Vigor Stacking - Melee

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

I have not seen a topic about this and wanted to add to the discussion. Hopefully it will help with any melee builds.

First time messing around with a melee build in Normal Mode (lvl 35) last night and wanted some extra movement speed. Had a class mod that boosted ‘Vigor’ (+2), so I maxed it out. Also had spec’d ‘Find Your Center’, ‘Blitz’, & ‘Illuminated Fist’ to further boost melee damage.

I wasn’t expecting to get much of a boost to movement speed overall except briefly after Phaseslam. Which it did, but it was also proc’ing from melee attacks (wasn’t able to test it but I’d assume it was from ‘Blitz’ and not one of the other melee abilities). On top of that, ‘Vigor’ would stack (icon at bottom of screen) and it wasn’t uncommon to have 5+ stacks at any given time.

I didn’t have much time to mess around with this mechanic because of work & sleep, but was curious if anyone else had noticed this at all?

‘Vigor’ didn’t seem like a great skill to use, especially with ‘Mindfulness’ in the same tier, but since it can be applied to all Allies in game it should work great in Co-op as well.

Also of note (as I’m writing this): ‘Vigor’ is supposed to proc whenever Amara kills an enemy with an Action Skill. So does this mean that ‘Blitz’ (if that is skill that is producing ‘Vigor’ stacking) counts as an Action Skill at all times? If so, it could create some nice synergies with ‘Rush’ stacks. And any other skills that are boosted by Action Skill use.

Let me know if you have had similar experiences. Thx.

1 Like
#2

same, honestly

but you have to… kill them with a blitz/phaseslam
like i dunno, just seems like it won’t happen enough

before level 50, sure, i could see that happening, but afterwards?
eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh

it definitely seems good, if it can stack, that’s very interesting, movement speed is INCREDIBLE for any game, really… especially for your entire group
but the requirement is just so… unreliable

maybe if it were all melee damage, too, and not just blitz, i could see it being “meh”
but even then…
a lot of “melee damage” at 50M3 (from my experience) is coming from the Dragon relic or whatever it’s called, that force-procs a burn after a melee attack, so that wouldn’t even count…
including Blitz causing the burn proc

THIS is interesting
i’ll have to test that out, because, as i mentioned, a lot of the melee damage i’ve been getting is basically coming from the burn proc from the relic

if you can run that avatar build with Phasezerker when the level cap raises, Blitz and Avatar would be amazing together with this interaction

#3

I had no idea Vigor could stack. I’m pretty sure I had it +1 from a class mod and didn’t notice it stacking at all.

Mindfulness is such a better skill for movement speed, the fact that it massively boosts her tankiness is even better. The only issue is that disappointingly, once again roid shields require your shields to be down.

#4

The ‘Vigor’ stacks may have been something unintended, but it definitely was stacking for me last night. Maybe a glitch? Probably requires more testing.

I agree it definitely aids in her tankiness, and it working against the use of roid shields is the main reason I chose ‘Vigor’ instead (though I didn’t have a roid shield equipped at the time). My build was more centered on Max Health, Health Regen, Damage Reduction, & Movement Speed.

Being I am still not finished with the 1st playthrough, it may not be something that is viable down the road.

Thx for the feedback.

#5

You’re right it may not be viable at later levels, I’m still working through my first playthrough. But hopefully others in late game (with better equipment) could test it.

The movement speed bonus from ‘Vigor’ stacking is excellent for melee/closing the distance. And, in my opinion, better than ‘Mindfulness’ because it negates the effect of a Roid shield (as ‘Mindfulness’ decreases the Shield Recharge Delay). I was also able to build/keep ‘Vigor’ stacks longer than I was able to keep ‘Mindfulness’ stacks - just my experience, couldn’t get enough damage my way…Again this is probably due to Normal Mode & No Mayhem.

I agree, this may actually be the more interesting point of this conversation: does ‘Blitz’ count as an Action Skill? And if so, is it all the time? Or is it one of the other Melee skills that is proc’ing it?

If you have a chance to mess around with it, I’d be interested to hear the results. Thx for the feedback.

