Help with staying alive as Gaige in uvhm

Borderlands 2 Gaige the Mechromancer
#1

my build

Ever since getting to uvhm I’ve been struggling to stay alive as gaige. I’ve looked through pretty much all the topics I could trying to find some sort of direction and I’m still not sure what exactly I’m doing wrong.

I’m specced into an anarchy build but I can never stay alive long enough to get over 50 stacks. I farmed for 2 hours to get a decent on level bee to use with my outdated fibber, which does decent damage, but the second I get hit I’m dead as I can’t kill anything without the amp damage. I used my last 8 golden keys just to get some on level elemental smgs and shotguns but they do next to no damage, so even when running my pangolin shield with ~150k shields I can’t proc BSS because nothing dies.

I’m honestly just looking for some decent gear farming recommendations. Currently at wildlife and hit a wall.

1 Like
#2

If you want the power creep
Go do that real boy mission and get a ricocheting fibber^^

#3

I’ll definitely get a new fibber, but like I said I’m currently only on wildlife preservation.

#4

Moved you to the Gaige section… Build looks ok if you’re making good use of Deathtrap for distraction and damage.

Are you slagging your targets? In UVHM, not only does slag last longer but you get slag-on-slag damage as well, while slagged targets take more damage. This is pretty necessary until you get to higher levels as it’s the only way to beat the built-in enemy health regeneration.

Best option for slag at this point is a grenade, especially one that deals damage over time - a slag bouncing bonnie/betty for example. However, with the longer slag duration it’s also feasible to use something like a slag plasma caster or SMG to paint a target then swap to your primary weapon. Also make sure you’re element matching - shock for shields, corrosive for armour, fire for flesh. IIRC elemental resistances are greater in UVHM so using fire against armour (for example) really hurts your effective DPS.

Level 58 is also in the middle of the toughest part of UVHM - you don’t quite have enough points to get the damage out of your build, and base damage from weapons plus your own health can have a hard time keeping up.

I notice you have Discord - don’t be afraid to loop that while in combat to provide additional healing, especially as you’re levelling up.

Finally, you can help yourself out by getting a Moxxi weapon. At this point, I’d recommend tipping her for a Good Touch. You can replace it every few levels to keep the damage up. Once you get past 60, you’ll be in a much better place.

1 Like
#5

Besides the fibber
I actually like using darts with gaige
No aiming needed and high element damage
Also loaders can’t reflect them
A binary shock dart might help you a lot with some anarchy stacks
But as said above
The basic understanding of “balance” in this game is very important
No slag, no damage
And the capstone might not help you enough with that
Before getting a magic missle in the tiny Tina dlc, I would suggest to do the clan war mission and farm Tector & Jimbo Hodunk for the slagga
Or any slag grenade
Probably homing or longbow and singularity

2 Likes
#6

Thanks. I noticed the sub hadn’t been active for almost a month so wasn’t sure if it’d be seen there.

Yeah, since I started UVHM I haven’t shot at much that wasn’t slagged. Still using slagga and magic missile.

I’ll look into replacing my grog nozzle though, as it stands I have a lot of trouble not having my shield being one or two shotted even when using a capacity boosted turtle shield, so maybe the healing will help me get to my next refresh of BSS.

I’ll look into that, thanks.

#7

The kitten might also be a good choice for gaige
I feel like with some good life steal + bloody shields, you can stay alive quite effectively

1 Like
#8

A few remarks that may help:

Since there is already heavy investment into DeathTrap skills, one point in Robot Rampage (Ordered Chaos, tier 2) helps with his damage output and it’s a one-point skill.

If your current one is a Ricochet Fibber, then don’t bother. That kind of Fibber is mainly a delivery system for the Bee’s amp damage. For the moment, farming the Forest in the Tiny Tina DLC to keep an on-level Bee shield is a simpler way to go.

Back to build and gear recommendations. At Wildlife, the OP should have unlocked The Good, The Bad And The Mordecai, so farming Gettle and Mobley for a Lyuda and a Veruc respectively is another way to get solid gear.

At low Anarchy levels the Lyuda is quite viable and on-level or at least near that it can make short work of many enemies (ammo consumption be damned :wink:). The Veruc can also help, even if it’s commonly not as highly rated as the Lyuda.

The Clan War missions can yield the Triquetra (solid blue Jakobs shotgun) and the Slagga, which fires projectiles at the cost of one ammo (see @lolli42 s suggestions). The Splinter Group mission can be farmed for a Storm Front which can be used quite handily for frying slagged enemies.

Apart from that, Wildlife has a lot of rushing enemies, so a shotgun may be more helpful than an SMG. If one uses Jakobs to accumulate Anarchy stacks rather quickly due to the small magazine sizes, moving a few points from The Better Half into Fancy Mathematics helps survivability.

