If you have, you've had better luck than I have. I have a SR with 70% slag chance and I _still_ can't slag a decent number of (mini-)bosses. I'll go ahead and blame the RNG.
I just have very clear memories of effectively one-shotting the PT1 last boss by burst firing a Dahl slag sniper rifle for the proc and then following that up with a sticky longbow bonus package with the slag bonus. That's where I actually got the slag damage challenge, and so even though the boss' model might not show the slag-licked effect it definitely still works.
And Terramorphous just turns purple as usual when slagged, but I'll admit that I've never seen weapon-based slags last very long against him. Not long enough to be worth the weapon switch, at least. A Ruin Phasebomb or Deathblossom slag proc seems to last long enough, however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valaqil
Yes, really. BL2 Wiki says those numbers are only right for your second playthrough. On the first, it's only 25% less for fire/acid on shields, which isn't a big hit. You're still correct in general, but it's only that pronounced in the hardest case. Also, what Cespenar said. You can swap weapons, leave a shock gun in your 'pack, and basically ignore shields most of the time. They're not prevalent (in my experience).
Yeah, because elemental effects obviously aren't nearly as important for the first playthrough.
Shields become fairly common as the game progresses, and the only weapons that don't deal reduced damage to them are Normal/Slag/Shock. I find myself primarily just using normal weapons in PT2.5 since they're effective against everything. Shock is also effective against everything, though, and its only real disadvantage is that elemental weaponry does less base damage than explosive or non-elemental weaponry in general. Because Mechromancer compensates for that, there's really no reason not to rely on shock weaponry.
That's not to say that fire or corrosive are bad, of course, just that their use becomes very limited (in the situational sense, because they are quite strong when they do work as intended) as the game progresses and I often find that I don't have room in my four weapon slots for a dedicated gun for both elements. That's just my opinion, though, and I think it's a mistake to write-off shock considering that it's the only almost literally unresisted DoT element.
So apparently there's some kind of bug that's interfering with online play? (I don't know the details, I only play split-screen or SP.)
Anyhow, my friend and I tried out Gaige yesterday, getting to level 7 or so so we could play with her Deathtrap robot. First, the negatives:
Spoiler
- Its damage so far is... decent. It takes about 3-4 hits to drop a Marauder or Psycho so far - not quite as good as Mordecai's Bloodwing in that respect, from a comparable point in the game at least. It's melee swings are also a bit on the slow side. As a control of sorts, I ran Axton, and my turret was definitely doing more damage, particularly against groups where it could quickly swivel to the next target while the Deathtrap was busy floating over to the next one.
- The cooldown is pretty long at a minute. (As a comparison point, Salvadore and Axton's base cooldowns are 45s - less for the latter if you reclaim the turret early - and Maya's phaselock is 15s.) Gaige does have a cooldown reduction talent, but it's waaay down the BFF tree, almost near the bottom, so you'll be dealing with minute cooldowns.
- It's kind of slow getting from target to target. This was pretty apparent on Southern Shelf, where multiple bad guys were at various elevations above and below us, and it had to run back and forth as new enemies spawned.
- It tends to chase/kite enemies away from the group, or engage them around corners or before they even reach the group - even going so far as to run inside spawn points to beat on enemies before they step out. This is great on single-player obviously (just watch the robot and you'll find that sneaky bastard who was invisibly taking potshots at you) but can be annoying for your teammate(s) in multiplayer, This can be particularly annoying for Axton if it chases enemies away from his turret, though in that case he can at least reclaim it for quicker cooldown.
However, the robot has definite advantages to offset the above.
Spoiler
- Very long duration - you will likely clear out an entire area with just one cooldown, so you don't really feel the 60s downtime as much since you'll likely spend a chunk of that just looting and moving to the next area. There is a talent to expand this even more in the BFF tree, adding 5s per kill. I'm not yet sure if doing so delays the cooldown period though, so that might not actually be worthwhile, but it's worth testing.
- Like Axton's Turret, the bot stays up while you're down, and if it scores a kill (which it should) you will second wind even if it's fighting far away from you or you can't see the enemies it's fighting. Combined with the duration and Gaige can be very hard to kill as long as there are mooks around.
- It's definitely a TANK - the bot so far can soak stupid amounts of damage, even sticking to level-equivalent badasses (including melee-heavy ones like Bullymongs and Nomads) and bosses (like Flynt) like glue for almost the whole duration. Note that it does very little damage to those on its own, so you'll want to whip out your best gun and have at it while such enemies are distracted.
