Brick’s premier coop tanking com, the Centurion boasts massive increases to shields and especially health as well as increased FFYL time and revive health. Additionally, Brick’s teammates will also get some of the increases to maximum health, further improving team survivability.
Pros:
-Maximum tank: Unmatched Health buffs, as well as strong shield and FFYL buffs = Unkillable.
-Teamplay friendly: Makes your teammates tougher too.
-Synergy: The massive health pool this build provides synergizes extremely well with the health regeneration from Berserk.
Cons:
-No offensive buffs: As this com is 100% devoted to defense, you will be missing out of the increased damage potential that more offensive choices can provide.
-No buffs to Unbreakable: Since this com, unlike the Pangolin Tank loyalty com and Titan com, does not buff Unbreakable, it is impossible to ‘chain’ Unbreakables and thus you can ultimately only take so much damage before your shield will be need to recharge normally.
-Dichotomy: Despite the com giving no innate preference for Berserk or Gun play, the heavy skillpoint investment in the Tank tree required to get the most out of the defensive buffs leaves insufficient skillpoints to support a good hybrid build.
This guide contains two builds; the first, the Brawler-Tank build, is focused on using Berserk for offense, whereas the 2nd, the Blaster-Tank, is focused on using your guns for offense.
The Brawler-Tank build:
The Skill Tree:
http://talent.87bazillion.com/brick.php?555505555555553000000
The Why:
Brawler Tree: 30 points
-Iron Fist: The more melee damage, the better.
-Endless Rage: More time in Berserk means more health regenerated.
-Sting Like A Bee: This will make sure that bastard with an SMG can’t kite us.
-Heavy Handed: On-kill melee damage, yes please.
-Short Fuse: With Berserk being our primary offense, we’re gonna want it available as much as possible, this helps with that.
-Blood Sport: Kills restore a portion of health over a couple seconds. This effect works like an insta-health, so multiple kills in rapid succession won’t waste any of the potential health regeneration. Since the amount restored scales with maximum health, and we have a LOT of health, this skill is VERY powerful in this build.
Tank Tree: 35 points
-Hardened: It’s buffed by the com and is the primary source of our considerably increased maximum health.
-Safeguard: Also buffed by the com, this skill increases our maximum shield capacity, the more hit points the better for our tanking ability.
-Bash: Since we’re very much into punching things this skill is a natural choice. Daze drastically reduces the targets fire rate and accuracy, thereby dramatically lowering their DPS, which makes it all the easier to tank their damage, and also allows us to reduce the danger to teammates by Dazing the most dangerous enemies around.
-Juggernaut: On-kill damage reduction is a no-brainer. It makes all those hit points we have go that much further.
-Payback: This skill is triggered when our shield is depleted and cannot trigger again until it is first fully recharged. The damage buff lasts 10 seconds, and affects every type of damage though it is slightly less potent than advertised for everything except bullet damage which gets the full 8%/pt., other damage types affected are grenade damage (includes rockets), melee damage, and elemental DoT, all at 7%/pt.
-Die Hard: Also buffed by the com, this skill substantially increases FFYL time as well as revived health percentage. This skill makes taking a knee more of a minor inconvenience than a serious problem (barring a lack of enemies to 2nd wind off of and no allies around to revive us, of course). The extra revived health makes it just that much harder for the enemy to put us back into FFYL again, which means there is greatly reduced risk of being in FFYL multiple times in rapid succession (which shortens the 2nd wind timer).
-Unbreakable: Some people might not want to run this skill in this build since it doesn’t function while in Berserk, however you can adapt your playstyle to make sure to take advantage of this skill. Opening up with gunplay until your shield is depleted and Unbreakable has had time to do its thing, which is powerful shield regeneration for 5 seconds on shield depletion (same trigger condition as Payback), and then popping Berserk. The main reason I’ve chosen to include it in this build is that the primary goal is to be able to soak up as much damage as possible before taking a knee, and Unbreakable increases that by a lot. Moreover, once you get your 2nd wind, you’re shields are again fully recharged and hence Unbreakable can trigger again. If you decide not to run this skill, use the points to max out Endowed and then go 3/5 in Revenge.
-Blaster Tree: 3 points
-Endowed (3/5): The last 3 points might as well help our explosive guns a little, and this will also buff our explosive fists too.
The Blaster-Tank build:
The Skill Tree:
http://talent.87bazillion.com/brick.php?503000055055555555055
The Why:
Brawler Tree: 8 points
-Iron Fist: Although this version is geared towards gunplay, Berserk is still very useful for the massive health regeneration we get out of it, so it’s worth putting our last points into at least making Berserk usable. This skill is a stepping stone to Sting Like A Bee, which is, imo, a must for using Berserk.
