#41

Sweet, even if you didn’t want to discuss purple tree, some of Fl4k’s skills were buffed/changed, and we’d be interested in knowing how they fully work now.

Thanks :ok_hand:

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#42

I will update the stuff from the vanilla trees soon, because the meta has shifted significantly since I wrote this guide (pets dealing damage, Dominance being good, GiTM being decent again etc.). But TBH, I haven’t played around with the purple tree alot (not a big fan), and hence am not really qualified to write about it. @boombumr, if you don’t mind, could you drop some brief comments on the purple skills, and I can format and include in the guide.

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#43

Gotta Go Fast
4 ****
Gives fully multiplicative damage on the pets unless you use Old God + Take This, and increases movespeed. Generally great skill all around.

Success Imminent
1*
Low damage, low range, and kills you and the pet with the right map conditions.

Agility Training
4*
Really high passive reload speed in tier 1. No reason not to max it. Useful even in gun builds.

Throatripper
5*
Enables 2 of the best skills in the tree, at least doubles any source of pet damage, and can proc LNT making it an extremely useful skill for gun builds as well. Must take.

Combat Vet
1*
Worse Who Rescued Who.

Better Toys
2*
Not terrible on it’s own for a tier 2, but extremely redundant in context of the tree and FL4K isn’t a great shield char anyway (and with 90% of shields for the pet you want them depleted or close to anyway).

Take This
5*
Build defining skill, massively increases pet damage and utility. No reason ever not to take it.

Lethal Force Authorized
1*
Your pet will rarely ever go down. If it does you have Friendbot and Res pistol to revive it. The decreased respawn timer sounds nice, but with the bug that allows this skill to kill pets through Gamma Burst it is far more detrimental to pet survival than anything else in the game.

Monkey Do
4*
Even bugged, this is one of the best skills in the tree if you can build around it’s faults. This skill is bugged to convert damage to kinetic when it procs, but if you build around cryo/kinetic single projectile weapons you get a consistent 86% damage increase (the skill has the same amp bug as legendary amp shields and only buffs 1 pellet, and the FL4K damage increase is actually 86% and is the same at 1 point -5. This skill is wonky). Of course if doing a pet damage set up, few can afford to lose the 70% crit damage buff.

Wooly Armor
1*
Pet is freaking immortal most of the time, 75% DR for it is absolutely pointless. If something is going to kill your pet, this skill won’t stop that happening.

Not Even a Challenge
2*
This skill gives a great amount of CDR and duration, but getting enough pet kills to really make it work even in a full pet damage build is difficult.

Fuzzy Math
3 or 4*
Another build defining skill, this is great to enable pet shield shenanigan’s. As an actual survival skill it’s the best in the tree, but it isn’t worth buiding down the entire tree just for this in a non-pet build. And it works best as a 1 point wonder imo.

Keep Them Safe
1*
It would be a really mediocre skill without a cooldown, but with a 12 second and 50% shield condition to get as much shield back as Fuzzy math gives in 6 seconds with 1 point this skill is just garbage. Some people throw a single point to get as much shield regen as possible for Messy Breakup spam but it’s not worth even that much imo.

Capacitance
2*
It only doubles whatever your current shield value is at the time of activation, so if you don’t activate with full shield it’s a wasted proc. You can do some shield break amp stuff with this skill but the amount of damage you give up to enable it is not worth the tradeoff.

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#44

Grav Snare
1*
Terrible action skill at it’s core. The CC is terrible, the AOE is awful, and it doesn’t do anything useful for pets or FL4K.

Forage
2*
This skill gives tons of ammo back, but when Throatripper + LNT exists this is a lot less appealing. You give up a lot of damage and utility to run this action skill, and running this augment when you can just run a cutpurse relic is a big waste of build potential.

Wide Net
5*
Necessary.

Trap Card
1*
Useless.

Blind with Anger
3*
Has good synergy with Hidden Machine and is generally the most useful augment, but is 20 points deep and is a small AOE cool down version of Dominance. Finding an occasion where this is worth running over that is extremely difficult.

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#45

I already rated the Loaders here so I’ll just copy paste what I put there.

Ion Loader

:star:

Aside from the usual issues tier 1 pets have regarding low passive strength and attack command damage, Ion Loader compounds on the issues with numerous bugs. Ion Loader’s passive actually increases the amount of elemental damage over time you receive instead of decreasing it. In regards to damage, while it’s shock orb and sniper rifle work fine, this pet is completely unable to activate attack commands, meaning it has no access to the pet terror anointment and thus loses access to one of the largest damage bonuses available for pets. All around I suggest avoiding this skill to the highest degree in its current state.

Bull Loader

:star:

Bull Loader’s passive applies to FL4K’s base shield capacity, before any modifiers. This means that if you were to wear a Deathless and have Bull Loader equipped, it would increase your shield capacity by 20% of what your shield was before equipping the Deathless. It’s passive adds much less capacity than it seems.

For damage, Bull Loader has several issues. It never uses the melee roundhouse kick attack. Like Countess, Bull Loader can clip under ground during his attack command and get stuck under the map. His shotgun has no issues, but it is incredibly inconsistent. Unlike Beefcake Jabber, who will hit the same damage at the same distance every time, Bull Loader’s pellets can miss regardless of the range, and they can crit individually. This means that Bull Loader can stack skills like Fuzzy Math and Monkey Do without Throatipper, but itS damage is also somewhat based on RNG.

Between the low value passive, pathing issues on the attack command, and inconsistent damage, I’d recommend avoiding the Bull Loader.

War Loader

:star: :star:

War Loader’s passive fire rate buff is one of the only 2 FL4K DPS skills available in the Trapper tree. It is a low value, but it is a nice bonus. War Loader can be instantly killed by diadems and wipe attacks from Scourge and Anathema in the Guardian Takedown, eve through Gamma Burst, so beware if using this pet in that content.

Like Bull Loader, War Loader’s damage is somewhat RNG based on how many pellets hit and crit. His AI and movement speed are extremely slow. However, because War Loader’s fire DOTs can crit via Throatripper, it can be useful for getting more procs of Fuzzy Math and Monkey Do. The grenade that War Loader throws receives pet mayhem scaling and applies the OGT anoint, so it can have a decent utility role although the cool down for this ability is in excess of 20 seconds. War Loader has the most utility out of all the Loaders due to this.

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