Question: best shock DoT weapon for Athena?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Athena the Gladiator
#1

There are a lot of good shock weapons, but I can’t tell which one is the best for producing lots of powerful DoTs.

For example, hellfire has high DoT chance and high DoT damage, and I can’t think of another weapon that is the shock equivalent of Hellfire (shock maliwan SMGs are better than most, but still don’t generate enough shock DoTs)

Any suggestions?

#2

I useally roll with a Torrent. What it lacks in DOT damage (compared to the Hellfire) it makes up with its avalanche of lead.

#3

Its been a while since I’ve played TPS, but I recall the boxxy gun having some kind of increased DoT. May be worth a look.

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#4

if you have the claptastic voyage i would recommend the thunderfire laser

#5

Maybe the Vibra-Pulse with its gimmick.

#6

The hail with its splash and bullet split can put out a lot, shock sniders will have some of the highest chance but lower fire rate.

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#7

Taser, even with double prefix and extremely high base proc chance, didn’t make enough DoTs for me. Will the Hail be able to best the Taser?

#8

I dont think there is such thing as powerful DoTs in pre sequel. Especialy shock DoTs cuz they only last for 2 seconds. Havent seen any build or setup that focused on DoTs themselves. If you want them to deal damage its not gonna happend. For maelstrom stacking i suggest storm front/tesla nade and a single barrel hyperion shotgun.

#9

Ha… thing is, I know a lot about DoTs and the only reason I posted this question is to make sure I didn’t forget anything. I am currently working on a build entirely focused on DoTs and it’s… pretty devastating!

If you want them to deal damage its not gonna happend

Not in the traditional way. But there is ONE skill that massively boosts the utility of DoTs. Not to mention, two of the weapons of the build just MELTS with DoT.

I know how Maelstrom stacking works. I’m the one who got the OG Eclipse & EOS speed kill using a method that allowed me to reach 999 stacks within 5 seconds. But that was using hyperion shotguns and pretty much every speed kill by anyone since then was using hyperion shotguns.

but I’m sick of using hyperion shotguns - it’s like just facerolling the entire game with DPUH and grog as Sal. Not to mention, you can run out of ammo extremely quickly if you’re not extremely careful on your playstyle and setup. But this build… oh man, it’s really something else.

I already had ideas as to some of the best shock DoT weapons for Athena, but as it turns out, I don’t really need a shock DoT-specific weapon. Instead, on the build I focus on getting shock DoTs from other sources, and there are plenty.

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#10

After long and tedious research, the highest dot in the game, which is on a shock weapon, is the hard reboot with 12,636 dot damage. Also, the unobtainable Good Touch does more for damage then the hellfire at 9,666.5 dot damage. Hope this helped :slight_smile:

#11

Thank you. Hard Reboot was definitely on my radar but at the end it got taken out because of absurdly high impact to DoT damage ratio (lower is better for my build).

Yes, good touch is good but even if it was on the game, what makes Hellfire so special is its splash. Splash essentially means you get 2x the DoT chance, and that’s flat out 2x overall DoT damage before any DoT boost by oz kit, COM, and skills, for only 50% increase in base damage! And that’s what makes Hellfire desirable for this build.

#12

Thanks for the explanation! So what have you found is the best shock weapon for your build?

#13

As I said in reply to CPviolation, there’s no shock-only weapon. Instead, shock DoTs come from many, many sources in the build. The only thing I need to iron out at the moment is to pump out videos and get vacuum footage.

#14

You have pretty much top gear for what you trying to do. I guess EDDIE can be good with black hole since it does that shock attack when enemys are close, but its pretty miniscule. Eridian vanquisher boosts elemental effect chance and unrelenting. Maybe min min laser since firerate buff is high? Quasar should be good for crowd control and overload.

#15

I’ve already locked down on my choices of shock source. Check out my new build for that: [Updated Lv70 Build] Hellfire Athena -- Melting with DoTs & Maelstrom stacking made easy!

Unconventional? Yes. But does it work? Hell yeah

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#16

Unconventional but fun are alot of times my favorite builds.

#17

I really like this one not only for its capabilities (that you have to learn to unlock) but also for the fun factor.

Like, you’d be fighting a mob, and the playstyle is like a snowball gently rolling and getting bigger and bigger - as you fight and stack up, the fight gets more and more intense, the DoTs just spread everywhere by themselves (there’s an obvious joke to be made here) and before you know it, everything is burning. Seriously.

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#18

Shock Laser Blasters have served me well. Lasers seems to have the best ammo capacity and ammo availability in the game. I might be wrong but it certainly has that impression for me. That I rarely run out of laser ammo and often run out of shotgun ammo.

Tediore can make blasters, right? The benefit of course is how the reload gets you even more elemental damage rolling. Either way Tediore lasers are very nice.

I like blasters as athena because they seem to handle decently when not scoped (because half the time you aren’t scoping as athena) as well as when you are scoping they do well.

Secondarily I’ve enjoyed SMGs or assault rifles for elemental stacking, depending on what I find. For athena I want a ton of elemental bullets/lasers, so fire rate is important to me. Which I guess usually means not maliwan because it’s slower.

Nisha is where I enjoy beam lasers because of aimlock. Otherwise they handle too erratically.

#19

Yes! Reminds me of Lilith in Borderlands 1. Or Maya in BL2. Essentially creating an insurance policy of getting a second wind because you’ve weakened every enemy on the field. If you’re downed you’ll just scout for half a second until you find someone near death that you probably set on fire 3 minutes ago. Or you get up within that half second because odds are there’s another enemy dying every other second.