[Build] Femme Fatale - The Seductive and Swift Goddess of Elements

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Athena the Gladiator
#1

Contents

  1. Intro
  2. Skill Tree
  3. Gear
  4. Boss Variant
  5. Closing

1. Intro

Do you like using SMGs and a build more oriented around mobbing? Were you a fan of Maya’s Cat COM in BL2 or just happened to stumble upon the Femme Fatale COM in this game? This build is an SMG centered build, that pulls away from Athena’s reliance on Shotguns, and also in some case-scenarios can reach decently high stacking in just pure mobbing. @BookEmDano has posted two threads that are amazing in showing how to use the Storm and Defender COMs for stacking Maelstrom, but both builds really excels in boss fighting, but can’t build stacks as well in mobbing. and also rely pretty heavily on Shotguns. I personally dislike using a Closer unless Im nearing 400+ stacks, which really just isn’t practical in my opinion against enemies unless you’re fighting Eclipse or the Sentinel, which led to me creating this build.

The play style for this build is close range, and excels the most at mobbing. The build utilizes Unrelenting at 10/5 to produce insane fire rates when mobbing, causing you to shred through enemies while you also get access to Omega-Senshu that also greatly increases damage output. Mercurial and Ephodus both allow for you to weave in and out of enemies. Gathering Tempest is a nice addition, but doesn’t prove its worth unless you’re fighting bosses. Combined with an IVF along with the additional magazine boost from Femme Fatale, can lead to insane damage when at higher Maelstrom stacks.
This leads to bonuses of:

  • Up to +129% SMG Magazine Size
  • Up to +114% SMG Gun Damage
  • +150% Fire Rate at a mere 200 stacks
  • All additional Ceraunic Storm bonuses

2. Skill Tree

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Skill Tree: Lv. 70 Stats
*Explanations Coming Soon

3. Gear

Weapons

[b]Slot 1: The Shocker[/b]
  • Shock Fast Talker Kwikner (Fire Rate)/True-Blue (Damage) Prefix, Scav Grip, Dahl Stock
  • Shock Torrent Flying (Bullet Speed)/Stopping (Damage) Prefix, Dahl Grip, Dahl Stock

Between the two SMGs, the Fast Talker is in my opinion the better option, although if you can ADS and get critical with the majority, if not all of the shots fired, the Torrent can be the better option. I personally prefer the FT also due to the fact that its a great stacking weapon. The Cheat Code can also be a decent option due to the Hyperion synergy with the Aspis if you choose to use the Fridgia as opposed to the Fatale for the Flash Freezer, but I don’t recommend using both Hyperion SMGs since they are lacking in damage compared to others.

Slot 2: The Flash Freezer

  • Cryo Fatale Rightsizing (Damage) Prefix, Maliwan/Hyperion Grip, Shield Bypass Luneshine
  • Cryo Fridgia Flying (Bullet Speed) Prefix, Dahl Grip

I highly recommend the Fatale over the Frdgia, due to the fact that it can kill stuff fairly quickly on its own, but the alternative does provide Cryo much more reliably, which can lead to the gun being used as a Freeze and Swap gun. It comes down to how you use the gun, but you may also want to fool around with the amount of skill points you put into Flash Freeze if you do decide to use the Fridgia.

Slot 3: The Incinerator

  • Fire Hellfire Consumate (Damage)/Impetupus (Bullet Speed) Prefix, Maliwan Grip, Dahl Stock
  • Shock Fast Talker Kwikner (Fire Rate)/True-Blue (Damage) Prefix, Scav Grip, Dahl Stock
  • Shock Torrent Flying (Bullet Speed)/Stopping (Damage) Prefix, Dahl Grip, Dahl Stock

Personally, I happen to love using the Hellfire, as not only does it eat through Shields and kill enemies extremely quickly in atmosphere because of its high DOT, it also stacks very well. Outside of atmospheres, against shields it can’t really eat through them, but neither can any other fFre SMG, although it seems that many people disagree with me. The Torrent and Fast Talker are both great all around SMGs that serve as alternatives if you don’t like the Hellfire, but I don’t recommend using the same gun you use as the Shock Elemental SMG.

Slot 4: The Shocky Shotty

  • Shock Company Man Practicable (Projectile) Prefix, Hyperion Grip, Torgue Stock
  • Shock Thinking Practicable (Projectile) Prefix, Hyperion Grip, Torgue Stock, 0440/0404 Glitch

This gun is just a gun that you can’t neglect from Athena being one of the best, if not the best guns she can use. If you find yourself an enemy unexpectedly that you need to stack some Maelstrom on, just whip out this gun and stack away. If you have the correct glitch, the Thinking can outperform the Company Man although generally that isn’t the case. You can also use an Enforceable Bullpup instead, as all 3 guns serve the same purpose, so whichever you can obtain you should be using.

