Best laser for stacking maelstrom?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Athena the Gladiator
#1

I really like using Thunderfire but it doesn’t stack Maelstrom high enough, so I just end up going with hellfire/torrent/hyperion shottys because they stack ridiculously faster and higher (the highest I go with thunderfire during mobbing is ~150, whereas Hellfire can stack easily to 300, 600~800 during bosses, and shotties can legitimately max the stacks).

Now, I’ve read deputy athena and the tediore splitters actually do quite well stacking, but somebody told me that blasters are better for stacking.

So between beams, splitters, and blasters, which are the best for stacking?

#2

Try the ZX-1. It is a blaster that has a high rate of fire and it’s special effect ensures that most shots will hit your target. It doesn’t have high damage, but it stacks quickly. You should also try out Tesla grenades, they stack very quickly too.

#3

I second this. However, the ZX1 gives decent DPS when having enough stacks. Shame its fire only.

#4

Mali blaster for mobs and mali splitter for boss

#5

Tediore splitters are also great: 6 beams for 3 ammo, good fire rate, mag size and great reload speed. For STACKING maelstrom, they’re better than Maliwans

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#6

You probably are using two of the best weapons for malestorm with your hellfire and torrent. For lazers get a glitch maliwan accelerated blaster code 00L3M2A4. That way you have a high chance to get the yellow perk with an extreme rate of fire to pump your malestorm way up.

#7

accel blasters and storm fronts always served me well.

#8

I was actually using the deputy athena build! (honoured to have you reply to my topic)

Splitters do work for stacking, but the range always put me off.

Others are telling me to try blasters (which, to be honest, I’ve never actually used much… so they actually may work out great. Who knows), but for now, after some testing, it looks like just getting ~150 stacks right off the bat with Smite and some hyperion shotty and then switching to whatever weapon I feel like using works the best - and let me tell you, the splitters wreck at close range!

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#9

So quite a lot of people recommended ZX-1 and I used it again and… I still don’t like it. The damage is too low and the stacking is nowhere close to tediore splitters nor hyperion shottys…

#10

By far the best thing for stacking are Hyperion shotties.

But since you asked specifically for lasers, you’ll get sub-optimal suggestions for sure :smile:

The Zx-1 is awesome: you don’t have to aim (which is a big plus since Athena can’t ADS), and the fire rate is great. That is, if you’re in an atmosphere where the burn DoTs have a chance to do their job, otherwise it’s very meh. The damage is low, but for STACKING purposes, it’s irrelevant. Usually the point is to then switch to a very powerful ammo hog once you have stacked to over 500 or so.