Some questions about Sal's skills and gunzerking

Borderlands 2 Salvador the Gunzerker
#1

I am currently in the process of leveling up a Gunzerker. Don’t really know much about the various mechanics associated with Sal’s skills and the mechanics with gunzerking. So I’ll be asking those.

  1. How does Inconceivable work? I looked at the thread from the old forums that explained how Inconceivable & 5 Shots Or 6 works in terms of adding/saving ammunition. But how does the chance work for Inconceivable? The 5/5 bonus is 50%. What is that when you’re at full health and how damaged do you have to be to get the bonuses? No worries if no one can answer that. Mostly just curiousity on my part.

  2. How important is Money Shot? I’ve read through the threads that show how abusing Incon + 5SO6 with Money Shot can result in some absolutely insane dps, especially against raid bosses. But is it worth picking up while leveling? I tend to use SMGs most of the time, which don’t deal stellar damage on each shot. So I feel like that amped damage wouldn’t be amazing. And seeing as I’m the process of leveling up (level 37 as I type this), I have to work with what I’m given. Which means greens & blues. So no special guns.

  3. I’ve read that Brawn sucks in UVHM, but not in NVHM and TVHM. So is it worth speccing into in order to survive instead of using a Rampage & Gun Lust build? I typically do that anyways (Rampage + Brawn) but I don’t now the mechanics, math or facts behind it all, so curious about that.

  4. How does bonus accuracy work with Divergent Likeness and Steady as She Goes? They both give +30% accuracy. I know that accuracy changes how tight the reticle is. Does that play any part when gunzerking? Also, how do accuracy bonuses and recoil reduction work with Hyperion weapons? I read somewhere that it causes Hyperion weapons to actually be worse rather than better. But I haven’t noticed any sort of difference. Might just be blind or something though.

  5. I read somewhere that I’m the Juggernaut is a bad skill because you already have 50% damage reduction through gunzerking and damage reduction suffers from diminishing returns akin to cooldown rate. How much actually gets added?

5.5) More of a general mechanics question. I can ask this somewhere else if there’s a better place for it. Apologies in advance. Anyways, how do diminishing returns work with damage reduction and cooldown rate? In that how much can you get before you get diminished returns from various sources? What’s the actual cap on them both?

  1. This is my skill build as I’m writing this at level 37. (I’m using a Hoarding War Dog class mod currently, which I enjoy a lot. 23% reload speed, 29% magazine size with +4 Filled to the Brim and +3 5 Shots or Six. Which is why I only put 3 points into 5SO6). I like reload speed a lot (I hate the idea of going into FFYL/dying during a reload animation). That being said, there are issues I have. I want to be able to gunzerk more often. I read up on Sljm’s thread about the interaction between Last Longer, Yippee Ki Yay and Get Some. Being that you must have 8/5 Last Longer or invest into YKY in order to gunzerk as you exit out of gunzerking. But I don’t know what to drop here. I know that I can just invest more into Rampage before branching out into Gun Lust/Brawn, but I’m not sure how good of an idea that would be.

Another issue I have is just generally how good my playstyle is. I know the point of a game is to have fun. I chose to make a Sal because his entire shtick is gunzerking. To fire lots and lots of bullets with lots of fire rate and reload speed. I love his Rampage tree, a lot. But I’m afraid of how good it actually is. The issue I have with Rampage is that it has nothing in the way of survivability at all. It also doesn’t offer a ton of damage to my knowledge. Keep Firing seems great with its fire rate, but it takes a long time to ramp up and the bonuses are reset if you let up on firing your guns at all. Other than that, you only have 5SO6 and All in the Reflexes for damage output. The former being a kill skill. Which is great for mobbing since that’s what I’m doing.

My other issue with my build/playstyle is not having Gun Lust. There are skills I want very much from Gun Lust. Mostly I want Down Not Out. Because a lot of my deaths have resulted in gunzerking and then going into FFYL in a few seconds because I made a mistake or got unlucky from a barrel exploding near me. But it takes you 15 points to get to DNO and the 16th point for the skill. Which only leaves 16 points for Rampage/Brawn. Is it really worth investing that far in Gun Lust for DNO before touching Rampage/Brawn?

  1. Forgot to add this one in. The skill Bus That Can’t Slow Down. I’ve seen people say it’s nice/really good. Why? As far as I can tell, movement speed doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in terms of enemy AI. Enemies that can shoot bullets seem to fire in a pattern around your character. Meaning if you’re moving, some will hit, some won’t. Movement speed won’t change that. The only reason I could see it seeing use is on melee based enemies (badass psychos, bullymongs, most of Tiny Tina’s DLC) or in raid boss encounters to avoid certain mechanics. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
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#2

Looks like you need the @DeputyChuck . He is the sal expert :wink:.

