Played a Salvador with my friend to UVHM but wanna go all in with Krieg just not sure where to begin. His skills seem cool, vert high risk/high reward but now sure best leveling tree, gear and mainly how to slag and smash.
Any help apprecianated. Wurf.
I found that the Bloodlust tree helped a lot early game. I felt too squishy to melee from go and that left tree pushes gun damage to nice effect. I maxed the left branch, although you could skip taste of blood in favor of the second tier 1 skill that boosts either swap or reload speed on kill, took Buzz Axe Bombardier, Bloodbath, Boiling Blood, Nervous Blood, and Bloodsplosion. I respecced to the Mania tree at the beginning of TVHM to get Release the Beast and then worked back through Bloodlust. That, combined with a crippling Torgue dependency, Crunch and blister coms, slag bouncing betty nades, and a Rough Rider when I got into UVHM, yielded some of the most entertaining gameplay I’ve experienced in BL2. Of course, in NVHM and TVHM you can just play around until you find what works for you.
Thanks for the prompt and useful answers!
Much appreciated. I may end up respec’n until RtB becomes available and do just what you said.
When I start a new Krieg I usually go down the Mania tree first, because you don’t have to farm for any guns, which is a big bonus. With things like Empty the Rage you can kill anything with ease in NVHM during your action skill. Fuel the Rampage is actually decent if you don’t have enough points to get RtB, especially if you combine it with Feed the Meat which allows you to soak up more damage.
As for the actual spec:
I would start with maxing out Empty the Rage, then Feed the Meat, Fuel the Rampage, Redeem the Soul, Salt the Wound, StV and then RtB. If you so desire, you can spec into Light the Fuse instead of Redeem the Soul. If you decide to do that you probably want to max out Strip the Flesh instead of Salt the Wound to boost LtF’s damage.
For COMs, Sickles are usually the best melee COMs. Early game you wanna look for a Rage Sickle of any rarity until you get down to StV, at which point the optimal COM would be a Scream Sickle with a secondary boost to Empty the Rage. Crunch COMs are also a good option, namely a Flesh Crunch which powers up your Light the Fuse by a considerable amount and also grants a nice boost to Torgue weaponry.
Starting TVHM I usually begin to spec into the Bloodlust Tree, usually Blood-Filled guns, Taste of Blood, Fuel the Blood and Buzz Axe Bombardier. If melee gets old for you at this point you can easily respec into Hellborn or Pure Bloodlust (which is overkill in most scenarios in TVHM).
always start with mania, then mix it with bloodlust.
I would also recommend to start with the mania tree all the way down to RtB and then go bloodlust. Melee Krieg was always fun for me on the lower levels just like now on OP8 (Where i prefer gun Hellborn Krieg).
If you like explosive weapons you maybe wanna look for crunch mods and explosive fastball. It was a lot of fun for me leveling up my ps4 krieg with a explosive/melee way.
Is there anybody out there who started krieg with the hellborn tree? Would like to hear some expierence about that
I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. Gonna kill yourself a whole lot.
I’ve never run Hellborn sub-72. My current Krieg is at 34. I think I’m just going to have to respec to pure Hellborn. I have a purple Torch and maybe a Toast kicking around.
*New question: In Bloodlust tree, does Blood Bath trigger from Torgue Explosive weapons? …or only grenades?
P.s. Thanks for all the feedback so far. Great community.
Thanks for sharing this guide. Im a little rusty at some of the BL lingo tho…
Aside from particular unique weapons it appears to me that Torgue Rifles work as well as weapons with a Torgue barrel(?)
So can I assume anything that reads Torgue is gtg? Im not sure if Im reading that correctly?
Tbh, I played BL1 way back when and just recently cracked into Bl2 after getting caught up hard on Battleborn for the past 2 years.
The Flakker is the only exception I can think of.
I think I have a new main.
Risky is just the Krieg way isn’t it? 
Suprised and happy that it is doable and the developers didn’t plan it as tree just for endgame.
How often do you have to use your Rubi?
A toast COM would help your survieve ability indeed. Maybe a low level rough rider?
Moxxi healing at that level is pretty weak, so I’m tempted to say it’s a waste of a slot.
Edit : I take that back. It’s actually ok.
I’m not prepared to start the DLC just for a Rough Rider, so I’ll keep looking for a better adaptive. At least until level 50.
Happy to hear that your moxxi is not necessary
Awesome. Yeah i usually don’t do the dlcs before uvhm either, just an idea to gain more robustness. But an adaptive shield will do the job in tvhm 
So yeah, loving Krieg. Just trying to get him to level 52 by Thursday night when my daughter gets back. I want him to be my new main that I play with. Why does real life have to get in the way of gaming lol
Been going hard af to level
Hes just so much damned fun.
Yeah loving it so far. I ended up leveling to 31 down Bloodlust.
I wanna spec into Mania soon but not sure how to slag enemies whiles Buzz’n…
He shoulda had a way to make his axe slag since via lore he was experimented on with slag himself.