Krieg the Psycho Builds | Borderlands 2 (2024)

PLAYSTYLE

Krieg has a high-risk and high-reward playstyle. This leveling up focuses on the Mania tree which allows him to deal devastating melee damage and an aversion to firearms. His replacement skill for Fight for Your Life (FFYL) allows him to capitalize on explosive damage that favors an aggressive playstyle.

Throw a grenade at your path, take damage, activate your unique skills, and melee away to become the most powerful psycho in the wasteland.

SOLO

This is the ideal leveling up build for solo play and while you’ll struggle to understand the flow in the early hours, once you unlock Light the Fuse which serves as a replacement for FFYL, you can stop worrying about taking direct damage, and deal back AOE damage instead. Additionally, once you get to Release the Beast, it’s hard to contain Krieg as his damage scaling goes up exponentially.

COOP

In co-op, Krieg will largely do his own thing, and continue to do tons of melee damage. We have specifically avoided “Fuel the Rampage” because it enables friendly fire, and we don’t want that. For the most part, Krieg’s explosive potential will provide support to the entire team and clear out mobs faster than they can reload.

SKILLS

Level 0-5: Level up to level 5

Level 5: Unlock Buzz Axe Rampage

Level 5-10: 5 Points in Empty the Rage
+20% Melee Damage, and an additional 50% Melee Damage when Shields or magazine is empty.

Level 10-15: 5 Points in Feed the Meat
+50% Max Health and +2.5 second Shield Recharge Delay.

Level 15-16: 1 Point in Light the Fuse
Fight for your life is replaced by Light the Fuse. During Light the Fuse, you can throw dynamites or detonate for massive explosive AOE damage. Reviving gives you bonus movement speed for the remainder of Light the Fuse time.

Level 16-21: 5 Points in Strip the Flesh
+15% Explosive Damage, an additional 15% in Fight for your Life (Light the Fuse in this case).

Level 21-25: 4 Points in Salt the Wound
While your shields are down, taking damage adds a stack of +6% Melee Damage, and +4% Shotgun Damage. This can be stacked up to 20 times.

Level 25-30: 5 Points in Silence the Voices
+250% Melee Damage with a 12% chance to attack yourself with Melee attacks.

Level 30-31: 1 Point in Release the Beast
Activating Buzz Axe Rampage below 33% of max health remaining instantly refills your health and transforms you into a Badass Psycho Mutant with +100% Melee Damage and +50% Damage Reduction. Buzz Axe Rampage is instantly recharged afterward.

Level 31-32: 1 Point in Blood-filled Guns
+0.5% Magazine Size per Bloodlust stack.

PLAYSTYLE

While most builds focus on his melee potential, this build adds the shotgun to the mix, which Krieg has a natural affinity towards. If you don’t want to mindlessly throw melee attacks for most of the combat, this is the build for you.

The playstyle isn’t all that complicated despite the weapons added to the mix. You want to concentrate on doing direct shotgun damage until your life goes down to a certain point. After that, you must activate your action ability, which activates Release the Beast, and you can melee away to victory. The shield selection ensures that you do increased melee damage during your action skill, while your fire rate and magazine size are increased when you’re using the shotgun.

SOLO

When playing solo, losing his shield is part of the game, so you don’t need to run away, and lower health only improves your overall damage so Krieg doesn’t need any extra help. Even if you’re overwhelmed and don’t activate Buzz Axe Rampage in time, you can always use the rocket launcher to get an easy second win.

COOP

Krieg is a useful companion to have and someone who serves as the tank role rather than support. He is damage-heavy, doesn’t need any healing, and you don’t have to worry about keeping him alive. Krieg’s damage potential allows him to do his own thing while being at the front of the battlefield. He also comes in handy while finishing off enemies, and this build purposefully avoids investment in the Fuel the Rampage skill that can make things harder for the team by adding friendly fire.

GEARS

Slot 1: Conference Call
Slot 2: Grog Nozzle
Slot 3: Heart Breaker
Slot 4: Norfleet
Grenade: Storm Front
Shield: Love Thumper
MOD: Rage Sickle
Relic: Strength Relic

SKILLS

Blood-filled Guns, and Embrace the Pain improve Krieg’s shotgun ability by increasing fire rate, and adding more rounds to the magazine.

Release the Beast is arguably the best skill Krieg has which allows him to turn into a badass psycho when the overall health drops below 33%. This boosts his melee damage by 100% while reducing damage intake by 50%.

Silence the Voices, Empty the Rage, and a few more skills directly increase Krieg’s melee damage so you can finish off enemies after plugging them with shotgun slugs.

PLAYSTYLE

Since we have unlocked Release the Beast, Krieg’s Buzz Axe Rampage is further buffed by his ability to turn into a badass psycho that does a crazy amount of melee damage.

