Canadian Nuclear Curling Champion
Harder. Haaaarrrd. HAAAAARRRRRD!!!
Contents
- Overview and Development
- Skills
- Guns
- Elements
- Support Gear
- Anointments
Overview and Development
As much as Moze is my favourite class, and realistically the only class I have serious play time on in BL3, I’ve never really felt satisfied with any build I’ve come up with or used. They’ve all felt like they were short on something, or there was a piece of functionality that just didn’t sit right with me. Blast Master ended up being my go-to COM for quite a while, as I felt it had the best consistent damage output potential and the best survivability due to the guaranteed 1 point in Vampyr and being less likely to deal damage to myself.
BM always felt like it was missing big burst damage. I felt like it relied on gimmicky things to down big health pools fast rather than play to its own strengths. Boss killing with BM felt forced, rather than fluent with what the build was about, and that, to me, was what really felt off. I could mob to my hearts content, but if I wanted to burst bosses I had to do something the build didn’t want to. Additionally, the “no reload” clause was really starting to get to me. I like optimized weapons, and the amount of damage that often gets sacrificed to make BM work felt wrong.
However, last week I started testing out both of the storm weapons, and the firestorm in particular put my back onto Mindsweeper. And then it dawned on me just what MS is. It’s Short Fuse in COM form. It’s a 25% chance to deal 100% damage dealt on a critical hit, except that it can be proc’d by grenades as well. Just as SF does, it double dips on the bonuses that it can (not the same ones as SF, but it has a wider pool), and so long as you’re hitting crit spots consistently the damage is a drastic improvement over BM. While mobbing, you’ll literally delete entire collections of mobs at once. While bossing, you’ll wonder if the target was even there to begin with, and only the loot pool that remains will remind you something existed there.
This build does require a hefty level of awareness. Mindsweepers micro grenades can not only hit you, but you can proc a cascade grenade on yourself, which is pretty much a guaranteed FFYL. Keeping your distance is very important. Getting back up isn’t a problem at all for this build, but you don’t want to run down that FFYL timer prematurely and then not have it when you really need it during a TTD run.
This also classes as a grenade build. You are going to be using grenades very consistently, and they also account for a large amount of your damage potential due to the preferred rolls on gear. I’ve seen my CMT crit for 17k, and a 17k hit with MS can cascade into much bigger micronade hits very quick.
Some math for reference:
Pros
- Extremely high damage potential
- Flexibility in guns
- Excellent mobbing AND bossing performance
- MR. TORGUE HIGH-FIVE FELXINGTON WILL BE PROUD OF YOUR DEDICATION TO BLOWING ■■■■ THE ■■■■ UP
Cons
- COM and artifact rolls are important
- Blowing yourself the ■■■■ up
But enough is enough; let’s get into the details.
Skills
This is the boring section because in reality it’s just a minorly tweaked Short Fuse build
The M2.0 update has given us a bunch of new things to play with. First, TCP has been changed to give 6% splash damage per rank. Even with the ability to off ourselves, this splash damage is worth taking. Along with a 5TCP Mindsweeper, this will give us 60% splash damage and 30% chance to double our radius. This inherent splash damage in the tree plays off of our micro-nades incredibly well and pushes the build into M10 nicely.
You’ll also see that we’ve opted for 5/5 Scrappy over STE. Scrappy now gives 6% weapon damage per rank, and the handling and mode switch options are nice, too. With that, I’ve taken the points out of DIB and gone to a full 5/5 Vladof Ingenuity. the 46% Shock resistance is definitely beneficial, and VI now offers some shield regen stats as well.
Lastly, I’ve taken the one point wonder out of FitsD. With TCP being in the build, the chance at self damaging is way to high to even entertain the thought of any points in FitSD.
Guns
This is a pretty open category. I’m still working on weapons that work with this setup, but generally weapons that are good on Moze as a whole are good with this setup. It does have the added benefit of not requiring a splash weapon to be good, as it’s only concerned with the base output of the weapon. However, splash weapons, particularly ones that can receive the 160 anointment, will perform at a high level out of the box because they’ll be benefiting from your COM and artifact stats.
The things you want to look for in your weapon are a decent fire rate to maintain consistent firing and rate of proccing the com, and a relatively high card damage value. If the card damage gets too low, the COM really starts to underperform.
