Critique my Krieg

Borderlands 2 Krieg the Psycho
#1

Recently I picked back up on BL2, started a new Axton, didn’t like the feel, so I went back to my Krieg (currently lv 72, no op yet).

This build has gone through a lot of variations, and I am not positive that this is the best of the versions, but it has been what I’ve been running for the majority of game play (I do a slight respec for solo hyperius, and only an equipment change for solo pete. I doubt it is greatly different from a lot of builds, but didn’t see much on this forum that mirrored mine

I am pretty happy with this build, but I want to see what the community thinks, as while I am happy, I am still undecided on the final layout of some of the left over skill points.

I do not run StV unless on hyperius. Just not a huge fan of it for mobbing. Only play solo as well. It is a melee focused hybrid. The idea is to get a few shots off, burn myself and take hits to low health, RtB, annihilate.

On to the build:

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500515050150550015150151050100000

The Skills:

Bloodlust:

5/5 Blood Filled Guns - Necessary to go down the tree. Not a huge weapon swapper, so made more sense than Blood Twitch. Also, since Im not taking reload speed bonuses, the mag size increase is nice

5/5 Taste of Blood - The build is centered around Rtb, so defense and extra stacks per kill is quite nice

5/5 Bloodbath - Gives my guns a nice bonus when I use them

1/1 Buzz Axe Bombardier - Good synergy with fuel the blood

5/5 Fuel The Blood - Melee kill to thrown axe during BxR, one of my go to moves. Increase gained stacks

5/5 Boilng Blood - keeps my stacks a little longer. All of my guns have a reload of around 2, so this seemed more useful than nervous blood

1/1 Bloodsplosion - The skill that makes this all possible

Mania:
5/5 Empty the Rage - melee bonus, good synergy with rough rider

5/5 Feed the Meat - More health = more suitability for Krieg, Rtb helps offset healthgating

5/5 Embrace the Pain - Although not super gun focused, good synergy with Rough Rider

1/1 Light the Fuse - going to have to spec out of this for OP, but at 72, it is still quite fun

5/5 Strip the Flesh - Synergy with Light the Fuse, and Fuel the Blood

1/1 Redeem the Soul - Even solo, 50% bonus FYFL time is quite nice

5/5 Salt the Wound - No shotties in my load out currently, but the melee bonus is nice

1/1 RtB - the heart of the build

Hellborn (where left over points go to be of some use):

5/5 Burn baby Burn - Fire damage bonus is nice, mainly to get pain is power

1/5 Fuel the Fire - Left over point, added to increase self ignite chance

5/5 Pain is Power - melee and gun bonus, more so on fire, negative critical, negative schmitical. This build is not about aiming very often

1/1 Delusion Damage - To self ignite with my primary weapon

Gear:

  1. Florentine - Currently using a consummate with all maliwan parts except for a dahl site. Good damage, lets me get some slag out, and when on fire, It will drop a BA quite easily, and tear through them like kleenex with Bloodbath active and stacks up as well. Procs BB, and works with DD.

  2. Unkempt Harold - Currently a DPUH with torgue grip and maliwan site. I have cycled through this and an esxplosive badaboom, ended up keeping this as a main stay due to more ammo and my relic. Mainly used for a couple bosses and the occasional emergency situation.

  3. Kitten - Currently a Hot Kitten with all Vladof Parts. Not really the greatest gun in the world, but works well in a pinch. Adds some healing when needed, but not used often outside of some specific bosses. Bonus form burn baby burn is nice.

  4. Hornet - Currently a React with Torgue parts. Not the best hornet out there, but procs BB, with full stacks and BB active and on fire, no slag is needed even for UBA loaders.

COM: Legendary Sickle with 49% melee bonus. I want to try this with a reaper com, but have yet to come across a good one. Granted, not really looking either

Grenade: Explosive Fastball (only a level 70, but good for a quick bloodsplosion and BB

Relic: Blood of the Ancients. Only a level 71, but around a 60% health bonus and 68% ammo for SMGs and Pistols.
SMG was the only one I wanted the extra ammo for, but pistols are nice since there are two in my load out.

