TORGUE 2.0: THE RAINBOW EXPLOSIONING
THIS BUILD HAS TOO MANY SYLLABLES. APOLOGISE!
The concept behind this build is consistent massive DPS by exploiting boosts to Short Fuse damage inherent in Moze’s skill trees, and supplementing output with multiplicative damage types not found in Moze’s skill trees through gear synergy.
Oh, and MASSIVELY-MAGICAL EYE-GOUGINGLY F—KING EXCELLENT ELEMENTAL RAINBOW EXPLOSIONS.
It’s a build that can be played equally well on foot or in Iron Bear, and actually benefits from thoughtful use of summoning. For example, Moze can fight on foot, use Iron Bear to survive a healthgate, keep fighting just as powerfully in the bear, for as long as necessary, then tactically eject to activate elemental ASE anointments for burst damage against a badass.
Moze benefits most when we as the player spread across the various damage types evenly. So this build does its best to diversify its damage across multiple categories that multiply against each other. More about how that works can be found here:
As most Torgue weapons are splash damage weapons, with small mag sizes, we’re gonna take advantage of splash damage’s synergy with the Short Fuse capstone, and use Forge, and various mag size boosts available to Moze, to remove the biggest hindrance to our DPS, reloading.
There’s such strong investment into mag size that it’s possible to mob enemies with rocket launchers. For more information on the playstyle, check out the Zero Ammo build:
Because reloading isn’t an issue, this build becomes fairly Class Mod agnostic, which means, you can pick one for a certain situation, that suits your playstyle, or is simply the best one you have available. Not needing to reload often means that the special effects of Green Monster, Sapper and Blast Master are available to us should we desire. Each class mod will have its particular benefits, but should perform similarly and all will hold up to mobbing use on Mayhem 4. My current preference is a Mindsweeper, for reasons I’ll go into later. Here’s a good explanation as to why:
Being a Blue/Green Dual Capstone Build, the build misses out on all of the skill based gun damage boosts in the red tree. Instead we’re gonna use Click, Click… and aim for a ‘weapon type’ damage roll on our class mod, such as Heavy Damage +32%, for example, because gun damage and ‘weapon type’ damage are two different things. More info about damage types and math stuff can be found here as well as in the math without numbers post up above:
We’re also going to look for a splash damage boost on our Class Mod, as there are no actual splash damage boosts in our build. The one point in Fire in the Skag Den and Short Fuse are our only beneficiaries of splash damage, and don’t actually contribute to the boosts. We can get splash boosts as weapon anointments also if we choose.
Speaking of the single point in Fire in the Skag Den it’s doing a couple of things for us. First of all it’s adding a chance to start an incendiary elemental DoT which is useful for maintaining constant damage, building up the bonuses on guns with the Consecutive Hits Anointment and the similar bonus of The Pearl of Inneffable Knowledge. Secondly, that DoT is a step toward stacking the Harmaggeddon Guardian Rank Perk Debuff and thirdly, when combined with a Hex Grenade the incendiary DoT is increased to the strength of the Hex grenade’s DoT. In this case I recommend a Cryo Hex because though the initial hit is slightly lower, using 1/5 Fire in the Skag Den still has the same dot value as 5/5 Fire in the Skag Den. The initial hit is negligible to the total damage output. Hex grenades have a high dot value and Fire in the Skag Den will match that dot value with incendiary damage whether we us 1/5 or 5/5.
@sammantixbb discovered the Cryo Hex has roughly double the DoT value of the others so this will allow us to get double incendiary dots with minimal investment Fire in the Skag Den. TL;DR: Put one point in Skag Den. It’s worth it.
This brings us to a nice point to talk about one of the other key cornerstones of this build: Harmaggeddon. The perk description reads, ‘Enemies take 5% more damage per unique status effect affecting them’. With five seperate elemental types that’s a 25% debuff and enemies can take damage from any source. Add to this a further 15% from target softening and all of sudden you’re doing 40% more damage. So how do we do this? Well we have an element on our Hex, hopefully cryo but possibly rad or shock, and that grenade can come with an ASE anointment, a different ASE can roll on the shield and we could get another from or main weapon, be it elemental or ASE. Finally we have the incendiary from that 1 point in FiTSD.
There’s an argument here instead for the 25% on grenade throw anointment, and to that I say, use it! Its V2 damage in the formulas and cannot be obtained elsewhere in Moze’s skill trees. It’s probably worth sacrificing 5% debuff for 25% buff. I haven’t found a recurring hex with 25% OGT, so I can’t confirm it either way. But I suspect it would improve the build. If I find one along the way I’ll be sure to test it out.
Either way, we want to aim to at least have Cryo and Radiation available to us at least. Here’s my reasoning:
Radiation converts massive damage into massive DoTs, benefits from AOE and splash bonus, and causes more explosions, assisting Moze’s utility skills in Healing and Ammo Regen. It is effective against shields, without penalty against health. But above all, it transmits it’s aura damage from enemy to enemy. Radiation’s ability to spread quickly is key to the elemental side of this build, letting the other elements catch-a-ride for more DoT procs, letting us benefit from the new guardian perk, Harmaggeddon.
Cryo supplements red bar damage and provides a boost against armoured targets, as well as slowing or freezing enemies for crowd control. It’s much easier to hit consistent crits when the target is slowed or not moving.
I try to stack these two elements as 50% ASE anointments, ideally having 50% Rad on a Cryo Recurring Hex, but really, with all the RNG involved just try to get what you can, where you can in whatever combination you have. The more the merrier.
Right, so far, Rainbow DoTs with a Hex grenade. Easy. But this is a Torgue build and it needs more EXPLOSIONS.
