[Build] Snowstormin' Boomtrap

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Claptrap the Fragtrap
#1

So this is it, the Snowstormin’ Boomtrap is a retouching of what others have done, with some trimming of the fat and MOR survivability and nova-bang.

First in brief: pouncing into combat with Too Scoops firing at the enemies toes; freeze virtually guaranteed on every shot due to the AOE splash frost coupled with Maniacal Laughter; firing explo novas after every pull of the trigger. This cuts through mobs quickly and with decent supporting gear will keep you off the floor, even against groups of badasses in the holodome.

GEAR:

Too Scoops shotty is the main weapon i use for this (Fridgia as well, sometimes Ol’ Rosie, and a decent explosive pistol (around 8k card dps). I am thinking a different high pellet low magazine frost shotty may work even better- eliminate the self freezing and inflict actual gun damage; as much as i love Too Scoops the damage is negligible; you use it for the AOE freeze and it works great that way. Another side benefit is using Too Scoops requires very little ammo- you’ll be amazed at how slowly you go through it.

Shield: Tediore purple is great, coupled with Safety First and 3DD1.E your shield regens almost as soon as you take damage (and will often get stick on looping regen when Safety First procs Shields, constantly filling until the damage pauses and you hit 100%). 9/5 Wax on Wax off from Chronicler Class Mod further stacks up your shield power. Alternatively you can go with another shield but the key is you want very low delay and high charge amount- currently i’m testing the Cradle and it works great. Some folks hold out for that Warming prefix but i don’t find it necessary; by the time all the mobs are dead if you’re still moving slowly you can just shoot the ground and fix yourself. Against bosses I don’t use Too Scoops so i’m not concerned with freezing up there either.

Class Mod: Purple sapper mods are decent, but the Chronicler of Elpis is fantastic, adds deeps at the cost of lifetap, but also adds survivability. With the CoE i’m looking at 9/5 Wax on Wax off, 9/5 Load n’ Splode for extreme explosive dmg stacking, and 9/5 Start with a Bang for super powered novas.

Oz kit: 3DD1.E is my favorite, but Systems Purge is also nice for the additional novas; or if you’re outside toss a 50% explosive damage oz kit on for ludicrous numbers (over 800k novas with a few stacks of Load n’ Splode, well over 1 million if you’re down).

Grenade: I like the Stormfront (or any decent Tesla grenade) because it only hurts about 1% of your shield when tossed at your own feet, but helps a lot against mega-badasses like Prime Ophas etc.

SKILLS:

My favorite part of this build is you only need 1 point in the last tree for Safety First. When it’s on Shields, you win, when it’s on Health you win. You will always have one or the other running and those are both massive buffs. You will be running around with a permanent 15% gun damage nerf by using Safety First 24/7 but this build is about PBAOE novas so you won’t miss it.

Start with a Bang is obviously the corner stone, and with some + from your class mod it will hit insanely hard. This skill also functions WHILE YOU ARE DOWN with a massive damage buff from Best Buds for Life; so if mobs are near you just keep Two Scoopin’ em and you should be back up in 1-2 seconds even against badasses.

Your two healing novas, Trap Card and You’re going to Love me, and Killbot are great because the % healed is of your MAX health, which means stacking up that health for this build results in gigantic heals. Currenly my health hits around 56k with the health buff on, healing a little over half that per kill. The self-damage from Start with a Bang is negligible because it takes a % from CURRENT health rather than max.

I love Drop the Hammer because Too Scoops doesn’t need accuracy, and i found that shooting faster means faster novas- i thought the cooldown would prevent more speed from getting me more damage but i found the warm up animation for the nova actually seems to shorten to accommodate faster trigger pulls. Even aerial mobs can be taken out easily by timing your jump so the nova goes off when you are near them.

Pain Simulator and All Things are Awesome both at 5/5 grants you a big chunk of health which will make those kill-heals that much better.

I found One Last Thing provided almost zero buff to Too Scoops despite the weapon always being on its last shot- but Start with a Bang so massively outperforms any weapon you can fire that the dps from Too Scoops isn’t necessary.

High Fives Guys is optional but even the single player buff is pretty nice for gun damage and health regen. And when you DO get knocked down and jump back up Best Buds 4 Life helps bridge the gap before your first mob heal.

Summary:

As you can see there is no cooldown reduction here, but I’ve found that i SO rarely need to pop my active that it doesn’t matter.

SO clearly the Snowstormin’s offense is insane; you will be exploding the world with gusto. Now if you roll with Systems Purge and the Cradle shield like I am, you are constantly kicking out target centered nova blasts, explosive spike damage and when the shield breaks Mega Nova and Cradle’s explosive nova, coupled with all your ice cloud dps and Start with a Bang constantly blasting the area around you.

