I'll probably change this picture later.

So, how are you all doing? Been a while, hasn't it?

Originally this guide was going to come out much earlier; around January, to be specific. Seeing this is coming out in May, maybe I should explain the schedule slip.

Basically, I went back to BL2 around December because, among other things, there wasn't really enough to do at the endgame, thanks in part to how the number of farmable bosses could be counted on one hand. Since then, though, TPS has changed - respawnable enemies are back, Claptastic Voyage added a whole lot of much-needed content, we've recently had the drop rates for Legendaries multiplied by three, and a good number of bug fixes on top of it. And TPS is all the better for that.

There's some other reasons involved too (Me trying to do more TF2, getting a new computer, discovering Touhou, general laziness, etc.), but my point is that the game's improved enough since then for me to start working on these again, so you should start seeing some TPS guides coming out from here on out.* And to start these things off, here's a build I've been running in some form ever since I hit Level 50 for the first time on Athena.



* - Just don't expect them to come out very fast.

Our main set of gear. Note that, while most bosses can respawn now, there's still a lot of gear without a set drop source.


SLOT ONE: Fire Hail

Drops from Iwajira in Serenity's Waste
Preferred Prefixes: Rabid (+Damage and Fire Rate, -Accuracy), Hot (No accessory; only if it has a Vladof grip)
Ideal Parts: Vladof grip, Dahl stock
"What playthings can you offer me today?" - Always elemental. Shots are fired in an arc, splitting in two at it's peak. Addtionally, 2% of all damage dealt while holding this weapon will be returned to you as health.
I have a bit of a history with the Hail. Back in BL2, it was actually the weapon that helped me finish UVHM for the first time. Since then, it's been one of my go-to weapons for general chaos, and now it's made the jump to the moon.

Really, this thing is about as close to a perfect gun for Athena as you can get - always elemental, high fire rate, huge crit bonus (On a class with no skills that affect it, no less), unaffected by accuracy penalties, builds Maelstrom stacks at stupidly high speeds, health regen... the only thing that holds it back are the arcing shots, and even then it's easier to get over it than you'd think.

In short, GET IT.


SLOT TWO: Hyperion Shotguns

Drops from Anywhere
Preferred Prefixes: Practicable/Enforceable (+2 Pellets), Critical/Decisive (+Critical Damage)
Ideal Parts: Hyperion grip and stock, Critical Luneshine
Barring anything with red text, shotguns are the best weapons for building Maelstrom, since every pellet that connects adds a stack. Hyperion also happens to make the best shotguns (With Torgue being a close second). Thus, Hyperion shotguns are some of Athena's best weapons for stacking Maelstrom. You've also got a good range of choices here, though ideally you'll probably want two of these - one for general mobbing (Single-barreled) and one for bosses (Quad-barreled).

(Side Note: There's actually two kinds of Hyperion weaponry; New Hyperion (Which excels at everything but damage) and Old Hyperion (Which excels at nothing but damage). Both can work out in the end, but New is preferred. You can tell the two apart by whether or not the gun in question has yellow in it's color scheme - if it does, it's New Hyperion.)


SLOT THREE: Thunderfire

Drops from Despair in The Subconscious
Preferred Prefixes: None? (Only Hyperion lasers seem to spawn with accessories)
Ideal Parts: Mailwan grip, Dahl stock
"Light 'em up." - Always shock, with reduced fire rate. Upon hitting something (Enemies, surfaces, etc.), shots explode into a small fire nova. Consumes two ammo per shot.
The Thunderfire is one of only two weapons in the entire game to deal two elemental types simultaneously, the other being the Frostfire. Unlike the Frostfire, however, this is actually a good gun (And obtainable beyond Normal Mode, as well). Unsurprisingly, having shock and fire on the same gun can stack up Maelstrom quite fast. It also consumes twice as much ammo compared to other Blasters, though that's probably the price of having two elements on one gun (Besides, our skill trees can take care of that issue).


