Fl4k - 3 possible builds, can they survive m3?

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

Good Morning Vault Hunters,

I need some input please.

Fl4k was my first character in bl3, while leveling I played Rakk Attack/Skag (nvhm) and Gamma Burst/Jabber (tvhm).

Now when I went back after finishing Amara I tried Fade Away/Spiderant and I love all the crit damage, I exclusively play Fl4k with Jakobs guns, so it goes together well.

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^ I hardly die on m3 with this, even got through slaughershaft.

BUT. I LOVE the skag. Now I’ve never seen anyone play Fade Away with the Skag, and I started wondering if it’s viable at all?

So I played around with the skill planner (with my current class mod Bounty Hunter in mind) and came up with three variations other than my current Fade Away Crit build.

If you could give me your opinions on them, if you think they could work on m3, before I lose all my money at the respec station, that would be awesome!

For a Gamma Burst Skag my question would be, will it also go well with my Jakobs loadout, cause I wanna stick to that.

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This is the risky one I’ve never seen anyone do. Can it survive mayhem at all??

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And another risky that would suit me well, because I really hate respeccing, and it would allow to switch all skills til at least the second augment and all pets til at least the first augment - I played this in tvhm, but can it stand in m3?

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Also one general question, in your opinion, does Fl4k even need a capstone, and if so, is Megavore worth it? After all it’s only a 20% chance? Would I be better off with the green capstone?

I know this is a long read, so if you made it til here, thank you, and if you even take time to answer some or all, thank you more :blush:

#2

Personally ive dropped all capstones and made up the damage loss with barbaric yawp and frenzy… doesnt fair as well against bosses due to not being able to stack frenzy so well, but during mobbing; im not constantly losing 25% from taking minor damage with power inside + pets stay alive more often then not

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#3

At the moment with the fade away crit all damage comes from me, pet dying more than me and basically only there to distract til it dies and occasional tries to revive me but usually dies before finished :joy:

My main hope would be that THIS could work tbh, running fade away mainly with all my Jakobs, but having the skag do some damage and use Gamma Burst occasionally, and even be able to let loose some rakks if feel like it.

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What do you think? Will the skag be too squishy with that and fade away not do enough damage?

#4

Far as ive heard and seen in my own…psycho head on a stick doesnt/ hardly works, “he bites” in the tear above will atleast proc frenzy but ghorned skag will run up and toss most BA enemies for easy picking…
With who saved who as long as your damaging something your pet is being healed, plus it bumps up your own health regen when they attack

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#5

Ah, I don’t know, it’s so hard, I guess I’ll just have to try. But I feel I might have to let go of the thought I can have all, and concentrate on getting the most out of two trees instead of getting something out of all three :persevere:

I don’t even wanna think about all my gear becoming useless yet, but I so need more skill points :joy:

#6

Your pet will still be squishy with either way you go…best keep damaging something. though ive found an otto idol artifact + a point or so into “all my bffs” will replace the need for rage and recover leaving a few points you could toss into “hidden machine” for your fade away dps…
As for pets actual damage… its not really worth the points. So dps wise, as well as adding time to fade away(though be it really small amount) maybe swap some points from “ferocity” into “persistence hunter”
As I’ve personally had more than enough fun with zero’s invisibility, i hadnt liked fade away at all…and my build definately shows that

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edit - i missed 2 points in red tree, the 30% elemental boost from scorcher is useful in some situations

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#7

That would leave fade away without unblinking eye though? That’s what I run now, and most other fade away builds I’ve seen. Wouldn’t that take a lot of damage away?

I’m also using an otto idol, i think it’s a radiation one even, so that again would suggest gamma burst maybe.

