The level 80 level cap increase helped axton so much. I run double slag turrets while still getting all the dps from the gunpowder tree. It helped him so much
Axton is a god. Doing a one life to live with him and currently made it to level 68. Havent been nearly close to death once due to my gun and survival build.
Since you brought it up at the end of the video I personally think the biggest reason so many people play Axton is simply because he's the most mundane class on the surface and so most people choose him simply because that makes him more accessible. Most people look at the other three and see that they're set up to play differently than your average FPS right from the get go, but Axton looks like a character that'd play like any other FPS character would and thus most people go with him because of that. Most players also stick with their first character in the majority of games(such as people always using their starter in Pokemon or people playing the same character in Skyrim all the time) so these people stick with Axton until end game and so I'm pretty sure a lot of the players during the Loot Hunt were playing Axton simply because he was the first character they picked and they never bothered to play anyone else.
@@themudpit621 I don't think I claimed here that I knew the inner workings of other people's minds, this just tends to be the case for a lot of games and also seems to ring true with Borderlands. People going into something new for the first time often end up picking the most familiar looking thing to start with. I'm not the first person to observe this and I wouldn't be surprised if Gearbox themselves intentionally designed Axton to be like this as they've said before about designing other characters to appeal to specific types of players.
This is true for me I keep playing Maya and everytime i try playing others, i keep think back "If this was Maya, it would be different" and end up going back to Maya around the start of UVHM But Axton is actually kinda cool and simple to use like Maya, I manage to fully play with him to OP levels Axton is my first character but i got bored with him since it was my first time playing bl2 and it kinda feel generic with the first dozen level
I subscribe to both you and Demonite. I enjoyed this coop discussion -- it was particularly interesting where you two didn't agree 100% on a skill. I was getting two viewpoints with more context and I like that. And smart move, bring in the big Axton expert for a discussion on Axton. I liked Demonite's version of this video as well, I'd like to encourage this kind of cooperation on videos.
All of your videos on skill guides, builds, etc. Are great and I hope to see a return of this series when borderlands 3 drops. Maybe you could show off some of the things you talk about as yoy talk about them, or possibly just edit in some gameplay in the background and edit in the skill trees so we dont hsve to watch you sit in sanctuary
Maybe a good tip. I do not think raising the shield's capacity will help to defend itself in all cases. What really matters in defending is the quick recovery of the damage suffered. Then "recharge rate" and "recharge delay" should be the first focus in almost all cases. The capacity of the shield should be just enough to avoid an HK, which means that if you have a high HP amount, you can give up more capacity, and focus on the recharge rate and delay to recover quickly from the damage suffered. If you consider that many positive effects only happen when the shield is full, it makes more interesting that you avoid overshooting the shield's capacity. That is, the capacity increase is good, but it should be moderate, and the focus should be in almost all cases on recharge rate and delay. Or, in other words, "recharge rate = infinity" is good, "recharge delay = 0" its good, "shield capacity = 0 or = infinity" is bad. You need to work on the shield's ability to be proportionally to your HP, to avoid HK, but not so high that in the face of the confrontation you barely make it reach the maximum capacity, given the speed that the enemies hit you, make skills who just work when shields is full, useless. There are also cases where the shield capacity can be focus, like when the shield just needs to be on for some effect to activate. In these cases I believe that the focus should be first on the recharge delay, and then on the shield capacity, rather than the recharge rate. What do you think?
That makes sense. But you’re playing a dangerous game when you try to plan for shield effects that proc when it depletes as a regular part of your damage output. If you are, recharge rate might be most important. You can almost always find cover to let it start recharging. But it’s not always easy to stay safe, since the enemies start to close in on your position fast. I see your point that with high capacity, it makes refilling in between procs harder. But it will take skill and situational awareness to know when to get in close to use a shield effect as a damage regular source, but keep safe enough to not be downed. In this case, I would recommend having a reliable way to repeatedly refill your hp. You will be taking some damage to hp trying to get the proc, get close to enemies, then retreat. And doing this as regular damage, will eat away at hp, if it’s not getting topped off.
