[Newbie][Normal Mode] I need advices on Krieg Builds for Pseudo-Solo & Coop Plays

Borderlands 2 Krieg the Psycho
#1

Intro

Hello there, this is my first topic on this site. I bought this game before Winter Steam Sale ended, and so did my friends.

Anyway, even though I’m a newbie I researched a lot before picking a character to play and what builds are optimal(min/max). I’ve found Bloodlust/Mania and Hellborn/Mania.

From what I’ve read HB/M is quite bad early on, especially if I try to go coop, as I will kill myself quickly. But with BL/M this isn’t the case. Then the problem arises, Experience and Levels I need to gain before I can actually get RTB to spam Buzz Axe Rampage.

Multiplayer

As for coop, I play with 2 people I know IRL. They main Gaige and Maya. I do know how Maya is played but not Gaige.

And talking about optimal builds, I don’t want to pressure those 2 people I know into speccing into a specific build, because I don’t want to ruin their fun.

I will talk about how they play. First, they seem to use slag, idk if it’s Gaige, but I constantly see enemies dipped in Purple paint. Second, DT usually recharges my Shield(which fucks me up because I need to rely on having my shield down to trigger FoTFH Novas and going into Rampage). As for Maya, I usually see my friend spamming Phaselock, which is good.

Their common weapon of choice is a Sniper.

As for my experiences with them, it’s been fun. The only time where we all ended up dying repeatedly is against Wilhelm. We’re all prepared(variety of elemental guns) but we got our asses handed to us.

My Setup

Let me talk about my Weapons. I usually am not picky about gun types. As long as I have a Corrosive and Fire Gun, I am set. The Grenades I use are Corrosive DoTs Lobbed-type IIRC. Class Mods, I have a Health Regen, Scream Sickle. If I were lucky I’d have a Slab right now, but alas, that is not the case. Relics, I don’t have any besides the one you start with(+5% Drop Rate). Shields, I use FoTFH.

Right now my Krieg is spec’d into this: Level 17 Build

I need advice if I should respec into Bloodlust and leave Mania untouched, because I feel like I’m not getting the most out of this, especially during Co-op Play. Or should I persevere with this until I get to Lv31?

As for fun, I enjoy what’s optimal for the given moment.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Early game Krieg is tough and I don’t think he really gets going till L31, when you can get RTB. For co-op, if you are going to play melee Krieg, I’d ask your Gaige friend to not take Buck Up, as unless you are using a Roughrider, you need to keep your shield down. Similarly, I wouldn’t take Fuel the Rampage, but I don’t know if the self damage is manageable at those low levels. At higher levels, you’ll be constantly downed by it. Embrace the Pain and Empty the Rage are better choices combined with Blood Filled Guns as you can get a big mag and high fire rate as a result.

I don’t think Bloodlust is essential at those levels outside of that skill, but you could certainly go down that tree instead. The explosive axes are a great boost when in Rampage mode. Blood Bath is a powerful skill too with the right explosive weaponry.

Krieg is tricky co-op in general because he relies a lot on kills to keep going and your friends will be constantly stealing them. However, your friends can also boost you by slagging, which you can’t do in rampage mode

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#3

@ChemicalConundrum posted his reply while I was typing this so some of his advice is repeated.

Fuel the Rampage doesn’t cause self-harm, but it does cause friendly fire. I would only use while playing solo.

First of all I’d ask your friend to spec out of Buck Up because it takes DT out of the fight; they’re better off using Fancy Mathematics or Blood Soaked Shields instead. As for your build, get rid of Fuel the Rampage because the extra cooldown isn’t worth having to deal with friendly fire. I’d go something like this instead. Light the Fuse is there for when you go into fight for your life so you can either get in a position to get a kill or make it easier for your teammates to res you. Max out Strip the Flesh, then Salt the Wound and Redeem the Soul (extra FFYL time) before putting a point into Release the Beast. Skip Silence the Voices until you can get a Rough Rider unless you think you can handle hitting yourself in the head.

Right now gear isn’t very important as long as it’s within five levels of you and you feel as if you can take down your enemies with it. Once it starts becoming obsolete, then it’s time to buy or use the golden chest to get better. You don’t really have to worry about maximizing your gear or picking specific pieces until you get to UVHM; even then you can get by with less than optimal items as long as they’re at or near your level (some like the DPUH can be five levels below while others will quickly fall off). One piece of gear that will help now and in the future is a good roid shield, like the Love Thumper. Just remember that the LT sets off explosive novas whenever you hit something with a melee attack, so make sure your teammates are far away whenever you’re rampaging. It also has a very long recharge delay, so it’ll last quite a bit of rampage before it needs to be broken again. It’s very much a get in their faces and start swinging type of shield. Also, you can trade it with your teammates if they get one with better roid damage than what you get because it’s a quest reward.

Let us know if you have any further questions and enjoy the meat man.

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#4

My mostly action skill-less PsychoAnarchist begs to differ: level 25, only 3 or 4 skill points assigned, and his action skill is rarely used. Is it still fun? YES!

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#5

I have no help to offer. I just enjoy it when the censor ■■■■■ up.

