I’ve tried playing Claptrap off and on, but always seem to struggle with the enjoyment factor. Everyone is different, and perhaps this character simply doesn’t fit my style, but I want to make sure I’m not missing something. (I only play solo, btw). I attribute my disappointment to these main areas:
Action skill
Occasionally this helps, but often rolls something detrimental. Best case, it’s a delay before you get it anyway (if you’re looking for help in a tough situation). I tend to just not use it much, and avoid the potential source of frustration.
Randomness and Tradeoffs
I suspect the intent is to increase variety of play style, especially things like “All the Guns”, but whether for situational or personal preference reasons, I get more worried about the drawbacks of particular skills than the benefits.
I don’t really want to go down the Fragmented tree, and running out of things that look interesting to me in the other two. (Or don’t want the penalties to get too high). So I’ve lost that feeling of wanting to gain levels so I can reach the skills I want. After 3 more points in Pain Simulator, not sure where I’d go.
Uniqueness
I’m not finding many unique play choices that the other characters don’t have. Like how Jack’s “Sponsored By” creates all kinds of interesting combos, or Wilhelm’s Laser Guided, or Athena’s shield and elemental usage, etc. Claptrap has OLT which is cool with the Plunkett (albeit, annoying when I miss) and high-count shotguns. Explosive boosts make freeze & splode more effective, but there’s so much damage potential there anyway, that the quicker swap bonuses of other characters work just as well for me or even better (since there’s no benefit to overkill).
Perhaps I just haven’t found the right skills and/or play style to make the most of him. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Many thanks for the response. I haven’t tried any of these, so hard to evaluate which one might be the most fun. Let me add a bit of info for each, and maybe that will give you some ideas to expand on.
Flakker - I never got the hang of finding the sweet spot for it, but I suppose that would certainly make it unique to try, if I could. Slight worry about being limited to a specific range, and whether that limits its effectiveness in different situations.
88 Fragnum - I totally forgot about this gun, since it always seemed less effective than a Maggie (on other characters). I saved one on a mule though, so I’ll try it out. Main concern here is that while it should perform well in Claptrap’s hands, it sounds like a less unique play style than the other two choices you mentioned.
SWAB - I didn’t spec into this, partially because I tend to keep my distance, and partially because of the self-damage. Sounds intriguing though, and would have synergy with health novas from YGTLM. Best guess, this is the one I’d like to try, since it’s definitely different from anything else I do with other characters, and a good candidate for something I simply ‘overlooked’ for the wrong reasons.
The gear I’ve mostly been using so far:
Plunkett
Luck Cannon
Fatale/Laser Disker (at range)
Fridgia/Ravager or Torguemada (up close)
Ok I’ll do my best to describe how I play the SWAB style since that seemed like the one you we’re most interested in.
Two words of warning to start off.
First I know you don’t want to spec into the Fragmented tree, but there is a lot of bonuses you’ll want for this build. The draw back of the reduced gun damage doesn’t matter with this play style.
And the other point is this build is primarily for mobbing. Bosses like Flameknuckle aren’t really hard to kill with SWAB, but for almost every other boss (I don’t recommend fighting either “raid” boss with this build) you will want to use cryo and a Laser Disker.
Ok this is the guns I use.
Probe - All this gun is used for is to shoot one bullet and reload to proc SWAB, while also healing you for like ~5% of all damage you deal while holding it. (Another option is to use the Too Scoops)
Laser Disker - You can throw reload this for massive damage if you happen to go into FFYL and your novas don’t reach the enemy. Or as a boss/UBA killer (don’t use it on Eclipse he resist grenade damage)
Fridgia - A good cryo weapon to freeze anything that is a bit more beefy.
_______ - You can put anything else you want here. Nukem, Badaboom, Ravager, IVF, ect…
The gear I use
Chronicler of Elpis - The best com for this build in my opinion. Its really “easy” to get, but a Foolhardy Sapper com is a decent alternative.
Alkaline shield - A Lvl ~50 purple Tediore shield with corrosive resistance (cryo resistance if you use the Two Scoops) is the best, b/c you will break your shield with one SWAB proc which will cause “It’s a Trap… Card” to proc too (there are a lot more details to this, but that’s the gist). In the end the shield does’t matter that much, an Adaptive shield is a good substitute.
Vladof cryo grenade - Good at freezing things.
Artic Bomber - Boost the damage of Laser Disker throw reloads, grenades, SWAB (I think), ect… And you have a X% chance for free grenades while airborne.
If you don’t know what an item is or where to find it just google it, or ask.
The play style is easy, just get to point blank range and shoot one bullet and reload over and over until everything is dead. If its a boss or a UBA just freeze them with the Fridgia and/or chuck Laser Diskers at them. Again there are a lot more minor details, but just try it out and see what works best.
Thanks for the info. NP about respec for bosses. Probe technique sounds interesting, but will have to wait a bit – I used that mission to get a Torguemada. Too Scoops mission is available, so I’ll grab that. Also grind another level or two so I can spec SWAB without giving up OLT. (I think I’ll mix this with gun play for added variety). It will be awhile though before I’d get enough added levels to try out the FF tree. Maybe mid to late 60s or so I’ll give it a try.
Yeah, that’s an interesting hybrid like what I was thinking of running. Thanks for the link.
First impressions of the Two Scoops and SWAB were quite positive. I had all of the gear except for the Probe and a good Alkaline shield. Will keep my eye out for it. I swapped between the Chronicler of Elpis (for pure SWAB), and the Sapper (when I wanted to shoot stuff farther away), and its a nice mix. The SWAB is different from anything else I’ve done in TPS, which was the main goal. Thanks again.
Sometimes hard to see what’s going on with all the novas, but the bad guys are dying, and that’s a good thing. I was surprised that the novas still worked in FFYL, which made reviving much easier than I was used to. Also saw some insane Flakker vids in that link, so I’ll definitely have to try that too.
