Piemanlee
(Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)
#1
My easiest vote goes to krieg. Both melee and hellborn have ways to heal sufficiently without them.
Release the beast
Thrill of the kill
Elemental empathy
My hardest vote goes to sal. His brawn tree is pretty lackluster on OP8 in my experience.
Maya: very easy to play without moxxie, mainly becuase life tap and sweet release are both amazing
Life tap
Sweet release
Axton: he can be tricky, but his shield skills and able both help negate the need for them.
Quick charge
Grit
Able
Preparation
Willing
Gaige: not much of a gaige player, but blood soaked shields is great.
Zero: again not much experience. I know often times transfusion grenades replace moxxie weapons.
It does make me think about whether Gearbox intentionally creates equipment that will be used together (Grog and Chain Lightning, for example) or is it completely blind luck/unintentional.
2 Likes
Piemanlee
(Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)
#6
Well grog and chain lightning are from the same dlc, so itās possible
I think Iām gonna side with @Piemanlee here. Krieg and Maya are the only characters that have serious healing abilities, and out of the two, I think that Maya has the best survivability. She has two really good shield skills (Ward & Inertia) to begin with, and then she has no less than four healing skills (Sweet release, Elated, Sustenance & Life tap). Krieg can heal 100 % in an instant, but has to get the damage or a kill, in order to get that healing.
Axton is probably the third easist character. He too has some great shield skills to go with Grit. With the turret drawing a lot of the aggro, he can find time to get his shirt together.
Even if Zero is a relatively squishy character in general, he still has an awesome advantage if things get too rough. He can disappear, and run for cover. It does, however, take some skill to know when you need to break off and run for it.
Blood soaked shields is a great skill, but the cost is that you lose some health for each kill. This can be a big problem when youāre up against a large mob. Cooking up trouble will do very little for you in these situations since itās only active when you have a full mag, Which you donāt!
Salās healing while he gunzerks is really good, but the problem is that the enemies deal more damage than he can heal. Heās also strongest when heās right there in the thick of it, which of course makes him take a lot more damage. I therefore name him as the hardest character to play without Moxxi weapons.
Transfusion grenades work the same way as Moxxi guns, so Iāve left them out.
One of Zer0ās best healing skills is his Hunter COM . That with Innervate are quite effective.
The other healing skill, Resurgence, is very effective with the Leg Ninja, but with no Rubi / Grog, shield stripping gets pretty hairy.
Dotunaki has a no-Moxxi Peak run thatās pretty impressive.
Brawn is very effective, but I agree that at OP8 its effectiveness tapers off. I have an OP4 Jakobs-only character that uses only Brawn and a Rough Rider , and does just fine.
Theyāre both really strong, but in different ways. I donāt feel the need for Moxxi guns on any of them, actually. Except against raids.
The reason I still say that Maya has a small advantage is the fact that she can have all these skills in one build. Krieg canāt! Itās impossible to have points in Bloodsplosion, RtB and Elemental Empathy at the same time.
4 Likes
Piemanlee
(Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)
#11
Handsome_Dad
(Wh-?! A mask?! This is tooootally my face! I... uh... )
#14
Bear with me here, as I just woke up, have no coffee in me, and have played about 30 minutes in the past 4 months, I think.
When I think about this kind of stuff, I always try to come up with a metric or benchmark to get close to an apples to apples comparison. In this case, my measure has long been OP8 Peak runs, because ā¦ well, because it throws a wild mix of enemies and situations at you, and because Iām a filthy Peak whore. Anywayā¦
With that in mind, the easiest class for me to use to get through the Peak without Moxxi healing is specifically Double Up + Gemini Axton. I have had multiple runs against the hardest spawns, with no second winds, and not even using transfusion grenades. His regen and shield skills are fantastic, but the big difference is aggro control and space management.
In fairness, Iām sure there are Zero players who have a similarly smooth time running it with Transfusion grenades. Iām a relatively lousy Krieg player, so I canāt really speak to how he fares in a Peak run without Moxxi, in the hands of a solid player.
Iām pretty sure Salvador can have an easier time staying alive w/out moxxi weapons/grog on OP8 than Zer0 if you properly play their respective strengths. I feel like melee in general in BL games tends to have a lot more potential troubles than gun-based playstyles (though at the same time, melee builds can be very power against enemies for which melee is an effective way to kill them).
