Solo UVHM on a lv 53 krieg

Borderlands 2 Krieg the Psycho
#1

hi there, i just finished TVHM on a krieg. and i’m starting the UVHM solo.

i’m currently using the levelling build i found on this forum which is a melee oriented build.
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500515000050550005150100000000000

i got a low level L. Psycho COM, a lv 50 unkempt harold (the one with the blade), a legendary shotgun from handsome sorcerer (flakker iirc), the contraband blue grenade mod, and a random purple turtle shield i found on the golden chest.

i usually get by in TVHM, whacking the hell out of everyone. but when i start UVHM, it seems even the regular mob takes 2~3 melee hits to kill, and i can’t even whack the BAs to death because they’ll end up killing me mid BXR because their damage output overwhelms the damage reduction i got from RtB (most notably the bandits with a shield, BAs with shotgun, BA loaders.) at this rate i won’t even make it through wilhelm.

so, my question is, how would i make my experience with UVHM less stressful with krieg? because with maya you can reliably slag and pretty much one shot the enemies with BeeHawk. But there are no such things with krieg. you can’t use your weapon in BXR, and before you can slag all the mobs around the area you already have to trigger BXR from RtB.

and are there any tips specific to each main story bosses? because even i had trouble killing captain flynt, and i can’t imagine a scenario where i can reliably melee wilhelm or even the warrior to death.

Thanks in advance :smiley:

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#2

First thing i’d say is put a point in Thrill of the Kill. Take a point from Embrace the Pain and put it there, it really helps. A Slagga is one of the best SMGs for Krieg, get one. A level 50 one will do, you aren’t using it for damage as such. Then i’d say get Silence the Voices. 5/5 in UVHM is pretty much essential for UVHM. The self hitting can chain sometimes and be annoying but look at how much more melee damage you’re doing… If you have a decent FFYL weapon (That Harold for example) you’ll be fine. Easy to keep farming higher level Harolds via Savage Lee.

If you want to make it easy mode, get a Flesh Crunch COM, and farm an Explosive fastball. Slag enemy with Slagga, hit with Fastball, Bloodbath makes them drop grenades when they die, rinse and repeat.

Edit: Also once you reach level 57, change your build to this:

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500515040150500105135100000000000

#3

thanks for the speedy response!

when you said 5/5 in StV, are there any skills i can cut to get StV right at this level? or should i just patiently get it each time i level as of now?

i have access to a lv 50 Slagga so i’ll definitely try the fastball combo out.
thanks again :smile:

#4

The down and dirty.

  • Grenades
    • Get a low level slag bouncing betty and litter the ground while you wait for enemies to drop your health so you can activate RtB.
  • Shield
    • Turtle shields are really bad for Krieg. Until you get a Rough Rider, you shouldn’t use anything but adaptive shields.
  • Relic
    • Get a health relic. People like to use the Sheriff’s badge to throw buzzaxes faster, or an explosive relic for better Bloodsplosions, explosive axe, etc…, but I just stick with max health relics.
  • COM
    • The L. Psycho isn’t really good for melee Kreig. You should get a blue Sickle COM with +6 Silence the Voices.
  • Build
    • Just put the points in Embrace the Pain into Silence the Voices.

You can melee most of them with the advice I gave, but proccing Fuel the Blood on crystalisk and using a Sheriff’s badge to throw axes is a good way to kill the warrior.

A Fastball or a Bloodbath boosted Harold is a good alternative.

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#5

My first advice would be for you to try a low-level slag bouncing betty, I would recommend looking for a non-zero fuse with lobbed payload. Having a non-zero fuse means you’ll be able to throw a couple of grenades and still save some time from Release the Beast’s animation while the lobbed payload is a personal preference of mine over longbow due to the ease of use — flinch having little influence over your aim aswell as a smoother control over the throw distance with the aimpoint elevation.

For my second way of slagging, optimally I would use a Slagga, SlowHand or a Pimpernel; unoptimally, slag plasma casters, dalh pistols or SMGs, hyperion shotguns or maliwan Sniders… pretty much anything with high slagging chance, splash or high fire-rates would do.

