Hello everyone, I am back today with another Gaige build. This time we will be focusing on bringing the best out of Gaige’s action skill “Deathtrap”. This build will be significantly less viable without the UCP (much better scaling for Deathtrap and some of his skills), so tread with caution if you are not using it. This build allows for Deathtrap to excel while also keeping Gaige from just standing there and watching (although if you want to… you can). This build incorporates elements and ideas from my recently posted Elemental Gaige build (Elemental Gaige Build (OP 10, UCP 5.0.3)) to keep Gaige’s damage relevant but making Deathtrap a true force to be reckoned with. This build is not tested in the Digistruct Peak but it should work just fine once you start building up some Anarchy. However, the build is tested in OP10 and is pretty great for general mobbing and gameplay. Deathtrap wreaks havoc and soaks up aggro while you rain hell upon them from the back. It is a really fun build and you should definitely give it a try if you like Deathtrap! Any feedback is good feedback so please let me know what you think!
Note: There is not really any necessary gear for this build other than the Legendary Roboteer com. I explain all my gear choices in the video but in case you don’t want to watch I would recommend using a Blockade, Chain Lightning, Shock Bone, Roboteer, Slag weapon of choice (I prefer Slag Slowhand for healing too), Shock Veruc/Hail, Twister, and then whatever you want really. If you want a more in-depth explanation for my gear choices, that is covered in the video!
My Bandit rep Mechromancer had a Deathtrap-focused build she’d use sometimes. Given the nature of how the skills cool down, her combo of Explosive Clap (with some UCP love), The Stare (also with some UCP love) and Robot Rampage were such that I could predict and time which attacks he’d throw, making it easier to stay in front of him with slag, grouping, and the like. If you’re down with the UCP, those two skills (combined with Robot Rampage, which is Deathtrap’s real damage source in higher levels) have a fantastic cadence with each other.
My other Mechromancer used One Two Boom, and the timing of that threw the others too out of whack to reliably predict (though being able to aim the first OTB on command was nice), so after this first one, she just rolled with it whenever she heard him winding up a shot.
That sounds incredibly interesting! Really cool that you know the timings of Deathtrap and his AI that well. His AI is usually the bane of any build so being able to work around him and plan better attacks sounds really cool. So, essentially The Stare, Explosive Clap, and Robot Rampage work the best together? Otherwise, only use One Two Boom or his AI gets bugged out really bad? I’d love to see some gameplay of this if you have it! Building around Deathtrap is one of my favorite ways to play.
It’s the cooldown between them, and their duration. Those three are relatively quick to execute, and their cooldowns are approximately the length of time needed for two of them to execute, so he can almost rotate through those three continuously.
I love One Two Boom, but I try to have my two Mechromancers built as differently as possible, and One Two Boom would throw the combat cadence off for me with that set (plus this other Mechromancer was built way more heavily in the Little Big Trouble tree for the shock enhancements).
Man, it still feels weird not playing BL2 even though it’s been like a year… like it was largely non-stop from release to, well, shortly after BL3 came out. Someday I’ll fire it back up, and I’ll have no idea what I’m doing.
Okay yea! That makes sense to me. For my Elemental Gaige build I use One Two Boom and The Stare since it synergizes well with the elemental damage. However, it seems like it might make more sense to just run OTB for the shock build so it doesn’t throw Deathtrap off too much. I am a huge fan of all the one point skills (explsoive clap, OTB, etc.) in the UCP so I am certainly down to try different variations of those skills. I will try out the Explosive Clap, Stare, and Robot Rampage together and see how it performs on my Deathtrap focused build. Thank you for the suggestion(s)!
Yea, I just recently purchased BL3 and I have been enjoying it but something about BL2 and the mods made by the community always keeps me coming back. Thanks for your feedback though! Please feel free to leave more and let me know what you think is viable or interesting. Down to try many different things.
The Stare (when it works with a little UCP love) is fantastic because unlike his other attacks, it can’t miss. Enemies can’t even hide behind cover… never figured out how to get him to use it for airborne enemies.
Explosive Clap was my favorite because it’s just so… je ne sais quoi. I had the animation sped up a little bit to make it easier to catch squirrely enemies (and a little extra damage), but of all his action skills, Explosive Claps are the ones that I’d stop to watch.