#6

a short quick test on skags at roland’s rest without mayhem, lead me to believe Blitz does NOT get an increase to damage from Do Harm stacks
which is highly unfortunate
but also not surprising at all, since there’s no reason it should

the question now is, why does Vigor proc on melee kills

i took off both Illuminated Fist and Find your Center, assuming either of them might be bugged, making the melee attack count as an “action skill” for vigor, but no, it still works on generic melee hits

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand
i’m writing this up while testing

had another idea
and, yep

shooting something dead, also without Infusion, to my previous statement, still triggers Vigor

you just… need to land the killing blow… at all

have not tried this in co-op yet, though

looks like i’m gonna run with Vigor from now on, that’s actually pretty great, if you can stack it and just keep it up by killing things

one big problem i found while testing this, is that Blitz is buggy as TORGUEWORDS

i missed Blitz… a lot
like, a lot
like 4 times in a short period of time, just… punching skags, or, trying to

i’m set to local only, i heard Find your Center was bugged in co-op, but this is still just as buggy

i rush toward my target, and it just… misses, even though it looks like it connected, just… no damage

geeeee
geeeeeeeeeeee

big ol EDIT:

OKAY
WELP
NOW I’M KILLING THINGS WITH MY ACTION SKILL
GUESS WHAT ISN’T PROCING

yo fix this game holy butts

either way, i hate the talent, still

8 seconds is so bad

maybe if it refreshed the duration after each kill, but it doesn’t even do that

it doesn’t help with bosses, and it barely helps with mobbing

i’m still disappointed in this talent

#7

Thanks for checking it out for me - sucks that it didn’t seem to work out. Interesting though that it acts more like a standard Kill Skill than on Action Skill Kill. Quick question - were you able to get ‘Vigor’ to stack at all or was that just a late night hallucination on my behalf?

I’ll mess around with it more tonight - I was able to get ‘Vigor’ stack duration to reset on each successive kill. Makes me think it may be linked to either ‘Illuminated Fist’ &/or ‘Find Your Center’ (even though there isn’t a reason it should).

Thanks again.

#8

it definitely had stack numbers up to 5

oh, maybe i didn’t pay attention enough
it just seemed finicky
not to mention… again, i dunno, 8 seconds… it’s just so mediocre when things are bullet sponges if you don’t run top-tier-one-shot-builds, and even then, if everything blows up at the same time, you still only get 8 seconds that doesn’t end up really changing or doing much

i guess personal preference, but i just feel like it’s too “meh” to get value out of, compared to other options, like hitting yourself to maintain Mindfulness procs, that has multiple uses, and isn’t just movement speed

that’s what i had assumed, too, but as i mentioned in my comment, i took both of them off to check, and it still worked, so, i literally have no idea at this point other than “it’s just buggy af” or the text is simply incorrect

#9

thanks for this topic! i didn’t know vigor proc’d off of blitz, that’s actually insane since i run a melee build that one-shots everything with blitz resets
edit: this is my skill tree - https://borderlands.com/en-US/characters/amara#t=“cb__3125379342___p__3923861329-5_3653546161-5_4223438069-1_69544143-5_466974429-5_1661853901-1_2855324264-5_2786375239-3_3602128734-5_1078241388-3_3508305334-1_887469103-3_2292714581-1_3889505380-3_894627503-1_3740788879-1___e__89168977-1686946297_1572227138-3008720036_3806476316-3547096573”

combined with a +120 pct melee damage COV pistol, and a 180 pct roid shield, and an artifact that gives +80pct melee damage as roid damage.

#10

It seems to act like a Kill Skill that will stack (up to 5x?). Melee kills work, gun kills as well (per Nymphalidae). The skill may stack over 8 seconds and then reset to zero? At times I was able to maintain stacks for longer than 8 seconds.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out. Since you’re running a roid shield you may have better luck with ‘Vigor’ rather than ‘Mindfulness’.

#11

mindfulness seems really broken though, so i’m not going to get rid of it just yet…

#12

i don’t think there’s a limit since it doesn’t actually work as a stack in the sense that as long as you maintain the stack, none if decays.
if you kill 2 people in a row, you get 10% movement speed for 8 seconds after the first kill, and an additional 10% for 8 seconds after the second kill.