- It has a pretty wide aggro radius too. When we dropped it, generally 3/4 to all of the enemies in the area would switch to it, especially once it had charged into their midst. And the robot itself aggros pretty wide too, going after enemies that weren't even on our radar. This is great news for Axton, because it means he and his turret are largely ignored even as they pump rounds into foes for massive damage. These two characters are a very strong and thematic combo as a result, particularly in wide-open or narrow areas without corners. (Just be mindful of the "chasing" mentioned above.)
- Those two points combine to make it a badass-killer, or at least badass-occupier. As soon as you see one, drop the bot - it will pull the badass' attention from you, allowing you to slip around behind it and get some easy headshots. A badass focusing on Axton's Sabre will take it down in fairly short order, but the Deathtrap is much sturdier.
- It's flight and proximity lightning make it very good at taking down slippery targets. So far we've only tested it on Rakks, but I can see it going after Buzzards or Stalkers with equal ease. Again, this will combo well with Axton's Turret; we were able to take out an entire flock of Rakks while trading (and bickering over) loot.
So all in all, I like her. Her lightning tree and the one on the right look like they can do crazy amounts of damage, but I recommend the BFF ("girlfriend mode tree?") for anyone seeking to learn the ropes with her.
Yeah, because elemental effects obviously aren't nearly as important for the first playthrough.
...
That's not to say that fire or corrosive are bad, of course, just that their use becomes very limited (in the situational sense, because they are quite strong when they do work as intended) as the game progresses and I often find that I don't have room in my four weapon slots for a dedicated gun for both elements.
I guess that's the big difference here. I'm not on PT 2, so it is easy to write shock off for now. I'm not sure how close I am to the end of PT 1, but it's not as problematic as that yet.
Even after the nerf, The Bee is still broken good against bosses. No matter if you have 3 or 4 people, one person with it and the Conference Call can kill Terra in three clips.
2 people with the combo can kill him before he goes underground for the first time.
__________________
2e Exalted Player/ST.
My IA Award and some quotes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard
Planning just wastes valuable time that could be spent doing.
Once I pick up Gemini, should I start working towards Scorched Earth or Longbow?
EDIT: Also, is the skill that lets you deploy on walls and ceilings worth it?
I'm personally of the opinion that Scorched Earth is better, especially since there are some nice turret upgrades leading up to it (I'm a big fan of buffing the turret). The walls and ceilings skill is useful if you combine it with Longbow to deploy the turret out of enemies' melee range if you have a problem with the turret getting smashed too quickly.
EDIT: Ooh, I also just realized that Longbow boosts turret health. It seems like Longbow + Maglock makes the turret a lot more survivable while Sentry + Laser Sight + Scorched Earth ups its damage output.
__________________ Beautiful avatar of peerless beauty by Kasanip! Sigatars by Prime32 and Kasanip/me.
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Ghost
Dangit Rainy, why must you be so smart?
Last edited by A Rainy Knight : 10-10-2012 at 04:09 PM.
Even after the nerf, The Bee is still broken good against bosses. ... A lone Gunzerker with dual Baby Makers can kill him before he goes underground for the first time.
FTFY.
Admittedly, I have to burn 500ish ammo to do it, but still. Still broken good, that is.
EDIT: Also, my Sniper+Anarchy+Accuracy boost theorycraft from last page turned out to be right -- having raised my Badass Accuracy boost to +8.0% (up from 6.8%) and equipped a +12% Accuracy Prodigy class mod, I can now comfortably headshot bandits from a fair ways away with a full 150 stacks of Anarchy. Who cares that I'm using a rifle that I picked up 7 levels ago? Not me, is who.
SMASH THE SYSTEM ^________^
ANARCHY FOREVER :) :) :)
Even after the nerf, The Bee is still broken good against bosses. No matter if you have 3 or 4 people, one person with it and the Conference Call can kill Terra in three clips.
2 people with the combo can kill him before he goes underground for the first time.
Hmm just reducing its damage will still keep it nicely OP I'd imagine. Hell I'm using my PT1 Bee still and I'm at level 45 now and doing fine. Granted if anything looks at me funny I die, but I can usually manage. Threshers and those cloaking things are my only real bane at the moment.
Mod that gives +5 Ward skill: 80% Also +50% capacity.
Badass Tokens: 8%
White Artifact: 15%
....I kept looking at the Tier 3-6 skills because I expected that kind of drastic gain to be much higher. I completely missed that in T1. Very cool. I'm jealous.
