The X guide on Hellborn Krieg for the new players

[xmngr (Amara is a saner Krieg)]

OH Hellborn. That meat man skill tree always ignored or undercooked by players in general. This quick guide will make into general aspects that this smoking badass skill tree has.

General considerations:

• Investing points into Hellborn is always risky because, you are playing with fire, literally. So while you level your psycho it is always suggested to go either Mania or Bloodlust. Low level Hellborn is quite a bad idea xD

• Hellborn is an excellent alternative on endgame and overpower levels.

• Moxxi weapons aren’t mandatory (this depending on the trees and the gear you have)

• It is a quite versatile tree because you can mob and raid, mixing and matching skills from the other two trees.

• Some skills (which I will detail later) make Krieg a tank.

• Has high synergies and benefits A LOT from elemental weaponry (especially Maliwan)

• Inflammable shields make these skills less effective.

• Provides free BBQs to the other 5 vault hunters.

• Who doesn’t like to run with a psycho who rants about that?

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The Skills

Number within parenthesis (+5, +6) indicate bonus points from class mod

TIER 1:

Burn Baby Burn: I’m banned from entering gasoline stations.

Increases burn damage by 7% (plus a 15% bonus when on fire) and 7% the self ignition chance per skill point invested.
Boosted by: Reaper and Torch common coms (+6 additional points); Legendary Torch and Psycho coms (+5 additional points)

Getting on fire is the main goal of the whole tree. So, we have to start by somewhere, right?. This is the starting point for getting a warm and lethal psycho to wander pandora.

Fuel the Fire: I love the smell of napalm in the morning

Boosts elemental effect chance by 40% (up to 440%) per invested point and +7% (up to 77%) self ignition chance per point invested when causing elemental effect to an enemy
Boosted by: Reaper and Torch common coms (+6 additional points); Legendary Torch, Psycho and Reaper coms (+5 additional points)

What’s better to see bandits and skags burning?, hear them shouting and screaming while they’re burning. This skill boosts elemental effect chance even more.

TIER 2

Numbed Nerves: Tank, tank, tank. Killing gently through the saands, merrily merrily merrily look at bandits how they die

Grants meatman 10% dmg reduction when on fire.
Yeah.This works horribly well when combined with Elemental Empathy. You won’t notice when a rabid bites you.

Pain is Power: What’s critical damage?, is that edible?

Boosts melee and weapon damage but reduces critical damage by a 5% per point invested (excepting sniper rifles).
Boosted by Toast (+6) and Legendary Sickle (+5)

Krieg is a psycho. We aim when throwing buzzaxes, not when spitting bullets (excepting the Hornet).

**TIER 3**

Elemental Elation: I like my steaks BURNT

Stack-based skill (max 20), boost mag size (by 1%, max 11%) and fire rate (by 0.5%, max 6%) per invested point.
Boosted by: Toast (+6) and Legendary Torch (+5)

The enhanced fire rate and mag size grants you the ability to tank enemies better and therefore, bring them down better.

Delusional Damage: I feel burn (shanananna) I know that I burn (shanananana)

Grants the chance of getting on fire by ALL elemental effects (slag, corrosive and electric).

Want to get the benefits quicker? SHOOT THEM!!

Fire Fiend: This party is on fire (literally)

Melee attacks have the chance (+10%, max 110%) of setting enemis on fire, boosts weapon accuracy (+10%, max 110%) and reload speed (+7%, max 77%) when on fire.
Boosted by: Toast and Barbarian (DLC4) class mods

I PUNCH FIRE INTO MY ENEMIES. Combined with Elemental Elation, works excellent when rampaging with a Hellborn-Mania build

TIER 4

Flame Flare: Okay, gimme one with diesel, gasoline, lighter fluid and a touch of turpentine

Increases burn effects duration on meat man (+20%, max 220%) and the chance re-igniting enemies (+15%, max 165%).
Boosted by: Legendary Torch (+5), Torch (+6) and Slayer of Terramorphous (+4)

This skill is a double bladed weapon. Sometimes can help you a lot (90%) or just give a DoT so strong it could kill you (the remaining 10%). I run with it and it is quite helpful.

Hellfire Halitosis: Colgate bunny was my meal last night

Melee override skill. Krieg spits fire instead of hitting with the axe.

Well. This skill sucks, so isn’t worth of investing points in here.

