Lilith Character Builds

Welcome to the second installment of Borderlands Character builds. This week's guide will focus on the Siren, Lilith.

In terms of sheer sex appeal, Lilith blows all other video game vixens out of the water, but that is not what makes her bad-ass. Lilith has the ability to Phasewalk. This does two things. First it allows her to move much more quickly allowing her to move to within striking range of an enemy fast. Second, and arguably, most importantly, it turns her invisible. So that enemy that she just ran up to no longer sees her. This ability allows Lilith to be a deadly melee assassin if that's your style. In fact, Assassin is one of her skill tress, as is, Controller and Elemental (thanks again to Gearbox for making a skill tree available online at http://bit.ly/RoUSiF so I didn't have to create one myself).

Like all of the character classes in Borderlands, you can tailor Lilith's skills to suit your play style; sniper, melee fighter, gun-toting bad-ass mama, whatever. However, also like the rest of the classes, the designers built the skill tree so that you can maximize her inherent power, Phasewalk. In my opinion, tailoring your build to complement the inherent power is the most effective no matter what character class you choose.

Upon selecting Lilith, I immediately saw the potential to create a killer ninja-like character, so that is what I went with on my initial playthrough. Her Assassin skill tree offers the best skills to both complement her Phasewalk ability and to buff her melee attacks. The main skill you want to acquire from the Assassin group is the tier 4 Phase Strike ability. You should be able to acquire this skill by level 25. This skill increases Lilith's melee damage up to a massive 800% when you attack from Phasewalk. Couple this with a bladed revolver that adds up to 200% melee damage and you have a character that can easily kill or significantly weaken a foe with one hit and without firing a weapon.

Again, I believe it is best to get to your chosen tier 4 power as fast as possible. Therefore, my progression through the Assassin skill tree went something like this:

1. Slayer to level 5 (character levels 6-10) - Slayer increases critical hit damage up to 25% regardless of whether or not Lilith is in Phasewalk mode or not. While critical hits are a piece of cake with a sniper rifle, they can be tricky with melee attacks. However, since Phasewalk turns you invisible, you can take a little more time to aim your melee attack at the head when you sneak up on an enemy.
2. Hit & Run to level 5 (character levels 11-15) - This skill gives your over all melee damage a 35% increase AND increases the duration of Phasewalk by 4 seconds when fully leveled up. The extra time comes in handy for lining up those critical melee hits and the damage boost doesn't hurt either.
3. Blackout to level 5 (character levels 16-20) - By level 5, the Blackout skill reduces your Phasewalk cooldown by 6 seconds per kill, allowing you to enter Phasewalk more frequently. This becomes extremely important when faced with multiple enemies. Early on you will still have to take cover after exiting Phasewalk, but it is possible with the right combination of skills to immediately re-enter Phasewalk (don't worry, I'll show you how this is done).
4. Phase Strike to level 5 (character levels 21-25) - As mentioned before, Phase Strike increases your melee damage up to 800% (in 160% per level increments). For foes of the same level or lower, this amount of damage is crippling if not lethal.

Now, with Phase Strike fully leveled up, you might consider working on Silent Resolve, which increases your damage resistance for a few seconds after Phasewalk. This is tempting considering that if you are using your melee attacks, you become very vulnerable after attacking from Phasewalk when faced with multiple enemies. However, I would prefer to have the ability to re-enter Phasewalk more quickly, so I saved those five points and invested them elsewhere.

So after acquiring level 5 Phase Strike, my skill progression went like this:

