Community Patch: Gaige skills

Borderlands 2 Gaige the Mechromancer
#1

Part of @johnrr6 community patch thread, here are (although I cant claim credits for all) my suggestions for skill fixes for the Mechromancer.
Some are not from me, I had help from @Aaron0000 .
Pinging @pokapoka here since I’d like to hear his input on this matter aswel.

-Annoyed Android should give Gaige a benefit aswel, like a (minor) speed buff.

-Buck Up (if it is possible either way): it would be nice if DT would check if your in FFYL or not. Buck Up would be a bit better (arguably) if it only affected Gaige, it pisses off Zer0 and Krieg players terribly.

-Shock Storm needs a radius buff, but otherwise does nice damage.

-Made of Sterner Stuff would be of some use it gaige got 3% per point and Deathtrap 6%.
Currently, MoSS is only good if you constantly use the Blockade. But yes, a minor number buff can do wonders for MoSS.

-The Stare, well, that skill would work if it didn’t cost 5 seconds to wind up. Which makes you lose valueable DT uptime fast

-Potent as a Pony - Change Deathtrap’s health boost to be twice as high as Gaige’s boosts.

-Explosive Clap - Buff the damage and explosive radius.

-More Pep, fix the numbers if they arent already.

-One Two Boom - Make it the shock equivalent of a Nukem blast. Perhaps a bit too much, but it definetly needs more oomph.

-Death from Above, atleast reduce Anarchy cost to 1, no matter how much points invested. It thinks your in midair on slopes, which is probably a engine limitation

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Unofficial Community Patch Thread
Unofficial Community Patch Thread
#2

Shock Storm needs a larger radius (maybe double? Too huge might be overpowered.) I think the damage is fine, but when it’s capable of reliably hitting enemies, we’ll see how well it does.

The Stare needs different elements. Failing that, some more oomph might get others to use it, but in UVHM, the fire damage is only good on unarmored, unshielded enemies. For a single point that high in the tier, I understand it (and I use it constantly), but you see the conundrum.

Death From Above: damage buff. I don’t mind the escalating Anarchy cost, but the damage could be way higher for that expense.

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#3

Of all her skills, here is the list of what I would change:

Best Friends Forever

This skill tree is meant to make DT stronger, but some of them are pretty lackluster. Im trying to list just what really needs a boost, as the majority of skills in this tree is pretty solid.

Potent as a Pony: I would just swap the max health bonus. When you invest heavily in DT, you want him to be more healthy, while you stay in the back doing the support he needs.
The % is alright imo, as you can further boost it with the Roboteer COM. Axton Healthy is 6% per rank, the same when we put both bonuses (2% + 4%).

Made of Sterner Stuff: well, the damage resistance is pretty low. Boosting it to the 2~3% range is enough, as it is boosted by both the Roboteer and the Necromancer COM. The melee damage is the same amout as So5G, so it is all good.

Little Big Trouble

This is Gaige elemental skill tree. The last patch did an amazing job in scaling the skills, but there are still some little issues that could be fixed.

The Stare: really, what this skill is meant to do? There is no sweeping across the battlefield. I think that it has to, at least, do more damage than the regular electric beam DT fires when he can not melee.

Shock Storm: the damage is now really satisfatory, but the range is really small. Making it reach the nearby targets would be amazing. Maybe a little less than Explosive Clap?

One-Two Boom: this skill should scale to be your get out of FFYL card, especially when it is so hard to aim for the sphere with some Anarchy stacked.

Ordered Chaos

This skill tree is built around Anarchy. The skills are straight foward and do what they are meant to do. Of all of them, there are only two that I would change:

Death From Above: this skill has so much potential, but its flaws end up killing it in the end.
Damage wise, it is weaker than IO at the same rank. Also, at higher ranks, it wont allow you to build Anarchy up because of the cost.
Looping it with Rational Anarchist could be an amazing playstyle, be it at rank 5, 10 or 11.
One little thing that would make it possible is to boost the skill damage to the same level as IO with 5 stacks. Both are basically the same type of skill, but one costs time and the other stacks.
More than it should be overkill, so some testing is needed.