The standout performer with Mindsweeper is absolutely the Kaoson.
Kaoson
This weapon is the real deal. It’s the weapon that Mindsweeper has been waiting for since its release in September. It fires splash damage stickies that deal full damage as splash on impact and then explode for more damage as splash shortly after. The stickies can crit, giving two opportunities to proc Mindsweeper per pellet. This item is a straight up upgrade over the Kybs. It comes in every element AND kinetic, and can spawn with an x2 projectile part. It also has a much higher base damage than a Kyb’s, Redistributor or Hyperfocus.
TL;DR it slaps, and you want one.
Preferred anointments are Consecutive Hits and 300% v2 over 90% health
Kyb’s Worth
The kyb’s has been flat out the best performer by far. In both anointment variants it just shreds through mobs without caring. I can count the seconds it takes to delete bosses like traunt on one hand, and it’s the primary weapon I use for TTD’s, including the wotan fight. It has the perfect balance of fire rate and card damage and has the added benefit of two elements in one. Also, because it’s a dual element Maliwan weapon, it has an abnormally high radiation damage value. Because Maliwann weapons have elements, Radiation weapons get defaulted to the standard elemental damage loss rather than its own specific. Tl;dr = radiation maliwann weapons deal more damage relative to standard radiation balancing.
Ideally, you’re looking for a Rad+Cryo Kyb’s with a 24 round mag in BOTH anointments.
Hyperfocus/Redistributor
These SMGs aren’t as powerful as the Kyb’s, but they still serve a very strong function, and I haven’t found a weapon that gets as close to the Kyb’s as it does that’s available in all elements.
The main function of the Redistributor is for nailing groups of mobs that are too spread out to kill as a group with the Kyb’s, as well as to serve as an excellent FFYL weapon. It’s great as a FFYL weapon because you don’t need to find the enemy with the lowest health; you just fire at the closest target once you go down and the gun will do the rest. You don’t have to worry about whether you can clear the Badass Heavy that’s swarmed you before your meter runs out, as the Redistributor will catch something else. The Hyperfocus does the opposite. It has very impressive single target damage due to its projectile multiplier. It can work for multiple targets, too, but it really excels at single target.
Look for these in both Cryo and Radiation with the consecutive hits anointment, preferably with the 25 round mag (Redistributor only; Hyperfocus has a guaranteed mag part).
Good Juju
This gun was recently buffed to include a stacking crit bonus of 20% per shot on normal shot impacts, up to 500%. what that means is that after 6 trigger pulls that impact non-crit spots, the Juju will have a 500% crit bonus modifier. This only goes away on manual reload, so you can fire to your hearts content, and so long as reloads are only automatic ones for emptying a mag, you’ll never lose the bonus until you switch away or force a reload. It also doesn’t need to reload very often, as it refills its mag on kill. This weapon has the strongest single target mobbing weapon I’ve tried to date. Other spray and pray weapons can perform a little better when
Clairevoyance
OK. This weapon is a must have. Its ability to crit twice on a single pellet, tied in with ridiculous base damage makes this an optimal choice. It only comes in cryo, but that’s only a negative against heavy shields. Even then, the base damage is high enough that you can plow through most shields while mobbing. Look for this with the Gatlin’ prefix for full auto.
Consectuive Hits with Gatlin’
Hellshock
Ok, I just got a good roll on a CH hellshock, and this thing slaps. The damage is high, the fire rate is obscene and it just pumps out damage. its as good as the kybs, and i’d rather use it over a shock/fire kybs. the major drawbacks that it has are simply that it doesn’t have splash damage, so it doesn’t regen grenades/ammo through MOD on its own pellets. otherwise its a ridiculous weapon.
Look for the CH anointment with at least 1500 damage
Fire / Storm
These snipers recently got buffed, and good god do they ever slap. They will delete health bars and equally destroy mobs. Their limitation is total ammo pool, which restricts them as functional mobbing weapons. However, they’re very easy to farm and they perform outstandingly. These are meant to be used in conjunction with Iron Bear proccing so keep that in mind.
Look for them with the 160 splash anointment.
