The UVHM Tactics Thread

Borderlands 2 Gameplay Discussion (Spoilers!)
#1

Welcome! This thread is for discussing tactics for dealing with different mobs, enemy types, maps, and bosses in UVHM. Please come on in and make yourself at home! Contribute below, and I’ll summarise here as we go. By all means feel free to post links to videos demonstrating specific tactics, but please also include a short written description, as well as a list of any gear essential to that particular tactic.

##Fast moving enemies:

  • NEVER try to escape by simply backing up; you can’t out-run them that way, and you’re very likely to get pinned.
    • Jumping a lot helps, especially if you can keep hitting them while doing so (This is one time when bunny-hopping is actually useful rather than just annoying to other players!)
    • Use grenades or shots to the legs to stagger your enemy, allowing you to get out of melee range
  • Pin them down!
    • Maya’s phaselock and Axton’s turret can keep them in place for bit.
    • Singularity and Tesla grenades are also good for pulling them off you and slowing them down; if you have time, lay down the grenades ahead of the target(s) to they have to pass through the area of effect before they can get into melee range.

##Flying enemies:

The main types are Buzzards, Rakk, and Surveyors. Surveyors in particular can be tricky because they move quite fast; Buzzards are much slower, but can still pile on the hurt if you don’t take them out quickly. The following are tips I’ve picked up from various other players over the years:

  • Use the terrain!
    • Take a position against a wall or cliff, preferably with a slight over-hang; this forces the enemies to fly straight at you, making them easier targets to hit
  • Action skills:
    • Axton’s turret is obviously useful as both distraction and offensive fire, especially with Double Up to slag targets.
    • Gaige’s Deathtrap shoots flying enemies with lightning bolts, even through walls and cliffs!
    • Maya’s phaselock is obviously awesome. Never go up against a Buzzard, without a siren on the team!
  • Weapon choices:
    • Things always die faster with slag in UVHM. Try @Piemanlee’s suggestion of homing grenades against Buzzards if you don’t have a turret or phaselock to do the slagging. A Chain Lightning can be useful for the shielded ones too.
    • Pistols: the Teapot and Hornet are good choices due to their burst fire mode when aiming down sights.
    • SMGs: certain e-tech plasma casters are very effective when used with terrain to force enemies to fly straight at you, otherwise you will need to lead the targets to hit them. A corrosive Emporer can be very effective due its burst mode.
    • Shotguns: favourite choices are the Conference Call and Butcher, due to the number of pellets and high fire rate.
    • Flakker: @Blutfatal’s favourite shotgun is undoubtedly the most effective weapon against flying enemies, especially with an explosive build character. The downside is that this shotgun has a very steep learning curve: the projectile speed is slow, meaning you need to lead the target; it also has a fairly tight optimum range. If you want to master this gun, practice in NVHM or TVHM for a bit to get the aim and timing down.

##Ultimate Badass Pyre Threshers

Any Badass Pyre Thresher is bad news if you are unprepared and not expecting one, but the UVHM version is truly badass. One will always spawn during round 5 of the Creature Slaughter Dome, and in the upper-most portion of The Highlands when fetching Tannis’ lost echo. They also have a chance to spawn wherever there are threshers, though, such as Sawtooth Cauldron and Caustic Caverns.

@Adabiviak has a good tactical summary posted below. The only things I’d add to this are:

  • Target the critical hit locations on the head (the eyes) first; save the joints on the tentacles for if you find yourself in FFYL (a high accuracy shotgun or SMG is good, although avoid fire versions for obvious reasons)
  • It is possible to avoid the one for the Tannis lost echo by being fast and sneaky; alternatively, take cover inside the cabin and shoot from there.
  • If your health is low when the UBP Thresher heads underground, run
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#2

The trick to out jumping Rabid enemies is to minimize the amount of time your feet are on the ground. If you can repeatedly jump immediately after touching down, Rabid Skags will eventually stop moving and wait until you make landfall long enough to “see” you, during which time you can let your shields/health recharge, reload, bounce over to cover, whatever. Conveniently, the minimum amount of time you can have your feet on the ground without them “seeing” you is still enough to be able to alter the direction of your jump, allowing you to hop to a strategic location.

