Pyrocaustic Pete the Ultra Invincible

Pyrocaustic Pete is the best Raid Boss. This is agreed upon by everyone in the entire world.  He’s the most fun to fight and drops the most Seraph crystals/gear, and more importantly he shoots ketchup and relish from giant goddamn cannons strapped to his arms. We’re here to help you on your way to a celebratory tribal dance, but first a quick completely made up official quote from Gearbox Software:

Let’s first call him “Pyro Pete”, then at the end of the story let’s rename him “Pyro Pete the Invincible” until his shields are depleted, then we’ll rename him again to “Pyrocaustic Pete the Ultra Invincible” for the rest of the fight. This will in no way cause mass unnecessary confusion within community-driven Wikis and tutorials. Hahaha!

ALPHA METHOD – Nola’s Hawk Nuke

Works with: Salvador (Gunzerker)
Gear rarity: very high
Approx. time: 10 to 15 seconds
Required items: Nukem launcher, Sand Hawk SMG, The Bee shield
Optional items: Any Slag grenade, Shock/Dahl relic

Take a look as Nola dispatches ol’ Petey in just 11 seconds:

Bang! Zoom! …The fuck?

Weapon #1 – Nukem (derp Damage/Mag variant)
Weapon #2 – Sand Hawk (Stopping Shock variant)
Weapon #3 – <empty>
Weapon #4 – <empty>
Shield – The Bee (Alkaline Corrosion variant)
Class Mod – Raider (Auspicious variant)
Grenade Mod – Bouncing Bonny (Sticky Lobbed Slag variant)
Relic – Elemental (Shock Damage variant)
Build – Gunzerker (32 Gunlust, 12 Rampage, 0 Brawn)

Breakin’ it down: Just before he begins recording, Nola has entered and exited Gunzerker mode to activate the Keep It Piping Hot and All I Need is One skills, giving him a massive boost to Gun, Grenade, and Melee Damage, and in particular another 40% Damage boost to his next shot fired. He then throws down some Bouncing Bonnies to cover a large area with Slag, runs straight for the valve that releases Spiderants and quickly reloads, activating Locked And Loaded, increasing his Fire Rate. The helpless creatures turn to dust beneath a double Nukem blast, activating the star of the show, No Kill Like Overkill: “Any excess damage dealt to an enemy that kills them is transferred to the next enemy fired at.” Without any additional skills/ranks, the derp variant of the Nukem does around 400,000 damage on its own. Now look at the Gunzerker build. Now look back here. You see where this is going? Nola switches to the Sand Hawk – again activating All I Need Is One – and unloads a single clip into Pete, blasting him the fuck to pieces. On top of his quadruple-skill activation, The Bee also increases the damage of each Sand Hawk projectile by around 46,000 each, creating a situation that makes the mathematicians at Gearbox work harder than ever before. No Pete like dead Pete.

BETA METHOD #1 – Beehawk, Master Projectile

Works with: all classes
Gear rarity: high
Approx. time: 30 to 60 seconds
Required items: Sand Hawk SMG, The Bee shield
Optional items: Decent Slag grenade, ammo/damage Dahl relic, Shock relic

This is the way most of your smug colleagues defeat Pete. Very impressive looking but deceptively simple, the Beehawk method is a fan favorite after the Great Nerfing of 2012. Here’s Black Rice with an Assassin kill:

Swoopin’ an’ stingin’

Weapon #1 – Sand Hawk (Flying variant)
Weapon #2 – Sand Hawk (Flying Shock variant)
Weapon #3 – Irrelevant
Weapon #4 – Irrelevant
Shield – The Bee (Alkaline Corrosion variant)
Class Mod – Legendary Hunter
Grenade Mod – Storm Front (Longbow variant)
Relic – Allegiance (Dahl Recoil/Mag variant)
Build – Assassin (17 Sniping, 26 Cunning, 2 Bloodshed)

Black Rice makes light work using this popular tactic. He begins by throwing down Kunais and Slagging Pete, rendering him ripe for a Shock Sand Hawk barrage to his shields, each projectile being individually buffed by The Bee. This is because, post “Bee Nerf”, all Amp Damage is divided equally between multiplier pellets, however weapons such as the Hawk, Lyuda and Pitchfork do not have pellets listed on their gun card, and instead shoot lines of projectiles as part of their main design. In simple terms, these bastards still work with The Bee’s ridiculous zero-drain Amp ability. After Pete’s shield is down, Black Rice switches out to a second, non-elemental Sand Hawk with a slightly higher damage and throws more K-K-K-Kunais for that all important Slag. A few ammo clips later and Pete takes a Beehawk-induced nap in his own filth.