Your defense is also extremely robust, with a large health pool and 20% dmg resist from Pain Simulator, 9/5 Wax on Wax off for crazy shield regen coupled with Chronicler’s +5400 shields, 3DD1.E’s habit of insta-recharging shields, and 50% uptime for the shield subroutine on Safety First, stacking even more shield strength and recharge rate. With Best Buds 4 Life, Mega Nova, Friendship Nova, and Killbot all contributing health regen you’re well protected there also.

Fragtrap Master List: Build Collection
You call this "balanced" combat?
#2

Solid mobbing build. How do you take on the raid boss, rk4 and the badass round? Any alternative gear you swap to?

#3

This build works just how i laid out for the badass round of holodome, no changes necessary. Used a lot of tesla grenades at my feet to bring down those shields. Metal critters seem to have no resist to explosive damage so i never bother swapping to corrosive.

For RK5 i used a corrosive sniper rifle, just purple ~11.5k damage, burst fire when zoomed. Hopping back and forth on the two long jump pads. Active for emergencies, swap to Fridgia for a couple quick marine kills if health got desperate. RK5 is still the hardest boss in the game for me lol; He seems to have the largest HP boost of any boss TVHM-UVHM. That said my Clappy had a MUCH easier time against him than my Athena.

Zarp and Sentinel (till stage 2) are vulnerable to novas; zarp is extremely vulnerable to teslas’, for Sentinel i didn’t even have a shock weapon lol; i used an explo shotty and a lot of jumping, with some fire dps after his masks were off.

1 Like
#4

I’m wondering how much benefit you would get from Coincidental Combustion. Too Scoops gun damage isn’t very high, although maybe it can proc multiple times per shot. Here’s an analysis done on the old site. I don’t have it in front of me, but I think a lvl 60 Two Scoops does about 3500 base damage. So, assuming you’re using the CoE, that means LnS is 9/5. Using the formula from that link, you would get:

(3500 * 1.15) * (1 + 1.8) = 11270

That’s with max stacks of LnS. And it procs only 35% of the time. Let’s add in a 50% Duality:

(3500 * 1.15) * (1 + 1.8 + .5) = 13282

Now, obviously if the bad guy is cryo’d already, you can multiply those numbers by 3. Note, I didn’t add Elemental Damage from BAR, but that would be minor. This skill is better on higher fire rate or higher damage guns, but it’s still marginal. On Too Scoops, it’s not even marginal unless it somehow procs a bunch of times per shot.

I think those points should be moved to Organized Guns are Happy Guns. Then, you should pick yourself up an IVF (non-elemental) and start tossing that at bosses and frozen badasses (more important in multiplayer games). Oh, and carry a Loose Cannon (+6 LnS / +5 DtH) and Bomber Kit when IVF tossing bosses. It maximizes DPS and lowers the hurt from SWAB proc’ing repeatedly without getting a kill.

I commented on the Cradle in the other thread. I need to test that for myself before determining how it compares to a Purple Tediore.

I don’t know how much the Eddie is helping you. I see it almost uselessly recharging your quick recharging shield at times. And I think you have enough survivability as-is. I prefer the Bomber Kit – 50% more damage from a Storm Front is going to be tough for Systems Purge to overcome (even with Too Scoops ability to proc it on multiple enemies in each shot). I think people don’t throw nearly enough grenades. And the Bomber Kit gives 50% more grenades if you remember to jump first. Plus, the Storm Front stacks Maniacal Laughter, so even more healing.

#5

When i did UVHM Badass round of Holodome i got it done on the first try with Claptrap, largely thanks to this build. I used a Foolhardy Sapper mod (instead of Chronicler), with +3 killbot, +4 One Last Thing, and +5 Start with a Bang on it. stats were 30% explosive resist, +42% explosive damage. The shield i used was actually a quest shield- Super Sized Shield; it’s basically a Tediore but seems to have better shield capacity than most of them (13.9k), with 1.82 delay. Oz kit was 3DD1.E, Longbow Stormfront grenade. As for Cradle the recharge is like 3 seconds so you’re right, it’s great for mobbing but i wouldn’t bring it to the badass round. It was definitely explo-spiking mobs, i have no points in the rebounder (and it has a 5s cooldown anyway, i saw mobs getting hit every 1s sometimes from the shield, i was just standing there watching without attacking).

I ran with Fridgia, Ol’Rosie (works great against Felicity just fight from the other side of an arch she can’t walk through), Fremington’s Edge (frost), and of course Too Scoops. As for Flame Knuckle he’s so slow you can literally run circles around him blasting him with novas; it’s pretty easy to stay at his back.

I wouldn’t change the spec i love having only the 1 point in Fragmented, it feels buffed all the time. And I’ve noticed a well placed shot dead center between their feet on the floor with TS is like 99% chance to freeze; i guess most of the AOE hits them that way.