With Claws: 0.6 for a capstone skill when your tier 1 gives 1.75 is kinda unfair. Making it 1.75 too could make melee Gaige viable in the end game, and wouldnt be OP as Gaige has no multiplicative melee bonus like Zer0.

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#4

I’ve made a post about suggestions of gameplay changes including Gaige’s skills in “The last patch”, is it? topic:

If anyone not keen on scrolling through the wall of text to find my Gaige’s skill suggestion, I’ll post them here for your convenience:

  • Cooking Up Trouble: Increase the health regeneration rate up to 0.6-0.8% per rank. And make this skill also applicable to DT.

  • The Better Half: Make it applicable to DT’s attack speed.

  • Unstoppable Force: Make the movement speed bonus applicable to DT.

  • Explosive Clap: Buff the explosive damage and speed up DT’s animation on doing his explosive clap.

  • Made of Sterner Stuff: Increase the damage resistance up to 2-3% per rank.

  • More Pep: Increase the electrocute chance up to 5-6% per rank and other elemental effect chances up to 3-4% per rank.

  • Shock Storm: Increase the storm damage and the shock storm radius.

  • The Stare: Increase the laser damage and make the laser ignore the damage penalty on armored enemies, the DOTs from the laser still follow the damage penalty.

  • Strength of Five Gorillas: Increase DT’s melee damage bonus up to 5-7% per rank.

  • Electrical Burn: Increase the burn chance up to 6% per rank.

  • Shock and “AAAGGGHHH!”: Increase the shock damage and electrical explosion radius.

  • One Two Boom: Make DT charge the electric orb faster, increase the electric orb’s traverse speed and make the electric orb generating electrical arcs on nearby enemies like Maya’s Scorn or Doom 2016 BFG’s projectile.

  • Wires Don’t Talk: Make the bonus applicable to DT’s ranged electric attack and increase the extra-damage bonus up to 4-5%.

  • Annoyed Android: Increase the movement speed bonus up to 8% per rank and add melee attack speed bonus for DT.

  • Death From Above: Increase the Digi-splosion damage that is worth consuming the Anarchy stacks.

  • The Nth Degree: Make the damage boost scalable with the skill rank.

  • With Claws: Increase the melee damage bonus up to 0.8-1% per stack and increase the life-steal percentage.

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#5

Buck Up- shields restored by DT gain a random elemental immunity, which lasts for as long as he’s around

Potent As A Pony/Made of Sterner Stuff- increase the percentages of each boost by 2%-3%

Shock Storm- reading the skill it doesn’t look as if it applies DoT but only as an AoE- if that’s correct then it should apply DoT instead…

The Stare- make it ‘The X-Ray Stare’ and allow it to ignore shields and cover

Death From Above- make it take affect from just a higher elevation than an enemy and watch Sniper Gaige become a thing :grinning:

With Claws- useless as a capstone skill for Gaige- IMO switch it with Sharing is Caring and make it DT exclusive

#6

Lets try to keep unnecessary boosts out, focusing only on what really needs to be done.
Some % skills are meant to help you in the leveling process, so they wont scale in the late game as we want them.

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#7

It jsut needs its radius fixed, I’ve witnessed enemies being affected by it; it aplies a decent DOT.

And this feels completely wrong for me to see happen. Is it perfect? No. But such a drastic overhaul, I don’t deem nescecary.

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#8

I’ll agree about Shock Storm but With Claws? Just doesn’t feel right for a capstone skill- move it up to the second or third tier and I’d agree with you…

#9

With Claws just needs a buff and it is good to go.

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#10

This. I mean, vanilla it kinda falls off unless a specific build is used, but it atleast stil has ulitity. It just needs a number buff.

