Borderlands Thread 3: This Ain't No Place For No Hero

[Balmas]

"So... You want to hear a story, eh? One about treasure hunters? Haha, have I got a story for you!"

Spoiler

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Once upon a time, there was a thread about Borderlands 2. That thread got a sequel. However, due to general lack of responses, and perhaps a bit of unwillingness to perform thread necromancy, those threads petered off and died.

Since that time, a lot has happened in the Borderlands community. The Pre-Sequel has come out. Telltale Games decided to throw their hat in the Borderlands ring with the excellent Tales From The Borderlands game. Gearbox decided to make a great many patches, upping legendary loot drops and tweaking some skills to be more powerful. (Cloudkill, I'm looking at you.)

So with that in mind, I feel that it's almost criminal that we don't have a Borderlands thread here. Well, no more! There needs to be a bit more black humor in our world, and by golly, here's a good place to start.

So come in, relax, and let's have a good time murdering our way across Pandora.

Spoiler: Useful Links

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Borderlands 2 Golden Key Shift Codes
Borderlands TPS Golden Key SHIFT codes
Borderlands wiki: An excellent source of information
Best In Slot playlist: Looking for powerful weapons? Here's what to look for.

Spoiler: Vault Hunters in the Playground

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Note that I'm basically pulling this directly off the old thread. As that was nearly three years ago, they may be inaccurate.

Under Construction: Experiencing technical difficulties

Steam:
[Steam Profile|Main Vault Hunter|Highest Level
Geno9999|Zer0|72+OP6
Togath|Axton|11
Neovid|Salvador|61
Triscuitable|Gaige/Maya|72+OP1
Balmas|Salvador|72+OP1
Alex Knight|Maya|N/A (UVHM)
Lunix Vandal|Gaige|72+OP3
Keris|Gaige|35
Dhavaer|Maya|68

Xbox Live:

[Geno9999]

So was anyone else surprised when they started patching and hotfixing again, especially for BL2?

Since I'm a Zer0 player I was less interested in Cloudkill than I was in how they rebalanced Death Mark and Death Bl0ss0m: instead of Death Mark only boosting damage by 20% and can be stacked through Death Bl0ss0m 4 times, now Death Mark itself is an 80% boost, but can't be stacked at all either by co-op or Death Bl0ss0m. This is a massive improvement, since it not only makes Death Mark a lot more useful on its own, it also helps Death Bl0ss0m because now you don't use up all of your kunai on one target just to get the full damage bonus and instead use it to tag multiple enemies at once.

[Landis963]

I was really hoping a thread like this might pop up, because I've had a question for a long time regarding Tales from the Borderlands: What, precisely, is Fiona's character arc? Rhys gets a fairly well-delineated arc dealing with him growing away from Hyperion, but Fiona gets very little that's concrete in terms of specific direction. There's the Vault Hunter training, which Fiona has very little reason to undergo. There's the trust and revenge issues caused by Felix, which I can see no real reason to get better (esp. since, as part of Rhys' character arc, he takes over Hyperion instead of rejoining the group). There's choosing between the con artist life and going legit, which previous events might have had a bearing on, but it comes down to a single conversation at the end, and that's it. So I'm kinda at a loss for where I should take Fiona during a 3rd playthrough that I consider canon.

[Balmas]

So was anyone else surprised when they started patching and hotfixing again, especially for BL2?

Since I'm a Zer0 player I was less interested in Cloudkill than I was in how they rebalanced Death Mark and Death Bl0ss0m: instead of Death Mark only boosting damage by 20% and can be stacked through Death Bl0ss0m 4 times, now Death Mark itself is an 80% boost, but can't be stacked at all either by co-op or Death Bl0ss0m. This is a massive improvement, since it not only makes Death Mark a lot more useful on its own, it also helps Death Bl0ss0m because now you don't use up all of your kunai on one target just to get the full damage bonus and instead use it to tag multiple enemies at once.

It was certainly a pleasant surprise. Normally, you don't see updates and patches this late in a game's life cycle. I mean, unless you count things like CS:GO and TF2, games don't usually last very long in the modern world. Personally, I think that the update is indicative of a renewed interest in Borderlands 2, probably due to the Telltale series set there.

Personally, I haven't played Zer0 much lately, even with the buff to several skills. Instead, Maya's been slowly winning me over.

I have to say, I'm constantly impressed by how different the vault hunters feel. Axton is careful, cautious, but dependable, while Krieg is wild burst damage that occasionally hits itself in the head. Maya is a storm of elemental effects, while Sal... Sal is not so much a man as a mobile Instant Death Radius. I see people ask who they think the "best" class is, and I kinda just want to say, "Yes. All of them."

[The_Jackal]

It was certainly a pleasant surprise. Normally, you don't see updates and patches this late in a game's life cycle. I mean, unless you count things like CS:GO and TF2, games don't usually last very long in the modern world. Personally, I think that the update is indicative of a renewed interest in Borderlands 2, probably due to the Telltale series set there.

Personally, I haven't played Zer0 much lately, even with the buff to several skills. Instead, Maya's been slowly winning me over.

I have to say, I'm constantly impressed by how different the vault hunters feel. Axton is careful, cautious, but dependable, while Krieg is wild burst damage that occasionally hits itself in the head. Maya is a storm of elemental effects, while Sal... Sal is not so much a man as a mobile Instant Death Radius. I see people ask who they think the "best" class is, and I kinda just want to say, "Yes. All of them."