Only thing i’ve found that sucks is freezing with Fridgia then swapping to TS you will miss your first nova, for some reason it doesn’t count as firing the first bullet until you reload and fire again. Other than that good times.

** I will say in general shield novas and spikes are still extremely underwhelming compared to One Last Thing + Start with a Bang. There’s just no comparison, so you’re probably right the quick Tediore is a better option.

What i like about 3DD1.E is it will aggressively recharge your shield, even while you are taking dot damage, which a Tediore won’t do. And the 3DD1.E buff isn’t done till you’re full so it will keep fighting the dot until it clicks to 100% (even if it’s only for a second) before 3DD1.E counts it as casting. Plus it leaves a lot more health lying around and the occasional lightning attack seems to have a knockback component which is nice. A Tediore shield wants you taking no damage for a moment before it will flag to recharge and while you’re under dots that moment can seem like forever (while you decide whether or not to burn EXE). As to Happy Guns don’t really want a larger magazine size anywhere since almost all my DPS is bang novas XD

#6

Psst!

:innocent:

#7

Does this work?

Type: AOE DPS, Survivability
Name and Link: Snowstormin’ Boomtrap
Level of Build: 60
Difficulty Level: Low/High (mobbing/boss)

#8

Happy Guns won’t give a big enough bonus to affect Too Scoops. I suppose if you were using a Ravager, it might be something to consider. But, even then, the extra shot is probably beneficial. First shot gets SWAB, second shot the splash gets OLT, and the third shot the bullets get OLT. Gives each shot a kick and you get 3 shots before reload (the only real downside to that gun). But, you should really give IVF tossing a shot. It’s really effective against most of the bosses (especially Sentinel, Felicity and Iwajira). Felicity is < 20 seconds and Iwa can be well under 10 secs if you cryo grenade + 2-3 IVF tosses. Those are solo numbers. Of course, a Flakker might be even better (especially if you stack LnS first somehow).

Fair enough about Eddie. Generally, I don’t mind going into FFYL. Usually, I’m next to someone and I’m up in the next SWAB. Or the Second Wind skill gets you up. And the biggest DoT threat was your own Too Scoops, so a warming shield has some value there (for the loss of movement speed even with O2 boosting). The Sentinel and maybe RK5 fight are the only ones that might be a problem (but I’ve had little trouble with either of those).

#9

I’ll definitely have to give that a shot… i found and IVF a while back and thought it was worthless lol; but then again it was only like lvl 47. I’ve found Sentinel is an absolute joke with Hail, he’s the only boss that seems to eat every bullet. I hate RK5 because he’s only in range 10% of the time.

#10

Yep. Added. :smile:

#11

The Hail, huh? Which element and which stage of the Sentinel fight? Any other special gear? I’m not sure Claptrap has the same ability to make use of the Hail as the others. I can see some of the skills you have helping, but nothing that is a huge boost. What kind of explosive #s are you seeing from Coincidental Combustion with the Hail? Maybe that’s it.

#12

Actually the post was misleading, i MEANT to xfer my hail to him from Athena for the Sentinel, and i forgot. She used it on the Sentinel and totally wrecked him (shock hail with 4500 dmg… thats over 1k more than any other hail i’ve seen and i’ve farmed like 30 (unintentionally) killing Iwa so many times. It would not have done as much shock dmg on Clappy but with every round hitting the sentinel square in the face i would have procced explosions on a lot more bullets than the fight i ended up having without the Hail.

So as it turned out, i killed the Sentinel with NO shock weapon of any kind on my claptrap, bc the pistol i brought was such garbage i actually tossed it on the ground in frustration lol. I used a lot of that fire shotty from Holodome (cannot remember the dang name), i have a decent lvl 60 of that, and stage 1 i just nova’d him for the most part. I also used a Ravager on the sentinel for shields when he was in stage 2. Surprisingly the explosion procs seemed to help quite a bit vs. the shields, (on that fire shotty you get clouds of explosion procs). I had a Flakker in the bank too, i was very ill-prepared for that fight but somehow pulled it off on the first try.

I think the toughness part is what saved me there- 3DD1.E procced like crazy since it rolls for every damage tick i believe, Tediore shield, and Chronicler. Buttslam/TS shotty one shots the guardians and gives me a 65% heal. The Stormfront was worthless in there, but i did swap to Fire Bee and it wrecked stage 1 sentinel when he was on the last form.

#13

You’re talking about the Party Line shotgun. I think I have one in the bank that I’ll need to try out (along with the Hail) with CC. Just not sure it’s ever going to be more effective than running an actual explosive weapon on Claptrap (e.g. Ravager, Flakker, IVF, etc). Not that everything has to be about max-min.

