Tediore/Fastball build questions

Borderlands 2 Axton the Commando
#1

The recent renewed interest in Axton around here inspired me to try a few new builds and challenging playstyles with him that I’ve never tried before. At the moment, I’m focusing on a Torgue allegiance build and a Fastball/Tediore build. The catch is, I’m trying to find a way to run these builds with very limited loadouts and without swapping weapons too much to slag enemies. With my Tediore/Fastball build, I had this crazy idea of using only Baby Makers and Fastballs, just because the Baby Maker is one of my favorite weapons in the game (I’m weird, I know) and also because the Baby Maker’s reloads are more reliable and easier to hit targets with than the Avenger’s (not to mention the Baby Maker is much easier to acquire). I’d have a Fastball of each element in my backpack and a Baby Maker of each element in my four weapon slots. My main shield would be a Big Boom Blaster to keep those grenades coming and my class mod of choice would be a blue Expert Grenadier with +6 Steady and +5 Grenadier. However, before I spend any more time building this spec, I need to clear a few things with the experts around here:

  1. The Fastballs would actually serve as my primary weapons and do most of the killing for me, so would a single Turret specced into Double Up and a slag Baby Maker in the first weapon slot be enough to fulfill all of my slagging needs?

  2. Given the nature of Tediore weapons, ammo consumption could be a problem here, so I’m thinking a stockpile relic with bonuses to SMG ammo capacity and grenade count as my relic of choice (alternating with the matching element Bone of the Ancients depending on the enemy and area) would help solving this problem a little. Am I right or am I worrying too much about this?

  3. The rest of the gear in my backpack would be a Blockhead for ammo emergencies and other specific situations (just because it’s my second favorite Tediore weapon, really), a Tediore allegiance relic with bonuses to damage and magazine size (just to go with the theme, I doubt I’ll ever equip it) and finally a purple Tediore Blast Proof Shield with higher recharge rate than capacity and less than 2 seconds delay for those moments when the Big Boom Blaster just isn’t giving me the protection I need. Would that be enough? Remember that I wanna keep this as Tediore exclusive and as limited as possible in terms of weapons.

Thanks in advance for any advice on this!

#2

It’s pretty much agreed that Baby Maker’s the better Tediore for mobbing. The reason why Avenger’s stronger is because its reload gets amp damage hence why it’s used for Axton speed raids. For mobbing though Fastball/Baby Maker Axton is totally effective; there are plenty of videos on it and it’s often used in the time trials for Axton (although not necessarily together).

Anyways,

  1. I’d personally use something other than a Baby Maker for slag; you’re wasting potential reload DPS on slag and the Baby Maker isn’t the greatest slag gun anyway. You’re probably better off using a Slagga or something (in conjunction with the turret of course) and then switching to your Baby Maker when you actually want to use it (Expertise will help with that).

  2. Since you’re focusing on Fastballs I’d stick with the Bones anyway; SMG stockpile won’t do your Fastballs any favors. Also because you’re mostly using Fastballs your SMG ammo won’t be insta-drained CHOPPER style, and you can always use an Avenger to regen if you really need it.

  3. If you want to keep with the Tediore theme you should consider getting your hands on at least a corrosive Omen, maybe a fire one too if you decide you want something better than the Blockhead. You might also consider using a Grog if you want to play super aggressively, although it would break your Tediore allegiance and it’s the Grog so yeah. For the shield I’d go with Inflammable and/or Grounded; Blast-proof weakens the shield’s stats and in comparison to fire and shock DoTs enemy explosive damage isn’t too common anyway. Also remember that this is Tediore and not Torgue, so the explosive elemental theme isn’t really relevant.

#3

Thanks for the fast response! I usually know what I’m doing with a 26-15-26 general purpose Axton, but I’m a total newbie when it comes to Fastball Axton and allegiance builds in general. Good to know that the Fastball/Baby Maker combo is not as crazy as I thought.

  1. I really don’t wanna use any weapon that isn’t Tediore for this. I want it to be a pure Tediore allegiance thing (with the exception of the Expert Grenadier and the Big Boom Blaster of course, but I don’t have much of a viable choice there). I know the Baby Maker wouldn’t be the best gun for slagging, I just wanted to know if it could do a decent enough job of it in conjunction with the turret so that I wouldn’t have to use a gun from a different manufacturer just for slag. Concerning the reload DPS, I might do the swapping thing anyway with the Baby Makers as well, if needed. I’m already planning on having Expertise maxed out either way.

  2. Exactly what I wanted to know. Since the ammo consumption for the Baby Maker won’t be much of a problem, I guess I can give up on the 3 extra grenades the stockpile would give me and just stick with the Bone of the Ancients collection. Cooldown rate bonus and elemental damage it is. I like that a lot.

