Is is just me, or are they really similar, at least in terms of their potential melee skills? They have 1 melee override skill that gives a massive melee boost every 10 seconds or so (Fist Full of Hurt=Power Fist), extra movement speed (Bus That Can’t Slow Down=Rapid Peinforcement+Overcharge), reload speed(All In The Reflexes=Keep Firing=Rapid Reinforcement+Afterburner+Overcharge) and, fire rate(Keep Firing+Lay Waste=Supression+Overcharge). And while Wilhelm may not be able to dual wield a grog nozzle and rapier, he does have Cold War for debuffing enemies.
The only thing that Wilhelm can’t do that melee Sal could is stack up to 250% melee damage bonuses, and he doesn’t have any passive melee buffs except for Laser Guided (at least Sal could get up to 40% with All In the Reflexes).
Still, with the softer scaling, and the fact that half of the characters in TPS have viable melee builds (haven’t seen Afro’s “Whipper Snapper” build in action in UVHM, so I’m not going to say 3 just yet, although melee probably works just fine with Nisha as well), is it too far fetched to believe that Wilhelm may have a viable melee build? Is this something that we should experiment with?
Nisha is much better suited to a Hybrid melee build that uses melee from time to time. She has a skill that stacks melee bonus on kills and a melee override with a cooldown. Although Afro’s build works, it’s mainly because he WILLED it to work… it kinda goes against the grain from a design perspective.
But its not like the idea is doomed to failure from the onset. Wilhelm has great tanking skills, a skill that spreads DOTs to enemies close to him, and a skill that has a chance to freeze enemies with DOTs on them.
If the developers gave him a COM that boosts melee damage, I’d like to think that we can use it for something. Even if powerfist isn’t boosted by roid bonuses, there has to be some way to make a hybrid melee build work. If it works for 3, it should work for Wilhelm. He probably has the easiest time apply cryo out of any of the characters, so he (in theory anyway)would have contant buffs to his melee damage.
It would take some serious investment, I agree with you on that. It does go against his primary skillset. But I think it might be possible.
Hypothetically, anyway.
As to your point about Sal’s legendary COM, it only boosted melee by 10% more at max stats than legendary gunzerker becasue of 10/5 in All In the Reflexes, so I thought it would be redundant to mention it in the OP.
Oh, i’m not suggesting Sal does melee better than wilhelm
Wilhelm has a skill that boosts lasers, one that boosts cryo and one that enhances melee with explosive damage… that’s a great recipe for one-hit kills
Get a freeze laser with a blade and you’re all set
Or alternately, a bladed frigida is awesome too
Thats what I was thinking. While it wouldn’t be viable for bosses, it should work for mobbing. At least, I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work for mobbing…
Maybe something like:
Party Line or a cryo mine laser w/blade
Cold War
Cryo Terminator or Howitzer
Perma Sharp Boxxy Gunn
Roid Shield
Maybe that might make a viable hybrid build. What do you think?
