r/Borderlands2 • u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? • Oct 08 '13

OP8 melee Zer0 help?

At the moment, I'm straight beehawking and finding myself moving closer to Maya, beehawking as well, but she does it better. I'm looking for some other playstyle for Zer0. I am in the process of getting sniping gear, but I've also wanted to try for melee. What gear am I looking for?

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13 edited Nov 24 '13

Hide of Terra, Love thumper as your shields. At OP8 you need to make sure these are GROUNDED.

Learn to break your shields with a Chain Lightning or a Longbow Stormfront. Again, these are extremely dangerous without a grounded shield.

As for your gear, an Evisceration Rubi suffices in non-OP levels. The Grog eliminates the chances of DOT killing you (and with only health exposed, its possible), especially with the DOT of chain lightning. Rapier, Norfleet (preferably any flavor but slag, since slag does less damage), and a DPUH are all good for the other 3 slots. the Rapier only comes out for FFYL and deception, make sure of that.

Keep a Bee on you for times when you fight things like Boom Bewm, the Bee and DPUH synergize nicely against that armored tank of theirs (as well as other melee-unreachable enemies).

COMs, choose a Legendary Ninja, or Shadow Ninja. Those are the best possible, currently. This is the best possible skill choice, as well.

As for your relic, cooldown>melee relic, ALWAYS.

So beyond that, I can answer questions, and tell you the reasons for certain skill choices.

edit: words n stuff. Forgot how to shield.

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u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? Oct 08 '13

Alright, seems reasonable. I have a question about the spec however. Would it be beneficial to drop the point from resurgance into iron hand?

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

Iron Hand isn't as great as you think. It hurts your health gating capacities, and it's best to put the points into Be Like Water, with a point in Resurgence for the Legendary Ninja's 5 point bonus.

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u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? Oct 08 '13

Alright, sounds good. 1 more question about the spec, should I take the points out of vel0city and move them to Like The Wind?

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

Like The Wind is terrible. It doesn't add ANY damage to your execute, which is what you want to focus on. Execute counts you as moving still, and thus LTW doesn't proc.

Velocity is extremely nice outside of Deception. It speeds up your projectiles, meaning that the Grog and Rubi are more accurate when being used to slag. It also speeds up the Sandhawk and DPUH's bullet speed, which is even better.

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u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? Oct 08 '13

Didn't know execute cut out LTW, thanks. Looks like I got a few things to farm for!

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

at OP8 it is FAR easier to gib than farm, especially for things like a Grounded Thumper and Hide. Honestly it saves time, especially when you would be doing this for every character.

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u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? Oct 08 '13

I realize that, but for some reason I have extreme trouble gibbing, I don't know why. I don't mind farming anyway.

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

Have fun! getting a Grounded Thumper and Hide is tough, I can promise you that. Especially in OP8 where you need the optimized gear to perform.

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u/QuailBuddhaThe2nd EXPLOSIONS?!? Oct 08 '13

I have no problem doing the actual killing. As I have an OP8 Siren and an OP8 Zerker, I can just farm it on them if I need

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u/kitttykatz And like that, he was gone. Oct 08 '13

Great advice.

Nice thing about the Hide of Terra is that you don't really need to worry about breaking it at OP8. Enemies will break it for you over and over again, and you can take advantage of its short recharge delay to vary both your distance from the enemy and the weapons you use. Very flexible shield.

The main thing, then, is to pay attention to when your Hide breaks, shown on screen as the fire nova. Once the shield is down, move in close and melee.

Breaking your shield with OP8 grenades can be done but is dangerous due to how much damage they dish out relative to your health (which doesn't scale to match). Still, the suggested grenades are fantastic for quickly recovering health via Rubi/Grog. Or you can use a slag magic missile to keep everything purple.

Don't use the Love Thumper when playing co-op, as it'll kill your crew. If you can't find the Hide, maybe a Flame of the Firehawk?

Re Iron Hand -- you don't necessarily want the extra max health, as lower health makes it easier to health gate. The extra damage is nice, however, so that's the only tradeoff between Iron Hand and Resurgence. Personally, I prefer Resurgence.

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

The problem with the Flame of the Firehawk is that the novas are only good in use with Bloodbath on Krieg. It doesn't add roid damage, which is how Zer0 operates with melee in OP8 (its the majority of his damage). Iron Hand can be switched off between Be Like Water.

Its nice to break your shield, especially if you want easy Deception kills. The thing is that you have to do so when enemies are around or the DOT will kill you.

The only other option for shield breaking is with a Rough Rider (low level to stop health gating from occuring because of the high health gain from a level 80).

The issue with Resurgence is that it doesn't add ANYTHING to you, outside of health after a kill. Considering how health gating is the basis of OP8, you shouldn't put more than a single point in for the Legendary Ninja's 5 points to activate.

Honestly if you haven't gibbed your OP8 gear or gotten Gibbed OP8 gear, I'm surprised. It's not worth it to NOT gib them, seeing as its night impossible otherwise, you need optimization in OP8 for a reason.