1. Spend 5 skill points on either tier 1 skill from the Elemental group or split the five points between them if you wish. It really does not matter because they both are only effective when using weapons. Since we are focusing on a melee fighter, these five points are essentially being sacrificed so that we can acquire:
2. Radiance up to level 5 - This skill is important to have if you want to re-enter Phasewalk immediately, here's why. Remember the tier 3 Assassin skill Blackout I had you power up? The thing with that skill is that it reduces the cooldown rate by 6 seconds regardless of whether you are in Phasewalk or not. You just have not noticed this because up to this point you have only been able to make a kill by attacking thus terminating Phasewalk. What Radiance does is continually cause electrical damage to nearby enemies while you are Phasewalking. Even though enemies are taking damage, they are still unaware of your presence while you maintain Phasewalk. So the strategy here is to remain Phased as long as possible and if there is anyone alive when you are almost out of time, hit them with a melee (preferably critical) before Phasewalk ends. Shock damage from radiance only has a base of 1 hitpoint per second per skill level (i.e. Radiance fully leveled up causes 5 hp per second of damage). However, that is just a base and the actual damage increases as your character levels up. Damage per second can increase as high as 17 hp/sec. It is also important to note that this electrical damage can continue for a very long time even after exiting Phasewalk. Not only that, it spreads easily to other enemies who get too close to one of their buddies who is under this effect. With lower level foes, your Phasewalk will have been reset by the time you exit allowing you to immediately re-enter because the shock damage killed enough to reduce it enough. Since at this point the cooldown for Phasewalk is 36 seconds, it only takes 6 deaths to completely reset it. This is doable in many scenarios. Now, from here you can go one of two ways. Initially, I stayed in the Elemental tree and buffed up my damage potential by investing in:
3. Venom up to level 5 - Venom adds up to 25% damage plus a chance to corrode an enemy (continual acid damage over time).
4. Phoenix up to level 5 - Upon killing a foe, this skill deals fire damage to all those around you. This fire damage, like shock and corrode, can cause damage over time and is based on the character level (same base and damage structure as Radiance and can spread from enemy to enemy). It also adds up to a 25% chance to have shot's fired not cost ammo for a few seconds. With Phoenix coupled with Radiance coupled with Blackout, it is highly likely to be able to continually re-enter Phasewalk as long as there are enough enemies around.

Now there were a couple of disadvantages to this build that I discovered after a while. First, Radiance and Phoenix will both set off barrels that are nearby thus inflicting damage (sometimes severe) on yourself. This is especially troublesome when you get in a tight situation with little health and are trying to run for cover only to find that the nearest cover has two explosive barrels right next to it. In addition, all elemental enemies are resistant to elemental damage of the same type. When I intially leveled up radiance, I found that completing missions in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx was very difficult if there were Shock Troopers in an area and in the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, entering Phasewalk while battling Tankensteins does nothing but heal them. Those suckers are hard enough to beat without you helping them out. In fact, most of the mission in the Knoxx story arc involve fighting Shock, Chemical, and Pyro Troopers, often intermingled, making those missions very difficult for the Elemental Siren. With Phasewalk out of the question in many situations, you are effectively crippled because the Phasewalk is where most of your damage power comes from.

There are ways to overcome the difficulties presented by the Elemental Siren, but those lie beyond the scope of this article. Perhaps another time or maybe we can discuss it in the comments section. And as always, respecs are relatively cheap, so just respec if you plan to go up against the Lance (or Tankensteins). I bought a respec and went with the Controller tree to augment my Assassin skills.

1. In tier 1 of the Controller set you could go with either skill (Diva or Striking). Striking gives you a chance to Daze enemies, which slows and decreases their accuracy, but Diva gives you higher shield capacity. Both are good powers and are fairly equal in the advantage they provide, it's just that Striking is offensive and Diva is defensive. So pick the one that suits your natural play-style the best. I played with both, but tend to favor Striking.
2. Same thing goes with tier 2 skills. Dramatic Entrance gives you the chance to Daze multiple enemies upon entering Phasewalk, but Inner Glow restores your health while Phasewalking. In my experience, I found Inner Glow to be more useful (and yes I did try them both out).
3. Hard to Get up to level 5 - Hard to Get reduces your Phasewalk cooldown by up to 16 seconds. This means that at level 5 your cooldown is only 20 seconds. This almost (but not quite) offsets the advantages that Radiance and Phoenix give you against SOME enemies, the advantage being that the benefit works regardless of what type of enemy you are fighting.

The tier 4 Controller skill adds an advantage to using a gun and does not really complement Phasewalk or melee damage, so if you are working on a melee character invest future points into other skills that you find useful.

Excluding battles involving elemental enemies, the Elemental/Assassin build offers great advantages even at lower levels. One common scenario is against normal bandits. Imagine as you Phasewalk up to an enemy, the shock damage will take down their shield (if they have any) and deal Shock damage. As you attack out of Phasewalk you get additional damage from Slayer (if it's a critical hit) and Phase Strike, and at the same time, Venom has the chance to add continuous corrosive damage, which a) continues to damage the enemy over time and b) adds bonus damage to subsequent attacks. This combo is almost always an instant kill for enemies of the same level and even for enemies a few levels higher than you, you can usually finish them off with a few more attacks. Meanwhile, Blackout is diminishing your cooldown with every kill. Rinse. Repeat.

