My Favourite OP8 Axton build

Borderlands 2 Axton the Commando
#1

Not sure if this post should be here or if there even is another place to post tbh :joy:

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55505105215555515015100000000000

No specific items needed but I do recommend the gear below.

GUNS
Nasty Ogre
DP Unkempt Harold
Casual SWORDSPLOSION!!!
Grog Nozzle(for heal/slag)

SHIELDS
Big Boom Blaster(if you really like grenades)
Sham(if you wanna shamfleet)
Blockade(for most boss fights)

CLASS MODS
Front Line Rifleman
Front Line Engineer

I strongly recommend Rifleman because of the boost to Battlefront, Impact and Onslaught

Relic
Explosive damage(for obvious reasons)
Stockpile relic(preferably with a grenade count increase)

Grenades
Meteor Shower(for groups of enemies)
Storm Front(if you need to take down a bosses shield faster)
Fire Bee(for bosses that are weak to fire, hyperius for example)
Corrosive fastball(for armour)
Magic Missile(to maintain constant slag and regen grenades)

You may prefer other ones but those are just my favourites.

Feedback is welcome :slight_smile:

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#2

Is this build done on PC using the UCP? Otherwise, I can’t think of a reason to take Laser Sight over Preparation. IMO Preparation is one of Axton’s best skills and among the best shield skills in the game…

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#3

On console and I don’t like shield and health skills, also isnt the max boost from preparation 2%? I have 600k health so that would be 12000/sec which is honestly not great. Since this is a damage build if you want regen then swap out Laser Sight for Able, i just like Laser better for more reliable turret slag

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#4

The health regen from Preparation is secondary- it’s just the fact that- even with overwhelming firepower- you still need good defenses, i.e. shields. While killing the enemy faster is great, not every situation allows for that, in which case, I’d rather have my shields regenerate faster. With Axton’s relatively long AS cool down slag from turrets isn’t always there- your shield, however, is. While I use/used pretty much all the weapons you’ve mentioned, I like to stay alive long enough to use them. it may just be my style of playing him though… :vulcan_salute:

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#5

Ye if that’s what you’re used to then fair enough, prep relies on shield being full though and in OP8 it rarely is in my experience

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#6

No investment in the survival tree just my brain doesn’t compute. If this works more power to you, but i don’t see it being easy to survive

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#7

Lol it can get hairy sometimes but the damage output more than makes up for it, I farmed Pete and hyperius to test this setup and it’s fairly easy as long as you never stop moving and use a high cap shield so you don’t get destroyed by DOT, basically kill them before they kill you :wink:

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#8

Oh, so it’s meant to be a raiding build for those raids where it’s easy to avoid most damage. Still, some recovery option might be good, especially when considering that Hyperius’ arena doesn’t have a scaffold to dance around, which makes dodging his novas … well, not really an option.
Gee might be doable as well, if he doesn’t have too many Maliwan parts on his launcher.
For other content this build is virtually guaranteed to make you die left, right, and center. I’m curious to know how many deaths you suffered on the way to Hyperius, since you don’t have a whole lot of health regen (not even Able!), and at least some of the robots will get a few hits on target.

