora as a Rough RIder.

CLASS MOD: LEGENDARY SNIPER
The Legendary Sniper mod is much more versatile than the name implies, and the boosts to Headsh0t, Precisi0n, and especially 0ne Sh0t 0ne Kill give Discipline its best path to huge Jakobs power.

GRENADE: NONE AVAILABLE
Do not underestimate the utility of the default grenades. Throw two or three from Decepti0n to soften up a group of enemies. Or use them to knock stubborn foes out from behind cover, or to stagger attackers and buy yourself a few precious seconds for Decepti0n to cool down.

RELIC: JAKOBS ALLEGIANCE RELIC (MAGAZINE SIZE, RECOIL REDUCTION)
Increasing the magazine size and reducing the recoil on Jakobs guns is a game-changer. With 5/5 in Tw0 Fang and a good allegiance relic, your Maggie will fire more like a machine gun than a pistol. And your Twister is gonna love the mag size boost. One huge double-shot from the Twister is beastly. Two huge double-shots from the Twister is…um…twice as beastly.

“IF IT TOOK MORE THAN ONE SHOT, YOU WEREN’T USING A JAKOBS”

SKILLS

Skill Calculator: http://bl2skills.com/assassin.html#505151020050055155515500510000

SNIPING TREE
Jakobs snipers are not the best choice for a Critical Ascensi0n build, so we will spend the required points to hit the useful skill bonuses from our Legendary Sniper mod, leaving us plenty of points to fill out the Cunning tree and enough to get Execute and F0ll0wthrough from the Bloodshed tree.

Vel0city doesn’t play nice with Bekah or the Twister, so use this skill at your discretion.

Kill C0nfirmed holds one extra point that can be spent anywhere you like.

CUNNING TREE
The Rough Rider doesn’t properly activate Fearless, and C0unterstrike is better suited to melee builds.

Maxing out every other skill in the Cunning Tree gives Zer0 the most useful boosts to your gun skills.

BLOODSHED TREE
Execute and Followthrough are the two invaluable skills from the melee set. Killing Bl0w will also get a fair bit of mileage and makes it worth carrying a bladed weapon.

If you want Backstab to go with Killing Bl0w, you could steal points from Rising Sh0t.

If you’d rather have the cooldown from Grim, put the Ir0n Hand points there instead.

PLAY STYLE

Discipline will be most successful if you (1) pay close attention to health-gate, using Innervate to heal as often as possible, and (2) divide each battlefield into a series of ranges to work through.

Start long range with your Muckamuck, killing as many as possible before swapping quickly to Bekah to deal with any enemies who have started rushing you. Before any attackers get close, throw your decoy to stop the rush, find your range, and continue laying waste with Bekah. If no other enemies are pressuring you, fall back a bit and go back to work with your sniper rifle. If the entire field is charging you, or if any enemies have elemental weapons, it’s time for the second phase.

In the second phase of battle, the word “discipline” means “punishment”. Your job is now to kill everything as quickly as possible, before it kills you back. Here it will be important to use every possible means of dealing damage, and this includes getting the most out of Execute, Unf0reseen, and even your default grenades. The Twister is the best weapon for close work, and it will deal more punishment than anything at your disposal.

In general, you will want to focus on enemies who have grouped around your decoy, line up as many B0res as possible, and as always, aim for critical hits. While the play style may be more suited to solo games, Discipline has been thoroughly tested in multiplayer games up to OP3 (with level 72 gear). And it should be noted that teaming up with Maya will give you desperately needed healing, and will allow you to play a lot more aggressively.

MELEE VERSION

For the melee version, swap an Onery Law for the Maggie, and use the Legendary Hunter mod instead of the sniper mod. As l_gabrielcruz pointed out, this much more aggressive version yields a lot more healing through multiple Innervates and the addition of Resurgence.

Skill Calculator: http://bl2skills.com/assassin.html#5050410000410501455155004155011

GAMEPLAY VIDEOS

Run-and-Gun Version (Legendary Sniper COM):

Melee Version (Legendary Hunter COM):

Round 1 Edits: Changed the phrase “strict allegiance” to “absolute allegiance” to match Exotek’s allegiance guide. Changed the class mod section a bit.
Round 2 Edits: Added melee version. Added easier-to-farm options for the Twister and Bekah.
Round 3 Edits: Added gameplay videos to the OP. Further sniper rifle testing. Updated the Skill Calculator link with Chuck80’s suggestions.

