Melee Zer0....You Still 0ut There?

Sun_Tsunami · July 2, 2016, 9:21pm

Melee Zer0 was my 1st toon to get thru UVHM and then have received tons of support, from others, to go thru the Peak to get to OP8. I have, over the past 2 years, on and off, tried to get Zer0 thru OP8 solo. Now it is my #1 goal whenever I play BL2 to get him thru the Peak. There have been some major fails but when something goes right, Zer0 is a killing machine!

So, anyone out there still playing Melee Zer0? Can you tell me your “Good, Bad and Ugly” experiences mastering or working towards mastering his awesome Melee skills? Any tips or tricks? What other guns, other than the grog and rapier, you like to equip? Or does anyone still play Melee Zer0 in their underwear?

I have now started to add videos of melee techniques I am using to kill off the mini bosses. Since I have not seen any of these techniques on the new forum, I thought this could be a good resource for other Melee Zer0s out there. Please critique as well as add your own videos.

Boring SPR-TNK w/Interfacer

I want to thank Altair, @StrikerZidane , @jianderson, MOLMF, @Boreshot, @DemoniteBL, @bew_, Nerf Physx. I’ve watched their streams,videos and read there posts to become a proficient assassin.

Adabiviak · July 2, 2016, 9:54pm

I still play melee Zer0 (you’re on your own for the underwear). He’s tied to a Vladof allegiance, so while he uses the Rapier, he does not use a Grog Nozzle (although his Hail and Kitten are bladed, so he steals health that way if needed).

I don’t have any tips for mastering his skills though - I don’t use Roid shields and don’t consider myself a “hardcore” melee player. If I chain five Many Must Fall kills, I’m having a good day. When I dragged him through OP8 on Digistruct Peak, like many of my other allegiance characters, he had to break allegiance somewhere around OP4 or so and use my pile of uber gear to continue (Sandhawk, Hive, Pimpernel, Grog Nozzle, that sort of thing.)

Sun_Tsunami · July 2, 2016, 10:04pm

Made me chuckle.

Nisciunu · July 3, 2016, 9:23pm

My first class was Zer0 and I always played as melee except a few levels as a sniper during the tresaure of the sands in TVHM and a hour or so as legendary killer with a bekah recently; I brought Gaige and Maya to 72 too, but they have been just a temporary break: as of now I have yet to find a class that can compare to the devastating power of Zer0 and that can give me the pleasure I get while chaining MMF kills; I’m at almost 1000 hours played and 95% are with melee Zer0.

The worst part with him was UVHM: since he’s my first character, it was my first time and it was a nightmare; the first rabid skag in three horns valley was memorable. I also was very ignorant on game mechanics still, I mean, more than now.
There are a lot of beautiful moments, most of them consist in facing a difficult area chaining MMF until the last millisecond, than dodging all bullets during cooldown followed by another deception that ends with a shot of rapier because all foes are already dead!
The only usefull tip I can suggest, tip I regularly forget to follow, is “don’t try to kill a distant enemy while deception’s time is lower than 2 seconds because it always ends badly” (I usually blow up due to a barrel I hadn’t seen).

My gear is classical for melee Zer0; since I’ve unlocked op8 slag pimpernel has taken a permanent slot, at least while mobbing and for the peak. The fourth slot varies a lot: for raids is a DPUH, but it can be a Bekah, or a rocket launcher or a second pimpernel or a particular gun suited for that particular enemy; for example, yesterday I found out the Storm is perfect to kill Dexiduous quickly and easily.

I have yet to try to go slashing around in my underwear, but I doubt it’ll improve my skills

Sun_Tsunami · July 10, 2016, 7:29pm

One of the most awesome moments with zero so far on the Peak.

I still have trouble killing both Scorches on a regular basis.

P.S. I was in my boxers.

Adabiviak · July 10, 2016, 9:08pm

Nice - I don’t think I realized that Chain Lightning grenades with the Grog Nozzle would let you strip your shield and re-heal if that shot ate into your health (although I don’t really play that way myself).

♯nopants

Sun_Tsunami · July 11, 2016, 5:21am

Thanks. Using the Chain Lightning with the Hide of Terra and holding the grog is what makes that happen when you are close to enemies. Just have to be careful of Barrels and if health is not at full capacity.

