What is athena's play style?

[Der Klown]

normally i play the game as nisha, but i wanted to try playing as a different class. none of the other ones really sound like something i'd like, and i have no idea how athena plays. so can someone who has played as athena tell me what it is like?

[shoobie]

Her Aspis sheild is primarily a defense weapon in the lower levels, but it comes incredibly dangerous once you upgrade the skills for it. You can pretty much destroy a wave of enemies in a few seconds. However, Athena isnt really good for running and gunning all the time; you wanna be on the defensive until you can pull out your sheild and just run around killing everything lol. (youre still vulnerable to attacks behind you tho, know your surroundings)

[TR-Jaybles]

Like Tezza said her playstile is defensive back to the wall shield/cover in front and hold out tactics work very well for her when soloing. Late on you can easely hold up your shield for about 21-22secs at a time and with a good shotgun you can slowly advance and shoot the creatons in the face as well. Het Sword is something i never really used a lot but in multiplayer it can be quite deadly as well.

Edit*: Athena looks a bit clunky in the early levels but once your specc is getting where it needs to be she is a powerhouse that can take massive beatings and dish out superb damage!

[ReallyBadGamePlayer]

Winning. That is her play style.
More practically speaking her skill trees center on 1)her shield and being a tank, 2)melee damage, and 3)fire and shock damage and DPS. All three trees have health, shield, and/or regen buffs. The class mods add to this by offering shotgun or SMG buffs, along with more health/sheilds/health regen. She is probably the most durable of the vault hunters in this game, if not the entire series.

[Nakos]

If you're used to Nisha, then Athena may seem a little counter-intuitive at first. Nisha's job is to fill stuff full of holes. Athena's job is to be tougher than whatever she faces. Athena is a tank, she even has an aggro draw skill (Prepare for Glory).

One of the aspects of the game that I personally enjoy most, is exploring how the different classes become more and more different as you progress.

[Demonic Goddess]

Her action skill makes her invulnerable to whoever she is facing, and at the end she throws all of the absorbed damage at an enemy.

One skill tree lets you play as Captain America.

The other lets you wreck people with melee and a unique DoT effect: Bleeding.

The last one lets you wreck people with elemental damage, specifically shock and fire.

And there you have it.

[Wisecarver]

She's also the one you need on a team to revive at distance, like Maya.
That skill allows her to keep the team alive in front of any boss.

[roug3lement]

Her action skill is an aspis which absorbs damage and then is thrown back at a single target to inflict the absorbed damage. Her aspis can be augmented across three skill trees to, inflict elemental damage, revive allies even from certain distances, attack multiple targets with the aspis thrown, and execute an attack with the aspis. I don't remember it.

As for playing preference, you can choose to play as a cqc+support role, and augment aspis along the way. Or you can go for a melee+support role. Or you focus on inflicting loads of elemental dmg and go all the way through the Ceraunic Storm tree and remain in cqc with your aspis active when needed. It's up to you.

Reviving with the aspis is just one half of a role that can be considered. I can stick to Xyphos and Ceraunic and have both a "first-line" role (like the Infantry) and inflict good bits of Elemental Damage along the way for co-op play. Right now I have points in Xyphos and the middle tree, which is centered on melee and gaining Bleeding stacks

[Victrola]

A big thing to take note of, is that having the aspis up means you can't ADS (aim down sights). This means most weapons suddenly become terribly inaccurate when you use your action skill. It dawned on me recently however... about the Hyperion weapons. Since Borderlands 2 these had just went on my auto-sell list, however they work great with Athena. Like a Hyperion SMG can home in to pin-point accuracy after a few wasted shots while you have the aspis up, dealing critical hits. If it's bladed, you can do some extra xiphos melee damage / If it's elemental you can make use of maelstrom.

This is the half of the time you're in the thick of it gaining HP; the other half of the time you're on cooldown (perhaps using one slot for an ADS weapon from cover like a sniper or Dahl burstfire). Juggling all of the options is pretty tough (I mean you're switching from like a phalanx to an archer every 12 seconds or so, all the while swapping weapons and reloading). Daunting to pull off, but when you're in the zone with ok equips she can play like the god king gladiator you want.

[Draconis]

In addition to all this: Athena can make a special tactical use of barrels, by using them to charge up her aspis quickly (activate aspis and shoot a barrel in front of you). This works even better if you spend a point in "prismatic aegis", which charges the aspis with the element of the barrel as well.

Regarding the weapon choice: Everthing that does not need to aim down sights works good. Shotguns, SMGs... And if I remember correctly (haven't played it for a while) you can also use rocket launchers for close enemies, as long as your aspis is active. (But I'm not quite sure if this worked or if you just blow up yourself).

[RelaxDMJ]

Athena is opposite from Nisha play style. Very intense, close range, tanky gladiator style. She's the "purest" in terms of skills, such as Zero in BDL2

[Nada]

in comparison to previous bl characters athena is i suppose similar to zero or mordecai. willhelm is like roland/axton-soilder class. nisha is like brick/salvador class as she's a gunzerka. claptrap i haven't worked out his class yet