Fl4k or Amara for Solo?

[Janus]

Hey guys, i almost exclusively play solo and i am looking for the better solo-capable Vault Hunter of those two.

At first i thought Fl4k might be the best choice because of his pets but ppl say his surviability is sub par and he gets down when he gets hit by a feather.

[Diogenes49]

Amara definatley I have taken all four characters to level 72 and Flak was the hardest by far

[Scrambled onions]

Originally posted by Diogenes49:

Amara definatley I have taken all four characters to level 72 and Flak was the hardest by far

FL4k might be the hardest to get to lvl 72 on, but he has some of the best endgame builds.

[Guyver_1968]

I have to disagree, I also Have all four characters at Lvl 72 (TVHM) and by fgar, the easiest character was Flak .... his pets can revive him for crying out loud, no other character has that ability. Makes him a cake walk of a character to play. Amara was a fun time playing, great character.

[CrUsHeR]

May we ask, why FL4K or Amara for solo?
Both are more of a support class.

Zane does at least 5x more dps than FL4K, and he runs reloads and shoots so much faster it's just obscene. Near unkillable with the digi-clone.

Moze is unbelievably overtuned - after beating the story in normal, you can literally switch to M11 and play through TVHM without ever breaking a sweat. Iron Bear is immortal with 25 million armor + shield, the rail gun does... 50? 100? million damage per shot, independent from your actual gear. And it chains to targets really far away, plus guardian rank effects.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Guyver_1968:

I have to disagree, I also Have all four characters at Lvl 72 (TVHM) and by fgar, the easiest character was Flak .... his pets can revive him for crying out loud, no other character has that ability. Makes him a cake walk of a character to play. Amara was a fun time playing, great character.

With Zane, you can blow up your Digi-Clone for instant second wind. Or have the digi-clone kill something. Or kill something yourself, which is also something FL4K is extremely bad at in FFYL.

[Guyver_1968]

Yes, Zane is my man, that's who I play

[Agarillobob]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

May we ask, why FL4K or Amara for solo?
Both are more of a support class.

Zane does at least 5x more dps than FL4K, and he runs reloads and shoots so much faster it's just obscene. Near unkillable with the digi-clone.

Moze is unbelievably overtuned - after beating the story in normal, you can literally switch to M11 and play through TVHM without ever breaking a sweat. Iron Bear is immortal with 25 million armor + shield, the rail gun does... 50? 100? million damage per shot, independent from your actual gear. And it chains to targets really far away, plus guardian rank effects.

railgun is slow tho explosive minigun deals 11-22K per shot and nuke deals around 40+ in an area and both profit from the explosive build healing IB over and over again

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Agarillobob:

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

May we ask, why FL4K or Amara for solo?
Both are more of a support class.

Zane does at least 5x more dps than FL4K, and he runs reloads and shoots so much faster it's just obscene. Near unkillable with the digi-clone.

Moze is unbelievably overtuned - after beating the story in normal, you can literally switch to M11 and play through TVHM without ever breaking a sweat. Iron Bear is immortal with 25 million armor + shield, the rail gun does... 50? 100? million damage per shot, independent from your actual gear. And it chains to targets really far away, plus guardian rank effects.

railgun is slow tho explosive minigun deals 11-22K per shot and nuke deals around 40+ in an area and both profit from the explosive build healing IB over and over again

22k is probably great if you play on m0/1

[Janus]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

May we ask, why FL4K or Amara for solo?
Both are more of a support class.

Zane does at least 5x more dps than FL4K, and he runs reloads and shoots so much faster it's just obscene. Near unkillable with the digi-clone.

Moze is unbelievably overtuned - after beating the story in normal, you can literally switch to M11 and play through TVHM without ever breaking a sweat. Iron Bear is immortal with 25 million armor + shield, the rail gun does... 50? 100? million damage per shot, independent from your actual gear. And it chains to targets really far away, plus guardian rank effects.

To be honest, i really really like hp regen to enter a fight full hp and watch that sweet healthpoints slowly turning back. Moze doesn't seem to have anything for passive hp regen, that's why i don't like playing her (might sound obscure, i know). Edit: i know there are shields and such that provide regen but that just doesn't feel right to me :D

Zane might be an option if he has such a skill; i am not really into melee so Amara isn't a really optimal choice.

[CrUsHeR]

Moze heals with grenade damage (Vampyr)


But in Iron Bear, you don't take damage yourself. In fact, you become invincible as soon as you push the action skill button.