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#3

Short version since typing on a phone sucks.

1: you get full 50% chance when shield is depleted.

2: It’s great, lots of builds depend on it, but lots of builds don’t spec into it at all. In NVHM and TVHM, it’s unnecessary.
Money shot chains are great… Against bosses. When mobbing, it’s a lot of lead directed at an already dead target.

3: Generally speaking, you should look at rampage as the backbone of your build, and dip into the other trees after you’ve set yourself comfortably. Brawn is IMO better at lower levels since enemies deal less damage and the defense it provides is enough, and they also die easily enough that the extra DPS from Gunlust is not necessary.

4: my break is over, I’ll edit this when I have more time

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#4

  1. @DeputyChuck is that how it works? I would have assumed a different mechanic, but I’ve never tested it and I don’t think I’ve ever read an advanced guide on it.

  2. Sal is completely viable with Hoarder builds that don’t use MS, (and I think it’s that 5So6 either technically hurts MS chains, or provided little benefit). But without MS you will be missing a massive chunk of his damage potential (+1056% multiplicative damage at 11/5), and I would suggest considering using weapons with better synergy with the skill like shotguns.

  3. My advice would be to just get a Moxxi weapon, but I’m a min/max’er.

  4. DL gives you a flat “always on” bonus like Zer0’s Precision. SaSG gives your shots a 30% chance for your guns to have a small but strong burst of Hyperion reverse recoil, thus correcting some of your weapon’s “reticle bloom”. And as such, instead of also helping Hyperion weapons, it hurts them b/c “2 negatives make a positive”.

  5. 100/(1+0.5) = 66.67 So by default Sal’s AS has 33.34% effective DR, but at the same time Borderland’s style of DR is giving him effectively 50% more hit points. So to that extent Juggernaut gives him the 20% effective hit points like it advertises. But it’s a bad skill because it is a kill skill and the value is low.

    • So Jugg looks like this 100/(1+0.2) = 83.33 so 16.67% effective DR. But so you’re not confused (and to confuse you more), the Rough Rider is one of the only items with true DR in BL2. So it goes 100*(1-0.2) = 80 so 20% effective DR, which is multiplicative instead of additive with his AS DR.

5.5) It’s already been debunked with the DR one, but whenever you try to reach a finite number in Borderlands, you usually run into diminishing returns. Aka the first 50% you put in will always provide more for you than every subsequent 50%.

  1. Feel free to experiment, but in time being just drop Hard to Kill and get a Moxxi weapon. As a lot of me is just gonna try to make you build him the way I do.

    • On your next 2 points I could fix you up with with an awesome playstyle like my personal favorite, the Deputy build. But at the same time, take the time to experience the game and find what you like. And you should put 5 points into Get Some asap, and the a point in DNO asap IMO.

  2. Just to get closer to enemies with your inaccurate shotguns and such. IMO its not worth the point expenditure.

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#5

6: While leveling up, I usually warn AGAINST moxxi weapons as they tend to lower your DPS more than what you save on brawn would give you once they get underleveled, Instead of just using a new more powerful gun in it’s place. (You’re better off with an at-level moxxi gun than brawn, but you’re better off with brawn than with an underleveled moxxi gun) Since moxxi guns are not exactly easy to get through normal play at those levels, you might get stuck with a severely underleveled one for a long time if your build depends on it.

But in this case, you don’t really have much spare points to spend anyway, so the choice is yours.

Personally I would remove all in the reflex, but hard to kill could go as well.
5so6 only really shines at 10/5 with the right COM, so you should either max it or leave it at one point to get the COM bonus.

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#6

Sound advice at higher level. At low level, you get a much better return on investment with brawn and a beefier gun in your off hand. Hard to kill and ain’t got time to bleed are enough to get through a LOT of the game’s content if your gunzerking is well managed. :slight_smile:️

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#7

Even at 37 I think I’d be using a Rubi and whatever Coach gun I happened to find. But you know me, you know how long I’ve played, and you know how I take advantage of mechanics like in my “brawn” video.

Unless a character’s tanking is superb, I personally will out right ignore most of their survivability skills. Especially if there are mechanics to supplement them with. Hell, I’ll even ignore really good tanking skills like Life Tap if I’d rather have more DPS and utility.

Unlike other games, damage is key in BL2. Most survivability skills suck in BL2, and FFYL is a way to convert your DPS into exponentially more survivability than it normally would. Which is worlds different from games like Warframe, where even 2 and 1/2 months in and anything endgame is all about survivability. And there are many reasons why when you compare the 2.

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#8

Hint hint! (If you need help with that, @Piemanlee and I figured out a way to do joint editing of a single post in a PM that can then just be copy-pasta’d into a new topic.)