They tend to charge like bulls, so if you hop a short distance away, land and face them so they charge straight at you, you can fairly easily jump straight over them, turn around, and repeat. Rabid Stalkers are less bull-like in their charges, but jumping in this fashion will similarly pull you off their radar.

Ultimate Badass Pyre Threshers: their most devastating attack is their “Dramatic Entrance”, which is a health-gating fire nova if they come up anywhere near you. Other than this, unless you’re in melee range, they’re surprisingly harmless unless you luck out and take numerous hits from their fire spikes. With that in mind, all you need to do is a) survive the first nova as it occurs to you that Terra Jr. is in the area and b) get to cover or recover enough health to survive a subsequent nova.

Seriously, as long as they’re above ground and at any real distance from you, they’re not that dangerous. When you see them submerge, that’s your cue that you had better be behind cover or with sufficient health. Tips for some characters:

  • Axton’s Phalanx shield should protect you from the nova, but I’ve found that these guys come up within the shield often enough that this isn’t worth relying on. Use the turret as a distraction to keep him and anyone else around off your back while you lay into the UBA Pyre Thresher and recover for the next Dramatic Entrance.
  • Maya is, in my opinion, the most vulnerable here; Threshers cannot be Phase- nor Thoughtlocked, and it’s uncommon enough in Thresher fields that there’s some other enemy you could Thoughtlock to take the Thresher attention away from you. Maya’s got to be careful in UBA Thresher territory, as her survival largely depends on staying above the health gate.
  • Gaige can toss Deathtrap like a lizard drops its tail and run for cover. Unless she’s rocking a good Moxxi weapon, her skill-based healing may not be enough to get her back over the health gate before the UBA Pyre Thresher comes back.
  • Zer0 can toss Decepti0n and run for cover. Like Gaige, he stinks at healing himself, so if he doesn’t have good cover, he’ll want a good Moxxi weapon to take care of that. He can, however, somewhat time the next Dramatic Entrance, and roll the dice that Terra Jr. will “aim” for the hologram without being too close to Zer0 and inadvertently hitting him anyway.
  • While Salvador has a number of damage-reducing skills, he will, like everyone else, need to recover from a severe loss of health before the next nova. If he’s got a good Moxxi weapon though, he has the option of otherwise face tanking the enemy here.
  • Not sure about Krieg… I understand he’s got a thing for fire? Engage the UBA Pyre Thresher in a round of Ro Sham Bo and cross your fingers.
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#3

added 2 different classes of Lunatic to your list
while I agree you can’t outrun Rabid Stalkers and Skags (got several toons with big bite marks in their butts :wink: ), I Have outran the Lunatics, but they also appear more determined, I’ve had several I thought I lost only to have them reappear again, still chasing me.
Using Axton for this , I toss down the turrets for Distraction/Slag/Damage, toss in several area of affect grenades (usually shock) and come in with a good SMG or other Gun that does good damage, normally IF there is only one Rabid this will either take it out or almost out.
But in my case it seems if theres one, there is 2 more right behind it, then I do employ running/jumping (before the turrets go down) to gain a little distance to give time for the cooldown and then its just a repeat of the above till they are killed
I will note that since moving my toons from 360 to X1, I have been able to Respec my BAR the one time (now favors Health/Shield/Damage) which helps a lot in combating the Rabids, Ironclads and Ultimate Badasses

#4

Yep. You can out-run if you turn, but they stick on you like glue. Plus, they usually come in pairs at least. Grenades are good for giving you a bit more space, since they’ll dodge-roll sideways as soon as they detect them. If you can hit their legs, that also staggers them momentarily.

Rabid stalkers always seem to spawn in groups of three. That’s my experience, anyway.

#5

I’ve had several times I pulled just a single Rabid, though I do come across 2 more afterword, maybe it figures more meat if it don’t alert the rest of the pack :relaxed:

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#6

Thanks for this thread VH :smiley: And thank you @Adabiviak. Time to start practicing anti-Rabid jumps!

What do you guys recommend for packs of Savages? I know I have a limited time window to eliminate them before the Witch Doctors start leveling them up, but I can never figure out which savages I should be eliminating first. Is there maybe an order you guys would suggest? My main is Gaige, of course.

EDIT: Holy crap, the jumping works. Thank you once again, I never knew this! I’m tempted to spec into DFA looping.

