User:TrollofReason/and his Soldier Troll: All Knoxxed up with a hit of Moxxi

What I'm doing here...

This is a purely solo build that at first glance might have you scratching your head, but bear with me! This is guaranteed to save you time and money in pointless deaths if:

1. You're playing a Soldier 2. You're playing on PC and therefore aren't forced to turn and move with all the responsiveness of a 300 pound 13yr old with a clubbed foot while displaying all the aiming ability of a recovering epileptic watching Pokemon. 3. You follow the "General Strategy" sections offered in some of the weapons articles. They were made by someone who pretty much knows the arsenal well enough to make the most ouf of each an every single weapon in your inventory. Me. 4. You're willing to take minor risks and play somewhat aggressively. 5. You understand and exploit the concept of "cover." 6. You're not above throwing out your Scorpio Turret for the express purpose of distracting a group of enemies while you run away/find a raised position/recharge your shield. 7. Understand that pistols are for wussy girls and fans of S&M, and that you should not have to touch them when bigger, more manly weapons are available to you.

A Troll's Progression

Levels 1-5: Don't die and make it to level 6, get a better weapon, and get a Shotgun. Get aquainted with using that Shotgun, too. It's going to be your best friend in the first Skag-infested 20 levels of this build.

Levels 6-10: Up the Defense skill to 5, keep yourself alive with Healing Shields made by Tediore and keep at least one general purpose weapon like a Submachine Gun or automatic machinegun-style Combat Rifle at your side, and as powerful a Shotgun as you can find or buy.

By level 8 or 9, enemies should start dropping Longbow Grenade Mods; use them for accurate, short-noticed blowey-uppey that will be more powerful than a Rocket Launcher and sporting a much larger splash. If you luck by a Transfusion Mod, grab it, keep it for emergencies. You're not an unstoppable juggernaut yet, but you will be.

Level 11: Your first step to dying less - invest a point in Quick Charge. And by a point, I mean one and only one. It might not seem like much, but that 2% percent shield recharge-per-second lasts for 2 or 3 seconds, which translates into a full 4 or 6% recharge of your shield regardless of how pitiful or godly it is. Not to mention that every point your ever so slightly recharged shield takes? Your health doesn't.

This reminds me - keep sticking to healing shields; get a better Shotgun if you haven’t already. Try to find an Incendiary general purpose weapon.

Levels 12-16: Invest in the Fitness skill; it's incredibly useful for making sure you don't die before everything else is dead.

Get better weapons; start to categorize your ever complicating weapon selection. For example, think of your Shotgun as your "close" weapon, your machinegun as your "medium" weapon and then in the third slot you can devote to "special" such as a Sniper Rifle or a Rocket Launcher.

Keep sticking to Healing Shields by Tediore, Soldier Troll. Regeneration is your friend after all, and it will be your friend throughout this build. Get a better Longbow and Transfusion.

Levels 17-21: It’s time to pick up and max out Overload; with this skill alone you've just increased your overall killing efficiency by just under two thirds. How? Reloads take time, and though you can shorten the reload process with a quick melee attack, this technique takes concentration and it's better to just have more bullets available anyway. I cannot overstate how useful this skill is. I find myself shaking my head when I see other Soldier Builds without this skill maxed out.

Better weapons, better Grenade Mods, healing shield, you know the drill.

Levels 22-31: Simple killficiency increases here - put your points into maxing Impact and then three points into Scattershot and 2 into Metal Storm. Since the 1.2.0 patch, the Scattershot skill is actually useful for something, and Metal Storm is still useful for general weapon ability. That 30% increase to recoil reduction in conjunction with a nice, accurate machine gun or assault rifle-style Combat Rifle is quite good.

When upgrading Impact, you should have run into your first series of Class Mods by now. I like to keep four around. A Leader Mod to gain levels faster than you should be gaining them, a Heavy Gunner Mod to overreach the Overload Skill, a Support Gunner Mod to save money on ammunition better spent on newer weapons and a Tactician Mod if it has Health Regeneration for obvious reasons.

Better weapons, etc.

Levels 32-36: And now for another killficiency upgrade - Assault; I hope you've been getting nice and proficient with Combat Rifles all this time.

By the time you're level 36, you should have finished your first playthrough. Congratulations on beating the game! Wasn't the ending just sublime in its disappointment?

Seriously, do I have to say it? Get better weapons. Keep on sticking to the healing shield, there should be rather nice ones available now anyway that can take really good advantage of that single point spent on Quick Charge. Get a better Grenade Mod, whatever you like, Launchers should be more than decent but Grenades are still more powerful when you want to make lots of little pieces, and continue to keep a Transfusion on hand.

Levels 37-40: Okay, time for the Second Playthrough, you know how things work but things have just gotten a lot tougher, time to max out Quick Charge. You'll need it, 'nuff said.

Follow the drill, run the story, help others. Rah-blah-blah.

Level 41: Grenades are like a good salami sandwhich with a side of cordite. This mental image alone should make you want to get a point in Grenadier.

Keep running the drill and being awesome. I really hope you haven't done anything stupid like getting a shield that doesn't heal you constantly. One more thing you have to keep an eye on is one more thing that can expensively kill you.

Levels 42-46: Time to thicken your skin, Troll! Go for Grit!

Rah-blah-blah time two.

Levels 47-50: Okay! Final few levels here up until they release the third DLC module, only four skill points left and they will go towards yet more killficiency. Max out Scattershot and put two more points into Metal Storm. A specialized increase and a general one. Enjoy. Variations

Depending upon how agressively you use Grenades you might want to forgo the last two points in Metal Storm and instead invest them in Grenadier before going into Grit. 1 Grenade every 12 seconds is definitely better than 1 every 30 seconds, and again depending on how crazy you might want to be with the best source of clusterfrag in the game, the investment could come in really handy. Graphitti (Comments)