For this, I would highlight two points: slagging and how to approach enemies — for slag, see my previous post; on how to approach enemies, note that some enemies can be safely kept at melee-range unable to hit you (e.g., one of bahroo’s stream highlights, jump to 55 seconds mark if the link doesn’t work). Note that this won’t work with loaders as they’re able to keep aiming at you with no delay if you try to circle around them, for this reason you should try to slag, then keep staggering and damaging with buzzaxe throws as you approach them and finally go for the melee kill if necessary.

Also, a bit of advice if you plan on using both Silence the Voices and Fuel the Blood, be warned that Fuel the Blood increases the damage to self from Silence the Voices procs. You can read more about this here.

For a TL;DR version, you should go with khimerakiller advice above (I go a bit over the details for the point about Grenades at the beginning of this post), also you should really follow the point for the shields.

Finally, for the to StV or to not StV question at UVHM my rule is wether you want to hit hard vs fast. Ideally you’ll aim towards maximizing hit accuracy but, with StV you minimize the number of melee attacks compared to maximizing your rate of attacks without StV — basically, with StV you make sure each melee hit counts vs without it you’ll just mash the melee button as quickly as you can.

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#6

There is no question. If you melee Krieg, you get StV.

#7

Only at OP levels and above 3 I would say, prior to that you can do just fine without it.

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#8

That build looks totally fine to me. StV is very much a matter of taste. Try it, see if you like it, if you do keep using it, if you don’t never use it again. I’m firmly in the latter category. :slight_smile:

Probably wait on Thrill of the Kill until you have Bloodsplosion, since that’s the main interaction with that skill (at least the way I play Krieg). As others have mentioned, life will get much nicer at level 57 when you have both capstones. Your opinion on StV will dictate which tree you favor. My Krieg has only one point more in Mania than you do (Thrill of the Kill) but nearly the entire Bloodlust tree.

For immediate plans, I strongly urge you to go start the Hammerlock DLC and get yourself a Rough Rider. That is by far the best shield for non-Hellborn Kriegs, and should be your top priority.

Also, farm Fastballs if you haven’t already. It’s crazy-good on Krieg, and why I’d recommend the Slagga for slagging instead of the low level bouncing betty others have mentioned (note also that once you have a point or two in Blood Twitch, Krieg will have very good swap speed much of the time). Get used to the interaction between Fuel the Blood and Blood Bath as well. Melee a weak enemy to proc FtB, then Fastball your main target for crazy damage (this is Krieg’s method for one-shotting BNK3R, for example). After getting an explosive kill, try to get good shots off with your guns to benefit from Blood Bath. I’ve had a single Hornet burst take down a full-strength Buzzard that way, which was extremely satisfying considering how annoying he finds Buzzards. :slight_smile: A Rapier (level irrelevant - mine is level 30 and my OP1 Krieg is totally fine with that) can help with the FtB procs, but isn’t required.

Otherwise, keep in mind that the scaling of UVHM means you can farm gear. Whenever you need a good corrosive pistol, go visit Knuckledragger for a Hornet. Ditto for Boll/Fastball, Lee/Harold, Bulwark/Rough Rider, Tector/Slagga (after you’ve unlocked it; as others mentioned a level 50 Slagga is fine for painting things purple), and any other items you like.

As khimerakiller pointed out, the Leg. Psycho is a bad COM. As far as I’m aware its only use is for niche builds based around Tediore chucking. I still use a Blister on my OP1 Krieg, but I think I was using a Crunch in the low 50s because I hadn’t found a good Blister yet. Either one is really good, though. :slight_smile: (I might use a Leg. Reaper if I had one, but my Krieg spent all of July farming for one with no success, so I gave up… Not clear that it’s actually better than Blister/Crunch anyway. Krieg’s legendary COMs are not the greatest.)

