Ever had trouble hitting things with snipers in coop due to lag / kill steals and what not? Look no further!
Here’s a powerful coop focused build that’s just as powerful in solo (a total of 12 skill points in exclusively coop skills). It’s an aggressive, in-your-face playstyle that doesn’t primarily rely on sniping, but instead of heavy cryo damage and the combination of Frostbite and Avalanche as well as the Chronicler of Elpis com to max out damage output as seen in this number crunching thread.
The play style is close to medium combat oriented, and the melee attack from the right tree capstone packs a very mean punch (as well as some useful boosts for our team).
Here’s the benefits:
- up to 2.84x cryo damage on shields. That’s more than the 2.75 multiplier for shock damage!
- up to 3.57x cryo damage on armor and flesh, that’s way higher than the 2x multiplier for fire and corrosion and even higher than the 3x for explosions on frozen targets!
- permanent 45% (60% in coop) **gun damage** and 27% fire rate, and another 30% gun damage after landing crits
- 84% crit damage, up to 100% extra via Coop stacks
- up to 80% reload speed
- BACKHAND SLAP OF DOOM with damage potential around 7500k. That’s even better than Wilhelm’s Power-fist
And the weaknesses:
- The Raid Boss and the Claptrap DLC boss. It’s a general problem with Aurelia
- Long range fighting. We will need to cover alot of ground to get close to enemies, which leaves us vulerable at times.
- Glass cannon - we deal huge damage, but can’t take much of a beating.
##The Huntress
5/5 Markswoman: Extra crit damage. We’ll be pounding the critspots of frozen enemies most of the time, this helps.
1/5 Only the Best: Filling piece to get Magic bullet, and to take advantage should we ever need to temporarily put on a Celestial COM.
5/5 Culling the Herd: Same as above, extra gun damage after hitting a crit, which is easy enough with all our freezing capabilities.
1/1 Magic Bullet: This skill is too good to pass up, mostly the instant revive from sniping a crit spot. Very useful to put ourselves and our allies out of FFYL in a snap, and as a source of healing.
###Why no…
…any other skill in this tree? Skill points are scarce and are direly needed to reach the capstones of the other 2 trees. Yes, we’re losing out on 2 major boosts from the COM, but these are sniping skills and thus irrelevant to our build here.
##Cold Money
5/5 Avalanche: Great skill for extra cryo damage (up to 150% cryo damage on top of the 44% from the COM and 80% freeze chance on top of the 44% from the com. At high stack counts, we’ll be able to outdamage even element matching.
1/5 Bitter Riposte: 1 point crowd control wonder. We’ll be using a fast shield, thus firing lots and lots of these darts, that will insta-freeze anyone trying to attack us.
5/5 Short Summer: The more cryo damage we do during the action skill, the faster will it recharge. The shield recharge bonus is negligible in our build.
4/5 Frigid Touch: Another source of healing. 8% may not look much, but pounding on crit spots with our guns or our backhand still refills our health very fast.
1/1 Fragment Rain: More cryo damage for even more Short Summer stacks.
1/1 Polar Vortex: Great crowd control, and since enemies get pulled in, they’re more likely to be affected by Fragment Rain, too, resulting in even more Short Summer stacks.
9/5 Frostbite: Our bread and butter skill in this build. Gives us a massive damage multiplier boost of 63% on anything with an additional 99% multiplier on shields to offset the 0.4x penalty for cryo on shields.
9/5 Cold advance: Our means to extend the action skill duration in order to gain more Short Summer stacks.
1/5 Whiteout: Pretty useful to have when we’re in close combat range most of the time. Since damage reduction comes with diminishing benefits in BL, it’s not worth maxing, but worth having.
1/5 Winter’s Veil: Another 1 point crowd control wonder. Same principles apply here as for Bitter RIploste.
1/1 Wintertide: 25% extra cryo damage on kill. Good syngery with Frigid Touch, allowing us to heal even faster after a kill.
