Sorry, just bumping my question as I think it got lost.
Could someone please explain how/why Ties That Bind scales with Mayhem mode? I didn’t think it did any damage on its own, and just did a straight 35% of whatever gun/melee/etc. damage the linked targets got.
My understanding of how TTB works is obviously incomplete. Thanks.
TTB takes all damage dealt (except status effects) to one of the enemies, and deals 35% of that as action skill damage to all linked enemies.
So say we deal 1000 dmg to one of them. 350 dmg will then be dealt to all others – however since it’s elemental damage, those modifiers apply. E.g. we’re using fire as action skill element, that will then deal 350 × 1.75 = 612.5 damage against flesh and 350 × 0.5 = 175 against shields.
Now prior to the patch this was considered action skill damage for damage calculation, i.e. you could increase it with Do Harm. Let’s say we have 5/5 Do Harm (that’s +4.5% per stack) and 30 stacks, that’s a bonus of 4.5% × 30 = +135%. Thus, we’ll now deal 612.5 × (1 + 1.35) = 1439.4 against flesh and 175 × (1 + 1.35) = 411.3 against shields.
With 99 stacks and 3/3 Awakening you could get a total bonus of 4.5% × 1.3 × 99 = 579.2%, so TTB would deal 612.5 × (1 + 5.792) = 4160.1. Now let’s add +30% fire damage from Tempest and another +10% from the elemental damage guardian rank: 4160.1 × 1.4 = 5824.1.
We just hit a skag for 1000 dmg and 5 other skags nearby received 5824 dmg each. Even with fire against shields every linked target would get 1783 dmg, so still far more than the original target. If it’s a splash weapon and it hit 3 of the enemies, each of them would deal that damage to all others. That’s how stupidly overpowered it was and why it was so superior to all other of Amara’s action skills, which did pretty much zero damage on M10. It was pretty broken.
So now they increased all action skill damage in the game on Mayhem levels and things got really out of hand. They increased TTB less than the other action skills (×7 dmg on M10 instead of ×31) but it was still absurd: it means we’re at 40,768 dmg now from that 1000 dmg shot. I believe they realised this during testing, so they “fixed” it before releasing the patch by removing the ability to increase it with Do Harm.
Now it’s tied to your Mayhem level, so it’s 35% dmg on M0 (with no option to increase it via Do Harm) and 245% on M10 (which is more than that maxed out situation before, but without spending any skill points). It would have made more sense to just keep it how it was and don’t do any Mayhem scaling on TTB. That said, they mentioned in the patch notes that this was a temporary solution, so this may be changed again.
I’m curious, does anyone know the scaling numbers for guns?
Mayhem bonuses on guns work just like level increases, so a lvl 60 gun with Mayhem 10 is essentially a lvl 70 gun. Damage increase per level is × 1.09, so a Mayhem 10 gun will have × 1.0910 = × 2.37 the damage of an M0 version.
Thanks for the excellent explanations, Doc. I have another question, in case you feel like answering it.
How does the Face Puncher work? It’s clearly based off your melee damage, but not only. Currently, it does insane amounts of damage compared to melee, which does, er, more sane amounts of damage.
Also, how (if at all) is the Face Puncher affected by stats, skills, etc. that modify guns. For example, if you have a skill or mod or artifact that increases “weapon damage” or “shotgun damage”, will that affect the Face Puncher at all?
Doc Already did a guide for it [Guide] Melee / Face-puncher formulas and analysis
I played with Unleash the Dragon yesterday and it 's working way better than pure melee* (Elemental Stone Static Charge artifact) with the Groundbreaker guardian perk. After building the damage I was one-punching every single enemy, the interaction is insane. It’s working the same on Face Puncher, so flying enemies has no chance, one shot an they are burned.
Also Fishslap grenade is the best for bosses or other tough enemies. If you have a gun (I was holding Face Puncher, but could be any gun I guess) with 300/90 it’s one throw and done.
*pure melee is excellent too, just UtD gives more damage thanks to Groundbreaker perk.
Is pure melee viable on M10 with Groundbreaker + UtD ?
Well, I don’t have Groundbreaker or UtD, and I’d say that pure melee is too viable, if anything, even without those.
I’m honestly not having any fun in DLC3 at the moment because of how OP I am. Using a Ties that Bind build with the green skill tree maxxed out. Using mainly fists and a Face Puncher. A melee artifact (extra cryo melee, extra random element melee, etc.) and a Dragon (not Unleash the Dragon) mod. Everything is basically a 1, 2, or 3 shot kill.
Honestly, the balancing in this game is such a rollercoaster. I went from using a melee build in M4 (1.0) and struggling to keep up with mobs but enjoying it… to suddenly melee being entirely useless in M2.0 and having to switch to a guns-only build…to suddenly melee (and the Face Puncher in particular) being so powerful that the game’s easier than it’s ever been since I bought it, in M10. It’s exhausting.
EDIT: Just switched from DLC3 to Guardian Takedown, and now enjoying myself handsomely. Last week, I found the takedown was really spongey and difficult on M7. Now with my melee build and Patch 2, it’s pretty good, on M10: tearing through enemies pretty quickly, but still a bit of a challenge.
Groundbreaker has no impact on pure melee (added value only when using UtD), but simply punching it’s very viable. I did whole dlc3 on M10 with it. It’s better than in old M4.
So short fuse like TTB has a +600% multiplicative damage bonus on M10?
Yep.
Thats a good buff in my eyes
I don’t play Moze but it definitely sounds massive
edit: GBX logic certainly is something to behold. “How can we make Moze more balanced? …let’s take her best capstone and multiply its damage by x7!”
Lol yes, exactly! IK this isn’t a Moze thread, so I won’t go on and on about it.
But yes, this and the iron bear scaling was HUGE for her, it’s awesome.
I’m so happy! IB moze and Melee Amara were my favorite builds preM1.0 M4 and now I can play them again!
I haven’t touched her yet but I think the time is coming soon. Hopefully with Unleash the Dragon, Breaker mod, Brawler Ward, Butt Plug or Psycho Stabber, she will be able to do some real damage. I’m not the biggest fan of the Facepuncher.
Is there a build that would work with Slam or is Ties That Bind still best by far? I’m wondering if a Frozen Heart with shield effect ASA could freeze all the enemies regularly and give you the cryo melee bonus while making it possible to keep Topped Off and regularly use your Slam, leading to more people being frozen. You would also be able to go further down the blue tree and take the capstone there, along with Wrath, Remnant and Avatar (further boosting Do Harm).
So I heard indiscriminate counts as action skill dmg wouldn’t do harm buff that dmg then?
It used to be, but they removed that for the same reason as with TTB. Just like TTB, Indiscriminate now gets a flat x7 damage boost on Mayhem 10.
Thx a lot! You are the man 
Has anyone done anything with Slam, Slide & Offensive shield perks? It seems like these were all buffed as well.