My preferred build is a Phasecast build, but the moment that Mayhem 2.0 dropped, I was dead in the water. Literally couldn’t do any damage at all. I left it be to give them time to balance everything, but the new DLC dropped, so I came back. I was going to go through on Mayhem 1 (since that seems to be about all I can handle), but my friend was on, and wanted to do Mayhem 10. Figuring that maybe things were better with the changes to Mayhem mode, I decided to give it a try. Nothing. Even with gear dropping at Mayhem 10, my build is apparently hot garbage. I can’t fight my way out of a wet paper bag. My options seem to be to either play a cookie cutter Phasegrasp build, or give up, because no matter what I pick up, I deal no damage. Great build diversity when my choices are play a particular way or get carried through anything.
I really like Amara, and would like to play her at top level, but they seem to have leaned so hard into Maya 2.0 that nothing else is viable for her. I keep an eye on builds hoping there’s something workable, but Phasegrasp with Ties that Bind is so much better than anything else that no one bothers with anything else. The way I want to play has been dead pretty much from the start of the game, and they keep digging the grave deeper and deeper. Frankly, I’m losing hope.
Anyway, that’s my rant. Probably going to get eaten alive for it, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Feel free to flame me; at this point, I really don’t care.
you are just rusty, and need better gears that scales well on M10.
Ttb somewhat got nerf in the recent patch actually. and cast and slam are still viable builds ever since (before just to proc 250 and 300 anoints, now can do damage as per patch notes and based on this test)
I just tried it, and did nothing. I’m still only using the +50% Damage on ASE anoints, but I literally don’t have the damage to kill anything to get better drops. A basic bandit is more than I can handle: it takes my entire ammo pool to get them to maybe half health. And I’m supposed to use this to farm for anoints that will actually do something? Not happening.
Just loaded my game up to check. The 2 I have after making sure that the Hotfix sign shows up both still say +50% Cryo and +50% Radiation Damage on ASE.
Nope. Old God and Hunter Seeker, both Mayhem 1 apparently, and both say 50%. About to see if a Mayhem 10 Kaoson I got from a friend will do anything, but it’s got the 150% Radiation Damage anoint, and I have Sustainment + Forceful Expression, so no way to lock myself under 50% health to activate it.
1 Like
korben44
(Master of the Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge)
#8
Use a front loader shield to get you at 50% health. That will proc the urad anointment 100% of the time.
Don’t have a Front Loader, and I’m about to see if I have the damage to do any sort of farming that would allow me to get any gear at all. Not hopeful, though.
Well, I can farm basic enemies as long as there’s a vending machine nearby. Cannot effectively deal with Badass or Anointed enemies, as it takes every last bit of ammo I have, so nothing is left to deal with the rest of the enemies. Action Skill does no appreciable damage, though I wasn’t expecting it to, even with the supposed scaling. And if I can’t deal with Badasses, Bosses are right out.
Short version: I can farm, but only the enemies with the worst drop rates and no dedicated drops. Lots of fun.
Maybe not right now, but you can get there without too much trouble.
If you don’t have these weapons already, farm Gigamind for a Hellshock and Katagawa for a Sandhawk. Decent M6 versions of those 2 should be enough to get into M10 at least
Front Loader drops from Private Beans on Athenas, since shields don’t scale to Mayhem level you can farm him on the lower ones until you get one. Even if its not Anointed you could still get use out of it for the effect to proc your 150% Rad damage. Then keep farming him up to M10 until you get a good Anointed one and some other good Anointed gear from him and move on to other bosses/special enemies.
It’s such a huge bummer not being able to damage anything with phase slam or cast. Why even include action skill in the game and make them all visually dramatic if their only use is going to be applying a weapon damage anointment? The scaling needs to be way stronger.
korben44
(Master of the Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge)
#17
Of course you can not handle M10 if you barely manage M1. If you are not good enough to handle M1, then you just lack practice. No special Gear or Build is necessary for M1-M6. You just need practice so that you can adapt yourself to the modifiers and bullet sponges. Past M6 you need to optimise your gear and build. With the new patch, not even M10 requires something special. You just need practice.
Skill tree looks like this. Had to come up with it on my own because literally every build I see is just another Ties that Bind build. I saw a few Phasecast builds back around release, but they haven’t been kept up, so there’s nothing current that isn’t a Ties that Bind build. Also, this does not include the 3 points from the newest level cap increase, as I’m not sure what to do with them, and this whole thing is making me not want to play. If I had to do something with them, I’d probably put them into the partial skills (Alacrity and Wildfire) just to get them closer to being filled out.
As for gear, COM is Phasezerker, Relic is the Pearl, and the Grenade and Shield are whatever gives +50% Elemental Damage on ASE. Preferred weapons are SMGs; Oldridian was great before Mayhem 2.0 dropped, and I also had a Krakatoa for tougher enemies, but now neither does any good. Lots of damage numbers, no actual damage. I do need to get some better anoints, but couldn’t get kills with the gear I had, which meant I couldn’t farm better gear. The only reason I can do anything now is because my friend gave me an M10 Kaosen, and even that only got me up to the stream in Vaughn’s camp before running out of ammo. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to farm bosses when badasses take all my ammo and end up at half health. Beans I could maybe see, so I’ll have to give him a try after work, but he’s not really either a boss or a badass, so I shouldn’t have a problem. However, he’s hardly a representative sample, since he spawns by himself away from other enemies.
I suppose a huge part of the issue is just that I don’t have any guidance with builds from other players, so I can’t say “well, what I came up with isn’t working, so let’s grab a build someone else came up with”, because no one seems to care about anything that isn’t Ties that Bind, and my own build-creating skills are apparently not worth anything.
What will probably help a lot is moving 1 point in the Blue tree from Alacrity to Remnant. Then more importantly in the in the Red tree, move all five points from anima to infusion.
One of the main streamers / youtubers for this game - I think LazyData? - found out a very long time ago that anima will ramp up DOTs you put on yourself. This can include walking into elemental effects created by barrels you blow up, and might also apply to puddles enemies make if you have that Mayhem option rolled, not sure. Basically, it is easy to burn yourself down with Anima unless you are specifically mitigating it. I would bet that is part of your deaths. There are other nuances to it that I don’t recall. In any event, you will die a lot less after dropping Anima.
More importantly, with infusion now working with sustainment, you will have life steal for days no matter what gun you use. And that elemental damage also will be boosted by your tempest points.
And just to add, the way the game deals with bonus damage is making an extra projectile packet, which has all your various modifiers attached to it because it is a new and independent “bullet”. Even when infusion did not work with sustainment, people (at least streamers and etc.) used to often take one point specifically to make an extra, discrete damage packet, which can make more overall damage because of how the calculations work out when you have extra damage packets (I think, been a while since I read it). It also makes for more ricochets (which I am 100% sure of).
Additionally, you probably want soul sap with your Phasecast. And for mobbing you really want something that hits more than once. Grasping is honestly ideal, but if you are dead set against TTB maybe try eternal fist or some of the phasecast variations and see what you think.