SLOT FOUR: Badaboom

Drop Source Unknown
Preferred Prefixes: Heap'd (+Damage), Clever (+Reload)
Ideal Parts: Scav grip, Togure/Vladof exhaust, Tediore scope, Shield-Bypass Lunshine
"Multi-kill." - Fires six minirockets instead of the three seen on normal Scav rockets. Reduced accuracy.
Likely the strongest launcher you can get your hands on. It's also surprisingly ammo-efficent, dealing more damage with one rocket than it's closest competitor (The Nukem) does with two. This is important because, when you have an ammo pool as small of the rockets, you'll want as much mileage as you can get out of it.


SHIELD: Black Hole

Drops from the Invincible Sentinel in Eleseer
Possible Resistances: Shock
"You are the center of the universe." - Always shock. Upon being depleted, nearby enemies are pulled towards you before firing the nova. A complete recharge is needed before another nova can be fired.
This is what happens when you turn a Quasar into a shield. Granted, there's no tesla effect involved, but you probably get my point. Anything that gets sucked into nova range is likely going to die, and if they don't, they'll at least be in close range for your guns.


GRENADE: Storm Front

Drop Source Unknown
Preferred Traits: Lobbed/Longbow, 0.0 Fuse Time
"Sometimes lightning DOES strike twice." - Always shock. Upon exploding, it releases several child teslas, MIRV style. These children can stick to walls and other surfaces.
It's basically a grenade that, after the initial explosion, is quite literally nothing but DoTs upon DoTs upon DoTs. When you have to electrocute everything as fast as possible in as wide a range as possible, you can't get much better than this.


CLASS MOD: Celestial Gladiator

Drops from Invincible Sentinel? (Needs Confirmation)
"Sitrap: We're gonna kick some a$$." - Provides bonuses for six skills instead of three. Additionally, putting up the Aspis causes your shield to start recharging.
While it only gives bonus for two damage-related skills (Gun Kata and Gathering Tempest), this COM makes up for it by powering up our support side (Vanguard, Hold the Line, Clarity of Purpose, and Conduit) to ensure we live long enough to use it. If nothing else, having your shield start recharging upon putting up the Aspis will probably save your hide a couple of times.


OZ KIT: Tranquility

Drops form Anywhere
Preferred Elements: Fire (Meteoric), Shock (Voltaic), Cryo (Arctic)
This little device, aside from supplying you with Oxygen, also increases your gun damage as long as you have some to spare. While not quite as useful in a vacuum, O2 tanks are still frequent enough to keep damage high and you from suffocating.

The element can be whichever you'd prefer to work with; I prefer a cryo version so I can freeze things if I need it.

This stuff can be used if you can't get your hands on the main gear. Will be expanded further in the future.


Torrent

Drops from Meg in the Hub of Heroism
Preferred Prefixes: Stopping (+Damage), Flying (+Fire rate)
Ideal Parts: Dahl grip and stock, Critical Luneshine
"Spray it to slay it." - Very high fire rate for an SMG, particularly for a Dahl one. Increased damage and mag size, with reduced recoil and increased accuracy while hip-firing. Can't spawn with a sight.
That Dahl made one of the best SMGs in the game is quite a surprise. That said weapon is one of the best for a character who works best with hip-firing (Something Dahl doesn't work well with) is even more so. But the Torrent is actually pretty great, mostly because it lacks most of the stuff holding Dahl SMGs back - higher fire rate, better damage, accuracy, etc. Thus, you have a Dahl weapon that's actually good on Athena.

Now, if only more Dahl SMGs were like this.


Hellfire

Drops from RK5 in Outfall Pumping Station
Preferred Prefixes: Consummate (+Damage), Impetuous (+Fire rate)
Ideal Parts: Maliwan grip, Dahl stock, Critical Luneshine
"We don't need no fire..." - Always fire, with increased elemental chance, damage, and mag size. 50% splash bonus.
So let's talk about the splash bonus. This basically means one bullet hits twice - one from the shot itself, the other from the splash. Each hit can also proc a status effect, which in turn makes the stacks come rolling in.