Great video guys ! About Phalanx shield, it should have something like 5 seconds of invincibility when it spawns, that'd make it worth using. Oh, and in playthrough one, the shock trooper mod is a ton of fun with Coach guns ! You just run in an enemy's face, crit them and sprint to the next one !
I just started my first Axton playthrough a few days ago. At this point I'm at level 46 at the end of tvhm and so far I haven't even touched the middle skill tree. Gemini and scorched earth have been all I need. Saturn has been a joke, put the Turrets relatively far apart from each other and worked on him myself with a corrosive veruc and he didn't stand a chance. I know, on Op8 the turret doesn't really deal damage, but in tvhm it's still very powerful. Great character so far and an amazing video from you two.
thank Derch and Demonite. it's wow guide on Axton. made me some new views on him. I use Axton as a storage character for my Maya. I play him simetimes for fun. turret kills everyone *in nornal mode) you even don't need to shoot. he's so tanky. i died only once at flint battle. I watched some Demonites vudeos. He's famous recordsman and Axton expert and sometimes i'm planning to make an assault rifle build for Axton as my 3SMG-Lyuda playstyle for Maya make something similar for Axton with assault rifle because Axton can shredd enemies with AR :))) so, no legendary rifleman like legendary cat for Maya. i'll see. thank you guys!! brilliant guide!
A blue Tactician with +6 to Battlefront seems like it'd be an okay choice for a Bee build. Actually, that'd be a pretty cool idea for a series: showing off gameplay with builds focused around the most optimal use of each class mod.
The shield passives would help with upkeep alongside Willing and Quick Charge though, and Battlefront is the only real DPS raise on the COM ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just my two cents.
can you imagin if Shock Trooper had kill skill duration or team kill skill duration XD Gearbox do it up :P (It would possibly the best mobing com in the game)
Both of you guys are awesome, very nice videos. Very in-depth, informative. Exactly the thing Borderlands players (new and old players) need to know :). You deserve more subs or better yet more views. Keep going and keep making awesome videos. Its awesome too that this game still brings ppl together and has a community thats still active. And that for a 4 year old game. I've been playing the Borderlands games on and off for about a year now. Not alot of hours, but im getting there :). Just finished TPS on normal and finished the claptastic voyage on Athena for the first time. Damn that last boss was difficult, not looking forward to doing it on TVHM :p.
55:50 I feel like "skill issue" is applied unjustly as skill is always a factor when considering the effectiveness of an ability, but as an unexperienced BL2 player I have no insight to Mag-Lock so I'm unaware of the skill requirement.
Sounds like a skill issue... In all seriousness, it's not necessarily a huge issue, it just relies on you remembering that it's there and getting a hang of the arc if you don't go longbow.
On the other hand, if you have both Quick Charge and Crisis Management then whenever you get your shield down you get a damage buff to help you get it back up...in theory.
I think what they should have done for Ranger is really lean in to the idea of giving a small buff to EVERYTHING instead of increasing the buffs. Not saying it would be amazing and included in every build, but it would have been cooler if it also had increases to Shield Capacity, Shield Recharge, Health Regeneration, DoT chances, Grenade (and maybe also rocket) Damage, Melee Damage (yeah, you're not making a build around it, but fuck it, just throw it in there), buffs to any DoTs you do - duration and damage, maybe put a ridiculously small chance to put any element on any weapon (including your melee), Movement Speed, Action Skill Cooldown, Turret Damage, Turret Fire Rate... You get the idea, just any buff you can think of, but keep them all small. It would have been fun to try to make a build around trying to make use of as many bonuses in Ranger as possible, knowing you could never make optimal use of them all. I also think it's wrong to think of Grit as being a skill you need to be able to rely on to work. The way to use Grit is to play hyper-aggressive, assume you're always about to go down, get into the best position possible to be able to get back up, and if Grit activates, consider it a bonus, reassess and move on to the next position.
Metal Storm actually made me like the Emperor SMG because when it's paired with Onslaught the Emperor has virtually no recoil because Dahl weapons have low recoil anyways and the +60% fire rate really helps for its DPS
I got the Emperor going through Southpaw for the first time, and i've been told that it falls off quickly further on. I'm glad that i can buff it anyway possible
I'm going to give the unpopular opinion...Gemini is easily Axton's best capstone skill. I've found that if you have either a good slag gun or the Magic Missile Double Up is a bit redundant.