So, your strategy is simple. Go head first in, and start attacking enemies, and don’t be afraid about taking damage. Once your health goes below 30%, you’ll see an exclamation point, and this is your signal to activate your skill and do an insane amount of melee, and explosive damage.

SOLO

This build improves Krieg’s survivability. He can easily hold his ground, and thanks to his modified action skill, Krieg can instantly regain health when enabling Buzz Axe Rampage. Even if you find yourself in a pickle, you can always take out your Moxxi weapons to refill your health. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen often, and Krieg’s various melee boosting skills allow him to do tons of close, and ranged damage if needed.

COOP

Since Krieg can easily hold his ground, he becomes a tank in co-op and a very valuable asset to the team. His melee potential means he can survive at the front, and take damage without the need for constant heals. Actually, being down on health is beneficial for him because of Release the Beast. The only modification for co-op is to replace Fuel the Rampage with Strip the Flesh which trades friendly fire with explosive damage.

GEARS

Slot 1: Grog Nozzle
Slot 2: Rubi
Slot 3: Interfacer
Slot 4: Kitten
Grenade: Storm Front
Shield: Love Thumper
MOD: Scream Sickle
Relic: Strength Relic

SKILLS

Release the Beast is the star of the show here because it boosts melee damage by 100% while reducing damage intake by 50%.

Additionally, Empty the Rage further boosts melee damage by 50% while your shields are down, which perfectly synergizes with Release the Beast.

Silence the Voices boosts melee damage by 250%, but has a small chance of hitting yourself, which is actually beneficial to get your health down for Release the Beast.

PLAYSTYLE

While Krieg is usually a great melee character, his Hellborn tree is severely underrated. Not only can you set yourself on fire, but everyone else has to suffer as well. It’s ideal for late-game, and everything in this build has been carefully selected to increase Krieg’s survivability while he’s on fire.

Your game plan is quite simple. You want to keep some distance, but not much, and continue to shoot everything in your sight. Everything else is practically automated thanks to this build, and you’ll reap the benefits of playing with fire with added explosions, gun damage boosts, and kill skills activating automatically. Your main goal is to keep Krieg alive, which is why we have a Grog Nozzle that self-heals to get out of the trickier situations.

SOLO

This build is perfectly viable for OP8. Yes, Krieg will set himself on fire, but the returns on that are massive. Your main action skill will barely be utilized because we aren’t making use of Krieg’s melee potential at all. Continue to shoot with your weapons, cause explosions, and move on to the next set of targets. You don’t have any specific strategy to follow here, but embrace the way of the psycho.

COOP

This is a great build for co-op play as well particularly because of Krieg’s massive explosive, and burn damage. Outside of the occasional healing requirement, Krieg can hold his ground, and provide a lot of support to teammates by taking out hordes of enemies together.

GEARS

Slot 1: Grog Nozzle
Slot 2: SWORDSPLOSION!!!
Slot 3: Murdering Orc
Slot 4: Wild Ogre
Grenade: Magic Missle
Shield: Flame of the Firehawk
MOD: Legendary Torch
Relic: Blood of the Seraphs

SKILLS

Most of the skills in the Hellborn and Bloodlust tree are important here. Burn, Baby, Burn increases burn damage by over 75% when you’re on fire yourself.

Delusional Damage, Fuel the Fire, and Flame Flare increase the self-burn duration and increase the chance of setting yourself on fire.

Elemental Elation stacks +3% fire rate, and 5% magazine size by over 20 times. Elemental Empathy heals Krieg by 25% for the damage dealt.

PLAYSTYLE

Krieg does a ridiculous amount of melee damage and this build leverages that potential to create a walking tank that’s not afraid to take a few hits. Another key part of this build is the lack of a shield charge, which synergizes with a host of your skills. While this can be a bit intimidating to play, with enough practice you’ll see its true power.

With Krieg, you want to leverage the potential of your Release the Beast skill activated when your health drops below 33% turning you into a Badass Psycho Mutant with incredible melee damage output and reduced damage intake. This means that your melee damage output has the potential to reach over 12 million per hit. Similarly, you’ll leverage explosive damage from the Bloodlust skill tree taking out anyone and anything in your path.

SOLO

As soon as you see an exclamation point next to your health, it’s time to activate Buzz Axe Rampage which boosts melee exponentially and instantly refills your health. You can easily hold your ground, and thanks to Bloodsplosion, each kill, in turn, creates subsequent explosions. In most cases, you’ll never have to switch to weapons, but throwing grenades is recommended to activate kill skills and self-induced damage.

COOP

This is a great build for co-op play because Krieg doesn’t need any additional support to stand his ground. His damage per hit is so high, and the AOE (area of effect) potential means that you can target multiple enemies at the same time. In the team, you have the tank role, and thanks to Release the Beast, you don’t need your team’s help in survivability because of self-healing.

