#1. Prelim
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Here’s a vanilla straight forward, in your face build for those of us who don’t want to put up with the forced randomness of the Fragmented Fragtrap tree, but instead want to face roll most things while not make our coop partners hate us.
The focus will rely on the good ol’ cryo - explosions combo, allowing us to one shot pretty much anything short of an UBA (these take 2 shots).
Maybe this build is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be pointed out, but the benefits are worth mentioning:
- up to +144% explosive bonus
- up to +880% OLT bonus on basically every (second) shot!
That means the average body shot on non-frozen targets gets a ■■■■■■■ 2145 % boost and the damage potential of critting a frozen enemy with an explosive gun is 62496 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ %!!!
- up to 78% health regain on kill
- multiple sources of cryo (slam, novas, spikes, gun)
- multiple play styles possible (Tediore chucking, Two Scoop SWABbing, OLT spamming)
There’s also some weaknesses:
- Flying and otherwise fast moving enemies, especially those that are cryo resistant, including RK5.
- Weaksauce when the shield subroutine is not on
#2. Skills
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Skill calculator: Lvl 50 stats / Lvl 60 stats / Lvl 70 stats 
##Boomtrap
5/5 Drop the Hammer: Trivial. Most guns in this build will have to reload very frequently, so we’re constantly buffed by this. And since most guns’ accuracy in this build is under 30% anyways, the penalty doesn’t do much, really.
9/5 or 5/5 Killbot: One shot, one kill, health up. Simple as that. The damage to our shield is negligible since we’ll have a subroutine constantly charging it, or it’ll be down anyways and we can take advantage from the capstone skill instead.
1/1 2nd Wind by Tediore: Filling piece, helps a little bit when downed.
5/5 Load’n’Splode: We’ll be reloading most of your guns after 1-3 shots, so that should give us a constant 2-4 stacks of extra explosive damage.
9/5 or 10/5 Start with a Bang: Again with the frequent reloading and the accumulated L’n’S stacks, this is some welcome extra damage. This does up to 800k damage on frozen targets, and could even be used as exclusive source of damage in mobbing.
10/5 or 11/5 One Last Thing: 800% or 880% damage on the splash of the 2nd last and the bullets of the last shot of each mag on Torgue guns make this outstanding, especially with the Ravager, see below.
1/1 Living near the Edge: Pirate ship is one thing, but the up to 100% fire rate and reload speed allow for an even further increased damage output, thus faster kills, thus faster health regain back to full with Killbot.
###Why no…
…Coincidental Combustion? The main guns in this build are explosive and won’t benefit from this skill at all.
…Repulsive? Not necessary, since the Start with a Bang novas will deal with melee attackers sufficiently.
…I’m rubber, you’re glue? Nope, not gonna kill our coop mates with Torgue Fiesta, also this would lower our chance to roll Gun Wizard.
…Hyperion Punch? It deals fire damage. Bad on shields, bad in vaccum, bad on armor.
##I 
you guys!
3/5 Best Buds 4 Life: 3 Leftover points. Put them wherever, I like the extra FFYL time
5/5 Maniacal Laughter: Makeshift heal and extra freeze chance.
5/5 All the things are awesome: We’ll be switching between our cryo gun and our main explosive gun alot, we’ll want all the weapon swap speed we can get. Also helps with the evil and forbidden and morally wrong flakker glitch, if you’re really short on time or patience. The extra health will give us more breathing room when our shields are constantly taking damage from Killbot and our health from Start with a Bang.
5/5 Through Thick and Thin: Faster action skill recharge means more chances at rolling Gun Wizard, and more insta heals in a pinch.
1/1 You’re … going to love me: Friendship nova heals are not that huge, but since we’re killing stuff at point blank most of the time, this gives up to 15% on top of the 35 - 63% heal from Killbot. The really good part is the Gun Wizard package, whose instant ammo refill allows us to keep using that ammo hog, that is the Ravager, as well as chucking away IVFs like there’s no tomorrow.
5/5 Wax On, Wax Off: Let’s our shield regen a bit faster when the shield subroutine is not on, also helps with alternative shield choices at boss fights.