Looking at the health sustain picture for example: Zer0 has access to 10% per deception from hunter com+up to 24% per Decepti0n (4% per second for 6 seconds) with 5/5 Innervate. Resurgence is melee dependent and getting close is a big risk, so Iāve chosen to ignore that for now. This totals 34% per Decepti0nā¦seems pretty good right? Well, thatās on a 15 second cooldown, and has a 6 second duration, or a total timeframe of 21 seconds. 34% in 21 seconds is less than 2% per second, which is what Gunzerk gives Salvador on itās own. Let alone his Brawn tree health sustain skills, and the fact that activating Gunzerk instantly heals you to above health gate (Iāve used this to my advantage already even in NVHM play, by intentionally hold my Gunzerk until I get healthgated), and with Rampage tree, 100% uptime for Gunzerk is quite realistic, even for a Rampage+Brawn Gunzerker.
Something that Iām not seeing in this conversation which is extremely relevant is the range at which each character engages in combat.
Maya, Axton and Krieg Iād group together as being comfortable to play without Moxxi and it will probably come down to a players own style which they find easiest. All three have healing skills that can reliably heal through high damage. So Iād place them in spots 1-3.
Zero is definitely one of the best suited to medium to long range combat and can avoid a large portion of damage output as most of the AIās carry smgās and shotguns. A Sniper Zero when playing smart will survive just fine on transfusions. He is definitely not the easiest without Moxxi but the lack of healing skills isnāt easily exposed when playing Sniper Zero. Melee and Gun Zero however do rely more heavily on Moxxi as they are far closer to the action. Iād place him 4th easiset to play without Moxxi.
Now for these last two Iām yet to play OP levels with either and my Salvador is still about 60, so please correct any misconceptions I have likely developed. Salvador and Gaige are both at their best at extremely close range. Gaige has really strong shield skills however lacks a way to reliably recover a large bulk of her health after being hit hard. Salvador has good damage mitigation and can also get way with fighting at closer to medium range however he too lacks a way to recover from a heavy attack once gunzerking has been activated. Iād personally rate these two as the hardest to play without Moxxi although I canāt differentiate further without actual hands on experience at OP8.
5 Likes
Piemanlee
(Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)
#17
Very good points. Effective combat range is something i never considered
Decided to go full theorycraft mode for moxxi-less Zer0:
Zer0:
Skills:
-Innevate: Restore 0.8%/pt. max health per second while in Decepti0n
-Ir0n Hand: +3%/pt. max health
-Grim: Restore +0.7%/pt. max shields per second and +1.5%/pt. action skill cooldown rate for 7 seconds after getting a kill
-Resurgence: Restore 20% missing health upon killing an enemy with a melee attack
Class mods:
-(Rugged) Infiltrator: Ir0n Hand
-(Bloodied) Ninja: Resurgence
-Pr0fessi0nal: +310304 shield capacity
-Spy: +16% Action Skill Cooldown Rate
-Stalker: +47% Shield Recharge Rate
-(Bloodied) Survivor: +352619 max health, +9256.2 health regenerated per second, Resurgence
-Legendary Hunter: +47% Action Skill Cooldown Rate, restore 10% of max health upon activating Decepti0n, Ir0n Hand
-Legendary Ninja: Resurgence
-Slayer of Terramorphous: +324409 max health, Ir0n Hand
Thoughts:
Looking at the skills with defensive benefits, and class mods, it seems pretty clear to me that the Legendary Hunter is far and away the best com choice. Much of Zer0ās healing revolves around Decepti0n and it has by far the biggest Action Skill Cooldown Rate buff (on top of the pittance from Grim). The one thing that Iām REALLY curious about is whether or not the 10% heal on Decepti0n use applies each time you restealth with Many Must Fall (MMF). If this does apply, then you definitely wanna go at least hybrid with your build and spec all the way to MMF because that has the potential to grant some pretty crazy sustain that way, not to mention more Decepti0n time=more Innervate healing too.
Something to add to your theorycrafting is the BoA as it is a constant across all styles of play because of the 39% cooldown. With a Legendary Hunter and BoA Zeroās cooldown is around 8 seconds.
. That with Innervate are quite effective.