The Iron Bear scales with mayhem levels, and as such is unkillable, except explosive barrels. He has something like 25 million health/armor, and a shield for 25% damage reduction equal to 50% of his health. And you can have about 99% uptime with IB, the Flare COM basically insta-resets the cooldown if necessary (15% chance on ignite target, and your guns/grenades ignite everything)

You have two options to maximize damage: Either exit IB and jump into the turret (Auto Bear) where you are invincible as well. Or swap in Iron Cub, so your action skill becomes a pet which also kills everything superfast. But for that you need REALLY good gear.

The IB action skill also lasts extremely long, never measured but you can probably do several waves or even rounds in Slaughter Shaft with one charge. Though in normal gameplay you have to exit a lot for quest items or low doorways, and it always resets in a few seconds anyways.



Did you actually play on M10/11? It's not like you get time to slowly regen health at any point. Most damage sources instantly kill you, especially friendly fire from your own splash damage. Amara and FL4K are notorious for this, while Zane gets a skill to become immune to self-damage and Moze as mentioned can be in Iron Bear all the time.

So you always should try to not get hit at all, this is what Zane is best at due to insane run + reload speed. You can actually dodge or outrun missiles easily, and the fast fire/reload speed makes it easy to find a rythm with burst or low ammo guns (e.g. Plasma Coil).
Then you also have the Clone, you can swap place with him every couple of seconds which causes enemies to attack him. And Mesmer grenades as proc from the first shot on a full magazine, also mindcontrol targets.

[Scrambled onions]

have the people hating on Fl4k ever used the Monarch or light show

[ChadSimpKing]

zane

[CrUsHeR]

Alright now i also leveled Amara to 72. She gets really strong later on, i did the last 10+ levels in M11 Slaughter Shaft just using gear i found there.

Would recommend her over FL4K any time.

Not quite so extreme single target burst like FL4K, but mobbing is extremely strong in the Hellzerker build. And for solo gameplay, this is the only relevant thing.

I'm using a killstack Free Radical atm, it is similar to Moze with targets all over the map dying just from the Ties That Bind link and the ricochets. She also heals herself like crazy, as long as she can shoot something. So the random deaths / selfkills no longer happen once you have the gear and complete build.

Originally posted by Memo:

have the people hating on Fl4k ever used the Monarch or light show

I've had a Monarch laying around for a long time, now also farmed a Light Show. Both only work if you get VERY close to targets - but why not use e.g. an OPQ which insta-kills almost everything at range with crits? These Vladof guns burn through ammo much faster than anything else, like in Slaughter Shaft you can barely do 2 rounds without having to buy ammo.

And the simple truth is that FL4K is by far the slowest to complete a round there, just because he neither has long-range multi-target effects like Moze or Amara, nor the tactical advantage through movement speed + teleport like Zane.

[Scrambled onions]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Alright now i also leveled Amara to 72. She gets really strong later on, i did the last 10+ levels in M11 Slaughter Shaft just using gear i found there.

Would recommend her over FL4K any time.

Not quite so extreme single target burst like FL4K, but mobbing is extremely strong in the Hellzerker build. And for solo gameplay, this is the only relevant thing.

I'm using a killstack Free Radical atm, it is similar to Moze with targets all over the map dying just from the Ties That Bind link and the ricochets. She also heals herself like crazy, as long as she can shoot something. So the random deaths / selfkills no longer happen once you have the gear and complete build.

Originally posted by Memo:

have the people hating on Fl4k ever used the Monarch or light show

I've had a Monarch laying around for a long time, now also farmed a Light Show. Both only work if you get VERY close to targets - but why not use e.g. an OPQ which insta-kills almost everything at range with crits? These Vladof guns burn through ammo much faster than anything else, like in Slaughter Shaft you can barely do 2 rounds without having to buy ammo.

And the simple truth is that FL4K is by far the slowest to complete a round there, just because he neither has long-range multi-target effects like Moze or Amara, nor the tactical advantage through movement speed + teleport like Zane.

monarch with bipod gets your action skill back almost instantly and on a fade away Fl4k and with a revolter with action skill start anointment you can kill almost anything with a tap of the trigger, Fl4k can be as overpowered as everyone else with the right build and multi pelleted weapons

[CrUsHeR]

Getting back one more time:

Found a solo spec for FL4K not listed in the community build compendium, which fixes the problems described above. And it doesn't have "weird stuff" like those melee conversion or Rakk Attack builds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn0FwVqCe88

So basically, Toboggan slide + amped Plaguebearer with Fade Away. Kickcharger and Backburner for more focus damage.

Now my FL4K can also kill "the whole map" with one shot. So far i only did True Maliwan Takedown and Hemovorous, both were laughably easy. I actually had to check if True Takedown was really enabled.

It isn't as broken like that Zane Hustler/Eraser build, but doesn't need to rely on proc luck, runspeed or weapon switching. And as mentioned, no weird stuff - just slide, aim and shoot.

With that build i'd also recommend FL4K.