#2

If you expect to be a boss killer, you’re setting yourself up for a bad time without INM, Custom Loads, and snipers.

You can switch, but I recommend having different builds for bosses. For bosses you can crit, the below build with a Big Game Hunter com and Machine is best.

https://www.thepresequel.com/Aurelia/5551005105011550515050112120050000000

With a Large Caliber build, this is her best mobbing non-sniper.

She actually has so much cryo application, she is one of the characters I would recommend the Quasar for.

  • Vladof Cryo - Claptrap, Nisha
  • Storm Front - Athena
  • Quasar - Jack, Aurelia, (Wilhelm depending on build)

For bosses, a shock leech can actually be quite good.

I only use the Naught and Sham on her. The Reo is only good on Clappy IMO.

Yep, basically. Use the Eddie until you feel like you don’t need it, then switch to the Tranquility.

If you can’t crit it, Aurelia doesn’t do damage (felicity’s crit spot bugs out 99% of the time). A lot of bosses in UVHM force her to spam the Badaboom. The High Definition com from the Holodome is best for this.

If things aren’t CC’d or dead, you live and die with Frigid Touch while mobbing. For bossing a shock leech and “mad gamer skills” is all you’ve got.

Alternative: The Eridian Vanqisher isn’t the absolote best com for any of her builds, but it’s still pretty good and makes you pretty damn tanky with the Naught. If you’re good at managing Short Summer, you could probably even use a Shield of Ages/EV combo with her if you prefer.

For mobbing she has 3 builds. One shot sniper, sniper spam, or non-sniper.

  • Shield - Naught, Sham
  • Grenade - Quasar
  • Oz kit - Tranquility (Eddie if you need it)
  • COM - build dependent

For bosses each one is a case-by-case basis. But you’re going to get to know the Machine, Pitchfork, and Badaboom reeeeal well.

Borderlands the Pre-Sequel: Aurelia vs Eclipse & EOS 1:24 - YouTube

2 Likes
#3

Ok I’m gonna get cracking on all of this. Since I made my post I experimented with different skills and ran a different set through the end of UVHM and CV. I like it much better than the build I was using.

Essentially, I discovered something in the vicinity of what you were saying about the Cryo grenade - if I poured my points into cryo skills, I would need to use less cryo.

Maxed out Frostbite and extended her AS duration with Cold Advance. I even put 3 points into both Whiteout and the nova skill (just to have more passive Cryo damage).

The difference was immense. I specced out of Large Caliber, and that allowed me to use the Flayer (my favorite weapon in the game - my binky) and the Maggie (my favorite pistol in the game). She’s the only character I prefer the Rosie to the AZ on, so I stuck with it.

This is the current permutation of my Aurelia: Aurelia Skill Build 15/38/14 - Level 70 Baroness

As for gear, you’re absolutely right about the shock Badaboom. I intuitively relied on it for Sentinel’s first phase and for Eos. Eased my suffering considerably. Eclipse was harder because I find it difficult to shoot his crit.

Denial Subroutine was yet harder than any of them, but I think some of that has to do with me not knowing the best way to damage him. I always just wing it when I fight him; because I rarely die (despite going into FFYL a lot), I’ve not been prompted to get better.

I use that going down/dying stuff like an alarm system. If I’m going into FFYL a lot it’s code yellow, usually signaling a bad or middling build. If I die more than once, that means it’s probably not chance and some combination of (1) bad build, (2) bad load out, (3) bad fighting by me, (4) bad understanding of situational football. In which case, red alert.

I’ll try it again. My problem was that, for some strange reason, whenever I used the quasar with her the enemies kept jumping around and flying everywhere. I don’t understand why this was happening. It was as if the singularity effect wasn’t working and I was, in consequence, getting butt slammed and overrun too much for comfort.

Another reason I stuck with the Cryo was to make sure I was always getting the most out of Frigid Touch, Short Summer, and Avalanche. It also helps me in my quest not to use Cryo weapons except as backup, which you know I prefer, me not being the biggest fan of the mechanic.

Great! I’ll try this out. I used a minimal fuse (0.9) Sticky Lonbgow Cry Transfusion - the only decent nade of the Cryo Transfusion species the game wants to give me - for E&E, and it seemed to work ok. Nothing special but decent enough. Excited to finally get some use out of my shock leech, though.