Sun_Tsunami · July 11, 2016, 5:27am

This time, the Black Queens!

jhunter922 · July 11, 2016, 2:07pm

Couple things that come to mind are that I turn off my BAR since I have too many points in shield recharge delay (and to show how ridiculously powerful he is), and scope out the barrels and get rid of them before I move in. Obviously that doesn’t matter at the Peak, but I’ve killed myself plenty of times elsewhere.

Other guns I use: standard stuff like Pimps, Twister, Butcher/Interfacer, DPUH, Bekah, Lady Fist, etc. I’d have to look at my inventory and see. I’m sure the Snorfleet is useful, especially at the Peak, but I refuse to use it.

Good experiences…seeing the visual damage cap the first few times, swatting regular and super surveyors out of the air, any and all MMF chains, watching Ultimate BA health bars drop in one shot, Executing bosses, all kinds of awesome s***.

Bad/ugly: too many to name.

Sun_Tsunami · July 11, 2016, 3:48pm

[quote=“jhunter922, post:9, topic:1539601, full:true”]
Couple things that come to mind are that I turn off my BAR since I have too many points in shield recharge delay (and to show how ridiculously powerful he is)[/quote]

Since Zero was my first character, I kept low % of points out of shield recharge delay, shield capacity and grenade damage (but it is slightly more % than my shield capacity). As the other BAR stats go, I am capping them at 50% and not using any tokens after reaching that limit.

Other guns I have used are Interfacer, DPUH, Lyuda and the Norfleet. I actually enjoy the Norfleet for downing the Surveyors if I can’t swipe them from the sky (which is only when they are repairing enemies). There are times you can set up multiple kills of the Surveyors with the splash damage on walls and ground which is a pretty cool.

jhunter922 · July 11, 2016, 4:44pm

Yeah when I first transferred to PS4, I wasn’t spec’d for melee and just mashed X to spend points wherever. It doesn’t really matter anyway, he’s still stupid powerful without BAR.

Fleet’s obviously clutch for surveyors when solo’ing the peak, no doubt about. But I don’t really do solo runs, so I never use it. It’s just too much cheese for my liking; same with full-time bee-hawking. It was fun for my first thousand hours or whatever, but at this point I like to try other things and give myself some challenge.

Sun_Tsunami · July 12, 2016, 10:40pm

I finally got to the Saturns and failed miserably. I tried to stack them to bore but didn’t work out for me. Any tips or strategy I should try?

diator1730 · July 12, 2016, 11:55pm

Bore them by the turrets. Kinda hard to do (at least for me).

Sun_Tsunami · July 13, 2016, 1:38am

Thanks. I think I will go to the Badlands and practice on Saturn there.

uchihasusanooult · July 13, 2016, 9:30am

If you are rying to bore Saturn aim at his waist just above the turret on his leg for the best result.

Sun_Tsunami · July 14, 2016, 12:46am

Slagged Centurion Spiderants…I despise them. There are times I didn’t realize I was slagged and I go to strip my shield, down I go. Ugh…so frustrating!

diator1730 · July 14, 2016, 2:45am

Usually when they spawn they will get close to do their AoE knockback first. So the first thing to do when you see them is try to get close slowly and after they do their roar, run back fast (don’t use Deception especially putting the hologram near them, because then the hologram usually makes them spam their knockback AoE). After that, usually they will try to melee you, in which time you can try to fight back. Put the hologram behind you so they will have longer time running to it while you have a quicker time to access their weak spot: the back. One swift hit to the back usually takes around 80% of their health, if not one shotting them.

If you are lucky, they will not do their AoE knockback first (but risky since you don’t know when they will do it). If you are unlucky, they will do it again on your hologram when you try to fight back while your Deception timer is near 0.

The rest of their attacks can be avoided by running (close range) or simply strafing (slag balls).

Indeed they are frustrating. But I like them simply for existing.

Nisciunu · July 14, 2016, 7:17am

After so much try and die in the peak I learned how to deal with Centurions, they’re not that hard since their crit spot is pretty big. What I despise the most are emperors (Scorch is the worst of course) due to their smaller butt and the fact that their legs with all those protruding spikes make that much easier missing the spot, expecially since they move a lot; even worse are blazing spiderants: same problem as emperors with the addition of them constantly burrowing.

Sun_Tsunami · July 14, 2016, 2:54pm

Great advice! Didn’t think of that. Thanks. I got tired of going down from stripping my shield, so I started using the interfacer to chew thru them. But, I want to try to stay as true to a Melee Zero as I can, so I will try that next time.

Sun_Tsunami · July 23, 2016, 8:48pm

Dukino’s Mom