That is my dilemma, heh. I think I’ll have to work toward the goal very slowly. One bullymong at a time.
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Good point. However, Gaige doesn’t have to be used for this task. I am simply mentioning a great weapon for the OP, and how to get it. What the OP chooses to do with said information is up to them. Asking in these great forums is an option. No Gaige required. 
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Also a good point. 
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I haven’t done anything with Gaige for the last week because of the enormous frustration. I’m experiencing much the same feeling with Axton in early UVHM. This evening, for example, I played for 90 minutes, during which I … killed Doc Mercy, his crew, and the 15 psychos that run at you afterwards. I died several times, and twice during the psycho waves I actually had to go back to the Happy Pig motel to ammo up. That gun holds more than 1000 rounds!
With Doc Mercy himself, I finally won a war of attrition. I’d throw the turret to a flanking place; it would slag him and he’d turn to deal with it; I’d empty a few on-level Butcher magazines in his back; his health would deplete maybe 20%. Then I’d run away and wait for the turret to cool down. (If I confronted him directly, I’d be two shots away from taking a knee. I found that out the hard way.) When the turret was ready, I’d return to a Doc Mercy with full shields and much of the lost health returned.
I know that early UVHM is, ahem, hard, and I freely admit to being an average player. I surely don’t remember this degree of silliness with Maya, though. Nor with Sal, of course, because he is Sal. I dunno. Maybe Gaige and Axton just aren’t for me. I mean, really: Given my experience with Doc Mercy, what are the odds that dealing with the assassins in Southpaw will be a delight?
EDIT 1: On a happier note, I’ve begun melee Zer0 and melee Krieg. They are a delight. I can’t wait for Many Must Fall.
EDIT 2: Got Many Must Fall. YES.
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I think it may come to the characters’ respective, “oh ■■■■” cards, as in, what do you do if you’re suddenly overwhelmed? Maya can Phaselock an enemy, and even if that doesn’t kill it on its own, the enemy is neutralized, slagged, you’re healing, and resetting the terms of the engagement. Sal (I assume you were offhanding some Moxxi thing?) can get his tank on like that.
For Axton, I find Nuke is the best for this, but it means keeping your turret in the bank unless you need it. Nuke knocks an enemy back and should put the turret between you and the enemy so they focus on it and you can regroup as needed (like a lizard dropping its tail). Gaige can do the same with Deathtrap.
I do recall thinking that the line between playing defensively enough not to get killed and offensively enough to overcome the health regeneration to be vexing at that stage, but I just ground through it. The promise of more skill points to throw at them was too enticing.
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I had the same trouble you did with him, and my Axton retired several times. I finally got him going properly (about 1.5 years after he started UVHM…) by switching from a build that takes Double Up first to taking Gemini first (end goal has always been the standard 26-15-26, so adjust slightly if you’re headed for explosive Axton instead). If we define “early” as 53, something like this should work well. That assumes a Leg. Soldier COM which is in principle easy to get from the 
(took me a lot of farming before one actually dropped, though).
Lacking Double Up, the main adjustment is having to slag manually. I like the Slagga (easy to farm one at 50 by dropping into TVHM, and won’t take that long to unlock in UVHM), others prefer bouncing betties. With 6/5 Expertise I’m happy to swap guns and use the grenade slot for something damaging like a 
, Bonus Package, or whatever.
Your description of your Doc Mercy ordeal brought back a lot of unpleasant memories - been there, done that, paid the New-U fees 
. And that’s also why Medical Mystery is on my list of side quests to skip. Dealing with that stupid blasster is so not worth it. Plenty of xp elsewhere that’s actually enjoyable.
Re: melee Zero, you people are nuts… 
Krieg is (literally) a blast, though!
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Funnily enough, I took all 6 chars to OP 8 before I later went back and did a melee Zero play through…Many Must Fall is beyond awesome, just a truly great experience in a game filled with them…
For Gaige and Axton, I often used my generic borderlands strategy. It allowed me to get them to max level, but I never got good enough with them to be able to comfortably handle OP8 with them (at least not in the same way I can handle OP8 with the others by using their unique skills).
The generic borderlands strategy for me involves fighting at mid to long range and heavy use of cover and back-pedalling (though I’m not a BL2 Marauder so I can’t zig zag at full speed while back-pedalling). Basically, I just wait behind cover, then pop off some slag (magic missiles are my favourite), then pop out to hit with something hard from range (Pimpernel, Harold etc.) then duck back in to stay alive. I would use DT as Gaige for drawing aggro (or Axton’s turret). I didn’t like the anarchy mechanic so I’ve never really used it and just built around DT and/or shock.
The generic borderlands strategy (for me) also involves a lot of back pedalling. Don’t get surrounded basically, because it’s game over man, it’s game over… So therefore, when it gets too heavy I just back out of there looking for the next cover to duck behind. Since I’m not engaging at close range, backing out is easier. Also, I can deal with the rushers easier, since they’re the only things I have to deal with at close range, instead of their midrange friends sniping me while I deal with them.
Another useful skill is what I dub the “juke run” (I play solo a lot and I like to make up names for things…uh…yeah…moving on). If you run away flicking the left stick (on console, don’t know if you’re a WASD guy) left and right… This often throws off the AI targeting, as does jumping so I combine the two. Use of this when you do get surrounded to get out is part of my generic borderlands strategy. It’s a very cautious and very dull strategy, but it works.