Aside from the obvious drawbacks versus elemental enemies this build has a couple other drawbacks. Since you will be dealing your primary damage through melee attacks, you are most definitely going to take damage in a lot of scenarios since there is rarely a way to take cover immediately while your Phasewalk cools down. Shields with quick healing properties are preferable. While you can get by with a stronger shield that heals slowly, your best bet for this build is to find a quicker healing shield even at the sacrifice of less protection. In addition, you must be very aware of your surroundings, especially in regard to damaging barrels. Maximizing your Phasewalk duration and reducing its cooldown is vital and having a healing skill like Inner Glow is highly beneficial.

The Controller/Assassin build holds less disadvantages, but the damage potential and the possibilities of immediate Phasewalk re-entry diminish greatly. Using respecs before key battles can be used to efficiently correct character deficiencies giving you the best possible chances for a favorable outcome.

As always I welcome your comments and ideas. I would love to hear (and try) any killer Lilith builds that you may have come up with. This is what makes Borderlands such a great game. The combinations of powers and creative ways to use them is almost endless.

Mordecai Character Builds

Last week I did a review on the game Borderlands. As I was writing it, several times I found myself wanting to share my techniques for playing the game. I would by no means call myself an expert at the game, but I have played it several times including on Playthrough 2, so I have built up the characters of each class so that they can successfully complete the challenges that the game throws at them. It was with this in mind that I decided to share my character building advice with everyone.

Over the next few weeks I will be posting suggestions on building killing machines for each of the character classes in Borderlands. This is not going to be a be-all and end-all character building guide. There are many different styles and tactics to use when playing Borderlands and you can build a capable character no mater what your playing style. I'm writing this guide mainly to illustrate the diversity of the character skill system and to share what has worked for me and my style of play.

When it comes to first-person shooters, I try not to put myself in a box. I like to try different things and different ways to approach situations and missions. Obviously with these games, the designers often throw in missions that take specific tactics. While there is some of this in Borderlands, most of the missions are just free-style combat. Therefore, it was nice to have the variety of different skill options available in in Borderlands that I mentioned in the review.

Now even though I do like to try different styles, I do tend to gravitate toward the sniper. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I like to take my time and enjoy the game, or showing that I have the patience to sit with my sights on one spot waiting for that guard to come around the corner for the third time, or maybe it's just because I like to watch, nice and close, while my foes' heads explode (let's just call that last one a nasty little habit I picked up from the GTAIII

code). Whatever the case may be, I like to snipe.

Now, in all fairness, you can build a sniper out of any of the character classes if you choose. The game really is that flexible. HOWEVER, Mordecai the Hunter is intended to be your go-to guy for sniping. That being the case, this first build guide is going to focus on him.

ROGUE

Leaning towards the sniper class as I do, Mordecai struck me as the character I wanted to play right off the bat. He has three skill sets; Sniper, Rogue, and Gunslinger. Each set has seven skills. You can see Mordecai's Skill Tree HERE. If you hover the cursor over the skills you can read about what benefits each one provides (thanks goes out to Gearbox for creating a Flash Skill Tree so I didn't have too). As you can see the sniper set is the first set if looking at it from left to right and I thought that this would be the branch I would focus on. However, Once I got Bloodwing, I liked the dynamic of it and so I focused on the Rogue branch instead. I found it refreshingly unique for a first person shooter.

Now, I have to say that I was only interested in the Bloodwing skills in the Rogue branch, especially the Bird of Prey skill. I could have went either way with my auxiliary skills (Sniper or Gunslinger) But I figured that since I was focusing mostly on Rogue that I'd make my ancillary skills Gunslinger. I figured the bird was going to give me away while sniping anyway Not to mention Bloodwing has a limited range. So my first build went like this (I took the skills in this order as I leveled up):