Okay, I really enjoyed BL2, Zero is my preferred toon, because of how awesome ability feels when you can land a sniper crit out of deception. That said, once I got to Ultimate Vault Hunter mode, the game ceased to be playable for me, to say nothing of enjoyable, because of the horrible scaling choices they made with how the slag mechanic worked. In UVHM, slag goes from being x2 multiplier to a x3 multiplier, and health, particularly boss health, went up commensurately. The upshot is that sniping turned from a viable strategy to a teeth-gnashing, lip-biting exercise in weapon-swap hell, or I just get to give up and play bullet-hose derp-squad.

[Balmas]

I'm of two minds about UVHM. Personally, I'm one of those masochists who feel that TVHM is just too simple and easy, that everything's a cakewalk. In my mind, the game doesn't really start to get fun--read, challenging--until you're into UVHM and then onto the OP levels.

At the same time, I admit that UVHM really makes it hard for sniper Zer0 to get along. With doubled health relative to TVHM, slag becomes even more essential, and using non-elemental damage becomes code for "I'm missing out on a 75% damage boost." That means that the normal strategy for normal mode and TVHM, which is to grab the biggest, baddest Jakobs sniper you can find and plug people in the head, doesn't work. In order to be a successful sniper Zer0, you need to start farming for gear and equipment, which kind of takes some of the fun out of Shoot and Loot, in my mind.

I note that my current Zer0 is only around level 66, if memory serves. As such, Geno is probably a better source of advice for how to get ahead as Zer0. Still, I can toss in some advice based off my experience.

• Slag is essential in UVHM. Yes, it's annoying. Its balance is questionable, but we'll put that aside for now. Normally I'd advise you to find a Slagga, or maybe a Slag Rubi or Grog Nozzle, but you've noted that you don't like all the weapon-swap business. Have you considered using a grenade instead? Ideally, in my mind, it'd be a longbow slag transfusion with a zero-second fuse. What makes slag grenades ideal is that you can throw them from inside Decepti0n without breaking stealth; that means that you can enter deception, toss a grenade, pop them with a few kunai, and end Deception with a crit from an appropriate elemental sniper for a massive boost to damage.
• On that note, dump your Jakobs weapons. I know, I know, it's painful. They've been your friends for pretty much the entire game. But now, you need to be able to get those massive +75% damage boosts from using fire on flesh and corrosive on armor.
• Pick up a Bone of the Ancients for both fire and corrosive damage. This relic grants you a ~30% damage boost to those elements, which stacks multiplicatively with both crit damage and the normal damage boost you get from using appropriate weapons.
• Gear up. Like I noted, you'll want to farm for specific gear. (Or, if you're like me and enjoy playing the game much more than actually farming, you can use Gibbed to grant them to yourself.) Specifically, you'll want to find a Pimpernel or three, and farm for three Lyudas. Pick up a Grog Nozzle or a Rubi for some healing. The Bee shield is nice, but not crucial to have. It might also be a good idea to head back to Normal Mode and farm yourself a low-level Vladof Droog for Critical Ascension stacking for bosses.
• Speaking of, Critical Ascension is your friend. I know, it's a weird, quirky little skill, and its idiosyncrasies make it hard to use. Basically, for every critical hit with a Sniper Rifle you get, you gain +6% sniper damage and 5% critical damage. So with just five critical hits, you'll be doing 30% extra damage and have an extra 25% critical hit damage. It gets ridiculous pretty quickly. If you can manage to get up to 30-50 stacks, you can reliably one-shot most normal enemies with a critical hit. However, Critical Ascensi0n also forces Zer0 to adapt a quick, momentum-based build; in order to retain stacks of critical ascension, you have to deal at least one critical hit every six seconds, and you can't open a menu--your own, or maps, or vending machines, etc--or switch to a non-sniper rifle, or you lose them all. That means you need to get to and from enemies quickly, and put them down even more quickly. That's why the Lyuda is so good: you can stack critical ascension multiple times on one enemy, and before long you'll have enough stacks to one-shot enemies.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head for Zer0. And I admit that most of this is learned from watching Man of Low Moral Fiber on Youtube.
Geno? What are your thoughts?

[The_Jackal]

I'm of two minds about UVHM. Personally, I'm one of those masochists who feel that TVHM is just too simple and easy, that everything's a cakewalk. In my mind, the game doesn't really start to get fun--read, challenging--until you're into UVHM and then onto the OP levels.

At the same time, I admit that UVHM really makes it hard for sniper Zer0 to get along. With doubled health relative to TVHM, slag becomes even more essential, and using non-elemental damage becomes code for "I'm missing out on a 75% damage boost." That means that the normal strategy for normal mode and TVHM, which is to grab the biggest, baddest Jakobs sniper you can find and plug people in the head, doesn't work. In order to be a successful sniper Zer0, you need to start farming for gear and equipment, which kind of takes some of the fun out of Shoot and Loot, in my mind.

I note that my current Zer0 is only around level 66, if memory serves. As such, Geno is probably a better source of advice for how to get ahead as Zer0. Still, I can toss in some advice based off my experience.

Slag isn't a 75% damage boost. It's a 300% damage boost. It's beyond essential, it's the WHOLE GAME. And since slag duration doesn't scale inversely with rate of fire, it basically makes anything requiring actually AIMING a waste of time. Look, I'm good at FPS games. I can light someone up with a Maliwan spiker and then hose them down with, well, whatever comes to hand. But to me, THAT is what's boring. Actually taking a weapon with a moderate rate of fire and having to hit what you're aiming at, that's interesting to me. UVHM's brand of bullet potpourri isn't.