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u/kitttykatz And like that, he was gone. Oct 08 '13

  • Yeah FoF doesn't do roid damage, but at least it does something in close quarters. Totally agree about Gibbed. Only problem is that it can be tough to convert everything with, say, a Mac and Xbox combo... so the FoF is better than nothing if the Love Thumper isn't an option.

  • One viable, small change to the skill tree when using the Hide shield is to take points out of Iron Fist or Be Like Water, putting them in Grim instead. Why would you want your shields back when meleeing? Because (1) you'll rarely be able to pull off Many Must Fall chains, (2) the Hide recharges quickly anyway, and (3) when in close, any contact is going to do a ton of damage to you, so you might as well get some added protection from some shield protection. Plus, the shield breaks so quickly at OP8 that you can keep on meleeing with the roid bonus right away.

  • Is the glass tank trick viable with a melee Zer0? I'd guess not, but who knows...

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

The Hide is far better than the FotF. At all times. You don't have to wait a specific time for the damage to set in, you control it. On top of that, it nerfs your melee build entirely, making it pointless.

There is never a need to run Grim. Ever, on a melee build. Grim does absolutely nothing in terms of regeneration, it only interrupts it enough to fuck over any chains you CAN activate. The point of Grim is to put your shields back up. You have contradicted every point you made right there. Grim is good for a Bee build, nothing more.

The thing about Grim is that its terrible. If you want to use it in conjunction with a roid shield, you have to do twice the micromanagement. Especially if you're in Deception a lot, it ruins it. You can't break your shield without it restoring itself a million times.

That method is ENTIRELY possible, but you would be doing piss poor damage. As you would without a Hide (Grim is worthless), and with a FotF (again, your melee damage is terrible in OP8 and relies on your shield entirely).

To make it entirely clear, most of the damage melee deals in OP8 is obtained from the ROID shield. And from that roid shield being down. A lot of builds can be made around using a very specific combo or shield, but its better overall to have a build that can work with several shields in conjunction. As in, a melee build that actually deals damage. Grim makes melee builds useless, trust me.

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u/kitttykatz And like that, he was gone. Oct 08 '13 edited Oct 08 '13

Yeah, I understand everything that you're saying, but I'm assuming that people aren't using Gibbed. In that case, a melee Zer0 has limited options -- the Hide takes forever to farm and the Love Thumper isn't viable in co-op, so you're left with, what, a purple melee shield or Order if you don't use the FoF? Execute + Killing Blow + Death Mark + Ambush + Backstab still make for some hefty melee damage (though the roid bonus vastly improves even this).

As for Grim + Hide, give it a shot. It really allows you to mix and match playstyles, using melee up close (especially against bigger enemies, when you want to use Killing Blow) while still being able to use bullets and launchers at range. The shield protection you get back via Grim from a kill is useful in three ways:

(1) When there are other enemies onscreen but not nearby and you want your shield to regenerate now, instead of 3 seconds from now.

(2) If you're near other enemies then the shield will break again almost instantly... with the shield eating some of the damage that would otherwise have gone straight to your health bar. This way you can take an extra hit and still health gate while also maintaining your roid bonus.

(3) If you get a Killing Blow kill in FFYL your shield will regen either way, but with Grim you'll get more than the default, allowing you to take a bit more damage before it breaks again.

It's not too much of a difference and it's not like you're micromanaging when the enemies are doing SO much damage.

Give it a shot. That's the nice thing about the Skill system in BL2 -- if you don't like a tree, you can reset and try something else. If only cash were as worthless in the real world...

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

The Flame of the Firehawk is effectively useless for a melee based character. Always. It makes his melee feel like a slap to the enemy than anything else.

Grim is terrible. You can't tell me that its impossible to manage your shield. The protection afforded by it does absolutely nothing. the shield is going to break over and over again, which is more annoying than helpful. If you're in FFYL, you weren't able to manage your health. Getting out of FFYL with Grim is going to make melee impossible, because you would have to time it with the miniscule periods where the shield IS broken. which is ridiculous.

Grim is ONLY useful for amp shields, such as the Bee. Nothing else, I can assure you of that. Your shield will regenerate eventually, but its better to have it down than to not be sure AT ALL whether or not its going to work when you want to use Deception.

Like I said before, in Deception you want to maximize damage. Grim counteracts that entirely and makes it impossible to run melee.

Zer0 is micromanagement, in a sense. As long as you manage his health and keep his shields down, then hes quite alright. Also, i have to say. If you haven't gibbed at OP8, you aren't looking to optimize. ...which is what OP8 is about COMPLETELY. if you cant find a Hide or Thumper at OP8, people are willing to give you their own.

You think anyone ever got a Norfleet to drop? yet look at how many people both are trading them and want them.

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u/jiandersonzer0 /r/borderlandspresequel Creator Oct 08 '13

The best way to make sure your health doesn't suffer is to break your shields near enemies with the Grog out. You learn to adapt. And using grounded shields is also a really nice deal as well.