Soulrender
This AR from Dahl has a great effect that fires out explosive homing skulls at random when you fire. The high base damage of the weapon and the high splash damage of the skulls makes it a wonderful weapon to use. You want this in a full-auto mode, however, as the burst fire delay makes it slow. It also comes in all elements.
Consecutive Hits with Full-Auto
Hellfire, Night Hawkin’ and Krader’s EMP5
All three of these SMGs performed incredibly well largely due to their insane fire rates. With the Hellfire’s newly buffed damage, its particularly effective with splash damage on artifact and COM. If it wasn’t for how quickly it clears through a mag, it would be a top gear contestant for blast master. IF the splash anointment is added the the Hellfire, it would be the preferred anointment.
Look for these with the adapting prefix and the consecutive hits anointment
Star Helix
This weapon surprised me. It shouldn’t, but it did. It lacks splash damage, but the base damage is about 15% higher than a Kyb’s, and it fires one more projectile in relatively the same patter, increasing your SF and MS proc rates. Additionally, its available in Cryo, Radiation and Kinetic giving you the desired elements, as well as kinetic if you just prefer to go standard.
Consecutive hits anointment
Ogre
It’s a splash weapon. It shoots fast. It has the good damages. It makes a lot of popping sounds. Seriously, between the COM and the weapon, there was a point where if it ended up in my loadout, the build might have been called Popcorn Carpet Bomber.
Consecutive Hits Anointment with x2 pellets
Things I haven’t tested that should work:
Hellshock – CH
Soulrender
Clairvoyance
Westergun - splash
Insider
There are tons of other weapons that are functional with this build, but these are just the weapons that performed best as I went along. I am absolutely looking for new things to try, especially for Wotan. The Kybs worked, but I’d like it to go faster if possible to skip more minion spawns. However, here’s a quick list of things that under-performed, just to give an idea what doesn’t work.
Super Shredifier
Lucian’s Call
Rowan’s Call
Lead Sprinkler
BotD
Krakatoa (too much ammo)
Elements
When elements can be chosen, there’s really only two choices for this build; Cryo and Radiation with radiation being the majority of your usage.
As time has gone on, radiation to me, particularly on builds utilizing splash, has shown to be the far superior element with regards to mobbing. The cascading damage of exploding bodies and the aura of ticking enemies seriously increases Moze’s overall output when there are multiple enemies around. With mindsweeper grenades exploding enemies like little nuclear bombs taking out the other mobs around them, groups of mobs just disappear when our damage is ramped up. It also helps sustain our anointments even better as the DoTs transfer from one target to another without a fresh grenade or focusing on them.
Cryo is our secondary element because its crowd control with mindsweeper is unparalleled. One of the consistent issues with MS is keeping mobs close enough to the micronade to actually hit them. With Cryo they’re kept in place or kept from moving away too fast to escape the grenades proximity. Additionally, because mindsweeper grenades damage match the element of the damage that spawned them you’re getting aoe cryo grenades that further control enemy movements on surrounding mobs as well as your initial target.
This is not to say that Fire, Shock and Corrosive can’t be used with this build; they absolutely can, and for big single targets without nearby mobs they’re preferable. It’s just that the aforementioned elements work far better with the COM than the other three, due to the nature of their secondary effects, rather than their elemental damage bonuses.
Support Gear
Shield
There isn’t a particular shield that this build needs, but my two recommendations are the Double Downer and the Big Boom Blaster. The BBB should be the general mobbing and bossing shield, as well as the scaled take down shield, and the DD should be reserved for TTDs.The reality is you need the extra FFYL time with the Double Downer. You can use whatever shield you like, but imo, until the Band of Sitorak is fixed or we no longer label it as exploitative, I think it’s the best offensive shield for Moze, largely because its capacity doesn’t matter due to the boosters, and the boosters facilitate a 50% amp damage BBB very well, making it arguably better than a one-shotter due to the consistency with which you can get off amped shots. Those amped shots will boost your Mindsweeper capabilities and when you’re using the redistributor it will make shots chain more often, making it a great option all around.
With the addition of M2.0, the Double Downer comes much more recommended. With the changes to TCP, and the increased difficulty, you’re going to go down more frequently. You’ll get up even faster than before, but you’re going to more than likely need this shield.
