General Info
Some important notes:
Gun damage on Axton isn’t multiplicative so stacking it as much as you can isn’t the greatest thing to do, missing 6% really isn’t much damage depending on the gun.
The closest thing he has to multiplicative is grenade damage as that affects splash.
⭐ These skill sucks, only spec in it to get further down the tree, and only if there are no better options for you.
⭐⭐ Very specific and it can be good but requires effort and the outcome tends to be lackluster.
⭐⭐⭐ Can help, not a bad choice for going down trees.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Skills are worth specing into, they will help without necessarily being the focus of your playstyle. Definitely worth taking.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Skills of this rating will be game-changers and should be taken by almost all Axton players.
Because the number thing confuses the masses it seems because math is hard or something.
Guerilla
Sentry: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Keeping your turret up longer and it firing more bullets? Amazing. Having an agro-sink last longer? Even better.
Ready: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
How can you pass up 40% reload speed at tier 1? It’s a big passive DPS increase. 1 single gun in the game doesn’t benefit from this.
Willing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Single-handedly this makes a lot of shields useable, with a combination of this QC and pressure you can just about face-tank with a bee. It’s one of the best skills in the game.
Laser Sight: ⭐
Contrary to popular belief this skill does exactly what it says and nothing else. Still a bad skill, because the turret is accurate without it.
Able: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Very close to static health regen, having 2% regen in combat is a lot better than people think and saves your ass a lot.
Scorched Earth: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
If 22 rockets that explode aren’t enough to sway you, this skill has amazing scaling and does work on every mode even on OP8.
It’s well worth spending a point in here even if it’s just to make your turrets look badass, and the DPS is very good to boot.
Onslaught: ⭐⭐⭐
Yes, the boosts are good, but it is a kill skill. Movement speed and gun damage are always nice.
Grenadier: ⭐⭐⭐
Extra grenades, with the addition of grenades like Magic Missile this skill isn’t as good as it used to be. Still, a great skill for grenade-focused builds
Crisis management: ⭐
This is a little counterintuitive to have on Axton with all of his shield skills and the bonuses are a little strange. Not worth using a rough rider for
Double up: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
For raids this becomes your dedicated slagger, it’s slag on a stick with a high slag chance. It’s his best endcap skill.
Gunpowder
Impact: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
It’s one of the best tier-one skills in the game, no reason to not make this 5/5 if you are using guns. Does not work for launchers.
Expertise: ⭐⭐⭐
The weapon swap speed is great, the ADS speed is mediocre, and the movement isn’t god-awful either. Not a bad skill by any means but does get overlooked a lot. Well worth throwing a single point in if you are using a leg. soldier com.
Overload: ⭐
It’s not that it’s bad it’s just not the greatest skill in here, it’s a skill that works decently on very few ARs, and on others it’s lackluster.
Metal Storm: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This skill is nearly always a great DPS increase. The recoil reduction makes it useful on most Jakobs weapons.
In short more fire rate=more bullets=more dead enemies. Some caveats do apply to older consoles. See posts ~50-70 below
Battlefront: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Without a lot of points in Sentry, this skill is very mediocre at times as this only works when your turret is out. Is this skill considered a staple? Yes because it does have very good boosts. With sentry at high levels, this skill is very good.
Longbow: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The ability to put a longbow system on the turret? great. Doubling its health making it an even better agro draw? Amazing.
Steady: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is a really good skill if you are using weapons with splash, using it as a way to reduce recoil, eh, not so much.
The grenade damage is the closest thing he gets to multiplicative damage and the launcher damage is ok.
Do or Die: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The 10% buff to grenade damage is great and so is the launcher, but the ability to throw grenades in FFYL? It’s a priceless ability that helps majorly if you are an explosive Axton.
Duty Calls: ⭐.5
Not elemental Axton can work very well, but this skill is one of those “all of your gear has to work with this” type of thing.
Elemental will do more when matching elements, but when it’s off it suffers. The only time non-elemental suffers is on armor. This is addictive.
Ranger: ⭐⭐⭐
It’s a good skill for what it is but doesn’t really shine unless you are using a ranger com.
Nuke: ⭐⭐
For whatever reason, the nuke deals fire damage and has a lower elemental multiplier than normal. The damage isn’t terrible but it really doesn’t get good until the OP levels because of how it scales and how the turret is the level of the OP so it never gets damage reduction. It is a very good stun and it’s an OK converge skill.
Survival
Healthy: ⭐.5
It’s decent for end-game mobbing and early game but its usefulness is up for debate, but it doesn’t negatively affect you because all of Axton’s healing is percentage based
Preparation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
As a tier-one ability that lets you have a static health regen is amazing. When leveling it’s recommended to put a single point into this skill if you aren’t going down the survival tree just to take advantage of the regen when you are out of combat as health vials are expensive.
Last Ditch Effort:⭐⭐
It’s a good skill for IF you go down but we really don’t want to go down very much. This is damage, not gun damage so it does work on launchers, and the movement helps if you’re using shotgun-type weapons and the like.
Pressure: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Very underrated skill, the lower your health is the shorter your delay and reload speed is. The only shields that don’t benefit are the rough rider or roid shields, neither is recommended for Axton anyways
Forbearance: ⭐
This skill is OK at best, it’s really only useful on the dragons as the quick charge is at the same tier. If this was lower or QC was higher this would be a lot better. Lowering the length of DoTs is never a bad thing.
Phalanx Shield: ⭐⭐⭐
It’s a situational skill, and has a bit more use than mag-lock does on raids as most have some type of attack that kill bounce off the shield. This also protects you from raids novas. It’s not very strong at higher levels, but it’s not useless
Quick Charge:⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is very similar to inertia for the siren but you trade the reload speed for extra shields. It’s a fantastic survivability skill and at 2/5 will beat out fire and acid dots and at 4/5 will beat out shock dots on most shields.
Resourceful: ⭐⭐⭐
Reduces cooldown rates, enough said. It is subject to diminishing returns though.
Mag-lock: ⭐⭐⭐
Depends on what you want the turret to do. As a battlefront and/or slag applicator, it can help it to survive longer. If you’re using it for agro relief on the ground don’t take it
Grit: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
An amazing survival skill. Known to proc multiple times in a row and is very effective against DoTs. It can be boosted by COMS and is a big part of Axton’s biggest tank build.
If you health stack with healthy, adaptive shields, and other gear then it’s not quite as good
Gemini: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
It’s a second turret, this literally doubles its DPS.
Tip: if the second turret you throw gets destroyed you can redeploy it.
