Do Krieg's skills work against him in the higher levels?

Question

I have a question about Krieg before I decide what build I want to use when I play as him. His Hellborn tree looks interesting, but it seems borderline unusable on higher levels. Given Krieg's preferred playstyle seems to be buffs while having shields down and/or on fire, it seems that on higher levels* (where Fire damage is pretty much fatal), the self-immolation will lead to near-instant "Fight For Your Life", even at full HP. Or is the self-immolation damage much lower than what enemies can normally deal, where it's more of a nuisance (like Pyro Pete's DOT) as opposed to fatal (pretty much every Fire attack).

*By higher levels, I'm talking mid-to-late TVHM and beyond

Answer 1

Krieg has a few talents that can hurt himself at higher levels, one being "Silence the Voices" which I have had a few undesirable situations of putting myself into "fight for your life". The fire damage to yourself in the Hellborn tree doesn't cause too much of an issue from my own experience, but the damage bonus isn't that great on its own and it requires some good elemental weapons to work. The mania tree has a lot of self sustain healing talents as long as you ignore the above mentioned talent, and that tree also gets an amazing amount of damage boost for melee, but if you prefer to use distance and elemental weapons, then the Hellborn tree works out quite well.