###Why no…
…Winter’s Fury? This skill doesn’t help with dealing cryo damage, and the crowd control it offers is easily outperformed by Bitter Riposte, Polar Vortex and Winter’s Veil.
##Contractual Aristocrary
2/2 Duchess: Mandatory, extra accuracy on kills, up to 80%.
1/1 Contractual Obligations: Mandatory, extra 15% gun damage for us, 20% shield capacity for our servant. win-win.
2/2 Valet: Extra reload speed for both us and our sevant. Up to 40% for us, 30% for the servant. Win-win. Also let’s you keep track how many kills your servant does as compared to your duchess stacks 
1/1 You first: 55% shield restore for our servant on kill. Because we’re this nice. Roid shield users will hate this though.
9/5 Quality not Quantity: 45% gun damage and 27% fire rate with blue or better guns. Check. Rich people use rich people guns.
1/1 Excellent shot, Madam: An extra source of cryo damage. It’s a bit dictating as we need to stick together with the servant most time to make use of it, but well worth it.
5/5 Next to Cleanliness: 20% gun damage and reload speed for Cryo, Shock and NE guns. Check, cryo is our main source of damage, with some shock damage for those odd cryo resistant enemies.
1/1 All glory to the Master: Extra crit damage for killing enemies that were set up by our servant. Which will happen fairly often, due to our damage dealing capabilities. Downside is, that our servant might not generate Valet stacks fast enough. Basically we’re trading reload speed for crit damage.
5/5 Keep your chin up: 9.5% heals on mutual kills. Especially useful when splitting up, but just as useful to just have.
1/5 Save the Queen: Some kinda lesser 1-point-wonder. This will trigger pretty often with our close combat ranged playstyle. If the servant pays attention and follows us around, he can freeze marked enemies. Might be redundant to Bitter Riposte and Winter’s Veil.
1/1 A Backhand to Remember: Our signiture move in this build. Does huge cryo damage, and is boosted by multiple synergies on frozen targets (straight damage boost from cryo bonuses, 200% crit bonus, 350% melee bonus; 7500k is the highest damage I’ve seen so far) and boosts our whole team’s movement speed and reload speed.
###Why no…
…Protect your Assets? Between this and Keep your chin up, the heals from latter one are definitely the better choice for coop, while the 20% shield and 15% health are not that much more helpful in solo.
…Podsnappery? Not needed, our shield already has a delay of ~1s and instant recharge.
#</a.>3. Gear
##Slot 1: The precision tool
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Rightsizing Fatale Maliwan or Hyperion grip, Damage prefix, Shield bypass luneshine
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Cutting-Edge Fatale Maliwan or Hyperion grip, Blade prefix, Shield bypass luneshine
- Between this gun and a cryo Torrent, the Fatale is the better choice due to its extra 75% crit damage bonus as well as the reverse recoil. Great tool to extend the action skill duration using Cold Advance. A blade attachment boosts the Backhand damage.
##Slot 2: The big boomer
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Impetuous Ravager Torgue Grip, reload speed prefix, 4041 or 4033 glitch code
- With less than 56 Avalanche stacks, our cryo guns will get a lower multiplier on frozen targets than explosive guns. Therefore, while we’re still building up those stacks, this gun will do nicely on frozen targets.
Notice that we’re using it exclusively on frozen targets and not on its own, therefore the damage from an Impetious model is highly sufficient, and the extra reload speed is the more helpful option here.
- With less than 56 Avalanche stacks, our cryo guns will get a lower multiplier on frozen targets than explosive guns. Therefore, while we’re still building up those stacks, this gun will do nicely on frozen targets.
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Enforcable Bullpup fixed parts, pellet count prefix
- Above 56 Avalanche stacks, our cryo damage will get boosted higher than explosions on frozen targets, so it’s time to switch to a cryo shotgun. That also allows for a bigger lifesteal from Frigid Touch, while being more ammo efficient than the Ravager.
