Looking for tips after dusting off a level 53 Gaige character

Borderlands 2 Gaige the Mechromancer
#1

I was recently able to grab a cheap sale copy of BL2 for the Xbox 360, allowing me to import all my old saves from years ago. After pushing Maya toward endgame, I’m looking to pick up Gaige where I left off. She was at level 53, right at the start of UVHM (resetting progress would be easy…I’ve only done the Firehawk mission). Looking at the stats, it appears I was running with deathtrap’s tree and the Anarchy tree (which was good for me, since I’m not exactly the best shot).

My gear was decent but not great. The best guns in my inventory that are at my level seem to be Swordsplosion, Lascaux, and a handful of level 50 legendaries like Harold. I also have other characters like Krieg and Maya who are around level 58 to 60 with some legendary guns they could share when that time comes. I was never into farming when I played before, so have no legendary mods, but a decent array of purples.

Basically I have two specific questions: Which specific gun types am I looking for to work best with Anarchy? It looks like I had been using a Fibber before, but it’s pretty close to its “best before” date. I saw something about Hyperions being best. And full disclosure, I can’t even recall all the details about how anarchy works with her setup, other than it has something to do with Gaige having the ability to miss all kinds of shots and still get damage

And is the combination of deathtrap’s tree and Anarchy a good choice for early UvHM? I definitely want deathtrap to be as good as possible, because I really lean on him as a tank.

Thanks!

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#2

Shots that miss have a chance to ricochet towards an enemy for reduced damage. With high enough Anarchy, these losses are offset.

I like shotguns with high Anarchy: up close, the accuracy loss means much less, so you can still get all the pellets into a direct shot and not sweat the damage loss. In a pinch, they’re also high-pellet count, so spraying the ground gets you more ricochet options (it’s calculated per pellet with shotguns).

Their inverse recoil makes them resist the accuracy loss. ‘Best’ is certainly the subject of some debate though.

Early UVHM is harder than later because you have less skill points, I think. I think those two trees are good. Note: as you’re in UVHM, Deathtrap’s damage output starts to falter, depending on the skills. If you want him to be a killer, I’d recommend Robot Rampage and Sharing is Caring. Give him a Love Thumper and stand back. Any roid shield will do though (and the Flame of the Firehawk shield on him is insane).

Also - for only one point, give The Stare a try: if he gets a bead on a flesh enemy that doesn’t have a shield and is slagged, unless it’s a particularly large creature, he’s likely to kill it in one shot or at least decimate it or polish off a weakened enemy for you. If you don’t like it, skip it (it’s just one point), but he cannot miss with that skill (shoots through walls and everything). Again: slag, flesh, and not badass, but there are a lot of these guys out there. It’s refreshing watching him kill squirrely enemies with it, especially when he’s been whiffing with his regular melee for a while.

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#3

Oh, that’s right…I forgot about how DT uses the same shield I"m wearing. I must remember to load the game up later and check to see which one I’d been using. I’m guessing it must be the Firehawk one, since that was the last mission I had done.

Thanks for the tips. I have a feeling this will require a slight learning curve on my part, since I’ve been using Maya for quite some time and have a rhythm going with the PL skill.

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#4

Gaige definitely requires a different approach. I usually find 55-60 hardest on most characters, Gaige included. After that… Anyway, Adabiviak’s points are all good. The Gaige skill, gear, and build guides will also help you if you decide you need to explore options or find different approaches during levelling. She’s a blast to play - just wish there was a way to turn off the screaming.

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#5

Ha ha! It’s a pretty good incentive to avoid elemental damage though… I do flinch with her more than others when elements are flying. :laughing:

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#6

yeah, seconding others 55-60 is a tough spot for everyone but Maya basically where enemies are tougher but you’re gear is probably L50ish, you don’t want to re-farm because you’ll outlevel most anything in 5 levels anyway and enemies are tougher but you don’t have that second capstone, or getting to that second capstone would cause you to miss an important tier 1 or 2 skill in the tree you can’t put anything into (if you take two captsones at 57). the other thing is you haven’t played Gaige in awhile and you’re coming back in UVHM in the tough spot mentioned earlier…either finish off some TVHM stuff for the XP (though it won’t be much) just to get yourself back in any kind of rhythm or try some easier bandit heavy mobbing areas to start with to again remind yourself of how to play the character in the first place. That L50 DPUH you have is a good gun for everyone and should still be killing things at L55 (though it will be slowing down by then).

