Some important notes:
Gun damage on Axton isn’t multiplicative so stacking it as much as you can isn’t the greatest thing to do, missing 6% really isn’t much damage depending on the gun.
The closest thing he has to multiplicative is grenade damage as that affects splash.
The basics: THE TREES
Bad: These skill sucks, only spec in it to get further down the tree, and only if there are no better options for you.
Mediocre: Very specific and it can be good but requires effort and the outcome tends to be lack luster.
Average: Can help, not bad choices for going down trees.
Good: Good skills are worth specing into, they will help without necessarily being the focus of your playstyle. Definitively worth taking.
Outstanding: Skills of this rating will be gamechangers and should be taken by almost all Axton players.
Because the number thing confuses the masses it seems because math is hard or something.
Guerrilla:
Sentry Good
Keeping your turret up longer and it firing more bullets? Amazing. Having an agro-sink last longer? Even better.
Ready Outstanding
I constantly see people not take this skill or only throw one point into this for the leg soldier. This single will affect your DPS more than any other skill in Axton’s trees. Put it to 5/5 already.
Willing Good
Single handedly this makes a lot of shields useable, with a combination of this QC and pressure you can just about facetank with a bee. It’s one of the best skills in the game.
Laser Sight Bad
This actually makes your turrets less accurate… It’s really stupid.
Able Good
Very close to static health regen, having 2% regen in combat is a lot better than people think and saves your ass a lot.
Scorched Earth Good
If 22 rockets that explode aren’t enough to sway you, this skill has amazing scaling and does work on every mode even on OP8.
It’s well worth spending a point in here even if it’s just to make your turrets look badass, and the DPS is very good to boot.
On OP8 it deals around 285k a rocket.
Onslaught Average
Yes the boosts are very good, but it is a kill skill and a short one at that and the gun damage is not multiplicitive so not maxing it out isn’t going to help too much on later levels and the movement speed is an arguable bonus. It is a good skill though, just has some massive flaws to it.
Grenadier Average
Extra grenades, with the addition of grenades like magic missile this skill isn’t as good as it used to me.
Crisis management Mediocre
This is a little counter intuitive to have on axton with all of his shield skills and the bonuses are a little strange(I still think this was supposed to be fearless). it’s an OK skill but not worth using a rough rider for.
Double up Outstanding
For raids this becomes your dedicated slagger, it’s slag on a stick with a high slag chance. It’s his best endcap skill.
Gunpowder:
Impact Good
It’s one of the best tier one skills in the game, no reason to not make this 5/5 if you are using guns. This is gun damage so for shamfleeters this isn’t useful.
Expertise Average
The weapon swap speed is great, the ADS speed is mediocry, movement isn’t god awful either. Not a bad skill by any means but does get over looked a lot. Well worth throwing a single point in if you are using a leg. soldier com.
Overload Bad
It’s not that it’s bad it’s just not the greatest skill in here, it’s a skill that works decently on very few ARs and on others it’s lackluster.
Metal Storm Average
This skill gets an over value by people that don’t understand mechanics and fire rate breakpoints. It’s a very good skill and the fire rate boost is nuts but when using this skill effectively you must know the breakpoints before you start trying to make this skill 11/5 or even 5/5. some weapons won’t benefit much past 3/5 if at all.
Battlefront Good
Without a lot of points in sentry this skill is very mediocre at time as this only works when it’s up. Is this skill considered a staple? Yes because it does have very good boosts. With sentry at high levels this skill is very good.
Longbow Outstanding
The ability to but a longbow system on the turret? great. Doubling it’s health making it an even better agro draw? Amazing.
Steady Good
This is a really good skill if you are using weapons with splash, using it as a way to reduce recoil not so much.
The grenade damage is the closest thing he gets to multiplicitive damage and the launcher damage is great for shamfleeters.
Do or Die Outstanding
The 10% buff to grenade damage is great and so is the launcher, but the ability to throw grenades in FFYL? It’s a priceless ability that helps majorly if you are an explosive axton.
Duty calls Badrage
Not elemental axton can work very well, but this skill is one of those “all of your gear has to work this this” type things.
Elemental will do more on element but when it’s off it suffers. The only time non-elemental suffers is on armor. This is additive.
Ranger Average
It’s a good skill for what it is, but doesn’t really shine unless you are using a ranger com. The fire rate on it is the real winner.
Nuke Average
For what ever reason the nuke deals fire damage and has a lower elemental multiplier than normal. The damage isn’t terrible but it really doesn’t get good until the OP levels because of how it scales and how the turret is the level of the OP so it never gets damage reduction. It is a very good stun and it’s an OK converge skill.
The problem with this skill is that it does cause frame rate issues and if you don’t throw them properly they blind team mates.
Most people ask for you not to use it in co-op out of decentcy much like a zerker using two sawbars.
Survival:
Healthy Bad
It’s decent for end game mobbing and early game but it’s usefulness it up for debate, throwing one point in here for a leg. soldier com won’t kill you and might even help for OP8 mobbing a little.
Preparation Outstanding
As a tier one ability that lets you have a static health regen is amazing. When leveling it’s reccomended to put a single point into this skill if you aren’t going down the survival tree just to take advantage of the regen when you are out of combat as health vials are expensive.
Last Ditch Effort Average
It’s a good skill for IF you go down but we really don’t want to go down very much.
This is damage not gun damage so it does work on launchers, and the movement helps if you’re using shotgun type weapons and the like.
Pressure Good
Very underrated skill, the lower your health is the shorter your delay and reload speed are.
This skill is crucial to chuck axton and it helps a lot in the survivability section and helps massively when using a bee.
Forbearance Bad
This skill is OK at best, it’s really only useful on the dragons as quick charge is at the same tier. If this was lower or QC was higher this would be a lot better. Really only only reccomended if you are using a rough rider or raiding in an area with multiple dots and not many enemies to kill.
Phalanx Shield Average
It’s a situational skill, has a bit more use than mag-lock does on raids has most have some type of attack that kill bounce off the shield. This also protects you from raids novas.
The problem with the skill is that it’s so flimsy using it as a skill to give your turret more health isn’t terrible the smartest thing in most areas.
Quick Charge Good
This is very similar to inertia for the siren but you trade the reload speed for extra shields. It’s a fantastic survivability skill and at 2/5 will beat out fire and acid dots 4/5 will beat out shot dots on most shields. This skill is highly recommended when using a bee.
Resourceful Good
Reduces cooldown rates, enough said. It is subject to diminishing returns though.
Mag-lock mediocre
Has it uses but when you know how to throw them this skill becomes next to useless. Not to mention this is subject to borderlands terrain(this is what we call the issues with them not smoothing out the boundaries properly).
Little tidbits, guns deal more than melee with maraders. Throwing the turret next to them will cause them to freak out and try to melee it, doing so they bounce bad a but and deal very little damage it it. Goliaths will do their lunge which will deal massive damage to the turret. The places this works on are some raids like terra where he tries to hit it but fails because of borderlands terrain not to mention occasionally it will get stuck out of the map to where you can’t reclaim it. This also requires longbow to be used at all.
Grit Outstanding
This is axton answer to moneyshot and bore. If you think you are lucky enough you can try to melee axton vorac on OP8 because of this single skill. I wouldn’t try it though.
Gemini Outstanding
Its a second turret, this literally doubles it’s DPS.
Tip: if the second turret you throw gets destroyed you can redeploy it.