GEARS

Slot 1: Kitten
Slot 2: Interfacer
Slot 3: Grog Nozzle
Slot 4: Florentine
Grenade: Longbow Storm Front
Shield: The Rough Rider
MOD: Legendary Sickle
Relic: Blood of the Ancients

SKILLS

The main skill of this build is Release the Beast which you can use by activating Buzz Axe Rampage when you’re health is below 33%. This one skill instantly refills health, and boosts melee damage by an additional 100%, while reducing damage intake by 50%.

n addition, skills from the Bloodlust tree either add stacks of Bloodlust or reward kill skills bonuses like increased melee damage, grenade damage, additional stacks, and more. Some notable skills include Fuel the Blood, Blood Overdrive, and Taste of Blood.

PLAYSTYLE

Do you like playing with fire? Are you tired of reading about all the melee Krieg builds? Well, this is the one for you. The build focuses on Krieg’s explosive, and burn capabilities, turning him into a fire-breathing explosive demon. The Hellborn build allows you to actually use weapons that do elemental damage, and allow Krieg to combust enemies without even engaging.

After you have everything set up in the skill trees, it’s really not that complicated to play this build. You’ll want to continue doing damage with your weapons and setting yourself on fire in the process. This activates a number of skills for Krieg where he can damage enemies in a variety of ways. Apart from your guns, Krieg will also throw out homing fireballs, cause enemies to do explosive damage upon dying, and much more!

SOLO

This is a great build for solo play because Krieg can actually use his weapons for a change. You’ll want to keep some distance between yourself and enemies, but for the most part, a lot of the stuff happening isn’t something you’re consciously doing on your own. You just have to shoot, and ensure that you’re on fire. Make good use of the action skill for some extra survivability, and movement speed, but overall, you’re relying more on the burn and explosive damage.

COOP

Similar to solo, this is a great co-op build that leverages Krieg’s gun, burn, and explosive damage. He can easily stand his ground. You don’t want to be in the face of enemies since we aren’t relying on melee damage, but rather you want to maintain some distance and allow your explosions to handle the rest. Since we didn’t invest at all in Fuel the Rampage, you don’t have to worry about friendly fire damage.

GEARS

Slot 1: Grog Nozzle
Slot 2: Peak Opener
Slot 3: Basic Omen
Slot 4: Badaboom
Grenade: Magic Missle
Shield: Flame of the Firehawk
MOD: Legendary Torch
Relic: Bone of the Ancients

SKILLS

There are tons of important skills here, particularly in the Hellborn tree.

Burn, Baby, Burn increases burn damage by over 75% when you’re on fire yourself. Delusional Damage, Fuel the Fire, and Flame Flare increase the self-burn duration and increase the chance of setting yourself on fire.

Fire Fiend improves weapon accuracy by 50%, and increases reload speed by over 35% when you’re on fire. Raving Retribution spawns homing balls that follow enemies, and explode on impact.

PLAYSTYLE

Playing melee is the preferred and most reliable way to play Krieg, and if you want to hit harder, and continue to hit harder, this build is the way to go.

When it comes to your game plan, you want to get in the face of your enemies and start attacking them with your melee weapon. Once your health falls below a certain point, you want to activate Buzz Axe Rampage, which thanks to Release the Beast turns Krieg into a badass psycho, tremendously boosting your melee damage, damage reduction, and instantly refilling your health. You can also throw your axe during this mode, which now does insane explosive damage thanks to our investment in the Bloodlust tree.

SOLO

This is an incredibly fun build for solo play because of Krieg’s damage output. You can’t hesitate here and want to constantly deal both melee and explosive damage. Play like a psycho, and you’ll have a blast, literally. If you’re worried about losing health beyond the preferred point, or if you didn’t time your action ability properly, you can always use the Grog Nozzle to get some of that health back.

COOP

While this build is perfectly viable for co-op, you might want to make a small adjustment to improve Krieg’s survivability by taking out the 2 points from Fuel the Rampage and dumping them into Redeem the Soul and Pull the Pin. Outside of that, Krieg doesn’t need any additional support because he’s a literal tank capable of holding his ground and doing a ridiculous amount of damage when placed at the front.

GEARS

Slot 1: Rustler’s Twister
Slot 2: Severe Hail
Slot 3: Grog Nozzle
Slot 4: Norfleet
Grenade: Longbow Storm Front
Shield: The Sham
MOD: Legendary Anarchist
Relic: Bone of the Ancients

SKILLS

With any melee Krieg build, Release the Beast is the star here. It boosts Krieg’s melee damage by 100%, instantly refills his entire health, reduces damage intake by 50%, and turns him into a badass psycho. What’s better, the action skill is instantly recharged afterward so you can initiate it again by taking damage.

Apart from that, Empty the Rage, Silence the Voices and Blood Overdrive further increase melee damage. While skills in the Bloodlust tree increase explosive damage.