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#9

Some of Brawn sucks. It irks me that people paint an entire tree with the Suck Brush. These are good Brawn skills :

http://bl2skills.com/gunzerker.html#000000000000000000000055105155051

It’s perfectly viable to run a no-Moxxi build in the OP levels, which frees up a hand for more DPS.

  • I put the one point in Asbestos to indicate how many people spec it - boosted by a Monk COM - but it can be worth maxing if you’re in heavy DoT territory ( like the Dragons ).
  • Out of Bubblegum is typically not used so much as a Brawn skill but as a DPS skill in conjunction with a Rough Rider - always on fire rate. Only worth it with a RR.
  • Bus is a good skill, but only if you’re deep in Brawn anyways. Speed is not only a lot of fun but does increase survivability. It’s like an always-on Followthrough. Incite kind of does the job though.

Should always be spec’d unless you’re using a lot of Hyperion for reasons already stated. I just wanted to reinforce what a great skill it is.

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#10

Any reason for not including Just Got Real? It looks good at first glance (although I’ve not really studied the skills like some folks have!)

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#11

Just got real scales with your health linearly. You only get full benefits when in ffyl. Keep your health high and get your DPS elsewhere

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#12

As for brawn sucking, I agree.

Can you make it work ? Yes
Is it viable at op8 ? Yes

But to get to that level of survivability, you need to sink 30 skill points in the tree, and wear relics and shields that help.

So it sucks in the sense that you need to go all out to get just viable (not great) results.

Just holding a Rubi gets you just as much survivability, and you’re still free to pick the shield and relic of your choice.

For brawn not to suck, you should be able to get that level of survivability by spending 30 points… OR spend about 20 and have gear that support it. And if you do both, you should be better off than the guy just holding a fancy pistol.

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#13

Ah! I see why that’s not going to be much help then. See, this is why you need to finish that guide! :stuck_out_tongue: (And I’m serious about the whole collaborative editing thing. I know you’re really busy with actual life stuff, so if you want some help to get it done just PM me and I’ll set everything up.)

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#14

I’m always willing to help Chuck with formatting and what not. His info is to valuable to waste

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#15

The real experts have already spoken (figuratively anyway) but I’ll add my 2 cents: as far as the Rampage tree goes I’d say look for a Two Gun or Unhinged Berzerker com and spec into the skills that it supports. The reason for that is because Sal’s DPS comes from the fact that he can dual wield weapons. The longer he can do that the more damage he can deal, so speccing Last Longer and Yippie Ki Yay means you’ll have the ability to do more damage for a longer period of time, which is a very good thing. Set up properly, Sal can reset his AS while still gunzerking under the right conditions- not quite as good as Krieg’s Release the Beast but still extremely valuable…

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#16

To OP, I will say that you are in the level (mid tvhm) that playing salvador feels like very very difficult, every group of enemies you will encounter might result to FFYL. We also experience the same way, just hang in there and it will get better.

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#17

But it’s just fine in NVHM and TVHM, I’d imagine? Since I’m barely into UVHM with my Maya, much less Sal or any of my other characters.

I’d imagine running around at +50% movement speed during gunzerking is pretty fun. Just trying to figure out the practical applications of it. After doing some looking around, I’ve come across the information that it’s good against:

-Melee enemies in general, particularly Badass Psychos in TVHM/UVHM since they really, really hurt and are not fun to deal with
-Suiciders, being able to kite them without ever them blowing up can prove pretty useful
-Avoiding raid mechanics, though I’m at a loss for what raid mechanics movement speed would avert

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is the value of Brawn vs Gun Lust in terms of survivability. There are some great survivability skills, imo, in Brawn. Particularly AGTTB and Sex T-rex. Also possibly FoH for badass melee enemies. But they’re sadly halfway down the skill tree. There’s also Hard To Kill, but the healing from it is neglible and I imagine its main use is giving Sal a +20% boost in health to amplify his gunzerking healing factor since it’s % based on his maximum health. Which also amps (to my knowledge) Anshin health boosts. And also helps to make AGTTB & Sex T-rex better.

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#18

Yes. At that point in the game, enemies die faster and deal much less damage, so brawn can keep up with less points spent.

5/5 in hard to kill and ain’t got time to bleed will get you a long way if you gear a bit around them. Favor adaptive shields and look for health relics and you should be fine.

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#19

About Bus. It’s good against everything you mentioned and then some.

Being able to catch up with backpedaling bandits or getting in and out of cover, actually dodging bullets, closing in faster on foes when you have less accurate weapons… Managing your position is important, even more so with a character that can’t aim.

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#20

Exactly.

And yes, if you only end up getting H2K, Incite, AGTTB you’re in good shape for ample passive healing ; FFoH is a bonus one pointer that’s fun and quite handy. Bus is great but you don’t necessarily have to sink 5 points into it.
Get Some is the real healing skill.

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