Shield

  • [color=orange]Black Hole[/color] Maliwan Body, Maliwan Battery, Maliwan Capacitor
  • [color="#893BF"]Haymaker[/color] Maliwan Body, Maliwan Battery, Hyperion Capacitor
  • Adaptive Shield Maliwan Body, Maliwan Battery, Maliwan Capacitor

The Black Hole is my favorite shield of the 3, because of Condult it can recharge and set off novas extremely rapidly, plus its a great way to get Second Winds when theres enemies you can’t necessarily see. When combined with a Duality Oz Kit that boosts Shock Chance/Damage and Shield Recharge Delay/Rate, it recharges almost instantly after its depleted, and can be very deadly. Both Adaptive shields are also great options, but the Haymaker brings a melee gimmick with it. The Reogenator can also be a decent shield, although its health regeneration is a little low compared to the low shield capacity, but can provide resistance over 90%.

Class Mod

  • Femme Fatale Relenteless (+5 Unrelenting) Prefix
  • +5 Unrelenting/+4 Gathering Tempest/+4 Mercurial, +49% SMG Magazine Size, +44% SMG Damage

The heart of the build. The COM boosts both SMG damage and unrelenting making any SMG an extremely deadly force to be reckoned with. The boosts to the Magazine Size and Gathering Tempest will also help in making the Cheat Code a viable gun. Mercurial is also a decent skill for survivability, since added movement speed is never a bad thing. The Deadly prefix is a better option when fighting bosses, as it’ll additionally help with the IVF, but I’ll get into that more later.

Grenade Mod

  • Shock Longbow Quasar
  • Shock Longbow Storm Front
  • Cryo Longbow Cryo

For obvious reasons, you’re going to want a fuse time as close to 0.0 as possible, and the Longbow prefix on any of the grenade mods. The Quasar is the crowd control tesla grenade, while the Storm Front is the grenade mod used for stacking against bosses; I’m sure you already know why they’re good so I won’t explain that. The Cryo is a great grenade because it gives you the time to reload or deal with enemies providing you with seconds off of Flash Freeze, plus its generally just an alternative to the Singularity of the Quasar. You also can potentially not need a Flash Freeze gun by using this, and can alternatively switch to a Shock Cheat Code in place of it.

Oz Kit

  • Shock Strafing Run +39% Reload Speed, +37% Fire Rate while airborne
  • Shock Bomber +54% Free Grenade Chance while airborne, +56% Grenade Damage
  • Shock Duality +45% Shock Damage, +51% Electrocute Chance, -34% Shield Recharge Delay

I’m torn between the Strafing Run and Duality as my mobbing Oz kit. The fire rate boost is great, and can send the Fast Talker to stupid fire rates without any Maelstrom stacks, while the Duality Oz Kit can make your Black Hole an endless streak of novas, although if you don’t plan on using that shield I wouldn’t recommend the Oz Kit over the Strafing Run. The Bomber Oz Kit I originally neglected thinking it was bad, but its one of the key parts to the success of this build at defeating bosses, but I would only recommend using it in that scenario.

4. Boss Variant

What guns you use are entirely dependent on which boss you are fighting, but I’ll list all of them and give an explanation of what to use and when. I’ll only be addressing the Invincible Sentinel and EOS/Eclipse since any other boss, including Iwajira can be killed with 2-3 throws from an IVF if you are correctly matching the element of the Tediore gun to the enemy.

Weapons

  • Shock / Fire IVF Refill (Reload Speed)/Hefty (Damage) Prefix, Scav/Tediore Grip, Dahl Stock
  • Shock Fast Talker Kwikner (Fire Rate)/True-Blue (Damage) Prefix, Scav Grip, Dahl Stock
  • Shock Company Man Practicable (Projectile) Prefix, Hyperion Grip, Torgue Stock
  • Explosive Laser Disker Tediore Grip, Dahl Stock

These 4 guns are the key to fighting any boss. The Fast Talker and Company Man both serve as more accurate and ammo efficient second wind guns and also help in stacking Maelstrom to boost your IVF throws. The Laser Disker is a Tediore weapon that uses different ammo in the scenario that you run out of ammo. When fighting the Sentinel, you’re going to want both elements of the IVF because of the Invincible Empryean Sentiniel’s Flesh along with the Shock immunity stage, but you also run out of ammo on your IVF fairly quickly which is the reason for the Laser. Personally, I’d swap out the Fast Talker and use the other four guns when fighting the radio boss. When fighting Eclipse, its fairly obvious you won’t need a Fire IVF, although EOS might be problematic due to you not being able to hit it with Tediore throws, making you very reliant on Shotguns, and I’d even possibly recommend using both the Company Man and a Shock Development, which would replace the Fast Talker. If you find yourself dying a lot, you might want to use a Moxxi’s weapon instead, which the 2 best options would either be a Shock Hail or Vibra-Pulse.