Because you can transfer gear between characters, if you have two characters around UVHM, you can farm some simple gear (like a DPUH, which is a grindy but very easy farm in terms of access) on one for the late 50’s early 60’s and then transfer back and forth with the other, saving the other one for when you get to 72 (or the OP levels if you plan to do that). If that’s an option, let me know, and I’ll try to dig up an old post of mine on relatively easy to farm strong gear that’s good with everyone.

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#7

I honestly can’t say I noticed much of a change in difficulty on my siren after around level 52, when I got Converge to go with Ruin. At that point I felt like as long as I treated combat like a Tom Clancy tactical game and made good decisions, she was able to survive because of all the slag-slinging.

With Gaige I’m assuming I would have to go back to leaning on slag weapons more…or does she have any sort of innate slag abilities?

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#8

She has Interspersed Outburst at the top of here middle tree, but it really needs to be maxed plus boosted by a COM to make it a reliable slag source. Details are in here:

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#9

None of these are easy to come by, but my Gaige uses a combination of Magic Missiles (purple preferably), an Antagonist, and a slag Practicable Slow Hand…things turn purple a lot, when needed.

And my opinion only, here…I/O isn’t worth the points needed to make it work well.

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#10

yeah problem is that if he hasn’t done the DLC’s he won’t have any of that… now he could go back to TVHM and pick up an L50 antagonist (Seraph Vendor in Flamerock refuge, second level of the Tiny Tina DLC) and/or a Florentine, but he’s going to outlevel those real fast and most people don’t like the Florentine anyway (don’t want to go into that debate)… On the other hand, to pick some of the “easier” options is still going to take some time (half of the Scarlett DLC to get the slag pimp, or the whole clan wars quest to get the Slagga, or even the majority of the Tiny Tina DLC to get the magic missiles)

@Bashersbc you might consider going through the Tina DLC in early UVHM with one of your characters to pick up some useful things there and then save it on your other character for later in the game.

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#11

Hmmm, now that you mention it, when I looked at open locations on my fast travel map, I think some of Tiny Tina’s world was open in 2 or 3 places. I must have been doing the DLC in UVHM with friends in coop back on the 360. I’ll see about those weapons. I think the best I had for a magic missile was a level 50. I think I got spoiled by doing a bunch of UVHM with Maya first, since she paints everything purple. For all the damage I was doing with Gaige I may as well have been using harsh language :slight_smile:

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#12

@VaultHunter101 That IO build is really intriguing. I always used Anarchy just because it seemed like everyone did (at least, back when I played her before…not sure if it’s still that way). I find my stacks vanish by accident sometimes when I go to pick up a weapon on the ground and for some reason it reloads my gun as well.

I probably steered away from the middle tree because I assumed it was useless on UVHM, but this build makes it seem like it could be useful, as long as I can keep things slagged.

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#13

It’s honestly a pretty fun build. I actually ran a character all the way up through to UVHM (and a separate one from scratch to level 50) to test the build out when I ported that post. The other one I ported/played through was a shock-centric builld:

That was also a blast to try out, with more than a few similarities.

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#14

When I ran my first Mechromancer through the game including UVHM, I avoided Anarchy like the plague because I couldn’t stomach the idea of increasing bad accuracy, and I rode the Little Big Trouble tree all the way there. Once I was at the end game at the time, I figured I’d give it a spin, and now it’s a staple of one of my two Mechromancers (and the other one uses it because she’s interested in the skills below, and Anarchy is only one point to get there). She’d hit Smaller Lighter Faster regardless as her only reload buff.

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#15

I think Anarchy (combined with Close Enough) was designed specifically with new FPS players (like I was at the time) very much in mind: “Want to try this cool loot game but can’t aim? No worries - do we have the character for you!” What could be more n00b friendly than not having to aim accurately all the time?

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#16

Nisha.

  • EDIT - And I’d argue that it takes some skill to play an Anarchy Gaige well, even with Nth Degree and CE. Choosing and learning the right weapons/gear, learning to exploit her skills, figuring out how to make DT a viable asset…and stuff.
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#17

Speaking of making DT work well for you, if you choose the skill Make it Sparkle, can one of the elements you imbue him with be Slag?

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#18

Yes, and when he hits an enemy, he can slag them for you. It’s tricky to manage though, unless you pack a non-elemental weapon, or you run a high risk of hitting him and changing his element (which should also be fine because now he’ll be hitting the slagged enemy with an element, but when that guy’s dead, you need to switch him back to slag).

Note: if you shoot Deathtrap with the Chulainn, he’ll pick up shock: if you shoot the ground near him, he’ll pick up slag. It’s great for controlling his element (and it’s shock so it goes with the LBT tree), but you’re slagged. The Florentine will turn him shock with a direct hit, but changing him to slag is much more difficult.

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