Post your early game leveling builds

[JoeRetro]

I've seen a lot of people share their success on level 50 late game builds, and that's great.

I would like to see some discussion around early game builds, used for leveling. Sometimes those level 50 builds are based on synergy with other skills, or specific (rare) pieces of gear.

What about builds that work well getting through level 10, 15, 20, etc?

I'll share my experience with Salvador so far.

The Gunzerking skill seems to be built around boosting DPS when the situation calls for it. It also has a "tanking" compoent build in that it will heal 50% of health and then regen health and ammo while using.

At first I was filling out the Rampage tree to get more dps potential. Early game when good gear is scarce, surivability turned out to be more of an issue than DPS. Especially since gunzerking requires you to play somewhat more "rambo" style to get the most use out of it. I experemented with different builds and found it much more effective to boost my tank than DPS for the first 20 levels.

This is what I would reccomend for at least the first 20 levels of Gunzerker play.

Lvl 5 - Gunzerking - First skill we're all required to get

Lvl 5-10 - Hard to Kill - Max health + 20%, Regen 5% health per second
This helped alot during those times in between fights. Without any regen your only source of healing is gunzerking or finding healing kits in dung piles. Going into a fight with weak new player shields and half of your health can really slow down your early game progress (deaths, retreating, etc)

Lvl 10-15 - I'm the Juggernaut
Killing an enemy reduces the damage you take by 20% for a few seconds
If you're playing solo you're going to be the one getting all the kills. If you're fighting more than 1 enemy, killing one makes you tankier for the next. If you're gunzerking, you're probably fighting a group and somewhat wreaklessly.

Lvl 15-20 - Ain't got time to bleed
While gunzerking you regenerate 4% health per second
In situations I've found myself gunzerking usually there are multiple enemies firing on me, and I've had to negelect cover to get the most of of my gunzerk. This extra helth regen helps a lot with surviving that.


And I'll stop there with the skill point distribution. From here you may be able to respec and get better defense through a stronger offensive build. I just found early DPS focused builds did not provide enough survivability to get through content at a decent pace.

As for gear. Avoid any shields that reduce health. It will limit the usefulness of skills that heal based on your total health % (seems to be all of them)

For guns. Avoid guns that aren't fully automatic (fire as fast as you pull the trigger). Pulling 1 or 2 triggers as fast as you can while gunzerking sucks. I found high ammo capacity weapons to work great, reloading during gunzerking feels like a waste of gunzerking time.

[Peppy]

i went gunlust class until about level 43 or so with 2 jakobs pistols and uh... yea... killed just about everything in my path, i dont think you need to avoid (fire as fast as you pull the trigger) guns because the gunlust class is almost MADE for that class, ya just gotta be not lazy haha! all the pistol skills n dual weilding skills in that class along with the sexy end skill and money shot makes salvador a jakobs GOD. , but opinions are opinions, what i do is from level 1-40ish i went gunlust then in the high 40s and 50s i went rampage. rampage is an ease of access kinda tree, you gunzerk alot, that means u dont need to worry bout ammo or aim or damage or... well yeah, its like a class for... (lack of a better word ) retired old people. and that is why im not ashamed to use it , cuz im not going around trying to beat the game anymore.

[JoeRetro]

Originally posted by CaptainPeppy:

i went gunlust class until about level 43 or so with 2 jakobs pistols and uh... yea... killed just about everything in my path, i dont think you need to avoid (fire as fast as you pull the trigger) guns because the gunlust class is almost MADE for that class, ya just gotta be not lazy haha! all the pistol skills n dual weilding skills in that class along with the sexy end skill and money shot makes salvador a jakobs GOD. , but opinions are opinions, what i do is from level 1-40ish i went gunlust then in the high 40s and 50s i went rampage. rampage is an ease of access kinda tree, you gunzerk alot, that means u dont need to worry bout ammo or aim or damage or... well yeah, its like a class for... (lack of a better word ) retired old people. and that is why im not ashamed to use it , cuz im not going around trying to beat the game anymore.

Thanks for the quick reply, i may respec and try that out. Can you give some detail on which skills you chose in Gunlust and in what general order?

Just to clarify, the reason I avoid guns that fire as fast as you pull the trigger while gunzerking... i really do not like having to use my mouse hand to aim and also spam click both mouse buttons at the same time. It just feels unnatural to me.

What about other classes? can anyone give some info on their leveling experience with them?