Alright so I haven’t even played TPS in awhile but I was randomly thinking about this build I made a few months ago, and utilizing some of the things I’ve learned about Borderlands since then I’ve decided to edit the build and gear so it’s a bit more functional. Since fire is resisted by armored enemies, make sure you take full advantage of the Maelstrom buffs. This build update draws inspiration from BookEmDano’s “Supercell” tank build, so please check that out as well! Dragon Ball Athena is a bit more focused on offense.
###Guns###
- [color=orange]Rightsizing Fatale[/color]: Flash Freezer and crit machine. Although you do want to ride Storm Weaving most of the time, this weapon is indeed strong enough to kill even without all that.
- [color=pink]Practicable Thinking[/color] [color=greenyellow]O0L4M0A4[/color] :zap:: Main stacking weapon. A [color=steelblue]Company Man[/color] isn't so bad either if you've got one of those (bigger mag but less damage / accuracy plus a special firing pattern). Still using the shock version since this weapon will be in play a lot more often than the others and shock deals the same damage to flesh and armor. The glitch version has a bigger mag than a purple, but those effects go away when you swap weapons so they won't be used as much.
- [color=pink]Practicable Development[/color] [color=greenyellow]O0L4M0A4[/color] :fire:: Kill it with fire! Switching to this with Unrelenting active (subsequently activating Storm Weaving / Elemental Barrage) gives you that wall of fire (a FIREWALL, if you will...) that is helpful for any type of dragon. Once again, glitch isn't needed for anything but the mag boost, but that yellow glitch sure comes in handy.
- You can put anything else you'd like for the last slot, perhaps something non fire/shock or a powerful weapon with a lower fire rate because anything can wreck at 500 stacks. I personally like having a [color=orange]Nukem[/color] around for instantly charging the Aspis or rocket spam on bosses. Plus it's a fairly easy legendary to acquire, even before the drop rate increase. I know other people are really digging the [color=orange]Thunderfire[/color]; that one is also very nice.
###Items###
- [color=steelblue]Asteroid Belt[/color]: Meteors! Sometimes you can't keep track of every enemy so it's nice to have a backup in case someone manages to sneak up behind you or a flying enemy is being annoying, especially since the meteors catch the Omega-Senshu boost. A Grounded variant of this shield will serve you well.
- [color=orange]Longbow Quasar[/color]: Good for grouping up enemies and can be absorbed by your Aspis. A [color=orange]Storm Front[/color] is a better idea for bosses. Gonna test a [color=orange]Fire Bee[/color] to see how it does against mobs. I loved that grenade so much in BL2.
- [color=mediumorchid]Blazing Dragon[/color] (+5 Overload, +4 Omega-Senshu, +4 Gathering Tempest): I don't know what I was thinking before not maxing Omega-Senshu out but I'm glad I'm doing it now. I like Overload a lot but it loses effectiveness outside of mobbing. For this reason, I would use a blue [color=steelblue]Marauding Dragon[/color] COM for bosses. (+6 Omega-Senshu, +5 Gathering Tempest)
- [color=mediumorchid]Voltaic Strafing Run[/color]: The boosts in this Oz kit help with stacking Maelstrom, and since it's a shock version you can slam in a vacuum with little trouble. I am definitely planning on testing a [color=orange]Meteoric Oxidizer[/color] because all that extra fire is definitely enticing.
I think the skill set is pretty self-explanatory, really going for speed and power here. The 15 points that went into the Xiphos tree might hurt my elemental / survivability a bit, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Let me know what you think!!
@David_Ayy The main issue I have with your build is that you are using an awesome class mod (I use the same one for my elemental Athena) but you aren’t maximizing any of the skills in it. So rather than a specialized DPS build you end up with a jack-of-all trades. Of course this is just my opinion but I’ve been alternating between Dragon and Storm class mods and I think that with these mods in particular, you need to play to their strengths and not so much use them to free up points for other skills.
Aside from that I really like your gear selection and Overload chaining.
@BookEmDano You’re probably right. If I skip Mercurial entirely I can max out Omega Senshu and Overload. I just like the idea of my characters being good at a little bit of everything.
At least from my experience, it isn’t good. A purple Hyperion or Dahl Blaster will outperform it very easily, but there might be a gimmick I’m missing on the Cat. The ZX-1 isn’t very different. While I like it a lot, I must say I haven’t found it to be more useful than both the purple laser weapons I mentioned above.
I think the perfect laser weapon for this build would be a Stimulating Iterated Blaster [Hyperion Manufactured, Shock Element, Hyperion Body, Bladed, Maliwan Grip, Dahl Stock and OBVIOUSLY Dahl Barrel], not the Vibra-Pulse. With the mentioned parts, you get a 13.1% elemental effect chance, perfect accuracy, +60% critical hit damage (without the luneshine) and +50% melee damage. Generally, I find that a lot more useful than the arc effect, which you actually may not even NEED because of Zeus’ Rage + WotG.
Cat o’ Nine Tails is the new Ricochet Fibber, only better because it pierces enemies and bounces twice.
Shoot the floor. Use geometry. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either.
Vibra Pulse is merely a medium-strength weapon that keeps you at full health. The chain lightning helps put it on par with purple lasers in terms of DPS, though that DPS is obviously spread across at least two targets.
Great update @David_Ayy Dragon has always had some scary potential and with the second level cap you can actually get Omega Senshu without missing key skills in Ceraunic Storm and Phalanx. I like it
Have you considered a Critical Development as your Closer? Bonus crit damage may be worth it but we would have to figure out what difference it would have on fire rate breakpoints from the Practicable. The end result will be the same but it might be a few seconds different in the run up to max Maelstrom once you swap gears. What’s the fire rate on your Practicable Development? I have a Critical Development that I can compare it to.
Have you considered running a blue Dragon with Omega Senshu and Gathering Storm for min/max purposes? Take those points from Overload, max out Gathering Tempest and you have a great boss variation. The additional boost in mag size and reload speed will really help your stacking early on with Thinking. You could always leave one point in Overload and run purple Dragon for mobbing areas and swap to Blue for bosses. Comparable to putting a point in Flash Freeze with Storm for utility purposes in order to get the class mod bonus. It just kind of depends what sort of Overload percent you want.
Anyways, I’ll give this a go against Sentinel, EOS, and the Holodome Badass Round.
Hey man thanks for the tips. I’ll see if I can find a Critical Development, but the fire rate on my Practicable is 3.1.
I like the idea about switching Dragon coms. I can use a purple Blazing to get the most out of Overload for mobs, and a blue Marauding for bosses. I will update the spec picture accordingly.
Let me know how you do against the Holodome especially! It switches from atmosphere to vacuum so hopefully that isn’t too big a problem for a fire build.
Because I use less survival skills, you need to be extra careful when playing with this build. It’s strong but if you think you can just jump in the middle of a pack of BA Watchbots and Glitches you’re not going to have a good time!
With Shield of agas and maxing conduit, there are no survivability concerns anymore.
Overload is very fun for mobbing. It not only transfers DoT, but also shows you the next enemy to shoot at. And thunderfire, a very good weapon overall, gets better with overload.
If I would go to raid bosses , I would still prefer a Storm COM . The Storm COM is perfectly applicable to this skill set. Maybe just after reaching the 50% health mark, I would consider to swap to a Blue Dragon COM.