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#11

I have been pinged!

Reply from 64.71.168.222: bytes=32 time=2.592e+8ms TTL=57
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Anyhoo, got some good suggestions in here!

I especially agree with these;

  • Shock Storm needs a radius buff
  • Made of Sterner Stuff (i.e. removing the Blockade prerequisite)
  • Potent as a Pony (DT=more HP!)
  • Death from Above (less Anarchy consumed)

Along with the additional suggestions from @Adabiviak and @l_gabrielcruz, this would really provide some good build diversity for Gaige (even if there’s already more than most people believe).

However, Buck Up.

My thoughts on Buck Up = it doesn’t even need to exist.

We already have Fancy Mathematics, Blood-soaked Shields and Unstoppable Force. How many shield skills does she really need?

Besides, people should be using DT for two things; A) draw aggro, B) DPS (depending on build). DT doesn’t need to be healing shields; he needs to be out there killing things or drawing things away from you.

The only, and I mean ONLY time you’d even want to use Buck Up is if you’re using the Infini-Bee glitch.

Replace Buck Up with… I dunno, something useful? Like, a ranked boost to DT’s default ranged shock attack?

Anything other than BU, really.

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#12

Hey Poka, nice to see you around!

About Death From Above, what do you think is better: boosting its damage or reducing the stack consume?
I think that even with it consuming only one stack, the damage output wont be worth the points.
Boosting it to the IO level (after patch) could be great for low Anarchy builds and Discord looping. Or even stacking it with IO for a bigger burst!

About Buck Up, well… it is kinda useful in Raid groups…?

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#13

Personally, I try to stay vanilla as possible, but I can’t disagree with Poka either. Even if it wasn’t/isn’t terrible bugged, I’d stil question its use outside the exploit.

LBT builds are vastly underappreciated, to my annoyance.

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#14

I can agree with some kind of boost to DfA, other than less stacks consumed.

Post-patch I/O was definitely a good call on GBX’s behalf; I feel DfA would benefit from some love.

Maybe if not straight-up damage, give it some more utility. A reason to pick it over, or with, I/O. Or, at the very least, give it some synergy with other skills in the same tree.

Nothing else in that tree suggests that you should be jumping around, other than DfA; there’s no benefit. Maybe give us a reason to synchronize it with something else.

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#15

Yeah, some synergy would be nice.
But, being honest, I usually try to shot from above when my Anarchy is stacked. Feels like Im geting more from Close Enough, as the bullets are going to hit the floor around the target if they miss it. Especially if Im using a shotty.

Maybe its me, but feels more forgiving this way.
If DFA was a thing, I would love to build around it and move around jumping and blasting off my good old shotty.

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#16

IMO similar to Brawn Sal, the whole LBT tree needs a buff. Currently, the whole Elemental tree is very toothless at OP8. Most people simply go down it to pick up WDT (which is pretty overrated IMO) and IO (which is nice when boosted by a Catalyst or Technophile).

However, I would like to believe the core skills of the tree is really the synergy between EB, EE and WDT. This combination works pretty well at OP0. However, the primary advantage of EB (which is because it remultiplies with slag) works against it at OP8 due to the increased damage reduction. Even if it sparks from a relatively powerful DOT (like a grenade or S&A), it struggles to kill fleshier bandits like Nomads or Bruisers. Which shouldn’t be the case. By contrast, Krieg’s burn dots are fairly powerful, and only require a 5 point investment to melt fleshy Bandits. And his dots are largely a means to an end (stacking EE or healing). Given EB’s dots can require at least a 15 point investment, it honestly should be able to kill badass enemies (with EE active). I mean, Cloudkill shreds Loaders without much difficulty and is only a 1 point investment!

More Pep: Electrocute chance increased to 7% rank (Since Flicker is 6% for all elements). Other elements 5% per rank

Shock and Aagghh: According to @Chuck80, the base DOT value is 20-25. This should be increased to 65 in line with the top-tier shock grenades. That said, the actual nova damage is pretty good right now.