  3. Honestly, the only reason the Omen isn’t on the list is because I’ve never used one. I still haven’t been able to kill the Dragons in UVHM, but I’m working on it. I’ll make sure to look for a corrosive one when I finally do kill them and keep it on my backpack. Similarly, I only mentioned the Blast Proof Shield because it’s the only one I already have. I can get one with no elemental resistance/immunity and even better recharge rate and delay very easily, but I chose to keep the Blast Proof one because, hey, explosive resistance is still better than no resistance at all, and with Axton’s shield boosts their efficiency would be practically the same. I’m aware an Alkaline or an Inflammable would be better and I’ll happily trade the Blast Proof one for either of them if I ever come across one of them, but for now, the Blast Proof one is what I got. Still, good advice. Thank you again.

I still wanna see if I get a few more opinions here, then I’ll share my potential skill build to see if I’m on the right track with it. I’m really excited to try this one.

#4

Being a very standard SMG aside from the reload the Baby Maker’s decent for slagging; ideally you’ll want a Maliwan grip and maybe the Brisk prefix for that purpose. A slag Plasma Caster would be better for that purpose though, although the difference in slag chance isn’t too high.

You could always trade for an Omen, provided you’re able to find someone willing to give one up.

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#5

Again, good advice. That’s what I needed to know. I’ve considered using a Plasma Caster for slagging, but I figured it wouldn’t make that much of a difference in practice. Actually, I have briefly considered switching all of the Baby Makers for Plasma Casters just for their general synergy with Axton, but I still like the Baby Makers better for chucking. Baby Makers just have something to them that I enjoy. I feel comfortable wielding them.

Concerning trading for an Omen, I don’t think I have anything to trade for it and I have this thing that I need to earn my weapons. But hey, once I get the hang of the Dragons, I’m probably gonna farm them enough to get something out of them.

#6

If you play on the 360 (and can’t quite get killing the Dragons down yet) I have Omens in every element IIRC- I use Sal to farm eridium for my mules on OP8 so I have more than a few of them (as well as Stingers, Blockades and the occasional legendary). I usually try to take them out Boost, Healianth, Incinerator and Brood. I use the Deputy Sal build, an Evolution and the CE Monk mod I have is +6 MS, +5 Asbestos for additional resistance…

#7

If you want to run strictly Tediore setup then you can leave slag but only on OP0 and blow. Because Axton got really high damage output with weapons that have grenade damage boost. But on OP8 I’ll suggest to actually take some weapon with high slag chance like Grog, Pimp or Slow Hand. All of those weapons got also additional grenade damage, so they still do nice damage while slaging. I’ll recommend this on OP8 because you’ll be wasting too much ammo and grenades to kill stronger enemies if you not slag them. Also try Twister with Grenade Axton, it can do some really sick damage. And don’t use allegiance or stockpile relics for mobbing like @pestopartyy said, unless you want to speed kill some bosses. Then their are necessary.

#8

I’m on the 360, but I wanna try and get it myself. Thank you so much for the offer, though. Also, thanks for the tips.

I plan on using this build only on OP0. I’m not really interested in the OP levels at the moment and if I ever decide to attempt them I’ll probably just use my regular 26-15-26 build without any gear limitations. This is just a for fun experiment I wanna try at OP0. If it’s possible to trust only a single turret to do all of the slagging (or even abandon slag completely), I’ll gladly give up on slag guns for this. I hate doing the weapon swapping thing unless it’s absolutely necessary. The turret will be out most of the time anyway for the Battlefront bonuses, so I think I could spare a point for Double Up just in case. Concerning the allegiance and stockpile relics, yeah, they’re out. I just wanted to know if they could be useful to this mobbing build in anyway, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t be necessary. I’m gonna stick with just the Bone of the Ancients collection.

The playstyle I’m considering is strategically throwing the turret at a safe place that can hit most of the enemies in the area, kill as many of them as I can with Fastballs, take cover to regen shield and health if it gets too hot, grab the occasional Big Boom Blaster booster for more grenades and chuck the living hell out of the Baby Makers at their faces if I run out of grenades. Then recall the turret and search ammo crates for more grenades once they’re all dead and move on to the next area. Pretty basic stuff, I’m just not sure if it will work as I imagine, since I never tried it before. I’m not planning on being too agressive in playstyle and I’ll probably favor precision over speed with this.

#9

If this gona be on OP0 then I guess that you can rely on slag from turret, if you’ll place it in proper time and place. And as for playstyle, believe me - when you learn how fun this build is and how to use it, you’ll be looking to turn on some crazy aggression all the time.

