There are most certainly viable builds for all classes (including melee Zer0) that do not require Moxxi gear to do well, and I know Iām not the only person who does this (including in the Hyperion Slaughter).
Yes of course there are. I have beaten all the arenas cept Magic at OP8 without Moxxi, and I cited kbkās Torgue setup as another example of this. And I would think Melee is out of the question (in hyperion slaughter) without moxxi unless I am shown some evidence to the contrary. The LT is your only alternative at OP8 without moxxi (because shield stripping without the Grog is sorta suicide), and I just canāt imagine running without a shield with Badass surveyors, constructors, RPGs, hell even simple bullets at OP8.
Iād say outside of Thoughtlock Maya with Cloud Kill, itās not easy for any of them, but āeasyā is a matter of opinion. I, for example, would probably go bankrupt trying to get Salvador or Krieg through that, but I know other players steamroll that place with them.
Hyperion is a tough arena, so that is probably true. But trying to say an arena is equally easy/difficult for all classes is kindaā¦ I mean, I probably have more hours on Zer0 than all the other 5 put together. He was my 2nd through the peak and my first without the Bee/Moxxi. But yet I still found Hyperion much tougher with him than Krieg or Maya. An arena which is notoriously difficult but plays to Zer0ās strengths is the Peak - on the contrary Krieg finds it a real nightmare without moxxi although Hyperion is a walk in the park for him.
Zer0ās not meant to be a tank, so while I agree with your assessment about how āsoftā he can be relative to the others, playing him like a tank means working around those deficiencies.
But thatās why Hyperion plays against Zer0ās strengths. Finks or the Peak plays very nicely with Zer0ās Decepti0n cycling and plays well at all distances. So normally Decepti0n makes up for his lack of tankiness and he often has sufficient intervals to heal. In Hyperion, some waves plainly work against this like the Jet Loader/BA wave, the RPG wave and the final one, which obviously heavily favors classes with āpanic healingā mechanisms, like Maya, Krieg or Gaige (BSS). Does that mean it is impossible? Of course not - just that as you said, you need knowledge and understanding and experience to work around these issues.
Besides Maya with Ruin/Scorn (did I mention sheās a beast in there?), who does have slagging capability on par with those weapons? Axtonās Double Up has a cooldown and the turret only focuses on the closest enemy. Neither Salvador nor Krieg have any built in slag, where Zer0 at least has a shot at free slag if one his kunai fires that element. I donāt think he has any more of a handicap in there than the other characters (Thoughtlock Maya notwithstanding).
I donāt think anyone is really on par with Maya, but Zer0 is kinda the worst of the rest? But of course I didnāt say this was only Zer0ās weakness. Gaige kinda suffers in this respect too - esp since she doesnāt have Zer0ās swap speed either. But she can take hits in the second or 2 it takes for the enemy to be slagged (and doesnāt need to aim at them either).
- Salvador can offhand a slag weapon and save on swap time
- With the Soldier Com, Axton has Double Up almost all the time, and boasts some of the best swap speed in the game. Withoutā¦ yeah he is kinda disadvantaged.
- Krieg, without a doubt is the 2nd best slag class in the game. He boasts the highest elemental effect chance (by a fair margin), swap speed and magazine size and some of the best FR. Basically any SMG/AR is a slagga in his hands.
Iām not saying Zer0 is a bad class - he is my favorite class in the franchise. I just think he has weaknesses, and there are certain situations which exacerbate these weaknesses. But weaknesses are part of good class design as they force a player to work around these weaknesses (something the TPS class designers didnāt really take into consideration but thatās for another time).