@@HenryMyth Really? I normally get Gemini and Nuke and the few times I've gotten Double Up instead of Nuke I've felt like the turrers have under-performed.
@@HenryMyth Okay granted I only got to OP 6 or 7 but if you nuked slagged targets i found that the damage wasn't that bad plus disorienting/knock back was really useful to me.
@@adambarkman1326 Double Up is his best capstone. Very useful in Co-op and solo. You can never have enough slag in UVHM. With nuke even if you're far enough into that tree it's honestly not even worth taking. Grenade damage and other other damage boosts are why you spec into that tree.
I watched Demonites POV, but had to come here and give it a like as well. Really well made vid, and love the discussion between you guys. Had a quick question though. Will you be doing this with different classes, like getting the better Sal players to discuss, Gaige players and so on? Would be really fun to watch imo :)
+Wrarrl it's hard to get it set up for 2 people I already did zer0, krieg, Athena, and ,Aurelia on my own. So I don't think I will do them all like this but maybe I can do a few of them with a guest.
Thanks a ton. Started playing bl2 again and wanted to play a easy class with utility. I like how he can make any gun work which is nice for a noob like me who doesn't know whats good lol.
One thing I think they really screwed up on was making the default melee weapons kind of pointless in favor of bayonets or whatever.. Why not have a perk that gives Axton a more badass and powerful Axe, or Zero a longer/better sword? God dabbit
Interesting video and Aston was the first character I used in Borderlands 2. Going to respec my skill points after watching this video as I am probably wasting a few skill points.
Duty Calls is one of the skills is better while levelling I guess, especially in UVHM. Oftentimes you will have to settle for nonelemental gear and since Duty Calls is passive and boosts both damage and fire rate, it can be better than Battlefront and Onslaught (Onslaught being a killskill and Battlefront isn't there that often with an imperfect loadout). I agree it is sadly rather useless at endgame thiugh. Do or Die is great with singularities as well, pulls those bastards who run away or hide behind cover while you are in FFYL into face-wrecking range.
you will not outdamage matching element even w/o relic and if you can not get elemental guns in bl2 then i dno what to say, literally 2 3 kills on tinder will next to guarantee something good and elemental but if you do not want to farm anything and just use lascaux every level then yes
უწმინდური მამაო ღორმენ You have a much higher chance of getting NE as a whole. I'm not sure how the rng is calculated but most of the time you seem to get non ele guns until OP levels. Because of this even killing tinder several times you might get something good and elemental but you are more likely to get something better and non elemental. Again, you are not min-maxing while levelling, if I see a well parted NE Anarchist I'm not going to keep farming till I get a fire one when it will suffice. You are looking from endgame perspective.
Ngl, this video rly inspired me to start a grenade Axton as I got an avenger the other day so I figured I may as well use him as I don’t think I’ve ever farmed for a baby maker or a fastball just not items I would usually use so I’m pretty interested to see how he plays m, especially in raids
great vid as always, i watched the whole 2 hours of it and now im tempted to start playing axton more often. who will you do your next character guide on?
a psycho throwing its axe DOES actually count as a ranged attack. and if your standing in the shield at the edge, i have seen it block a psycho's melee. i don't know if thats just something thats unmentioned but intended, or just a bug.
could you do gaige next? I have had a hard time figuring her out aside from the obvious anarchy tree, and I would like to see your approach on her shock skill tree
+Derch wow. so ppumped for those. I have a nisha but cant get her skills to synergize well. other builds that youtubers suggest seem great for raid bossing and whatnot, but lack in mobbing. also sal is pretty straight forward but im still looking forward to it. keep it up. you are hands down my favorite youtuber and I look for to all of your future videos
The design problem with Axton (IMO) is that his skill trees spread things too far out, and some skills are just lack luster. Example: Grenadier builds will have you take Steady and Grenadier; but why are those two skills in separate trees? Or other skills like Willing: why is it not with Preparation and Quick Charge? Or why not move the 5% health increase from Ranger to something like Forbearance since the health given on that is pretty underwhelming? Why is Resourceful in the Survival tree? Those are just my gripes. I like Axton but the placement his skills are just so odd compared to other characters.