1/1 It’s … a Trap card: Filling piece, some extra heal, will trigger often when the shield subroutine is running
1/1 Pain Simulator is painful: Even more max health
5/5 Organized Guns are happy Guns: This will max out the IVF’s mag size, making its reload throws hurt more. The downside is: it will raise the mag size of the Ravager to a point, where you’ll only get OLT every 3rd shot instead of every 2nd shot. See below in the gear section for how to compensate for this.
Caution: if other claptraps on our team have this skill specced, too, this will mess up our Ravager mag size, so we’d better consider temporarily speccing out of it, or persuade our team mate to do so.
1/1 High Fives Guys: Extra damage, extra heals, extra fire rate. Can also be obtained from enemies, which is hilarious, especially in combination with our cryo spike shield.
###Why no…
…Kick Him…?
…while he’s down: Unnecessary action package that will lower our odds to roll Gun Wizard.
…while he’s up: pretty situational, not that reliable
##Fragmented Fragtrap
3/3 Fuzzy Logic: Free extra crit damage. We’ll be triggering that alot, since we’re operating at point blank alot
1/1 Safety First: The shield subroutine will aggressively recharge the shield against any incoming damage, completey overriding the recharge delay. Shields with high recharge rates profit most!
The health subroutine is less spectacular, and we’ll be most vunlerable when it’s on, but that’s where we can make use of Living near the Edge and use the increased fire rate and reload speed to score more kills and keep our health filled.
The gun damage penalty of 15% is negligible, due to all the other big buffs from gear and skills.
###Why no…
…All the guns? Simple: Our main weapons are shotguns and ivf reloads (which doesn’t benefit from any weapon subroutine iirc). So about 90% of the time, the subroutine will not help our gun damage, and mess up our defense.
#3. Action Packages
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Besides the O-■■■■ instant heal, the action skill can go both ways in being useful or ■■■■■■■ things up big time. Here’s a list of dos and don’ts for each event that can happen with this build.
###Gun Wizard 
THE best thing that can happen in solo and coop. Instant refill on ammo, extra reload speed, extra mag size, extra fire rate. This will boost the IVF’s magazine to a size comparable to what Wilhelm or Athena can have. These reload throws are gonna hurt.
###Pirate Ship
Pretty okay. Time to switch to our cryo applier and let the cannons do the rest.
###Blight Bot
Takes aggro off us and does slight damage on foes.
###Miniontrap
Same as Blight Bot, but less useful as decoy, as the minion is stationary.
###Funzerker
Time to apologize to the team, cause nobody was able to revive downed comrades during this package and everyone is out of ammo afterwards.
This package can be pretty nice, when we’re at the sentinel and pull out dual Flakkers. Or when we’re doing the SWAB mobbing with our Two Scoops. But in all other cases, mainly bad.
Whenever this happens, I just continuosly hit melee to prevent the guns from firing and thus saving ammo, while running from and dodging enemies.
###Mechromagician
Extra damage at the cost of mag size and accuracy. Mostly great, just remember to stop chucking IVFs and switch to the shotguns.
###Shh… Trap
Never rolls when it’s really needed. Again, very good de-aggro package. Only downside is that our own gunshots are muffled, which can be slightly confusing.
###Meat Unicycle
Go hide in a corner when the shield subroutine is up. Else, we can consider using the roid bonus from our Avalanche shield to whip up some trash mobs, but at a boss fight, we better go hide.
###Rubber Ducky
Can get downed team mates killed, if there’s no one on the team with other means of instant revival. Mostly just annoying, but we can slam some more and make some use of oz kits with bonuses while airborne.
###Medbot
We can heal friends and foes alike. And our friends are mostly moving too fast to be able to receive some steady heals. At least we can run faster during this package and dodge incoming damage.
###Senseless Sacrifice
Ever joined a holodome round where 3 people were inside and dying, and then rolled this one? Yeah, they’re gonna love you. Bad if we roll this to save a team mate far away on the map, and he gets right back on his own before we get knocked down, and we sit there in an empty place and watch the time run out.