Noted. I still like to keep one around for the health regen during down time and when I feel I’m taking too many DOTs, but the Naught is indeed better, especially with the changes I’ve made to my build thus far. The damage mitigation of Whiteout is amazing, as is the damage buff from Frostbite.

So THAT’S what’s happening. By Zeus, I spent around three minutes dumping Machine mags into her crit and it was like shooting her with a water gun. I had no answer for it.

After changing my build, I tested it out by running through the area and fighting her. This time, I just activated her AS, threw some Cryos at her, got up close with a Cryo Rosie and went to work. Took about 90 seconds, give or take.

I prefer not to “cheese” bosses until I know how to fight them legit, but Felicity is proving to be an exception.

Question: in her first phase, does she count as airborn? Asking because a Clear Skies kit would speed things up.

I tried my heart out to find a way to justify using the EV. Thankfully I don’t feel a need for it presently, though I want to try out the shield buff regardless.

I’ll probably reset my playthrough and try to incorporate the ideas you’ve proposed. Let’s see what happens.

1 Like
#4

More than one point in Winters Veil really doesn’t do much. It’s there just to freeze stuff, it barely does damage.

And if you’re going to spec into Whiteout, then might as well do 5 points. I believe I remember it’s actual damage reduction, not damage resistance (i.e. more is better). But IMO I always found the range to be too small to be worth the points, but I also spec heavier into the left tree.

  • IMO a lot of Aurelia’s damage comes from Large Caliber. Especially for non-sniper builds, and even sniper builds want it because Only the Best makes the negative not matter.
  • If you don’t use LC, why wouldn’t use the AZ? Not only is it way better, but after it’s nerf I don’t even think the Rosie is that good. It takes waaaaaay too long to build up to max damage.

Probably just a Badaboom with Aurelia. Or if you don’t want that, then a Storm Front, a fire Pitchfork and a prayer.

That’s because Polar Vortex and Winter’s Fury are horrible skills. If you just want to CC enemies they’re ok, but if you plan on killing anything just never spec them. PV tosses enemies everywhere; And I can’t remember if WF basically does nothing, or the same thing. Either way, they’re not like Maya’s Converge as they seem to be advertised.

Enemies with shields have a 60% resistance to being frozen, you want the Quasar.

While stuff like Wintertide lets her get away with using non-cryo, she only wants to use cryo guns will mobbing (given the enemy isn’t immune).

That’s because transfusions heal a fixed amount, where as the Leech has life steal, so it depends on the damage it deals. Like on shields a shock one will do over 6x more healing than a cryo with no buffs.

I’d assume not until her legs break off at least. But it should be easy enough for you to test.

#5

Good to know. I’ll just take the extra two out of Veil and put them in Whiteout.

You’re probably right, but for reasons I know not, I got better results mobbing without it. Did not miss it at all. Likewise for the AZ. I tried it and just got better results with the Rosie. Can’t explain it, because I normally prefer the AZ to the Rosie. But when I first tried it out on Felicity, for example, I killed her much faster with the Rosie.

I rarely use lasers anyway, so it’s not important. I’ll give the AZ another go.

Makes sense. I never spec’d into anything but Winter’s Fury before, and didn’t expect anything from Polar Vortex, but damn. When I activate the AS, everything sort of stuns for a few seconds, and since I’m normally up close and personal, it lets me kill a few people quick to thin the heard and minimize the chance of getting surrounded.

There’s nothing I can say to dispute your point. I’ve just done a lot better with them than without them.

But what I’m here for is refinement, so I’m going to try to spread the last few points around differently, as you suggest. Maybe at the end of it I’ll come back to Large Caliber. I’m resistant to it now because I had a good experience without it.

I’m sure that’s true for max DPS, but maybe “only” is a little strong. I’ve had no issues running without Cryo weapons at all (I did use a longbow Cryo grenade, though). I ran through the last part of UVHM and all of CV using the Maggie, Flayer, Omni-Cannon, and shock Meat Grinder almost exclusively. (I used more specialized loadouts for DS and E&E, of course.)

