Fade away/Sniper build vs Pet Build

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

I thought I would make this topic as I know there are people like me having a hard time deice whether to be a fade away crit build or put the beast in beastmaster into FL4K. So feel free to tell your thoughts on why you think either one of these builds is stronger, better, funner, or something on this topic. Update: Add my two build I have in mind for my FL4K

#2

Play 'em all! I have four that I use as follows that let me use all the pets and all the action skills with unique weapon sets for each, so while these are four Beastmaster characters, they play quite differently.

  • Jakobs allegiance, Fade Away with a Jabber, green, orange, and half purple trees. Re-spec and don’t pick the pet for actual stealth mode to get to rooftop nooks deep in enemy territory before engaging them. Rapid-firing Jakobs weapons with return-on-crit mechanics with Gureillas in the Mist is a fantastic time too.

  • CoV allegiance, Gravity Snare with a Skag, blue, purple, and half green trees. CoV weapons are thirsty AF, and Forage keeps them full. Eridian Skag singularity to group enemies, Snare to stall them for easy Dominations and crits to feed Fuzzy Math.

  • Tediore allegiance, Rakk Attack with a Spiderant, orange, blue, and half green trees. Nothing special here, just throwing Rakk, Spiderants, Dominated enemies, and spent weapons at your enemies instead of shooting them.

  • 3R1D14N allegiance, Gamma Burst with a Loader, purple, blue, and half green trees. The ION Loader rockets are quite lethal, but they have a sweet spot. Use Gamma Burst to place Loader in these sweet spots for constant rocket barrages from Eager to Impress.

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#3

Are you locked into Fade or pets? Because Rakk builds are super versatile and powerful as well, and you can always just use Gamma burst as a gun build. FL4K has way more than the 2 archetypes available.

However, to answer your question, better and more fun are subjective. Strength wise, when fully geared, Fade Away will massively out DPS pet builds, but before that point it depends. All a pet build needs is a Messy Breakup and a Red Fang, anything else including stats, anoints, and rolls are just gravy. So depending on your gear there may be times when a pet build is stronger than Fade Away. Otherwise though, assuming you have everything you need to run both builds Fade wins no contest.

#4

Well, not really, but I dought that Rakk’s skill could be stronger than Fade away or Gamma Bust. I have tried to make a build that allows both FL4K and his pet to damage, but from what I have been told, you can split the difference, but I try anyway. Tell me what you think.

#5

What makes you think that? Rakk has always been neck and neck with Fade Away damage wise. A well built rakk cast can deal over 50million damage per cast. And aside from the damage itself, you have much better control over your ASE and ASS anoints, so things like nova shield spamming are incredible on Rakk.

As for the spec, the big thing that sticks out to me is the lack of Throatripper. If you’re already going down the purple tree and you want pet damage, I can’t see any reason to skip out on Megavore for pets. They really benefit from that crit damage, and Better Toys is really not going to do that much for you.

#6

Does the Megavore chance to throw crits work for the pets too?

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#7

I was talking about Throatripper, but I was being a bit cheeky about it.

#8

I hear good things about Throatripper, but that 15% chance seems lower than I like. How is it used properly (which pet, which other skills, associated equipment)?

#9

It’s basically the same chance as Megavor though.

It works best when you have a bunch of different damage sources going off in quick succession as possible (stacking He Bites, Atomic Aroma, and something like a Messy Breakup), but even for the spiderants who attack once every 1.5 seconds it’s the second best damage boost. There isn’t really any pet it works “better” with, it’s amazing with all of them.

#10

Megavore is 20% for one point where Throatripper is 5% per point though.

It’s mostly that I’m under the (hopefully wrong) impression that (besides the Jabber with a pistol or SMG), their attacks aren’t frequent enough to bother. That said, as you mention He Bites and Atomic Aroma: didn’t know those could proc Throatripper. Didn’t know Messy Breakup could either (and she fires constantly).

I think one of my characters has a Red Suit shield with a spike modifier on it… that should (with Take This!) get Throatripper procs?

Let’s see… Eridian Skag with my CoV allegiance is probably best for this because this is my only Beastmaster down the purple tree with a melee pet (the other one down the purple tree has the Loader, and it’s almost exclusively using long range attacks).

…respec, sacrifice Not Even A Challenge for Throatripper and Monkey Do! (and a point out of Overclocked), am using Gravity Snare so no Atomic Aroma here. Will take this for a spin and see what that’s like. This is one of my pet-centric characters (where I’ll sick the Skag on a crowd and play a support role), so it’s right up his alley. Other gear/skills that work with Throatripper? Ember’s Blaze?

Edit - trying different shields here. Messy Breakup shots get this crit buff? I have a triple spike shield too… Faulty Star, Red Suit, Ember’s Blaze.

#11

Throatripper goes up to 19% as long as you have Big Game, and if you boost it to the max can get up to 39% crit chance, so it is essentially the same or better than megavor a lot of the time. And any damage from the pet (melee, DOTs, shield effects, etc…) can crit with Throatripper, hence why it doesn’t matter which pet you put it on.

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#12

Nice… pet did seem to be dropping enemies faster. :+1:

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