TIER 5

Elemental Empathy: Your life is mine, you burning bandit scum

Krieg heals himself +5% per point invested (max 25%) when enemies are under an elemental effect.

One of the skills that make Hellborn Kriegers badass. Stealing health from enemies. Makes meat man stupidly tanky. Doesn’t need any explanation.

**TIER 6**

Raving Retribution: THE VOICES SAY EMPTY HOLLOW AND THUD

When on fire, Krieg shoots homing fireballs to the enemies when they damage him. These fireballs are able to ignite them and trigger all the skill meat man has (Elemental Elation, Elemental Empathy, Numbed Nerves. Pain is Power…)

Oh, Raving Retribution. Well known for its cut off rants, but also because gives a lot of benefits without the need of shooting your enemy.

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The Gear

Which gear synergizes well with the Hellborn tree?. Easy, if it spits fire, slag, shock or corrosion damage, works nice. If they have an unusually high DoT chance, even better. This list gives some suggestion of gear by brand that makes great synergy with this skill set:

MALIWAN:

• Weapons: Hellfire, Pimpernel, Rubi, Bad and Good Touch, Crit, Florentine, Grog Nozzle, Norfleet, Thunderball Fists, Infection, Plasma Casters. Normal rarity weapons (especially snipers) work wonders as well.

• Shields: Flame of the Firehawk

• Grenade Mods: DLC4 Spell grenades.

VLADOF:

• Weapons: Kitten, Hail, Infinity. Purple and blue grenade mods.

• Grenade Mods: Storm Front, Fire Bee, Pandemic

DAHL:

• Weapons: Teapot, Hornet.

• Grenade mods: Bouncing Bonny, Crossfire

BANDIT:

• Weapons: Slagga, Tattler, Tinderbox, Badaboom, Sawbar

• Class Mods: Toast, Torch, Reaper. Legendary Psycho, Torch and Reaper.

HYPERION:

• Weapons: Interfacer, Butcher, Conference Call, Plasma Casters, Lady Fist, Longbow, Slow Hand, Heartbreaker.

• Grenade mods: Quasar

JAKOBS:

• Weapons: Twister

• Shields: Rough Rider

TEDIORE:

• Weapons: Baby Maker, Avenger, Blockhead, Omen.

• Grenade mods: Fastball

RELICS:

• Elemental relics (both purple and Bone of the Ancients)

• Stockpile relics: sometimes, Hellborn Kriegers can be pretty bullet consuming.

• Health relics: all rarities as the Blood of Seraphs and that eridian relic whose name i can’t remember now xD

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Yes. Hellborn Krieg can kill loaders.

So far so good. This simple guide may have some errors and I may have forgotten some stuff. Please let me know

[DemoniteBL (Sorry, boys. I've got turret syndrome!)]

We all know Krieg can only be played as melee and even if you play as Hellborn you won’t have a chance against armored enemies. Kappa

Good guide, x.

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

Amazing if anyone knows hellborn krieg its you X. I run it sometimes but not with maina I like hellborn-bloodlust

[AMG_75 (I punch him!)]

Preach the Hellborn brother!

I can face tank everything from Iron Clads and Rabid Skags with Hellborn Krieg. Couple this with the Mania tree (Release the Beast baby!) and you have a near invincible character for end game mobbing.

[l_gabrielcruz (Spark Seeker)]

Parabéns, vizinho!
Nice guide. Everything you post makes me want to play Krieg!

You could teach how the Hellborn tree play with the other two, by the way.

[xmngr (Amara is a saner Krieg)]

Obrigado vizinho!!
That’s actually a good idea.

[boombumr (Here comes the BOOOOM)]

Who ever ignored hellborn or said you can’t kill loaders with it? If anything, its always seemed to me that’s it’s considered the better raiding tree for bosses that can’t be bloodsploded.

Also, Bloodlust is a terrible tree at low levels. Its benefits are mostly kill skills, and you need a lot of stacks to get the most out of it. At low levels this is fairly difficult. Its better as a complimentary tree to hellborn or mania than as a standalone.

Other than those pet peeves, great job!

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

I kinda have to disagree with what you said about the blood lust tree. My first time leveling a kreig I went blood lust first and ha little to no issues with it (ammo was one of them) than you hit bloodsplosion and everything dies

[boombumr (Here comes the BOOOOM)]

I did so my first time too, but it isn’t really a great leveling tree when you think about it.