Class mod wise I have no idea…running a bounty hunter now

#8

I just posted my tree as a reference to my last statement. - What i suggested for your tree would just be shuffleing a few points around, keeping access to unblinking eye, as well as increasing damage during + and out of fade away.
The +5 in rage and recover… distribute them between “all my bffs” and “hidden machine” - this will have your pet get 33-66% of your health regen as well as flak gaining 18% more damage during fade away

Take 3 points from “ferocity” moving them into “persistence hunter” - this gives 12 % more gun damage to flak, and probably a seccond or 2 extra in fade away

To add… i was running the same in green and red tree for a long while doing rakk attack… but flak and pet became overly squishy trying anything beyond cister of slaughter

#9

Thanks, I’m just starting my xbox, I will try to get the best out of it now for Fl4k and my good boy :-:laughing:

#10

Okay, so far I can say the following for normal mobbing.

It works, skag has not the worst survivability, I feel like I have a little less cause I don’t have the spiderants health regen, but I get along, while it really is all about being in fade away as much as possible for damage.
If I would find a class mod with Jakobs Damage and action Skill cooldown that would probably add a lot

I wish I could reach the eridian skag with it too, but great horned is fine for now - as long as I don’t find a better class mod I’ll stick to the Bounty Hunter, and that almost requires to put points in the red tree, also the action skill cooldown for crits is helpful.
And since red fang is specifically for gamma burst it wouldn’t do much for me in Fade Away.

Thanks for the input, helped a lot for decision making and Dukino is happy to be back at my side finally, as happy as I am to keep Fade Away for a while.

#11

I found that having a class mod that boosts He Bites! to 6/3, and having both “while gamma burst is active, gain 65% bonus radiation damage” and “while terrified, gain 50% bonus cryo damage” helps a lot. Not only does it give you tons of extra damage, but it boosts the He Bites! damage, as well. I cannot tell if He Bites! provides damage reduction to the pet, or if it just reflects the damage while taking that same damage as normal, but if it does provide damage reduction equal to what it reflects then that can seriously up it’s survivability.

#12

Why no points in two f4ng? It is a literal multiplicative damage boost (unless you use high pellet count weapons)

#13

IMO this is the best tree for a pure crit Fade Away build. Works with Bounty Hunter (more survivability, less damage) or Cosmic Stalker (pure damage). Pretty dependent on having a decent shield and playing aggressive though.

#14

I don’t know, I already didn’t like it on Zer0. My aiming lacks sometimes and I found it too ammo eating, especially when using Snipers.
With Fl4k it would probably work out, since my main gear are two Assault Rifles and a Maggie.

#15

Pretty much what I used til I posted this thread. It was really good indeed. But I want my skag back, that’s why I wanted a change.

#16

Doesn’t eat ammo this time around. Just an extra projectile. Synergizes well with Unforgiven, and single shots, and an extra spread with Maggie never hurts either. Try and give a whirl some time. Can always repec :slight_smile:

#17

Okay, that’s weird, cause as soon I was able to spec into it I tried it, and it was using ammo :thinking:

#18

I’ve tried a bunch of builds over the last couple weeks, so I wanted to comment on a couple of these.

Build 1: this is basically the same crit build that I use, it should be great for pumping out tons of damage.

Build 2: I’ve tried this one as well, thinking that with a Megavore, I could keep my pet alive. However, I found that for any pet build, all my BFFs is basically required. There was a huge difference in health regen that I just couldn’t make up.

Build 3: this one looks great, and has good survivability and damage. I’ve seen people on here using the vitamin with a build like that to great effect.

Build 4: this one is close to working, but would need some points in all my BFFs to keep your pet alive. I think those 3 points could go a long way.

Overall I think these builds are really creative though, so nice work finding them.

#19

Thank you! Never thought of using a different shield, I’m using a stop gap atm, I have the multivitamin on a mule where I collected all quest rewards before knowing if any of them would be the “new pimpernel” :laughing:
I’ll have a look into what it does.

I have my build like this now

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I’m a bit more squishy and do less damage outside fade away, but I got a bounty hunter with Jakobs crit damage finally.

Also tried a last stand relic with 21% cooldown, but the otto idol with the 18% health per kill seemed to help more :confused:

But what makes me the happiest Fl4k is that my boy Dukino is back with me :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

#20

Do you have the guardian rank action skill cool down perk?