I know how improbable it is, believe me 
I have been trying for a while and i’m pretty close. If the Blockade turns out to be a better choie mathematically than the Evo, it might be the last little push needed
No tricks, this is no different than using moxxi guns (in fact…it IS a moxxi gun)
Just pure Brawn as survival
Both of course! No substitute to total awesome
Well, it’s a bit different, as you’d still be relying on your health regen to outpace the excess damage you’d take from the shield overcapping. I was thinking something like a splatgun or Thunderball Fists in your main hand, and a Florentine/Slagga in the offhand.
If you’re looking for pure, consistent DR, I don’t know of anything else that could beat a Blockade. Ofc you could rely on bullet absorption, but if it’s straight health regen face tanking, I doubt you could beat the Blockade, since the DR is bugged to always be active. That ability to function while the shield is depleted really makes the item.
The other approach is to kill everything so fast you don’t take fatal damage, hehe.
Yes
Indeed, and shame on me for not considering it before (though this discussion is probably the catalyst for this)
What remains to be seen is if it offers more than the extra health of the Neo/Evo.
What COM are you looking at? Legendary Titan, or something more generalist/damage oriented?
Leg. Titan has given me the best results so far.
As for not being damage oriented, it’s actually surprisingly powerful: it offers gun damage (which is something only 3 of Sal’s skill provide, so typically outside of pistol builds, you get exactly none) and a boost to OoBG and L&L makes for some serious fire rate even without Keep firing.
Here’s what I got with an op8 Leg. Titan (stats from Max Stat Gear Lists thread) and this spec (only counting +DR and +HP) and a Blood of the Ancients:
character level: 72
base hp: 530.564,1699
op8 Blood of the Ancients (+62% health)
op8 Leg. Titan (+shield capacity: -124821)
damage reduction: 0.4 + 0.5 + 2.5 + 0.2 // Hard to Kill, default zerking,
// Come At Me, Bro and Rough Rider,
// respectively
----op8 Rough Rider (capacity: 0 +hp: 974,638)----
total-health: 3.040.508,3831
max-hitpoints (depleted shield): 13.986.338,5624
max-hitpoints (including shield): 13.986.338,5624
----op8 Evolution (capacity: 794,634 +hp: 1,042,341)----
total-Health: 3.177.268,4431
max-hitpoints (depleted shield): 13.979.981,1497
max-hitpoints (including shield): 16.927.158,3497
----op8 Blockade (capacity: 1,906,962 +hp: 0)----
total-health: 1.071.739,6231
max-hitpoints (depleted shield): 5.005.024,04
max-hitpoints (including shield): 13.327.622,51
man howdidyou
--total-health
(base + shield) * (1 + relic + skills) + classmod
--max-hitpoints
the format 'hp * (1 + DR)', one takes shield
capacity into account while the other doesn't
obs.: with the Evolution I didn’t take the elemental resistance into account since I’m not sure if that’s added together with DR or it uses some other format.
tl;dr - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ … I probably would stick with either Rough Rider or Evolution
I’ll just do a quick writeup of stat values, since I’m curious too. (Values are all at OP8, with no BAR. I will be using commas to denote thousands, as well as periods for decimals, as I am American)
Salvador -
Base Health: 530,564
Health Regen per sec. while Gunzerking: +2.5% (I think this is right?)
Damage Reduction while Gunzerking: +50%
SHIELDS
Rough Rider -
Damage Reduction: +20%
Bonus Health: +974,638 (flat)
Blockade -
Capacity: 1,399,191
Delay: 1.79 => Recharge Rate: 256,368
Damage Reduction: +38% (according to the wiki)
Evolution -
Capacity: 794,634
Delay: 1.98 => Recharge Rate: 112,838
Elemental Resistance: +86% (does not work against non-elemental)
Bonus Health: +1,042,341 (flat)
COM
Legendary Titan COM -
Health Regen per sec.: 9,256.2 (flat)
Reduced Shield Capacity: -211,571 (flat)
Relevant Boosted Skills: +5 to Hard to Kill, I’m the Juggernaut, and Asbestos
RELICS
Blood of the Ancients -
Bonus Health: +62%
Blood of the Seraphs -
Bonus Health: +39%
Health Regen per sec.: 1%
Skin of the Ancients -
Typed Resistance (up to 3): +~26-30%
Bonus Shield Capacity: +38%
##SKILLS (with Legendary Titan)
Hard to Kill 10/5 -
Bonus Health: +40%
Health Regen per sec.: +1%
Asbestos 10/5 -
Incoming Status Effect Dur. Reduction: -80%
I’m the Juggernaut 10/5 -
Damage Reduction: 40% (kill-skill, I’ll assume this is up for the purposes of mobbing. In a raid scenario, ymmv)
Ain’t Got Time to Bleed 5/5 -
Health Regen per sec.: +0-4% (based on missing health, while Gunzerking. Not sure how to handle this one, so I guess I’ll average it to 2%)
Sexual Tyrannosaurus 5/5 -
Health Regen per sec.: +2% (for 5 seconds after taking damage)
Come At Me Bro -
Full Heal (once per Gunzerk)
Damage Reduction: +250% (for 8 seconds, once per Gunzerk)
(Assume Leg. Titan and the same skill-point distribution. I am not counting bonuses from Come At Me Bro or Asbestos, as they are context-dependent.)
