Bigger Than Others’ Ordinance Moze (forgive my naming sense; this doesn’t even describe the build, really…).
I’ve seen a fair number of Moze builds out to minimize reload opportunities or maximize Iron Bear time – but what about a build to make Torgue wish he owned Vladof? Here’s the idea: Short Fuse is a lot like Timothy’s (the Doppelganger from TPS) capstone Leadership. You know, the one that procced all his kill skills and just about broke the game?
One quick note before I start this particular build: self damage and explosion size are still unknowns to me. Therefore, I decided to shelf my bullet hose ideal and go for some hefty survival and multiplicative gun damage bonuses in Shield of Retribution over Bottomless Mags. Even still, Bottomless Mags leaves me wishing the level cap was 80 already.
Now that that’s outta the way, here’s the build:
https://bl3skills.com/gunner/#000000000000050035431031015040351003000
Demolition Woman:
Tier 1:
- Fire in the Skag Den (5/5). The wording here is key: bonus fire damage, to Moze’s splash damage. This isn’t conversion like Amara’s Infusion, this is free damage of the multiplicative flavor. That reacts to her later skills. I’m skipping Deadlines and Grizzled in this particular build because… well, I want to play Moze with this, not Iron Bear!
Tier 2:
- Means of Destruction (3/3). This is a nice skill – except it conflicts with a skill I want to take from Shield of Retribution later on. Still, that free grenade is more than welcome, and with a fast enough firing gun a mere 9.9% chance ain’t gonna make a difference to when I have to reload.
- Torgue Cross-Promotion (5/5). First, I am not one to turn down bigger explosions. Second, this actually has some serious synergy with Fire in the Skag Den, and with the capstone Short Fuse. FitSD’s wording reads to me like that 15% is added to each enemy hit by an explosion separately. This is big. I like it. Pun intended.
- Stainless Steel Bear (4/5). I need to get down the tree a bit later, and this lets Iron Bear soak more damage for me once I spec Auto Bear. Since I don’t really want to be in Iron Bear for this particular build, making it a better bullet sponge matters more to me than having it come back faster or last longer.
Tier 3:
- Pull the Holy Pin (3/3). Monty Python and the Holy Grail? You won me over already. But in all seriousness, massive damage bonus on a grenade like the Fastball – or Iron Bear’s grenade launcher??? Either way, this is an easy take.
*Auto Bear (1/1): This is a pretty good game changer, and it serves me two purposes. First, it gives Moze a very nice bullet sponge, perhaps even better than Axton’s turrets. We’ll have to wait and see, though… Second, this is free DPS. And not a trivial amount, either – especially if PTHP boosts Iron Bear’s grenade launcher. Here’s hoping the AI is good!
Tier 4:
- Why Can’t I Carry All These Grenades (3/3). Although this feels a little small for being so deep in the tree, more grenades are always welcome. Unfortunately, I can’t spend points on survival instead, because Vampyr conflicts with the min-maxing I’ll be doing in Shield of Retribution. This tier is pretty much why I put points into Stainless Steel Bear, way back when.
Tier 5:
- Game Changer, To the Last (1/1). Grenades for Second Winds. This was freakin’ awesome for Axton, I bet it’ll be more than great again. Plus, the first grenade is free! Here’s another tier that I pretty well shortchanged – because I don’t care about cooldown. Still, that would be an easy tweak to make; shift a few points from Stainless Steel Bear into Explosive Punctuation if Iron Bear isn’t taking much heat in practice.
Capstone:
- Short Fuse (1/1). As I said in the introduction, I think this skill is crazy, perhaps even better than Leadership. Here’s why. The text reads, “Whenever Moze deals Gun Damage”. Now, consider multi-pellet guns. If each and every pellet is considered a different instance of Gun Damage, shotguns suddenly become rocket launchers. Failing that, try Tediore’s walking guns. Maybe a bouncing betty grenade? Even better, maybe a reflective shield, or a shield that spawns projectiles which can count as gun damage. There are so many potential sources of gun damage to proc an extra 3/4 of damage dealt + 15% fire damage on top of that, then double the radius and I doubt you’ll be able to see anything through the sheer destruction onscreen.
