Borderlands 2 Character Build: Psycho

Krieg, the newest class to grace the wastes of Borderlands 2 has finally had enough playtime to hopefully give you a solid no-holds-barred Borderlands 2 Character Build for the Psycho class. The Psycho is an interesting class, it’s one that feeds on downed shields and low hp.

The Borderlands 2 Character Build we’ve come up with completes both the Mania and Hellborn skill trees, with emphasis on Mania, but the points in Hellborn are also important.

Down the Mania tree you’ll come across tons of melee bonuses, all of which make you a one hit stunner. Are you ready for everything to stack here on melee damage? Okay here goes, “Empty the Rage” gives you a +70% melee damage when your shields are down, “Feed the Meat” gives you a health bonus while delaying your shield recharge giving you a longer duration of melee bonus. “Thrill of the Kill” returns up to 90% of your health when you Overkill and enemy, while meleeing you’re bound to get hit, so “Salt the Wound” starts adding stacks at +7.5%  with a max 20 stacks to total a possible 150% bonus! Few.

The funny thing about Krieg is he has a 12% chance to attack himself during combat with “Silence the Voices”, this also gives him a whopping 250% melee bonus after he strikes himself! Completing “Release the Beast” lets you activate your Buzz Axe  Rampage giving you a bonus 100% melee damage and a 50% damage reduction.

So let’s just add up all of the melee bonuses you receive if everything goes according to plan…crunching numbers…carry the 1…divide by the equation of X…voila! a staggering 530% melee bonus damage, and that’s with health regeneration and damage reduction!

So punching and hacking the living shit out of everything is fun, but with Krieg, being on fire while doing so adds a little extra pizzazz. So we’ll be running down the Hellborn tree, ensuring we catch as many things on fire, including ourselves, as humanly possible.

Most of the first tier skills down the Hellborn tree do subtle things for damage reduction while on fire, increase chance to light self and others on fire, increase melee damage while on fire, until “Flame Flare” that actually makes most of those first tier skills worth anything. “Flame Flare” when maxed increases your burn effects to completely 100%. Finish of the Hellborn tree with “Raving Retribution” that has your body shooting out homing great balls of fire at enemies who attack you.

Check out the complete tree below, but continue until the end because we have a few class mods and shields we suggest you use for this Borderlands 2 Character Build, so keep reading! Also this Borderlands 2 Character Build is for a capped out level 61 vault hunter.

Ignore Bloodlust.

Mania

• Empty the Rage 5/5 –  +20% additional base melee damage and +50% melee damage when shields are down.
• Feed the Meat 5/5 – +50% hp and +2.5 sec shield recharge delay.
• Thrill of the Kill 5/5 – Returns up to 90% Overkill damage done as hp.
• Strip the Flesh 1/5 – +3% explosive damage and +3% fight for your life bonus
• Salt the Wound 5/5 – While taking damage when shields are down, gain a 7.5% melee bonus and +5% shotgun damage with each stack. Stackable up to 20.
• Silence the Voices 5/5 – Now having a 12% chance of striking self, a significant melee bonus of 250% is awarded after attacking self.
• Release the Beast 1/1 – Activate “Buzz Axe Rage” when hp is below 33%, turns yourself into a Badass and awards you 100% melee damage bonus and 50% damage reduction.

Hellborn

•  Burn, Baby, Burn 4/5 – +28% burn damage, +28% chance to light self on fire, and then a +60% bonus fire damage when you damage an enemy while your on fire.
• Fuel the Fire 1/5 – Killing an enemy gives you +40% elemental chance and another +7% chance to ignite yourself on fire.
• Numbed Nerves 3/5 – +30% damage reduction while on fire.
• Pain is Power 5/5 – While you are on fire, +25% melee and weapon damage with a +50% on fire bonus, but critical damage is reduced by -25%
• Elemental Elation 2/5 – While on fire receive stacks of +1.5% fire rate bonus and +2% magazine size up to 20.
• Delusional Damage 1/1 – Elemental attacks have a much greater chance to light yourself on fire. (All elements)
• Fire Fiend 2/5 – Melee attacks have a +20% chance to ignite enemies. While your on fire receive +20% weapon accuracy and +14% reload speed.
• Flame Flare 5/5 – +100% burn duration and a +75% chance of reignition.
• Elemental Empathy 5/5 – 25% status elemental damage done heals self.
• Raving Retribution 1/1 – When attacked by enemies while on fire, you will spew homing balls of fire at them. 1 per sec.

The Borderlands 2 Character Build is already stacked in your favor, but putting on a Legendary Psycho class mod adds even more bonuses. It’s also important to note, if you want to be hella dirty, run through the “Cult Following” quest to pick up the Flame of the Firehawk Shield. One that makes you immune to fire damage and generates fire novas whenever your shields are down. With the Psycho, since you’ll be battling with your shields down anyways, feel free to run around on fire, hitting yourself, taking no damage, and spouting out endless fire novas. We’ve tested it, and it works…really well.

 

If you liked this Borderlands 2 Character Build, we have a tons of others including the BFF Mechromancer, LBT Mechromancer, Gunzerker,  melee Assassin, Siren, and dual turret Commando builds!

Farm On.