Maya (Siren) – Maya, the most useless of all Vault Hunters, can achieve this exciting murder in under 50 seconds, as seen here by WarDaHi. A Legendary Siren Class Mod combines with a Cataclysm build to maximize what little the Siren can bring to the DPS table. Still, she gets the job done, and maybe you can use some of Pete’s loot to gear up a more badass class.

Salvador (Gunzerker) –  [additional content required – stay tuned]

Zer0 (Assassin) – see above

Gaige (Mechromancer) – [additional content required – stay tuned]

Axton (Commando) – [additional content required – stay tuned]

BETA METHOD #2 – Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold Grind Of Pain And Suffering

Works with: all classes
Gear rarity: high
Approx. time: 2 to 4 minutes
Required items: Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold pistol
Optional items: Any Slag/Shock grenade, Slagga SMG, any powerful launcher

Up to 4 minutes to do anything is a long time, but it works. Below is WorDaHi with Maya, using the core Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold to whittle down Pete’s health as we watch in horror for goddamn ages:

DPUH GOPAS OMG ZZZ

Weapon #1 – Norfleet (Puissant Shock variant)
Weapon #2 –  Unkempt Harold (Double Penetrating x2 variant)
Weapon #3 – Irrelevant
Weapon #4 – Irrelevant
Shield – The Sham (94% Absorb Chance)
Class Mod – Legendary Siren
Grenade Mod – Storm Front (Longbow variant)
Relic – Sheriff’s Badge
Build – Siren (15 Motion, 4 Harmony, 26 Catalyst)

This one’s painful to explain. The idea is to find a DPUH, equip that DPUH, and then fire it at Pete over and over again until he explodes from a death-related death. Because of its speed and damage, it works effectively with Maya’s Phaselock ability – a heavy Cataclysm build allows Ruin to Slag Pete for large amounts of time, thus replacing the typical Slag grenade with a Shock Storm Front to deal with his shields and the trash mobs. WarDaHi chooses everyone’s best friend the Norfleet for blasting large initial holes in Pete’s exterior. Maya will require a very powerful Shock weapon because she can’t do shit in under 5 minutes without one, so bring a good launcher. A bonus is to have the Sheriff’s Badge for its increases to Pistol output. As you can see, WarDaHi makes good use of ammo and eventually makes the kill through relentlessly spamming shitloads of EXPLOSIVE PISTOL BULLETS.

Maya (Siren) – see above

Salvador (Gunzerker) – The DPUH GOPAS method is easiest with Salvador, because, as a Gunzerker, Salvador – being a Gunzerker – can shoot two DPUHs instead of one DPUH. Stay with me because this is where it gets complicated: fire the fuck out of those DPUHs until Pete falls down. Here’s Bahroo doing just that, and for some reason continuing to fire wildly even after killing him. He opts for an Evolution shield to keep health topped up, and the much-loved Auspicious Raider Class Mod with a Rampage/Gun Lust build. The secret is that Inconceivable activates Money Shot even if the shot’s ammo is not consumed, therefore allowing multiple instances of mass damage on the final shot in the clip. Get you some learnin’, Beta Hunter.

Zer0 (Assassin) – [additional content required – stay tuned]

Gaige (Mechromancer) – [additional content required – stay tuned]

Axton (Commando) – [additional content required – stay tuned]

~ Alpha Hunter Conclusion ~
The casual player’s first time raid challenge.