Strange that it caught it in the quote but not in the original text :smile:

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#6

For Wilhelm in normal and advanced modes, you only need shock and corrosive. Like most bosses, he’s a real pain the first time you encounter him because you haven’t had a chance to learn his attacks, signals, etc. I’ve taken to kiting him around the ice mounds and rail cars in the centre of his “arena”. Just watch out for his jumps, and note that you can shoot any homing rockets out of the sky with a good SMG or shotgun (this works for constructors and Saturn as well.) With your team comp, I’d have the Gaige throw DT right into Wilhelm’s face to draw the aggro, then let him have it from three sides at once.

As you continue through the story, you might find this guide helpful:

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#7

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, Krieg is tricky in coop. I’ll probably do sidequests for now so I can get to Lv31 faster.

Thanks also, I’d ask him if he can get DT to not recharge my shield. And have them trade me a Roid Shield. I’d probably skip LT though. I don’t want to risk them dying, as we often run into each other. But if they can adapt to my playstyle, should I get LT ASAP? Is the level scaled to my level when I receive it as a reward?

EDIT: May I ask if the Dynamite Damage from Light the Fuse are okay or subpar? The +3% Explosive Damage seem like not a lot.

We ■■■■■■ up real bad on Wilhelm because of DT’s recharging my shield, I cannot go into melee range and kill all the enemies besides the boss. I was relying on FotFH Nova at that time. Thanks for the advice.

Again, thanks for the guide you made. I did not read the story bits, but the guide at the end(DLCs to tackle) and some of the combat basics helped.

1 Like
#8

Don’t forget that a melee Krieg still has - and can use - guns and grenades! Sure, hacking a boss to death is very satisfying, but sometimes you need to stand back and whittle them down the normal way first. Also, since FotFH deals a fire nova, it has reduced effectiveness against robots (or anything else with a yellow health bar.)

No problem. I did try to make it as spoiler free as possible plot wise. You can always use the links that make up the table of contents in the each part to jump to the relevant section any time you’re having trouble and want to check stuff out.

#9

Welcome, mate! :acmaffirmative:

You and your friends have excellent taste in games!

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#10

It’s only scaled in UVHM. It’ll last you awhile in both NVHM and TVHM, so don’t worry too much about it. Just swap it out once you find a shield with higher roid damage. Basically any roid, spike (hurts enemies who melee you), or adaptive (extra health and elemental resistance) will work, you don’t need to worry about a specific one until end game (the OP levels). Krieg doesn’t have any skills which increase shield capacity or recharge rate, or reduce delay, so look for shields that give you extra utility aside from just being a shield. The ones I just mentioned are the types you should be on the lookout for. I’d skip nova shields because they only fire after they’ve fully recharged unless it’s the FotFH or the Hide of Terra. Basically be on the lookout for blue and purple gear that give you the most bang for the buck as it were. I ran with a blue Rage Meat COM for a long time until I was able to spec into RtB and found a better one. I found a Legendary Psycho COM in Dr. Zed’s vending machine in Tina’s DLC that I used for a very long time because it had the full +5 to everything. I replaced it with a Leg. Reaper, and then a Leg. Sickle once I got to the OP levels because I needed the melee boosts to be able to kill things. Still, Meat is the way to go until RtB. After that, look for sickle COMs and throw a point into StV so you can get used to how its mechanics work without killing yourself…hopefully.

It’s only worth it in NVHM; I’d get rid of it once you reach TVHM and never spec it again though some would disagree. And StP can go up to 15% without a COM. It’s worth speccing into if you’re going heavy on explosive weaponry because it helps you to process Bloodbath, which is one of Krieg’s signature skills (can’t argue with 250% weapon damage for 7 seconds, eh?) . If you do decide to stick with LtF, you should look for a blue crunch COM with +6 StF (the other bonus doesn’t matter) and an explosive relic. I believe there’s a build around here that focuses on it, but I haven’t used it in forever due to how poorly it scales. Your mileage may vary though.

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#11

Lots of great info, just going to add some of my own opinions to what others have posted.

I would save the Love Thumper for solo play only. It’s too annoying trying to not hurt your teammates with it. There’s other Roid shields that work fine early game. You might find a nice purple one of some sort and The Order roid shield is obtained from a later sidequest and is perfectly fine at low levels even without its special effect combined with the Law. Also, on that note, bladed weapons actually lower Krieg’s melee damage except for the Law and the Rapier. Neither of those are essential to playing melee Krieg, but just something to watch out for.

Light the Fuse works fine early game but doesn’t scale well. Take StF as Gulfwulf recommends first, to get your explosive damage higher to get more out of it. The other problem with Light the Fuse is that your teammates don’t realize you are in FFYL because of the different animation and may not know to revive you. Similarly, I only use Redeem the Soul for solo play, in co-op it’s annoying not to be able to revive others and have to use that skill instead (it’s the same button on PS4 at least.

Silence the Voices is not needed early game either, I was playing Co-op with some people into UVHM and it only became necessary to use in the high fifties.