Blockade + Blood of the Ancients:
Max Health = 1,071,739
Effective Health = 2,443,564
Shield Cap. = 1,187,620
Effective Shield = 2,707,774
Persistent Health Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 (flat) => 89,636 (flat)
Persistent Damage Reduction = +128%
Blockade + Blood of the Seraphs:
Max Health = 949,709
Effective Health = 2,165,337
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +8.5% +9256.2 => 89,981
(Same Shield, same DR)
Blockade + Skin of the Ancients:
Max Health = 742,789
Effective Health = 1,901,540
Shield Cap. = 1,627,688
Effective Shield = 4,166,881
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 => 64,965
Persistent Damage Reduction = +~156%
Rough Rider + Blood of the Ancients:
Max Health = 3,040,508 (holy cow, man!)
Effective Health = 6,385,067
Shield Cap. = 0 (duh)
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 => 237,294
Persistent Damage Reduction = +110%
Rough Rider + Blood of the Seraphs:
Max Health = 2,694,311
Effective Health = 5,658,053
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +8.5% +9256.2 => 238,273
(same Shield, same DR)
Rough Rider + Skin of the Ancients:
Max Health = 2,107,282
Effective Health = 5,015,331
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 => 167,302
Persistent Damage Reduction = +~138%
(same Shield)
Evolution + Blood of the Ancients:
Max Health = 3,177,267
Effective Health = 6,036,807
Shield Cap. = 583,062
Effective Shield = 1,609,251
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 + Evolution healing (having a difficult time finding exact values for this, but it doesn’t feel like a very large amount) => 247,551 + some flat amount that increases as your shield drops
Damage Reduction while Shield is active = +176%
Damage Reduction while Shield is depleted = +90%
Evolution + Blood of the Seraphs:
Max Health = 2,815,499
Effective Health = 5,349,448
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +8.5% +9256.2 + Evolution healing => 248,574 + some flat amount
(same Shield, same DR)
Evolution + Skin of the Ancients:
Max Health = 2,202,066
Effective Health = 4,800,504
Shield Cap. = 892,970
Effective Shield = 2,714,629
Persistent HP Regen per sec. = +7.5% +9256.2 + Evolution healing => 174,411 + some flat amount
Damage Reduction while Shield is active = +~204%
Damage Reduction while Shield is depleted = +~118%
(Gear used for numbers)
Did a test run with a Blockade. I’m with @Maveco in that I’d probably stick with an RR for the extra health.
Honestly, the Evo and the Rough Rider are very close for mobbing. The Rough Rider has a bit more effective health, and the Evo has a bit more healing, as well as a shield to buffer incoming damage with. For a build that does not rely on Moxxi weapons for healing, they would most likely fare about the same. The Evo is somewhat stronger under the effects of Come At Me Bro, and the Rough Rider fares better while I’m the Juggernaut is not active. I guess I’d give the edge to RR for raiding, and to the Evo for mobbing? But yeah, I definitely overvalued that extra 18% DR the Blockade has on the Rough Rider. We need more sources of flat health bonuses!
With a Leg. Titan COM, the RR is completely out as it breaks OoBG. It’s either the Evo or the Blockade in this case.
I’m surprised neither of you calculated the Blockade’s DR (or any other DR) as effective health, wouldn’t that make more sense considering…that’s the point this thread was making ?
I’ll do my own maths on this when I get back home tonight, but for those that want to break it further:
Assume:
Isn’t that the case for using
effective_health = total_health * (1 + dmg_reduction)
Incase it is, I did this in my post.
