So I thought about doing a no-gear build and this is the closest I could come up with. It requires a very minimal amount of shooting and could be done without any weapons if it weren’t for badasses and FFYL. This isn’t a DPS-build, it’s more of a plaything for if you really want to use your Surveyors (and nothing else) and stay alive through it all.
Gear
Guns
Flying Fridgia: Very solid cryo weapon, great freeze chance and two projectiles makes it an amazing SMG to have on-hand. As I said before, you don’t need to shoot this as much if you’re just dealing with mobs.
Items
Shield of Ages: Amazing capacity, beats out the combined shields and health of an adaptive shield. Makes great use of all the skills in this build and of the shield bonuses of the Celestial Enforcer and the EDD1.E.
Celestial Enforcer: Probably Wilhelm’s best class mod, provides extra shield capacity and extra gun damage. Boost 6 skills that we use in this build.
[color=lightgreen]+5 Afterburner[/color]
[color=lightgreen]+5 Fire Support[/color]
[color=skyblue]+5 Man and Machine[/color]
[color=skyblue]+5 Targeting Scope[/color]
[color=lightcoral]+5 Auxiliary Tanks[/color]
[color=lightcoral]+5 Energize[/color]
- [color=orange]**Storm Front**[/color]: You don't really need a grenade and this is mainly for freezing, with Cold War. Some good placing in indoor areas destroys badasses.
- [color=orange]**EDD1.E**[/color]: Again, not really needed and can be swapped with a [color=mediumorchid]Duality Oz Kit[/color] that boosts explosive damage. The EDD1.E however, does provide some decent survivability perks, namely recharging your shield when it's damaged, occasionally shocking melee enemies with a chance to freeze them (with Cold War) and dropping health vials.
Skill tree
Hunter Killer
Afterburner: You don’t need the reload speed, but the air speed and projectile speed (which I assume boosts Wolf’s bullets too) is very welcome.
Fire Support: Again, you don’t need the gun damage, but Wolf’s damage buff is great.
Venom Bolts: 2 points for good measure, not for damage but more for potential freezing (paired with Cold War)
Suppression: I wasn’t sure on wether to use this or not, but it was recommended so I figured, why not. It makes Wolf attack way faster than usual, the rate of his volley shots is increased.
Laser Guided: This will be your main activity when fighting mobs, strategically painting targets to extend the duration of your Wolf and Saint as long as possible.
Rolling Thunder: Amazing damage boost for Wolf, great synergy with Laser Guided, main source of your damage.
Cold War: Boosts freeze chance for your Fridgia (if you need it) and adds freezing chance for every elemental effect you deal to an enemy (Venom Bolts or barrels, in this case).
Omega Strike: Awesome capstone for damage, unfortunately does not gets buffed by Rolling Thunder but is still great without (especially when the target is frozen!)
Cyber Commando
Man and Machine: Provides survivability across the board, 30% to both your shield and your health and 50% to Wolf’s shield and health, keeps him healthy.
Targeting Scope: You don’t need this at all but it’s nice for when you do.
Power Fist: Save this for frozen badasses to help your Wolf a little.
Divert Power: This isn’t used that much since the cooldown is quite long, but it will definitely save your life when you’re on the brink of death.
Dreadnought
Auxiliary Tanks: No-brainer, buffs your Wolf & Saint’s duration and cooldown rate.
Energize: Amazing skill for survivability. Your health regen goes up to a constant 14.5% per second. With all your max health increases, enemies can barely scratch you. On top of that, Saint occasionally (read: often) recharges your shield to 80% (read: 100%). This is similar to the EDD1.E but better.
Heatsinks: These are low bonuses, but still go very well with the Shield of Ages and does provide the extra survivability that you need when Saint & Wolf are on cooldown.
Termination Protocol: For when you do go in FFYL, get more mobility, chance to freeze (shock and Cold War) and the explosion at the end will probably get you up when it needs to).
Zero Hour: Backup-plan for when Saint and Wolf are down, the only time you are vulnerable.
Hazmat Containment Suit: No-brainer, gives you even more survivability in the form of elemental resistance. This wouldn’t be necessary if you use an adaptive shield, but it’s recommended with the Shield of Ages. You can swap this skill with Hard to Kill.
Gameplay
Throw out your Wolf & Saint as soon as you can, mark enemies with Laser Sighted as much as you can. Keep moving and your Surveyors should do all the work. Granted, Wolf is kind of slow-firing and sometimes the rockets don’t connect due to the environment, but it still kills enemies without you firing a single shot. Saint’s health and shield regen will keep you healthy even under sustained fire. I like this build a lot, tell me what you think! Always open for suggestions and tips!
Haha, I see what you did there, the idea is great! Though it’s not suited for any kind of boss though. If I may give you some humble tips:
Use Shield of Ages. Best shield for your style. And like we discussed in the other thread, yeah you have to rely on some luck, but if you are, you are unkillable.