Look, I get it. Gearbox doesn't actually care about single-player balance, and they expect someone to roll in spamming slag full time while his three buddies pour on the other colors of damage. It's not unlike what Diablo II did to encourage teaming in their endgame. But I think it's lazy, stupid game design, and it drastically curtails MY enjoyment of the game, because jumping in lobbies with strangers does not meet my definition of fun.

[DodgerH2O]

Look, I get it. Gearbox doesn't actually care about single-player balance, and they expect someone to roll in spamming slag full time while his three buddies pour on the other colors of damage. It's not unlike what Diablo II did to encourage teaming in their endgame. But I think it's lazy, stupid game design, and it drastically curtails MY enjoyment of the game, because jumping in lobbies with strangers does not meet my definition of fun.

That also bothered me a lot, as my Sniper Zer0 was my favorite build for him (not most effective, but favorite) and it became useless in UVHM, group or not.

Having said that, every character I've had required a respec and very specific at-level equipment to thrive in UVHM. It comes with the mode, and it's not for everyone. I took a year hiatus between TVHM and coming back to reach level cap in UVHM and only managed to do the second because of my tendency to friend any half-decent human being I met in the game (anyone who saves good loot for other players gets my stamp of approval. Don't care if it's only because they already have one, it still makes them better than 90% of the other folk online.)

If the issue is the "strangers" part, maybe we can find others on the forums who would be up to helping you through UVHM, but a build optimization would still be necessary I'd bet.

[Balmas]

Slag isn't a 75% damage boost. It's a 300% damage boost. It's beyond essential, it's the WHOLE GAME. And since slag duration doesn't scale inversely with rate of fire, it basically makes anything requiring actually AIMING a waste of time. Look, I'm good at FPS games. I can light someone up with a Maliwan spiker and then hose them down with, well, whatever comes to hand. But to me, THAT is what's boring. Actually taking a weapon with a moderate rate of fire and having to hit what you're aiming at, that's interesting to me. UVHM's brand of bullet potpourri isn't.

The 75% damage boost I'm talking about is from using the appropriate elemental damage for the enemy you're facing; you gain a +75% bonus for using the correct element, and suffer a 30ish% penalty for using the wrong one. In theory, you need to have three different weapons, but in practice you're usually fine with just fire and corrosive, plus a slag grenade.

I might be misunderstanding what you mean by bullet potpourri. If I understand correctly, you feel that due to the way slag works--static duration and static +300% damage--you are required to first slag something by any means possible, usually by spamming bullets at them, and then kill the enemy before the slag duration wears off. This is achieved, again, by spamming bullets at them until they die. You feel that this is uninteresting, and that a playstyle requiring careful shooting is much more interesting.

I'll admit to being perhaps a little befuddled, as in my experience Sniper Zer0 is powerful enough to kill most enemies in one or two shots. Indeed, Zer0 is one of the more potent classes in the game, with skills to make use of almost any crit-granting weapon. While slag will be necessary for the first few enemies, and you need decent gear, with skill you should be able to kill nearly any standard enemy with one hit using Critical Ascensi0n alone.

If the issue is the "strangers" part, maybe we can find others on the forums who would be up to helping you through UVHM, but a build optimization would still be necessary I'd bet.

Count me in. I'm actually starting to get my Maya through UVHM. She's level... I wanna say 52 or 53 right now? Something like that.



Actually, that introduces something I wanted to talk about with y'all.

Borderlands brands itself as a loot-and-shoot game, and that 87 Bazillion guns got bazilliondier. This is true. There are a ton of weapon combinations, and each class can make use of different weapons--ie, Maya likes Maliwan, Sal likes pistols, Axton and Krieg benefit from explosives and fire weapons, etc.

However, I've found that my enjoyment of the game seems to actually decrease when it comes to doing the looting part; I'd much rather focus on being a murderous psychopath with a dangerous gun fetish than actually spend time getting guns. Farming can be enjoyable, don't get me wrong. The problems arise when you are actually spending so much time looking for a specific variant of a weapon.

Let's take a simple example. I want to farm a new Interfacer from Vorac the Invincible. He is guaranteed to drop a Seraph weapon, and there's a 1-in-four chance of it being an Interfacer. I want the foregrip accessory, for the faster firerate and increased pellet count which leads to much higher DPS. Seraph weapons are guaranteed to have an accessory, and there's a one in seven chance that it'll be the right one. Five elements, if you count non-elemental damage, so there's a 1/5 chance of getting what I want. Hyperion grip leads to increased damage and reload speed, so of course we want that. 1/5th chance of getting the right manufacturer for the grip. Even if we leave off the search for a Hyperion Stock to tighten up the spread and help with recoil, that's a one in 700 chance of getting a near-perfect Interfacer.

As such, I've found myself... Well, cheating is a strong word, I think, especially in a PVE game like Borderlands. The way I've justified it to myself is as long as I've earned A variant of the weapon, I can then go to Gibbed and tweak it to the variant I want. It's not completely legit, I admit. Yet I have to admit that since I started doing that, I've found myself actually playing the game, instead of going from level 60 to level 69 fighting the BNK-3R to find a Sham. (That is perhaps a bad example, as the Bunker is both notoriously stingy with legendary and has a drop pool of something like seven different Legendary-equivalent items).