Mania gives you more health, health regen (ToTK), gun and melee damage, and a cheat death in RtB.
Hellborn gives you damage reduction, massive gun DPS, and life leech, along with passive elemental damage in RR.

Bloodlust also gives great DPS and damage reduction, but only after a kill or during BXR, and the conditions to get said bonuses are fairly conditional unlike those from the other trees, and the bonuses, being kill skills, are on a shorter timer.

Look at what Bloodlst adds to the other 2 trees.
For Mania, Bloodlust adds more damage reduction, melee damage, and massive AOE damage.
For Hellborn, it gives massively increased DPS and adds to the already devastating AOE potential of that build.

On its own though, at least to me, Bloodlust isn’t that impressive. Without the melee and explosive bonuses from Mania, I don’t see Buzzaxe Bombadier being so useful. Without the fire rate and accuracy from hellborn, Bloodbath isn’t as great as it could be. Then there’s the fact that, outside of BXR, Bloodlust has no defensive skills, and without RtB or Fuel the Rampage, you don’t get BXR back that quickly.

All in all, for early game, the tree is fairly weak as a standalone. It’s definitely a great tree in combination with the other 2, but when you compare what Mania or Hellborn gives you to what Bloodlust gives you, it’s wholly unimpressive IMO.

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

You make some great points and I agree with most of them. Except for the fact that being on fire at low levels is never a good thing.
I would only spec hell borne if I have enough points to get elemental empathy or totk. Since i need a relible way to heal while on fire. I play either hellborn-bloodlust or maina-bloodlust myself.

[boombumr (Here comes the BOOOOM)]

I wouldn’t spec into it until I had 10 points at least so I could get Numbed Nerves, prefferably I’d want 15 so I could get Delusional Damage and either fire fiend or elemental elation. Without those skills you’re just setting yourself on fire for little benefit.

[Divade011]

Did they bring back the rants ever?

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

No sorry.

[xmngr (Amara is a saner Krieg)]

Sadly not.

[Divade011]

NOOOO! omg that’s horrible. Those lines, while a little excessive were awesome. I just got the handsome pack and was hoping they fixed that. frowning:

[ACNAero (Boring Ol' Album Cover)]

xmngr, small mistake: the Legendary Reaper doesn’t have Burn Baby Burn.

[onomastikon]

Thank you very much for this excellent discourse.
Before I joined these forums and simply tried my hand at everything intuitively, I had played Gaige to 51 with much fun, and Krieg to 16 or so, with much less success. Gaige corresponds to my natural playstyle much more, and yet I enjoy Krieg because he challenges me to do something different. I started out with Hellborn, but just couldn’t make it work (for the reasons you and others mention above) at low levels, so I thought it was just “bad”, then switched to Mania, then (after reading your wonderful words of wisdom) switched to Hellborn from level 27 to level 31, and had much fun with it. But at 31, I gave Mania another try, and am hooked – I’m just a sucker for RtB. I just don’t see it being beat, yet, by anything else (for me). Whatever.
So at 36 now, I plan to go back into Hellborn once I hit 41 or so (I want the full damage reduction of NN before I do too much experimentation). I love the fun of fire, and I enjoy tankiness more – I’m more of a cautious, defensive player than a rampaging nutcase (which says a lot about why Krieg is challenging for me) – than the passive buffs of Bloodlust.
BUT (here comes my question): Won’t Elemental Empathy disagree with Release the Beast? I mean, won’t I frequently come into the conundrum of being dangerously low, needing to rampage, and just then some DoT procs, healing me past 33%? I suppose my question is really then turning to this: Isn’t Hellborn really made for Bloodlust (and hence, perhaps, not me)? And if Mania, then, thus, Bloodlust as well?

[xmngr (Amara is a saner Krieg)]

Oh., EEmp is used to mess a lot with RtB cycles when running Mania Hellborn

Isn’t Hellborn really made for Bloodlust (and hence, perhaps, not me)? And if Mania, then, thus, Bloodlust as well?

Not really, in my opinion. When you get the main idea of all trees, mixing them shouldn’t be an issue

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

Hey X I just started trying out maina/hellborne and was wondering if this build looks good
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#20000000000050550000155151555155051

[onomastikon]

Not sure I entirely understand your reply. In your first sentence, you say “uses” – not sure what you mean exactly. But it seems you want to see that EE does interfere with RtB cycles. And then you take it back in your second sentence, saying “not really”. Why exactly?
Thank you.