Only 1 point into Afterburner and Venom Bolts and 3 into Suppression, 1 into kill switch and 1 into Scramble. Suppression will raise Wolfs DPS extremely, Kill switch adds a nice last resort move and Scramble gives you 30% more deploy time! Don’t invest more into Scramble, as more time is not needed (and every extra point only adds 5%) and WOlf won’t die that often.
Take out your points of Targeting scope, definetely not needed and put it into Laser focus. Combine this with the Excalbastard in exchange for the Fridgia. You will still not shoot that much, but when you do, you freeze enemies to 100%.
Take out all points of Hard to Kill (as it’s one of his worst skills) and Fortify and invest these in Heatsinks and Hazmat containment system, it increases your survivability greatly! With shield of ages, you will get an extreme capacity, adaptive tediore shield.
I would name this build “Pacifist Tank”. Just an idea
If I use the Shield of Ages, I miss out on all my health bonuses, which is kind of the point of this build. I’m on mobile so I can’t check right now, but if you count your health and shield units together, the Adaptive shield wins over the Shield of Ages.
I heard somewhere that Suppression only decreases the delay between individual Wolf shot and not the delay between Wolf salvos. If that’s true, then the skill is pretty useless.
I love Targeting Scope, it’s a way bigger bonus than Laser Focus would give me.
Can you expand on why Hard To Kill is bad? I also like Fortify and since I have an adaptive shield, I don’t really need Hazmat Containment Suit, but I guess that’s preference.
Yes you do, but remember that you have many skills that boost Shield and not Health. Because of these skills, you will get your shield up much more often than you will regenerate health. And the shield of ages has with my build setup a capacity of 300k+. The Adaptive shield does not even come close if health and shield is counted together.
mh, i just tested it and wolf’s dps is really increasing with suppression.
If you use a fridgia, sure. but i would suggest an excalibastard, it’s way better for your build and as it is a laser, so laser focus boosts it better. but this is really personal preference.
Hard to Kill is bad, because you want to stay mobile, even if you are tanky as hell. So you won’t get hit that much --> you won’t stack up that much of HtK, so the bonus is pretty much useless. Of course, Fortify is better when you use an adaptive shield, but I suggested a shield of ages and for this one, hazmat is better.
I actually have to agree on the Shield of Ages, I thought going max health would be better but my level 64 Adaptive shield + health came out around 155k and the Shield of Ages on that level is a good 180k shield alone. Also, I actually had more health benefits than shield skills in my build, but now I took those out and replaced them (Fortify, Kinetic Armor) and replaced them with Heatsinks and Hazmat Containment Suit, to compensate for the loss of the Adaptive shield. I’m still not sure about Suppression but I’ll go with it.
Also, about the Excalibastard, you can’t really suggest a change to the skill tree and then say I need a weapon that caters to the changed build and say it fits. The reason I’m not using a laser is because I didn’t go for Laser Focus and rather for Targeting Scope.
I also kind of disagree on Hard to Kill, the stacks were fairly easy to build up but were kind of difficult to maintain.
I said, that the Excalibastard fits your build better than the Fridgia and IF you use the Excalibastard, you should go with Laser Focus.
Maybe, but the other skills are simply better than Hard to kill, That’s why I wouldn’t spec into it.
Also, wouldn’t a Data Scrubber be better for this build than the Storm Front? If gives you a shield booster If you connect with it, so it goes really well with SoA
If you want a superb Freezing Laser…get an Absolute Zero…I like it so much better than an Excalibastard…
Hard to kill is situational…but boy…if the situation is right…does that skill work GREAT at 5/5.
But it has to be fairly consistent damage you are being hit with…otherwise the stacks time out…
I LOVE the Data Scrubber idea!!
Another possibility is to go with a Duality Oz Kit that has good boosts to Shield recharge and delay…mix that with Heat Sinks and it might be a good compromise in Atmosphere. …realizing you are losing the laser damage from the Eddie.
The Absolute Zero is the best laser in general, check out my build for Wilhelm to see it’s true potential. Thing is, the Excalibastard is better for freezing enemies and he wants a build, where shooting takes a minimal part of the gameplay. If you need to freeze something, the excalibastard simply is better.
Hard to Kill…meh I really don’t like it, if I’m on the move, I never get beyond 30 stacks and therefore other skills are simply better I think.
Data Scrubber truely makes you invincible with this build. But you lack the transfusion effect with it.
Yeah, that would be a great idea, but 3DDI.E is better most if the time, because it shocks enemies, drops health packs and raises your capacity. But you could give it a try.
And you make a good point about the Excalibastard…I just prefer a freezing laser that can kill as well as freeze. Less weapon swapping
Hard to Kill is very situational…and I agree that it is not a skill you would take often.
But if your slow like me…(I’m an old guy)…and with a playstyle that is slower with less movement…in a dense firefight…it can build and hold stacks quickly.
