Does this guy suck or do I?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Claptrap the Fragtrap
#1

Having some major issues with anything badass, heading towards RedBelly and honestly i’m dreading it. I’m level 8, my 5 skill points at the moment are in Drop the Hammer. His action skill seems borderline useless at the moment. I’m not writing him off, because i’ve heard he can be awesome. But the fact that I play solo, I feel like I may not get the most out of him.

Any advice is welcome.

#2

It’s been a while since I’ve played this, and I did play a lot of clappy, so I think I can give a few tips just gotta look at that tree again…

Claptrap is RNG incarnate, and you have to work around his RNG. Sometimes you will roll a bad .EXE and have to retreat. You just have to be more cautious with clappy and not run into a fight ala LEEEORYYY. If you really want to be cautious about it, run your .EXE in cover, then if you get nailed with a bad one your not out in the open with it.

If you do need more survive-ability and a bit of a cheese tactic, put a point into safety first defensive subroutines. It early in the game so you could find a Tediore shield easily. While low level wont make the Tediore shield subroutine extremely cheesey, it will give you a huuuge shield boost and you can duck into cover, recharge, and take more crack shots at your targets. When you get a purple tediore shield, well, LOL. The downside to this is your going to take a hit in gun damage. I think this combos with the KILLBOT skill too… cant remember… Just keep in mind your going to be at the mercy of RNG using this tactic, and will have to change your playstyle around what defensive subroutine is active at the moment.

If your doing the boomtrap you will get your damage up the deeper you go into the tree. If you can get points into coincidental combustion you will get a random chance of bonus BOOM, and when it comes to BOOM, cryo is your best friend. Boomtrp gets good, you just gotta unlock more of the tree.

If you want more survive-ability and a different damage boost for now, switch to blue tree and get maniacal laughter and all the things are awesome. This might work better if you want to use the defensive subroutines. When your more leveled and can access more BOOMTRAP, switch back to BOOMTRAAAAP.

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#3

Should start with Killbot. Self-heals are the most important skills in any RPG, in my opinion.

“Suck” is subjective. I think they did a fantastic job designing the character, since it’s random, annoying, and humorous, which really captures the essence of Claptrap. It’s also pretty effective. However I don’t really see the appeal of taking it beyond level 26. There are still useful skills in the I Love You Guys tree, but they’re not very exciting. Plus Load ‘n’ Splode is good, and Coincidental Combustion could be useful if you use non-explosive guns (perhaps to get some use out of Maniacal Laughter). But as far as I’m concerned once Claptrap can turn into a pirate ship, you’ve seen all the good stuff.

I took pretty much the opposite approach to KrewlraiN, very aggressive close range charges to get the most use out of the Start With A Bang novas and whatever shotgun I had at the time (Ravager is ideal, but sometimes all you have is a Hulk, Pounder, Coach Gun, etc.). The Too Scoops is insanely powerful with Clappy, and can carry you through most of NVHM if you want. Shoot at an enemy’s feet, it will probably freeze, the nova will shatter it, reload because it’s a single-shot gun, repeat. Doesn’t work on a lot of bosses though. And using a Ravager can give you the best One Last Thing combo - first shot, nova, massive OLT second shot, reload, repeat.

I viewed VaultHunter.exe as an emergency heal button. If a useful package came up, great, but otherwise I’d make the best of it. A tip for funzerking - spam melee once there are no enemies around, that way you don’t waste so much ammo.

One would think that Claptrap would have lots of interesting and unique dialog in Claptastic Voayge, but one would be wrong. CV actually makes no sense at all playing as Claptrap - I think somehow the developers forgot it was a playable character.

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#4

##Tips and Tricks:

  • Spec into Safety First, and that should be your only skill in the Fragmented Fragtrap tree for a long while. The skill is glitched so that the shield subroutine gives all your shields a zero recharge delay like the Naught. Which makes you near unkillable, so just grab the best adaptive shield you can find and never die 50% of the time, and the other 50% you get a nice health regen.
  • And even the penalty is glitched and is only like -13.7% additive gun damage, which you won’t even notice by the time you’re level ~30.
  • VaultHunter.EXE is your “get out of jail free card”, as it regens 100% of your health when activated. And all of the base Action Packages are either pretty good or they don’t negatively affect you solo, only the psycho one screws you over. So as long as you don’t get the psycho one, just treat the others as happy side effects for avoiding FFYL.
  • Vladof cryo grenades make enemies easy to kill, and they can’t come for that little yellow robot booty for at least 6 seconds.

I’ve got more, but that’s enough to help you get into a level 8 character. If you need anything else feel free to ask.

4 Likes
#5

@KrewlraiN @Worblehat @khimerakiller Rather than reply to you all individually, i’ll do it all at once. Many thanks for your input, all of you. I’ll be sure to respec when I get back on it and go for Satefy First, as it sounds like a no brainer thanks to the additional information. I realise that part of my struggles is i’m treating him differently, i’m trying to be an up close shotgun hero, and at level 8 that’s clearly stupid :smiley:

As for what Worblehat said, I of course don’t think the design of him sucks, he’s annoying like he should be. Which quest gives the Too Scoops? Is it the Ice Holes one?

I’ll give him another try today, and see how things go.

Edit: I just killed RedBelly. It was tough getting there but Mechromagician is probably the best of his action skill things so far for me, seems super effective. I took the 5 points out of DtH, and moved them to Safety First and Killbot. Hit level 9 after killing Red… or Belly (whichever one is the bigger one) so maxed Killbot. Now, i’m a Jakobs guy most of the time, so i’m guessing that Coincidental Combustion is a good next choice?

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#6

Glad I could give a little bit of rusty insight lol. I forgot VH.EXE refilled your health xD. Been a long time since I played lol.

#7

For Jakobs, I would go with this http://thepresequel.com/Claptrap/550010050510000000000000310000000000

#8

Yes.

I’d say Jakobs allegiance would be decent but not the very best on Claptrap. Even a Quad won’t have the mag size to get full benefit from One Last Thing. A Flayer does, but doesn’t give you the two shots per mag that you want in order to maximize OLT (and SWaB) frequency.

Jakobs also reloads a lot so I agree with boombumr in still prefering Drop the Hammer over Coincidental Combustion. You’d definitely want both on a Jakobs allegiance Claptrap though.

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