User:Soma4themass/Jane of all Trades 2

This is pushing to be a Mind Games build, but still pretty modular. Mind Games is just too awesome to ignore.

Soma4themass 10:00, December 15, 2009 (UTC)

Aye, the build goals are different. I went for versatility in strategy, rather than Mods; you can still use three primary combat Mods (Plaguebearer [Obviously the one the build is built for], Mercenary, Tempest) to rather good effect, but the real goal was to optimize the offensive-defensive nature of Phasewalk and to hybridize strategies so you can use whichever strategy happens to be optimal vs. any given enemy.

Don't dismiss Phase Strike so quickly, btw. There are a few very important factors that make it much more impressive than it is on paper.

1) You can critical with Phase Strike. None of the other Huge Damage Attacks in the game (Rocket Launcher, Eridian Cannon, similars) has critical option. This, combined with Slayer, can deal to damage of rather epic proportions.

2) Stack or not (thanks for that piece of information, btw; I was going to test it but you saved me the trouble), Venom still triggers when you Phase Strike. This enables an elemental stack and it does make your attack elemental too.

3) You get to also utilize Phase Blast offensively while doing this, as well as Radiance. This triple elemental stack is actually hugely damaging for bosses and any opponents tough enough to be worth using it against.

Make no mistakes, if Phase Strike was alone in vacuum, it wouldn't be worth using. But given the ease of combining the three elemental attacks to it, the composite damage output is actually quite solid (Plaguebearer again maximizes Venom here; also, I think Plaguebearer applies to Phase Strike thanks to Venom typing the attack as corrosive). I used it to great effect against the Lance in both, Old Haven and Crimson Fastness. Radiance wears down the shields, Corrosive Damage blows up the head.

I found this especially useful against otherwise difficult Lance Wardens (acid sniper works fine, of course), Badass Wardens and Badass Machinists, who are somewhat difficult to efficiently gun down with SMGs (if they have any recoil), especially at a range, and who have the firepower to make this difficult.

That said, I definitely consider 1 rank in Girl Power and Steely Resolve just for the mods. Steely Resolve I could want otherwise too (and indeed, the swap/split may be in order as damage reduction is v. useful), but I find maxed Hard to Get way too good to pass up on for Girl Power; as you said, it's not boostable with any Mods and Phasewalk is so ridiculously useful that you want it as often as possible.

And yeah, if I planned on focusing on any mod other than Plaguebearer, I'd have more ranks in Mind Games. With Plaguebearer though, I reach the critical mass of Mind Games ranks easily this way too allowing for consistent Daze on any target I'm attacking.

Thanks for posting that, btw. The build does look interesting to play. But as I said, my idea of versatility is strategic versatility with what I've got rather than ability to switch ability sets with mods (especially when the ones I'd want tend to be lacking).

--Elealar 10:56, December 15, 2009 (UTC)