Is that fair, do you think? I've done legit playthroughs, with farmed-only gear. It's just... At some point, after save-quitting out to try for the perfect unique mission reward again, I kinda sat there staring at the desktop and wondering where I'd gone wrong. Instead of looting and shooting, I was quit-reloading to be able to get just the right weapon. It feels like cheating, but it's done nothing but increase my enjoyment of my time in Borderlands 2, ya know? What do you all think?

[Landis963]

When I played Borderlands 1, I found it much more enjoyable to not farm; just to allow my playstyle to evolve organically from whatever guns I picked up. Obviously this isn't as much of an option when you get into the Adjective Vault Hunter Modes. Of course, I won't pretend that class didn't matter, but that's what worked for me. (I played Mordecai)

[Geno9999]

I note that my current Zer0 is only around level 66, if memory serves. As such, Geno is probably a better source of advice for how to get ahead as Zer0. Still, I can toss in some advice based off my experience.

*insert list here*

That's all I can think of off the top of my head for Zer0. And I admit that most of this is learned from watching Man of Low Moral Fiber on Youtube.
Geno? What are your thoughts?

Alright, lemme go point by point to elaborate on what Balmas had said. He's mostly on point, there's still a few things to clear up:

• Slag triples your damage. Yes, I realize it's annoying to have to rely on slag, but it's still a massive multiplier. Like Balmas said, Slag Transfusion grenades are a Sniper/Misc. Gun Zer0's best friends.
• NOOO!!! DO NOT DUMP JAKOBS!... okay, to be serious, the problem isn't that Jakobs doesn't come in elements, it's that Jakobs Snipers don't synergize with Critical Ascension because they have terrible recoil. Also, Avoid Blue Jakobs Snipers: They have terrible Fire Rate because they're Bolt-action. Greens and Purples will be a lot more useful since they have 4-5 fire rate, so if you can handle the recoil you're golden with them. In addition, All of Jakob's non-snipers have a hidden 15% to 25% critical bonus that multiplies your regular Critical Bonuses. With bonuses to Zer0's Headshot and Killer skills, Jakobs can still give the other brands a run for their money.
• That said, Bone of the Ancients makes Elemental Weapons a lot more appealing and boosts Cooldown Rate. Like Balmas said, you'll want multiples, but even having one to help get Deception back sooner is better than nothing.
• When you're leveling up, I feel that trying to farm for specific gear and quest rewards is actually counter-intuitive. What you'll really need to know what guns that works with your build, how you play, and works against your enemy. Being able to be flexible with your build and loadout to tailor it to your overall playstyle will make things a whole lot easier and a lot more fun. For example, Skags are jerks that only open their mouths at close range, so usually I switch from sniping to a more general weapon build and use shotguns or SMGs. Bandits and Loaders are easy crits, so Sniping is fun again. Vladof Snipers work wonders with Critical Ascension, but if I'm not careful with my aim and trigger finger, I run out of ammo. Maliwan Snipers on the other hand are very powerful, comparable to Jakobs when you match weaknesses, but can sometimes be a bit slow for killing bosses. You've fought everything at least twice in the main game before, so you should have a working idea of what you're up against; Knowing what you're about to fight against is half the battle. The other half is shooting them. If you need help looking for at-level guns, you can use the Golden Chest (Gearbox is still giving away keys on Facebook and Twitter. USE THEM!), Melt Frosty the Snowman in the Mercenary Day Headhunter pack (or really, beat the boss of any of the headhunter packs, they're usually pretty easy) and loot the subsequent train chest to get a lot of guns and gear at once, and the outer ring of Torgue's Arena (the bit that you break into to get cookies for Tina) has three big red chests that's easy to get to.
• Critical Ascension is the best. It's ideal with Vladof Snipers in general, since they have massive fire rate and mag size, but can still be potent with Maliwan snipers, and Jakobs if you get used to the recoil (AND DON'T USE BLUE JAKOBS SNIPERS! It's the color of sadness!) Critical Ascension is literally what makes Zer0 Raid Sniping possible, but it's still useful for Mobbing as well (I usually only get 10-20 stacks at any given moment for mobbing... but that's still a 60%/50% to 120%/100% gun/crit bonus.) If there's a Boss big enough to have it's health bar displayed at the top, you can murder it with Critical Ascension. If you really want to get downright silly with Critical Ascension, get a Rouge COM from Tiny Tina's DLC with a combination of Chaotic, Neutral, and/or Good. The skills boosted from it doesn't even matter, just the passive Bonuses are enough.

A point that Balmas didn't have is Drop the Bee. Zer0 has lots of DPS skills, but very little in the way of Survival skills. Deception will work in keeping aggro off of you, but if you're playing solo, you'll rarely have enough time to keep your Bee shield up. The Bee will be good for Raid Bosses, but for mobbing you'll want Adaptive, Absorb (in bandit and loader heavy areas,) and Turtle shields. Once you've mastered fighting either Pyro-caustic Pete the Invincible (who I call "Pete the kiting exercise"), Hyperious the Invincible ("How to abuse B0re and Hitboxes"), Ancient Dragons of Destruction ("Dead Dragons that died to Critical Ascension"), you can buy an Antagonist Shield from the Tiny Tina DLC and use that instead.

