Tips & Tricks for completing NVHM at the lowest possible level

Ronnie_Rayburn · October 28, 2018, 12:57am

A little over 3 months ago, a challenge was issued by @Psymonkee. “Complete NVHM at the lowest possible level”.

A lot of people have done their take on this, and a lot of clever tricks have been used. I would like this to be a summary of all those tricks, and I’d rather not re-read all those ~500 posts again, so I was hoping that you ~~weirdos~~ fine people out there would help out. I’m also pretty sure that some of the tricks haven’t been presented at all, so… Out with it! What’s your best method for avoiding unwanted XP, or getting past a tricky area?

Any tip or trick involving “Read-only” mode will not be included in the summary.

Let’s get to it!

Exploit the fact that some enemies are hostile to each other. Let them finish each other off! You don’t get XP if enemies kill each other. The Bandits and Bullymongs in Liar’s Berg is the first spot where it’s found.
Get off to a good start with Captain Flynt! Highlight: YWDQALC-NVHM-0303 Kill Flynt An Inflammable shield is very useful for this fight. Farm one in Liar’s Berg!
There’s a second cheese-spot on the deck where you fight Captain Flynt. The “container” on the left side will shield you from his grenades and his ground pound.
Farm for an Unkempt Harold in Three Horns Divide. Save & Quit until you see the red dots, indicating that Savage Lee has aggro’d the Bullymongs. Wait for the Bullymongs to kill him. This takes approx 3 mins. If he drops it, then fine! If not… Rinse and repeat! You will not gain any XP with this method.
While in Three Horns Divide, take the time to check two level 11 loot sources. The first one is the chest on top of the pipeline where you get one of the echos in the “In Memoriam” mission. Use a vehicle to get to it from below. Then use the vehicle to jump the gap to the spot where you get your first vehicle, outside the bandit camp, Fishguts Outpost. Enter the camp, take a left immediately, and then run behind the building, straight ahead, past the decommissioned Hyperion Loader, up the hill. There’s a Dook Hut there.
Zero-players can throw their Deception close to barrels, and let enemies blow them up. Do not use Unforeseen when doing this, as it will result in XP.
Do up the “Rock, Paper, Genocide”-mission from marcus until you get the corrosive weapon. Don’t turn that one in. It will remain on par with your level for the rest of the game, since it’s a mission weapon.
Tipping Moxxi for the Bad/Good Touch is now an option. BUT… Think carefully about when you want to do it! She will only give you the Bad Touch once, and it’s the first gun she gives you. Time it wisely, young Maliwan! After that you can get as many Good Touches as you want.
Sanctuary is a great place for farming eridium. Lots of crates scattered across the town, but the best places to loot are at Scooter and Tannis. The slot machines are also a great place. These also give you gear, so they are well worth checking. Since you’re allowed to transfer gear to be sold for cash, you can play the slots as much as you want.
Don’t forget to pick up the Lascaux in Frostburn Canyon!
And don’t forget to pick up Gwen’s Head in the Dust!
The Dust also has some easy-to-get-to chests that should be farmed. Underneath the platform at Lynchwood station, behind Mc Nally’s shack. and also the red Dahl chest up at the Buzzard Academy. The last on can be reached by jumping with your vehicle to reach the lower section of the area. You need to afterburn in between the bandit house and the ramp. There’s a bump on the left side that you need to use. Dash up the stairs, and run left. Come up to the chest from behind. Enemies will notice you when you open it, but you’ll be out of there in no-time.
Check the vendors in previous areas for on-level gear. You may level slowly, but you still gain levels.
Free the midgets on Bad Maw’s shield, and let them kill him. No XP! You need to get his health down to a minimum before freeing the midgets, since he will one-shot them with his shield if you don’t.
W4R-D3N’s shield is pretty strong. A decent sniper will punch through it quite fast. Make sure you land crits!
The stalker area in Highlands Outwash can be avoided completely if you don’t want to run through it. Even though the Fast Travel connection to Sanctuary doesn’t work, the rest of them do. Fast travel to the Dust, get a car and enter the Highlands from the Dust. Then drive to the entrance of the Highlands Extraction Plant and enter.
