Stop hitting yourself

Borderlands 2 Krieg the Psycho
#1

Oh God

So I am building through the Mania tree, and I went with Silence the Voices, oh dear lord, what a mistake, now I know some people swear by it, but after killing myself 3 times, and hitting myself in the face 4 times in a row, on multiple occasions, I have had to spec out of it, I just wish Legendaries had a drop rate equivalent of StV, I would be rolling in Legendaries.

Still staying with Mania tree, just got the capstone, and I just finished Captain Scarletts, level 31 (I had out-levelled the main quest so figured I would actually get an expansion done before I out-levelled that too.

Anyway I have Captain Blades Manly Man Shield, Rapier, Otto Idol and Orphan Maker, plus the Love Thumper

Problem is the love thumper is about level 19, while Captain Blades Manly Man Shield is about Level 29ish (im at work, don’t know exact levels of my head)

So I am trying to work out, while the Love Thumper is down, I add about 285 roid damage, and of course, do the Nova, is Captain Blades Manly Man shield better for the melee? I don’t know how much damage it’s adding, but I have Strip the Flesh, so I am guessing, as the Manly Man Shield adds explosive damage, it will benefit, and the Nova from the Love Thumper is only scratching enemies now.

With the Orphan Maker, plus you know, getting show, I can strip the shield of the Manly Man Shields pretty damn quick, but I don’t know which one I am better off with.

Anyone know? Gut says go with the manly man shield, and use all the Captain Blade gear, so I can be Pirate Krieg (I am using everything except the Manly Man shield currently).

And a side question, now I have what I need from Mania, and like charging in Hitting stuff, am I bets going into Hellborn now? Or if I go with the manly man shield, get all the shield regen slowing abilities until its worth respeccing so I have the capstone of Mania and Elemental Elation/Fire Fiend

Apologies for the somewhat rambling post.

Thanks In Advance for your help

#2

Just trying to be as objective as possible with your points here, also you should post your current and intended build (you could use bl2skills.com for this purpose). Anyway, these are my opinions/suggestions:

  1. to-StV-or-to-not-StV
    In my honest opinion using StV before the OP levels is just a matter of preference, you can do just fine through normal, tvhm and uvhm without it if you want as it will only change your mindset while from non-stop spamming to more rational attacks.

  2. Manly Man vs Roid
    As far as I know the explosive damage from the MMshield is calculated as a portion of your character’s base melee (wich is calculated as 20(13^{character_level}) ), assuming the wiki for bl2 is right then the bonus damage should be 40% of your current base melee, for a lvl31 your base melee is around 884.0193 so the shield should be adding about 356.6077 damage as explosive but you got to take into consideration that you’ll take increased elemental damage (although I don’t know if that’s elemental impact or damage over time or, if you actually take any increased damage as we all know how often descriptions ingame don’t accurately represent what really happens).
    Between those two my advice would be to get a shield for increased health instead as Krieg doesn’t need roid while Buzzaxe Rampaging, good options are the Rough Rider, Evolution, Neogenator or any Adaptative shields.

  3. Hellborning or not
    If I understood correctly what you meant, I would say you would be better off with Mania (assuming you’re using Release the Beast) and for now spec’ing into bloodlust until you can afford some more-than-decent healing through Elemental Empathy at level 52, that is, assuming you want to go with a hellborn-mania melee spec for maximum survivability while chaining RtB’s one after another.

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#3

Thanks for the response Maveco

this is my current build

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#00000000000050105503150100000000000

The 1 point in Feed the Meat is because I have a class mod and seemed a shame not to use it.

I don’t have an End game build yet, still enjoying the difference between Krieg and Axton/Maya, though the idea of spewing fireballs from my head as a Badass Psycho does appeal to me.

I haven’t worried to much about the extra elemental damage so far when I did use the manly shield for a bit, but you are probably right in getting an Anshin shield, and get that +33% vitality mod form my mule.

I didn’t worry about health to much as some mobs seem to almost 1 shot you regardless of health, so it seemed daft to build health. I might even have a neogenator about my level on another mule, though I think its closer to 35.

I will put more points into other Mania tree skills until I can respec and grab some tier 3 Hellborn skills.

Thanks for the maths on the Manly Man Shield by the way.

#4

I don’t remember how effective Krieg is with increased health early in the game but I can say that it becomes very noticeable later on specially how the psycho has the highest potential for +health in the game and second for damage resistence if I recall correctly.

About your skillpoints distribution I would suggest a small change if you don’t mind at removing all points from Fuel the Rampage since RtB already gives you full action-skill cooldown and having 4 of those points spent on Feed the Meat and 1 on Strip the Flesh and depending on how much you go melee instead of shooting you could also change those 5 points from Thrill of the Kill over something like Blood-filled Guns for higher dps (reloading less often means shooting more).

ps.: fireball-tossing mutant badass psycho is indeed a lot of fun, it is by the way my favorite spec for Krieg.