#14

each little extra pellet can proc explosions, so i think the net effect was amazing. i think flakker might have done even better though. and i did use a Ravager to cut through the shield, i just like Party Line’s zero travel time for pellets and extreme accuracy at distance- with Ravager i was wasting a lot of pellets and going through ammo too fast.

#15

Why not first shot gets SWAB and OLT splash, and the second shot gets bullet OLT. Seriously, if you want to use Ravager with OLT, get yourself 8 mag one or lower.

Coincidental Combustion can proc only on single pellet (shotguns). The reason why youve seen more explosion is because Hail spawns an unlisted pellet on top of original one as it travels. Cryo Hail is one of the better guns to use with CC if you know how to handle that gun.

#16

yeah basically you have to double the fire rate. but i’ve noticed Party Line and Flakker will also get more explosions because they have a lot of extra procs that aren’t listed as pellets

#17

I guess I’m lazy to do the DPS calculation. :smile: My thought was that it will take a second to fire one more shot before you’re hit with something like a 3+ second reload. That one shot (while not buffed by OLT) can get buffed by a variety of other things (LnS, Grenade Vent, Oz Kit, BAR, etc), which might make it worth having. Yes, the other shots get buffed by those skills as well, but it could lessen the % of the total damage attributed to OLT (depending on the calculation… which I don’t know). It may also be the case that a two-shot Ravager is a bit of an overkill on either shot, but 3 shots hits the sweet spot better for mobbing even if the DPS is higher on the two-shot.

Flakker gets CC buff? That can’t be true, can it?

I did a couple of tests with CC and Too Scoops. I think my calculations above are correct, but I think each ball can proc, because on larger enemies, two sets of #s (one for each ball I assume) could show up. I would see a pair of 29-49K at times on large Kraggons that I was testing on. Regardless, it doesn’t happen every time (duh… 35% max without mod) and it pales in comparison to the damage you would be doing with SWAB + LnS + whatever. I think you would be lucky to add 5-10% to your DPS. Possibly helpful for out-of-range enemies, but there are much better options than shooting Too Scoops down range.

Also tried a cryo Hail with CC. Unless you’re a crack shot with that thing and reload early to get LnS stacks, I just don’t see how it’s more than marginally effective. Or maybe I just suck with it or haven’t figured out a good use case for it. Open to ideas though…

#18

yeah you’re right Flakker is native explosion so… guess there’s no point in me testing that lol. it won’t proc CC. as for Two Scoops, totally agree the damage is like 2% of what i’m doing with SWAB, but i don’t use it for damage; for some reason that AOE splash equates to almost 100% freeze chance, much easier to freeze than even the Fridgia.

I was thinking however, maybe a high pellet, high DPS cryo shotgun might actually add a notch of dmg, but all the cryo shotties i find are garbage.

#19

Uh, guys, you know there’s a comprehensive analysis of CC, right? It’s been done by Exotek. [GUIDE] Coincidental Combustion Analysis

#20

I referenced that same post on the old forums in my first post in this thread. I’m trying to show with that calculation and real-world data that I don’t think it’s a very good skill on the OP’s build. Maybe there are Claptrap builds that can make better use of the skill (e.g. running with the Fatale or maybe Fridgia). But with his build, I think those points are better spent elsewhere: either in OLT so you can make better use of a Ravager/Flakker type weapon or Organized Guns if you are going the Tediore (i.e. IVF) chucking path. Either path solves the same problem: Too Scoops + SWAB is good for mobbing, but for bosses (and maybe badasses), it would be beneficial to have something even harder hitting.

But hey, it’s just a suggestion. If the OP is happy with his build, that’s cool. His post did make me fire up my Clappy for the first time in quite a while and try some stuff out. It didn’t change anything in my build, but it was fun to play around with him for a bit.

Also, OP, I did test out the Cradle as well. At level 60, the one I grinded for had capacity=7900 and recharge delay=3.92 (both ick compared to a purple Tediore… probably versions with better parts out there though). To make up for those stats, its throw damage would have to be exceptional. It had a base damage of about 9K when tossing. The most damage I saw was about 170K when I had 5 stacks of LnS at 9/5 and a Bomber Kit on a frozen enemy. One SWAB can do much more damage than that. Also, the shield shoots out in the direction you are facing on depletion, so if there’s no one there, you miss. It is possible to hit multiple enemies on splash though, but that’s going to be somewhat rare. Oh… and it doesn’t have any spike damage that I saw, so I don’t know what you were seeing (or I don’t know what I’m doing). Really, it would take a capacity of at least 10K and more importantly, a recharge delay of close to 2 secs before I would run with it. I think you’re better off with a purple Tediore or a Sham (when fighting gun wielders). Again, take the info and advice as you see fit.