#4. Gear
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##Slot 1: The enabler
This gun is used to set up our kills. Either by applying cryo to get the 3x bonus for our explosive weaponry, or by stacking up L’n’S with a couple quick reloads.
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Flying or Daft Frigdia Maliwan or Dahl Grip, Bullet speed or Accuracy prefix
- Usually I use this to get the enemies frozen, and follow up with my slot 2 gun to shatter them. Rinse and repeat.
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Two Scoops fixed parts
- For a more SWAB play style, I use this shotgun. It reloads after each shot, thus triggering Start With a Bang novas with each single shot and stacking Load’n’Splode real fast, while freezing enemies with its projectile.
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Refill IVF Tediore Grip and reload prefix for fastest reload chucking, Grenade luneshine as bonus
- When I’m going against bosses, I have my IVF here to build L’n’S as fast as possible, to max the damage output of the slot 2 weapon.
##Slot 2: The Devastator
- When I’m going against bosses, I have my IVF here to build L’n’S as fast as possible, to max the damage output of the slot 2 weapon.
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Casual Ravager Tediore Grip, pellet count prefix, shield bypass luneshine
- This will be our main mobbing gun. Big damage, low accuracy, 4 ammo per shot.
We need the mag size to be exactly 8 in order to get One Last Thing with every shot and Start with a Bang with every other shot, therefore no Glitched Ravager, cause their mag size is too big.
Tediore grip brings the mag size down to 7, 5/5 Organized Guns brings it back to 8.
- This will be our main mobbing gun. Big damage, low accuracy, 4 ammo per shot.
-
Casual Flakker Tediore Grip, pellet count prefix, shield bypass luneshine
- Same applies for this gun. With a Tediore grip, the mag size is brought down to 10, which ends up at 12. This way, we get 3 shots out of this gun instead of 4.
Not much else to say really, we’ll use this mainly for bosses, thus it’s a good idea to empty the mag to the last 2 shots before any boss fight to start right away with OLT.
Using singularity grenades, we can gather up trash mobs and do some serious collateral damage with this gun too.
- Same applies for this gun. With a Tediore grip, the mag size is brought down to 10, which ends up at 12. This way, we get 3 shots out of this gun instead of 4.
While any other class would run out of ammo with these 4 clips per shot monsters, we will rely on the Gun Wizard action package to refill our ammo in times of need. Best way to do so would be to hit the action skill, when our shields and health are both full.
##Slot 3: the Backup plan
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Refill IVF Scav Grip and reload prefix for biggest mag size, Grenade luneshine as bonus
- Sometimes, we’re out of shotgun ammo and Gun Wizard just won’t roll, or you’re facing an enemy on which the slot 2 gun doesn’t work too well (think cryo resistant human bosses like Flameknuckle or Deadlift, but also Powersuit Felicity in the dome). Well, feeding them a couple quick reload throws with this baby while each throw adds a stack of L’n’S will teach them.
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Casual Flakker same as above
- sometimes it’s good to have a second Flakker, ready to OLT after we fired the first flakker’s OLT to save the long reload time. Or maybe we’ll want one equipped along with the Ravager in scenarios where there is mobbing and boss fights.
##Slot 4: They need to die. Now.
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derp Nukem All torgue parts, damage prefix, Tediore sight for faster reloads, shield bypass luneshine
- Our FFYL tool when enemies go hiding behind cover right when we go down.
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Heap’d Badaboom All bandit parts for margest mag size, damage prefix, Tediore sight, shield bypass luneshine
- alternative FFYL launcher
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Laser Disker Tediore Grip
- Alternative to the IVF. This one is extremely ammo efficient for gun chucking, because of its small mag size and huge base damage, as well as its pretty big ammo pool.
##Shield
-
Alkaline Avalanche All maliwan parts if possible
- wait what, a roid shield?? Well, we’re not using this shield for its roid boost, but rather for its cryo spike and cryo novas. With a shield subroutine running, it will recharge continuously, and release lots and lots of frost novas, and frost spikes to melee attackers. Since we’re most vulnerable to corrosive damage, the immunity to corrosive DoTs is invaluable.