[The_Jackal]

Alright, lemme go point by point to elaborate on what Balmas had said. He's mostly on point, there's still a few things to clear up:

• Slag triples your damage. Yes, I realize it's annoying to have to rely on slag, but it's still a massive multiplier. Like Balmas said, Slag Transfusion grenades are a Sniper/Misc. Gun Zer0's best friends.
• NOOO!!! DO NOT DUMP JAKOBS!... okay, to be serious, the problem isn't that Jakobs doesn't come in elements, it's that Jakobs Snipers don't synergize with Critical Ascension because they have terrible recoil. Also, Avoid Blue Jakobs Snipers: They have terrible Fire Rate because they're Bolt-action. Greens and Purples will be a lot more useful since they have 4-5 fire rate, so if you can handle the recoil you're golden with them. In addition, All of Jakob's non-snipers have a hidden 15% to 25% critical bonus that multiplies your regular Critical Bonuses. With bonuses to Zer0's Headshot and Killer skills, Jakobs can still give the other brands a run for their money.
• That said, Bone of the Ancients makes Elemental Weapons a lot more appealing and boosts Cooldown Rate. Like Balmas said, you'll want multiples, but even having one to help get Deception back sooner is better than nothing.
• When you're leveling up, I feel that trying to farm for specific gear and quest rewards is actually counter-intuitive. What you'll really need to know what guns that works with your build, how you play, and works against your enemy. Being able to be flexible with your build and loadout to tailor it to your overall playstyle will make things a whole lot easier and a lot more fun. For example, Skags are jerks that only open their mouths at close range, so usually I switch from sniping to a more general weapon build and use shotguns or SMGs. Bandits and Loaders are easy crits, so Sniping is fun again. Vladof Snipers work wonders with Critical Ascension, but if I'm not careful with my aim and trigger finger, I run out of ammo. Maliwan Snipers on the other hand are very powerful, comparable to Jakobs when you match weaknesses, but can sometimes be a bit slow for killing bosses. You've fought everything at least twice in the main game before, so you should have a working idea of what you're up against; Knowing what you're about to fight against is half the battle. The other half is shooting them. If you need help looking for at-level guns, you can use the Golden Chest (Gearbox is still giving away keys on Facebook and Twitter. USE THEM!), Melt Frosty the Snowman in the Mercenary Day Headhunter pack (or really, beat the boss of any of the headhunter packs, they're usually pretty easy) and loot the subsequent train chest to get a lot of guns and gear at once, and the outer ring of Torgue's Arena (the bit that you break into to get cookies for Tina) has three big red chests that's easy to get to.
• Critical Ascension is the best. It's ideal with Vladof Snipers in general, since they have massive fire rate and mag size, but can still be potent with Maliwan snipers, and Jakobs if you get used to the recoil (AND DON'T USE BLUE JAKOBS SNIPERS! It's the color of sadness!) Critical Ascension is literally what makes Zer0 Raid Sniping possible, but it's still useful for Mobbing as well (I usually only get 10-20 stacks at any given moment for mobbing... but that's still a 60%/50% to 120%/100% gun/crit bonus.) If there's a Boss big enough to have it's health bar displayed at the top, you can murder it with Critical Ascension. If you really want to get downright silly with Critical Ascension, get a Rouge COM from Tiny Tina's DLC with a combination of Chaotic, Neutral, and/or Good. The skills boosted from it doesn't even matter, just the passive Bonuses are enough.

A point that Balmas didn't have is Drop the Bee. Zer0 has lots of DPS skills, but very little in the way of Survival skills. Deception will work in keeping aggro off of you, but if you're playing solo, you'll rarely have enough time to keep your Bee shield up. The Bee will be good for Raid Bosses, but for mobbing you'll want Adaptive, Absorb (in bandit and loader heavy areas,) and Turtle shields. Once you've mastered fighting either Pyro-caustic Pete the Invincible (who I call "Pete the kiting exercise"), Hyperious the Invincible ("How to abuse B0re and Hitboxes"), Ancient Dragons of Destruction ("Dead Dragons that died to Critical Ascension"), you can buy an Antagonist Shield from the Tiny Tina DLC and use that instead.

I don't use the Bee, it's a junk shield and it once again doesn't synergize with sniping. The bee is great for high rate of fire bullet hoses that the developers apparently have a hard-on for. The same with Lyuda. It's not a sniper rifle, it's an assault rifle with a scope. Not interested. I do like maliwan snipers, my current Zero has one of the legendary fire ones, but now I'm fighting the fire-resistant bandits around the firehawk, and it's useless. I've watched Man of Low Moral Fiber's videos, and I admit he's got skill, but in every one of his videos, he's packing 100% solid gold gear. That's not gear you're going to have going through UVHM at level 51, and even if he did spend several weeks/months farming drops in TVHM to gear up, 5 levels in and his entire kit would be worthless again, and he'd be back in greens. There's nothing in any endgame BL2 video that leads one to believe that the creator didn't grant themselves their outfit using bl2edit.

[Geno9999]

I don't use the Bee, it's a junk shield and it once again doesn't synergize with sniping. The bee is great for high rate of fire bullet hoses that the developers apparently have a hard-on for.

Good, we already agree with some-

The same with Lyuda. It's not a sniper rifle, it's an assault rifle with a scope. Not interested.

U WOT M8?

The Skullmasher's a long range shotgun. You body shot with the Pimpernel, that's not a sniper, that's a one shot-DMR rifle. Sloth is slow. Pitchfork wastes bullets for mobbing. The Volcano is a worse Fire Snider. Longbow has no scope and is hard to use and only comes in one element.

So what the Lyuda is an assault rifle with a scope? Sniping in Borderlands 2 is still different from sniping in Payday 2, or Team Fortress 2, or Battlefield, or Call of Duty. You need to lose your perception that Sniping has to be One-shot kills.