#7

You really need to knock out the Witch Doctor first, then take out the savages. That can be hard because the savages (especially the animal ones) charge straight at you. (Plus, the spear ones slow you if they hit you.) Also be aware that once the WD in the next spawn area appears, they can level up the mob you’re currently facing as well.

With Gaige, I usually let DT go to work on the savages then deke around them to the nearest WD. Remember that the different types have different resistances (possibly immunities also?) I usually use a longbow or homing grenade to slag them from a distance, then close with whatever is going to be most effective (fire/explosive/shock).

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#9

Awesome thread idea. I think many people have problems with surveyors. My main way to handle them are homing grenades like a magic missile or if there stuck a chain lighting. If you don’t have those any decent shock shot gun can work, if you can get them to fly at you.

#10

My tactics on how I never die:
Freak out and jump everywhere.
Shoot flakker at floor until everything is dead.
Profit.

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#11

What kind of guns would you guys recommend for killing suicidal enemies (preferably before they get close)? I’d prefer to not have to run away from my spot every time an EXP Loader gets close

#12

Flakker

#13

Take out its legs with well-placed corrosive or explosive rounds. (If you’re not good at landing the necessary critical hits on the joints, use a shot gun. I think someone might have mentioned the Flakker, but there’s a bunch of others that would be good - just need a large projectile count and fast reload.)

#14

Great! Thanks, everyone!

#15

Someone… SOMEONE???

The god of the flakkers said the flakker

#16

[quote=“sparkofleaves, post:11, topic:1537474”]What kind of guns would you guys recommend for killing suicidal enemies (preferably before they get close)?[/quote]Whatever you want that drops them or trips them up… sometimes it’s easier to let them get close enough to light the fuse, then back away (like EXP Loaders). I might avoid an e-tech pistol (since there’s a chance that he will catch up to you and then you’d be eating dart splash as well as his grenade), but really, pick your favorite.

[quote=“Piemanlee, post:9, topic:1537474”]I think many people have problems with surveyors.[/quote]Zer0 can make very good use of a Wanderlust for this: put not less than four points in Vel0city, and those darts will travel fast enough to catch the surveyor (+11 points, and the darts turn into insane hunter killers). I’ve ganked those Super Badass Surveyors with a single magazine from the Wanderlust with Zer0 (with a little help from some slag and Death Mark of course). Seriously - aim in their general direction, fire, and forget (although it is incredibly satisfying to watch the darts close in on their target… the darts can make full hairpin turns in this pursuit, and have ten seconds of flight time (after the first second before target aquisition). I might be in the middle of editing a Wanderlust guide. :slight_smile:

[quote=“sparkofleaves, post:6, topic:1537474”]I can never figure out which savages I should be eliminating first.[/quote]As @VaultHunter101 said, drop the Witch Doctors first. It’s really only last level (fourth, I think?) that the Witch Doctors impart to their posse that will turn them into game-changing enemies (invisible, fire-proof, all that stuff; prior to this, they’re just higher in level and increasingly aggro). Once the Witch Doctor is down, it’s a toss up between Hunters and Warriors for me; if the Warriors are in my face, they go first, but failing that, I’ll go after the Hunters (that stun from their spear at the wrong time is brutal). The Triggermen are a light snack afterwards.

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#17

I would love to see a guide on it. I started a Maya build thread based around it but never finished it. Its not good but it can be used

#18

Guide for what? I have a hard time reading text on this forum.
I missread things and miss words all the time.
I need a new guide to write.
Wanderlust or killing surveyors?

#19

Wanderlust

#20

Oh god… I’ll do it… That thing is a thing after all…

#21

If you’re like me, the best universal tactic I can give is to scan the battlefield. More than once I’ve focused on the small fry in front of me and have gotten blasted by a Heavy Nomad or Goliath Blaster. ID the most dangerous enemy first and deal with them. As for ironclad lunatics, someone on this board posted the nugget that they aren’t armored on their heads, so if you lack a good corrosive weapon, try your best to get that head shot. And it may be just me but I’ve recently had luck using fire weapons on Hyperion turrets, like the ones you get outside of the closed doors leading to Bunker and the ones that protect the Hyperion outpost where you do the final part of the Overlook side mission/fetch Doc Tannis’s ECHO. It could have something to do with the fact that I was using Maya, or that she was still only level 60- or I could just be imaging things…