[Build] Oh Nasty - SMG Goodness

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Athena the Gladiator
#1

Ever wanted to see how fast you could take a full juicy load and spray it on a Scav’s face? I thought so.

This build is centered around SMGs and the Femme Fatale class mod to get insane fire rate.

While this build isn’t heavy on defense, if you can effectively use Bloodrush and the Aspis you shouldn’t have very much trouble staying alive.

THE BUILD

Level 50
This is what the point spread is currently. There’s a couple places where you can move around points as you wish.

GEAR

***Torrent:*** This is the bread winner. Natural high fire rate and solid damage makes this one a no brainer. Take any flavor you like, I stick with fire or shock.
***Hellfire:*** Great second choice. Even though its locked in fire it doesn’t even matter, you’ll still tear through shields.
***IVF:*** Alternative method for raiding, the damage from the reload easily takes out any phase of the Sentinel
***Fatale:*** Essentially the Bitch from BL2 but locked in cryo, the high accuracy makes for easy crits.
***Fridgia:*** Wanna freeze people? Go for it, I won’t stop you.
***Miss Moxxi’s Vibra-Pulse:*** No, this isn’t an SMG, but there isn’t currently an SMG that restores health. Use this in a time where you find yourself running low.
***Adaptive Shield:*** Currently, I’ve had zero luck getting shields to drop for me. This is the only solid shield I’ve found. Best of all, these things are in the vendor consistently. Its really up to you what to use here.
***Storm Front:*** Best at building stacks and taking down shield.
***Quasar:*** The king of crown control. Pair this with Blood Rush and you have yourself a deadly combo.
***Femme Fatale Com:*** What this build was centered around. The boost in Mag Size and SMG Damage compliments the fire rate and reload speed buffs you get from the skills.
***Celestial Gladiator:*** If you find yourself going down a lot use this. There’s a override on the shield recharge delay the moment you bring out your aspis, plus the skills boost are great.
***Strafing Run Oz Kit:*** More hot and nasty fire rate and reload speed? You better believe it.
***Precision Strike Oz Kit:*** Great for raiding, decent enough alternate for mobbing.
***Bomber Oz Kit:*** Best used in combo with the IVF (grenade damage boosts the explosion of the reload) and a Storm Front to easily maintain stacks.
***System Purge Oz Kit:*** Also an excellent choice for mobbing, especially in an atmosphere.

SKILLS

Phalanx

5/5 Ephodos: Gun Damage is always good, extra movement speed never hurts either.
3/5 Vanguard: You can do whatever you want between this and Hold the Line. I find the health regen on absorption to be quite useful.
2/5 Hold the Line: Again, do whatever you want here. I like a little of both.
1/1 Prisatic Aegism: Adds the ability to absorb elements including your own, you’re dumb not to take it if you came down this far.
1/1 Clear!: This is what we come down Phalanx for. Instant reviving of teammates is a no brainer for co op.

Xiphos

5/5 Gun Kata: Not an amazing skill but its nice, this isn’t what we came here for anyway.
5/5 Mercurial: Movement speed only adds to your crowd control. Also is one of the 3 skills boost by the com.
5/5 Omega-Senshu: 35% multiplicative passive damage bonus on enemies less the 50% health, damn straight.
1/1 Rend: You’re not taking this for the skill itself, it’s what it provides for Tear and Blood Rush.
5/5 Tear: More multiplicative bonuses, this time for only gun damage. Use Blood Rush and the aspis to close in on enemies and watch enemies go down quickly.
1/1 Blood Rush: Use this to close the gap and make him bleed. The knock back sets it up for you to spray the money shot all on his face.

Ceraunic Storm

4/4 Storm Weaving: Excellent fire rate boost if you change weapons enough.
1/1 Maelstrom: What makes all the stack building happen.
5/5 Gathering Tempest: Great passive bonuses to mag size and reload speed, even better that this gets boosted by the com.
1/5 Conduit: Regens your shield while you have electrocute going, the little bit of survivability helps.
1/5 Unrelenting: The boost here gets insane once you’re above 100 stacks. This is the third skill to get boosted by the com, so only one point is enough. The second point could even go in Elemental Barrage or Smite if you so please.
1/5 Elemental Barrage: Essentially this is free DPS. The ability to not consume ammo is always a plus.

PS - If anyone can correctly guess where the name came from, you win a high five.

6 Likes
#2

Did you censor the bitch or was that automatic?

#3

Looks like it was automatic, guess it doesnt like swear words.

#4

I love this.
I have a similar build I’m still playing around with, I take out the melee parts and center it more around Phalanx for general survivability.
I don’t have a stormfront, so am using a purple tesla and it still destroys everything. Don’t use the Rosie either since I don’t have a Lv. 50 electric, but I’ve found the VibraPulse is super good with this build, especially since it branches out, so it’s great for mobbing.
I also like how you can toy aroun with different COMs depending on the situation, though I usually go with the Celestial Gladiator COM since it’s the more complete and I’m specced into every skill it boosts.

1 Like
#5

Thanks man!

She is pretty beastly and versitile. It seems like every build has 2-3 coms that could fit her easily. It’ll be interesting to see the builds that come out for 60. She has so many good skills in each tree that are worth grabbing.