2 Likes
#9

Appreciate all the replies. I actually took a good 2 hours to farm tinderflake and got a bunch of new gear that is actually letting me do damage and keep BSS going and I haven’t really been dying too much since that except when I make dumb mistakes. I guess the on level gear I was getting before then was just kind of mediocre.

I’ve never tried the kitten tbh, I’ll try picking one up and seeing how it does.

I was actually using this before but it seemed to fall off a bit but I’ll throw a point back in to see how it does now that I’m not just instantly dying in fights. Though I am mostly just using deathtrap as a DR supplement which seems to be working pretty well with upshot robot.

Yeah, like I said I’n already using a slagga. I actually haven’t had one not on my loadout since normal mode lol.

#10

i experienced it to like…never really hit what you want to hit
but with close enough, you can get a lot of hits anyway, its a shock weapon so you can basically kill almost the whole game with it and it has life steal so thats a huge bonus

#11

Sounds cool, I’ll definitely try it out then since I’m planning on speccing this build into a shock/anarchy build once I get a little bit closer to 72.

#12

ok
its from a side mission in the torgue DLC i think
shouldnt be too had to get

#13

It’s a Moxxi side quest reward in Torgue DLC as mentioned - once you’ve hit roughly the mid-point or so, after you’ve found Moxxi.

The thing about the Kitten is it’s an AR that thinks it’s a shotgun. It actually works quite well on Gaige with Close Enough, and it’s generally effective at mid to close range. With the right parts you can get a tighter pattern on it. In fact, it’s my go to weapon on my Maya and Axton! The other one is The Hail, which has that parabolic firing pattern. IIRC that’s from Fink’s Slaughter final round?

Those are generally going to work better if you go down the middle tree for a more elemental build, but they can be good in slag and shock versions for generally painting a mob and knocking down shields.

#14

{{Warning: I have brain damage since 2011, I may say stupid things}}

I have three Gaiges of level 72.
I am currently working on a Gaige–NoAnarchy.
So you will probably modify what I say below, because I am currently working on a non-anarchy Gaige.

Every character type will throw different types of “bad guys” at you. I usually play Salvadore, and I always get MANY MANY MANY bad guys trying to kill me. So look at who/what the Gaige character is, and what she can do, all of Gaiges strategies are based on who/what she can do. NEVER FORGET THAT. (PS: I have not, yet successfully, gotten a Zer0 in UVHM, because I guess I really don’t understand the character)

In general, in “normal mode” I start looking for a class mod that will give you a +5 on “Interspersed Outburst” on EVERY med dispenser machine. Put that in your safe in Sanctuary, you will need it in UVHM. That will free up your current grenade with, say, “Chain Lightning” if you lucky enough to get one in UVHM.

I ALWAYS start with the “Best Friends Forever” on normal mode (in my opinion) When you enter UVHM, you will want to respec your Gaige BEFORE starting in UVHM, and you will hopefully live long enough to fill up the gaps. You can use bl2skills.com to plan your skill trees.

{{PS: I actually prefer Gaige with lots of anarchy, this no-anarchy thing is an experiment}}

You could also move into Anarchy while in UVHM, perhaps start it up slowly, just 5 points in “Ordered Chaos”, but then you need to put 16 points in the left-most tree, 24 points in the middle tree, and then you rebuild all of your trees as you progress through UVHM, IMHO your first priority is the leftmost tree, then put 5 points into Interspersed Outburst, and then go crazy with your anarchy.

You need to remember that Gaige is NOT a siren/commando/assassin/gunzerker/psycho Gaige is Gaige, and you should enjoy what Gaige says when she has 400 stacks of anarchy!

#15

In UVHM farming is a necessity. You have to keep at level weapons in your hands. The weapons that I find the most success with in UVHM are:

  1. Slagga
  2. Hellfire
  3. Unkempt Harold
  4. Hornet Pistol
  5. Fastball Grenade (Shock)
  6. Lady Fist

To get throught the Wildlife Preservation, you need a good shock weapon to neutralize the Rabid Stalkers (I hate them). A shock Fastball grenade with a good fire elemental smg with fast fire rate is really handy. I prefer the Hellfire.

To clear the bots after the stalkers, I tend to use either the Teapot from Tina or the Hornet from Knuckle Dragger. The Hornet is much easier to acquire though.

A Bee shield is recommended but will leave you vulnerable defensively so go slow, pick your targets and take cover when your shield breaks. The Bee shields typically have a long Recharge Delay so be aware of how long the recharge delay is and spec acvordingly in your Badass Ranks to help reduce the recharge delay.

Other than that, its pretty much just strategy and execution that will carry you to the finish line.

#16

And in UVHM can easily be obtained multiple times without difficulty, whereas Teapot is a one-time quest reward. So yes, second the vote for the Hornet.

1 Like
#17

you might like this deathtrap build. i use a slagga low level

kill count: DT - 33 Gaige - 0

1 Like