6 Likes
Assassin Master List: Build Collection
Assassin Master List: Build Collection
What are three of the best JAKOBS guns?
#2

That’s basically how I roll (and the build is pretty close)… except I die fast , things take a while to die, and only using those top-tier guns gets old, so I make the following concessions:

  • He gets as low level of a Magic Missile as I can find. This provides him with a source of slag while not providing high damage from the grenade itself.
  • He gets to use whatever COM he wants so he can mix up gameplay styles.
  • He gets to use any Pangolin or Anshin shield he wants. In practice, this usually amounts to the Blockade for serious business, Neogenator for regular duty (seriously, dude’s soft as hell), and the Rough Rider when I forget how brutal Zer0 can be with it and want a reminder.

Have you run with this yet? Innervate (especially with the Rough Rider on), takes numerous applications to refill one’s health from close to empty, since you’re maximizing the time that Innervate is active, so you have to eat the full cooldown time for each application. It’s brutal. I’m currently being stymied by wave 4 of the Hyperion Circle of Slaughter with this guy actually (and for those of you who know me, yes, I’m rockin’ the Stinkpot).

#3

Ha! I’ve tried so hard to like the Stinkpot. I’ll have to give it another chance. Might be fun in the Friendship Gulag if I can learn how to hit my targets with the damned thing.

Adding a Blockade/Neogenator and low-level MM is a great compromise, and would definitely soften things up a lot. Especially the Blockade, because I haven’t had problems killing, but have had problems surviving.

And I’ve definitely found myself waiting for cooldown since it takes two or three Innervates to heal to full, which is why teaming with a siren is a lot of fun with this setup. We completed the first few levels of the Peak with a three-player team: two strict Jakobs assassins and one siren. The orbs from Sweet Release were really all I needed to feel like I wasn’t handicapped at all.

Very challenging and fun!

#4

The rough part of the Stinkpot for me is that, because I roll with B0re, the grenades will whiff right through enemies if I aim for a direct shot; I have to bounce the shots off the ground for them to connect. Given this, there are some places on the map that Loaders may go where I have a very hard time shooting them. For example, if they’re on the top of a mound or on a cliff edge where I’m below them, I can’t hit them (in which case I lure them down until they’re on level ground).

Compared to almost any other Unique corrosive weapon in the game, the Stinkpot is probably near the bottom in terms of damage output, but that doesn’t mean it can’t kill things with “relative” ease. With slag, Deathmark, Rising Sh0t, Tw0 Fang (for the “fire rate” buff), some badass ranks, Vel0city, and even Ambush for at least the first shot, very few Loaders survive a full magazine. Other assault rifles would almost certainly put out more damage, but I have some rules about using every weapon possible.

#5

Very nice build man. I like that other people as well find absolute allegiances fun to play :slightly_smiling:.
I dont have anything to add, except,
consider using tediore grip on Twister. Will give you clip size of 4. That way you can get the full OSOK bonus with every shot. You should probably have to switch the relic to recoil reduction, acc recovery (which helps a lot with bekah and maggie btw).
Ill be sure to add this build under community builds in my guide.

1 Like
#6

Zer0 is the one character I cannot play as but kudos to you for making an absolute build.

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#7

Have you thought about going down to Many Must Fall and add the Law to your gear? By doing so, you could benefit more from Innervate healing by chaining melee kills up close.
The Leg Hunter would fit better in this setup, adding its own healing and some Killing Blow damage to help Execute. And more cooldown to help you.
The Law could take Maggies place, as you would keep the long/mid/short ranges guns.

Just play the same, but chain some MMF when in the middle of the heat instead of running invisible.

#8

Ha! Yeah, I did this last night actually with the Legendary Hunter and the Law. And you’re exactly right: it played pretty great and felt more survivable because of multiple Innervates and Resurgence. (Never thought I’d say that.)

Melee Variant: http://bl2skills.com/assassin.html#505041000041050145515500415501

Slot 1: Ornery Law
Slot 2: Sidewinder Hydra
Slot 3: Flush Gatling Gun
Slot 4: Citrine Muckamuck

I even brought along an Order in case I got to feeling too dead. But I ended up running the Rough Rider all evening with no problems.

I also banked the Twister and Bekah and used a couple guns that are much easier to farm. The Gatling was surprisingly comparable to the Bekah–very strong!

DoTs were my only problem; wasn’t watching barrels closely enough…

Thanks! It’s kind of a reduction of the casual allegiance I usually play, so I felt comfortable going into it.

And then, shortly after I posted this, I came across your “shieldless” video series, which is cool as heck. Watched most of 'em and can’t wait to see more.