Other Gear

  • Shield Of Ages
  • Femme Fatale Deadly (+5 Gathering Tempest) Prefix
  • +5 Gathering Tempest/+4 Unrelenting/+4 Mercurial, +49% SMG Magazine Size, +44% SMG Damage
  • Shock Longbow Storm Front
  • Shock Bomber +54% Free Grenade Chance while airborne, +56% Grenade Damage

This is what ties the build together and allows you to defeat bosses with ease. The Shield Of Ages is easily the best shield for boss fighting when in combination with Condult and allows for insane survivability. The COM is used for the same reason, although a Deadly Prefix would be ideal to help boost your Tediore magazine size. The Storm Front when in combination with the Bomber Oz kit not only help stack, but give your Tediore weapons massive damage output.

To explain how you go about defeating Eclipse and the raid boss, you need to first throw a decent amount of Tesla grenades down, generating you a 300-400+ Stack of Maelstrom, you might also want to use a Hyperion Shotgun to stack higher, then swap to your Shock IVF and start throwing away. It does insane damage, and rinse and repeat for each stage of the Sentinel.

5. Closing

I’d like to thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy using the build. I’ll be adding an explanation on some of the more questionable skills I chose soon.

Possible Changes:
I am thinking about putting only one skill point into Mercurial, and also going further down into the Xiphos Tree and potentially picking up Rend, Tear, and maybe the capstone too, although I’m not entirely sure if thats a good idea. I’ve also been thinking about changing the build slightly for boss fighting, since Elemental Barrage is counterproductive with Tediore Weapons. Also, I’m thinking a Tediore Laser might be superior to the Laser Disker. If anyone has any feedback on these changes I’ve thought about or have any suggestions, feel free to let me know, and thanks again for reading!

4 Likes
#2

Very nice build and write up. Have you thought of going all in for bosses with a Blue Relentless FF?

Also, just a note about my Supercell (Defender) build. That’s actually my regular build that I use for both mobbing and raiding. I rarely use Storm anymore. I shifted to Defender to be more practical and emphasize Athena’s tanking qualities more.

#3

I would try tediore railguns if you want to test their chucking prowess. Hard to beat the cryo buff though.

Also if he was going for a bossing com wouldn’t u want the GT blue com over the unrelenting? His bossing is IVF/Chuck Based.

1 Like
#4

You’re probably right. It’s a pretty interesting dynamic because even one point in Unrelenting significantly impacts fire rate which means more Maelstrom before you start chucking. It wouldn’t surprise me though if the mag size is better.

#5

I think that using a Blue Relentless COM really doesn’t help as much because you would hit the fire rate cap very easily with something like the FT especially, or any SMG for that matter can cap fairly quickly. Thanks I appreciate it though, and yeah I noticed your Defender build is more practical, but I definitely like the stupid DPS against bosses of Storm, but in mobbing I really just don’t like relying on stacking so much, which is why I made this build, but I’ll try to reword the OP a little to reflect that.

I’ll try that definitely, and do you mean the Cryo buff of the Laser Disker? I think a GT Blue COM is definitely the best option, or the purple one combines both of your ideas. but I’ll fool around with it when I get the chance, and maybe try to find any high base damage SMGs with a low fire rate or something like that,

#6

The only low FR SMG is the snake…and that’s awful…so awful

#7

Pretty sure that gun is Corrosive only anyway. I tried testing out a build using the Xiphos capstone with Tear and Rend to produce high DPS and thought that could be better than relying on Tediore guns for boss fighting, but it didn’t work as well, as I anticipated. I’m also thinking I only want to put a single point into Mercurial, as the skill isn’t all that great end-game, so I’m open to suggestions to replace that with.

I tried using a Fire Tediore Splitter and its damage was inferior to the Laser Disker and I really didn’t like it for mobbing either, but Ill look around for a Shock Tediore Splitter or Railgun to replace the Disker.

#8

Its not a tediore Splitter you want. It’s a tediore Railgun, they have the high base damage and mag size.

#9

Just writing what comes to mind: Have you tried the Boxxi ?
Shock SMG with higher than normal damage and bouncy bullets.

Also, on that general idea: Glitched Tediore SMGs with an added 49% mag size might be of some use :smile:

Nice build BTW :slight_smile:

#10

um it ends up paling in comparison to the IVf because of child grenades

but dem glitched railguns dough.

#11

I was going to recommend them for TG, be even with a Dragon Com boosting fire damage by 49% and the fire on flesh bonus wasn’t enough. The Laser Disker did over 1 million more damage (without cryo) for half the ammo.

And you can’t throw reload the Boxxy. The more ammo you have, the more likely it blows up in your hands on reload.

#12

I was referring to the glitcged subcompact mg