1st Time trying Athena - Going Maelstrom - Shock Lasers?

[silverkhaos]

I got the Vanderwaffen or whatever off Deadlift, and it seems like that is my best bet for building Maelstrom stacks so far (level 6). The continuous laser types of shock weapons. Any other tips? (Please none of that “Just get this specific legendary” useless advice.) I figured I’d try the far right tree for now, since the other two are kinda pointless until I’m higher up in levels, and I’d already leveled with an Athena playing friend who did the other two trees.

[Sljm (Really, really, ridiculously good-looking)]

Hey, I happen to have a Maelstrom build that revolves around Quest Rewards.

[Build] Battery - No Legendaries Required!

#BATTERY Smashing through the boundaries Lunacy has found me Cannot stop the battery Pounding out aggression Turns into obsession Cannot kill the battery ##Foreword This is more or less the build I used to get Athena from level 1 to level 50, so it’s thoroughly tested. It’s my opinion that stacking Maelstrom is sufficent to affect your DPS without investing too much into specific damage skills (sufficient for non-Raid content, anyhow). The skills we will be investing into instead will be…

[Derch (Where's lucky?)]

What @ sljm said, also get used to swapping weapons for storm weaving, not only the fire rate but doubling your proc chance is huge. At early levels anything that puts out alot of pellets works and of course Tesla grenades.

[silverkhaos]

Ugh. Why do they make all the characters have to constantly swap weapons for the far right trees this time? Its annoying as hell.

[BookEmDano]

Do you match elements to enemy type?

[Sljm (Really, really, ridiculously good-looking)]

A response from a different thread, but it’s relevant.

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Smite and Storm Weaving are not things you try to activate at every opportunity. They are things you can benefit from when necessary.

It’s important to understand the difference, and it will make your CS play seem less like a chore and overall more fluid as a result.

…

For Storm Weaving, it’s more effective merely to benefit from it in circumstances where you would normally switch weapons anyway rather than to try to activate it just to have it. For example, when you switch to a Cryo weapon, then to an Explosive one, you reap its benefits, but you shouldn’t force a switch when the gun you’re switching to isn’t right for the situation.

My best advice about these two skills is not to think about them, and they will be there when you should be making use of them.

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[silverkhaos]

Normally I don’t match elements, not even back in BL2. Just explosive across the board or straight gun damage and action skills.

as for not focusing on always swapping…well then doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t bother with the far right tree until a higher level? I only have access to 1st tier right now anyway.

[Sljm (Really, really, ridiculously good-looking)]

Constant weapon-swapping is missing the point entirely. Storm Weaving is a powerful boost for when you would normally swap weapons, but it’s not worth swapping constantly just to keep it up, because you’re wasting time swapping by doing this.

Unless you have 5/5 Elemental Barrage and 700+ stacks, there’s no reason to constantly swap. This basically won’t happen during most of the game.

I find that 12 points into Ceraunic Storm is enough for much of the game. This gives you Smite and Zeus’ Rage.

Putting the rest into either Phalanx or Xiphos is usually better than further investment into CS until endgame.

That being said, if you aren’t using Shock or Fire at all, CS will be of very limited benefit to you. In builds that use 12 or 13 points into CS, I recommend either 3DD1.E, a Shock Grenade, or both. This will give you enough stacks to trigger Smite, without requiring you to focus on stack generation for your damage potential like a real CS build.

But even in that case, it’s fallacious to consider the 4 “wasted” points into Storm Weaving to negate the usefulness of Gathering Tempest, Smite, and Zeus’ Rage. And as I said, Maelstrom is worth at least 5 points on its own, even with a mere 100 stacks (which any Tesla can give you).

[Matrixneo42]

That’s what I do. It’s much different than Jack’s weapon swap skill which I try to avoid because I find myself way too distracted by that type of gameplay.

[Matrixneo42]

As said above, there are a bunch of great quest rewards that are useful for Maelstrom. And yes, I use shock or fire lasers a lot. I switch to cryo or corrosive guns on occasion. I generally throw tesla grenades. I try to activate smite as frequent as allowed.

[kritchie2023]

Don’t underestimate grenades. Especially for maelstrom. Because that’s the real beauty of the Ceraunic Storm tree, by boosting one skill you effectively boost all the other skills. I suggest your grenade be shock (it can be fire) as it works well in either atmosphere or no atmosphere and shock stacks accumulate very quickly. This then helps your gun be more effective. And if you have unrelenting, a higher fire rate means proccing DOT sooner, which makes your grenade more effective.