Maelstorm stacking questions

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Athena the Gladiator
#1

I have yet to find a Practicable Shock Thinking, so Ive been using the Bullpup, although I also have a Company Man, which I thought would be the best gun for stacking due to the high fire rate, pellet count, and magazine size. I also found a Heart Breaker, which I was told was part of the Holodome DLC, but I realized thats obviously not true. When testing against Iwajira;
Bullpup got me into about 600 stacks before Iwajira was killed
Heart Breaker got me to about 550 before I ran out of ammo
Company Man couldn’t get me past 300 stacks

Basically my question is, is there something Im doing wrong to why the Company Man just isn’t stacking or am I missing something? Also, is the Heartbreaker still unobtainable, I haven’t been able to find the answer so Im curious, because if so Ill be dropping the gun.

#2

Yep, it is still unobtainable unfortunately. :confused:

#3

Damn, and one other question, isn’t the Raging Storm Clas Mod supposed to boost storm weaving and unrelenting? because from everywhere I’ve seen it does, meanwhile mine boosts Flash Freeze and Storm Weaving, is this a glitch or just something that the guides haven’t been updated with

#4

COM prefixes refer to the skill that is boosted the most. Raging boosts Storm Weaving the most, the other boosted skill is random in the case of blue COMs and has nothing to do with that prefix. Storm Weaving and Unrelenting is generally the best blue combination which is why you see that so often.
So everything is fine, you just need some luck for the right combination.

#5

Company Man just doesn’t fire fast enough. That’s it, really.

Any glitched hyperion shotgun will be tremendously helpful for stacking. Obviously, practicable is the most desirable, but you don’t need that prefix for most purposes.

I get them like candies when fighting Eclipse & EOS. Do try to farm him with one of the easier classes (Nisha & Clappy).

#6

There are three important factors when it comes to stacking:

  1. Ammo consumption- One round per shot which is why Hyperion or Tediore barrels are ideal
  2. Pellet count- The more pellets you can fire per shot the better which means Practicable prefix is the best.
  3. Fire rate- If you can’t find a shotty with the right prefix then fire rate is the next best thing.

I have some guidelines on these weapons in my Perfect Storm thread and Supercell build.

If you’re having ammo issues while stacking then the most likely culprit is failing to swap weapons consistently in order to keep Storm Weaving active. If you aren’t doing this you aren’t getting the free ammo from Elemental Barrage. Every time you reload it breaks your momentum and you bleed out stacks. That’s why it is so important.

Regarding your class mod, the ideal blue Storm class mod is Surging or Raging Storm with Storm Weaving and Unrelenting. However, the lack of Unrelenting in your class mod shouldn’t be much issue. 5/5 Unrelenting is more than enough to reach max stacks it’s just going to take a second or two longer.

And Heartbreaker is not an in-game item. If I had that gun in my Supercell build it would be game breaking. I’m actually confused why you didn’t achieve a higher stack count with it because a Practicable Heartbreaker has 3 more pellets per shot than a Practicable Thinking. My guess is that you mismanaged Storm Weaving.

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#7

Thanks for the very detailed response, you were right about mismanaging Storm Weaving. Since I created the thread Ive learned how to use Athena a lot better and also exactly how Elemental Barrage works. That was definitely the main reason, because when testing I wasn’t thinking of switching weapons, not sure why. With the class mod, that makes sense, I was able to find a Surging Storm Purple that I picked up, since it boosts Unrelenting/Storm Weaving both, along with flash freeze +3.

After more testing, Ive actually timed how long and tested 3 runs for each of the 3 guns and checked the stack counts for each. If you’d like the Heartbreaker for your own purposes I can give it to you if your playing on X360.

Results against Iwajira TVHM Lv.50:
Enforceable Bullpup (Fire) - Max Stacks: 388, Time to kill: 17.15
Clement Company Man (Fire) - Max Stacks: 362, Time to kill: 28.21
Practicable Heart Breaker (Fire) - Max Stacks: 445 Time to kill: 16.65
Notable Gear: Strafing Run Oz (+35.1% Reload, +32.7% Fire Rate), Surging Storm (+40% Electrocute, 5 Unrelenting/4Storm Weaving), 8/4 Storm Weaving, 10/5 Unrelenting, 5/5 Elemental Barrage
*Note: I was using the Oz kit bonus as much as I could, along with that the stacks from the OP are higher due to Iwajira dying much much quicker now.

