I thought it would be interesting to show off the build I’m thinking of when the new skill tree comes down. It basically demolitions build with now I can have a tougher Iron bear by my side. Feel free to tell me what you think of it and what changes you would make.
Anything regarding Iron Cub or the new skill tree is pure speculation based on theory and what we’ve seen in footage so far, but I’ll bite:
Assuming Iron Cub’s DPS actually receives Mayhem-scaling and the intention of the build is to make Cub hit harder, I’d take the 1 point from Scrappy and put that into Dakka Bear. When you say ‘demolitions build’ do you mean heavy weapons? If so, it would be well worth taking a point from SRPMs and allocating it to Rushin’ Offensive.
I don’t think you’ll need any points in Deadlines and I’ll explain why when we get to the Bear Mother tree. I’ve noticed that you’re using dual explosive miniguns for Cub but there’s nothing attached to it for Cub to help out with status effects. Thus I’d take 1 point from Grizzled and put it into FitSD. I’m not sure if it still acts the same way now but before Mayhem-scaling, FitSD did the same DOT damage regardless of whether you had 1/5 or 10/5 in it.
I would assume that in your demolitions build, grenades would feature prominently so it would be a good idea to take a point away from Vampyr and put it into Pull the Holy Pin. Also consider allocating another point To the Last. Vampyr is one of those skills that doesn’t need to be maxed out at 5/5, even more so if you have other sustain skills.
If it acts anything like other bonus incendiary damage skills, Big Surplus is totally unnecessary and inferior to FitSD in almost every conceivable way. FitSD is the exception because it is explicitly based on splash damage, whereas skills like Cloud of Lead and Selfless Vengeance only apply to the bullet/projectile fired; they have no impact on splash damage or Short Fuse either. Assuming you take Rushin’ Offensive, then you also won’t need max points in Biofuel. 12% movement speed is not much, but it’s still miles better than no increase to movement speed.
When I first saw the skill tree, I thought Nitrotrinadium Engines theoretically made more sense to max out than Never Going to Give You Up, simply because the latter seemed like complete overkill. But then I saw footage of Iron Cub in action and was shocked at how much fuel (both in terms of speed and volume) it was burning through. It made Iron Cub’s card description about consuming less fuel than Bear seem like a complete lie, and suddenly NGtGYU seemed less like overkill and more like a real requirement! I would like to think that’s something Gearbox acknowledges and addresses in due time but I’m not getting my hopes up on that.
By default, Iron Bear’s fuel tank can run idle for about 120 seconds before the action skill ends. So 25% extra is another 30 seconds of AS duration. But you can refill the fuel tank by 30 seconds just by inflicting a status effect! And even though it has diminishing returns, that’s still a tremendous amount of fuel you’ll get refunded. Up to 25% max fuel refunded for just status effects is also the same reason why I would say that Deadlines is not necessary because that’s up to 6% (also with diminishing returns) and reliant on kills.
If I were to take your build and tinker with it to optimise it more but keep within the same sort of parameters that you laid out, this would be the end result that I’d roll with.