Shield: Rough Rider. Keeping my Melee bonus up for empty the rage and my ROF up for Embrace the pain

Alternate Grenades: I keep a Longbow level 15 Slag Crossfire with a 0.0 fuse in my backpack as well. Switch to it when I need to quick full room slagging. I also keep a storm front (currently a lvl 69). This is not as much of a shield stripper as a stack builder for some bosses.

Alternate COMs: Flesh Crunch (6 Strip the Flesh, 5 Taste of Blood). Primarily used when I feel like fighting Pete

Alternate Shields: I keep a Hide of Tera and a Evolution/Neogenetor for various specific circumstances, but they rarely get used

Other gear in Backpack: Slag Rapier. I use it for a couple bosses and its fun for crystalisks, but don’t use it often.

Play Style:

Almost a jack of all trades sort of play. Come in with guns a blazing. DD will set me on fire regularly, so a combination of that and damage coming in will bring me down to RtB range regularly. With the multiple health bonuses, it goes down, but not too fast. Doubt this will be a great approach in OP, but it is rather fun for UVHM. With this build, my main power still comes from RtB and melee, but Guns give me other options as well, and there are some things that I can’t hit with an axe to make go away, and since not using StV, I wanted an alternate means of damage that could still be fluid with the build

BxR will usually end with a thrown axe in the face to go into guns, BB and on fire bonuses

Even without Numbed Nerves, I don’t spend a lot of time in FYFL.

No reload bonuses were taken as the longest reload speed for my guns is around 2.3 currently except the Rapier, but I don’t really use that to shoot anything. I also leave my BAR on which has a bit invested into reload bonuses as well.

What I am really not sure of it where the best place to put those hellborn points. That is where the most amount of my variations have come from.

Any insight, ■■■■ talking, recommendations, and questions are more than welcome.

Thanks

#2

Looks fine to me. I would get rid of the Florentine since there are better options
Farming for on-level stuff should be your next goal . Do you plan to take this K to OP levels?.

What it respects to build, I would take out the point from Light the Fuse and put it on boiling blood [71] and nervous blood (reload bonus) [72].

#3

What do you recommend as an alternative? I was using a Slagga, but the Florentine ended up feeling a little better and had better synergy with BB. Definitely open to suggestions

Most of the gear is on level except what was stated otherwise. I’m in the process of farming for some more on level, while testing out the variations to the build as I get new ideas.

I want to do OP eventually. There are a few things I know I’m going to need to change for it. This all started when one of the earlier versions of this build kept getting dropped by the boss on the first digi-struct run. I am determined to do it solo if I do, so I started making and testing adjustments.

#4

You said you have a Crossfire?, that works fine. A Slagga also works great.

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#50500515051150550005150150330100000
i removed some points from Pain is Power and put it into Numbed Nerves.

@Gulfwulf @Maveco this friend is in need of help guys! :smiley:

#5

The cross fire is perfect for what it is. I like the slagga as well, but even with not having StV, and nothing slagged, not much will bring me down before I can get a kill. Florentine has better DPS and synergy with BB than the Slagga does, while Slagga is more of a painting tool. Although, with BB at 5/5 which make me almost never out of grenades, I wonder if it would be better to use the cross fire as my main slagger, and go a whole other route with my primary gun.

I also left a point out in my initial build, brain is fried. fixing now.

#6

You got pretty much everything covered for a decent Bloodlust-Mania spec here, I’m not sure if there is room for some big improvements but these are some small suggestions I would make.

About the points in Hellborn I most likely would spec out of it and get them into Nervous Blood and Blood Twitch incase setting yourself on fire is only used to drop your health for RtB. To be honest there isn’t much room for skillpoints distribution in a bloodlust-mania build, at lvl57 you have enough points for anything that is worth spec’ing into. Also since it’s not for op levels yet you could stick with Light the Fuse and no points in Silence the Voices as it’s only at op3 that LtF makes your life harder and at op4 where StV would start to get a good use.

Gear-wise:
Shotguns - what about things like the swordsplosion, carnage, twister or a flakker for even more overkill out of Bloodbath? The flakker may not trigger it but that’s something your dpuh/carnage/swordsplosion/twister/fastball can fix

SMG’s - some things you might like here could be the bitch (the increased crit works really well with bloodbath’s extra gun damage) or a tattler for overall higher damage aswell 200% more bullet per bullet. Slag-wise I really preffer the Slagga due to the efficiency and very high saturation, it’s simple as pointing towards the direction of some enemies and after 5 shots you get mostly everyone slagged. If you’re already using something for damage I really don’t see much use for a Florentine (hence how you can get some performance from Blood Twitch)… but then again, I don’t see much use for a Florentine anyway.

