A) Snowdrift Deathless : 33% area of effect damage , grenade damage, ignite chance
B) Pearl of knowledge : mag size and fire rate
Now here are my questions:
what is better relic in this case? The 33% splash damage on deathless makes a huge difference for both IB and Short Fuse. Pearl cant roll with it and IB and short Fuse are noticeably weaker . I also have half the shield capacity with pearl, I can get my health down to 1hp thought by equipping then unequpiiing deathless to get full dps benefit of bloodless mod
can I health gate with this build somehow and not lose too much DPS?
Is Mind Sweeper potentially more DPS than my bloodletter assuming my skill tree remains the same?
I love IB and I want him to stay viable. He tends to suffer when I use Pearle relic instead . How can I keep him powerful if use pearl instead of deathless relic ? He is a beast when I equip my deathless relic due to AOE bonus as well as Phalanx doctrine a d desperate Measures
I like variety if weapons: night Hawkins, maggie , shreddifier , butcher to name a few , which is why blast master or sapper are hard for me to enjoy because they dont let me enjoy variety of weapons . Open to mind sweeper though if the mines offer better damage than Deperate measure and Phalanx of bloodless com
For some reason, I cant tell which relic I’m killing enemies with quicker: deathless or pearle. You would THINk Pearle, but it doesn’t FEEL that way in my build. Why ???
I’ve come to learn bl3 math is weird and reading cards doesn’t give you full picture or understanding, hence why I’m hoping the experts on here can offer advice
I’m no math whiz, but there’s a guide in here by prismatic called math without numbers or something that will explain things simply.
That said here’s my opinion based on what I understand of the games mechanics:
You’d be better with a Blastmaster given your skill point load out. In that case, use the pearl to replace your missing gun damage from DM on the bloodletter. The splash boost will complement the gun damage from the pearl as the seperate damage categories will multiply.
OR run a mindsweeper. And it’d be a close run thing between your artifacts.
The trick is to diversify your damage boosts across categories that will multiply against one another. You can work it out roughly by putting your damage boosts in columns on paper according to type. Got lots of one type and not another? Shuffle things about to balance things. The trick is to know what boosts fall into which category.
You have gun damage, splash, v1, v2, crit and elemental, the pearl is its own type and there’s at least one more off the top of my head. Someone like @Prismatic would know more and probably correct what I’ve told you.
But look up math without numbers in the search bar up top and that should help.
ok so your skill build is great, minus one thing; if you like IB piloting, take 4 points out of fire in the skag den and put them into grizzled. you’ll have IB available to you far more often and you’ll really be able to enjoy it more.
now for gear;
bloodletter is a fine COM, but it really wants to push you into a deathless build because its difficult to maintain health values, plus you want to take advantage of the damage you get from desperate measures. Phalanx Doctrine and Pearl don’t scale well together, either, so if you’re using the pearl, it can weaken the effective damage you’re getting out of the tree.
if you like variety in your weapons, Mindsweeper is the COM for you. the playstyle takes a good amount of time getting used to, because you have to be good with hitting crits and you have to be wary of your distance from enemies so that you don’t down yourself with the micro grenades. MS is capable of some really ridiculous damage as well. you want to treat it the same way you treat short fuse, and because of this, the Pearl isn’t always the ideal artifact for it. for weapons that can’t roll the 160 splash anointment you want a last stand or snowdrift victory rush or otto idol with AoE, mag size and grenade damage, and then the consecutive hits anointment on weapons. and then for weapons that can roll splash damage anointments you want to keep that mag size/fire rate pearl.
the nice thing about mindsweeper is you can literally run any weapon you want, so long as it has high base damage and a decent fire rate. the Hellshock is an amazing introductory weapon for it, and its really easy to farm. also, the new jakobs AR the clairvoyance is especially outsanding on mindsweeper, but so are things like the night hawkin, star helix, and hyper focus which can all spawn in the base game and have easy to farm drop sources. heck, i’ve even made the Boomer work great with mindsweeper, and thats a weapon that everyone thinks is absolute garbage.
the other cool thing about mindsweeper is that it works with bear. bears weapons will proc mindsweeper both in and out of it. its actually really fun to use cryo mini-guns and watch the little ice-bombs freezing things in an AoE.
Thanks man, the thing is though blast master is a no go for me because I refuse to be forced into using only splash damage weapons … but I’ll give mind sweeper a try …
right now is the time to do it. the bosses from the trials are dropping their dedicated drops at a very high rate, so the Tink of Cunning is the place to go! its also one of the simpler trials, too, and since its a class mod, you don’t need to have mayhem modifiers to get an increased chance at anointed items.
Edit: an ideal mindsweeper has 1 pt in redistribution, as few points in torgue cross promotion as possible, and splash and grenade bonuses. the stats are more important than the skills, though, since reloading doesn’t matter.
I’m confused , do the mini grenades count as grenades? Would they crit using Pull the Holy Pin, and if they do will they proc thier own mini grenades? Sounds OP
Also do your thrown grenades , when they crit using pull holy pin , have a chance to proc the mini grenades ? What about Short Fuse that procced off a crit hit?
Dude I’d love that since your the best BL math experts on here
I want to generally keep my skill trees but thinking of mind sweeper might be better than deathless ? Also what shield is best with mind sweeper since I’m suddenly having health again
Yes to everything you just said about Mind Sweeper nades proccing themselves and the like.
Short Fuse Procced off a critical hit doesn’t do anything for Mind Sweeper.
Shield recommendation wise I generally prefer either Rechargers or Big Boom Blasters. Though recently I’ve been playing with an Old God and that can also be excellent.
Old God is just an all round solid shield. The elemental resistance is a nice protection and the damage it gives is also nice. Something else unique about it is that it can roll 3 additional augments. So if you get lucky you could have something like 3 absorb rolls on it for a 40% absorb chance.
I prefer not to go fire element if I have the choice as Stoke the Embers already buffs fire damage. So in the set up I’ve been playing with a Clairvoyance I use a cryo one to buff my main gun.
here’s an example of the COMs potential. first photo is without a grenade crit. thats just the base nade value with the firestorm with no anointments active, just my skill build and the bonuses from my artifact and COM on an amped shot. second is with the 160 splash anointment active, where a base nade crit and proced a second nade.
And this class mod works well with any weapon right? Torgue stickies , Maggie etc?
Also I understand the mini grenade takes element of the shot that spawns it, but what if you crit and have Experomental munitions? Are the mini grenades going to before fire and other element?
Fair enough. I think you’ll find that your skill setup will tend to favour splash weapons naturally anyway, but like what was mentioned above, any high base damage weapon with a decent fire rate should suit you. Mindsweeper is a perfect fit for that. I switch back and forth depending on what coms I find in the wild.
