How Explosive Punctuation and Grizzled Interact with Topped Off

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

PLEASE VISIT MY NEW GUIDE FOR INFORMATION ON MOZE’S COOLDOWN

GUIDE to Efficiently Increasing Moze’s Cooldown Rate

The post below will no longer be updated in favor of my new guide with more accurate frame by frame analysis and formulas

I did some thorough testing to get some definitive answers to how the Topped Off Guardian perk interacts with both Grizzled and Explosive Punctuation.

These are all hand tested numbers with a stop watch, so room for error is roughly +/- 1 second. Exact numbers shouldn’t matter as this post is more about the big picture.

All tests without Topped Off were done with a Rough Rider shield for consistency, certain situations where not wearing a shield at all proved to have some cooldown issues resulting from the Respec bug.

The Respec bug for those that aren’t aware of it; If you Respec your character with a shield equipped, Topped Off will stack each time. For anyone wondering, if you don’t want to abuse this bug you can equip a Rough Rider and then Respec to avoid messing with your build. Otherwise you have to quit out of the game and reload after. To ensure none of my results are skewed in any way from this bug I quit to main menu after every Respec, gear change, and skill point spent. None of these tests had anything on except a non-anointed Rough Rider unless otherwise stated (outlier is the Loop Shield).

Keeping in mind my Guardian Rank Cooldown is -12.86%.

Here’s the Testing Results

Full Duration Iron Bear Cooldown
104.02s

Loop Shield Equipped and Broken for Full Duration (Attempted)
56.83s
Time Saved = 47.19s

Topped Off Full Iron Bear Cooldown
37.57s
Time Saved = 66.45s

Explosive Punctuation 1/5 (constant splash dealt)
Full Duration 99.94s
Time Saved = 4.08s
Topped Off 37.09s
Time Saved = <1s

Explosive Punctuation 5/5 (constant splash dealt)
Full Duration 85.49s
Time Saved = 18.53s
Topped Off 34.98s
Time Saved = 2.59s

Grizzled 1/5 with 5 Kills
Full Duration 100.57s
Time Saved = 3.45s
Topped Off 36.68s
Time Saved = <1s

Grizzled 5/5
5 Kills
Full Duration 86.27s
Time Saved = 17.75s
Topped Off 31.27s
Time Saved = 6.3s
1 Kill
Full Duration 98.72s
Time Saved = 5.3s
Topped Off 36.69s
Time Saved = <1s

Grizzled 1/5 10 Kills
Full Duration 98.34s
Time Saved = 5.68s
Topped Off - Could not test 10 kills in <40s

Conclusion
I was going to round everything to 0.5s but I kept my original hand tested numbers here just to avoid muddying it further. With that said, Topped Off not-surprisingly does not stack with Explosive Punctuation. Surprisingly, Grizzled which is stated to subtract a number of seconds from the cooldown is also reduced.

Topped Off appears to reduce all cooldown buffs by the same amount it reduces your cooldown timer.

If you are focusing on a build that utilizes Iron Bear heavily, you’re much better off using a fast shield or getting your shield filled quickly rather than investing up to 10 points in cooldown reductions skills and wasting anointments on cooldown reduction.

If you are trying to maximize your cooldown and aren’t concerned with a few wasted points, you should take Grizzled if you can manage 2+ kills. If you can’t manage 2 kills, you’re better off still not taking Explosive Punctuation.

If you are unable to to keep your shields full for 15 to 20 seconds after exiting Iron Bear, you should consider Explosive Punctuation and Grizzled. This also goes for anyone attempting a Rough Rider build, or anyone WITHOUT TOPPED OFF.

Finally, don’t ever bother with +1 or +2 in Grizzled unless only to bypass Fire in the Skag Den for specific builds. At that point if you can, it’s better to get 3 or 4 points into the skill to actually make it do something. At 5 points it’s actually pretty good, but can easily be skipped if you would prefer Fire in the Skag Den. Explosive Punctuation is useless with less than 3 points as well, but to each their own.

Anything I missed or any questions just let me know. I’d like to state I’m not suggesting anything one way or another, you can take the information however you’d like as everyone’s builds are different. You can also test yourself, just be sure to exit to main menu after every single change to your class or gear, be warned it’s extremely tedious.

This was all done on PS4.

UPDATES

STAINLESS STEEL BEAR
@kabflash tested Stainless Steel Bear with an instant exit build in mind and noticed it actually adding time to his cooldown while testing it.

I tested it as well to double check and he was right.

If your build relies on instantly jumping out of Iron Bear to proc anointments and maximize cooldown put as few points in Stainless Steel Bear as possible

Here are my results from that test:

I started the timer as soon as I pressed action skill button so my times will include the enter and ejection.

Instant Eject No Points SSB
42.50s
Topped Off
18.11s

Instant Eject 1/5 SSB
44.89s
Topped Off
18.79s

Instant Eject 5/5 SSB
51.56s
Topped Off
21.56s

This appears to be a result of the ‘visual’ bug that SSB causes on your fuel bar. It seems to count as missing fuel for the cooldown.

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ION Moze - M4 Build and Gameplay - Takedown / Slaughter
No guns, M4 Athenas and Traunt take down!
#2

And if you happen to have a COM and/or relic that buffs action skill cooldown rate, does that interact wih Topped Off or not? I imagine that simply having at least one if not both would suffice to the point of not needing to spend a point on Explosive Punctuation.

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#3

The Cooldown percentage buffs all work the same from what I can tell. They get reduced to almost nil with Topped Off and stacking diminishes them further. EP will be redundant if you have a relic or com with a cooldown bonus stat (stacking isn’t going to do anything beyond placebo basically).