That’s Krieg or Sal you’re thinking of. Axton and Gaige should have their shields up at least 75% of the time. More like 90% for Gaige due to her mediocre health regeneration abilities, but Axton is not far behind. And with Maya you don’t want to be caught with your pants shields down either. Shield skills are a valuable part of their toolkits. As a matter of fact, Axton has more of them than any other class: Willing is an outstanding skill found in pretty much any decent build, Pressure is good as well. Quick Charge is a matter of style (and shield selection - Tediore shields and the Bee get almost nothing out of it, but on big shields it’s excellent at shaking off nasty DoTs or taking the edge off more damaging attacks). On OP8 your shield is usually bigger than your health, so making sure to keep it up can can go a long way to avoid respawn fees.
I don’t get why you chose to pick Laser Sight - ever since Maya’s Cloud Kill was buffed in October 2015 it is the worst skill in the game. Move its points over to Willing or Able. That’s always-up shields, or some substantial health regen just for shooting things (which you’re doing anyway), and you lose nothing.
Grenadier can easily lose some points too, depending on how often you completely run out of grenades. The “emergency” ammo drops you get when below some threshold (about 33% of your capacity for grenades, if I remember correctly) usually let your supply hover around that threshold; a larger capacity merely means you have a bigger buffer, so you can throw out more before you need to come out of cover to loot some ammo drops. If you never hit the bottom of this buffer, then it’s pointless to have it - in that case move some points elsewhere.
If you combine the “emergency” grenade drops with the Big Boom Blaster you already mentioned having, to clear entire maps with grenades only (as long as you have one with good damage, but the Storm Front has you covered there). A spell grenade such as the Magic Missile is a nice emergency tool to have in the backpack, but it shouldn’t even be necessary. The booster chance and capacity of the Big Boom Blaster allow you to tank through DoTs with the boosters, so intentionally catching a DoT is definitely a viable option to refill grenades. The rockets which you also get from the boosters are a nice bonus on top of that.
Crisis Management does kind of make sense when ignoring Axton’s shield skills, but I think you would get more out of him investing into those - and as soon as you do that, Crisis Management will be up for only two to four shots, and after that you’ll have shields again for a few magazines.
Overload and Ranger are relatively weak too. Overload may be pretty good for the Ogre, so its value obviously depends on how much you use that. Nuke is mostly knockback too - that can be used for crowd control, but it takes some player skill. I haven’t seen a video of you fighting, so you’ll have to be the judge yourself.
Any points you free up can go into Willing and Able, then Preparation. If there’s still some left, Pressure is where I’d put them. I also have a soft spot for Phalanx Shield (it may be pretty soft on the higher OP levels, but it can block some otherwise hard-to-avoid damage, e.g. the novas from Hyperius and Voracidous), but that’s probably just my style.

2 Likes
#9

His novas never break my shields also you can hide behind the pipe near the entrance and his novas don’t hit(i don’t do that, just saying it’s an option)

If you take even 1 damage you are not getting preparation, and regardless of shield regen you will not have full shields 90% of the time when using a hide of Terra except maybe the hyperius fight because his attacks are so infrequent but as I said they never got to my health

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#10

Well, there’s you problem. Why would you use a melee shield with a character who isn’t Zero or Krieg? A defensive one will serve you much better. Any decent Vladof, Pangolin, Anshin, Tediore, or even Dahl shield should work - Bandit shields have inherent recharge rate and delay penalties which help when you want to use their specialty - but Axton doesn’t. All Bandit shields as well as Torgue and Maliwan (excluding Big Boom Blaster and Antagonist) need you to be in the enemies’ faces to work, which is not Axton’s spot on the battlefield. Hyperion’s Amplify shields can work at a distance, but the Bee has horrible shield stats, and the regular ones give up a part of their charge for damage. Still, that’s more than half the shields in the game, and if you have the ability to get Big Boom Blasters, you can get Seraph Crystals for an Antagonist as well.

Also, note that I didn’t say full shields 75% of the time, but shields up (and 90% was for Gaige). Axton is very good at shield tanking thanks to his shield skills - only Gaige can do better as long as she gets kills, thanks to Blood Soaked Shields granting an instant refill. If you manage to tank like that without shield skills for the easy raids, fine. However, in other situations the shield may need some help from skills. As a result, the DoT reaction changes from “Oh crap” to “So what?” (or even “yaaay, it’s raining grenades and rockets” for the Big Boom Blaster). Preparation is not much of an in-combat skill (that would be Able; I did recommend that you take that and Willing first), but it lets you recover between engagements so you face the next situation with a full health bar.

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#11

I have a blockade but it also isnt full all the time, and I generally don’t use any regen skills, I’m the same in every game though. All offense no defense. I just posted what I liked to use as I said, if you enjoy other things then fair enough

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#12

To be fair he said his favorite build, not the best build or something like that.

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#13

This build hurts my eyes.

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#16

I remember @Derch doing this series of videos about builds and that you shouldn’t sacrifice survivability for maximum damage while mobbing due to damage ceiling.


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#17

Don’t look then.

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