Hi!
Im thinking about starting a Krieg for the first time but have some doubts about how to build him.
As a Gaige player I love elemental DoT so I thought about building a Krieg focusing in the Hellborn tree and the Torch COM. Is this viable at all?
The spec Im thinking about is this one: http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50005015000051050004055151153131050
I have chosen the Mania tree to complement it because I like to melee too. But I have some doubts about it:
The first is about the shield. I know that the FotFH is one of the best shields for Hellborn but I speced into Silece the Voices so do I need to use the Rough Rider due to the self hit?
Also, do I need to stack health and damage reduction? Because I skiped Feed the Meat, Taste of Blood and left only one point in Numbed Nerves for the COM boost.
And the burn damage from Fire Fiend is based on what?
Also, is Buzz Axe Bombardier buffed by Fuel the Blood and Strip the Flash?
I’d put the pull the pin point into Raving Retribution… And put some points into Feed the Meat. Will you run OP levels?, the Rough Rider works as a buffer for self hits.
Yes, a hellborn-mania build with either a torch or toast com is pretty viable.
FotF is for scrubs, go with a Rough Rider… you’re not a scrub, are you?
Health stacking works really well at op8 given the right circumstances, even with a melee-focused hellborn build sometimes I was able to heal faster than enemies could damage me. Some people may not like it because healthgate but the ideia with the high health is pretty much to not need healthgate to survive hits. It may not be a necessity to counter StV but you’ll certainly notice a difference in between self-hits that take 90% of your max health to something around like 8~12%.
Damage reduction is aways nice with Krieg, after all, he’s supposedly a tank. You probably won’t notice much difference when spending points since damage reduction follows a logarithmic curve (has diminishing returns) but I personally like to have the most out of DR.
I would also like to know how Fire Fiend’s dot is calculated, it doesn’t seem to do much damage but it does enough for a decent healing through Elemental Empathy even without a moxxi weapon at hand.
BaB is affected by both FtB (wich does more than double the melee damage at 10/5 with 100 stacks), and Stw (clicky linky). Note however that StV’s self-hits are also buffed by FtB and can increase the self-damage to around 30~40% of your health if I recall correctly (around 80% if you’re slagged, took me some time to figure that out during digi-peaks)
About your skillpoints distribution, I would just change a few things: swapping the 5 points from Blood Overdrive into Taste of Blood since you plan to go melee sometimes, skipping Pull the Pin, taking one point from Salt the Would into Redeem the Soul for increased ffyl time and the ability to trade places with teammates just as their timer is about to expire, maybe swapping the 5 points from Strip the Flesh into Feed the Meat for more health and since you’re also planning on going melee, probably saving one point somewhere to get Raving Retribution as it probably will be the way you’ll inflict most of your fire dots while buzzaxe rampaging (thus keeping yourself healed and ignited).
also, @BookEmDano might have better inputs on hellborn-mania gameplay since I pretty much focused on the melee aspect of it.
Slagga, as usual or a slag pimpernel incase you want to be super-hipster, for other weapons you could look for a tattler, hellfire, hornet, plasma casters, omens, conference calls, butchers, unkempt harolds, twister, etc. there are a lot of choices for different scenarios/enemies you want to shoot.
As for grenade mods, chain lightning is a pretty good choice for damage and getting yourself ignited… although I cannot make a post in Krieg’s subforum without recommending a low level purple slag bouncing betty with lobbed being my favorite payload, other choices could be: storm front, fire bee, pandemic, quasar, meteor shower/bonus package, crossfire/bouncing bonny
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50400000000050550005154155405101051
This is my current build for Krieg using elemental Butchers as the main weapons with a Slagga as backup, a RR for the shield and MM/Firestorm/Fire Bee/slag Bouncing Betty for grenades. I also keep a DPUH and Badaboom on hand as well as a few other weapons for specific situations…
Sorry for the bad info on Numbed Nerves. I swear to you that I saw it in the Legendary Torch COM wiki page, my bad.
So, what about this spec?
I skipped Strip the Flesh to get Feed the Meat and left Pain is Power aside. Penalty to critical hit is kinda… awkward. Specially with the boost to accuracy from Fire Fiend.
This way Im getting a better healing from Elemental Empathy, I guess.
Also, I got one last question about the skills: Thrill of the Kill is necessary while rampaging or Elemental Empathy is enough to keep me healthy?
Im not really worried about it because the Action Skill is going to be like a emergency button when my helath bar is below 33% but it is nice to know.
Talking about gear, Im thinking about a Hellfire to kill regular stuff, a Florentine to slag and strip shields instead of the regular Slagga and a good corrosive gun like the Kitten.
Im playing on PS3 so the CC laggs me a lot. The Slow Hand is a good damage dealer or is mainly used to self-ignite Krige? The only scenario I use it is when playing Maya. A slag one with the vertical grip comes in hand when you dont spec Ruin and to heal and slag at the same time through restoration.
The Butcher seems pretty good on Krieg as everyone use it. What is the catch?
Also, what about the Fire Storm? Tinas spell grenades have better DoT damage so I can make use of the Hellborn tree better.