I got the idea that this could be done from Derch, who made a Deputy build - quite different from mine in point distribution, but with a similar upshot - specially tailored to show that Aurelia can still be extremely powerful using neither cryo nor snipers. Knowing that it was possible, I sought a way to do it without using I Never Miss and Wait for It… etc.

I did use cryo weapons in the build I was running before, but now I honestly see no need. Everything freezes whether I use cryo or not.

(*I do have some fun with the cryo Droog on occasion, however.)

Aha - good to know. These are the little details I’m missing. So, would you say, on average, Aurelia gets more out of a shock leech in both mobbing and bossing, or just while bossing? I want to give the leeches another chance to impress me.

Lol. I didn’t even notice the legs. It looks like she’s just floating there, and then suddenly has legs and tries to stomp me into a puddle, as Jack would say. I’m none-too-observant, it would seem.

In sum: working with me here, you’d suggest spec’ing out of Winter’s Fury and Polar Vortex, and moving two points from Veil into Whiteout to max it out? Where would the two points from WF and PV go, ideally?

#6

Because if it took you 90 seconds to kill her, you definitely got the max damage bonus, but almost all other engagements you won’t. Felicity also can’t be frozen so the status chance increase the AZ has doesn’t matter. Etc… You picked one of the few enemies in the game the Rosie might preform better on.

Then that’s fine. You just seemed to think it was the Quasar’s fault.

Again, at the end of the day you can play as you want. But if you’re not using cryo you lose a lot of value from Avalanche, Frigid Touch, some COM passives, and Frostbite. Along with some other skills to a lesser extent.

You can force any character to play however you want. But it’s in my nature to suggest how they want to be played. Each character in TPS feels so diverse in such unique ways, that changing your playstyle to fit them is what keeps this game fresh and interesting IMO. I am not someone who can just use the Flayer on everyone i.e. So when you have odd request I do my best to fill them, but you can only do so mush when you try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

It’s not just the status effect, it’s the damage you deal.

Both if you want to try it. Shock is either a neutral element, or has a massive bonus against shields. Cryo is also neutral, but it has no bonus, and is largely hurt against shields.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Most other skills aren’t worth it, or aren’t worth it until they’re 5/5 IMO.

It’s a bad skill anyway. Warning Shot is the skill the sniper spam build uses.

#7

I remember liking one point in Whiteout. The first point gives the biggest return at 17 % so that’s worth it for me. At least for me the situations where I was close enough to mobs for it to do it’s thing were the same ones where I most needed to be taking less damage. Easily worth at least that investment in my mind. Do keep in mind though that this skill introduces some visual pollution on your screen and on some maps it’s worse than on other (Lular station springs to mind, good luck seeing anything).

Shock transfusion is also something to consider if you have one. The cryo one isn’t exactly top notch for freezing anyone and the shock version is at least decent enough extra damage on shields. I don’t think I’ve ever tried Quasar on Aurelia so no comments there.

I personally prefer Polar Vortex. It’s an ok CC and predictable enough IMO. Winter’s Fury is just useless crap as far as I remember. Whether you pick one or not is up to preference tho.

As for shields before I acquired the Naught I was a fan of just purple turtle shields with parts that give fast recharge rate and delay. I do feel the Naught is overall just the best shield for Aurelia.

Also Sentinel is really annoying because for whatever reason the very humanoid like thing, including a very humanoid like head, does not have a crit spot.

2 Likes
#8

Numerically. But if it’s damage reduction, not damage resistance, then it grows exponentially more powerful as you put point into it (instead of linearly).

  • Reduction
    • 17% - 1.2x more ehp
    • 50% - 2x more ehp (so 5x more than the initial point)
  • Resistance
    • 17% - 1.17x ehp
    • 50% - 1.5x ehp (only ~3x more than the initial point)
2 Likes
#9

Makes sense. As you can see, if that was enough to make me conclude I liked the Rosie better on her, it’s because I rarely use lasers anywhere else.

Now that I’m dwelling on it, it occurs to me that I only keep a laser around for bosses who reflect bullets. I instinctively go to lasers whenever I fight them now.

Believe me, I’m not disputing you on the main point. Aurelia clearly wants to be played with cryo.

My point was more of a nuance: when you say “only,” I imagine myself as a player coming to Aruelia for the first time, reading that procrustean word, and concluding she’d be terrible, if not unviable, with anything other than cryo weapons.