Moxxi's Vibra-Pulse

Found in Moxxi's Toybox during "Home Sweet Home"
Preferred Prefixes: N/A
Ideal Parts: N/A
"Why not turn me on?" - Always shock, with fixed parts. Shots have a chance to chain over to nearby enemies. 1.5% of all damage dealt while holding this weapon is returned to you as health.
One of a few weapons you're always going to run into at least once during the story, and one of three to provide a health return for damage (The other two are the Hail and a mission item pistol), with a chain-lightning effect to boot.

So with effects like that and how easy it is to grab one, why isn't it on the main list? In comparison to the other lasers (Primarily the Thunderfire), the overall damage is a little on the low side, limiting the potential returns. It's still great for support, though.


Thorny Ol' Rosie

Mission Reward for "The Beginning of the End"
Preferred Prefixes: N/A
Ideal Parts: N/A
"Every thorn has it's rose." - Always spawns with fixed parts. Higher-than-average bonus to continuous fire.
Yes, the continuous-fire bonus isn't what it used to be, but it's still much larger than what you'll find on any of the other Maliwan lasers. And like the Vibra-Pulse, you're always going to run into this during the story at least once (In TVHM onward, at least).


Prismatic Bulwark

Drops from Colonel Zarpedon in the Eye of Helios/Sentinel in Eleseer
Possible Resistances: None
"Full spectrum." - High chance to absorb incoming lasers, high resistance to the ones that aren't absorbed, and increases damage damage dealt by your own lasers.
Even if we aren't maining lasers, this is good just because so many of the mooks you'll encounter have lasers. Throw on top of that the generally great stats, and you've got something good for just about everyone.


Haymaker

Mission Reward for "Dahl Combat Training: Round Five"
Possible Resistances: Technically all of them, due to being an Adaptive Shield; albeit only one at a time
"Return to Sender." - Large health bonus. Flavors melee attacks with the last damage type you were hit with (i.e. Getting hit with corrosive causes your melee attacks to deal bonus corrosive damage).
An odd shield, sounding more like something out of a melee build than an elemental one. Though this may not be a bad thing, since some of the skills we chose include melee damage. Now try that when your melee attacks are flavored to an element your enemies are vulnerable to...


Quasar

Drops from Felicity Rampant in the Titan Robot Plant
Preferred Traits: Longbow/Lobbed, 0.0 fuse time
"E=MC^(OMG)/wtf" - Always shock. Significantly larger range than other singularities. Acts like a tesla grenade between the singularity and the final explosion.
This, if placed well, can potentially out-damage a Storm Front because enemies can't walk out of it, can be better on mobs but not as good on large slow moving bosses. It also works nicely with Wrath of the Goddess and Zeus' Rage, by getting all the mooks into one small area.


Surging Storm COM

Drops from Anywhere
Preferred Bonuses: +6 Unrelenting, +5 Storm Weaving
This one mostly pops up to speed up boss fights, since you'll want to get above 700 stacks (The minimum needed to not consume any ammo) as soon as possible. It can work as a general purpose COM, though you'll probably have to move some points around as needed.


Bomber OZ Kit

Drops from Anywhere
Preferred Elements: Fire (Meteoric), Shock (Voltaic), Cryo (Arctic)
You can throw free Storm Fronts. Need I say more?

Skills in BOLD are considered cornerstones. That being said, feel free to make adjustments otherwise.

Level 60 Version

• Ephodos, Vanguard - Gun damage, movement speed and health regen when the Aspis is up, which should be rather frequently.
  
• Hold the Line - Extends the time we can have Ephodos and Vanguard active, along with the window to get stacks of Glory.
  
• Prismatic Aegis - It's worded a bit confusingly, so I'll explain - without modification, the Aspis can only deal two types of damage, explosive and whatever element it was hit with last (i.e, If hit with shock then acid, it will only store the acid). This skill makes it so that you can store ALL the elements separately, increasing the effective damage cap by five.
  
• United Front - Every hit the Aspis takes goes to help out anyone you're playing with. Also great for tanking in solo play.
  