##Slot 3: The ammo diversity option
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Purging Anarchist Vladof or Maliwan grip, damage prefix, shield bypass luneshine
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Purging Anarchist Vladof or Maliwan grip, damage prefix, 0404 glitch code
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Purging Proletarian Revolution Vladof or Maliwan grip, damage prefix, shield bypass luneshine
- While the ammo pool for our slot 1 gun is pretty deep, it’s good to have a backup gun that feeds of a different ammo type. The Anarchist is fast, has a very high base damage and fills this role nicely. A T4s-R or Shredifier might also be a good choice.
- While the ammo pool for our slot 1 gun is pretty deep, it’s good to have a backup gun that feeds of a different ammo type. The Anarchist is fast, has a very high base damage and fills this role nicely. A
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Excalibastard fixed parts
- Holy ■■■■■■■ batman, this thing! If we want to play even more aggreisve and melee focused, this gun is a beast. Guaranteed freeze on crit shots, the blade attachment boosts our backhand, melee hits on frozen targets do Singularity pulls followed by a freeze nova. Super fun for general mobbing.
##Slot 4: The emergency revive tool / element diversy fallback option
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/ Dobby Droog Vladof grip, dahl stock, stability prefix, shield bypass luneshine
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/ Dobby Droog Vladof grip, dahl stock, stability prefix, 4401 or 0404 error code
- Our fastest way out of FFYL when we’re operating at point blank distance (which we mostly do). Also very useful to revive allies from far away. Third, the shock droog serves as fallback gun when facing the odd cryo resistant enemy.
##Shield
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Inflammable Shield at least 1 hyperion and 1 maliwan part
- Our main mobbing shield. The fast recharge delay allows for our 1 point crowd control wonder skills (Bitter Riposte and Winter’s Veil) to trigger often and leaves anything that attacks us frozen, while the fire DoT immunity will keep our biggest weakness at bay.
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Reogenator or Adaptive Shield All maliwan parts if possible
- For Boss fight scenarios where there’s not too many trashmobs around that need to be controlled. Think Iwajira.
##Class mod
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Chronicler of Elpis +4 I never miss, +4 Large Caliber, +4 Frostbite, +4 Cold Advance, +4 Quality not Quantity
- The 44% cryo damage coupled with the 9/5 in Frostbite is what makes this com great, and allows us to deal even more damage to shields with cryo guns than with shockguns, if we’ve got enough Avalanche stacks. The 44% freeze chance helps significantly with crowd control and the shield bonus helps alot with the small capacity of our Tediore shield.
##Grenade
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Longbow Cryo Transfusion
It heals, it freezes. Only downside is, that the transfusion trails sometimes have trouble finding us. -
Longbow Cryo Leech
Alternative cryo healing grenade, this one heals you directly, without the need of transfusion trails, but has less child grenades and does a worse job at freezing groups of enemies. -
Longbow Electric Leech
For fights with enemies with huge shields. Think Bosun, Zarpedon and Sentinel.
##Oz kit
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Arctic Juggernaut Fire, Shock, Non-elemental resistance
For situations with many hard hitting enemies (think Holodome). Fire resistance is a must, other resistances are a bonus -
Arctic Tranquility Extra gun damage per O2
For general mobbing
##Backpack gear:
###The raidboss loadout
Since Aurelia is weaksauce against the raidboss, we’ll have a sham-booming kit ready, consisting of
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Redundant Logan’s Gun Scav grip, double projectile prefix, low level
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The Sham 2 Maliwan parts, 1 Hyperion part if possible
- These two items are used to replenish rocket ammo on the fly. Shoot the Logan’s gun to the ground under your feet, and the Sham will absorb 4 rockets per shot.
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Clever Badaboom All bandit parts, Tediore sight, reload prefix
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Clever Badaboom All bandit parts, Tediore sight, reload prefix
- Shock launcher for the shields except during the shock resistant phase, cryo launcher for everything else. We won’t be able to build up more than 20 stacks of avalanche during the boss fight, thus we’ll stick to element matching.