I’m sure you don’t mean that, but that’s how it sounds.

With a “deputy” load out, I don’t feel I’m losing anything worth lamenting from those skills you mentioned - everything dies almost instantaneously. Freeze, shoot, die. Repeat.

When I use cryo weapons, it’s effectively the same: freeze, shoot, die. Repeat. Maybe they die half a second faster when I use cryo? Don’t know. I can’t discern a difference in real time.

So, I want to ask a favor: propose a build you would use and a few weapons that you think would help me get your point through my thick skull, and I promise to give it a good faith trial. I want to try to expand my purview here, even against my own inclinations.

Getting back to the semantic stuff, I’m curious as to why this matters. Trash mobs are more or less one-shots either way - freeze, shoot, die. So that leaves badasses and bosses. Bosses are almost never freezable; and with badasses… I don’t know, haven’t tested it. I’d say the average big badass takes 5-8 seconds with my loadout. Just a guess.

I’m sure everything could go faster, but it’s plenty fast.

I’m not disputing your facts. It’s more the choice of words. I fully agree that VHs want to be played in certain ways, but, you must admit, most people’s experience with BL is finding a compromise between the VH’s desires and the player’s preferences.

And so, when I’m still applying tons of cryo, plus a cryo grenade, plus getting cryo on non-cryo weapons with Wintertide, I think it’s a stretch to say I’m jamming a square peg into a round hole. Wintertide is a skill she has, as are all the AS buffs to cryo. It’s not counterintuitive to build around them. It’s plainly one way she wants to be played - perhaps not an optimized way, but a highly viable way nonetheless.

At the same time, you telling me the optimized way allows me to see its Platonic Form in more detail than I could on my own. I can then decide how much I want to approximate it.

It’s all helpful, even if I don’t do it, because more knowledge is good.

Besides, good sir, I did try using a damn Flakker and a damn Laser Disker and a damn Fragnum and a damn IVF with Clappy. I tried, man, I tried… But God made Tediore and Torgue weapons to annoy me, and made me to hate Tediore and Torgue weapons. This is my destiny :ghost:.

1 Like
#10

But many would run into similar problems like you’ve had with the 3 characters we’ve talked about together. I’m glad Aurelia is working out for you, but I’m sure you’ve had times where no matter how you’ve tried to play a character, it didn’t seem to work. And most people won’t come ask for help like you have (especially as thoroughly as you have), and just end up quitting the character/game altogether.

If a new player comes looking for help and sees your thread, I’d want post just how it is. They’d learn how to play the character and enjoy at the very least their strength. Then if they had enough experience and wanted to play them differently, they’d be at a point where my words wouldn’t seem absolute anyway. And if it turned out bad, they’d at least have the safety net and knowledge to know it’s not the character’s fault.

I play stuff like DoT Gaige on occasion, I don’t just stick the “meta”. But I’m not going to tell a new/struggling player that the build is viable. Where as I have a build, King Arthbrrr the Icebringer, that kills stuff with grenades as Nisha. Is it how she wants to be played? No. But I’d suggest anyone experienced with the game/Nisha to give it a try

No, if it works for you it works. She’s definitely not as restrictive as Claptrap. TPS is not hard enough for the difference you’d want to see to show against a weapon like the Flayer. The only point I have is the one I already brought up about not needing the Vladof Cryo for stuff like better Frigid Touch healing.

The only build that might be worth trying is her sniper spam build if you have all the gear (if you want). But I know you said you don’t enjoy stuff like that anyway.

Well theres the healing from Frigid Touch. And then you say bosses cant be frozen, but that’d be my point, cryo would do more damage.

I wasn’t necessarily referring to Aurelia. I mean stuff like when you gave me the task of “no explosive” on Clappy. :stuck_out_tongue:

BTW Wintertide can’t crit, its mainly there to help freeze stuff faster. And ends up not being much damage for your cryo related stuff to boost.

1 Like
#11

You were the one who convinced me to try Whiteout, reading through some of your past attempts to build your Aurelia. I then read Khimera’s analysis of the skill and supposed, if I was going to really make the best of it, I’d load up on it.

