First time tried Hyperius solo was with my Siren and died within 15 seconds. Not from his Nova but bullets being reflected from his shield. Had no idea how he fights so just went and died. A few months back after completing Scarlett's campaign with my psycho went to fight him and got him to 50% health but then his novas & rocket barrage from his minions took me out. A week ago it was Salvador's turn and he didn't lasted more than 5sec. It was because of me as i forgot to switch his shield. And last night it was Krieg again but the only difference being it was Hyperius who paid the price with his life. And his minions too.
Hyperius is one of the most innovative Raid boss i have seen. Its about survival, damage & skill all combined in 1 single battle. And it took me quite some time to figure out a easy to work strategy against Hyperius. Now i finally have one, it was time to farm him. I have seen all kind of different strategy against Hyperius from spamming him with norfleets to killing him using rapier in FFYL. There was a single problem with it: those are once per playthrough strategy. As with FFYL you'll run out of time the next time you go after him unless you kill yourself and get respawned while losing a huge amount of cash. As for norfleets, the ammo requirement will drain your cash. So both gets a no. For me, i had 2 strategy: fire or explosive. Explosive Buzzaxe sounds cool but was not really interested in that.
Strategy 1: Light him on fire.
Gear: FOTF, grog/rubi, blockhead, fire kitten, fire bone of ancients. corrosive norfleet & quasar for minions (both from Vermi)
Basically i'll be replying on blockhead for damage BUT as seen after my first try, the damage was just not there. Sorry fire but you must go. Hello explosive.
Strategy 2: Make him EXPLODE.
Gear: FOTH, grog/rubi, DPUH, Crunch with 44% explosive damage & 5-6 points in strip the flesh, 28% explosive relic (33% is with my commando, forgot to bring that) and the usual gear from above.
Once his shield is down, shoot him with DPUH a few times. Because he strongly resists slag, one have to rely completely on explosive damage but as i found out, Hyperius is extremely weak to explosive damage. I mean due to his low health, it takes around 30sec to pull his health from 100% to ~30% i.e. when he goes into rage mode and jumps on my face, ass, everywhere. And if he acts like a dick and puts me in FFYL, Congrats Hyperius & just aim for his private part and keep shooting. 66% explosive damage in FFYL is no joke. He just..... dies.
This way i can kill him upto 3 times during FFYL before the timer gets so fast it basically runs out with Hyperius still standing. The shield is standard but from what i observed, with FOTF his first nova only takes away half the shield and his second nova take the shield & half my health. 2 novas on Hyperius or 2 on the loaders (loaders have more surface area) with grog without slag means full health. Also FOTF easily takes down the rockets BUT because a lot of rockets gets fired and nova is done only per second, some rockets may get missed so its important to keep moving sideways. When Hyperius goes in rage mode, its really difficult to hit him cause he either chase you, jump at you, shoot missiles or those blades. And if the minions aren't dead they'll do their best to bite in your ass. During rage mode, one can ignore everything and simply shoot him with DPUH but they'll die rather quickly due to his jumps. I used a kitten once but requires a lot of ammo to bring his health down from 30% to 0. And that was with switching my Class Mod, relic halfway to assist in fire damage.
So i can safely say, go DPUH in his face and get him in FFYL. Thats the fastest and safest way and allows upto 3 kills per run.