VinylicPuma3's Shockromancer Build: Quick Disclaimer: This is more of a general guideline for your Mechromancer class. This won't be a complete level 50 or level 61 What this guide will go over: 1. General Playability of Build 2. Skill Point Allocationbuild since the options you have once you get to level 31 are highly customizable. That does bring us to: 3. Gear Choices 4. The Chulainn SMG 5. Giving Credit where Credit is due 1. Build Playability The Shockromancer build for Gaige has a distinct advantage over flesh enemies with and without shields(bullymongs, stalkers, psychos, nomads, even midget shield enemies like Mad Maw). The Electrical burn skill allows you to tac on fire damage in addition to the electrocute damage over time. Fortunately, alot of the enemies early in the game are flesh based. This build suffers from some problems however. First, good gear is essential. Finding the right relics, and class mods is crucial to achieving your ultimate damage potential. Second, this build sucks against loaders and or any other type of armored enemy. Luckily there is a workaround which i'll mention more in gear choices section. The last and final problem is that this build relys heavily on skills to properly buff your weapons. You can't expect to deal a good amount of damage with shock weapons if you don't properly buff your skills. Don't worry, it's not hard and actually doesn't require alot of skill points. 2. Skill Point Allocation Here is the list of skills you should MAX and WHY YOU SHOULD MAX: More Pep: More chance to Electrocute for Shock DoT Shock Storm: Kill with a Critical, Electrical Explosion that does good damage. Also works with DT Electrical Burn: Electrocution + Fire are good for DoT. 20% chance with 5 skill points. Shock and "AAAGGGGHHH!!!": Electric Nova reloads are useful for when you're mobbed. Evil Enchantress: Increases your overall DoT when you get a kill. Wire's Don't Talk: Increases Shock and Electrocute Damage Useful skills: Close Enough: Good skill, bullets ricochet. Great with the Conference Call. Cooking Up Trouble: Health Regen = GOOD Myelin: Electrical Resistance plus shield capacity increase 20% Cooler: Great if you use Deathtrap. Other than those, if you want deathtrap, get the skills offered in both the Little Big Trouble and Best Friends forever skill trees. I personally have avoided Anarchy, but some of the best Shockromancer builds i've seen have involved the Ordered Chaos Tree. I'll post some videos in section 5. Here is a skill tree link for Gaige that you can tinker with: http://www.bl2db.com/skill-trees#zV9oVVxtx 3. Gear Choices In General, you want a Zapper class mod with the Elemental relic to boost your overall shock damage. Between both items you have the chance to increase your shock damage by over 50%(without skill tree buffs!). I personally prefer the Peppy Zapper but I'm sure theWired or Scorching Zapper are just as viable. Read more about class mods here: http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Zapper A superior and easier to find alternative to the Elemental relic is a shock version of Bone of the Ancients. You can't really beat an added bonus for cooldown rate on top of the Shock damage increase. As far as Grenades go, Stormfront and Quasar are viable. Otherwise, just use grenade mods that you like. I personally like Mirv shock grenades. The best shields for this build are the Black Hole(for general play), The Bee(which we'll discuss later), and the Sham(because the Sham is awesome). I won't make gun recommedations simply because not everyone likes the same guns. Here are some recommendations I can give that have shock versions: Practicable Conference Call Infinity Binary Thunderbolt Fists Deliverance Bitch SMG Chulainn SMG(pair with The Bee Shield and wield ULTIMATE POWER!!!!) Norfleet(Obviously when coupled with sham and Redundant Logan's Gun) Yellow Jacket(Obtain from Jackenstein in DLC3) Twister(Obtain from Ohmd-Ohnk in DLC3) Obviously if you have a gun you like that comes in a shock version, it will dominate with this build. However, here are guns to use with armored enemies resistant to both shock and fire. I'll take the time to mention i prefer torgue guns because they don't need to be buffed like their corrosive counterparts: Here are a few recommendations: Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold KerBlaster Double Penetrating Pocket Rocket(Obtain from Torgue Vendors in DLC2) Hornet Practicable Slow Hand(Obtain from Badassauras Rex in DLC2) Any of your favorite corrosive legendaries or guns Blue or Purple Torgue Assault Rifles, Pistols, Shotguns, etc. 4. The Chulainn The Chulainn SMG is a unique weapon obtained when you side with the Zafords in the Dust. What really makes this weapon special is that it's a dual element weapon, slag and shock. The only and big downside is that equiping it slags the user. A Chulainn does 1.5 the damage advertised because of the dual element. For every shot fired, the chulainn does 50% of the original unslagged damage to an enemy. However the shock damage can go from 4011 to 8021 with no buffs at all. Here are some stats from my lvl 52 Mechromancer using all top tier lvl 50 equipment. Remember the values below are Damage from only the shock portion of each bullet!!! Listings are in normal/critical shots and all data has been obtained from shooting the dummy in sanctuary in TVHM: No Buffs: Unslagged: 4011/8021 Slagged: 8021/16041 +Badass Ranks(my score is 31,122) Unslagged: 4445/9762 Slagged: 8890/19524 +Skills Unslagged: 5112/11227 Slagged: 10224/22453 +Zapper Class Mod and Elemental Relic(roughly 56% increase in shock damage and including buff to Wires Don't Talk) Unslagged: 6979/15327 Slagged:13457/30653 +The Bee with 42910 Amp Damage Unslagged: 74348/163k Slagged: 148k/326k So essentially, what you've done here is taken an SMG that does 4011 and make it do roughly 148k+ per shot. Also, this without any Anarchy Stats or really any points in Order Chaos tree at all! 5. Giving Credit where Credit is Due Here are some links to videos that I used when I first came up with my build. Hope you find them useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq07JV7GJQc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c65uGxCF1yM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2s-vonNbD0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH36x9rHk1c
Very nicely constructed build and post man, very well thought out and it looks REALLY good - time to reroll for me, I'll let you know how it goes