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#10

That’s great. And I certainly hope so. :dukeaffirmative:

Ok, now that most of my gear and playstyle doubts are out of the way, let’s head on to the last part… The actual skill build. This is the one I’m thinking about going with:

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55050055015500515010005050143100

GUERILLA

5/5 Sentry: Keeping the turrets live for as long as possible would be important because of Battlefront, so the extra 10 seconds in duration would be very useful.

5/5 Ready: This is still a Tediore allegiance build and Baby Maker chucking would be the second main source of damage output after the Fastballs, so fast reload speed is a must.

5/5 Willing: Keeping shields from staying depleted too long is a key element for this build to work, both for survival and to get more grenades, so the recharge rate and delay bonuses here are essential.

5/5 Able: I was torn between this and Onslaught, but in the end I chose to go with Able just to increase survivability. I feel the gun damage increase from Onslaught wouldn’t do much for the weapons I’m using (it might help with the shotguns) and although the sudden increase in movement speed could help me get out of sticky situations, it might throw off my aim with the Fastballs.

5/5 Grenadier: No need for explanations here. It’s essential for every Fastball build and it will leave me with a grenade count of 20 when the Expert Grenadier class mod is applied.

1/1 Double Up: Slag might not be a necessity with this build, but it certainly helps. The turret will be out most of the time anyway, so it might as well do some slagging as a bonus.

GUNPOWDER

5/5 Impact: I need to max out on both skills on the first tier to move further down the tree, since both Overload and Metal Storm would be mostly useless with the gear I’m using and not worth putting points into. So not much of a choice here. Still, gun damage bonus is always a good thing.

5/5 Expertise: I need to max out on this one too, but in this case, the weapon swap speed is actually very useful.

5/5 Steady: Every single grenade damage bonus skill will obviously be maxed out and this one will reach an impressive 11/5 with the Expert Grenadier class mod.

1/1 Longbow: Useful to strategically deploy the turret from a distance and the health bonus for it will extend its duration.

5/5 Battlefront: Grenade damage bonus. 'Nuff said.

1/1 Do or Die: The final essential skill for this type of build.

SURVIVAL

5/5 Preparation: I’m used to relying on the health regen from it on my previous build and I like it a lot. I’m giving up on Grit for this build and I’m not using Moxxi weapons or grenades to heal, so I’m taking this to keep my health up.

5/5 Pressure: Fast reload speed and recharge delay are both very useful for this build. I know it is a little counterproductive to spec both into this and Preparation, but I’m not sure if Last Ditch Effort would be that much more useful. The extra movement speed during FFYL would be very nice for the weapons I’m using, but the shield recharge delay bonus when low on health can be a real life saver and actually keep me out of FFYL. Anyone here has an opinion on this matter? I’m honestly thinking about switching to Last Ditch Effort.

1/1 Phalanx: Extra protection for the turret and for myself on a build that kinda forces you to expose yourself a lot. What’s not to like?

4/5 Quick Charge: I just love all of Axton’s shield skills. This is helpful to cancel DoT effects. 3 points should be enough, but I need to give it at least 4 to move down to the next tier.

3/5 Resourceful: Another skill that will help with keeping the turret active on the field. No need to max out on it since the Bone of the Ancients relics will give me a cooldown rate bonus of almost 50% on top of this.

1/1 Mag Lock: Like Longbow, it’s here to give me more options on where to place the turret strategically on the field. I could have put this last point in Resourceful too, but this is a skill that I’ve never used before and that I really wanted to experiment with.

#11

Well I’m running with almost the same setup when I’m doing Time Trials. The only difference is that I’m spec in to Onslaught instead of Able. Because I use Grog for main healing. But Onslaught it’s just like you said, it can help a lot to move faster to enemy or avoid pointblank range and kill him. And yes it can also screw your aim with Fastballs. So for start I think you choose wise, picking Able instead of Onslaught. When you get used to Fastballs then probably you should pick Onslaught. Also I’ll sacrifice 1 point from Able to Scorched Earth. Rockets pods are really strong with Grenadier COM.

#12

Yeah, I’ll stick with Able for now. I didn’t pick Scorched Earth just to keep everything more streamlined and so I have better enemy visibility. I have it on my 26-15-26 build and while the damage is very nice, sometimes there’s so much stuff exploding around enemies that I can’t even see them (I have two turrets on that one, so that probably contributes to this minor problem). Also, even though this build takes a lot of advantage from grenade damage, it isn’t exactly an explosive build and I wanna see what’s like to run without it. If I feel I still need some extra damage after playtesting this build, I might reconsider putting a point into it. It will most definitely be on my Torgue allegiance build, though.

