I'm trying the double run (and have watched the WR run for it), but I'm having an issue. For some reason when I have infinite ammo my smash is random, but doesn't build. It'll stay around 100 indefinitely.

After playing around I've determined that one difference is when I don't have infinite ammo the gun reloads automatically when I switch to it (and stacks normally). When I have infinite ammo I have to reload manually (hit the reload key) every time I switch to it. Also, when doing this if I have a smash, every time I switch to the evil smasher I lose one stack (ex: I have 117, switch to smasher, don't reload, switch back, I have 100, i.e. I have lost one stack).

I've tried copying the steps in the run but it doesn't seem to work for me and I don't want to to stack a bunch and then start TVHM, I'd rather stack on the go, (for speed). So stacking and then getting infinite ammo is (hopefully) no an option.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

How smasher works is when swapping back and forth you get one stack, regardless of whether or not you reload. Reloading at any point procs the chance to buff on every one of the stacks you have. This isn't effected in any way by whether or not you have infinite ammo, the only thing I can think of is that maybe you are attempting to smash when there is very little downtime so you are losing more than you gain when you swap back to your main gun.

What do you mean by "very little down time". I'm having trouble finding anything that mentions the stacks going away/decreasing (which is what's happening) when I just swap back and forth. Also, with infinite I don't get the explosion animation when just switching to the smasher, I have to reload manually.

Pulling out the smasher will decrease your smash so you will need to be getting a good increase every time you pull it out or you will not gain any damage. Exploding on reload is what is supposed to happen, the explosion is caused by the buff from the smasher, which only triggers on reload.

By pulling it out, do you mean just switching to it? Not taking it out of your backpack?

When you smash do you have to hit the reload button every time you switch to the smasher? I think that might be a difference, since whenever I don't have to hit reload manually it works.

That's what seems to make the difference to me. It might be related to the downtime? But when I have to hit the reload button every single time I switch weapons I think the stacks are increasing and decreasing at the same rate.

Also, just out of curiosity, what was causing your health regen late game in your PB? Once my clip is too large and there's no passive regen I have trouble getting back above health gate. It looks like you're getting health back from overkill damage?

I just mean switching to it after fully swapping away from it. You shouldn't be putting the smasher into your backpack until you're happy with the damage you do. And yeah you probably want to be reloading manually every time in most situations, although if you're not gonna be fighting any time soon it doesn't really matter and it's a nice break from the explosion noises to just stack it without reloading. For health regen you want to merge the bad touch that you got from Moxxi in playthrough 1. It's got 2% life steal on it which is more than enough to always be at full hp with how much damage you should be doing.

Ok, I figured it out. I was hitting reload too fast. You have to wait for the reload text to come up or it doesn't swap. I was doing some testing and figured it out. Here's the video for anyone that has the same issue. Start at 2 minutes for an explanation of how to get infinite ammo and then build up the smash. Can't believe I didn't figure it out earlier.

Ok, cool. I didn't know you could transfer that with merging. Just tested it though and it's awesome. Thanks seanpr.