A regular tesla does extremely well still. I’ve been using it to keep up maelstrom and help take down shields, by no means is a strom front necessary.

#6

I’m liking this build a lot, based on what I’ve seen in your videos so far. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to giving it a try after I finally get this game when the inevitable anniversary bundle comes out. I actually have a similar build in mind that focuses slightly more on melee and was gonna post a topic on it, but I didn’t want to inadvertently plagiarize your build since the points allocation between the two builds are so similar.

With that said, I do have two questions on how I want to progress with this build.

One: I’m considering using a level fifty to sixty Deadly Femme Fatale for the aforementioned build I have in mind; however, I’m not sure whether I’d want a purple one or a blue one with six points in Gathering Tempest and five in Unrelenting, and move the one point in Mercurial to Gathering Tempest. So which do you think should I opt for?

Two: how does the Meat Grinder fare with this build? I haven’t seen many people use that gun in The Pre-Sequel nor the Bone Shredder in Borderlands 2.

P.S. By the way, the link to your build is glitching out for me; it’s working fine in the old forums, though.

1 Like
#7

Thanks!

Not sure why the link wasn’t working but it should be good now.

Go ahead and post the build anyway. My build was similar to Sljm’s Blue Steel when I posted it, but the gear and playstyle wasn’t exactly the same. Even if you think its similar, you might bring something to the table no one has thought of.

  1. I really like movement speed buffs, so Mercurial is awesome in my eyes. Try both a purple and blue when you get the chance to see which you like. If you’re playing similar to how I play, I would take a point from Bloodlust to pick up Mercurial or dump Bloodlust completely. Maybe this will change in UVHM, but right now the health regen isn’t great when you kill the enemy in a second (again, if you play like me, since I use this build like a shotgun basically).

  2. Someone actually messaged me yesterday telling me to give it a go. I thought it was really good for the short time I used it, though I could see why it doesn’t get much use. The Sentinel went down really quick in every phase. Mobbing was about the same, little harder to keep up the fire rate from the other guns I use. Accuracy wasn’t something to worry about (shotgun playstyle) and it packs a pretty good punch. Definitely worth a try if you’re curious.

1 Like
#8

All right then. Thanks. By the way, the reason why I have Bloodlust in the first place is because I want to avoid using Moxxi weapons and other life-steal gear. I’ll admit that after seeing Exped1ter’s build showcases, I figured that Vanguard and Bloodlust are enough to keep my health topped off. I’ll see about that once I finally get to test it out.

#9

Ok, that makes sense. If you’re planning on keeping the enemies around for a while after you make them bleed then you shouldn’t have a lot of problem staying alive. Those combined give good health regen if you have 2 or 3 bleeding. It sounds like your build should work really well.

1 Like
#10

Now with color.

I’ll be updating this in a couple days with a level 60 layout and add the Meat Grinder too.

#11

How to add colors? Looking good btw :).

1 Like
#12

Same as before except this time drop the "

[color=orange]

Looks like this

1 Like
#13

Cool thnx :).

#14

You know, up to this point, I don’t think anyone—myself included—has ever found out where the name of your build comes from. I did something similar for my build when I posted it about a week ago, but I’m starting to regret my choice of reference as I feel like it may be too obscure for anyone to figure out. :confused:

By the way, I’m liking the added colors.

#15

Thanks! The dark background makes colors pop really nice in these forums, I’m liking it a lot now that there’s color.

I think mine might be too obscure. Its a sort of well known game, but its a part of the game some people might not have played. I used it because my brother and I would play it quite a bit and quote that part. Someone might manage to figure it out.

#16

Thanks, I nicked some very helpful points from your build to have a back up plan for boss fights with my pure melee athena, especially the femme fatale mod, the Gathering Tempest skill and the ivf. My only trouble at lvl 60 is the 2nd big form of the raid boss where he is resistant to shock - I can’t quite get through his shield with my shock ivf reloads, any advice here?

#17

I haven’t figured out a solid strategy for that phase yet, and I stopped playing the game for now so I’m not the best person to ask. However, I did kill him a couple times once I got to 60. What I did was switched to a bomber oz kit and spammed some teslas for maelstrom, got a kill off a guardian and went to town on his face with a flakker. It worked decently well, not a speed kill by any means but I found it pretty easy. I too stuck with the ivf during level 50 but the ammo consumption was too much the first time I tried it at level 60. Hope this was a little helpful. Sorry I’m not much help.

#18

no worries! But how does the flakker relate to maelstorm? It doesn’t really get a damage buff from the stacks, does it? or is it just the extra fire rate and reload speed?

#19

It does actually get maelstrom, and getting a kill skill boosts fire rate and reload speed. So yes, you were correct on your assumptions.

#20

I believe you’re referring to Unrelenting in which case it boosts Fire Rate and Weapon Swap Speed.

I’ve found the best tactic for this phase is to simply Blood Rush the face to apply bleed (hope you don’t get stuck), and use a Jakobs or Torgue shotty to take out the shield then swap to Incendiary to build stacks back up and finish it off.

Shock transfusion grenades also do a decent job of keeping stacks up, Conduit active (if you have it), and your health topped off while you deal with the shield.