  (Quick Warning: If you do co-op frequently, remember to ask your partners if they rely on their shields being down (Like Melee Athenas). This skill can be detrimental to them, and it's worth knowing that before you get kicked for taking away someone's roid bonus too much.)
  
• Clear! - This might just be my favorite support skill in the entire Borderlands series. Firstly, the game considers a thrown Aspis to be a grenade, meaning it doesn't have to hit a downed player to get them back up. Building on that, having Wrath of the Goddess means you potentially revive your entire team upon throwing it (You included). Secondly, that damage bonus? It applies to everything, including the Aspis if you went down holding it.
  
• Prepare for Glory - Athena's version of Wreck. Minus the fire rate bonuses, anyway. The agro-draw that comes with it is great for co-op, since it not only takes the heat off your friends, it also means you'll get more stacks.
  
• Wrath of the Goddess - The true power of this skill lays not in the damage potential, but in all the synergies with our other skills - between Wrath of the Goddess, Prismatic Aegis, Clear!, and Zeus' Rage, the Aspis has become a giant ricocheting rocket that can explode up to 5 times in potentially every element and possibly revive people, all the while building Maelstrom stacks and leaving storms of fire and shock wherever it hits.
  
  Sounds great, doesn't it?

• Gun Kata - Can you really argue against more gun damage? Because you can't. So don't try.
  
• Clarity of Purpose - You might as well throw a point in; it'll help you get by a little longer and our COM's offering a nice bonus.
  
• Omega-Senshu - For those of you who played Maya back on BL2, think of this as Reaper, only on enemies with low health. As with Reaper, this bonus is applied to everything.

• Maelstrom - The main source of our damage, both directly (The bonus to all elemental damage) and indirectly (How it powers a number of our other skills). Think of it like Krieg's Bloodlust mechanic from BL2, only with a lot of elemental flavoring. And much like Bloodlust, it is amazing.
  
• Storm Weaving - It's required to move down, but at least it's still pretty good, what with the fire rate and all. It also sets up some of the skills further down the tree.
  
• Gathering Tempest - Makes reloads less frequent, and makes them faster when they do happen.
  
• Conduit - At 6/5, and assuming we have about 200 stacks on average, the regen rate on this is about 24% every second. Makes for quite a bit of shield-tanking, along with quickly recharging shields that need the be completely full for their bonuses (Like nova shields).
  
• Smite - You're a goddess, smiting people is part of the job.
  
• Zeus' Rage - Throwing the Aspis causes a rather large storm of fire and shock wherever it hits, damaging anything within the radius. With Wrath of the Goddess, you get FIVE of these things going. Needless to say, if you've soaked up enough damage before throwing it, not much is going to come out alive. If you didn't, you still get a lot of stacks for your trouble.
  
• Unrelenting, Elemental Barrage - These two could have their own entries here, but they kinda go hand in hand with each other. At 5/5 in Elemental Barrage, and assuming we have about 200 stacks on average, you have about a 50% to not use up ammo. That in itself is nothing to ignore, but triggering Unrelenting with the same amount of stacks also increases your fire rate by about 60%, without eating up as much ammo in the process. And keep in mind you're still building Maelstrom while these two are active, increasing the rate you can build it and increasing the bonuses of both skills even further.
  
  It becomes even more powerful against bosses, where you can easily achieve 999 stacks. At that point, we're talking about increasing our fire rate by nearly 400%, without consuming ANY ammo whatsoever.
  
  Sal would be proud. Just remember to swap weapons every couple seconds or so.

• Rend - It's not a bad skill, we're just going to be doing more shooting than slashing. Feel free to move a point here if you want though, particularly if you're using a Haymaker.
  
• Hades' Shackles - While this skill can stack faster than anything if used correctly, using it correctly involves killing any tethered enemies and triggering Overload. We don't have Overload, thus rendering Shackles more trouble than it's worth.