Trigger the Gluttonous Thresher, and as soon as it appears, run back around the building. GT will appear on the loading bay while you can take pot-shots from behind the corner.
Overlook Skip: In normal gameplay, if you repair the beacon 8 times, jack will tell you that you are bad in protecting the beacon and makes the beacon invincible (Jack really wants you to have that beacon). Saving & quitting breaks the bacon. Use the Holy Spirits entrance/exit as a spawn point. Repair and save & quit 8 times! All done!
Time to pick up Gwen’s Head in the Dust again!
Dash through the stalker area and open the door, then run up to where the vault symbol is, and jump over to Mordy’s secret stash. Then grenade jump on top of the cliff to reach the area where the SBA loader appears.
If you have the “Doctor’s Orders” mission active, you can wait for the BA skags behind the forcefields to be released. Then you open up the boxes with the Loot Midgets, and run like you’ve never ran before!
BA skags in the WEP Observation area can be cheesed through the forcefield with AoE grenades. As long as they are close enough to it, that is.
Skags and Hyperion personel will fight each other in the final skag area if you get them close to each other.
Use the jumping strategy on Bloodwing. Jumping up and down all the time will glitch him/her/it to stand still in the air if done right. If not… There’s always the cheese spot on the left side where the skags enter.
Check the vendors in previous areas for on-level gear. You may level slowly, but you still gain levels.
Pop the helmet on one of the Badass Goliaths in the Slab Kings house. Leave the other, in case the bandits kill the first one. Once the GOD-liath has killed everything, you might be able to get him to destroy a barrel and kill himself. If not, you have to kill him!
Hey… Gwen’s Head!
Start Rocco’s Modern Strife to make Thousand Cuts free of enemies in the lower section.
Getting to Angel requires you to kill most enemies to open up the next areas, so take your time and don’t spawn more than you have to at the same time. This is a tough one!
Kill as much as you can before spawning the BA Constructor at Control Core Angel. It will not aggro as long as you stay below the first staircase, and don’t shoot too close to it. Four enemies will spawn in this area, and it’s recommended to take them out before taking on the BAC.
Getting behind the BAC is a pretty safe spot. The only attack that can reach you there are the nukes. These can easily be shot from that spot. Loaders tend to stay in front of the BAC, so the have a hard time hitting you.
Check the vendors in previous areas for on-level gear. You may level slowly, but you still gain levels.
Sawtooth Cauldron… Raging Goliaths are your best friend here. They will take a lot of aggro off of you. If you’ve managed to level them up to SBA- or UBA Goliath, they can take out the Ambush Commanders for you, as long as you help them out.
They are equally effective in Cramfist’s Foundry, and can take all the aggro while you destroy Boombringer.
Same thing goes at the top when you fight the Buzzards. They will often focus on each other, and this makes it a bit easier. Goliaths will often jump off the tower, and that’s nice.
In Hero’s pass, you need to kill stuff until Brick arrives. Then you just hang back and let him do the dirty work. Once he leaves, you dash through to the section above where the SBA loader spawns. This is also the “safest” spot to take out the BA Constructor at the end. You can also risk it, and make a run for it.
Once Jack’s shield is down, he’s vulnerable to AoE grenades. Hammering him with a launcher when he’s not shielded by the surveyor is also effective.
There are cheese spots on both sides of the arena, and those are the safest spots when dealing with the Warrior. On the right side, you jump up on the blocks. This shields you from 95% of the Warrior’s attacks. He can throw boulders from the center spot that can hit you, but these are easily dodged. Occasionally, a crystalisk will spawn half way to this spot. This is the most dangerous threat. Take it out quickly. The left side offer the same deal, pretty much. There are ammo supplies on both sides.

