Why isn’t Iron Cub with Cap Armature or Corrosive Sabots “the Meta”

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

I have been racking my brain on this one.

Two is almost always better than one.

I can outfit a long lasting Cub with either Capacitive Armature or Corrosive Sabots

AND

The most powerful Moze Infantry fighter imaginable.

Two sources of superb damage versus one.

Just common sense says you’re going to put out way more DPS overall.

Why is this method not considered the “absolute meta”…

Iron Cub just doesn’t seem that popular to me when I read the Moze sections of the forum.

Too easy? Makes the game easy mode?

Why?

4 Likes
#2

Iron cub with purple cap and sabots is just insane, expecially with the Flare, all of the IB dmg skills and action skill dmg on your class mod.

While one may argue it being meta, I feel its probably the best setup for a always on iron cub build, and now that the iron bear weapons anoints have been buffed it is even more. The thing is, the forum section while being a useful source of discussion and information is not representative of the majority of the player base, as to be honest very few players actually hang out there compared to the whole bl3 player count.

On the other hand, moze has a multitude of broken setups : mindsweeper, iron bear builds, blast master, suicidal cub builds, you name it, moze has multiple ways of being broken and pure iron cub builds are among those of course because you know… Moze is Moze

6 Likes
#3

As @RobCheap pointed out, IC can be crazy strong when setup correctly and used as more than just a Action Skill activator. I suspect many peeps use it exactly as a DPS companion much like Fl4k pets. I have tried both ways and had mixed results.

I do wish the AI was a bit tighter on IC. Always lags a half click back when running and gunning. Wanders off a lot when clearing large map sections normally resulting in its death. Stands and stares down some enemies rather than actually shooting. Strange little dude but when he gets to rolling he can clear a room pretty quickly.

Would love to see the math comparison of using IC for an ASE end buff vs. keeping IC up and active.

4 Likes
#4

Thats how I roll and it works great, there may be a chance that cub blows itself up faster than with the cryo minigun according to some, but it still seems to last a long time and wrecks everything.

2 Likes
#5

This is pretty much the ideal way to play Moze, and there are three class mods that can do this better than the rest.

I think a very simple explanation is because the forums (or at the very least, the Moze section and a few others) are nowhere near as active as they used to be in the wake of the game’s release. There could be a lot of people rocking Iron Cub, just that very few discuss it. And for those with IC, they’re most likely either using Flare for DPS or Eternal Flame for perma-pet/ASE Cub.

Another possibility is Rocketeer, a class mod that lets you have your cake and eat it too. You can have Auto Bear seemingly forever, run Big Surplus at the same time unlike with Cub, forgo anything to do with fuel-efficiency, reserve the option of running both CapArm and Sabot and finally, have up to 10/5 FitSD.

7 Likes
#6

Not a Moze main, but I have a pretty simple reason: AI. Auto Bear does about the same damage as cub, comes with a skag den boosting COM, keeps BS active 24/7, and has way better AI. If you compare the two, you get more damage out of keeping AB out all the time than Cub.

3 Likes
#7

Personally, I just don’t rock IC because it takes more investment into the purple tree than I typically want to make in order to use IC effectively and have it out all the time. I have not played with IC a ton but I was not a huge fan in general. I also like being able to specifically decide where I want to deploy IB/AB (I view AB as kind of like a better, stronger version of Axton’s turret), and that way I can control the engagement and the targets a little bit more.

But I do recognize that IC can be very strong if built around. I might be inspired to go try to make an IC build of my own tonight, in fact LOL.

I also am kind of obsessed with the Mindsweeper, just because the special effect is so interesting to me. Although I bet you could run IC with the Mindsweeper and the right spec? I am going to try that.

1 Like
#8

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I use the cub. Normally I just use a Moze focused COM like a blastmaster as I have the cub set up relatively strong with Dakka bear, specialist bear and 5 points into SSB as some examples. I only have 3 points in the purple tree for big surplus when the cub is down. I find this works well as the cub does very well without needing any more investment in the purple.
But to change things up I also use the above COM in a few ways.
One with the same build minus the 3 points in big surplus and have an almost full uptime cub. My fun anointment can be either a Moze one for more Moze damage such as consecutive hits or a cub one such as the 150% rocket pods.
The other option is to use an action skill start revolter with the Flame and have the cub suicide. You can get full uptime on the revolter. Its totally the opposite approach to the earlier one using the same class mod. Go figure!

2 Likes
#9

@Fnq1974 Well damn, those rolls on that COM though! I have a few Flames, but none of them have very good rolls. That’s one of the reason I run Mindsweeper, I basically found a perfect one. Flames don’t seem to drop for me that often.

#10

Auto bear does about 40% more than cub actually. Add in BS and its an exponential increase
@tysonyar - minesweeper can work but cubs ai tends to cause micro-suicide with any augment

1 Like
#11

Minesweeper works great, i switch back and forth with the eternal flame if I want a short cooldown, and don’t change the build at all. I only use a few points in purple tree. For me, i just don’t wanna pilot auto bear all the time, id rather walk around shooting my own gunz.

1 Like
#12

@Steeveyb That makes sense to me about IB vs IC, it feels like IC lays less waste, and it really should since it can be out forever. The issue is that between Moze and AB, everything is dead in a matter of moments typically anyway. And I kind of like having IB as an emergency button, which you don’t get with IC.

@radioweavil That was what I noticed when I tried Mindsweeper and IC previously. IC was killing me and itself LOL.

1 Like
#13

Mindsweeper nades get boosted by the 150% ASA grenade anointment which is reason enough for me to roll with cub over bear. He’ll kill himself with just about every weapon augment but I find Softening pods work well for keeping him around the full duration most of the time.

1 Like
#14

If you do the revolter method, any flame will work. A passive or 2 to help Moze would be good of course.
This one is not necessarily a god roll for the revolter method as the action skill damage roll would rarely apply so I lean towards the perma cub method.
If you’re on PS4 I can mail this. I’ll be away for a week though.

1 Like
#15

@Fnq1974 I am on Xbone, appreciate that though! Why would action skill damage not apply to IC? I am not a Moze main so forgive me if that is a stupid question or something.

@ucfmatt Is it really that much of a boost to the Mindsweeper grenades (and Moze’s overall damage) to use 150 ASA? I still feel like Moze’s damage should be better with CH?

#16

Rocketeer Auto Bear makes sense for as much or more DPS…got it…Thanks!!

I am not experiencing as much trouble with IC’s AI as some of you describe but have seen weirdness. But AB displays that same weirdness from time to time…

Bring me up to speed why Big Surplus is not good on an Iron Cub build?

Moze is still doing over 50% of the damage…

Why would you NOT take this skill??

#17

If memory serves me correct, 100 ASA(now 150) was seperate on the damage formula from weapon damage

@johnrr6 BS is only active while bears on cooldown. For builds that have cub around semi/permanent it’s hardly/never used

2 Likes
#18

@johnrr6 This is actually the reason I don’t take Big Surplus on most of my Mindsweeper builds - generally I jump in IB to proc AB and anoints, and then exit. IB cools down so fast that BS doesn’t even really have a chance to be active for very long, because IB’s cooldown is basically over before AB ends in that scenario. I am not sure I have even personally shot the weapons from IB myself - I just use AB.

1 Like
#19

Apologies… I read it wrong, thought it was the 150 cub active one… and seems you did too? Lmao but teaming that with the 150% grenade anointment is a nice increase

1 Like
#20

@Steeveyb I literally cannot keep it straight these days, anoints have changed so much from a year ago. Wait, so are you still saying that the grenade damage anoint DOES benefit Mindsweeper grenades, or not?