Now, if that wasn’t good enough alone, here comes Shield of Retribution with some absolutely stupid survival and even more damage.
Shield of Retribution:
Tier 1:
- Selfless Vengeance (5/5). This is Moze’s biggest bonus damage buff in the first tier. A flaming (literally) +15% of damage dealt. Score a crit? This is like 30% of your gun damage, potentially also as a DoT. The only catch is that this is short, and saps some health on proc – but we can make that even more gun damage.
- Armored Infantry (4/5): I really, really wish I could cap this skill for the nice, round numbers. Unfortunately, Full Can of Whoop-Ass called, and they wanted their skill point. Still, gun damage and damage reduction are always welcome. I was just wanting some survival anyway! And that little catch about shields? Don’t stress it. That one point in Full Can of Whoop-Ass will be well spent.
Tier 2:
- Thin Red Line (3/3). Now, this just looks like some reshuffling, you know, increasing vulnerability to shock and fire at the same time, but it’ll come into play later. Don’t you worry.
- Vladof Ingenuity (5/5). This skill, dare I say, is next to broken. It takes the one weakness of shields and puts it on par with regular ol’ bullet guns – and gives you more shield to boot. All that shield we gained from Thin Red Line? Now, even better than health. But, the buffs keep on coming.
Tier 3:
- Game-Changer: Full Can of Whoop-Ass (1/1). Feeling low on shields? Jump into Iron Bear! Then jump right back out, because you have Auto Bear, and watch your shields recharge at a blinding pace while even dealing increased damage. There is literally no downside to this, and it even alleviates concerns with using long recharge delay shields.
Tier 4:
- Desperate Measures (3/3). Now, we don’t know exactly how this 51% gun damage maps to the health bar. My bet is that it’s continuous - so with 40% health remaining from Thin Red Line, there’s a 20% damage buff. And this damage buff will only increase as you stay on the battlefield and reload – because that procs Selfless Vengeance, knocking off a touch more health, and stealing even more from Desperate Measures. So now, we start with 20% extra damage for a 3 point skill, and even get to watch that buff go up as the fight drags on.
So that’s the skill point distribution. Now, how can I take full advantage of this with Iron Bear’s munitions? Mostly, it depends on how self-damage works. If Hammerdown Protocol deals self-damage, no way can we use it. Probably going to use Target Softening instead, then. But if Pull the Holy Pin procs on Iron Bear’s grenade launchers, Lock and Speedload all the way. Can’t bet on a AI being accurate, but I sure can bet that those explosions’ll wreck regardless!
Unfortunately, since we won’t be riding in Iron Bear nearly at all, any of Bear Fist’s augments are out of the question. Even Close the Distance won’t compare to the explosive (in every sense of the word) buffs to Demolition Woman’s weapons. Same deal with the railgun, except for where explosive damage resistance comes into play.
Although, I would love to watch a miniboss get yoinked over to an Iron Bear sporting Close the Distance.
Oh, and a couple of notes on skills I didn’t take:
Drowning in Brass: Even though the straight damage increase is quite large, I care more about proccing Short Fuse – so any fire rate reductions are a no-go. An added bonus of not taking this is that Selfless Vengeance will proc more often.
Phalanx Doctrine: At 5/5, this skill is next to broken. Find a nice little spawner outside a boss room, walk in with even as few as 15 stacks, and absolutely destroy for the first 30 seconds. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be possible to maintain enough stacks to make one or two points in this skill worth it, and definitely not over the Desperate Measures buff at 3/3. There’s gonna be a killer build around it though.
Cloud of Lead: This was another strong contender. Unfortunately, taking it hurts in two ways: not consuming ammo means not reloading means not proccing Selfless Vengeance, and if I do take it I have to give up either Short Fuse or Desperate Measures. And Desperate Measures is far too good to give up.
Thanks for reading! Another very, very long post… but I think Moze has got some crazy potential to deal big boomin’ damage with nothing more than a repeater. And that is indubitably awesome. Discussion on all things Moze, or a hybrid build in to Bottomless Mags instead more than welcome!