It works for me because of the way I play. Generally, I’ll begin by sniping as many as I can before engaging, and once an enemy closes in on me I’ll trigger Aurelia’s action skill, and begin getting up close and personal. Whiteout works wonderfully with such a playstyle, and I don’t have to worry about the visual pollution because I never try to snipe with the action skill on anyway.

It’s personal opinion, but I’ve also found the visual pollution issue to be somewhat overblown (not that you’re wrong about it in certain areas). It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as, say, Krieg’s visual pollution. Hellborn is the only build I like on him, unfortunately, and since I can’t use a FotF for the reason stated, I use a RR instead.

I owe a lot to your prior discussions on the forums. It got everything with my Aurelia kickstarted.

#12

Oh, that’s very understandable. At this point it just feels like I’m nitpicking when that’s not my intention. All I’d want to add is a qualification to the “only,” since, you know, in the wider BL infoverse - on Reddit, for example - you have all sorts of people saying untrue stuff about what’s viable and what’s not, and as much as people might be deterred by struggling with an à contre-courant build, they could also be deterred by mistakenly supposing only one type of build or playstyle is viable.

That’s just speaking from experience. When I first started out on BL2 and eventually got to OP10, I was misled by people repeating ritually that there was only one way to build Maya or Krieg or whoever for viability.

So yeah - it’s still a quibbly point I’m making, no doubt. I do understand where you’re coming from.

I want to try it. I may not like it, but I may find something I do like in it and decide to incorporate it into what I’ve got going presently. The only thing I don’t have is a glitch Cryo droog, but I do have a Cryo droog. If my experience using it thus far is anything to go by, it shouldn’t make a huge difference. (The Droog is amazing on Aurelia.)

I’m not at all clear on how this works, but if it’s as you say, why would you recommend a shock Badaboom instead of cryo? Asking for a friend :slight_smile:

Can’t argue with you there.

I would emphasize - not for you, but for anyone reading this in the land of the future - that, with the exception of Athena, the help I’ve asked for regarding Wilhelm, Clappy, and Aurelia wasn’t due to me struggling terribly with them. With Clappy I was having trouble figuring out the best shield and Oz kit, balancing survivability and damage in a way that felt sufficient.

With Wilhelm, I already had a build I ran through the game with with no trouble - I just love Wilhelm so much the kids taunt me by saying, “Well, why don’t you marry him?” I wanted to get as much understanding of Wilhelm’s skills as I could, and I needed more than what I was getting from the skill analysis and from Derch’s and Hoyle’s discussion in Derch’s long video on the subject.

As stated above, I had real problems with Athena. She’s one of two VH’s I felt it necessary to build in accord with the orthodoxy (Nisha being the other).

Of course, I’m just one person and others could struggle where I didn’t. It doesn’t seem to me most people struggle with Athena, but I did. I just want to be clear that, for the most part, I was asking for help in understanding, to help me get the most out of whatever I was looking to do, rather than to keep me from quitting the game in frustration.

In any case, I’m going to try your sniper spam proposal, damn the torpedoes.

1 Like
#13

I only use the Badaboom on bosses I can’t crit, so all that matters is matching elements. I wouldn’t recommend sacrificing damage to try and out heal a boss.

Shock does 2.5x damage to shields, cryo does 0.4x.

1 Like
#14

Ok - this is the arcana I’m less than knowledgeable about. So, if it isn’t too much trouble to press you further, what bosses would you recommend cryo on, if any?

My understanding of the bosses in this game is poor. I usually just ty to damage race them, and if my gear and/or build isn’t up to snuff, I lose the race and die. I don’t have a clue how to fight most of them with beautiful tactics.

#15

And I said she only “wants” to use cryo guns, not that she only can use cryo guns. That’s how I tried to make the distinction. But I get how it would be unclear.

1 Like
#16

Ones you can’t crit, aren’t shielded, and you can’t apply status effects to (enemies can be cryo’d without being frozen).

You might also not know then that the cryo status effect causes you to deal 200% more crit damage, 2.5x more explosive damage, and 3x more melee damage to affected enemies.