-
Warming Avalanche All maliwan parts if possible
- same as above. We’ll use this one when mobbing with the Two Scoops to prevent ourselves to be frozen by its projectiles.
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Deadly Bloom 2 Maliwan parts, 1 Hyperion part if possible
- Our more balanced nova shield. Releases novas on shield AND health deplete, and benefits from all explosive boosts.
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Alkaline Rerouter All maliwan parts if possible
- Its high recharge rate allows Safety First to recharge it insanely fast, allowing us to use the Amp and the Heal very frequently. We lose out on the cryo utility of the Avalanche, but this is a great shield for boss fights.
##Class mod
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Audacious Sapper +5 One last Thing, +4 Start with a Bang, +4 Killbot
We get all the main damage dealing skills buffed, and a healthy chunk of heals on kill. This is our general mobbing COM. -
Audacious Sapper +6 One last Thing, +5 Start with a Bang or +5 Killbot
Our boss fight COM, +5 SWAB version is more offense focused, +5 Killbot is more survivability focused. -
Chronicler of Elpis +4 Load’n’Splode, Start with a Bang, Wax on wax off,
Grenade vent, Death Machine
In this build, this com is treated like a glorified purple com. Works nicely with a SWAB playstyle for mobbing, but that’s about it. It also does a slightly better job at pure Tediore chucks than the sapper, but falls behind in a mixed playstyle that focuses on OLT.
##Grenade
-
Longbow Quasar
Crowd control, and stacking Maniacal Laughter. I don’t use anything else.
##Oz kit
Here’s the thing: according to situation and playstyle, I haven’t set myself for just one oz kit.
Have a list of oz kits I cycle through:
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Arctic Duality Launcher / Shotgun For the shotgun damage in atmosphere
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Arctic Duality Explosive / Shield For the explosive damage in vacuum
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Arctic Duality SMG / Launcher for Flakker glitching in atmosphere
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Arctic Bomber for Tediore chucking
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Arctic Strafing run and Arctic Tranquility for general usage
##Backpack gear:
###The RK5 kit
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Dobby Droog Dahl grip, Dahl stock, crit prefix, crit luneshine
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Enforcable Bullpup fixed parts, pellet count prefix
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Arctic Clear Skies or Ack Ack
###Other useful stuff - Haymaker (Maliwan Body + Battery, Hyperion Capacitor) mainly for the HP boost
#5. Gameplay
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It’s still mostly lvl 60 vids. I’ll do lvl 70 ones soonTM.
##Mobbing
###A.) Freeze and smash
The very basics of TPS. Freeze with the Frigida, the novas from your Avalanche or your buttslam, smash with the Ravager. It’s a match made in robot heaven. Also grab some high fives every now and then.
Video: Claptrap in Lvl 70 Mutator arena @ difficulty 9. (Two oranges, I’m rich!)
###B.) Freeze and nova
As seen in @Exotek’s retired SWAB build and the snowstormin’ boomtrap build. Funzerker can trigger a whole lot of novas.
Video: SWABbing.
##Bosses
Bosses have big hit boxes and are really susceptible to the Flakker. So, in preparation, we’ll empty our [color=orange]Flakker/color until only 2 shots are left, before going to face the boss. We then use the IVF to build up load’n’splode stacks fast (don’t even need to hit), and then unload our OLT with the [color=orange]Flakker/color. Adding a high five gives a little extra damage. Generally, for extended boss fights, I’d recommend reloading right after each OLT shot (i.e. don’t even fire the last shot) for an increased frequency of OLTs.
###Felicity
###RK5
Try to land some Ravager shots at the beginning, finish it with the Vladof sniper.
###EOS
Now this guy is quite a handful, but can be beat with the right approach. Flak the hell out of his robot form, try to land flaks on his flying form whenever possible and feed him Ravager OLT shots. An Ack Ack oz kit boosts fire rate and reload speed as long as we keep shooting his airborne form.
#6. Closing words
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I hope that people new to Claptrap will have an easier time getting into this class with this build. I’m always happy to receive constructive criticism and suggestions on how to improve.
Now let’s get back to cutting cookies, shall we.