I do like maliwan snipers, my current Zero has one of the legendary fire ones, but now I'm fighting the fire-resistant bandits around the firehawk, and it's useless. I've watched Man of Low Moral Fiber's videos, and I admit he's got skill, but in every one of his videos, he's packing 100% solid gold gear. That's not gear you're going to have going through UVHM at level 51, and even if he did spend several weeks/months farming drops in TVHM to gear up, 5 levels in and his entire kit would be worthless again, and he'd be back in greens. There's nothing in any endgame BL2 video that leads one to believe that the creator didn't grant themselves their outfit using bl2edit.

And that's exactly the reason why I told you not to bother farming for specific gear. Leveling up, you will struggle because you won't always have the best gear. And that's alright. That's part of the challenge. So you can't always get the Best Gear for Zer0, but you can still find Really Good Gear for Zer0. Pick up the Lascaux, it might not be a sniper or elemential, but it's still good. Maybe you'll find a Dahl Sniper, and find that it is good. You won't be the best, but you need to learn how to be Good Enough.

Related, are you sure about all of MoLM's videos?

[Balmas]

When I played Borderlands 1, I found it much more enjoyable to not farm; just to allow my playstyle to evolve organically from whatever guns I picked up. Obviously this isn't as much of an option when you get into the Adjective Vault Hunter Modes. Of course, I won't pretend that class didn't matter, but that's what worked for me. (I played Mordecai)

I'm a Brick and Roland fan, myself. There's just something fun about shoving a shotgun or a rocket launcher down somebody's throat and pumping the trigger.

Alright, lemme go point by point to elaborate on what Balmas had said. He's mostly on point, there's still a few things to clear up:

• NOOO!!! DO NOT DUMP JAKOBS!... okay, to be serious, the problem isn't that Jakobs doesn't come in elements, it's that Jakobs Snipers don't synergize with Critical Ascension because they have terrible recoil. Also, Avoid Blue Jakobs Snipers: They have terrible Fire Rate because they're Bolt-action. Greens and Purples will be a lot more useful since they have 4-5 fire rate, so if you can handle the recoil you're golden with them. In addition, All of Jakob's non-snipers have a hidden 15% to 25% critical bonus that multiplies your regular Critical Bonuses. With bonuses to Zer0's Headshot and Killer skills, Jakobs can still give the other brands a run for their money.

I stand corrected. I just ran some numbers, and apparently a Muckamuck can out-damage and out-DPS a Snider, especially once you start equipping Sniper COMs and getting Zer0's skills set up. This only gets more true with Critical Ascensi0n.

I guess I mostly saw how the uniques of each species performed. On one hand, we have the Pimpernel and the Volcano, both of which are potent and easily obtained, and will last you for at least 5, maybe 10 levels. On the other hand, we have the Skullmasher and the Buffalo Gun. One requires you to run through the wildlife exploitation preserve to even get to the boss to farm, after which you have to hope that the boss A) drops the gun, and B) drops the gun in the arena itself C) without glitching through the floor. And for the Buffalo Gun, you have to fight Dukino's Mom, which is almost as frustrating.

• Critical Ascension is the best. It's ideal with Vladof Snipers in general, since they have massive fire rate and mag size, but can still be potent with Maliwan snipers, and Jakobs if you get used to the recoil (AND DON'T USE BLUE JAKOBS SNIPERS! It's the color of sadness!) Critical Ascension is literally what makes Zer0 Raid Sniping possible, but it's still useful for Mobbing as well (I usually only get 10-20 stacks at any given moment for mobbing... but that's still a 60%/50% to 120%/100% gun/crit bonus.) If there's a Boss big enough to have it's health bar displayed at the top, you can murder it with Critical Ascension. If you really want to get downright silly with Critical Ascension, get a Rouge COM from Tiny Tina's DLC with a combination of Chaotic, Neutral, and/or Good. The skills boosted from it doesn't even matter, just the passive Bonuses are enough.

I assume you are referrring to the class, and not the type of cosmetic.

I don't use the Bee, it's a junk shield and it once again doesn't synergize with sniping. The bee is great for high rate of fire bullet hoses that the developers apparently have a hard-on for. The same with Lyuda. It's not a sniper rifle, it's an assault rifle with a scope. Not interested. I do like maliwan snipers, my current Zero has one of the legendary fire ones, but now I'm fighting the fire-resistant bandits around the firehawk, and it's useless. I've watched Man of Low Moral Fiber's videos, and I admit he's got skill, but in every one of his videos, he's packing 100% solid gold gear. That's not gear you're going to have going through UVHM at level 51, and even if he did spend several weeks/months farming drops in TVHM to gear up, 5 levels in and his entire kit would be worthless again, and he'd be back in greens. There's nothing in any endgame BL2 video that leads one to believe that the creator didn't grant themselves their outfit using bl2edit.

Really not sure what to tell you, man. You don't want to use the Bee, you don't want to use what is literally the best sniper rifle in the game, you don't want to use slag. At this point, I'm not sure whether you're asking for help or just venting about UVHM.

As for Youtube:
Man of Low Moral Fiber is perhaps a bad example of farming for gear, as he has an entire series dedicated to "Does it suck," where he takes disreputable weapons and tries to show them in their best light to see whether they're viable. This means that he needs to have the best version of the weapon so it can perform at the best level, and as stated, that would mean farming enemies something like 3000 times each to actually find it. In such cases, Gibbed is more than acceptable.