I’ve too have felt there are a lot of misplaced skills. But that’s a game convention in many ways. You give each specialization a little something that synergizes well with others.
@@matthewfera2954 Some classes don't, like zer0, but i always found axton tricky to build because his tier 4 skills are generally great. Plus it'd be nice to hear from the experts themselves what still works, what doesn't, and what new possibilities exist now with 8 extra points.
@@JadeIsBunny True that. I just mean that the skills haven't been changed much since then, if at all for most. So all the info is there for you to decide what to do with the 8 more points. But I agree it would be cool to hear Derch's thoughts on the extra gear and any big differences those 8 points could make in builds. Especially with Axton- I consider him the hardest character to spec because all three trees have so many good skills.
I honestly hate the Evolution with Axton and preparation because of a glitch where the sound effect of preparation activating keeps going off constantly.
I just keep wondering in these videos, and I know I'm late to the party and all... but does Derch not know you can unequip items by selecting an empty inventory slot? Would save him a lot of juggling class mods in these videos... Edit: Ah nevermind he actually comments on it himself 37 minutes in :P
Trying to decide if I want to try axton versus Salvador. I'm still on borderlands 1 where I like roland and brick. Seems like accident has some really nice skills, to compensate for his turret being less fun of an ability. I like roland a lot but I just felt like his turret was not as interesting as the other action skills
No, that means that health stacking with Krieg is the best way to play him. Not every character has good health boosts. Health stacking with Zer0 for example is a bad idea.
Henry Myth that’s more or less what I meant. Health stacking is really Kriegs only option for defense. Even if you are running the fire hawk your shield is constantly going to be depleted.
I know I'm late, but Scorched Earth does more damage to slagged enemies right? So once you get Double Up it makes it even better. Don't know if it's mentioned later in the video I can't finish watching till later today
Honestly with nades like the magic missile or the firestorm in the game now and nades beeing generally not too hard to find in most areas i dont really see the point anymore in using skillpoints on grenadier I mean yeah you run into cases where you have to restrict yourself waiting for your nades to recharge more often but its generally not that bad and since you will be running around with recharging nades equiped most of the time you will almost always enter encounters with a full stock of them which hasnt been as much the case before the dragonkeep dlc So that frees up several skillpoints to be used to further enhance the capabilities of your axton builds which seems to me like the better choice The sad thing is just that by effectively giving everybody access to a higher volume of nades they have essentially made everybody axton Salvador for example who already recharges common ammunition now can put out similar numbers in combat not to mention his ability to throw 2 for the price of 1 when gunzerking and having the right skill making him arguably a contender for the best nade user in borderlands 2 simply because of the damage potential trust me i have spamthrown double fastballs before to get me out of semingly hopeless situations and there is just nothing that prepares you for the magnitude of carnage that ensues by literally doubleing down on already notoriously broken damage dealers it truely felt like proper sealclubbing Its like skilling the new cloud kill on maya in normal mode for the first time and seeing enemies which gave you a close and hard fight only 5 minutes ago being deleted left and right by your cheapest pistol like youve evolved into some anime character who by the power of friendship and floating burpclouds saves the day (and gets the girl ofc) Anyways by this point im just rambling on semi coherent things since i forgot what i was even talking about and why so yeah idk do ostriches make good pets?
So if I got it correctly shield regen from Quick Charge is active for entire skill duration and doesn't stop when Axton take damage. I was avoiding this type of skills because I was asuming that it function similarly as regular shield regen, but from what you was saying about surviving DoT effects I asume it doesn't. I also have question about how action skill's cooldown refund is calculated. Does it take into acount haw long turret was deployed or haw many time was left befor its expiration? In other words, is it profitable for someone who just want to Nuke investing points in Sentry?
I think it's based on how much % of your duration is left and since Sentry increases the duration you also get more % left when recalling it instantly. So yeah it does help a little.
I keep hearing you say "Com" or something like that in your videos you say it at around 12:04, I'm just wondering what that is. If you or anyone could help me out with some clarity.