What about my Last Ditch Effort/Pressure dilemma? Do you have any input on that?

#13

Stick with Pressure, it’s very good skill for surviving and Tediore reloads. Last Ditch Effort is only good if you want to mess around with Super Sonic Glitch Axton.

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#14

Alright, it looks like I got my loadout, playstyle and build ready to run. I think I’ll start a thread for my potential no-slag weapons Torgue build now, so I can playtest both of these for a while and see which one I like better. Thanks for everyone who chipped in on this!

#15

I’m resurrecting this thread just because I finally had some time to playtest this thing.

First, the bad news… Turns out a Baby Maker really is a terrible slagging tool. It just doesn’t work very well for that purpose. The good news is that you don’t even need slag at all. It seems just one Fastball or one Baby Maker reload in matching element is enough to kill unslagged mobs almost every time. I found out I didn’t even need the slag from the turret and that I was using it just to draw aggro away from me and to keep Battlefront active. I also noticed that I needed a little more survival and I was really missing Grit. So I moved some points around and ended up with this build:

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55050005005500515010005050054150

It’s a build that actually doesn’t spec into any of the three capstones, and I kinda like that. However, I still worry about the lack of a decent source of slag against bosses and tougher enemies. I’m now considering abandoning the Tediore allegiance thing when it comes to weapons and using a Slagga just for occasional slagging purposes, as some of you suggested. The shield and class mod I need to use with this aren’t Tediore either, so I kinda abandoned the allegiance thing and decided to make this a simple Fastball/Baby Maker chucking build. Including the Slagga in my loadout could even make this build viable in the OP levels as well.

Anyway, does anybody here have any opinion on this updated build? I’m open to suggestions and would like to hear some feedback on this.

#16

I found a slag Avenger about a month ago and I have to admit: it isn’t half bad for slagging. On average, it takes around 7 shots to slag the target but the gun is very accurate, unlike the Slagga. Great for slagging things at a distance. The reload turns it into a Bouncing Betty which can slag stuff as well. There is also the ammo regen which helps against the monstrous ammo consumption of Baby Maker chucking.

#17

If you want to run this updated build then I’ll spec in to Gemini. It’s only 1 point and this skill is very useful. Or just go back to old spec and play like this :

#18

That’s a good idea. Hadn’t thought about using an Avenger for slag. I was planning on keeping an Avenger on my backpack just to regenerate ammo, but it really seems like a better slagging tool than the Baby Maker, even if just because of the bouncing effect on reloads. I’ll keep my eye out for one and try it. I was thinking about farming the midgets for a while anyway, so I might get lucky. Still, I’m gonna try the Slagga as well, just for the high chance of slagging and precisely because it isn’t very accurate. I thought about it as a “spray and paint” kinda thing. I thought it could work well with this playstyle.

Good video, but I don’t like using the Grog Nozzle (I know, I’m weird). I’m gonna try the Slagga on tougher enemies and Eel37’s Avenger suggestion and see how that works. The thing with Gemini is that after playtesting the previous build I noticed that I wasn’t really using the turret for either damage or slag. I’m already specced into almost every skill that extends its duration and survivability (for the sake of Battlefront), so I figured I really didn’t need to have an extra one. It makes everything faster and more practical, just throwing it in a safe place that’s out of reach and going to town with the Fastballs and Baby Makers. Plus, I really wanted to go back to having 5/5 in Grit and I feel that extra point in Resourceful could be more beneficial to me than having a second turret. However, a second one could be useful as an extra aggro magnet to get me out of sticky situations and it could be necessary if I ever decide to take this into the OP levels. I’ll playtest this updated build (for real this time - I got a plan) at OP0, but I’ll make sure to keep your suggestion in mind in case I run into any potential trouble with it.

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions and for showing interest on this. I appreciate it.

#19

From 4/5 to 5/5 it’s a 1.4 second difference (even less if you swap to a Resourceful-boosting COM), so take it as you will.

Another trick with Gemini you might consider utilizing is to “kill” the second turret by recalling the first turret while the second one is deploying and subsequently get an easy activation of your kill skills (in this case just Quick Charge but whatever). Niche but still fun.

If you want to just avoid Gemini altogether though then the entire third tier of Guerrilla are all options.

#20

When I run Tediore, I usually go with a Neutral version of the Ranger COM as it boost mag size and help out with chucking.
Also, I like PC due to its bullet damage being higher than the Baby Maker and the reload damage isnt bad either.

You could add the Gunerang to your loadout for long range kills. Quite effective!