Bosses - definitely try to bloodsplode BNK3R. Even a botched attempt like mine was will take off 50-60% of its health and bring a big smile to your face. :smiley: As you’ve observed, many bosses are not meleeable or are impractical to melee. Wilhelm was not memorable at all, sorry. Pretty sure I did that under 57, so no Bloodsplosion; probably just used the Hornet and axe-chucking.

Constructors were troublesome. That’s when I tried StV on the advice of the forums here, but I hated it and reverted to a non-StV build. Might have switched to a Bloodsplosion build and gotten RtB again at 57? I forget. Some combination of a Bloodsplosion (using a corrosive Fastball, ideally) off of the turret it tosses in front of it, and/or Blood Bath Hornet bursts to the eye tend to work well.

Note that there’s no need to visit the Warrior in UVHM. If you want to, great, but I only bothered on one of my characters, the others stopped doing story quests in Eridium Blight (to avoid Sawtooth Cauldron) or Arid Nexus (setting up Lady Fist farming for later).

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#9

Also, if you’re having trouble with survivability I could sugest a helborn-based melee (at level 57 looking like this) as an alternative to the usual bloodlust-mania bloodsplosion strategy, you’ll lose the DPS and the spike damage from Bloodlust but you get some really strong healing and survivability, specially on bandit-heavy areas. I’ll self-reference an older post of mine because it’s faster than typing all that again.

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#10

thanks a bunch guys!
i’ll get myself to level 57 first while picking up the rough rider and fastballs along the way.
and i didn’t know you could juke enemies like that :laughing:

i’ll try the bloodsplosion build and hellborn build along the way and see which one i like best.

i haven’t tried putting a point in StV yet as i’m the type who mashes the mouse button to melee whenever i’m on bxr/rtb. but i’ll also try it later to see if i’ll like StV

#11

My only advice so far would be to put points into Elemental Elation if you go with a Hellborn build and shotguns. EE will give them much larger mag sizes, witch means less reloading. Add Blood Filled Guns and you’ll have a weapon that can clear entire mobs before it has to be reloaded- a good thing when getting swarmed by rabid stalkers or skaggs…

#12

I’m a little late to the thread here but I much prefer this build:

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500514000050500015155100000000000

Get yourself a purple Sickle COM, any slag gun and combat becomes a breeze. Rush the enemies whilst firing slag at them, when your health hits <33% Transform and everything dies!

Silence the Voices can be tricky to deal with but that’s why you use a Rough Rider to mitigate self damage. Drop into TVHM to pick one up as the 20% damage reduction is constant and isn’t level dependant! :slight_smile:

My ideal loadout would look like:

Slagga
Unkempt Harold (don’t care what pre-fix)
Hornet
Heartbreaker

Storm Front or Fastball for grenades

Sickle COM (Purple/Legendary) or Leg Reaper

Resistance Relic for more tankiness

The rest is up to you really but obviously change up what you want.

You’ll notice I’ve also specced Light the Fuse which is also love/hate like Silence the Voices but I feel it’s an essential skill to get into the role of Krieg which is far more fun than min maxing everything. It takes a bit of practice to get the cadence down but when you do it’s so powerful and you always get a final explosion which can save you so much!

I always play Krieg with a DGAF attitude which might be why I enjoy him so much. Slag, toss out a grenade if you have time, transform, KILL!

As for bosses? Very variable depending on the boss but most can be dealt with very easily either by using Bloodsplosions or abusing melee/Light the Fuse/RtB chains. Works really well on WIlhelm actually as the final LtF explosion usually kills his surveyors :wink:

I’m just waffling on now but always around for useless advice on everyone’s favourite monster :smiley:

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#13

currently level 64 and doing well with the flesh crunch COM~slagga~fastball build.
keeping a spare blue sickle COM if i feel like doing melee more. the 1 point in thrill of the kill really does help a lot. but i tend to mess up the RtB trigger because of the heals from bloodsplosion off a random mob

i actually don’t hate StV at all :laughing: it’s a good laugh when you hit yourself in the head from time to time. maybe because i haven’t experienced the agony it’ll bring in super clutch moments like raids :laughing:

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