Yea, I have noticed The Stare doing some serious work on UCP and it is really nice that DT basically can’t mess it up… unlike some of the other skills. Explosive Clap is another that I have tinkered around with and I’ll have to give it another try with The Stare + Robot Rampage. Thanks for the feedback! I’ll probably be doing some other miscellaneous Gaige content so any advice or cool builds to try out is welcome! Have you ever tried Flame of the Firehawk DT focused build? I was thinking it could be pretty funny but maybe not all that good… lol. Her shield skills don’t synergize very well with it unfortunately but I could see Deathtrap doing well with it or the Love Thumper. Both might just be inferior to the Hide but I may give them a shot.
I have, but I was lurking at OP3 most of the time; I thought it worked quite well there myself.
Flame of the Firehawk works great. Enemies generally keep it down so it’s constantly going, and if it doesn’t kill them, it’ll wash them in flames while he does his normal attacks. It’s brutal.
Hide of Terramorphous was his main shield for my Bandit rep; Deathtrap can take advantage of all its perks.
The Love Thumper combined with Robot Rampage is one of the most lethal combos I think I ever gave him.
The Black Hole is great on him too when I’m going all shock.
All shock, all day (One Two Boom, Black Hole, Electric Burn, Shock Storm… )
I come for Deathtrap with the Hide, but stay for the PhysX goop.
This is what I mean by Explosive Clap. I mean, it’s one thing to kill them, it’s another to knock their body into a ravine with some authority.
Pre-UCP, desperately trying to get One Two Boom and Shock Storm to fire a Shocksplosion. Satisfying as F, but that skill needs some more oomph to help in the OP levels (and I spent a lot of time setting this up).
Robot Rampage with the Love Thumper is lethal… just don’t get too close. (This is about right for a minimum safe distance. )
Working in tandem with Deathtrap can be super rewarding sometimes. This might still be my favorite tango with him ever. In realtime, this happened pretty fast. In case it isn’t obvious, I love Death From Above, even before it started hitting well with the UCP.
The Hide of Terra paired with Unstoppable Force and Blood Soaked Shields is wonderfully tanky. She’ll shield-tank her way through a Rift Thresher here.
Hide of Terra: a Bandit winds up standing on Deathtrap’s head; note the spike damage doesn’t hit him until he’s a little sideways from DT.
Nice! Those are some pretty funny clips you got there. I will definitely have to give the FotF and Love Thumper a more concentrated investigation then! Appreciate the vids and advice. I want to tinker around with Shock Storm a bit myself… did receive some UCP buffs and seems like a fun skill in theory. Also, funny that you are using the Madhous I just recorded some gameplay of that myself (UCP). I wasn’t really blown away but it did seem to perform reasonably on OP10. I think I could have tweaked my build a little better and I also used it on lower anarchy (didn’t help). Seems like a weapon that requires 125-150+ to really succeed.
The Madhous’ pellet split mechanic works well with Close Enough. Like BL3, I find a niche for every weapon (for better or worse) with red text. I don’t know why the Madhous got so much hate - of all the weapons that I needed to hit with the UCP or OP levels, this wasn’t one. She rolled with a shock variant that was murder for Stalkers (low and flat critters with a crit spot on their chin makes it super easy to hit them in their soft spot with the reflected bullet split). Again, I was playing at OP3. Here’s some old test footage of its interaction with Close Enough.
I really wanted to love Shock Storm, but the radius was way too small… gave it a radius bump and a skosh of damage - Gaige’s other shock skills brought it up to par for me. It pairs perfectly with Evil Enchantress because it automatically procs and buffs the storm… had some COM that hit both of those, can’t remember the name.
Yea, in my video I just kind of settled that it was decent and a fun weapon to use but certainly not something that you are missing out on. It seemed to do quite poorly without the UCP but it is a bit of a niche weapon and I am not super familiar with all of its mechanics. It needs pretty specific control groups to reach its full potential on either UCP or Vanilla imo. Shock Storm does have a bigger radius on UCP but I haven’t done a lot of testing with it. Evil Enchantress seems to have really nice synergy with it as well. As for the COM… I am not sure which one buffs those two since I never bothered with Shock Storm lol.
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