Theory: Immortal AFK Moze - Mayhem 2.0 update

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

Update:
tested Mayhem 2.0 performance up to Mayhem 10 (see last post):

Following stuff is a bit outdated … just read the thread and the recent posts. Maybe I take some time later to create an updated guide for this build/concept.

What is needed:

  • Legendary Bloodletter Class Mod without bonus to “Thin Red Line”
  • Artifact with health regen per second
  • low-level Stop-Gap shield

How does it work?

The shield Stop-Gap makes you immune to any damage for 5 seconds after your shield breaks. This effect can only be triggered again after your shield is fully recharged (there is no cooldown). The Bloodletter Class Mod applies healing effects also to your shield, this includes static health regen bonuses.

The idea here is that you have a low capacity Stop-Gap shield that can be fully recharged within these 5 seconds of immunity. So you can chain your immunity phases without doing anything.

Problems:

  • Level 50 artifacts can provide regeneration of 149 health per second, so it only works with shield capacities below 745. But to be safe this should be even lower. Static health regen can also be on class mods, so doubling your potential capacity, but finding a compatible Bloodletter class mod is already a big struggle.
  • To assure this you need a Bloodletter Class Mod without bonus to “Thin Red Line”, as the health to shield conversion will push you over the capacity limit.
  • Also the base shield capacity must be so low that “Phalanx Doctrine” (bonus on the class mod) can not push you over the capacity limit.
  • Although you regenerate also health from the artefact, you still receive every 5 seconds one hit. If the hits are hard enough that they go to deep into your health, they can slowly whittle you down.

At the moment this is only a theory. I tested that Stop-Gap works again after your shield is fully recharged (tested by hiding around a corner). I don’t have the items for a full field test yet.

14 Likes
Any Lvl 1 Stop-Gaps?
Barhoo's Grenade Build....Master of Blasters Edition
Need help for Moze survivability
Was a Weapon Guide, but it's all wrong...Mods plz delete
Moze "The Gunner" a Consecutive Hits Build
[Was a skill guide, but wrong....Mods please delete
#2

Getting a Stop-Gap at that low a level is going to be tricky – the first one I encountered was level 23 with 1045 shield health.

1 Like
#3

I got all the items needed:

immortal-moze
immortal-moze.jpg1008×352 133 KB

It works! Under “normal circumstances” you can not die!

But there are still some problems:

  • one problem in the shown setup is that the class mod gives +2 “Phalanx Doctrine”, so killing enemies increases your shield to a capacity that is higher than what you can regenerate in the immunity time frame. Solution would be a Bloodletter class mod with only +5 “Desperate Meassures” (pretty rare) or a “Stop-Gap” shield with even lower level, so that “Phalanx Doctrine” has no impact on the mechanism.
  • another problem are nuke hits - especially on Mayhem III, although you only receive 1 hit every 5 seconds and you regenerate 149 health per second in between you can be killed by consecutive big hits. You need another form of health regeneration, like the 18% restore max health on kill on artifacts.

Conclusion: The concept works and it can make you immortal. But you need to meet to many conditions regarding items and skills to be worth the hassle.

6 Likes
#4

Second problem solved … Health Gating is your friend!

The Loaded Dice artifact reduces your health by -75%:
bl3-healthgate-fix

Your health is then low enough, that the static health regeneration restores enough health in the 5 second immunity phase of the “Stop-Gap” shield that you can not be oneshoted.

I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I tested it on Mayhem III and it kept me alive indefinitely.

Now I only need a lower level “Stop-Gap” shield to get rid of the “Phalanx Doctrine” problem and then Moze is truly immortal.

6 Likes
#5

Got this Level 3 Stop-Gap shield from a friend:
bl3-stopgap

It’s low enough for everything I want to achieve. The final stats on my level 50 Moze are these:
bl3-stats

In the 5 sec immunity from the “Stop-Gap” shield you regenerate 149 * 5 = 745 health and shield. Thats enough to completely recharge your shield even with Phalanx Doctrine bonuses and enough to bring your health above 50% to qualify for the health gating mechanism.