I used the same formula for Krieg’s health, I assumed it was the same for Salvador:
total_hp = ((base_hp + shield_hp) * (1 + skills + relic + BAR)) + COM
lvl 72 Psycho
5/5 Feed the Meat: +0.5 health mod
RR: +974638 hp
BotA: +0.62 health mod
base_hp at lvl 72: 80 * 1.13^{72} = 530564.169863
total_hp = ((530564.169863 + 974638) * (1 + 0.5 + 0.62) = 3191028.60011
but the same value X gets on his video (BAR off and no BotA relic): 2257803,2548
At least with the Psycho, skills, relics and BAR affects shield’s extra health
I might have misread it, or I underestimated the size of the health bonus from the Evo.
I listed the effective health in every gear combo 
I also denoted effective shield capacity separately, as it works differently for the Evo than it does for the other 2 shields. You should check out the totals I got, the Blockade is pretty low in stats considering Salvador already has plenty of DR. In his case the flat health bonus is worth far more than the extra 18% DR you’d get from using it instead of a RR. The Blockade starts to pull closer to the values you get with the RR and Evo if you use a Skin of the Ancients, but you said you weren’t looking for shield tanking, so that’s out. Also, the health totals I have here are taken directly from in-game, so they should be about as accurate as it gets.
*edit - I forgot to mention, I tried a Rough Rider and an Evo last night, and they both seemed to be similarly effective. My focus wasn’t on an offensive loadout, so I just used a fire Conference Call + Slagga in Lynchwood, and I didn’t have too much trouble staying alive. Points in Bus That Can’t Slow Down + Incite were extremely helpful, as I did have to make use of cover several times to regen some health back, but there wasn’t much downtime. I had a difficult time killing things with points in Brawn and Rampage, but I don’t play on OP8 very often (I’m usually playing TPS) so that might be normal. Once Keep Firing ramps up, a constant stream of headshots were able to take down normal enemies in ~4-5 seconds. But overall, it seems like a Brawn build works just fine, at least in zones that have some cover available. I did go down a few times trying to adapt to the playstyle, but I never died. It sucks to lose Down Not Out since you have so little defense outside of Gunzerk, but the duration management from Rampage is so crucial. I dunno. And Longbow Singularities with zero fuse time are extremely useful for pulling aggro off to get some health back, I would definitely recommend a Quasar to anyone that wants to mob with this.
Yeah, tough choice between down not out and Keep Firing. I went with down not out as I already have ridiculous amount of Fire rate with 10/5 L&L and OoBG.
2 things:
Using the Slagga is a waste: the whole point of Brawn builds is that it allows you to use 2 powerful guns instead of having to use a Moxxi. You would have been better off with 2 CCs for example
Though you did mention that you weren’t going for an aggressive loadout. Killing quickly is also a big help with Brawnzerking.
Forget the RR entirely, not only is it not better than the Evo, but it also prevents you from using 10/5 OoBG with the Titan COM (shield penalty)
Also, great point about the Singularity.
Gulf why are you testing a Brawn build… With a Grog ? 
Seems like it defeats the purpose.
I just threw the Slagga on cause I was concerned about my ability to adapt to the playstyle, so I didn’t want to throw weapon swapping into the mix (I don’t play Sal as much, so I always forget how weapon swapping works while Gunzerking is up :/). I don’t want to discount RR for raiding, as damage intake is not always consistent in that context, so OoBG won’t always be up anyway, and the RR uses Inconceivable more reliably. But I agree that for mobbing purposes the Evo is definitely superior.
Have you gotten a chance to test the Evo yet? What guns have you been using for your Brawn runs?
@benzillah How are you calculating the effective health values say for the Rough Rider + Blood of the Ancients? I noticed our results are fairly different and I’m not really that confident in my maths skills.
Even for raiding, making one of your COM skill useless is not a good idea. If you’re fighting a raid and having problems keeping your shield down, you’re doing something very right… Or wrong.
Inconceivable is also very important only if you rely on moneyshot chains for your DPS. Outside of chains, OoBG offers much MUCH more DPS.
RR: OoBG = never, Inconceivable = always
Evo: OoBG = often, Inconceivable = often
Also… Neo vs Evo ?
Because I’m not the expert Sal play you are.
For the Rough Rider + Blood of the Ancients, my thought process was:
Max Health = 3,040,508
DR = 110%
3040508 * (1 + 1.1) = 6385067
That should reflect the base plus the additional “health” from adding the damage reduction.