Should you ideally have all slag weapons slotted in UVHM?

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection Handsome Collection General Discussion
#21

Thanks for the great build progress tips. Right now I’m level 53 and my build looks almost exactly like the one in ChemicalConundrum’s post (except I think I split the points between Ward and Accelerate). Basically, it’s feast or famine for me. When I’m keeping crowds under control with converge and ruin, it’s great, but sometimes I get downed and find it tough to get back up again unless I can clear most of the enemies in FFYL. And If I have no place to seek cover my shields and health get ravaged in a hurry. Example, outside the bloodshot gates when you have to honk, four or five bandits ambush me and they’re too far apart to use converge, so I was down almost instantly.

Should I always have the Cataclysm tree maxed? Or would I get better survivability out of going down the Harmony tree to get scorn, then work my way down Cataclysm? It seems like having Ruin should be a no brainer, but I do feel like a glass cannon at this point. When I played this on Xbox 360 I think I only got Maya up to around 60, so I’ve never enjoyed the benefits of a full build, which I can see has great potential.

I’m always up for respeccing points to try a new approach, so I’ll see what I can do to slip a few points into Life Tap.

Thanks again for all the great tips…much appreciated.

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#22

having Ruin is just a no brainer, you instantly slag a target and most things around it (with Converge), this means phaselock is instadeath for anything it picks up (Wreck and Reaper are acting too), it’s just, well you were attacking me but now you’re not and also you’re dead and you produce healing orbs for me plus (depending on your spec) i get a shield recharge and reload speed buff from Inertia …in NVHM or TVHM, whatever, but you want Ruin at UVHM on your first go through. Your surviveability comes from Sweet Release, so you want to be all phaselocking all the time, in between you can look for cover, use slag grenades or singularity grenades to pull enemies off you or group them for the next phaselock/converge, or just run around dodging quickly (and/or shooting things). Accerlerate isn’t a huge boost and doesn’t work well with all guns (though to be fair, it works fine with most), I’d rather have the extra shields from Ward.

With Wreck, you can pick up a smaller target, slag (or have already slagged ideally) a non phaselockable target and then the Wreck bonus is still active if you don’t kill the smaller target and the phaselock stay sup. You can’t pull off this move all the time, but it can help against things you can’t pick up.

Your gear matters a lot too, you want decent on level as soon as possible. Only a few pieces of gear will last beyond 5 levels at this point and that’s stretching it with some. Don’t worry about farming much specific, just hop from a few things decent as you’ll outlevel anything really good anyway. I like Shotguns a great deal with Maya as there’s several good options outside of the legendaries…there’s the top gear threads on the forums for gear that works well with certain characters, but you it’s more just finding one or two pieces you can get easily enough to play the game a little more smoothly… how far are you in the main story?

For your shields, I like Adaptive shields for non bandit areas and Absorb or Adaptive shields for bandit areas… A bee shield is useful for health tank bosses despite it’s inherent cheese. It’s an easy farm as you have the DLC’s, so it doesn’t matter if you’re at that part of the story yet.

edit: Realized that playstyle advice was fairly generic video game things and not helpful, I try not to get too close to the action with Maya most of the time if I can, I want to keep everything in front of me and I want to have a cover point if necessary to slide behind, most maps allow this to some degree, I’ll use phaselock to group or pull enemies, usually making sure I have space to back up in case of armored pyschos or something like that, I generally have matching element guns for what i’m facing and something hard hitting for FFYL (I don’t know if you’re far enough in the story to get the Badaboom which is the easiest great launcher to farm)…Once you have stronger gear you’ll take enemies down faster and you’ll be up more as a result…

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#23

Funny you mention the Adaptive shield, I just picked one up and noticed right away that I felt less “squishy”. I’ll keep an eye out for more as I go.

I actually have done what you describe, phaselocking a smaller target and then letting them live so I can keep Wreck going. YOu’re right, when the conditions are right it is potent. I find I approach this in many ways like I do with Dark Souls games, in that I try not to wade too far into the action, and instead pull enemies to me, especially if there is a funnel point. I’ve never really had to pay attention to cover before in BL2, but this is a whole new playstyle (and I enjoy the hardcore nature of it, and have basically stopped being attached to money).

I’m just at the start of Dam Fine Rescue. I have all the DLC still to play. Should I progress the story some before the DLC, just for certain rewards?

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#24

I usually go through most of the main story and stop before hitting Heroes Pass, then do DLC1 and stop before advancing to the Sandhawk mission, do all of DLC2 main story, then DLC3 and most of DLC4. Picking up side quests with inconsequential rewards along the way, that usually gets me pretty close to level 72 (plus there’s always the Head Hunter packs or farming for Torgue tokens) at which point I push to max, finish main story, and start farming the quest rewards I want for that character.

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#25

Perfect, I’ll try that route.

Something you said here reminded me of another question I had. If I want to leave some side quests until a higher level, what happens if I join another player’s game in coop and they do that quest? Does it end up getting wiped from my own game, or can I return to mine and still do it? I wasn’t sure how the coop quests cross-pollinate each player’s saved progress.

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#26

The beauty of Scorn is that you can use it while in FFYL. That’s a big help.

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#27

I didn’t realise that…nice way to soften up the mobs in case you didn’t get off a round of Ruin.

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#28

Credit to @Derch for sharing that tip in one of his vids a few years back before I started playing her.

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#29

If you complete the quest in someone else’s game, it counts towards your progress and you won’t get the quest rewards a second time. Similarly, if the host accepts a quest that you haven’t accepted yet, it will now be registered as accepted in your game as well.

The other thing to watch out for is if you are hosting and one of the guests accepts a quest in your game, the reward is now locked to that level in your game (even in UVHM). Guests should not go round accepting quests in someone else’s game, but enough of them do that it can be a pain.

The only solutions to these issues are to either reserve one character for solo play only, or reset your entire UVHM play-through when you get to max level.

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#30

That is good to know. I really enjoy coop play, but this can be annoying. I suppose I could just approach this whole 53 to 72 run as one for just playing quests as the come, but it would be nice to save some important gear for high levels.

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#31

There’s no problem doing co-op if they people who join your game know and respect the basic ground rules (follow the host’s lead, don’t disrupt fast travel, don’t accept or turn in quests.) Most of the regulars on these forums know this stuff and would be more than happy to work with a host. So feel free to post a co-op request in the relevant section with a note that you want to reserve certain missions for later - as I said, most of the regulars here will cooperate:

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#32

Is it only the “outstanding” items on that list of quest rewards that are worth saving until the end? Or are there others in the “good” category worth waiting for as well? I’m just trying to figure out which ones to do for access to decent gear as I play through to 72, and which I want to wait for.

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#33

That depends a lot on the player and if you plan on going into the OP levels

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