In the original thread, there’s a post from @nat_zero_six, and it contains quite a few little clips with very neat tricks. Instead of me trying to explain all that with lots and lots of boring… See for yourself!

Do you have a tip or trick that you think should be on this list? Help us out, will ya!

Jefe · October 28, 2018, 1:43am

I’m just going to page @Carlton_Slayer , @rja , @nat_zero_six and @Rumplebunny. They were the greatest contributors I think.

Carlton_Slayer · October 28, 2018, 11:55am

While not a play tip it was allowed that gear from other characters could be taken from the Secret Stash and SOLD to pay for respawn fees and to buy gear from vendors. Speaking of which, check the vendors in previous areas for on level gear- you may level slowly but you will still gain levels. Gear for the late teen levels can be found in WEP, Overlook and Opportunity for example. Also, do the Rock, Paper, Genocide mission from Marcus until you get to the corrosive weapon and- like the GN- DON’T complete/turn in the mission! The corrosive weapon will stay on level and with you for the rest of the game, which will be handy vs all the loaders in the later parts of the game.

Another general tip is to have as wide a variety of weapons as possible- since you wont be farming for eridium to increase your ammo pools you need to use every weapon available. Speaking of which- don’t forget the Lascaux in Frostbun Canyon (if you can get it w/o gaining too much XP that is) or the Gwen’s Head in the Dust- free, easy to farm weapons are great.

As far as fighting the Warrior: facing the moon shot console go to the left and head for the distant ammo station. From there you can hit the Warrior regardless of where he appears and you have a nice ammo refill area as well. The big downside to this is that there will be 1-2 crystalisks that always spawn nearby (and their explosive crystals can knock you into the lava if you aren’t mindful of where you stand). If you’re not close to gaining a level fell free to kill them otherwise one of the other suggested ‘safe’ spots might be better…

Ronnie_Rayburn · October 28, 2018, 3:15pm

Thanks! I incorporated your tips in the list. The left side at the Warrior is pretty much the same as the right, from what you describe.

rja · October 28, 2018, 4:12pm

My best tip is to get an Unkempt Harold as soon as possible.You can get Savage Lee to spawn before you start to get the power core by saving and quitting at the Fast Travel station in Three Horns - Divide, but you might not be a high enough level to use it yet. After you level up to it, it would be hard to find a better weapon.

This shows that you can get an Unkempt Harold without killing anything by waiting for about three minutes for the Bullymongs (or in this case, Ferovores!) to kill Savage Lee. The level 11 chest farming helps if you do not have mules to pass down high level gear to sell, in addition to getting better gear. You might not be able to use level 11 gear until Sanctuary is airborne.

Here is a copy of my tip in the original post:

Level 11 gear farming and possibly an Unkempt Harold. All with zero XP accumulated.

Fast Travel to Three Horns - Divide.
If there are red dots in mini-map, wait for bullymongs to kill Savage Lee. Check if Harold drops. This took about three minutes.
Drive to Dahl green weapon chest with level 11 gear in it. The chest is on the pipes close to the third ECHO of the In Memoriam optional mission.
Drive over the bridge with the gap and park up against the end of the fence. Exit the vehicle and run between the cliff and the fence. The bullymongs will de-aggro if you stay on that side of the fence.
Keep running through the camp past the broken Hyperion robot and up the path to the Bandit Dook Hut.
Save, Quit, and Continue to start at the Three Horns - Divide Fast Travel station and repeat.

rja · October 28, 2018, 5:29pm

Another cheese spot for Captain Flynt is the shelf that he first jumps down to.

Prepare for the fight before you pull the lever to raise Claptrap. Run up to the right of the Ammo vending machine and jump past the flaming barrel thru the gap in the wall. Run to the door below the spot where Flynt spawns and up the sloping wall. Jump onto the shelf and wait for his cutscene. Flynt will appear next to you and you can use your action skill and your most powerful short range weapon to blast him. If he survives your initial attack, Flynt will jump down to the deck and you can switch to long range weapons, Contraband Sky Rocket, and action skill. If you crouch, then enemy grenades and axes are your main worry. All of the enemies have to die before Claptrap will get the courage to open the door.

Highlight: YWDQALC-NVHM-0303 Kill Flynt

For this fight, I like to farm an Inflammable shield before I leave Liar’s Berg.

Jefe · October 28, 2018, 5:56pm

There’s a dook hut just up the cliffside from where you get the Hyperion Catch-a-Ride adapter (when you first get to Three Horns). This has level 11-12 gear in it.

Ronnie_Rayburn · October 28, 2018, 6:04pm

I’m so stupid! I never realized that this method is totally viable here, as well. Thanks, @rja!

Psymonkee · October 28, 2018, 6:14pm

Cool shortcut!

Another good tip if you want some powerful weapons for late game try your luck in the WEP with Doctors Orders. Wait for the Badass Skags to be released and then open the boxes with the loot midgets in and RUN LIKE HELL!

@Ronnie_Rayburn There’s a small error in the OP - the challenge was issued 3 months ago, not years! (though it would explain the grey hair…)

Psymonkee · October 28, 2018, 6:16pm

I’ll need to grab a copy of the loot maps but there are also optimum paths to run through levels that aggro the fewest enemies - I’ll get to work after dinner!

