The latest DLC for Borderlands, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, is designed to be TOUGH as nails. Gearbox seems to relish in punishing you in wave after wave of increasingly powerful enemies, and you got to survive up to 100 waves to get the good loot (an additional skill point.) You want to make sure you have the best strategy going in, otherwise, you got to replay the whole thing over again. That’s enough to drive any gamer into fits of rage.
Based on 20 hours of play experience already with a full team, I’ve put together some key strategies on prepping yourself for this endurance challenge. Here are 10 tips that will greatly aid you in combat. For the sake of your flying joystick, and broken TV, please take my advice.
Top tips for surviving endless waves of baddies in Borderlands: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot
Read these tips before you begin! If you die while in an Arena, you have to go back and replay the last round, which can be up to 5 waves, and that’s a serious pain in the ass. If you start a battle, you have to finish it. You can’t save, and if you leave the arena, you have to start over. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
It helps to have your key weapons leveled up so that they are more powerful. What’s the best way to do this? Depends on your character. By default, the best place is Trash Coast. Beating the end boss Rakk Hive is what you must do. Each time you do, the weapon you are using gets leveled up in proficiency by a couple of levels if the weapon is around level 1-20, and about 1-2 level if it is at level 20-50. Leveling up your weapon to 50 can improve your damage by around 50% and your rate of fire by over 100%, which in effect makes your weapon more than twice as powerful. If you are Roland, make sure you equip your experience modifier. If you are Lilith, try going to the Promontory, equip a Tempest mod and get a shock version of the weapon you want to level up. Clearing out the Promontory can get your weapons proficiency leveled up at least 5 levels easily. For the Hunter, get your ability to have your bullets ignore shields 100% of the time, and take out as many Guardians as you can with one shot kills.
Acquire a good variety of weapons. Moxxi will often introduce rules that make certain weapons nearly useless, while making other ones extra powerful during certain waves. Here’s a cheat of sorts to quickly acquire quality weapons. Go to New Haven, and search for 4 containers full of weapons. They are scattered around the main town, all up on the rooftops. Keep what you’d like, and sell what you don’t need. Use the cash to buy any good weapons in the machines. Exit the game and jump back in quickly, and the containers are stocked with new weapons. Rinse and repeat. You can do this in less than 5 minutes each time. If you are Lilith, try to get the mod that is at least 2 Find Rare Items (some claim there are are 4 Find Rare Item mods) . It works wonders, as I have regularly seen at least one Orange level weapon in each run. For Mordecai, make sure you have the 2 Rare Item Drops if you try to tackle a place like the Eridian Promontory, and you’ll find just as good loot.
Make sure you also have at a good mix of elemental damage as well. When you face an enemy that is particularly weak to an elemental, and then Moxxie powers up elemental weapons, it makes you a killing machine. There are also a good mix of enemies, which are prone to certain types of elemental damage, and immune to others, so do rely on just one elemental power.
There’s an easy way to defeat the Horde in the 3rd wave of each round. The Horde can’t climb. In each arena, there is at least several great places that you can jump to, and then kill the enemies one by one. For example, in Hell Burbia, there are some crates you can jump on top of on the structure to the left of the stage where the bosses appear. Once you are on upper ground, it’s like shooting fish in a barrier.
Get rid of any extra inventory that you don’t actively use. This way, if you have to quickly switch to another inventory item that isn’t assigned to a button, you can do this relatively quickly. This is particular useful in multiplayer combat where you can’t pause the game, and you have to use a health pack.
The key is to make sure you can quickly switch active items if Moxxi shorts out one of your skill sets. As an example, if you are using Lilith, and Moxxi deactivates shields, make sure you aren’t using your mod that increases your shields. It’s basically useless. In addition, don’t forget to optimize which elemental you are using for your special ability.
If you are using Lilith or Brick, assign your points to improve your Phase Walk or Berserk so that the ability lasts longer and has a shorter cooldown period. Use this skill when you are about to die, and run and hide til your shields recharge. For Lilith, you can also assign points to Inner Glow, which will also give you health while Phase Walking. For Brick, increase the ability to stun enemies when you melee them, so that if you need to run away, they can’t keep up. Surviving is key, and there’s nothing wrong with surviving another day by running away!
If you have a hunter on your team, set his mod to drop more loot, because the extra health packs will become very useful for those who don’t have any ability to naturally gain health. Health packs only drop between waves, and if you miss one before the time goes down, they disappear. The health packs Mordecai drops stay as long as you leave them there.
If a comrade has fallen in battle, think twice about going to save him/her. If he is surrounded by enemies, you could very well die as well. Once he dies, he can still contribute in battle in the Moxxi tower, as along has he as a good scoped weapon. In fact, this makes for a much safer way to battle enemies. As long as one character stays alive and can camp somewhere, the rest of the team can try to tag enemies from the tower, where they can’t get hit.
Study the environment and the enemies. There are some obvious strategies to take advantage of. On the arena with the teleporter, always hold combat near it. If you are about to die, you can always run into the teleporter, and the enemies won’t follow you. On the arena where the alien Eridians appear in the forth wave, try to stand back and let the aliens battle it out with the Lance troopers. They could easily kill each other off if you are good at staying out of their combat range.
Good luck. You’ll need it.
For an even more in-depth guide to taking down Moxxi and her crew, check out Muddafugga’s guide!
Check out our review of Borderlands: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot!