Murdering Voracidous the Invincible

Say hello to Voracidous the Invincible, a giant motherfucking Stalker thing that shakes its fine Seraph booty to-and-fro in a rhythmic lament, almost luring the player into a hypnosis akin only to the ending of that movie Perfume. Now say goodbye; it’s time to add Stalkercake to the Gentleman’s Menu at a reasonable $15 per slice.

ALPHA METHOD – Bahroo3’s Solo Trespasser

Works with: all classes
Gear rarity: very high
Approx. time: 20 to 40 seconds
Required items: Norfleet launcher, Trespasser sniper
Optional items: The Sham shield, any Slag grenade, Fire/Maliwan relic

Let’s explain how this method works, with our resident loot entrepreneur Bahroo and his classic 16 second Salvador solo kill:

Big motherfucking Stalker corpse

Weapon #1 – Norfleet (Prudential Fire variant)
Weapon #2 – Norfleet (Prudential Fire variant)
Weapon #3 – Trespasser (Siah-Siah Accuracy variant)
Weapon #4 – Trespasser (Tumtum Critical Damage variant)
Shield – The Sham (94% Absorb Chance)
Class Mod – Devastator (Pragmatic variant)
Grenade Mod – Jumpin Biddy (Throwin Sluj Slag variant)
Relic – Allegiance Relic (Maliwan variant)
Build – Gunzerker (16 Gunlust, 9 Rampage, 20 Brawn)

Breakin’ it down: he’s tossing out Slag grenades and Gunzerking the Norfleets for maximum stalker-boning. The Maliwan Allegiance Relic is laughing heartily in the background. But what’s that, ol’ Chief Ngwatu wants a piece of the action, so he jumps on in with his ridiculous shields and pitiful health. That’s where the Trespasser comes into play – remember, it ignores shields – and takes the Chief out before he can transfer his superbadassery to Vorac. Now it’s just a matter of spamming the shit out of Vorac with Norfleets (they have virtually infinite ammo thanks to The Sham). TACTICAL BRILLIANCE ALERT: Bahroo foolishly deliberately enters FFYL mode in order to trigger his build skills that maximize on performance when health/shields are at a minimum. We’re talking Inconceivable,  Incite, All Out of Bubblegum, and Just Got Real. That’s one crispy Stalker sandwich for later.

In the distance the Alpha Hunters can hear the screams of “wah wah wah, this won’t work with my useless little Siren”. Wrrrrrrrrong! Equip a similar set of gear and ramp up to 11 points in the Immolate skill; “Adds 10% damage per level as Fire damage to all shots fired when in Fight For Your Life.” Then foolishly deliberately enter FFYL mode and spam your shooty-boom key. Again: same build, no shield required, Banshee (Unyielding) class mod, and a build that works against a raid boss. Yep, Maya being useful for once, as shown by grimw2…

Maya takes Vorac for a ride

But Mr. Alpha Hunter, how will my humble Zer0 fair against the sexually virulent Stalker? Equally as awesome if you follow the general Norfleet/Sham/Trespasser rule and equip a Legendary Hunter class mod and use this kind of skill build. Observe the mastery of sesenke:

Zer0 makes it rain Kunais

“Sir, I have 600 stacks of Anarchy, show me how to defeat this monstrosity with my Gaige.” This is not a problem thanks to dgammadspot and his pure Norfleet DPS race. This time switching up between a Shock and a Fire variant, a Slayer of Terramorphous class mod and a BFF/Chaos build. Add a little bit of Myelin to fight against the lightning damage. Behold:

Gaige likes Anarchy with her Norfleets

Finally, we test Axton’s mettle against Hammerlock’s endgame challenge. Following suit with the Trespasser/Norfleet combo pioneered by Bahroo, Axton proves himself a worthy Vault Hunter with all the usual gear you’d expect and a Legendary Soldier class mod. A Gunpower-heavy build ensures maximum synergy when blasting through flesh, demonstrated by Domino Harvey:

Axton with a launcher build? Where did the Stalker go?

~ Alpha Hunter Conclusion ~
If you can’t kill Vorac within the first 60 seconds of combat, you will never kill Vorac.