#49

I get the impression that it’s an issue with how the damage numbers - and particularly the scaling - is coded within the game for the progression from starting NVHM through to level 72. A number of Maya’s skills (like Cloud Kill) were always good in lower modes, but largely useless in UVHM thanks to the increased health, damage reduction, and health regeneration of enemies. It would seem that getting the skill to work well in UVHM means it’s somewhat OP in lower modes (especially with the fixed map/enemy levels through the main story). I am not complaining about the buff it got at all though - makes things more fun!

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#50

Maya and Axton are good at any level. Krieg is either good from the start or after lvl 32, depends on how you want to spec. Sal becomes really strong in uvhm if you grab a decent moxxie gun. Never really played zero or gaige

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#51

I think this word is incorrect. :slight_smile: I found cloudkill to be wildly OP throughout the game. All she has to do is throw a bullet at something (actual gun is irrelevant) and it will melt to death from the DoT. It becomes less absurd in UVHM when flesh and/or shielded enemies start to require actual gun damage for quick kills, but she’s still able to one-bullet most armored enemies well into the OP levels. And as Derch showed she can kill OP8 Saturn with the level 2 starter pistol; if that’s not ridiculously OP I don’t know what is! :slight_smile:

My understanding is that the current overpowered cloudkill was an overcorrection in the final patch. For most of the game’s history (I wasn’t here at the time, so old-timers :older_man: please correct me if I’m wrong!) cloudkill was pretty weak, which you can still see in a few old build or skill discussion threads where people skip cloudkill. The final patch fixed that, along with the rank-damage skills like Helios, Zero’s Unforeseen, etc. They got the rank skills right, but boosted cloudkill to about twice what it should be in my opinion.

To me that’s one of the most obvious things the UCP could have tried to address, but the UCP’s design philosophy is all buffs, no nerfs, so I stopped paying attention to them pretty early on.

A good approach to leveling Sal is to focus on getting his “perma-zerk” skills - Last Longer, Yippie Ki Yay, Get Some - filled up as fast as you can. Once you have those, you should rarely fall out of zerk in combat. Remember that Get Some can proc on all sorts of things, like stalker poop and other breakable “containers”, barrels, firemelons, those shock tree things in Three Horns, etc.

Down Not Out is the other key Sal skill for leveling, in my opinion. It prevents FFYL from ending your zerk, and everyone takes a knee briefly now and then.

So I found Sal to match or pass Maya in effectiveness around the late 40s once he had LL/YKY/GS and DNO (with Money Shot on the way there). He does care about gear more than she does, though.

2 Likes
#52

It was nearly useless

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#53

Cloudkill was a joke with a terrible punchline for years. At this point, it is awesome early game, and strong (but not truly OP) at OP8.

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#54

I still wish gearbox would give some updates to TPS and BL2

#55

For most of the game’s history, Cloud Kill was probably considered the weakest one-point skill in the franchise. There have always been a few that were really niche (Hellfire Halitosis and One Two Boom come to mind), but none were as universally skipped as Cloud Kill.

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#56

Cloud kill is like the fastball…it used to be complete ■■■■ and now everyone loves it

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#57

From what I remember, it was OK in normal mode. I remember dinging up and getting it for the first time during my first-ever run through Bloodshot Stronghold on the way to rescue Roland (I was also overleveled because I was doing every side mission up to that point and had also kinda unintentionally XP farmed a lot by exploring various maps repeatedly over different play sessions.) I think I remember ditching it at some point during TVHM because it wasn’t doing any real appreciable damage anymore.

#58

Only weakness criticism I can offer for Maya is it appears she is levelling up much slower than other characters. Enemies killed with cloud kill give less xp?

That said, my Maya exactly 2 levels lower than my Axton I would say is equivalently powerful.

#59

No

Are you doing less side missions or is this just that weird thing I had with Salvador all over again?

#60

It used to be so bad that no one spent the point on it. It got overbuffed to eight in the last patch. Still, better this way than having a useless game changer skill.

If you want to see just how bad it used to be you can check out Bahroo on youtube where he and 3 other people are trying to take out a single OP8 Scaylion with just Cloudkill. They are not even tickling it. 4 digit damage numbers (with not K to follow it up) on OP8 was so bad it’s not even funny.

3 Likes
#61

Check my new thread guys!

I was able to fairly easily beat Finks Slaughterhouse on UVHM with Maya and recorded it for YouTube! I remember I tried this last year with Axton and couldn’t do it

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#62

Went back to playing Krieg, went down left skill tree as suggested

still he is doing very poor gun damage IMO

in TVHM he is only VH I couldn’t destroy Constructor holding Roland first time with, I had to go to Gulag

that is rather shocking to me tbh, every other VH I was able to destroy it first time with relative ease

if Maya is the game on easy mode, I’m inclined to say perhaps Krieg is the game on hard?

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#63

You mind posting your skill tree and what gear you were using? Bloodlust Krieg makes certain types of gear really shine, so if you weren’t using those kinds of weapons, I can see where your ideas of him being poor with guns come from.

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#64

he’s level 35 like this http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#52201411153120200000000000000000000

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#65

Definitely. A pure gun-based Krieg is one of the toughest classes to level in the game because he is much more gear-dependent than other classes and alot of his skills esp in the hellborn and mania tree will actually hurt the player without smart gear choices.

While most people go down bloodlust for gun krieg, I feel going down Hellborn and grabbing Elemental Empathy, Numbed Nerves, Elemental Elation and Delusional Damage would have been a wiser idea. Then make your way down the Bloodlust Tree in TVHM and grab Bloodbath.

Adaptive Shields are crucial.

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#66

Just my suggestion but if you’re going with a gun build Krieg the melee skills aren’t really useful. My suggestion (for now): http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#55000510054100400000000000000000000
If you want to start with the Bloodlust tree try to use weapons with explosive & splash damage. Also, if Mania is your next tree I’d say take Embrace the Pain, Strip the Flesh, Redeem the Soul and Salt the Wound (with 1 point in Thrill of the Kill). Look for shotguns of any make and more Torgue and Tediore weapons. After that hit the Hellborn tree and hit the skills @darreltan2004 suggested and start adding fire weapons to your mix. My suggested build would look like this at level 72:
http://bl2skills.com/psycho.html#55000510054100550104150032055122000
If you get a com that boosts Salt the Wound you could take at least 3 of those points and move them to Elemental Empathy or Numbed Nerves.

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#67

yeh I thought that skill tree overall would be best tbh

but I’m not keen on the idea of playing whilst perpetually being on fire (yet… Probably at some point the idea will warm to me :smile: pun intended)

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#68

hmm, is that really much different to mine though? Also I really don’t like idea of shield delay being stretched, I think I will put 3 points into that skill max. I constantly gotta be on the lookout for shield with very low delay times

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