With this build I did all rounds of Slaughterstar 3000 on Mayhem III without ever going into Fight for your Life:

bl3-slaughterdome
bl3-slaughterdome.jpg1440×900 422 KB

I even stood there for 5 minutes doing nothing - just gathering enemies around me.

I still need to test it against some bosses - especially the ones that can ignore your shield and can attack your health directly. But until now this build seems to be really unkillable.

14 Likes
#6

Thats amazing and so funny xD

#7

Is +5 desperate measures a real class mod or +4 at least

#8

I believe that skills that max out at 3 points can’t get more than +3 from a class mod.

#9

Haven’t found one (only up to +3), so I’m not sure if these exist. Probably not, but for the build this doesn’t matter when you have a shield that is low enough.

I played I bit more with this build. In the past I had some random deaths, but these were mostly because of “Hollow Point” the last perk in the Enforcer Guardian Rank Skill tree, as the explosions on crit kill ignore health gating. Since the hotfix this problem is gone as Gearbox disabled the perk.

Since the hotfix I had zero deaths by enemies, but you can still kill yourself with a Flakker. It seems these multiple simultaneous explosions from the Flakker kill you before the immunity from the shield can activate.

#10

This is correct. 1/1 skills can get +1, 3/3 skills can get up to +3 and 5/5 can get +5 (crazy rare).

1 Like
#11

Another way to mitigate needing low capacity is Tenacious Defense, the capstone in the Shield of Retribution tree. When your shield breaks, it immediately restores 40% of your shields. It also buffs your damage for 30 seconds after your shield breaks, which seems really synergistic with this build since your shield will be breaking so often.

4 Likes
#12

Thats a nice idea … I will try it. Although you have to invest o lot of point into skills you don’t really need. On the other side by going this route you could use a Bloodletter class mod with up to +2 “Thin Red Line” giving you more choices on the gear you find as you only need to be over 50% health for health gating and 60% is enough. The 40% shield restoration can help you with the added shields from health. I need to check if this somehow works out.

On my Immortal Moze Setup I currently run this build

Having infinite ammo from the whole Bottomless Mags skill tree is really nice.

I did a Vladof version setup with Shredifiers and Lyudas on her which worked “okay” (but its a bit unfair comparing it to my Blast Master grenade build :wink: ). At the moment I experiment with Torgue Blisters and Dahl Mngwa (both ARs with Alien barrel) . These increase damage the longer you fire and they can really melt enemies after you pulled down the trigger for a while and never run out of ammo.

1 Like
#13

Hallo guys, compliment to the author of this amazing thread.
Love the way you made your thoughts and found also the right gear to prove your thoughts.

The thoughts of TeastyToast78 above let me no sleep so I calculated some numbers and builded a tree that (with the right gear) would prove all your thoughts right.

So here is the whole process:

Moze Immortal Shield-Capacity-Calculation

Healthgating:
You need to be over 50% health so you can not be one-shoted
Important Note: Deathless Artifact breaks Health-Gating, because you can not get over the 50% because in BL there are no decimal numbers.

Bloodletter-COM-Effect makes that gained health restores also shield!

Adoption on the basics and gear of Thommy1984:
Only change is I took a Bloudletter COM with (+3 on DM and +2 on TRL)
So I mustn’t calculate the impact of PD.