Grenade
The CMT is the standout grenade option here. The reason is that as a grenade it actually deals effective damage. With the rolls you’re looking for on COM and Artifact you’re going to find that your grenades actually have real DPS potential, and because they can proc Mindsweeper, you want a grenade that actually deals damage. If you don’t have one, a Recurring Hex can suffice as it will ramp up your CH anointments very quick, but the shear damage you’ll actually get out of a CMT make it the only real choice here. Ghast Call would get the #2 slot as an honourable mention if it could spawn with anointments, but the damage we get from the global thrown anoint is too much to pass up.
A new grenade i’ve been working with is Tina’s Hippity Hopper. This grenade is specifically for the Wotan fight. the usage is throw it under Wotan’s body so that the MIRVs blow out under his body. the damage it can do is insane. The only drawback is that it only functions when Wotan is on the ground. It can be gotten in all elements, so you could even pair a shock and corrosive one and swap between the two, but i’ve cleared double shields with just the corrosive one i have.
Artifact
Realistically you can use whichever type of artifact you like, but here are the top choices;
- Last Stand Victory Rush
- Ice Breaker Victory Rush
- Snowdrift Victory Rush
- Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge
You can swap VR for Otto Idol if you prefer, but vampy should give you more than all the healing you need. The damage from Ice Breaker is unnecessary since it’s only effective while mobbing, but if you like it, go for it.
Must have roll;
Area-of-affect Damage – this is important because the artifact version of this also increases your AoE radius. Increasing the range of your micronades is important to make sure that they actually tag enemies as they try to escape.
Ideal Roll:
- Grenade Damage
- AoE Damage
- Mag size
Mindsweeper
The name of the game is now Torgue Cross Promotion. 54-60% splash damage without relying on class mod or artifact rolls is no joke. 1 redistribution is fine, but regening ammo isn’t really important, and we have a lot of healing from vampyr already.
Ideal Rolls:
- Grenade Damage
- Splash Damage
- Manufacturer Weapon Crit
- Weapon Damage
- +1 Redistribution +4 TCP / +5 TCP
As you can see, the artifact and COM have some pretty hefty recommendations on their rolls. The reason for this is that stacking these rolls together has such a profound effect on your output from your splash weapons, your CMT, and your micro grenades. There really is a massive difference in performance between a setup without these stats and one with, and that’s why they’re so highly recommended.
Anointments
Guns
Mindsweeper only benefits strongly from two anointments; Consecutive hits and splash anoints. The consecutive hits anointment is the preferable of the two for mobbing, as it doesn’t require getting in and out of iron bear. That said, if you don’t mind the playstyle the 160 splash anoint is the higher damage of the two since it Mindsweeper and Short Fuse will double dip on that anoint, giving you higher overall damage and ridiculous burst. Additionally, because this build deletes mobs in groups at a rapid pace, IB is up constantly.
The Pearl alters this slightly. It has some negative returns when conjoined with the consecutive hits anointment. they’re still strong together, but if you’re using the pearl, you should absolutely go for the 160 splash anointment whenever possible. it performs much better with the pearl than the consecutive hits anointment does. However, one of the strengths of this build is not being pigeon-holed into splash weapons, so a lot of the weapons you go for probably don’t have the splash anoints available to them.
Shield
There’s really only one choice here: Gunner CDR kill skill anointment. This is probably Moze’s best shield anoint period. Having IB up always will make things much more fluid and you’ll never be far from your next anointment proc, or your next escape rope. Additionally, the other possible anointments don’t really help this build, so there’s no real reason to really look at them. On the other hand, because they don’t really help it at all, you really don’t need to worry about which anointment your shield has until you have the CDR anointment.
Grenade
Again, only one real choice; Global damage when thrown. This is extra important for this build compared to other builds for one big reason: Mindsweeper double dips on it. It benefits from it because it boosts weapon damage, and then it also benefits from it because it boosts grenade damage, further boosting MS procs. With ideal COM and Artifact rolls plus this anoint, we have 85% multiplicative grenade damage at all times.
That’s it! I don’t do videos really, as I don’t have software to cut and export, but happy blowing ■■■■ up!
tried so many different ways to make it maybe great but doesnt work think vladof un general needs a buff for most of their guns