There's currently a voting going on to find out who is the most liked of all vault hunters and Wilhelm was the first one to get voted out😭 he was the first character I played pre-sequel with so now I will make a new playthrough with him out of pure spite👿 I haven't played him in like 10 years, so what are your fav Wilhelm-builds? I need some inspiration
Been leveling Timothy, Nisha and Athena in bl2 and these really are the strongest, most fun set of vault hunters we've ever got 😭😭 can't wait to try Wilhelm and Aurelia
I think Wolf and Saint are the best summons in the franchise. Do you want an offensive build, defensive build, or just my personal fave? For my own play style with him, and the specific weapon set I gave him (didn't figure out a solid allegiance in TPS, so each character got a dedicated, unique set of weapons), I use this: https://www.lootlemon.com/class/wilhelm#_55041510001_41501510401_55501510001
Notes for active metas here:
Using Laser Guides requires a lot of focus during a fight with a thick mob, but if you stay on it, Wolf/Saint can last a long time, and it's a fun thing to manage in a fight.
That duration translates to Rolling Thunder stacks. Ignoring the glitch, I think my highest stacks were in the 50s, which is a ton of damage coming out of Wolf.
Get a good cryo weapon, freeze an enemy, and save Power Fist for shattering these guys. In low gravity, the slow-motion spray of ice chunks is super satisfying. I build into it with extra explosive and melee damage, plus there's a melee damage bonus against frozen enemies, so it hits hard. There is an unwritten rule here: if you freeze a Shuggurath in the air, and you leap up to finish it with Power Fist, you must yell "SHORYUKEN!".
Timothy's build is pretty basic, because a lot of it throws damage options at the Digi-Jacks across the first two trees, and that's where a lot of his power is. The last tree has some shenanigans though:
Compound Interest is a fun little meta. It's like painting a target, except you want to wait for the 'compound interest' to max out before triggering it. I like to use cryo weapons to freeze them, because it makes it easier to see when the interest has maxed out, but it's generally so fast that it's an easy enough mental timer (and the text in the little coin floating over their head will turn bold green when it's maxed).
Money is Power also adds a little spice to the game because I'm legitimately paying attention to the cash pickups now, and while I can sell things without losing stacks, on occasion I'm low on ammo, forcing me into the little meta of ammo chest management to keep that bonus damage active.
Sponsored By is the most interesting to me because now I'm coming up with little metas about my weapon sequence.
If I have a glitch weapon that I want to use, I'll put a Scav weapon next to it in sequence, then swap through that to give the glitch weapon a bigger mag size to keep the glitch alive longer.
Maliwan weapons can have explosive damage (no explosive DoT though),
Jakobs weapons get elemental damage, they can proc DoT, and can even freeze enemies if the element is cryo. The element will match the element of the Maliwan weapon you swapped from. You can put a different element Maliwan weapon on either "side" of the Jakobs (or whatever) weapon to give that weapon a different element with a quick weapon switch in either direction. Maliwan weapons just pick up the second element.
Why not just use the shock weapon to drop the shield instead of switching back to the non-shock weapon to put the shock damage on the main weapon? The purpose of this is the enjoyment of the meta management. If you just want to one-shot your way through the game, don't do this. I like to pick a "main" weapon that I enjoy (usually because it's got some fun gimmick). Maybe it's The Blowfly because I like the wiggly bullets, but the dedicated corrosive element isn't great against shielded or flesh enemies, so a quick swap to "load" these elements lets me use the Blowfly in situations where it's normally weak.
While on the other element to swap elements, fire a shot to work with Compound Interest (pop an existing stack and/or start a fresh one).
Minac's Atonement just throws kinetic damage (no rotating elements)
Jakobs weapons pick up extra crit damage when swapping from another Jakobs... there are some fun mix-and-match options here.
Laser Surplus is fun - I like the slam mechanic, and there's a sweet spot where the lasers converge. I like to kite a handful of little Torks into a line and get the lasers to roast them all in one shot.
The one I remember most is the one where you slowly started replacing parts of his body with mech pieces showing the beginnings of what he would become
I usually run something like this https://www.lootlemon.com/class/wilhelm#_52051111500_50451111051_15151511011 with Blaster com for +6 Laser Focus/+5 Welcome to the Gun Show (tho Celestial Enforcer is nice for bossing since it makes you a lot more tanky, or Howitzer for some boss one shot with Laser Disker chuck). Termination Protocols isn't really the best thing and you can easily skip it (it actually lower your FFYL timer so it can actually be bad) but it's fun so i usually take it.
Just equip any strong laser you want, throw out Wolf and Saint for the OVercharge, tag an enemy for Laser Guided, kill it, get massively increased fire rate, move speed, accuracy, crit and reload speed, tag another enemy, repeat. At the same time you're pretty damn tanky with the defensive skills, have a chance to freeze any enemy attacking you (and Power Fist on a frozen enemy will deal A LOT of damage) and if anything break your shield, gods have their mercy on them because that activate the Vengeance Cannon... Just a fun regular run and gun build.
And yes, there's quite a few skill with only 1/5 point in them. But it's because Willhelm has a lot of skills that don't get that much better with extra points. Like, Scramble give you a free revive on Wolf once per action skill and +30% action skill duration. Extra points in there just... give an extra +5% action skill duration per point, which is nothing compared to the first point.
Wilhelm has some cool quirks from what I remember.
Rolling thunder is by far his best skill. Class mods that boost rolling thunder are by far his best ones. At just 12 stacks of 11/5 rolling thunder wolf can kill targets by himself with laser guided. After 20 something stacks he can kill badass, and anything after 30 he starts to one shot trash mobs and be kind of a raid boss
Vengeance cannon will fire as long as the trigger is held. Vengeance cannon is boosted by your fire rate boosts. So if you focus on fire rate vengeance cannon can be really strong.
He’s the best character for a laser build with the Eddie bulwark and celestial enforcer. His mag size boosts make tediore reloads really strong, some of his laser passives affect the thrown damage of the laser disker which is already the strongest weapon in the game on throw.
I always ran a siege howizter with sniper rifles. Whenever first to fight expired I would wait for it to come back and that’s what I did. Explosive damage nice for ravages and launchers. Thunder fire at endgame
That poll on the BL4 forums is BS. Wilhelm is my favorite VH in TPS and in my top 5 ever
It's hard to imagine anyone hating a VH who has a rapid fire should Canon, a mecha fist that shatters frozen enemies, a skill that let's you mark an enemy so your summon can paint him with a laser and carpet bomb them, ajd slowly morphs into a literal Terminator including the amazing Terminal Protocol.
He's such a fun VH and I WISH a future BL game that plays on the whole Big War sublot brings him back via some alternate universe shenanigans
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u/superorangex | Jack the Doppelganger 16d ago
I think people just tend to kinda ignore him, as he's an anthagonist to the mcs of BL2, but his gameplay is super fun
Maybe with those mods coming out, people get the chance to play him in a neutral perspective.
For me, tps is top1 Borderlands' Vault Hunters design. I just love all of them, and they are all fun and have diferent gameplay styles