I actually fist-pumped when you found that blue Jakobs rifle on your way to the Ramparts. :grinning:

#9

I need to try this build out. It is nothing close to how i play zero jakobs allegiance and thats what makes it even more interesting.
Thnx for watching my series and yeah that blue sniper will carry me through the game for some time i bet :stuck_out_tongue:.

#10

Can you expand on this a bit? What’s the problem, exactly? I’m trying to come up with my own Jakobs allegiance shotgun build for Zer0 and I thought Fearless would be a no-brainer when using the Rough Rider.

What about Rising Sh0t? I was planning on ignoring it completely, as the general consensus is that it doesn’t work well with Jakobs weaponry.

#11

The Rough Rider won’t activate Fearless if you’re using something that lowers your shield capacity (like a Legendary Sniper COM). It otherwise activates it fine.

I think Rising Sh0t is great with Jakobs weaponry when I’m using anything besides sniper rifles or maybe Quads. With pistols and assault rifles, it works just as well as with other manufacturers.

2 Likes
#12

It rules on single enemies, but the stacks drop fast. You won’t get much on trash mobs, but BA’s will feel it. You won’t get much out of it with shotguns though, the stacks drop too fast, but it isn’t bas with a maggie, hammer buster, ect . . .

2 Likes
#13

Thanks to the both of you! That’s exactly what I needed to know.

#14

Bumping this sh*t 'cause I added gameplay videos to the OP.

#15

Going to watch them for sure. Think I never commented here, but I did like this build.

Very impressive.

#16

I’m curious: Why Rising shot ?
With the printed fire rate of Jakobs weapons you can barely get anything out of it before the stacks disappear, wouldn’t those points be better spent elsewhere ?

And 2: Why a Muckamuck over a Skullmasher ?
It’s a bit trickier to use but the damage is not even comparable

Kudos on the build BTW :slight_smile:

#17

Thanks!

[quote=“Chuck80, post:16, topic:1203645”]
I’m curious: Why Rising shot ?With the printed fire rate of Jakobs weapons you can barely get anything out of it before the stacks disappear, wouldn’t those points be better spent elsewhere ?

And 2: Why a Muckamuck over a Skullmasher ?It’s a bit trickier to use but the damage is not even comparable

Kudos on the build BTW :slight_smile: [/quote]

Yeah, good eye. Rising Sh0t is really only for Bekah. With her mag size boosted, I often have 5 stacks throughout the second half of each barrage. Rising Sh0t points could go into Backstab or C0unterstrike for extra punch, or they could get me deeper into the sniping tree. Where would you put those points, because to be honest I may have stopped watching that stack count entirely. :frowning:

I’ve got a soft spot for gemstone guns and that Muckamuck has great parts. Aesthetics aside, I feel like its range is better than the Skullmasher, which always felt like a medium-range sniper rifle. I’ll have to see if I have a decent Skullmasher on that character. So, were you thinking Precisi0n instead of Rising Shot to tighten the spread on the Skullmasher and land more pellets at range?

#18

With a FR of about 20 for the Bekah, those stacks will vanish as soon as you stop spamming the trigger…or even as soon as your finger slips up :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s a good place to put them if you want to swap your Muck for a Skullmasher.
Consider also Counterstrike or Backstab if you’re into melee a bit more (though it kinda distracts from the Jakobs theme a bit)
A1wtG is amazing IMO if you use Snipers a lot, in fact it’s a much better investment than Kill confirmed.
Even if the mag size is already great, the reload speed is just incredible and makes OSOK even more worth it.

It is, but that’s where most of the fights in the game take place. With its accuracy being a bit lower because of the pellet spread, I always felt that at range it was about equal to a Muck, but once you get to medium range, it far outpaces it. The only time where I feel that a Muck is better is if you consistently only hit crits from very long range…and even then, it’s not by much.

This is what it would look like with a few little changes :slight_smile:
http://bl2skills.com/assassin.html#505451004050050155515500510000

#19

Nice videos red :). I should probably record some gameplay of how i play my jakobs assassin, cos its nothing like this :).

#20

This is a good point and the way you fine-tuned the spec looks pretty tight too. I’m gonna dig up a Skullmasher and play around a bit. I’m guessing I won’t miss Rising Sh0t at all, though I may feel tempted to finagle one point into Kill C0nfirmed for the COM bonus. Thanks for the constructive advice, Chuck.

Hell yeah. I know I’m not the only Zer0 aficionado who’d love to see more Jakobs-style badassery. :smiling_imp:

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