Of the four Vault Hunters in Borderlands 3, Moze is my favorite and also one of the strongest in the game. She can be frustrating, mostly due to the fact Iron Bear isn’t so hot at endgame, but also because there are so many ways to play her and I want to play them all!
I’ve spent a ton of time farming and tinkering with my Moze build over the last week or so and I’ve now put together something that allows me to get everything the character offers in a single build. Infinite ammo? Check. Nigh invulnerable? Check! Tons of damage and explosions? CHECK! Even Iron Bear is (mostly) usable. Read on for the only Moze build you’ll ever need.
SKILLS
For this build, you’ll be focusing on the Bottomless Mags (Green) and Demolition Woman (Blue) skill trees. Rushin’ Offensive vs. Some For the Road in Bottomless Mags is purely preference. I personally haven’t found the need for the five seconds of infinite ammo with the guns that I use, so I go with Rushin’ Offensive, but it’s up to you. If you don’t care for all the Iron Bear stuff in this build, you can grab both by taking the point out of Specialist Bear and putting it into Some For the Road.
The real goal here with Bottomless Mags is to get to Forge for the practically infinite ammo it provides. I’m not a huge fan of Bottomless Mags as it doesn’t offer much beyond the ammo gain, but this build will give you everything Moze has to offer through a combination of skills and gear and going down Bottomless Mags is the easiest way to get to infinite ammo.
While Bottomless Mags gives Moze her infinite ammo, it’s Demolition Woman that will make her nigh invincible. But what about Shield of Retribution? I thought that was the best way to make Moze tanky? Nah. You won’t need it. Before we get into that though, you’ll note that I’ve taken Iron Bear specific skills to work my way down the tree, but these are purely preference just as they were in Bottomless Mags. Iron Bear does work quite well in this build, but if you don’t care for it just switch out the Deadlines and Grizzled Bear points for Fire in the Skag Den and the Stainless Steel Bear points for Torgue Cross-Promotion.
The real stars of Demolition Woman for this build are Means of Destruction, Pull the Holy Pin, and Vampyr.
Means of Destruction will contribute to your goal of infinite ammo and will give you practically infinite grenades.
Pull the Holy Pin grants your grenades a huge chance to crit, which allows them to deal insane amounts of damage. You can pretty much forego guns entirely with this build and just toss nades to your heart’s content, but that’s not my aim here.
Vampyr is what will make you a walking god. With five points spent here you’ll restore 20% of your health with each enemy hit. This sounds incredible at face value, but it’ll get even better once we get to items.
Oh, and don’t forget the one point in Security Bear in Shield of Retribution. If you’re not into Iron Bear, feel free to spend it on preference. Personally, I’d go for Auto Bear. You’re going to be getting in and out of Iron Bear often for anointed gear bonuses anyways, so you may as well get something out of him even if you don’t want to use him actively.
GEAR
Weapons:
Slot 1: Lucian’s Call (World Drop)
Slot 2: Lyuda (World Drop or Complete Zer0’s bounties)
Slot 3: Preference
Slot 4: Preference
Weapons are mostly preference. There are some standouts like Lucian’s Call and Lyuda, particularly Lucian’s Call with this build as the huge mag size will easily give you infinite ammo with Forge. Lyuda is the best sniper rifle in the game and it’s insane for blowing up bosses if you can hit their weak points. Beyond that, if you’re just looking for the best of the best, some great options are King’s/Queen’s Call which can be farmed off of the final boss and the Butcher, a shotgun world drop. This list is not remotely exhaustive. There’s tons of great guns in Borderlands 3.
Shield: The Transformer (World Drop)
We’re going to be stacking shields in this build like we’re playing Shield of Retribution Moze, only without having to spend the points (more on that soon). The Transformer gives you plenty of shields and more importantly, it gives you 100% Shock resistance. The reason Shield of Retribution works as well as it does is Vladof Ingenuity negates the weakness to Shock damage a shield build would normally have by providing ample Shock resistance. With the Transformer, you’ll get that benefit without having to spend skill points on it. This shield also restores shields when taking Shock damage, which comes as an added benefit when we use our Grenade mod, which is…
Grenade: Storm Front or Recurring/MIRV/MIRV-Tacular Hex (World Drop)
Storm Front is a Shock grenade that will spawn several child grenades when thrown. If you’re caught within the radius, the Shock damage will heal your shields if you’re using the Transformer. I personally go with Recurring Hex. It doesn’t give me the extra shield restore but I find Radiation (the element my Hex came in) to be more broadly useful and it also seems to do more raw damage. All Hex grenades home in on enemies and if you get it in the Recurring or various MIRV variations, it’ll spawn child grenades just like Storm Front. You can get anywhere from two to six child grenades out of a Hex depending on the variation. Each child grenade will proc Vampyr, making it useful in keeping you alive even on single targets!
Artifact: Deathless (World Drop)
This legendary Artifact will reduce your HP to 1, but double your shields in exchange. It will also give you a bonus to shield recharge rate and delay, but those aren’t super important for this build. This gives you most of the crazy shields you’d get from putting points into Shield of Retribution without, well, having to put points in Shield of Retribution (notice a trend here?)
Class Mod: Bloodletter (World Drop)
This is the glue that brings the entire build together to give you an all-in-one Moze. Bloodletter is a Shield of Retribution class mod that converts sources of healing or regeneration into shield restoration and shield regeneration. Now, when you toss grenades your Vampyr procs will heal your massive shields (20% per proc!) and the Transformer will guard you against your weakness to Shock damage. The result is that you’re effectively invincible.
On top of that, Bloodletter grants bonuses to Thin Red Line, Phalanx Doctrine and Desperate Measures. Ideally, we want all five points split between Phalanx Doctrine and Desperate Measures. This will give you access to two of the three best skills in Shield of Retribution without having to spend a point in the tree. You’ll gain the infinitely stacking +shields/+gun damage of Phalanx Doctrine and due to your 1 HP you’ll gain full benefits from Desperate Measures at all times, which comes out to a permanent +33-50% gun damage bonus depending on how your points are distributed on your Bloodletter class mod.
Iron Bear: Vanquisher Rockets
I’ve spent considerable time testing every configuration of Iron Bear possible to try and make him useful and I’ve concluded that Vanquisher Rockets are your best bet here. Plain vanilla Vanquisher Rockets, no upgrades. These do significant damage even on Mayhem 3 and don’t drain tons of fuel. If you pick up all the other points I took for Iron Bear in this build, he’ll be tough enough to hang even in Mayhem 3 as long as he doesn’t attacked in melee range. If you just want the most optimal delete-everything-in-seconds version of this build, forego the Iron Bear stuff for my other recommendations, but if you’ve been looking for a way to make Iron Bear work, give these points and Vanquisher Rockets a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
And there you have it. Using a combination of skill points and gear you can get everything Moze has to offer all in a single build. Give it a shot and let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