Classmod - for enhancing gunplay you want a blue blood blister (+6 Bloodbath and +5 Fuel the Blood) or a legendary reaper, unless by reaper you actually meant it’s legendary version wich case you could ignore this point…

Grenade mod - not much to say here out of my personal preference for a low level slag bouncing betty (or Sluj Biddy for maximum banditry) over a slag crossfire due to the safety to slag at closer ranges without the child grenades.

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#7

This is what I’m rocking @ OP 8. I use an Ogre, a Storm Front, a Twister, a Rock Ravager (vertical grip), a Blood with AR and Shotty ammo, a Badaboom (explosive), a DPUH, a corrosive Baby Maker (for buzzards and surveyors), a RR, and a Leg Sickle. Works out pretty well.

I used a Leg. Reaper until ~ OP 4 before I had to drop it and take StV as well as a Leg. Sickle to melee my enemies, but keep the slag grenade because it’ll come in handy for solo play. I’d go with Maveco’s suggestion and change it out for a regular Dahl or Bandit one because they don’t shoot grenades like the Bouncing Bonny/Crossfire do.

#8

Thanks for the advice dudes

I ended up moving some points around. Boiling Blood to Nervous Blood, and the extra hellborn points to StV. Farmed a few updates (72 Storm Front and Chain Lightning), got bored, and slaughtered my way through the Raid at Digistruct no problem. Went back to my bullets-go-fasterfied slagga too. I may have resisted, but all of you were right. The Slagga is better than the florentine for Krieg, and with going back to a more Melee build it made more sense, builds stacks faster, gets a little bonus from Embrace the Pain, and can paint the battlefield purple

StV was never my favorite, but giving it another try with the Blood Relic, and it wasn’t bad. Since i’m using the leg. sickle mod, figured might as well give StV another go.

Started using a Chain Lightning instead of the fast ball. Probably won’t last, but it is fun as hell giving the axe to a weaker enemy and spamming chain lightning down the group. A little easier to aim than the fastball too, procs BB when needed, and is damn fun. Hope it can scale alright.

@Maveco @Gulfwulf good call on the the grenade, I do slag the ■■■■ out of myself too often with the crossfire

@xmngr thanks for looping everyone in

I may switch burn, baby, burn for fuel the fire, since Burn Baby Burn seems a bit useless now, and really doesn’t give the kitten much of a boost when I use it.

One question on Melee Krieg and OP. How dangerous does StV get for self hitting. It is my understanding the Krieg’s base melee scales with OP levels. I do plan on stacking as much health as I can (RR and Relics), but I am curious as to how careful I need to be on wild swings.

Thanks again dudes

#9

With 5/5 in Feed the Meat and on level Rough Rider and +health relics StV at OP8 takes around 8~12% of your total health but, note however that there is a bug with Fuel the Blood that while it’s active the damage to self from StV is increased to something around 20~30% of your health (specially noticeable when it happens while you’re slagged and you lose about 80% of all your health in a single hit).

As a rule of thumb for melee’ing with StV is to not spam unecessarily. After some time you’ll find out how much hits each enemy can take and the risk of downing yourself gets lower although you’ll still have issies from time to time when krieg insists in hitting himself three+ times in a row…

#10

Thanks for the info. The chain hitting myself in the face is why I decided to respec earlier than later. I needed to get used to not spamming melee and being a little more conscious of it.

I’ll have to be careful when Fuel the Blood is active, granted if it is, I’m throwing the axes instead of swinging em for the most part. Never realized this either. I thought is was from having 20 stacks of Salt when the face smashing occurs. Good to know.

Now just to finish up a bit of work, then see how many OP levels I get before I break down and get new gear

Thanks again for all the advice

#11

This is how BA Krieg can be with 10/5 StV:

2 Likes
#12

Now I’m just excited

#13

I think you’ll be fine with no re-farming up to digi-peak op3 with things like Bloodbath helping with the damage, past that you probably should get better weapons and shield every 2 op levels for safety (op4, 6 and 8 or maybe op3, 5, 7 and 8).