Please advise on "Farming" a perfect Sandhawk

[Critical Mass]

Hi all. I have recently got into Borderlands 2. I have GOTY and probably will not get UVH pack 2 as level 61 cap difficulty suits me just fine most of the time. I have never played a game that involves loot farming before and I tend to avoid any form of farm or gear cheats as I feel like it is effectively skipping parts of the game to do so. I don't mind sharing gear between my characters and in the case of the SandHawk to my understanding you can only ever get one per character without using some form of manipulation. Based on many comments and videos, perfect Flying sandhawks in Shock, Fire and Corrosive are excellent weapons but VERY low rate drops. Based on comments it seems like non-perfect sandhawks are significantly less worthwhile.
My first question is are non-ideal Sandhawks worth using? If so which ones?
I have several chronic health conditions that have kept me out of work recently. Because of this I didn't mind spending a number of hours "farming" sandhawks over the last couple of days. I say "farming" because unlike my real farming of Infinity pistols, Fastball grenades and Unkempt Harold pistols (specifically DPUH) it isn't so much farming a miniboss as manipulating save files to reroll quest rewards.

I used the excellent infographics to learn how to recognise gun parts: https://www.reddit.com/r/Borderlands2/comments/4bhecw/infographics_for_weapon_parts_and_their_effects/

I read a statistical study of the probability of Sandhawk drops: https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/results-of-500-sand-hawk-farms-updated-to-1000/1739201

I taught myself a few things with Excel (drop-down menus, data validation, countif statements etc) and did my own recording and simple analysis of my attempts to find a perfect Sandhawk or 3 (as explained above I have a bit of time on my hands). If someone can tell me how to attach files, I will post the excel file with data and calculations.

After fully recording 250 drops:
Flying had <5% drop
each element had 4-8% drop
each grip or stock type including Dahl had about 16-24% drop


Looking for Perfect Sandhawk - 4 parts - FLYING, Non-Slag ELEMENT, DAHL Grip, DAHL Stock

4 parts together 0% 0 from 250
3 parts together 0% 0 from 250


Any element on Flying Sandhawk 0.4% 1 from 250 (Fire on attempt 249)
Dahl Grip and stock together 2.4% 6 from 250 (1 amp, 1 stopping)
Flying with Dahl Grip OR Dahl Stock 0% 0 from 250
Sapping, Incindiary or Corrosive with Dahl Grip OR Stock 6.8% 17 from 250
(Are these better than Flying Incindiary without Dahl parts?)

I actually did 62 trials before the fully recorded 250 but at that stage I was only recording the name of the sandhawk and if it had an element.

After all this I now have a Flying Sandhawk with Incindiary damage. The parts are unfortunately not ideal in that they are a hyperion grip and maliwan stock.

Based on my calculations it would probably take about 20 days farming all day to be likely to get a perfect Flying Sandhawk with Dahl Grip and Dahl stock in Fire or Shock.

How much difference does a non-ideal set of parts make? Which ones are most important for an effective and powerful sandhawk?
Is the element most important followed by flying followed by Dahl grip then Dahl stock?
What are the best alternatives (esp for Maya)? (Stopping is a good alternative to flying for Zer0 and Maya as they can accelerate projectiles with abilities. What stock and grip alternatives are decent?)
Apart from a very small number of exceedingly lucky players, did everyone else get their perfect sandhawks from duping, gibbing or some other manipulation?

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

Having a Dahl grip is the main thing as it adds more bullets to the burst as well as having a larger magazine. I don't know that having a different stock will make a large difference as it they tend to boost accuracy and recoil.

If you have Flying and a Dahl grip, you are about 98% to a perfect sandhawk.

I never realized that the odds were that poor. 1 in 10,000 chance for a perfect one. Shows why gibbed is so popular.

[Critical Mass]

Thanks very much for that. Can I assume you have gibbed sandhawks?

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I have gibbed other weapons for testing. I usually don't play the game with gibbed items as they wreck the game experience. My typical build for Maya a Trickster build and the Sandhawk is kind of awful for it so I typically don't even have one in the inventory.

[Lord Cyphre]

Originally posted by Fredericks of Cursewood:

Having a Dahl grip is the main thing as it adds more bullets to the burst as well as having a larger magazine. I don't know that having a different stock will make a large difference as it they tend to boost accuracy and recoil.

A Dahl stock extends the burst for Dahl weapons, not the grip.

Matching grips are purely for the manufacturer bonus ( +reload speed,+mag size.).
Bandit grips are a good substitue.

Perfect parts don't make a huge difference in practice if you play casually. It mostly matters for speedkills and the like where one wants to shave off every fraction of a second possible.
There are a few exceptions though, mostly shotguns with a low pellet count where the vertical grip acessory makes a significant difference.

The Sandhawk in particular is one of the best weapons available in this game, no combination of parts will make it perform badly all of a sudden.

In general try to avoid Hyperion grips and Jakobs stocks and mainly focus on the element while farming and you should be good.

[z00t]

Perfect Sandhawks are rare. I would say a Flying and elemental of choice is good enough. Stopping is also not bad - higher damage, but slower bullet speed. Having Dahl grip and stock is the icing.
I have seen perfect parted - grip and stock before, but usually non elemental and horrible accessory - the game RNGods trolling again.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1228860619

A very usable Sandhawk. Not perfect, but works well.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

Originally posted by Lord Cyphre:

Originally posted by Fredericks of Cursewood:

Having a Dahl grip is the main thing as it adds more bullets to the burst as well as having a larger magazine. I don't know that having a different stock will make a large difference as it they tend to boost accuracy and recoil.

A Dahl stock extends the burst for Dahl weapons, not the grip.

Matching grips are purely for the manufacturer bonus ( +reload speed,+mag size.).
Bandit grips are a good substitue.

Perfect parts don't make a huge difference in practice if you play casually. It mostly matters for speedkills and the like where one wants to shave off every fraction of a second possible.
There are a few exceptions though, mostly shotguns with a low pellet count where the vertical grip acessory makes a significant difference.

The Sandhawk in particular is one of the best weapons available in this game, no combination of parts will make it perform badly all of a sudden.

In general try to avoid Hyperion grips and Jakobs stocks and mainly focus on the element while farming and you should be good.

Whoops! Sorry I forgot about that stock doing that.

I have to admit that I am not fan of Dahl in any shape or form.

[HiTmAn]

must be flying non any other prefix dont even consider.. must have dahl grip for extra mag size and reload speed dahl grip will give u extra pellets

[Critical Mass]

thanks HiTmAn. That will probably be 4 days of farming for a good chance of that. Time to cue up some podcasts.

[dontu_worry]

Originally posted by Critical Mass:

thanks HiTmAn. That will probably be 4 days of farming for a good chance of that. Time to cue up some podcasts.

I hope you're readonly farming, otherwise youre lowering your efficiency by
at least a factor of 10.

[Critical Mass]

yep readonly = efficient. Taking time to record exact details of each drop...not so much.

[dontu_worry]

Originally posted by Critical Mass:

yep readonly = efficient. Taking time to record exact details of each drop...not so much.

Yes, trying to get good sandhawks is horrid. Fortunately I'm Zer0 so I dont bother with them anymore.