Without Topped Off they do what they say with one buff, and diminish quite a bit with multiple buffs stacked. But stacking can still be useful enough for some builds without Topped Off I guess.

Edit: Also if you don’t have Topped Off and have a relic or com with bonus cooldown reduction, you should definitely go for Grizzled before EP.

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#4

My thing here is even with topped off in a place like Slaughter Shaft or the Raid it’s almost never possible to keep your shield full and both of these skills become very usable. Yeah topped off invalidates them in easier mobbing scenarios but if you are looking to do this content even if you have it, I would still invest in these skills and cooldown reductions for some cases. I find it best to have all of them in action to cover different things at different times in places like this. So maybe I take a huge hit to my shields while IB is on some CD, but can get a kill and deal some splash and so that makes losing my topped off proc less painful in that moment, even with only partial investments in Grizzled and EP.
It’s kind of a one-sided way you are looking at it where every scenario is perfect and easy but theres a lot of scenarios that aren’t. Sometimes having every single little addition to these things makes all the difference in the world instead of going well it’s not as good as this so its bad.

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#5

The only thing I would say is pointless out of all of this is stacking too many cooldown reductions, they start to add no real benefit. Also putting 1 or 2 points only in either skill is practically useless unless you’re bypassing FitSD.

Every build is different, this is just the interaction between Topped Off and Moze’s cooldown skills.

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#6

Correct me if I’m wrong but, from what I understood from your tests that yeah 1 point in Grizzled is a waste, but wouldn’t 1 point in EP still be worth taking? Agree with stacking ASC anoints being pointless as that’s true for any action skill really since it diminishes too much.

I want to point out I’m thinking of taking 1 point in EP being worth under the context of using Autobear where I’m getting out ASAP so 4 seconds is significant in comparison to the CD I have after the big refund. Also again as a sort of fail-safe for when Topped off can’t proc.

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#7

Depends if you really have nowhere else to put a single point.

With enough splash output to proc it throughout the entire duration you’re saving <5s… And only people without Topped Off or someone using a Rough Rider will get that. You’ll likely save less than that.

But again, if it’s a spare point and you really have nothing else to put it in, then you can plop it in there.

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#8

Sorry I made an edit while you were typing… 5 seconds or close is significant when I’m looking at a cooldown of 15s after exiting Iron Bear. That’s a third of the CD . Also, AutoBear is doing that constant splash on it’s own during this time so I find it quite useful.

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#9

Oops just saw your edit. In this case No you won’t want to use 1 point in EP. You won’t save 4 seconds, you’ll save 5% of a very reduced cooldown (my times are full IB exit duration).

Edit: If your shield breaks, you’ll see the largest reduction with multiple points in Grizzled with an early exit build. EP here is a lot less useful. Multiple points may yield a second or 2, while Grizzled would require 1 kill to shave more time off. This is only if Topped Off isn’t proccing.

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#10

So basically EP is working like vampyr; only instead its of missing cooldown time? Almost seems more of an oversight

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#11

I see, thanks for the replies and helping me understand it better.

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#12

Umm, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. It’s not exactly like Vampyr, but the shorter your max cooldown is, the less you will save technically with it being a percent and all. But it does work the way it states.

Topped Off however just overrides everything by basically shrinking your cooldown along with everything else that cools it down.

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#13

I was meaning; it does its percent based off whats left; therefore in itself is diminishing more as it fills.
If the extra cooldown is being refunded, it should still count the full amount is what im trying to say is an oversight
Does adding more fuel reduction extend the amount of refunded cooldown?

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#14

I didn’t test this, but from what I’ve tested before after asking around here, SSB and DL will significantly reduce your cooldown if you jump out early.

I’ll try and confirm this at some point, or if someone else can confirm it; as far as I know cooldown is based on remaining fuel not time spent in the mech.

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#15

As far as I know it’s % based like pretty much everything else. In the limited tests I did after talking with @13igTyme about it.

I paused in the middle of this comment to test again SSB, here is my results:

I respec in normal mode and then relog and change to tvhm to avoid glitches also while wearing Rough Rider for the whole test.

5 points in FITSD and 5 points SSB only, no com no relic. Getting in and out as fast as I can and timing with a stopwatch from when Moze’s feet hit the ground, I get 45-46(45.5) seconds after 3 relogs/tries.

Respec again same gear no skill points spent at all and same process, I get 36 seconds. 3 tries, same results 36 seconds.

I couldn’t believe this so I added the 5 points back into SSB and tried again just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. This time again I get 45.5 seconds.

Conclusion taking SSB is actually detrimental if you want your cooldown back asap in an Autobear build.

I have -12.65 in ASC Guardian stats for accuracy sake.

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Moze Fuel Bug with the Stainless Steel Bear Skill
#16

Wow, interesting stuff. Try it without a shield at all. Maybe the Rough Rider had a bug added when they fixed the “never depleted” bug. Maybe the game registers a shield and Topped Off inversely effects it with SSB.

#17

Yep just tried again same results 36s with no skill points spent, 45.5 with 5 in SSB. Same process, this time no shield.

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#18

Wow. Maybe I had the respec bug when I was playing the other day. I was mostly testing guns and only use IB on occasion.

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#19

This bug is a curse, it takes very intentional steps to get it to not skew the results haha.

That’s very interesting. I will have to try this out, it doesn’t skew my results in this post as I obviously wouldn’t put points into SSB. But that’s a weird result.

Maybe that visual bug with SSB doesn’t affect your total fuel but it does count as missing fuel for cooldown purposes?

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#20

So basically… “if you spend points on bear you should use it” i was really hoping for an opposite result