Normal Mode
You really won't have much damage to work with early on... at least, you wouldn't if Maelstrom wasn't one of the first skills up for grabs after your action skill. Seriously, get Maelstrom, you won't regret it.

• Level 3 - Aspis. Because you really have no choice.
  
• Levels 4-9 - Maelstrom, Ephodos 5/5
  
• Levels 10-14 - Vanguard and Hold the Line. If you can do so, try to find a COM that boosts one or both of these, that way you can split the points between them. If you can't, prioritize whichever you find more appealing.
  
• Levels 15-16 - Prismatic Aegis, Clear!
  
• Levels 17-21 - United Front 5/5
  
• Levels 22-27 - Prepare for Glory 5/5, Wrath of the Goddess
  
• Levels 28-31 - Storm Weaving 4/4

True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM)
By this point, you should be capable of face-rolling with your Aspis, and have set up the basis for the rest of Ceruanic Storm. From here, it's just a matter of staying on the move, finding new gear as you level, and remembering to swap weapons every now and then.

• Levels 32-36 - Gathering Tempest 5/5
  
• Levels 37-38 - Smite, Zeus' Rage
  
• Levels 39-44 - 1/5 Conduit, 5/5 Elemental Barrage
  
• Levels 45-48 - 4/5 Unrelenting
  
• Levels 49-50 - 1/5 Gun Kata and Clarity of Purpose

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM)
Before you head into here, I suggest you grind up a Celestial Gladiator COM. You can still get through without it, but you could use the bonuses if provides. Either way, expect to do the same things you did in TVHM.

• Levels 51-55 - 1/5 Unrelenting, 4/5 Gun Kata
  
• Levels 56-50 - 5/5 Omega-Senshu

And as a bonus, here's some gear to be on the lookout for while you level:

• Most fire/shock SMGs and Blasters, to make the list shorter.
  
• Maliwan Beams
  
• Hyperion Shotguns
  
• Vladof Pistols
  
• Vladof ARs
  
• Torgue Launchers
  
• Scav shotguns
  
• Scav Launchers
  
• Spike Shields
  
• Nova Shields
  
• Adaptive Shields
  
• AoE Grenades
  
• Transfusion Grenades
  
• Protector COMs
  
• Dominator COMs
  
• Precision Strike OZ Kit
  
• Juggernaut OZ Kit
  
• Bomber OZ Kit
  
• Strafing Run OZ Kit
  
• Cyber Eagle ("The Secret Chamber")
  
• Moonface ("Red, Then Dead")
  
• Mining Laser ("Infinite Loop" - Disable CLAP-9000)
  
• Asteroid Belt ("Guardian Hunter" - Kill Master Poacher)
  
• Invigoration OZ Kit ("Land Amongst the Stars")
  
• Octo ("Lab 19")
  
• Firestarta ("Torgue-o! Torgue-o!" - Turn in to Janey)
  
• Fridgia ("In Perfect Hibernation")
  
• Systems Purge ("Eradicate!" - Destroy CLP-L3K)
  
• Vibra-Pulse (Moxxi's Toybox)
  
• Slammer (Moxxi's Toybox)
  
• Boganella ("Another Pickle")

Any questions you might have will be going here. Will probably be updated as they come in.

Honestly, Level 60 in TPS reminds me of Level 72 in BL2 - build variety is still there, but it's really taking a dive. Level 70 in TPS goes a step further by making it possible to get all three capstones, killing any build variety that was still around by then. And I dunno about you, but I LIKE build variety.

That said, here's an idea of what I'd go for at Level 70.[thepresequel.com]

That's about it.

You can go now.

• Lootology 101, for finding out more about the gear to get.[forums.gearboxsoftware.com]
  
• The Borderlands Wiki, for general reference.[borderlands.wikia.com]

• All screenshots taken by Edo the 309th
  
• Guide Format belongs to CDTRim
  
• Guide thumbnail belongs to The-Other-User of DA[the-other-user.deviantart.com]
  
• Athena and The Pre-Sequel belong to Gearbox Software
  
• Steam Guides belong to Valve

No stinger for you.