And yet, even he did a 1-OP8 playthrough with no Gibbed. Easily achieved, if you don't mind farming for a few hours every few levels to get new Lyudas or Sniders.

You might also check out Admiral Bahroo, as he's one of the more hardcore, farmed-gear only people I watch. He's done an entire series called One Life To Live, which is Borderlands 2: Permadeath, essentially. He managed to get through the entire game, up to OP8, with all raid bosses, without dying once. Rather, on that one character, without dying once. Many Ninja Kriegs died to get him to that point.


Actually, I'd like to ask the thread a question: if you could change one thing about UVHM, what would it be?

Personally, I'd like to see the drop rates changed. The way I see it, once you get past level 55 or so, white and green weapons become pretty much useless, as they won't do enough damage to overcome UVHM damage resistance. As such, uniques, purples, and legendaries become almost mandatory gear. If I had my way, once you got to TVHM, white weapons would all but disappear, and greens would quickly disappear from UVHM. And once you get to Overpower Levels, you'd have maybe a 80 percent chance of purple and 20% of legendary. It's not realistic, but it might just be balanced with the requirements of UVHM and OP levels. I dunno.

[Erloas]

So to go on a bit of a different path for a bit...
Anyone play on the consoles? I've played, and loved, 1&2 on the PC. But my wife is not a PC gamer (she wasn't my wife when those came), so if we're going to be playing at all it will be on the PS4. In general I've never been a big fan of shooters on the console, but I also wasn't sure how well Diablo 3 was going to translate to the console either, and I think it works really well there.

I know consoles tend to use some sort of auto-aim or aim-assist modes in shooters, I find them really annoying in PC games, but I'm sure they've gotten a lot better than the last time I've tried FPSs on a console.

[Balmas]

So to go on a bit of a different path for a bit...
Anyone play on the consoles? I've played, and loved, 1&2 on the PC. But my wife is not a PC gamer (she wasn't my wife when those came), so if we're going to be playing at all it will be on the PS4. In general I've never been a big fan of shooters on the console, but I also wasn't sure how well Diablo 3 was going to translate to the console either, and I think it works really well there.

I know consoles tend to use some sort of auto-aim or aim-assist modes in shooters, I find them really annoying in PC games, but I'm sure they've gotten a lot better than the last time I've tried FPSs on a console.

Can't say as I have any experience on consoles. I don't think I'm a snob, but I'll gladly claim PC as the master gaming machine. However, I'd like to note that even if she's not a PC gamer, you can still use Xbox controllers with Borderlands 2 with little problem.

As for Auto-aim, it's mostly a subtle thing, kinda nudging your crosshairs towards enemies. Or at least, that was the case with Borderlands 1 before I noticed it and turned it off.

[Triaxx]

Played and completed Borderlands 1 and 2 on the 360. 1's controls felt better than 2's at first, but they're both playable, and with auto-aim off, they're surprisingly accurate. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad.

Of course, where my co-op partner had been having issues getting through the prison without corrosives, we got a pair of corrosives from the Key Chest, and I basically blitzed the entire area. For that matter, we only went in because we wanted too, since I managed to knock out the Constructor before Roland got drug away. Needless to say, my partner was pretty flabbergasted.

Me, I'm more of a Roland/Axton player. Though by the endgame, I'd dropped assault rifles and even combat rifles for Jakobs revolvers.

[Sharoth]

Interesting. I had planned to pick up Borderlands 2 when it went on sale next. Now I know I will.

[DodgerH2O]

I'd remove enemy health regen from UVHM if I could only change one thing. It would make single-player much more viable for people like myself who aren't so great at FPS games.

Also while I play on PC, I use a controller and I've been quite happy with it. I never turned the aim assist off, but it's so subtle I had to double-check to see that it was indeed still on.

[Balmas]

Interesting. I had planned to pick up Borderlands 2 when it went on sale next. Now I know I will.

Oh, absolutely. If I may offer some advice: Buy the Game of the Year edition. There's an odd quirk in Borderlands 2 that the Season Pass doesn't include some of the DLC that the GOTY includes, like the Psycho and Mechromancer character packs. Neither the GOTY edition nor the Season Pass include the smaller Headhunter DLCs, but at 3 bucks for about half and hour of content and a raid boss each, they're pretty affordable. Farming Tinder Snowflake is a decent way to get loot moving through UVHM, where he levels with the player.

Me, I'm more of a Roland/Axton player. Though by the endgame, I'd dropped assault rifles and even combat rifles for Jakobs revolvers.

I miss my Mashers... The Maggie just doesn't cut it for me anymore. Then again, I also miss when the Unforgiven was actually a weapon worth finding, instead of grinder fodder.

I'd remove enemy health regen from UVHM if I could only change one thing. It would make single-player much more viable for people like myself who aren't so great at FPS games.

I could get behind this idea. And apparently, 2K Australia liked it too, because that's what they did in the PreSequel. The biggest impact that health regen has in UVHM, I think, is to make DOT much less valuable. And it makes getting some challenges involving second winds and DOTs all but impossible...

[factotum]

I could get behind this idea. And apparently, 2K Australia liked it too, because that's what they did in the PreSequel.

They still didn't fix the problem of bosses regenerating all their health if you die while fighting one, though, which is the main issue preventing progression in the game in single player. At least if the boss's health stayed the same you could get past it via multiple corpse runs--there's still a penalty for that because you lose money, after all. That, to me, is where Borderlands shows its multiplayer bias, because it's much less likely to have a TPK with multiple combatants on the field and thus you're less likely to get the boss back to full health.