Health-Regeneration with Stop-Gap-Shield:

  • 149/s × 5s = 745HP
    (Could also get additional 8% healt for 3seconds or perfect COM with healt.reg included, so the effect doubles, but that calculation is not included here)

Vladof Ingenuity:
+6% max.Shield/Skillpoint
(Needed to get down the tree to TD)

Tenatiouse Defense:
= 40% Shield instantly

Thin Red Line:
= 20% more max.Shield per skillpoint

Selfless Vangance:
= 1% suffering for 5 secends per skillpoint

2pTRL + 5pSV = -45% Health => 55%HP remaining (to make healthgatting possible)

Adoption:

Health-Gate triggerts and lets you only one single HP left:
1HP+5s×149HP/s= 746HP<=>51% max.HP
=> max HP= 1462HP

Max.Shield-Capacity-Calculation:

745SP <=> 60% max.Shield => 1241SP
(40% from TD + bloodletter effect shield-reg must be 100%==FULL Shield, so it can break again and give you 5sec immunity)

With Skills:
2×TRL=+40%max.Shield
5×VI= +30%max.Shield
=> 1241SP<=>170% => 730SP

StopGap needn’t more than 730SP-Capazity

StopGap lvl.17 =623SP (from Thommy1984)

Hope you do some research, too.

3 Likes
#14

I’m still using the Level 3 Stop-Gap shield, the Bloodletter class mod with +3 Desperate Meassures, +2 Phalanx Doctrine and the Loaded Dice artifact with health regen.

My current build looks like this:

Shield of Retribution

  • Armored Infantry 5/5: more weapon damage
  • Selfless Vengeance 5/5: more weapon damage and the health loss is not really noticable
  • Drowning in Brass 5/5: more weapon damage
  • Full Can of Whoop-Ass 1/1: filler skill
  • Experimental Munitions 1/1: more damage
  • Desperate Measures 6/3: more weapon damage, as we constantly trigger health gating your health is almost always below 50% giving you a nice bonus
  • Phalanx Doctrine 7/5: more weapon damage, as my shield is low enough and we have Tenacious Defense the extra capacity from the stacks is never an issue
  • Tenacious Defense 1/1: more weapon damage, always active and helps us with possible capacity issues from Phalanx Doctrine

Bottomless Mags

  • Cloud of Lead 5/5: free shots and extra fire damage
  • Stoke the Embers 3/3: more fire damage
  • Redistribution 1/1: ammo regen on crit
  • Scrappy 5/5: more handling/swap speed
  • Scorching RPM’s 5/5: more firerate/crit damage
  • Rushin’ Offensive 1/1: shooting while sprinting
  • “Click, Click…” 2/3: more weapon damage

What can kill you?
You are not completely immune. Damage that seem to ignore health gating can still bring you into “Fight for your Life”, this includes:

  • self caused damage (so avoid splash weapons like the flakker)
  • barrel explosions (so avoid to stand next to them)
  • guardian rank perk “Hollow Point” (fixed online, not sure if it still hits you in offline mode)

Everything else including bosses, anointed enemies or damage over time can not bring you into “Fight for your Life”.

Weapon choice
As surviving is not an issue you can fully focus on doing damage, thats why I use the Unforgiven as my main weapon at the moment:
bl3-unforgiven

All the gun damage bonuses mentioned above get multiplied by the insane crit multiplier on the weapon. On TVHM Mayhem 3 you can just run to the enemy and oneshot them by giving them a headshot. And the ricoshet projectile also instantly kills an enemy most of the time, because I have the guardian rank perk “Overkill”. With some stacks up you can also oneshot most badasses and anointed enemies. It’s a really fun playstyle and I can clear “Slaughter Shaft” almost as fast as with my grenade build.

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#15

I think you made an mistake here. It’s not +20% max shield … it adds 20% of your max health as shield

Base health for Level 50 Moze is 5948 without any +x% max health from guarding rank.

The Loaded Dice artifact with -75% health brings this down to 1497 health.

Thin Red Line 2/3 would give 1497 * 0.4 = 599 extra shield.

So your max shield capacity on the Stop-Gap shield can only be 1241 - 599 = 642 shield.