Evil Enchantress: Increase Dot Damage to 15% per level. I know this is pretty extreme, but honestly this is the easiest way to make EB effective (on kill) and counteract the massive damage reduction at OP8. Short of massively buffing WDT which I feel could be too OP on shock guns like the Twister.

Electrical Burn: Increase chance to 7% per level.

WDT: Increase Shock Damage to 4% per level. I think making it 6% would be too ridiculous. That said WDT is pretty overrated. One should realise that while the skill is ‘multiplicative’ to gun damage, it is not a true multiplicative like DM, Ambush or Reaper. It is still additive to all elemental damage, and simply occupies a different side of the damage eqn. If Athena had WDT, it would be completely insignificant to Maelstrom.

Interspersed Outburst: Yeah, I know this skill is pretty decent at 10 points. That said, Gaige has no real slagging/swapping skils barring IO and even at 10 points, it can be pretty unreliable if you are not at full stacks. And if you are trying to keep up your kill skills like EE, waiting 10s so you can slag people can be very counterproductive (esp when it still fails to slag at 5 points). Honestly, I feel that IO should have a guaranteed slag chance at 5 stacks at 5 points, and less stacks should be required to slag people beyond that. Hence, I feel it should be buffed to 4% per stack/ level. The slagsplosion damage is okay.

Other Skills:

Potent as Pony: Increase DT’s health by 4% per level. Gaige health bonus is okay.

Made of Sterner Stuff: Damage Reduction for DT and Gaige increased to 3% per level.

Smaller, Lighter, Faster: Increase Reload speed by 7% per level.

Typecast Iconoclast: Chance to get extra stack increased to 10% per level. I don’t think a guaranteed chance to get 2 stacks at 10 points would be too OP or anything. Also may make With Claws viable without pre-stacking.

#17

Even agreeing with you about EB against targets with no shield like Bruisers, I think that the DoT damage coming from the LBT tree is in a good spot. When the target has a shield and EB procs from the electrocute DoT with the matching bonus, it is trully powerful. Also, EE and the card damage from the Catalyst COM have their bonuses applied twice, so boosting EE could be a little too much.
Same for WDT, Twister and Storm damage would be insane. Gaige already has Anarchy to boost her damage up, and it is pretty enough imo.

The only place that EB has a hard time is in the peak, where element matching bonus doesnt apply.

About IO, I dont think it is meant to be a slagging tool. Seems more like a damage burst, and it is alright the way it is now. Maybe speeding up the stack gain could be good.

And about More Pep, I think that the % is this low because almost all of Gaige COMs boost it. But your suggestion is pretty solid actually, I liked it a lot.

The only skills in need of some fix, imo, are One-Two Boom, Shock Storm and The Stare.

#18

Are you sure you are running this at OP8? I know EB is really effective at OP0. However, it really falls away at OP8 because the 55% DR squares as part of the equation (like slag does, hence why it is strong at OP0). I mean it can somewhat kill things with a L. Catalyst but that should not be the prerequisite for something requiring such heavy investment.

About IO, IIRC it contributes about 5 million damage at 5 stacks at OP8? Which really isn’t alot. So not really ‘burst damage’ per say. On the other hand, it can have great synergy with EB which squares with slag.

#19

I second @l_gabrielcruz here. WDT has its numbers fixed by GBX and works wonderfully, only LBT skill that’s stil left hanging is More Pep, 1, 2 Boom, and Shock Storm, which is already discussed.

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#20

Hold on a sec.

Base value for all grenades except the TTAODK ones go somewhere between 20 and 26. Boosting SaA to triple that would seriously unbalance things.

The chain lightning is already borderline broken on Gaige.

I don’t think adding a completely free source of guaranteed dot that is twice as powerful as the best dot item in the game and can be spammed every 2 seconds while getting shots off would be a great idea.

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