So the results definitely make more sense, although the stack count is so low because the kill time was so quick. Id imagine if you were able to keep him alive for an extra 10 seconds with the heart breaker, your stack count would double most likely. Also, with the Heart Breaker and Bullpen, each time I reloaded twice in those runs even though I was careful to make sure that Storm Weaving stayed active. They’re probably not the most accurate results, but they definitely can serve as a basis towards showing what guns are the best. The problem with using only one gun to try to kill an enemy obviously though is your going to be forced to reload, and you have to swap to a weapon and back in order to gain the Storm Weaving bonus AND reload sometimes, which causes a massive drop in stacks and increases time to kill.

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#8

Nice breakdown and I’m glad you pinpointed Storm Weaving as the issue. Once you manage that you’ll find the reload frequency going down quite a bit because of more Elemental Barrage. The short time to kill may simply be due to the fact it’s TVHM and just the level of HP that you’re going up against but it isn’t any surprise that Heartbreaker wins that race.

Now you mentioned that you’re only using one gun essentially to take down Iwajira. If you happen to find a multi-barreled shock or incendiary Hyperion shotgun, you will have found what I refer to as a Closer. This shotgun will be the one that you swap to after achieving a kill and triggering Unrelenting and have achieved a stack count of 400+ Maelstrom stacks. Obviously this might prove impossible until you hit UVHM or against Sentinel who has a large enough HP pool to absorb the damage that you’re dishing out.

A couple tactics I use to manage Maelstrom bleed out is to run a shock primary like a Taser or Shredifier to supplement my stacking weapon and swap back to for Storm Weaving, and I also almost always have a Fatale on to activate Flash Freeze when I get caught between reloads or to use explosive or corrosive weapons that don’t stack. It used to be viewed as a pointless skill but I think it’s really effective if used with the right set of gear and at the right time. At 5/5 you will have 5 seconds to swap back to your stacking weapon and reload then resume stacking.

#9

Yeah I figured it had to do with TVHM, I didn’t realize I was playing on it until the like 10th time I saved and quit, so I just decided to post those results anyways.

I was using one gun due to the fact that I was trying to keep the results as consistent as I could, because if I switched to my closer, then it would vary exactly when I did that making what I posted more inaccurate. Ive found that its very hard to use a closer with the level cap Im at, unless Im going against the Invincible Sentinel. Another problem with it is that its a Fire Restructuring Crowdsourcing, which does the job, but a shock version and basically anything other than one with a blade would be more helpful, and Ive been trying to grind and farm Ijawira for something else.

I have 1/5 in Flash Freeze, but with the Storm COM it boosts it to 4/5, which is a decent enough time to reload. Generally, I have two separate load-outs for going against the Sentinel and also just general mobbing.

When it comes to mobbing, I use the Celestial Gladiator COM, Longbow Quasar, Oxidizer, Prismatic Bulwark as gear, along with the Hellfire, Shock Rosie, Shock Bullpup, and Fatale as my guns. Since things die so quick, the Quasar helps pull everything together as opposed to the Storm Front which is better for bosses in my opinion, the Oxidizer coupled with the Hellfire is basically fire everywhere when you’re in a vacuum. I just find its much easier to mob because you can’t really accumulate stacks easily enough to have a closer, generally Im in the 200s range which provides me with good boosts, but not enough to really specialize my class set-up.

Against the Invincible Sentinel, I use the Surging Storm COM, Voltaic Strafing Run, an Adaptive Shield, and Storm Front, along with the Vibra-Pulse, Bullpup, Hellfire, and the Fire Crowdsourcing. Everything pretty self-explanatory, Hellfire if I need to swap weapons to gain stacks and eat away at the Empryean, along with Libra-Pulse for healing and I prefer the Adaptive Shield I have to my Reogenator because of the shield stats much like the Bulwark, at the cost of only 15% resistance. (54% as opposed to 69%) Im easily able to solo the raid boss right now, but once I get the level cap things will most likely change.

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