Hey there, been a while !
I just wanted to share my personal endgame FL4K build I use for pretty much everything, but most notably for consistently running through Solo M4 True Takedown with success.
My aim with this was to make a build combining FL4K’s sky-high damage potential with enough survivability to get out of sticky situations, and this is achieved with only two weapons : the Unseen Threat for ridiculous boss-killing damage, and an Anointed Brainstormer with Life Steal on Action Skill End as an amazing utility weapon for AoE damage, cooldown mitigation and survivability.
(by the way, I’m going to write “ASE” a lot. For those who don’t know : “ASE” stands for “Action Skill End”, it’s a type of Anoint that as the name suggests grants a bonus upon Action Skill End.)
ACTION SKILL : RAKK ATTACK!
AUGMENTS : FALCONER’S FEAST, FLOCK 'N LOAD
Rakk Attack! is going to be our Action Skill of choice for the simple reason that it’s the best at taking advantage of Action Skill End Anoints, which is what this build is going to rely on. This comes at the cost of losing the aggro pull that would come with FL4K’s other Action Skills. Falconer’s Feast and Flock 'N Load allows us to get the most out of the Rakks, since they’re not gonna be doing any damage and we don’t really have to worry about cooldown. If you want a third Rakk, you can replace Flock 'N Load with Rakkcelerate.
OPTIONAL : FADE AWAY with NOT MY CIRCUS and UNBLINKING EYE
I’ve tried using Fade Away and have found it to be slightly more survivable but not as damaging because the Unseen Threat doesn’t get enough crits to get our cooldown back. This makes us much more reliant on the Brainstormer to get our cooldown back and proc our ASE Anoints again. It is an option, but I would recommend the Rakks over this.
PET : any pet will do here. I use the Countess Spiderant but you can use anything you want.
SKILL TREE : Here is the Skill Tree we’re gonna be using. Of course, feel free to change some things based on your personal preference if you want to.
We definitely want to go down the Hunter tree for this, as skills like Megavore and Head Count as well as the Hunter skills are going to be mandatory for cooldown mitigation and allowing us to proc our ASE Anoints on demand, more specifically our Brainstormer’s Life Steal Anoint who will also be our main Megavore + Head Count because of how many ticks of damage it has, allowing us to mitigate the Rakk cooldowns.
Megavore also synergizes extremely well with the Unseen Threat, allowing us to proc this weapon’s special effect without hitting actual crit spots, which is absolutely essential. Another great synergy with the Unseen Threat is Two F4ng, since it’s a single bullet weapon and this skill basically doubles the damage at a periodical rate, which is highly efficient in this case. You don’t see it on every build because it’s worthless with multi-pellet weapons, only adding one projectile.
Since we were speaking of Life Steal, since we’re gonna be at full health a lot of the time, we have a really good synergy going on with The Power Inside, giving us +50% damage for 15 seconds upon throwing our Rakks. That’s a LOT of damage when combined with all the damage we already have in our Anoints, Gear passives and other damage skills.
For the rest of the Stalker tree, we want to grab some Health Regeneration in combination with All My BFF’s to keep our pet alive, and get some more damage as well.
WEAPONS : Unseen Threat and Brainstormer
These two are gonna be the bread and butter of this build, to the point where you literally don’t have to use anything else. See the gameplay below where I solo the M4 True Takedown with only these two bad boys.
The Unseen Threat is going to be our main weapon, the Gateway to Death’s realm as I like to call it. It’s without a doubt FL4K’s best Sniper Rifle, with the potential to pretty much one shot every enemy in the game and every boss phase as well thanks to its special effect that spawns 3 homing missiles upon scoring a critical hit. An ideal one would be a 100% Damage ASE but you honestly don’t even need an Anoint for it to do its job. Just try to get a decent Anoint and you should be good to go.
The Brainstormer is our utility weapon : think of it as the glue that makes this build stick together. It is ridiculously good at dispatching crowds and mitigating cooldown even with no damage Anoint, and that’s thanks to FL4K’s sheer amount of damage output.
Be advised though : you will definitely want an Anointed ASE Life Steal Brainstormer for this, as this is going to be a major contributor to our survivability. It drops from any suitable loot source but has an increased drop chance from Katagawa Ball in Skywell-27.
And that’s literally all you need. You’re free to fill the two extra slots with whatever suits you best.
SHIELDS :
What will matter a lot for your Shield is how tanky it is and especially the Anoint you have on it. Try to get a decent shield with an Elemental Damage ASE Anoint at all costs, then gradually farm for a better shield with that Anoint.
As for which Shield to use, there are many options for you to choose from here :
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Stop-Gap : my personal favourite. 5 seconds of total invulnerability is a true life saver and allows us to stay alive in situations we couldn’t have survived with another shield. Drops from any loot source but has an increased chance of dropping from El Dragón Jr. in the Jakobs Estate.
