Borderlands 2 was sorely missing a melee-based playstyle (Zer0’s didn’t count because he was weaksauce), especially since the first game had one in the form of Brick. Out of all three skill trees included with this DLC, the Mania was my favourite. Once the timer’s up, assuming you haven’t gotten a Second Wind by killing someone yet, you explode and, hopefully, take out at least one enemy to get yourself back on your feet.
When this skill is obtained, instead of going into FFYL and having to sit around waiting to die, you instead pull out a bunch of dynamite and start running around and throwing it at enemies. One very important skill in this tree to take note of is Light the Fuse, which replaces Fight For Your Life with – you guessed it – Light the Fuse. I can imagine it being amazingly overpowered in the second and third playthroughs too – continuously belching rings of fire while beating your enemies into the ground with a gigantic axe? Yes please. One thing that I noticed while playing was that the Flame of the Firehawk shield (continuous fire novas, obtained from completing the Firehawk questline) complements this skill tree really well. The Mania tree concentrates on getting in close and dirty to the action, with skills focusing on melee combat and saving your nipple salad bacon when you go into Fight For Your Life mode. This skill tree really only complements playstyles which concentrate on ranged combat, but it’s just as effective as the others if utilized correctly – and the top-level skill Bloodsplosion (killing an enemy causes them to explode violently with an elemental nova matching the element of the damage that caused it) sounds both ridiculously overpowered and ridiculously fun.
Apart from all the Bloodlust-related skills, this tree also includes Buzz Axe Bombardier, which allows you to strap dynamite to your buzz axe so it blows up when you throw it at things (enemies/local wildlife/inanimate objects/Moxxi’s boobs). Each stack counts towards a bunch of different skills – for example, the Blood-Filled Guns skill increases magazine size of all guns by 0.5% per Bloodlust stack, and also adds a stack for every time you deal damage to an enemy. This tree’s base mechanics are comparable to the Mechromancer’s Anarchy skill: Krieg gains stacks of Bloodlust, which decay rapidly when he hasn’t killed anything for a while. Borderlands 2 is a game which really shines in co-op play, and Krieg perhaps shines brighter than any other character in this mode: he’s almost the definition of an unstoppable meat shield. It’s definitely a gameplay style which is unexpectedly fun, and the skill trees only serve to enhance the enjoyment. Facing off against hordes of Psychos and Bullymongs is an absolute delight Krieg can decimate a crowd in seconds. I can’t overstate how effective this character is at short range.
It also allows him, depending on selected skills, to wipe out both mini-bosses and proper bosses with extreme prejudice. This causes him to be extremely effective at taking out enemies, with the majority going down in 1-3 hits.
Gameplay-wise, Krieg’s Action Skill, Buzz Axe Rampage, gives him a very large and optionally throwable buzz axe (surprise!) and a 500% melee damage boost. The official story for Krieg the Psycho is that he spent quite an amount of time being tortured in an underground Hyperion lab, thereby buffing his physical abilities, but leaving him with a broken mind, multiple personalities, and a strong urge for vengeance. Could a Psycho-based character really be viable and, most importantly, fun? I picked up the DLC yesterday, and played up to level 25 with Krieg – not enough to hit his top-level abilities, but enough to gauge the experience of each of his skill trees. When I heard that another DLC character was coming, my interest was piqued. Since Borderlands 2 came out, I’ve been occasionally experimenting with character builds, but nothing really took my fancy – in fact, the only character that I actually took to level 50 was the Mechromancer, and even that character lost my interest during the long slog of the second playthrough.
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