Urad pet builds now?

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

For a while now, the Urad set up has been a popular one for Fl4k. Typically, you go down to Megavore in red tree, Pack Tactics / Shared Spirit in blue and Lick the Wounds in green. Pair that with a Red Fang class mod, the Front Loader + Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge or a powerful shield + Deathless setup and some decent Urad weapons and you have a build ready to take on most endgame challenges.

In the past two weeks, however, there have been some prominent changes that will effect this build:

  • Purple tree has dropped. Do we want to sacrifice the green points to get a Faulty Star or Beskar for our pet? (does a pet wearing Beskar get Frenzy stacks from ricochet projectiles?)
  • Blue tree got some buffs. Notably, Dominance might mean the Red Fang could be replaced with a Cosmic Stalker / Bounty Hunter / Stackbot class mod. The new Hive Mind looks good as well.
  • With the Dominance change, it could be that Gamma Burst is no longer necessary at all and we could go for Fade Away or Peregrine + Rakk Attack.
  • Enemy weapons no longer get Mayhem scaling so players who were leaning on He Bites! may no longer wish to do so.
  • Players who were using “fakebursting” will no longer be able to do so.

Suffice to say, the settled meta for Urad builds is no longer so settled. Fl4k mains, what adaptations should we be making? How much are things going to change?

1 Like
#2

I switched over to a Rakk/Dominance build recently–I’m not using the URAD anoint with it, but the aggro draw from Dominance appears strong enough to make it a viable alternative to Red Fang/Gamma Burst. The major difference I’ve noticed with Dominance aggro relief is that if enemies target FL4K before you Dominate one, they don’t always switch to the Dominated target–it feels like maybe Dominance has less range than taunts? Has anyone else had this issue?

Assuming something like a Rakk/Dominance/Cosmic Stalker setup with URAD–I wouldn’t reccomend taking points out of the green tree for purple. Lick the Wounds is pretty good insurance against any Dominance proc issues, and if you pick up two capstones, you need to pull out of Furious Attack to get down to Take This in purple. I’m not sure how Cosmic Stalker-boosted Furious Attack stacks up against Cosmic Staker-boosted Throatripper and shield shenanigans though, depending on the pet you use it might be better? I don’t remember where Furious Attack falls in FL4K’s forumla, iirc it’s not…major?

anyway, we should definitely be talking more about Dominance being good now.

1 Like
#3

Dominance isnt as strong for aggro relief. If you are running a urad built you can be one shot, so at least with me I’m sticking with red fang.

2 Likes
#4

I initially had not commented on this thread because it appeared directed towards pet builds primarily. I don’t run a pet-focused build (more of a hybrid), but my build does have plenty of pet damage due to leaning heavily into the Master tree and the Urad/Deathless/Shared Spirit/Hive Mind interactions.

My GB Urad Deathless build, which used to look like this (https://bl3zone.com/planner/AAB5CQ5CT1CU3CV5DA3DB5DC5DD2DE3DH3DI1DJ1DL1DM3DN1DO1DP3DQ5DR1DS5DU1DX), now looks like this instead (https://bl3zone.com/planner/AAB5CQ5CT1CU3CV5DA3DB5DC5DD1DE3DH3DI1DJ1DL3DN2DO3DQ5DR1DS2DT5DU1DX-ac1BKpe1BNau1BMau2BO).

The changes to Hive Mind and Shared Spirit work fantastically with the build and the pet actually does quite a bit of work, especially now that the OGT grenade anoint appears to be boosting pet attacks (I have not tested the numbers myself, but I understand it is supposed to work that way). The de-scaling of enemy weapons for Mayhem levels has most definitely affected the utility of He Bites, but it is still really useful IMO.

I extensively tested moving the build away from GB and Red Fang and using Rakk Attack, using the ASS Stop Gap for defense and either a Cosmic Stalker or Bounty Hunter COM. Still a Deathless build, but using Dominance instead of Red Fang for CC. This was what that build looked like: https://bl3zone.com/planner/AAB5CQ5CT1CU5DA3DB5DC3DE3DH3DI1DJ2DK1DL4DM3DO3DQ5DR1DS3DT5DU1DX1DY-ac1BCpe1BNau1BDau2BG.

In addition to testing it out that way, I also tested out a Rakk Deathless build that used the purple tree instead of the green tree, but just found the DPS loss was too great.

Just my personal opinion on the whole thing, I prefer the version of the build that uses Red Fang, Deathless, Hive Mind, and Shared Spirit, and eliminates WRW from the build. This seems to me to be the “ultimate” meta version of the GB Urad Deathless build. Still has a ton of damage, but now the pet survival and damage boosts are even better than they were before. The Rakk Attack Deathless build does work pretty well, but I personally still prefer the CC provided by the Red Fang because it just seems to keep me safer and also allows me to throw on a double-amp roll shield if I really want to lay waste or boss. I personally also am not a huge fan of the ASS Stop Gap shenanigans, but I definitely understand why a lot of players like it. The Rakk Urad Deathless setup really requires the ASS Stop Gap to be effective.

EDIT: to add that in the context of this build, the combination of Dominance and Galactic Shadow actually works pretty pretty well for aggro relief. FYI I also tried running 3-shot FA with this build and it also works pretty well. I personally do not think that the Rakk or FA action skill options work as well as GB with the build, but both of those variants definitely amp up the damage ceiling. The issue I found is more along the lines of survival, and I found the Red Fang does not cost you very much (if any) damage and the survival/defense offered by the Red Fang more than makes up for the fairly minimal damage loss.

Sorry to the OP for the long post and for the fact that my post doesn’t specifically pertain to pets, but I figured this would be as good of a place as any to write this up. Hope it helps some of you guys in evaluating the Master tree changes in the context of your build.

1 Like