1. Swift Strike level 5
2. Out for Blood level 5
3. Now tier 3 is open you can either work Aerial Impact to level 5 or go back to tier 1 and work Swipe up to level 5 (on my Mac Hunter I went with Swipe and on PS3 I took Aerial Impact. Swipe provides more and better loot when Bloodwing attacks, but Aerial Impact makes Bloodwing's attacks more powerful. I give AI the edge since there is no shortage of loot in this game, but either way once you have one of them powered up you will open the tier 4 Bird of Prey skill, which is vital if you are focusing on the rogue style.)
4. Bird of Prey level 5 (note: that I took the shortest route to maxing out Bird of Prey. This should be done regardless of what branch of the skill tree you take. Get to the tier 4 power as fast as possible.)
5. Now that you have all the important Rogue skills you can grab ancillary skills from the other trees. In my opinion, Gunslinger skills are the way to go since Bloodwing can only attack from mid-range anyway. In addition, of the two Bloodwing skills offered by the other trees, the Gunslinger Predator skill beats out the Sniper's Carrion Call since you do not have to do anything to increase Bloodwing's cooldown. However, Carrion Call does reduce the cool down for every hit with the sniper rifle, so if you can just blast hip shots off quickly you can have Bloodwing ready to go in no time. For me though, I went with Predator. I just feel that the closer range skills are more important since Bloodwing cannot attack from sniper rifle range. Therefore, I took this path from here: Deadly level 5 (you could do Gun Crazy, but to me this just rips through ammo too fast.)
6. Lethal Strike level 5
7. Predator level 5

At this point you will probably be close to the end of the game. If you have not played any of the DLC you might not even make it to Predator before finishing the game, but That's what is great about Playthrough 2, you can just continue on your chosen path. On playthrough 2, I went for Carrion Call in the Sniper group leveling up Caliber and Killer along the way. After maxing out Carrion Call I went ahead and leveled up Trespass too since it negates enemy armor for any gun and not just sniper rifles.

Also, something I forgot to mention in the Borderlands review is that there is a level cap of 58 meaning that you can accumulate a total of 54 skill points to spend (remember, you don't start collecting skill points until level 5 and then it's 1 point per level). Now, if you purchase and install The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, it will increase your level cap to 69 giving you 11 more skill points. These additional skill points make it possible to gain all three tier 4 skills, not that I would actually worry about doing that, it just brings that to within reach if you choose to do so. Personally, I'd rather spend the points on other buffs.

Now, something that the game allows that makes it fun to try other styles of play is re-specifying of the character skills. You can do this by going to any New-U Station and buying a respec (Reset Skill Points on the New-U menu). This gives you all of your skill points back so you can reapply them differently. This is actually not that expensive especially if you do it at the beginning of Playthrough 2.

SNIPER

So, let's say I just completed the game using my Rogue build (which I actually just did on the Playstation version last night) and now I want to switch to a Sniper build. Start a new game on Playthrough 2 using the same character. At the very beginning you will remember Claptrap introduces you to the New-U Station. Use this station to respec your character as follows:

1. Caliber level 5
2. Killer level 5
3. Now on tier 3 you could go with either Carrion Call or Loaded depending on how you plan to play. I went with Loaded because a) I had my fill of relying on Bloodwing on my first playthrough and b) because I want to focus on being a true killer sniper.
4. Trespass level 5. It is worth mentioning that maxing out Trespass makes enemy armor of no consequence since bullets have a 100% chance of penetrating the armor (they also get a 5% damage boost). Having this skill maxed this early in the game is a huge advantage and you will need it with the tougher enemies.
5. Deadly level 5. As I mentioned before, as a sniper, you are constantly making head shots, which are ALWAYS critical hits. So Deadly is definitely worth the investment of points for a sniper. 
6. Next apply 5 points to either of the tier 1 Rogue skills (Swipe or Swift Strike or both). It really doesn't matter, all you are trying to do is open up Rogue tier 2 so you can . . .
7. Max out Fast Hands. Sniper rifles are one of the slower reloading weapons. After maxing it out abandon the rest of the Rogue tree.
8. From this point invest skill points in the Gunslinger skill tree however you wish until you max out Relentless.
9. After you have Relentless (if you have not capped out yet), you can spend skill points on whatever you want. It really doesn't matter because you already have all the skills that work toward making a killer sniper.

I have to mention that in my opinion the sniper in this game is better suited for multiplayer play. There is far too much close-quarter combat from the sniper to be truly effective during solo play. that is not to say that you cannot complete the game with the sniper build, but it is much more difficult. Save your sniper for multiplayer sessions as a support character. Let the commandos and berserkers take the enemies head on while you hang back and cap head shots. Also remember that you can respec your character at anytime and that it is not expensive to do so. So if you want to start a multiplayer session with the rogue that you have built up, don't be afraid to respec him to a sniper for the session and then respec him back when you want to go solo again.

I can't stress enough how this guide is merely suggestions for you to think about when planning your Mordecai character. There are so many ways to go about building the "perfect" character that I'm sure other's have their own ideas. In fact, I would love to here those ideas and maybe try them myself. If you have a killer Mordecai character build, share it in the comments. Thanks for reading.