-Sting Like A Bee (3/5): This skill is instrumental in keeping us from being kited into FFYL while using Berserk.
Tank Tree: 30 points
-Hardened: It’s buffed by the com and is the primary source of our considerably increased maximum health.
-Safeguard: Also buffed by the com, this skill increases our maximum shield capacity, the more hit points the better for our tanking ability.
-Juggernaut: On-kill damage reduction is a no-brainer. It makes all those hit points we have go that much further.
-Payback: This skill is triggered when our shield is depleted and cannot trigger again until it is first fully recharged. The damage buff lasts 10 seconds, and affects every type of damage though it is slightly less potent than advertised for everything except bullet damage which gets the full 8%/pt., other damage types affected are grenade damage (includes rockets), melee damage, and elemental DoT, all at 7%/pt.
-Die Hard: Also buffed by the com, this skill substantially increases FFYL time as well as revived health percentage. This skill makes taking a knee more of a minor inconvenience than a serious problem (barring a lack of enemies to 2nd wind off of and no allies around to revive us, of course). The extra revived health makes it just that much harder for the enemy to put us back into FFYL again, which means there is greatly reduced risk of being in FFYL multiple times in rapid succession (which shortens the 2nd wind timer).
-Unbreakable: In this version of the build, we typically rely on our guns to get the job done, so we have no real reason not be running this, in fact, in synergizes VERY well with Payback, giving us more shield hit points so we can keep shooting and take advantage of Payback’s damage buffs.
The Blaster Tree: 30 points
-Endowed: Might as well buff our explosive guns. Also buffs our explosive fists too.
-Rapid Reload: A small reload speed buff, but it slightly increases recoil (this is likely a bug, the sign on the recoil reduction value used internally is probably wrong, hence the increased recoil instead of reducing it, however the effect is really pretty minimal in practice, so this skill is still worth it).
-Revenge: Massive On-kill bullet damage buff, get a kill, bring the pain.
-Wide Load: For when we break out of Rocket Launchers.
-Cast Iron: Might as well get some damage reduction, and this will help protect us from our own splash damage when using Explosive Rocket Launchers/Carnage Shotguns/Explosive Grenades too.
-Master Blaster: Massive On-kill Fire Rate buff as well as Rocket Launcher ammo regeneration. Why would we NOT want that?
Gear:
Weapons:
Neither build has any innate preferences except for having points in Endowed, which gives a slight preference for Explosive weapons. The Brawler-Tank build is primarily concerned with using its guns when Berserk is on cooldown and to get 2nd winds, whereas the Blaster-Tank build uses its guns as its primary offense. However that still leaves a lot of room for user preference in weapon selection, and choosing gear specifically to exploit enemy weaknesses.
Shield:
Both builds value having a high shield capacity greatly, so a maximum capacity Pangolin shield is often ideal, however, the Brawler-Tank version in particular may find a Torgue Muscleman’s health increase worth the lost shield capacity given how Berserk’s health regeneration scales with maximum health. Both builds may also find Extreme Resistance Shields, of maximum capacity, to be useful when fighting enemies that mostly do damage of a single elemental type.
Grenades:
Grenades are also a matter of user preference, but it’s worth noting that Endowed will affect Explosive Grenades, giving a slight preference for them, and that Transfusion Grenades may prove VERY useful for recovering lost health.
Mat2 or Mat3?:
The mat2 version of the Centurion com boast an impressive +12 Team Health Regeneration, while the mat3 version provides +42% Team Magazine Size. As the mat3 version’s effect is useless while in Berserk, the mat2 version is preferred for the Brawler-Tank build, but the Health Regeneration is arguably less useful for the Blaster-Tank build, hence the mat3 version is generally preferable for the Blaster-Tank build.
Tips and other information:
In solo play, you may find that a Titan com, or even a Pangolin Tank loyalty com works better than the mat3 Centurion for the Blaster-Tank build, however neither of those coms offer team effects and thus the Centurion is probably still a better choice in coop. The Brawler-Tank build on the other hand is better suited to the Centurion com even in solo play, since the other coms buff Unbreakable, which doesn’t function while using Berserk.
The Centurion com allows for the highest maximum Health in the game both in solo play and in coop. A solo Brick with a Muscleman shield and a +4 Hardened Centurion com has 3673.6 Health.
In 4-player coop, with 3 other Centurion Bricks, that total skyrockets to 5689.6 Health.
Berserk health regen together with mat2 +12 Team Health Regeneration totals 122.208 Health/second in solo play, and in coop, if all 4 Bricks run mat2 versions, 218.688 Health/second.
On top of all of that health regeneration, while in Berserk, Blood Sport will grant 367.36 Health for each kill in solo play and 568.96 Health for each kill in coop.