[Landis963]

Neither the GOTY edition nor the Season Pass include the smaller Headhunter DLCs, but at 3 bucks for about half and hour of content and a raid boss each, they're pretty affordable. Farming Tinder Snowflake is a decent way to get loot moving through UVHM, where he levels with the player.

Those are the three holiday themed ones, right? The Halloween one, the Mercenary day one, and the Easter one?

[Balmas]

They still didn't fix the problem of bosses regenerating all their health if you die while fighting one, though, which is the main issue preventing progression in the game in single player. At least if the boss's health stayed the same you could get past it via multiple corpse runs--there's still a penalty for that because you lose money, after all. That, to me, is where Borderlands shows its multiplayer bias, because it's much less likely to have a TPK with multiple combatants on the field and thus you're less likely to get the boss back to full health.

Personally, I think that multiplayer is actually how the game is meant to be played. Boss health regenning is not as much of a problem when you have that many people. Of course, the fact that I usually play singleplayer, and that I've been stuck at the RKMV fight in Normal Mode for a while now on my Claptrap account, says that you probably have a point.

Actually, that brings up a point I wanted to talk about. I've been playing Maya a lot recently, and while she's at the top of her class in crowd control and general mobbing, I can't help but feel that her single-target performance is lacking. This is especially true for raid bosses, nearly all of which are immune to her special attack. Does anyone have some tips for how to farm raid bosses as Maya? Any tricks besides "Kite away from them and BeeHawk them to death?" (I can't see the latter working against Vorac, but that's just because he's a badly designed boss...)

EDIT:

Those are the three holiday themed ones, right? The Halloween one, the Mercenary day one, and the Easter one?

Yes, those are the ones. Personally, I think that the Christmas one is the best, both for the boss fight and the amount of loot you get afterwards. And don't forget the Wattle Gobbler, which is for Thanksgiving.

[darksolitaire]

My biggest regret in BL2 is installing the second vault hunter upgrade pack. UVHM scaling being what it is I'd much rather have the level cap at 61 then 72.

[Vaz]

I have all 3, although i'm playing Diablo 3 at the moment, I might return to this for different action, probably play 1.5. If they have upped the legendary drop rates, cool. It got a bit boring but i'd played 1 and 2 back to back pretty much.

Playing Nisha on BL1.5. No idea what level i am.

[factotum]

Personally, I think that multiplayer is actually how the game is meant to be played.

It's entirely possible to have a multiplayer-focused game that still works as a single player experience, though. Borderlands was far better in that regard than the sequels--you could actually fight enemies using stuff you just picked up from normal loot drops, and the bosses weren't all ludicrous "I have a billion hitpoints and can end you in 1 hit" like most of the B2 ones on harder difficulties. Heck, I even successfully single-handedly took out Crawmerax by playing a Siren and using her invisibility ability to move between points of cover while occasionally taking potshots at him. Figuring out stuff like that was actually kind of fun, but it's just not possible to do the same with bosses in the sequels, and I think the game is worse for it.

[Triaxx]

Claptrap is one of those characters who's abilities are all focused towards MP from what I've seen.

BL1 also let you really stack on the regen. I had it from my shield, my turret and my COM. There was very little you couldn't tank your way through. Plus I believe it was the Siren who had the group healing there as well. I know playing through 2, I wouldn't have made it except for her healing over flow.

The one thing I still don't like from 2 is the death cutscene. Oh you died? Here, have a bloody long cutscene. Plus a cash cost. And worse it's an unskippable cutscene.

[Alex Knight]

Nah, you can make a pretty good SP-style Claptrap. It's not like the Baroness where an entire tree depends on having a partner. That said, Claptrap's Cannon Barrage special attack is fraggin' HI-LAR-IOUS.

Also....he has a good lookin' mainframe.

[Geno9999]

Actually, that brings up a point I wanted to talk about. I've been playing Maya a lot recently, and while she's at the top of her class in crowd control and general mobbing, I can't help but feel that her single-target performance is lacking. This is especially true for raid bosses, nearly all of which are immune to her special attack. Does anyone have some tips for how to farm raid bosses as Maya? Any tricks besides "Kite away from them and BeeHawk them to death?" (I can't see the latter working against Vorac, but that's just because he's a badly designed boss...)

Yeah, looking at the Time Trial runs that people on the Gearbox Forums had posted, Maya's Raid Strategey is literally "Kite away from them and Beehawk them to death" or "Go into FFYL and use Immolate bonuses." The latter of which might not be reliable enough for Solo OP 8, presumably from a combination of the FFYL time you have in Solo, the health of the boss, and then the damage reduction on top of the boss being 8 levels higher it normally is.

Speaking of, on top of not having Enemy health regen (or have it on a delay like with shields) in UVHM, why don't we have FFYL time boosted by say, 50%? Nothing's more infuriating than literally being a sliver of health away from killing an enemy before you keel over. Co-op FFYL seems utterly luxurious in comparison, even with the fact that enemy health is scaled to players present, it's not all that hard to get yourself up if there's enemies around.

Edit:

Nah, you can make a pretty good SP-style Claptrap. It's not like the Baroness where an entire tree depends on having a partner. That said, Claptrap's Cannon Barrage special attack is fraggin' HI-LAR-IOUS.

Also....he has a good lookin' mainframe.

YOU MONSTER! Now the earworms are in my head!

[Alex Knight]

YOU MONSTER! Now the earworms are in my head!

Mwuhahaha! My work here is done.