Ronnie_Rayburn · October 28, 2018, 6:33pm

My mind moves in mysterious ways ~~sometimes~~ ~~often~~ all the time! I’ve taken care of it.

paulothead · October 28, 2018, 8:12pm

I hope I’m not repeating things already said, but… In addition to the Gwen’s Head, the Lascaux is another piece of gear you can grab for little to no XP and will be helpful (on my still paused run for this I face tanked warden with it). Also, Tediore reloads were how I fragged Flynt. A little rough on limited ammo pools, but effective.

Also, @nat_zero_six had a method for Overlook that was boring but got you through with minimal XP gained. It involved a bunch of save/quit cycles and beacon repairing, but I don’t remember the details.

rja · October 28, 2018, 8:36pm

The mission item for “Rock, Paper, Genocide” levels with Sanctuary, not you. This can make it almost ten levels higher than you are by the time you fight the Warrior.

During my last playthough, these are the Sanctuary levels at the beginning of each Story Mission.

Sanctuary  Story
Level      Mission

07         Plan B
08         Hunting the Firehawk
09         A Dam Fine Rescue
13         A Train to Catch 
13         Rising Action
16         Bright Lights, Flying City
16         Wildlife Preservation
19         The Once and Future Slab
20         The Man Who Would Be Jack
22         Where Angels Fear to Tread
24         Where Angels Fear to Tread Part 2
24         Toil and Trouble
26         Data Mining
28         The Talon of God

This also affects the Bad/Good Touch level when you tip Moxxi. I have gotten them right after getting back to Sanctuary at the end of the Wildlife Preservation mission, but before turning it in, so they are both level 16. Then turn in the mission, save and quit, and get a level 19 Good Touch. I hope that I won’t be able to use a level 20 Good Touch for Toil and Trouble. Fire won’t help much after Sawtooth Cauldron. I have considered getting level 13 Bad/Good Touches in case I can get to the Bunker before I am 16. Those plus a Cat COM with Maya should last a few levels.

rja · October 28, 2018, 10:41pm

Here is a grenade jump skip in Hero’s Pass. This will let you bypass the Super Badass Loader and get to the Vault of the Warrior before the barge brings in the final constructor. This was the first time I tried this jump, and died five times before it worked. Make sure to move forwards and don’t turn like I was. The failed grenade jumps start at 1:35:45.

This should start 1:38:50 into the video.

h/t @Joltzdude139

Psymonkee · October 28, 2018, 10:44pm

Excellent skip as is the one that lets you past the energy wall early.

Reminder: Krieg is a fat ass and can’t do the jumps

rja · October 28, 2018, 10:52pm

I havn’t gotten that jump to work yet. Anybody have an example?

Psymonkee · October 28, 2018, 11:18pm

2nd last video. Stand where Brick does when jumping to the drop barge and you can get through quicker than waiting for the wall. Should be able to get the drop on the next area and hit the spawn point.

rja · October 28, 2018, 11:20pm

What’s better than a Lascaux?

Multiple Lascauxeausessss.

Get to the Fast Travel in Frostburn Canyon. Exit the transition to Three Horns - Divide. Turn around and re-enter Frostburn Canyon. now there will be two Lascauxes in the pool. Repeat and there will be three. Repeat the transitions enough times to fill up your empty backpack slots. Then you can choose your favorite(s) and sell the rest for early cash. If you are lucky, you can get a Dahl grip with a Flying prefix.

nat_zero_six · October 28, 2018, 11:43pm

Overlook Skip

In normal gameplay, if you repair the beacon 8 times, jack will tell you that you are bad in protecting the beacon and makes the beacon invincible (Jack really wants you to have that beacon).

Speedrun tactic - go inside the holy spirits bar to trigger the save point then repair the beacon 8 times by saving and quiting, by the 8 time you will complete the mission automatically.

In Arid Nexus Badland and Hero’s Pass - Strategy is to run.

Lammas · February 11, 2019, 9:20am

So, I’m doing this again and I’m at this point. So I enter holy spirits, go and start the fight and let the beacon be destroyed, repair it, save and quit.
Then re-enter and re-repair total of 8 times and that way I don’t have to kill any of the enemies at all?