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The Transformer : another one I really like. Shield healing from any Shock damage combined with 40% bullet absorption is really good and handy to have in a lot of situations (for example, if you shoot a Repeller Maliwan unit with your Brainstormer you’ll actually get shields back instead of miserably downing yourself. It drops from every loot source but has an increased chance to drop from Killavolt in Lectra City.
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Old God : amazing elemental resistance and actually buffs the damage it’s resistant to, so you get a good combination of DPS and tankiness. It’s kind of a bitch to farm though, as it has no designated drop source as of right now. Try to farm all the Red Chests in every location on Xylourgos.
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One-Shotter Shield/Version 0.m : Amp shields are pretty situational. You’ll want to use them mostly for bosses, but definitely not for mobbing. The One-Shotter Shield has the highest Amp boost in the game and very low recharge delay, but has very low capacity and is extremely difficult to find, as it drops from Zed vending machines and it’s pretty rare.
The Version 0.m on the other hand has lower Amp damage but isn’t nearly as squishy and is a pretty frequent drop from the Valkyrie Squad and Wotan The Invincible. It also has a decent special effect where it generates a damage boost area upon shield break.
CLASS MODS :
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Cosmic Stalker : the one I use most of the time. I’d say it’s the best for mobbing and doing Takedown, because of all the buffs it gives you. Try to get as many points in Big Game as possible on it, because this skill buffs every Hunter skill.
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DE4DEYE : the one we’ll want to use for bossing, and you might prefer it for mobbing as well. The passive is really good, making those one-shot kills more consistent, and it boosts Two F4ng which is a tremendous boost to the Unseen Threat. Try to maximize Two F4ng on it.
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Bounty Hunter : another really good COM a lot of people seem to really like. 3% chance to proc any Hunter Kill Skill on hit is really good when paired with the Brainstormer since it’s gonna be doing a lot of damage ticks. Try to go with as much The Most Dangerous Game points as possible.
As for the passives on every of these, aim for as much damage as possible.
RELICS :
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Otto Idol : amazing survivability for FL4K, allowing you to get some good health regeneration when chaining kills with the Unseen Threat. You can go for Snowdrift if you want the mobility, or Last Stand if you want even more survivability. It drops from any loot source but has an increased chance of dropping from Tyreen The Destroyer in Destroyer’s Rift. Glad to see this relic going from trash-tier in BL2 to pretty good in this game !
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The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge : more damage, if somehow you didn’t have enough of it. Claptrap gives it to you during the DLC 2’s main quest, and it has fixed “parts” aside from some of the passives, which don’t really matter. You do sacrifice both mobility and survivability, but that’s 105% damage right here, and it’s very easy to build with the Brainstormer because of all the damage ticks.
GRENADES :
Seriously, any grenade with an Elemental Damage ASE Anoint will do. Just go to a vendor and get one for every Elemental type, you’ll never need to throw a greande. You’re just in for the passive damage. In case you want the absolute best you can get, I recommend It’s Piss for the debuff. It’s an exclusive drop from Captain Thunk and Sloth in Konrad’s Hold.
Another really good option if you really want to incorporate Grenades in your gameplay is the Hunter-Seeker due to how many synergies it has with FL4K. It can natively crit and crit with Megavore as well, allowing for ammo return via Leave No Trace as well as cooldown reduction with Head Count. You can get it from any drop source.
GAMEPLAY TIPS :
Unseen Threat will one-shot pretty much anything as long as you can consistently hit your shots, so you’re gonna run around and shoot this thing and chain kills. It’s also your boss killer, it one shots pretty much every phase of every boss. One interesting thing you can do with it is cancel the reload with your Action Skill, which actually makes your gameplay much more fluid and artificially increases your reload speed.
For situations where you know you’ll be hard-focused by a group of enemies or when you’re in a pickle : switch to the Brainstormer and spam it while making sure the Anoint is on so you don’t die. Not only you’ll survive the focus fire, but you’ll wipe out the entire group of enemies. And the more enemies, the better ! However, enemies at range can still be a threat to you.
FL4K is all about aggression : the best defense is a good offense. Kill enemies before they kill you, and with FL4K you have the ability to do that thanks to the high damage potential you have. It also goes without saying that using the Unseen Threat requires decent aim to use, so if you’re an experienced FPS player you should feel right at home.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO :
Mayhem 4, True Takedown mode. I didn’t skip any enemies aside from the Ratches at the start, and it ended up being a 13 minute run so it’s a pretty fast run for someone just wanting to farm some legendaries with a build not fully optimized for speed but rather for having something to consistently run through the True Takedown for farming purposes.
I’ll admit the Kraken fight was pretty bad though, RNG wasn’t on my side with those crits.
CONCLUSION
That’s pretty much it for this build, I’ve been wanting a good all-purpose Sniping build with some decent backup and so far this build has been treating me really well. Good to be back anyway. If you have any questions, objections or suggestions to improve this build feel free to tell !
