The Bosun man. When did this little neck beard get so brutally hard to take down? I’m stuck on him with 3 toons in UVHM- Lvl. 54 Wilhelm, 51 Jack, and 51 Nisha. I have tried different builds, different gear, farmed Iwajira for moonstones and ingredients to grind, and I’ve gotten some good gear, but he will not die. I can always get him down to about 1/3 health, but that’s after being downed with no mobs to second wind off of. Did the Bosun get some massive buff, or did I just somehow lose the brain cells that operate my BL critical thinking skills?
Whenever I am stuck, I usually call my buddies. PM me and we can try it in co-op.
I think bosun got the typical health multiplies for uvhm because (again, I presume) he counts as a badass enemy (bosses are badasses after all, right? At least Iwajira is). So add that to you having slightly underlevelled or imperfect gear, a non-min-maxed skill build and your character taking a lot more damage and having to focus on the small enemies a little longer - they have 50% more health too - and you know why you might get rekt by bosun. I only fought him with Nisha yet and Tombstone did its work. If you don’t want to use these “op” skills, try avoiding his attacks. Stay behind the pillars and try to recover over healthgate to not get instakilled by his lasers.
Hm, as lvl 53 nisha, I was able to kill him in 2 whips after building up 5 stacks of 220% melee damage plus 30 stacks of order plus a roid shield, but only on second try.
Jack shouldn’t really be a problem I think. A tediore build with lots of grenade damage build as well as a AA build will do if you stack up collaboration while team work keeps you alive.
As for wilhelm… eh - rosie and paint him?
Anyways, I’d be glad to help out, if you’re on the PC. steam id is the same as my name. I currently have 1 character in your lvl range.
Question about this mission on UVHM - are folks taking down the shield generators first, or are they doing these things without bothering:
I’ve fought him in UVHM with Athena, Nisha, and FR4G-TP, and I took out the shield generators first each time. I found it to be a tough fight, but as long as I kept moving and hiding from his rockets/beams I didn’t have too much trouble.
I took out 2 of his generators first as nisha, then I had my 5 stacks of 220% melee damage each.
But yeah, taking out these things makes him even easier. When I play my clap trap, I don’t bother with them at all, just get 5 reload stack at 40% explosive damage each and unload a flakker into him.
That would take out pretty much anything and everything, wouldn’t it? 
What characters are you using and what are your setups? I’ve found him pretty easy in UVHM. I’m sure we can help you out, it may just be your tactics.
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Last time someone mentioned having trouble with the Bosun, it was exactly that: Underleveled gear and he was hiding in the elevator…
I have killed him with all 5 characters UVHM - I exit elevator, take out closest 2 generators and unload on the Bosun (weapons depend on character plus elemental resist shield) - he dies.
I finally defeated the Bosun, I respected after finding a legendary COM for my Wilhelm this morning. It still was ridiculously hard. Up to that fight, I hadn’t had any trouble staying alive in UVHM. Got to Zarpedon, had trouble, and went back to my legendary spec and made it through. I guess my laser build with a super fast recharge tediore shield was just too DPS focused and did not have enough survival-focus. Thanks guys and gals
From my experience, Wilhelm’s tank abilities are more focused on shields, so having a (possibly even outlevelled) small capacity shield is detrimental to his survivability. Clappy is the one with health tanking skills IIRC.
That is a common mistake, survival skills are priceless. I see so many people skip all survival and spec all dps. But survival skills oddly enough can increase DPS by letting you stay in the fight, when you run for cover because you are a glass cannon you’re not doing damage, and while a survival build might have less DPS naturally because they stay in the fight they do more damage.
Moxxi guns in Bl2 lead to a lot of this and lack of good survival skills for many characters. TPS has much better designed skills and skill trees. Every character has survival skills and they are effective, so use them.
Lastly your Shield and Oz kit greatly effect that so use the right ones. An Adaptive shield with a Juggernaut Oz kit gives adds a lot of tank to many builds.
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Here’s how I’d approach the Bosun in a laser and shotgun build on wilhelm, without too many pieces of legendary gear needed.
Laser build
Shotgun build
I haven’t had a HK based build yet, so I can’t tell how hard this fight will be with that setup.
I can drop him pretty quick without taking out his shield generators with Jack.
Using this build: http://thepresequel.com/Jack/50000000000005550501005101500515005021
Blue CEO of all CEOs, +6 Absolute advantage +5 Marginal benefit.
Grab yourself any Maliwan shock weapon and a Ravager and have at, he goes down pretty quick and being able to spam ravager shots with no end in sight is very good.
One thing I’ve found useful is absorb shields (All glory goes to the Bulwark for this fight) and sticking close to him on the top level.
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Finally getting around to Aurelia on UVHM, and I can’t even get his shields half way down without getting obliterated. I’ve destroyed his shield regenerators, and I’m using shock weapons but still no luck, I usually get my shields blown away then the ads piecemeal me out.
Yeah, Prismatic Bulwark is a jewel in this game, and this is one of the better fights for it. Lots of lasers going around in there.
I’ve beaten this a few times on UVHM with Timothy, and a very laser-intensive build centered on Vibra-Pulse. Looking forward to trying it again in the next day or two, now that I’ve got all three capstones on my level 70 Jack.
I’d say that the tactic, to get the generators down first and THEN go after the Bosun, is a pretty sound one. I’ve found it necessary to stay mobile, and take out as few of the trash scavs as possible until the big guy is dead. If you can get the scavs to bunch up (or help them to do so with a good singularity grenade, also softening them up in case you need a second wind), then you can kite them around as you play peek-a-boo with the Bosun. Keep going around the arena (I prefer counterclockwise, just as a habit), kiting the scav horde behind you, reloading when you’re in places the Bosun has a hard time reaching with his weapons, and exposing yourself to him only long enough to unload accurate and effective fires on his critical hit spot.
It’s not sexy, but it works. Five or six characters so far have gone through that routine in Normal, 3/6 in TVHM, and at least one in UVHM (Three times, I believe, maybe four). Mostly without having to pay the New-U. It’s the best advice I can offer you.
I took down the Bosun last night with my lvl 70 Jack.
Jack’s digi-jacks can take the aggro while I go around and take out the sheild recharging turrets.
Then turn around and quickly drain Bosun’s shields and health.
Still over 1/2 of the digi-jack’s life left.
Jack makes that way easy.
Of course weapons help too. I farmed up my favorite lvl 70 weapons before ever starting the UVHM playthrough. So at lvl 70 … a purple Corrisive Splitter took out the turrets, the Vibrapulse took out the shields, and a glitched fire shotgun drained the health.
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