#5

K gets fun after lv32 and RtB.
If you’re going melee/ hellborn K, get a Rough Rider. An adaptive also could make a nice job plus a health (or Blood of the Seraphs) relic.

Later on when you hit the Hellborn capstone (Raving Retribution), you can switch to an elemental relic.

I would go with this build
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#00000000000050550103150100000000000

#6

Thanks for the responses guys

I see what you mean about wasted points in Fuel the Rampage with RtB, maybe when I get better at timing RtB I will drop them, but as I keep missing the timing somewhat, I will hold onto it for more practice.

Thrill of the Kill has been nice keeping me alive between Rampages, although then again, having just got RtB, I am not used to having such an easy self heal, so you are right again, more practice I can probably drop that to.

Its weird having skills that are a sort of must while levelling to the capstone that become 90% redundant after reaching the cap, cannot say I have experienced that before.

I don’t have a Rough Rider, only done Hammerlocks DLC once, though I could try farming the Bullymong on my 53 Axton who has done the DLC, as it will be capped, and come in nice and handy, thanks for the heads up.

#7

With a bit of practice you’ll be able to hit RtB consistently, I can say that considering that I was able to play from lvl32 to lvl61 with no weapons equipped once I got a point into RtB.

You might aswell remove that single point from TotK and place it elsewhere as 50% of overkill before uvhm just gives you a sliver of health back this early on health vs damage scaling.

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#8

That TOtK is temporal. Yet also pointless because BxR though xd

#9

http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#00000000000050530015150100000000000

:dukecheese:

And an adaptive shield is just fine if you’re not using StV. I’d look for a good roid shield instead, though. Also, be on the lookout for a Rage Meat COM. A RR is only really needed in the OP levels when using StV; a roid with a lot of extra damage will serve you better.

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#10

Looks nice, gulf.
I hate you xD

#11

You will be fine early on without StV with melee Krieg but you will definitely need it later on in UVHM if you stick with a melee approach.

#12

[quote=“xmngr, post:10, topic:687119, full:true”]
Looks nice, gulf.[/quote]
Thanks. :dukeaffirmative:

Don’t hate me because I’m crazy beautiful. :dukejk:

No you won’t. I speak from experience: I played with two others using a Leg. Reaper and had not issues meleeing my enemies using RtB until around OP 5ish. If you are going to use StV, you should get a sickle mod with at least +5 in it to make it worthwhile. Sure an extra 250% damage is nice, but it’s when it’s 500% that negates the chance of hitting yourself.

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#13

Thanks for all the advice so far guys, as I am overlevelled for the current play-thourgh, but low enough to get the DLC’s to test me, I will be starting a run through Tiny Tina’s Expansion, should give me a good time, and maybe I can get my timings right.

Oh and managed to get a Rough Rider on second try, so I have a 28 & 35 Neogenator, and a 34 Rough Rider, and I am level 31, so some different shields to play with, and a +33% health relic.

Thanks again all.

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#14

Good choice of shields, I remember back when Krieg was out and while most people were looking for either a love thumper or a hide of terramorphous I couldn’t think about anything else than a rough rider (or evolution/neogenator to a lesser degree). If you get full-health after each kill while rampaging then why not make the most out of health*? Not that roid shields aren’t good, in reality outside of op levels or raids roid vs health is mostly preference.

*except for classmods, you’ll lose too much skipping melee-oriented com’s over healthy ones.

#15

I stopped using my adaptive the first time I found a RR and I haven’t looked back.

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#16

RR and nothing else.

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#17

Just a quick note

Made it to 35, running around with the Rough Rider and loving it, went with this build at 31
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#00000000000050521015150100000000000

And now I am at this
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#10000000000050551015150100000000000

The 1 point in Fuel the Rampage is because of a class mod

I also have a level 28 Infinity, and can I just say, Rough Rider+Infinity+Embrace the Pain is awesome for creating Bloodstacks, not much use of Blood Filled Guns on an Infinity, but I aim to get either Taste of Blood for the damage reduction or Blood Overdrive for even more Melee Damage.

I will need Boiling blood long term I think, as the transformation of Krieg during Release the Beast loses almost 10 stacks, and I figure, long term if I hope to UHVM, RtB & BloodSplosion might be a nice build.

Anyway there is a long way to go until then, and I just want to say thanks to everyone for your help in sorting my Krieg out, having tons of fun, which is the important thing.

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#18

clings on the Neogenator

Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.

But on a serious note. Yeah, RR was just made for Krieg.

#19

Krieg on UVHM is where the magic starts.

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#20

Go with Taste of Blood - it’ll be more useful with RtB than BO.

I never used a Neo. I did get good use out of regular purple adaptive shields though.