Awesome thank you, I mean I figured that you were talking about Class Mods, but it was the O that was throwing me off. If I could ask you another quick question. A buddy and I are going to start new characters and try and run through all three playthroughs with them. He is dead set on running Gaige, so what would be a good character to pair with Gaige, Im thinking Maya or Axton.
Maya is always a great teammate, crowd control, slag, and healing are wonderful, she can also heal Death Trap However Axton and Gaige are fun because it can turn a 2 man team into 5 which is great. I would play which one you think will be more fun. Good teams are more player based than character based.
Okay, sounds great! I'll probably run Axton because I've never gotten him past like level 30. Whereas I've had an Op8 Maya before. Appreciate the help, love your videos, very informative and concise. Keep up the good work, these deep dives are amazing, cant wait to see your content after Bl3 drops.
7striker your hp stops scaling at 72 while the hoplite decreases all ur hp cause gear scales to op8 this drains ur hp to the negatives. The game sets ur hp to 1 in order to keep u alive until you take 1 health dmg.
When he's talking about phalanx shield he goes 'well mag lock is right under it'.. okay.... What does that mean. Phalanx shield is awesome dudes trippin
Grit is amazing. I don't understand why you put so much emphasis on if something is in tier 5 vs tier 3 or tier 2. If a skill is good, it's a good skill. If a skill is bad, then the skill is bad. Who cares what 'tier' it's in
Because there is a cost into how deep you go into a tree, since you can't max all trees. So by going that deep you limit what other skills you can reach
I am leveling up a sniper zero right now, and wanted to do a melee zero as soon as I had reached op8 but with the recent actuality about the "worst class" (witch in my opinion is Salvador) being axton I want to do it next.
+Karl Busch, In my opinion he is the "worst" (I put the " because to me too there's not really a worst class, it's just a matter of personal feeling, like zero I am leveling him up but I find him really boring) he is good because of all the off-hand abuse and glitches he have and I am very happy in his guide they point that out, when you see his only survival skill is the rubi witch can be boost at 10/5 by tiny tina dlc and become a grog ^^
For the most part it doesn't. It only does that when you have a gun that's listed as non-elemental but deals explosive damage like the Cobra or Torgue barrel ARs that aren't Torgue.
Does the duty calls skill boost explosive damage or Torgue weapons? because depending on who you ask explosive might or might not be an element.It is an element, it's not an element, well maybe it is, oh who the fuck knows other than pitchford. he'll never tell.
The video is very helpful but wish the guy would’ve let the guy with the accent talk more because he’s the Axton guy. The guy loves hearing himself talk way way to much or doesn’t understand listening.
Very off topic question, but I'd like to get your's and Demonite's opinion on this. How do you feel about Wilhelm design wise? Honestly, I think he's the worst designed out of the bunch in TPS. Unlike Axton, where there is plenty of evidence disproving all the misconceptions people have about his DPS and survivability, Wilhelm's video trail is actually pretty damning. The only videos I've seen of a Wilhelm attempting mutator Level 9 and Eclipse/ EOS, were twice as long as any other character. Granted, they were done by Johnrr6, and he plays very cautiously by his own admission. Still, it is a fact that, on the only piece of recorded evidence we have, he did those two fights slower than anyone else. He does raid sentinel pretty slowly. Aurelia may take longer on the initial stage, but once he has a crit spot open I think Wilhelm starts to fall behind. Then again, the last video where someone did raid senti as Wilhelm was before the CV came out, so things may have changed. Besides his damage, he also doesn't feel any more survivable than anyone else. I may be extremely spoiled from playing Jack, but I feel that Wilhelm doesn't anywhere near the survivability of any of the other tanky chars unless he specs fully into his survival skills with a celestial enforcer. I don't have the numbers in front of me for how far he can push his max shields and health, but I am fairly certain that Claptrap can reach similar or higher numbers in regards to the latter. Lastly, there is that awkward UVHM laser guided buff that almost completely invalidates OC chaining for solo play. Combined with that fact that it can't even reach EOS, who is one of the few bosses worth farming in TPS, and you've got a recipe for disaster. This is all IMO of course. I haven't played TPS in a while and don't have any numbers to back any of this up. Still, from the video evidence we have available, it feels like it can safely be said that Wilhelm is the definitive worst character in TPS when it comes to solo play, especially considering that Jack scratches a similar itch for those who like the soldier class with autonomous pets. This feels extremely unfortunate since I've never felt this way about any other character. But what are your thoughts on this?
