I just managed a 13.9 second Crawmerax speedkill on Xbox with Mordecai using a 550 Gunfighter COM with no fifth line. I still can’t believe how easy it looks: here’s the video on youtube. At the time of this writing, 13.9s is the current record for consoles, and the third fastest overall, as far as the Gearbox forum knows. In this post I’ll go over how this quick time came about.
Previously I’d looked at two Hunter builds for speedkilling Crawmerax. First I tried to replicate fraktaled_b4u’s success with Sniper/Penetrator. I managed an ok time with it, but with my gear at least, I couldn’t come anywhere near his 14.7 second record (here’s my best attempt which clocked in at over 26 seconds). And not only were speedkills hard, normal kills were too! I remember one early set where I tried about 30 times in a row and only managed to survive 3. And I was definitely trying to survive! Ususally if it didn’t look like I’d get a speedkill, I’d just switch to playing it safe and try to down him for the loot, but my Sniper build was so soft that it would hardly ever deliver. Later I got a better Penetrator and reworked my skilltree a bit and came up with something tougher where I’d survive most of the time, but it never felt strong like Gunslinger. It was pure danger, desperate dodging and hoping I could make second winds in time.
Next I tried to ratchet up the intensity of my tried and true, rough and tumble, Gunslinger farming build. I spent some time dialing everything in and got a better gun for the craw maggots. The build certainly worked for killing craw, but my best speedkills were always whiteknuckle affairs where the one-shotting of crit spots was not happening often enough (here’s my best 23+ second attempt where more one-shotting would’ve been nice). The 2 shot Unforgiven Masher I was using certainly had the punch to do one-shots, but I guess not enough pellets were landing to make it a given. The eye spot was especially tricky to one-shot because it was so small. in fact, it probably only happened a handful of times in all my attempts.
Then I saw NOLAftw’s and equ_alex’s speedkill vids using Gunfighter COMs. I’d never gotten a good Gunfighter COM before so I was intrigued:
UFKHBA: wow verified and even better: 12.2! another gunfighter, eh? yours wasn’t even maxxed. I’m all interested in gunfighter now.
equ_alex: Thnx :) well, the masher did all the work, gunslinger would have been great as well, but with gunfigher the shot is more deadly, and secure.
More secure indeed! About a month later I found the Gunfighter pictured up top and began dialing in the build. With my previous attempts, I don’t know how many times I’d get a chain of 4 or 5 crit spots and then flub it and die because one wouldn’t pop when it was hit. Gunfighter, with its Jakobs damage buff and fantastic skill buffs changes all that. One-shottability is now off the charts. Focus has recently been proven to have a big effect on accuracy – it dramatically shrinks cross hairs with and without a scope (Daemmerung’s post here). +3 Focus means reduced spread, which means tighter grouping of masher pellets, so that most or all land on the crit spot you’re aiming at. The +3 Deadly buff is obviously nice for minions and Crawmerax alike. And +4 Gun Crazy is, well crazy. 9/5 Gun Crazy means that 72% of the time I pull the trigger, two shots are fired (source: tom12121112)! Insert Jakobs slogan here. Add to all that Trespass’s +5% damage and this build is pretty damn strong (Trespass’s +5% is calculated on final the post-buff damage number, rather than on the base damage number, according to testing by tom12121112). Gunfighter can’t quite match Gunslinger for minions, but it gets second winds when it needs them. Its unbuffed fire rate is also very helpful for making shots count. Whereas with Gunslinger some revolvers can behave spastically and spray bullets all over, Gunfighter leaves the firerate ‘as is’ so the crosshairs have time to tighten up between shots; each bullet hits harder and more accurately and everything works out.
Bottom line: my speedkill attempts with Gunfighter were more consistently quick than with any other build so far. I would still die but a speedkill almost always seemed within reach. I think Gunslinger remains the more reliable build for farming, though, because it straight-up neutralizes minions with its ROF buff – but it seems like it only wants to work at a measured pace against Craw himself, and when pushed beyond the comfort zone it usually results in Crawmerax sitting on me until I die. Gunfighter just shines and shines when pushed because its super-mega-one-shot action means beautiful crit chains where Craw rarely gets a chance to fight back. I’m still amazed how easily Gunfighter will one-shot that stupid eye!
One other note: if you’re trying to do speedkills on the Xbox, try to reduce your controller sensitivity on every kill until it feels good. It can really help a lot with crit spot aiming. I only started playing with the sensitivity since my Gunfighter build, so maybe the previous two builds will work better than they did for me going forward. Caveat- the lower you set the sensitivity, the slower you turn; this is especially noticeable when trying to second wind.