Let’s talk about Mindsweeper. ’Critical Hits have a 25% chance to spawn a micro grenade.’ That’s any critical hit, including the ones that occur naturally when throwing a Hex grenade, and the ones procced by Pull the Holy Pin That’s a whole heap of grenades. This does two things. The grenades keep us healthy with Vampyr and the sheer number of them help us improve the chances of a resonance cascade, I mean, Crit Chain. If you’ve read the link up above, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Do that. All these grenades make DoTs too, and are elemental damage if they’re spawned by it. Lastly, this splash damage should be proccing Means of Destruction so we’re getting a refund on all the Hex grenades helping to make this chaos.
PC players may prefer the tried and true CMT and Blastmaster combo instead, and that totally works, however the Consecutive Hex Method really gives Mindsweeper a solid, consistent damage output, comparable to Blast Master, as well as the crazy insta-delete chains. But it’s all or nothing, take one piece out of the combo of Hex, Mindsweeper, Pearl artifact and elemental debuff DoTs and the damage output starts to lose consistency.
If you’re on PS4, all these extra explosions will help MoD keep up with the need for more grenades. You’ll still need a BBB though.
One last thing, all of these crits and grenades and chains keep the Pearl Artifact bonus at maximum almost instantly and constantly. If you’re using the Pearl, look for Splash Damage or 125 Incendiary anointments on your weapons. If you’re using an Ice Breaker or Atom Balm Victory Rush, look for an AOE bonus roll and use Consecutive Hits anointments instead.
NOW WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO BLOW SOMETHING UP, SUCKER!
Skill Tree
Key Points:
1 in FitSD for incendiary DoTs (in case of switching com, or if your Mindsweeper didn’t roll with FiTSD)
SSB and SRPMs for maximum Short Fuse Damage output and Bear Damage
Matched Set over Iron Bank because BRAND LOYALTY
We’re not putting points in the red tree as after reaching both capstones, there’s only enough points for Armoured Infantry.
Better to grab extra mag size for better rocket regen from Redistribution. With a BBB shield and so many EXPLOSIONS shields are often down and little is to be gained from the AI boosts. PC players might like to switch the excess points to AI and use an Old God shield. I would, if I wasn’t a PS4 peasant and MoD worked. Even then, the extra mag size increases the bonus achieved by Click, Click… so Horses for Courses.
Class Mod
Redistribution is the only truly important skill here, the other points aren’t important, although, watch out if you have more points in TCP it can and will kill you, and if the explosion doesn’t the DoTs will.
It’s the most useful of the two secondary skills though as the greater range helps spread DoTs and Vampyr Hits. Remember your social distancing techniques.
Artifact
Not much to say here, It’s the pearl.
I got lucky with my rolls, cause Moze does not have any other reload speed skill.
You want mag size, and either reload speed or fire rate. But unless you like to read only farm, you get what you’re given.
Shield
BBB. Rocket Ammo and Grenades.
For parts I recommend Amp.
It’s another one of those diverse damage types that multiply against the others.
If you can get it to roll double amp even better, but the BBB comes with a bunch of useful parts regardless.
Get one with Rad or Cryo ASE. Preferably both so you can mix and match with your guns to get as many elements happening as possible.
Weapons
Any Torgue weapon will benefit from this build, but here are some of my personal highlights.
Juliet’s Dazzle
Full investment into the green tree allows us to take a splash weapon with high base damage and fire rate, and remove the issue of mag size, giving us the freedom of using the Blast Master splash bonus, or any of the hold-the-trigger class mods, while still being able to take advantage of **Click, Click…**without fear of reloading. A total of 15% magazine regen, alongside the Juliet’s Dazzle mag refill ability means ammo should never run out.
Scourge
Zero ammo capable, and our mag size boosts helps redistribution keep up a handy ammo regen. Clears mobs in the open effortlessly. Can roll elemental. Loves Some For The Road. This is our Boss Killer.
Lately, for fun I’ve been chasing scourge rockets in Iron Bear with one Vanquisher and one target softening. You can launch 2 - 3 rockets then bunny hop faster than them to the target area and paint it purple. It’s brutal.
Tigg’s Boom
High power, multi pellet. Excellent for grenade regen via MoD. Big splash elemental. Shoots as fast as you can pull the trigger. Reminds me of the old Jacobs quads. But with splash, and elemental damage. It’s so good, I’m still using one from lvl 53.
Roisens Thorns
Comes with two elements out of the box, can add a third with annointment.
Easily takes advantage of Harmaggeddon. Not the punchiest weapon, but a solid performer.
Shocker
Shoots faster and further than the Lob, making up for brutality with utility. Look for this with 125% incendiary N2M. Stack up elemental on ASE and use it like a Boomicorn. I miss that gun.
The Lob
OP meme weapon. FFYL tool, elemental orbs of death.
Flakker
What? Really? But they nerfed it into the gr…this build doesn’t care, it wants a weapon that can disperse elemental damage in a large area proccing as many DoTs as possible. The Flakker will do this. A radiation version with Cryo N2Ms should be especially potent.
Also, you’ll find that this build will also work exceptionally with Maliwan splash weapons, and Vladof splash weapons too, in some cases even better than Torgue…in fact it’s a pretty damn great allegiance build for any manufacturer. Although I’d remove the Some for the Road skill point from a Tediore build.
Grenade
Use what you can find, but ultimately Recurring Cryo Hex with 50% Radiation on ASE is optimum for this build.
Vs Graveward
Vs The Hall Obsidian
Vs VIP Tower
Vs Shaft Round 1
Vs Star Round 1
Vs Scaled Takedown to Valkyries
Vs Wotan
Coming soon
Vs TTD
Coming soon