#17

I’m going to sound like I’ve never played this game before, but I swear I have. Bosses meeting this criteria would be… um…

Flameknuckle (or whatever his name is),
Felicity (even though you can crit her, her crit bugs out)

And… that’s it. Unless I’m forgetting someone. Deadlift has a shield, as does Bosun, as does Zarpedon, as does Sentinel, as do DS and E&E.

Let’s say, hypothetically, I drain Bosun’s shield and then use cryo, or likewise with Zarpendon. Would that work?

I don’t normally focus on criting the bosses, since I tend to not even know where their crit spots are. With Bosun, for instance, I just jump up to him, take out his buddies, then get in his face and spam something (usually a shock company man; sometimes a shock machine). I’m sure I crit him by accident on occasion. I’m wondering if, with Aurelia, he’d go down faster (after his shield is down) if I used cryo.

And if that held for Bosun, it should hold for Zarpedon too, yes?

(Deadlift I don’t worry about, as once you get his shield down he dies fast no matter what.)

Now that is news to me. Does “cryo’d” in this context mean “take cryo damage,” which would be desirable here because of all of Aurelia’s cryo buffs?

1 Like
#18

You should be able to crit and maybe status him.

Sorry, I meant are shielded. The mini sentinel and the face mask are definitely things I’d use the Badaboom on.

I killed DS today and a shock+fire Pitchfork didn’t do too bad. Just no where near what other characters can do.

If an enemy doesn’t have a shield, and can be cryo’d, explosive is better because of the 2.5x damage.

You can tell an enemy is cryo’d because they’ll have a cryo DoT ticking on them. I don’t recall Aurelia having any skills that care about the enemies being cryo’d, just that you’re using cryo damage.

Here is a little example of the sniper spam build. My PC is a little old, and I’m a little rusty (haven’t made a video in 3.5 years), but it should portray the power I talk about (and it starts with 0 stacks). But feel free to hold off on watching it if you want to try it yourself first.

Aurelia Sniper Spam - YouTube

The sound you might hear is my dying controller disconnecting if I move too much.

1 Like
#19

Awesome. I’ll get a feel for it by watching first, then give it a go later tonight.

Something tells me I’m going to regret not having the loop glitch. I’ll have to get a feel for managing my ammo supply.

Ok, so let me see if I understand this. Apologies for being dense. What’s got me twisted in knots is what is meant by “cryo’d” - frozen, or just ticking with a cryo DOT (or do they only tick if they’re frozen?). And what’s the difference between “cryo damage” and being “cryo’d”? Does it work like other elemental damage, where there’s, say, a fire bonus inherent to the element and (if you can proc it) a fire DOT?

I ask because I want to have it clear in my mind where I can get the cryo bonuses from explosive or other elements. Simply, can I only get it when they’re frozen?

#20

When I say cryo’d I mean both. Its just that bosses (and like if you cryo an enemy before they fully spawn) will only have the DoT, but won’t be frozen. And frozen enemies will be CCd and also take said DoT.

An easy way to test is to just unload like half a Fridgia mag into something, stop firing, and if you still see cryo numbers that means they can be “cryo’d”. (Make sure your action skill isnt the one making the damage numbers.)

I don’t quite understand this one. You mean if certain health types take increased damage regardless of DoTs? Then yes, but cryo is neutral for flesh/armor, and does -60% damage (and chance of DoTing) to shields.

You only get the crit/explosive/melee damage with a DoT active, and not if you simply shoot an enemy with a cryo gun and dont DoT them.

Yes, if they have a cryo DoT on them you get said buffs against them. And remember frozen enemies also have said DoT.

Explosive is the only element that gets the damage boost, but other elements that crit get the 200% crit damage however (including explosive).

The ammo regen from the COM and Silver Lining should be enough, as enemies will also drop ammo. Plus the multishot glitch causes shots to consume 2 ammo, so it balances out. The difference however is the power, when you get a glitch it feels like a whole new gun in terms of DPS (normal Droog is just fine though).

(Although do not use the Machine, it’s designed really only to be used for bosses because of the special effect.)

1 Like
#21

I’m gonna confess I don’t understand how that plays out like that but I’ll just take your word for it. Is the effective HP gain from reduction linear or does the 1.2x for 1 into 2x for 5 just something that happens?

Still, for what it’s worth I did find that one point seemed to make a sufficient difference for me compared to when I didn’t have it.