The FoTf shield was made for Hellborn, but early game I think points are better spent elsewhere. You might want to think about when you run into again in later playthroughs. There’s a few drawbacks, such as relying on the novas and not really learning the gunplay of the game, and some teammates find the constant explosions really irritating. The Orphan Maker shotgun helps keep the shield down and the novas firing, and is an easy sidequest reward close to the main area of the Scarlett DLC.

I highly recommend slag grenades. Past a certain level only really powerful grenades like the Fastball and Stormfront kill, I think it’s better to get a slag bouncing betty or slag transfusion or something like that. Oddly, if you use rampage mode, or RTB, you’ll want one with a little bit of a delay, so you can throw it before using the action skill, then have it go off and start slagging while you’re running around beating things with your axe.

As Vaulthunter and others pointed out, you don’t have to play Krieg as a melee character and there’s a lot of fun to be had with gun and explosive Krieg, but melee Krieg is just a blast to play and a very unique experience in an FPS.

edit: as far as COMS, Gulfwulf gave some excellent ideas, I ran with a Diesel Blister COM for a recent early game playthrough as Krieg, as it gave me more slag grenades to work with, even before I had his kill skills spec’d out.

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#12

Small Update.

So I’ve been following everyone’s advices, and having a blast.

One thing I always raged about a while ago, is when I enter LtF and my friends don’t notice I’m halfway dead. Like seriously I’d appreciate being Res’d or revived right now, but no. They were confused because I was sprinting around.

Sigh, if only my latency isn’t so bad, perhaps we can communicate effectively with Voice Comms. Typing in the midst of gunfight is a big no-no.

#13

Have you tried tossing dynamite at them to draw their attention?

#14

I know on PS4, if you do in-game chat it’s quite spotty but if you use the party chat function on PSN it’s fine. I wonder of there’s some similar proxy service you can use on PC. As a Maya main, I’ve missed plenty of Krieg revives with LtF. Your teammates have a lot to think about too in the middle of a firefight :), As Krieg, I tend to not use LtF in co-op, even though it’s a viable skill up to a certain level as discussed above.

#15

Another small update.

So it can’t be helped that they CBF to revive me when under a firefight.

Gaige and Maya(my friends) told me they switched Trees and went for Elemental Builds. The biggest downer for me was that Maya spec’d out Res.

Should I adjust my skill build accordingly? Or just continue down the path of Bread n’ Butter Melee Krieg?

I’m halfway to level 26 btw, can’t wait to unlock RTB.

Question: Why do I frequently see low level Lobbed Slag Bouncing Betty get recommend on a Krieg Melee Build?

EDIT: I just lurked a bit and found out it’s a bosa tactic. Using low level ensures you don’t kill mobs so you can continue to Bloodsplode bosses.

Hmmm…

#16

No, it’s so it won’t kill you when it explodes and slags you. The bullets won’t affect you, but the final explosion sure will.

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#17

I’m not sure why your Maya player wouldn’t help the team out by spec’ing into Res at L26. Or at least L27 when they can get both Res and either Cloud Kill or Converge. Ruin isn’t necessary in Normal mode and while Reaper is awesome, it’s not essential either at those levels, especially with two other teammates doing damage. Also, people who CBF to revive teammates imho, aren’t teammates. We all miss a revive from time to time or can’t risk a revive because we’d go down too, but straight up ignoring one…

If your on your own, you might as well go melee Krieg with LTF. Or just get yourself a Badaboom (King Mong in Eridium Blight has two spawn points reasonably close to the entrance by car) or Harold (same with Savage Lee in Three Horns Divide) for easier second winds. E-tech launchers like the Topneaa are good for this too but are harder to find at those levels.

Things will be considerably more awesome once you get RTB at 31, hang in there :slight_smile:

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#18

Well if anything else, I’m the one who has a hard-on at playing this game with some finesse.

I sure as hell want to play optimally, but don’t want to force those other two into changing builds. Maybe they didn’t find their previous build fun? I don’t wanna ruin their fun.

And if by any chance they start having trouble, I’m pretty sure the Maya will get Res again.

Atm, Gaige is focused on a shock elemental build.

One thing I also noticed is when multiple Badasses start filling the map, they(gaige and maya) get obliterated fast. Meanwhile, on my side, I can risk running around killing things.

Maybe I should get LT? But atm, I have a good roid shield. Something like 600 roid damage. I recently got the quest for LT. Should I switch to it after I finish the quest?

#19

As I posted previously, I don’t feel the Love Thumper is suited for co-op play. There’s enough going without having to worry about damaging your team. A good Roid shield is fine at your level, particularly once you get RTB. The Order shield is excellent and an easy quest reward, for example. Any purple or even Blue, close to on-level, Roid shield will be fine on Normal and most of TVHM and you likely won’t even need Silence the Voices. Krieg’s melee damage with Release the Beast is really strong, and hopefully your team can slag things for you. If your Gaige is going for a shock build, they can get interspersed outburst for even more slagging.

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#20

Slag isn’t really necessary until UVHM, but it does come in handy if it’s available. The LT is a fun shield, but it can cause your teammates to be very angry with you if you’re constantly sending them into FFYL… :dukefp: