Solo Gaige horrifying - Retracted!

Borderlands 2 Gaige the Mechromancer
#1

Adding a post here so as not to necro another one that I posted on a while ago.

@carlton_slayer was kind enough to suggest a build for my 70 Gaige:
http://bl2skills.com/mechromancer.html#550053100551050040000000413150151050

His reasoning seemed sound, so I thought I’d give it a go. Lacking a great shotgun, I equipped a Rubi and an on-level Double Lovin Pounder and went to the bullymongs by the Catch-a-Ride station at Three Horns Divide - you know, the place right by Sanctuary, where the rakks spawn.

The result of five attempts there: Three deaths. (Killed by ordinary bullymongs, in a wide open area. What the actual.) Two successes, each of which took 4-5 minutes to accomplish. The monglets were a one-shot affair, but for whatever reason, the others just took for_ever_.

They say that Gaige + Anarchy + shotgun = facemelting. I find it to be true, but it is my face that melts.

In general, I do pretty well with the other toons. I can clear that silly little bullymong area in no time. Obviously I’m doing something wrong with Gaige. Any thoughts on what it might be?

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#2

Get a fibber and everything will make sense

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#3

I’m lazy and I don’t specialize in Gaige, so I’ll give you the “down and dirty” safety net so you can get comfortable with Gaige, and then you can experiment after that.

First off, I’d recommend just grinding out those last 2 levels already. An easy XP farm, I see a lot of, pertains to getting an “any level Lady Fist” and an on level Bee shield, and just killing the Snowman over and over. Plus this is a good way to farm for one of the COMs I’m going to suggest.

  • This is more or less my build, and it has served me well.
  • COMs
    • Legendary Anarcist
    • Legendary Mechromancer (easy to get from the Snowman chest)
  • Relics
    • Bone of the Ancients
  • Shields
    • I’d suggest a Blockade
    • But an Antagonist works fine in the meantime
    • If you don’t have either then just use a high capacity turtle shield
  • Grenades - personally I use my grenades on Gaige for slag
    • x4 Magic Missles
    • Slag bouncing Bonnie
    • Slag Transfusion
  • Weapons - Easy to get ones, but if you have “hand-me-downs” from other characters, feel free to let me know
Here is a list, but I gave up half way through, as I don't really know how to Gaige prior to the end game. So hopefully someone else can pitch in here.
  • Ricochet Fibber
  • Hail
  • Blockhead
  • Kitten (at lower stacks)
  • Ravager? (Gaige experts chip in if this isn’t a good suggestion)
  • Coach Gun? (ditto)
  • Lascaux (it may struggle b/c it is non-elemental only)
  • Pimpernel

Feel free to ask questions, or for more details.

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#4

I’m not an expert, but I use Torgue and Jakobs shotguns all the time with her and haven’t had much trouble. I’d also add Longrider/Striker - excellent for fast stacking. The Pounder the OP mentioned should be fine too.

I don’t play BFF builds like the two posted here, but presumably Deathtrap does a lot of the work for those Gaiges.

That sounds like a failure to slag, possibly? @Ninja_Mrrr will assure us that Gaige can do fine in UVHM without slag, but it’s easier with slag. :slight_smile: Slag bouncing betties (level doesn’t matter) are the easiest way to go, though if you have a x4 Magic Missile I’m sure that’s great too.

My usual routine with Gaige is to use a shotgun early to stack quickly, then shift to something accurate and damaging once she’s at 100+ stacks. Plasma caster, Gwen’s Head, anything that puts a lot of bullets out and doesn’t suffer too badly from the Anarchy inaccuracy. I believe a Jakobs pistol, particularly a Maggie, with the Trick Shot attachment would also be fantastic.

The bullymong testing grounds in the OP sounds like a great place for the initial stacking.

That is the correct Gaige shield while leveling. Uniques have to wait until 72. :slight_smile:

As the others have said, once you hit 72, go get a shock Fibber with the ricochet barrel, and start giggling at how utterly broken that is! :smiley:

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#5

If you suggested this attachment because you think it circumvents the damage penalty from Close Enough, then I don’t believe it does. (Though I’m too lazy to retest stuff these days to make sure)

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#6

That was the idea. I thought I’d read that it did work like the Fibber’s ricochets. But my Trick Shot Maggie is OP3 and my Gaige is 53, so I haven’t had a chance to test yet (hopefully she can farm herself one sooner than that).

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#7

In my test the main projectile of the Fibber actually gets the damage penalty, but the 8 unlisted ones don’t. So I think that’s where the misconception stemmed from. Though if you get the chance, do test it. I’ve already proven myself wrong once recently.

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#8

For shotguns, I prefer Hyperion with Gaige : the Conference Call , Interfacer, Butcher , Heartbreaker , Thinking. The first two work especially well with Nth Degree.

For slag, Gabriel convinced me the value of using a gun instead of a grenade. However, this is mostly with a LBT / shock build where you can really abuse the Chain Lighting or Storm Front. I used to use a Slagga but I’ve for the first time ever come to appreciate the Florentine with her.

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#9

I always found Gaige to be one of the really easy characters. But I don’t use the Ordered Chaos tree at all.

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#10

What shield, COM, and relic were you using?
How many stacks of Anarchy were you packing?
Was Deathtrap out (and what was he up to)?

That build should be just fine, really.

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#11

The shield is a level 68 adaptive. The COM is a Peppy Prodigy (+weapon accuracy, reload speed, More Pep, Cooking Up Trouble, Better Half). The relic is Vitality (+50% health). None of them is great, but I don’t think any of them should result in death by run-of-the-mill bullymong either.

I started with zero Anarchy. I was generally 50ish at the point of death or survival. Deathtrap was out as much as possible, and he was busy.

I’m considering trying to level to 72, as suggested. But that might be an enormous pain, seeing as how I can’t kill simple enemies reliably. Another option would be to start all over.

BTW, if you’re wondering how I got to level 70, I played Gaige up to this point with my brother operating as Maya. He’s off now playing other games, so I thought I’d try Gaige solo.

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#12

Ok, so you’re well into UVHM, where enemy damage is serious business.

That shield, while great for shedding DoT, doesn’t handle direct damage as well. A punch or two from a mean Bullymong will pretty much decimate it… you need sequential kills to get Gaige’s shield skills on deck to make that shield tank that damage.

That COM probably isn’t doing you any favors. 50 Anarchy doesn’t incur so much inaccuracy that you need to dial it back to hit anything. Reload speed is nice… she’s otherwise hilariously bad at it. More Pep and The Better Half, love them or hate them, aren’t going to add enough damage output to make a huge difference here. Cooking Up Trouble is tricky to rely on in combat for healing. When I’m not using it on the sideline while licking my wounds, I make it a point to swap to my ‘emergency’ weapon (which is always fully loaded, both for emergencies and to nurse Cooking Up Trouble).

If nothing else, I’d look for another shield. This might be a good time to hit the Golden Chest or do some basic chest runs?

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#13

Speaking of shields, do you have an offensive shield for DT? There’s no point having Sharing is Caring if you can’t give him a roid, spike or nova ( or all three in one! Just kidding, the Hide of Terra is an irritating farm ).

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#14

Flame of the Firehawk or Love Thumper with fire or explosive relic would be great. Also, keep a 2 round coach gun on hand for Cooking Up Trouble- S,L,F will keep it a 1 round, meaning every time you use it it is always full on the reload…

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#15

Now all I have to do is get killed enough times to find a decent shield and gun. :slight_smile: I’ll see what I can do. More to follow. Thanks.

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#16

You don’t need to re-set anything, as there are several easy farms for 3 of the most powerful guns (and one of the most powerful shields) in the game with any character. That would give you some gear to get you to 72 and get more up to speed with UVHM.

If you’ve already done the Scarlett DLC, you might consider resetting your UVHM play through (not deleting your character, just resetting all quests including main story in UVHM).

Sandhawk: Do most of the Scarlett DLC…job done
Pimpernel: Do most of the Scarlett DLC and then take the side quest “Don’t Copy that Floppy” after you do Washburne refinery (and the first side quest there).
Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold (DPUH, but any Harold will do in a pinch): Farm Savage Lee in Three Horns or go down to TVHM and farm Torgue tokens from Pete’s Bar and then farm the vending machine in UVHM
The Bee: Farm treeants in The Forest or Hunter Hellquist in Arid Nexus
edit: In the first map of the Scarlett DLC, you can take the side quest (marked near the exit to Hayter’s Folly) that gives you the Orphan Maker, which is quite strong, though it can be tricky to use as it does hurt you a bit on every fire. It’s good with the FoTF to keep the novas going, but I’ve not tried that with Gaige. There’s a side quest to kill the rest of Sandman’s crew that gives you the Jolly Roger shotgun, which is quite strong, though not generally considered top tier.

With the above you can farm the Snowman in the Mercenary DLC…

If all of that is too hard given your current gear, then go to the Borderlands Twitter page and enter some SHIFT codes for golden keys. Farm the chest for some of purple gear people above have helpfully suggested.

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#17

Sounds good. Better yet, don’t get killed. Just hit the safe chests for now :slight_smile:
I like the one in Tundra Express for non-combat farming of standard gear (the drop-off by Madame von Bartlesby’s area).
Gaige can be a bit tricky to farm for since several of her weapons of choice which aren’t in the unique category are just annoyingly hard to find, world drops being what they are.

One gun which is amazing on her but involves a bit more running about is the Blockhead from the Caustic Caverns. Just bolt it till you get the drop. With that gun in hand you’ll never fear a Bullymong again - in fact, most flesh enemies will regret ever picking a fight with you.

Remember that although Jakobs shotties are great for raw damage, anarchy loves grenade splash and the Blockhead has plenty of that. (There’s a reason that gun is amazing for Axton and Krieg as well.) Conversely, Gaige has no crit damage bonuses outside one line of COMs.

I agree with @Adabiviak that your COM isn’t the best one going, but it’s not bad for general purposes. A good Pangolin shield should do great, it’ll keep you alive while you farm Tubbies for the Leg Anarchist and Catalyst COMs, both of which are amazing.
If you can get an offensive shield for DT you’ll be well ahead, swapping after summon can be a tad annoying at first but you’ll soon do it so quickly you don’t even notice.

Once you’re a bit better geared I agree with @ChemicalConundrum that a UVHM reset to acquire things like the Pimpernel and Fibber could be worthwhile, not to mention the Hail.
On OP0, that’s still a raid-killer for Gaige. The Pimpernel is of course absolute murder and the Fibber is something you’ll get tired of pretty soon due to how OP it is.

I don’t really see any problems with either of the suggested builds, although one or two people may remember me not being a fan of Close Enough because of complicated and partly irrational reasons which you can safely ignore (apart from the points expenditure - IMO they can be better used elsewhere.)

The only things I’d advise you to do is to max out Unstoppable Force for the mobility and DOT-defeating shield regen. It’s a bit like Grim, Followthrough and Quick Charge in one.
Your points in MoSS aren’t really helping you much without a Blockade, with the important caveat that one single point grants much more DR against fire damage than it actually ought to.
(According to forum rules I’m not allowed to tell you how I know that, just roll with it.)

The second part would be to avoid Buck Up outside specific scenarios like raids. It can be very helpful there, but while mobbing it distracts DT from killing stuff and you have some of the best shield skills in the game anyway.

The points in PaaP are a bit meh, on the whole I’d free those and the MoSS ones (except for the single one mentioned above) toward the LBT tree once UF has been maxed. On the whole, Tiers 3 and 4 of the LBT tree have some amazing skills to synergize with elemental damage, splash damage and all related ways to make people miserable, especially when you find a Leg Catalyst.
You can build for that already, but of course even more so at 72.

You’ll have a bit of a grind getting that gear, but the journey from being horrified to becoming horrifying is probably worth it.

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#18

Honestly rarity matters less than item level, if you don’t have guns/shield that are within about 3-5 levels of you, consider picking up anything you find that is about your level. Even a POS white gun and shield that are at your level will perform adequately enough to get by at least for most general mobbing (badass enemies may still prove to be PITAs; this will grant you access to plenty of chests to start farming some proper gear from).

1 Like
#19

Happy Birthday you Rambunctious Rascal, you! :wink:

OT: Twister Shotgun from Triple O in the Hammerlock DLC. You don’t even need to go through the DLC to farm Triple O. This is most likely not a practical solution, but I didn’t see any posts about the Twister Shotty which is pretty damn strong in Gaige’s hands. :wink:

If you feel like entertaining this idea, take a look at how to spawn OOO:

Just saw that my vid is gone, I’ll have to rememdy that. in the meantime, here is another resource for you:

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What did you do in your most recent session, PT3!
#20

No, it’s really not. “Having trouble killing normal bullymongs? Go farm the warm-up act for a raid boss to try to get one of the rarest guns in the game!” :stuck_out_tongue:

The Twister is the cherry on top that a Gaige who is doing well can aspire to, maybe, someday, if RNG is favorable.

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