Axton's turret: shield vs longbow?

[I Kinda Fail]

Just started TVHM, and my turret's getting destroyed pretty often. Just wondering, are the phalanx shield and the longbow health boost comparable? One will partially block attacks, the other just makes it more tanky. I don't particularly like the longbow effect, and the shield only blocks some attacks, so I'm just wondering if one is like, 5000% better and I just don't realize?

Right now I just went with the longbow because I liked a class mod that boosts fire rate and that tree, but I also have a class mod that adds health regen and boosts the 3rd tree. Either works, neither tree is my favorite, just wondering.

[Ghostu]

Longbow its more useful because it allows you to place your turret în more versatile places and also doubles turret health. As for phalanx shield its not a bad skill but it doesnt scale very well in the later difficulties. But in the end its your choice go with which one you feel most comfortable.

[Gadget]

if you get both longbow and maglog you can throw your turret on walls and ceilings so that melee enemies cant hit it and its harder for other mobs to shoot it. also if you get double up which is the capstone of the left tree you can get slag turrets which are super helpful

[CommanderDouchebag]

Hands down, Longbow is must have - it gives you great crowd control potential via turret's HP and range deployment boost. Just get use to it. As Axton main, i feel a little bit uncomfortable without Longbow turret.
Phalanx is optional. Shield isn't that strong on higher levels, but still - serve his purpoise. Especially aganist wormhole threshers.
Also, both skill works well with maglock.

[HiTmAn]

longbow is very good parryed with maglock.shield is okish can save u from dot but dont count much of that shield...break line of sight then trow turret on some place where enemy cant shot it easy to take aggro then u shot

[Numerose]

Why not both?

[The Traveler]

Longbow. Always get Longbow. Shield is okay. You can get both if you want.

[anthony]

Early game the phalanx shield skill is very good but it suffers from bad scaling and it also doesn't have any resistances or shock weakness like a players shield.

[PatchAdams]

+1

Shields will be knocked down very quickly in UVHM, They're good for fighting Terra in Normal and TVHM so you don't get sucked into the vortex, but after level 50 I would spec out of it (and also Nuke, which doesn't scale well either).

[I Kinda Fail]

Kind of a bummer that most people don't like Nuke. The middle tree is my favorite. The health-based tree is really good for survival, but even that doesn't "scale" well - faster shield delay doesn't help much when you go from full health+shields to incapped in 2-3 hits.

Axton's got a lot of those "this isn't particularly useful" and "this isn't worth the skill point" skills... Like Grenadier and Overload just give you more ammo. That's not worth 10 skill points. I get WHY they're useful - grenadier builds, especially with all the explosive buffs, and having to reload less can be very useful. But compared to a lot of other skills, it's a case of "I'd only put a single point into this with a class mod."

Still... I ended up with something like this. http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#22000000000515112010032140100000
Single points are because of a class mod that boosts team fire rate.
I'm running with a cooldown relic to try and keep my turret up constantly for Battlefront.
I'm "maining" a slag SMG (24% chance) and Torgue AR. Also have a Jakobs shotgun I rarely use, might swap it out with a Jakobs pistol soon.
4th weapon is a rocket launcher, and I'm torn between a 40% slag chance e-tech Tediore launcher, or a Maliwan electric launcher. Both seem good, so it's just making them weaker vs removing their shields now - I'm leaning towards the slag launcher.

Still, it's going along pretty swimmingly. I think next time I'm in Sanctuary, I'll swap over to a more offensive build: http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#52030100000515115010002000000000

I'm new to TVHM, so I'm trying to figure out a good balance between staying alive and dealing damage. So far, it seems to be more about dishing damage than tanking anything. I'm mostly using my slag SMG while the turret's out, that and the Torgue AR when the turret's down, shotgun for weak enemies or rushing, and rocket launcher for FFYL or clusters of enemies. I tried running with a healing mod for awhile, and loved Grit, but it just made me last longer - I still got incapped "more or less" the same, since I was in the fights longer, even though I stayed up longer between incaps.

[PatchAdams]

It's hard to have a decent turret-based build in UVHM without taking most of Sentry, Scorched Earth, Double Up, Gemini, Resourceful, Maglock, Longbow, and Battlefront: and then you won't have enough points for Do or Die, which is a great survival skill, let alone Nuke, which is effective in normal but which requires you to invest in really underwhelming skill(s) like Overload, Duty Calls, or Ranger at the expense of Double Up or Grit/Gemini.

Grit is a kinda weird skill but it can get you through raid bosses or Digistruct. And in UVHM you will likely want the slag function of Double Up because it frees a weapon slot for something more damaging than a Slagga, say.

[I Kinda Fail]

Why does everyone hate Ranger so much? It's a 7% boost to your stats per level?

Healthy gives 6% more health
Ready gives 8% more reload speed
Ranger gives 1% in 7 stats

Shouldn't they be comparable? 5 skill points in Ranger is about the same as 1 point in Healthy. 5 points in Ranger is slightly worse than 1 point in Ready. It's still a 35% stat boost, why is it considered so bad?

The only bad part of it, I'd say, is that one of the stats it boosts is magazine size... 5% more magazine size isn't useful. At best, it might help assault rifles a tiny bit, and that's if you take Overload and they stack. A 5% boost to ammo size is like, maybe +3 bullets in an SMG, and would have no effect on smaller magazines like shotguns or rocket launchers.

[Starbug]

I'd go for both if possible. Although the shields are eggshells on uvhm, if you're using the bee it's possible to unload a fully amped magazine before it "cracks"

[HiTmAn]

http://bl2skills.com/commando.html#55055105015205515010005050050100 this was build i wlaked trough op8 with axton get expert grenadier with +6 steady + 5 greandier...u fastballs doing over 120mil dmg wen u match element and bone of ancients.. and slagged..same build i use with legendary soldier...u need healing shot harold swap on grog boom insta full health... turret is very tank if u use it smart u never trow it in enemy like ppl doing u trow it in corner just to enemy take aggro from u and quickly pop out and kill enemy... i dont rember wen is enemy kill my turret.. expect for raid bosses..do or die is one of best skills in game... u have almost garanted second wind just slag enemy fasball boom...get creamer with projectile speed is probably best for insane dmg and will fully heal u...i use big boom blaster.antagonist farm 880% deflection dmg that is best one. and bee depending from situation...

[PatchAdams]

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

Why does everyone hate Ranger so much? It's a 7% boost to your stats per level?

{...}

Ranger gives 1% in 7 stats

1% is really minimal compared to Metal Storm, Onslaught, Impact, Steady, Battlefront, Ready, Preparation, etc. and almost all of these are covered by Badass Rank. You're generally better off choosing something else unless you plan to use a Legendary Ranger class mod (only available Level 62 and higher), and even then I'd only put the one point into it, with something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sk55RKFR5o

[Black Hole]

The turret is mostly just for distraction on ultimate mode even with slag it doesn't often do much damage.

Wish they would have patched it to be more bad ass and useful, same with shields...They almost seem useless doesn't matter how much you got no matter what a bullet or 2 and it's pretty much gone, never felt they were that great better off with the shield that just adds a ton of health honestly.