Having +x% max health and +x% max shield from guardian ranks increases your shield capacity even more - so you need a lower capacity shield to be able to trigger the effect. Also “Vladof Ingenuity” is not included in this calculation - if you want to take it you also need a lower capacity shield (I ignored it as it is not needed to get to Tenacious Defense).

But you can mitigate it by having the turtle effect on the shield (+40% capacity, -10% max health) but this also only works on low level shields, as the +40% shield increase (only applies on the shield, not the added health) must be lower than the shield capacity loss from the -10% max health.

1 Like
#16

You are absolutely right, I was not carefull enough to understand “ThinRedLine”.

And you are also right, that you only can make TRL work with the -75% max Healt from “Loaded Dice”-Artifact.

The impact of TRL with default lvl.50 health would result you in looking for a “Stop-Gap” with negative shild-capacity to work this.

I also understand now that it’s not worth gooing down the tree only for “Tenatiouse Defense”

About the Turtle-Effect. Can you verify, when the -10%max health have an effect on TRL, or is TRL calculated first with default health?
The same question goes with Loaded-Dice.
That would be interessting to know.

#17

To be honest Thin Red Line would be wasted in the build anyway. As you constantly trigger health gating and only have enough health regen to heal back to slightly above 50% until it triggers again, there is no difference for Desperate Measures regarding full health vs. 40% reserved.

It is still helpful for mitigating the bonus from Phalanx Doctrine in my build above.

In the build I have Phalanx Doctrine 7/5, that gives me +14% gun damage per stack, but also +21% max shield per stack

Without Tenacious Defense my level 3 Stop-Gap shield can handle:
207 * x = 149 * 5
x = 3.59 -> +259% max shield
259 / 21 = 12 stacks

If I get more than 12 stacks of Phalanx Doctrine I’m not able to regen my shield fast enough (less stacks if you have high +x% max shield from guardian ranks).

Here Tenacious Defense comes into play:
207 * x = 149 * 5 * 100 / 60
x = 5.99 -> +499% max shield
499 / 21 = 23 stacks

As 40% of the shield gets restored instantly I only need to restore 60% of my shield with static shield regen. This only gets problematic if you have more than 23 stacks of Phalanx Doctrine, what is a lot harder to achieve. So for this build Tenacious Defense is really good as it helps stacking gun damage boosts and also gives +30% gun damage on its own.

I can confirm that Loaded Dice and Turtle effect can lower the shield you get from Thin Red Line. They both get applied multiplicative.

So for Level 50 Moze using both you get:
5948 * 0.9 * 0.25 * 0.2 = 267 shield per point in Thin Red Line

Btw. you can also roll the Turtle effect twice on a shield giving you +80% capacity and -20% max health.

#18

Thanks for thouse formula and numbers.

It would be a shame to not use Phalanxe-Doctrine and its nice Base-Dmg-Buff.

Tu put it in a nutshell:

You “only” have to find the weakest Gap-Shield you can find, so you can handle the shield-capacity increasing gear and skills.

#19

The best way to get a low level Stop-Gap shield is this:


Although the video is about the Infinity it works for any item. Just join a high level friends game with a level 1 character … it can take some time but is still the fastest way to get a Level 1 Stop-Gap shield.

If you absolutly have to do it on your own, try to get a Loot Tink in the Droughts where you first meet Vaughn as they can drop a Level 3 Stop-Gap shield (thats where the person who gave the shield to me got it). You can also try some early bosses, but the item level rises then and makes it less desirable.

The third possibility are Echocast-Rewards. If you join a Red Chest Event on a Twitch Streamer and win you can choose an item from the chest. If the Streamer does a lot of farming on Mayhem 3 your chances rise that this can include a Stop-Gap shield. On redeeming the item in the Social menu the item is leveled to your character level - so just redeem it with a level 1 character to get a level 1 Stop-Gap shield.

#20

Saw it yesterday and was the first thing that came in my mind after i read this thread. Had given you the advise also if you hadn’t postet it yet