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**3DD1.e** for the occasional full shield restore
###The Drat-I-joined-in-the-middle-of-a-holodome-round loadout - Celestial Baroness for its sniping bonuses
- Longitudinal Fremington’s Edge Accuracy prefix for sniping support
#</a.>4. Gameplay
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Most footage is still lvl 60. Updated videos coming this week.
##Mobbing
We’ll want to use the Action skill as long and as often as possible to profit from the Frostbite damage boost. As mentioned before in the gear section, we’d start with a Ravager as high damage side arm, and once we’re above 60 stacks of Avalanche, we’ll switch to a Bullpup. During the action skill, we’ll try to pound crit spots as much as possible to extend the Frostshard duration and thus collect as many Short Summer stacks as possible for a faster recharge. When going into FFYL, watch for nearby enemies to snipe for a Magic Bullet revive.
And don’t forget to SLAP THE HELL OUT OF THINGS. It’s fun, really.
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Holodome, casual Mobbing with the alternative solo build
### Mutator Arena, casual slapping at difficulty 6
### Mutator Arena with a claptrap servant, difficulty 9
##Bosses
Not much to say here, when low on Avalanche, we’ll resort to element matching on shielded bosses, and else we’ll just rely on our Frostbite to max out cryo damage. We will switch to alternative loadouts depending on each boss.
Our best bet is of course a good team!
### Eclipse/EOS with a claptrap servant
#</a.>5. Coop servant Classes
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Here’s a couple things we should be aware off when acquiring our servants, also which class to favour when there’s multiple applicants willing to serve us.
Our coop role is that of a shock trooper, striking fast and hard, and retreating immediately to leave the heat to our servant.
##Claptrap
Makes a surprisingly good servant for our build. For once, his Meat Unicycle package proves really useful for us. Backhanding the crit spot of frozen enemies can go as high as 7000[color=red]k[/color] (at lvl60) with that package running, allowing us to instagib anything while mobbing. Also the Gun Wizard package is just divine. All his explosiveness pairs up well with our heavy cryo focus, and he can take the heat well when we need some breathing room.
Wilhelm
A good runner-up. Overcharge makes him almost as useful a support as Claptrap, and he can also take some punishment in our stead. Also, it’s always fun to compete who can Power-Fist / Backhand a frozen foe’s face first. His pets can ocupy enemies while we do our thing.
Video: Aurelia and Wilhelm in UVHM Badass round Lvl 60
##Nisha
A fellow glass cannon, which will raise our valet stacks nicely fast, kept safe by the defensive benefits of our contract. Her explosive Unforgiven capstone and Tombstone skill work well with our cryo focus, and she handles explosive weaponry very well in general.
##Jack
Similar DPS potential as Nisha and better survivability, as well as lots of crowd control allows us to take minimal damage while doing our thing. His grenade abilities can work nice with our cryo skills, and if he’s got his right tree capstone, he can choose to add explosive damage to his guns to further take advantage of our freezing.
Video: Aurelia and Jack in UVHM Badass round Lvl 60
##Athena
Depending on build, this can go pretty wrong, especially when faced with Roid shield melee builds. Elemental build Athenas on the other hand can make use of their Maelstorm to boost their explosive element damage as well, but it’s not as readily avaible as the explosive boosts that other classes receive. Of course her Clear skill is highly useful, and we can both revive each other from long range. And if she has Prepare for Glory specced, she can take unwanted enemy attention from us.
##Aurelia
Who? Is that some impostor we’re talking about?
Well, in all seriousness, it will work okay, if our Doppelganger-ess hasn’t any coop skill specced, our duo will feel like a slightly underperforming team up with Nisha. We’ll be racing for kill skills for frigid touch most of the time, so that’s not the most ideal harmonic pairing, but it’ll work. If we’ve got another coop specced Aurelia on the team, finding different partners should be a no brainer.
#</a.>6. Closing words
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I’d like to thank the readers for their patience and attention and hope you’ll enjoy this build both in solo and coop situations.
Special thanks to @Karl_Napf and @alexliang332 for recording the coop gameplay vids with me, we had a great time!