All fair points. Still, I can't say I'm completely convinced. For example, Axton is the best or second best at a lot of things. Wilhelm seems to be the third best at a lot of things. He can get good health regen, but not at the level of clappy or Jack. He has great reload speed, but I don't think it matches Aurelia or Jack. He has 50% damage reduction, but Athena has 100% to almost all frontal attacks, and Jack has 60% (from delegation and resolute, both of which can be boosted). What does Wilhelm do better than anyone else? Also, Wilhelm's reliance on Laser guided does limit build diversity. OC chaining did open up a different play style, but losing over half you're damage for it makes it really tough sell. Again, Jack may have spoiled me. He was pretty much the reason I stopped playing Wilhelm. To me, there are just so many things Jack does better than Wilhelm when they are so similar. I can't really find a place for Wilhelm with regards to solo play. I feel like it's choosing between pets that fly and do more DPS, and pets that stand still and do more damage. Wilhelm himself doesn't seem that spectacular. But I feel like I'm getting off point now. What do you find Wilhelm to be better at than anybody else?
Well for survivability I would defenitely say he's better than Clappy. But either way does he need to be the best? I think that's kinda like saying a class in BL2 is bad because it doesn't surpass Salvador in something. What Wilhelm has that others don't is the ability to be good at multiple things at once. He's good for survivability, gear versatility, crowd control, support and decent damage on top of that. And in TPS decent is defenitely more than enough for most things. Jack for example is better at gear versatility but not as good as support. He likes co-op because he gets a lot of buffs for team mates dying and stuff, but other than Supply and Deman the team doesn't benefit from him that much. And then Claptrap or Aurelia are better at support, but not as good in gear versatility. Aurelia would also be better at crowd control but less good for survivability etc. And I think 2 skills interfering with each other is really not a bad thing. There are tons of examples for that. Jack's left and middle tree would probably be the best example. And why lose over half of your damage? It's a multiplicative 25% boost from LG, 20% damage from Fortify and Wolf's damage output. Therefore you have nearly constant +75% reload speed/fire rate and ammo regen and you're also spamming Kill Switch. That can make up for it in some situations and in fact it gives you two possible builds to work with. If there was no reason to keep W&S out you would always want to spam OC which gives you less build options. Also it probably doesn't matter but Wilhelm is the best class to use no gear at all with. xD
+Dｅmｏnｉtｅ Laser guided gets a stealth buff in UVHM. I don't remember the exact number, but I believe it's 1.75. I don't know if the fire rate makes up for that. Also, while I can agree that Wilhelm doesn't need to be great at everything, the things he is good with are strengths of other classes as well. Jack is just as versatile as Wilhelm, and Aurelia can be as well so long as the weapon is cryogenic. Even for no gear runs, Jack was very close to Wilhelm. And I have to disagree with you on the anti-synergy between Jack's left and middle trees. I wrote about it in the "badass jackass", and class is starting soon so I can't go in depth, but the trees work awesome together when you build the right way.
Wilhelm has a significant portion of his damage dealt by Wolf, especially if you have Rolling Thunder and I think a lot of people forget about this when discussing his DPS. This might explain his low DPS on paper but in practise, Wilhelm never felt underpowered for me because Wolf did a ton of damage too.
Rolling Thunder + Maliwan Blasters are where Wilhelm really shines. For mobbing you end up competing with Wolf for kills, and after building up a few stacks most enemies in UVHM die as quickly as Varkids die in Normal in BL2. But that doesn't mean you can't get nice damage spikes with Wilhelm against bosses. The trick is to time a kill against a small add enemy to get Suppression, Targeting Scope, and Overcharge all working at once. The previous poster mentioning the Raid version of the Sentinel is a good example where you'd crack the mask then bring out Wolf to pop an add monster and shred the face. You'd then have the extra survivability from Saint while the boss retreats and can recall Wolf a few moments later to refund a lot of cooldown time in preparation for breaking the mask on the next phase.