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The ‘juke run’ your referring to is generally referred to as bunny hopping, and it is really effective in BL2 in my experience (I used it excessively when soloing Master Gee in NVHM as part of my NVHM playthrough of scarlett DLC, for example).
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I thought bunny hopping was just the repeated jumping as opposed to the flicking of the stick left and right…but if it also applies to that, that’s good to know so I can use the right term 
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I misread it as including jumping as part of the routine. The side-to-side movements are generally called ‘strafing’.
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The thing about Doc Mercy is his shield- get behind that to do some real damage. As for that, a.o.e. grenades are your friend- the generic Tesla, Storm Fronts, Fire Bees, Fire Storms, Bonus Packages, etc. And use more than one- 4-5 at a time at least- just make sure you slag him first. With the right builds (and gear) explosive Axton or LBT Gaige should be able to deal with the good Doctor pretty quickly…
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What you call the “juke run”, I call “jumping around like an idiot”. You’re better at names than I am.
Oddly, that strategy with melee Zer0 has made me unafraid to wade into groups of stalkers. I just jump around, lash out at what’s close, and use Decepti0n to find and Execute the cowards who are hiding. Law and Order keep me going until they’re all gone. (This is in NVHM. I imagine that Rabids will force me to change my tactics somewhat.)
With hordes of skags, I go get the individuals who attack at distance, then let the others come to me. At that point I spin around like an idiot (juke turn?) and hit them all until they’re dead.
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The turret had the good Doctor slagged and and distracted while I blasted him in the back with a fast-fire shotgun. An on-level Butcher should be devastating, right? Not this time, aargh.
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Not necessarily. What element is it, what prefix does it have, and at what range are you using it?
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I thought strafing is when you track horizontally in one direction while facing another, I’m referring to quickly flicking the stick left and right, I’ve gotten out of so many situations like that
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More generally it refers to moving perpendicular to the direction you are facing. I believe the term originates in the early days of 3D first person games (shooters) which often were controlled with the arrow keys instead of wasd+mouse. Such control schemes had a strafe key which changed the left and right arrows from turning to moving left and right respectively.
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right, we’re splitting hairs then, technically I am strafing then, but switching the direction of the strafe every half second or so…it results in a small zig zagging run but it’s enough to throw off the tracking AI in the game engine.
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On the whole I think you’ll find that easier, Mercy’s cavern is designed to funnel you into his warm embrace whereas Southpaw allows for more tactical variation.
As for the actual mission, yeah, it’s always been a pain in UVHM due to how abysmal that gun is. There are a couple of workarounds with weapons that will ‘count’ towards the required kills, although the one I remember off the top of my head (Twister) isn’t something you’ll find in a vendor.
I think @Adabiviak is onto something though. With the pet classes and their very lengthy cooldowns, you generally need a way to get out of immediate trouble which doesn’t have you relying on your action skill.
If you consider all the benefits of a quick Phaselock to regain control of the situation you can apply a fair amount of that to a humble singularity nade. It’ll stun and CC (crowd control) for several seconds, and has the added benefit of doing that regardless of level meaning you don’t have to risk hurting yourself.
The range of the pull is often overlooked as well, even on a standard-quality nade it can be pretty impressive.
I have maybe 40 Vault Hunters in my roster and they all carry one and use it often.
(I do sometimes wish we could benefit more from a simple melee strike, seeing as it takes something like Sal’s Fistful of Hurt to cause any significant stun or knockback.)
With Gaige I find it to be very straightforward, since the moment I stopped playing her defensively was a bit of an epiphany.
It would have been around level 35 early in the year of our lord 2013 and I haven’t really had any trouble since then. Damn the torpedoes and you’ll usually be ok, like any punk she thrives on getting in people’s faces.
As Axton I don’t think I could play without Mag-Lock. There are certainly benefits to the knockback you get from Nuke, but that’s once per deployment whereas a turret or two in flanking positions tends to open up the field for as long as they’re out.
Whether I want to play aggressively or not becomes a matter of choice then, rather than crisis management.
One thing worth keeping in mind is the myth of ‘everything breaks your shield in UVHM’ - specifically because it’s not all a myth.
For several levels after each cap increase beyond the vanilla game with a cap of 50, there’s a pretty noticeable bump in the road before you’re on a more level playing field again. On the whole GBX did a good job of balancing things but at 51-55 and 62-67 (or thereabouts) you’re facing a scaling problem as well as any pacing problems your Vault Hunter might have with regards to unlocking key skills.
Every time I start UVHM with one of dozens of freshplays I get a nasty reminder to that effect. You’d think I’d be used to it now, but…yeah. It is only somewhat mitigated by the knowledge that this too will pass.
Hope you hang in there. For my money, each of the Vault Hunters have a variety of viable playstyles: which ones work best for you is something only you can know and the school of hard knocks is the only place to learn.
For better or worse.
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That’s a good point. I keep forgetting this because I only let one of my Sirens play with these.
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I got myself a decent Coach Gun and practiced a bit. Now Gaige is mobbing just fine, though I do need to practice a bit more. Then more.
Thanks to everyone who provided encouragement and suggestion. Anarchy Gaige is fun!
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