A few things
Can you link me to some confirmation that the Bee has been nerfed? I know that they *plan* to nerf it, but mine still has the same capacity, delay, damage, and functionality as it did upon release as of... last night. The only fair way to nerf it is to drastically gut the damage (like reduce it by upwards of 80%), increase the amp drain to 1 and decrease the delay and capacity, or remove the code that causes the damage to apply to each and every pellet fired. Nothing else would really come close to balancing it IMO
Secondly, shouldn't 100% shield recharge delay actually reduce the delay by 50%? That's how pretty much all math works in borderlands, time-based bonused generally increase the rate of completion rather than reduce the time needed to complete. If it was the latter, the recharge would be literally instant and cooldown rate could also be reduced to achieve 0 second cooldowns. It should just be increasing the rate of completion, or rather each 1 second that passes counts as 1*(1+(your bonus recharge delay, in this case 100%)) = 2 seconds, thus actually reducing your delay by 50%. If that isn't the case, i'd like to know.
A few things
Can you link me to some confirmation that the Bee has been nerfed? I know that they *plan* to nerf it, but mine still has the same capacity, delay, damage, and functionality as it did upon release as of... last night. The only fair way to nerf it is to drastically gut the damage (like reduce it by upwards of 80%), increase the amp drain to 1 and decrease the delay and capacity, or remove the code that causes the damage to apply to each and every pellet fired. Nothing else would really come close to balancing it IMO
I think they should change it to A) apply to total damage, not per pellet; B) drain the entire shield; and C) recharge quickly.
Part A is just common sense. How many bullets you're shooting should have no effect at all on how much power a shield is able to add, and the per pellet interaction is straight up broken in my opinion. I would even label it as a bug.
Part B both prevents high fire rate from being a different way to break it and fits much better with the fluff of the shield's name.
Part C prevents part B from making it a near worthless gimmick.
In combination, they should result in a shield that is powerful but not brokenly overpowered, makes a lot more sense, and still has something unique and powerful that makes it worthy of being a legendary. Oh, and they can boost its stats back up without breaking the game in half.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aethernox
Secondly, shouldn't 100% shield recharge delay actually reduce the delay by 50%? That's how pretty much all math works in borderlands, time-based bonused generally increase the rate of completion rather than reduce the time needed to complete. If it was the latter, the recharge would be literally instant and cooldown rate could also be reduced to achieve 0 second cooldowns. It should just be increasing the rate of completion, or rather each 1 second that passes counts as 1*(1+(your bonus recharge delay, in this case 100%)) = 2 seconds, thus actually reducing your delay by 50%. If that isn't the case, i'd like to know.
Every action skill cooldown reduction thing I've seen is phrased as "increases cooldown rate by X%". Every shield recharge delay reduction thing I've seen is phrased as "reduces shield recharge delay by X%".
Judging by that wording, I think 100% shield recharge delay reduction does, in fact, reduce the delay to 0. I haven't actually achieved anywhere near that myself, though, so I don't have any solid evidence to testify on.
Reynard, any chance you have a Love Thumper stashed somewhere that you can test? If your Siren can get that shield to start recharging after only half a second or so, I'd say that would be proof of how it works.
No, but I can grab one in like 30 seconds. Expect an edit to this post soon.
THUMPER EDIT: Okay, it seems the Thumper can't be effected by shield recharge delay at all. Took the entire 3-ish minutes to start charging.
In other absurd cap news, just reached 600 anarchy. I don't even know what is going on any more, or where these bullets are going, but there sure are a lot of people falling over.
__________________
2e Exalted Player/ST.
My IA Award and some quotes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard
Planning just wastes valuable time that could be spent doing.
Jeeze, I'll bet. How'd you get up to that much anyway, just keep one last guy alive while you go nuts with emptying your clips?
It keeps between areas. All you have to do is not die and have a +4 MOAR STOOPID class mod. I know that skill has a real name, but mine is more appropriate.
__________________
2e Exalted Player/ST.
My IA Award and some quotes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard
Planning just wastes valuable time that could be spent doing.
No, but I can grab one in like 30 seconds. Expect an edit to this post soon.
THUMPER EDIT: Okay, it seems the Thumper can't be effected by shield recharge delay at all. Took the entire 3-ish minutes to start charging.
In other absurd cap news, just reached 600 anarchy. I don't even know what is going on any more, or where these bullets are going, but there sure are a lot of people falling over.
Max Anarchy + Close Enough + The Nth Degree = Aiming is for suckers
Every action skill cooldown reduction thing I've seen is phrased as "increases cooldown rate by X%". Every shield recharge delay reduction thing I've seen is phrased as "reduces shield recharge delay by X%".
Judging by that wording, I think 100% shield recharge delay reduction does, in fact, reduce the delay to 0. I haven't actually achieved anywhere near that myself, though, so I don't have any solid evidence to testify on.
I think that is extraordinarily unlikely:
A) If that were the case, and Reynard did have -100% SRD, he wouldn't have to wait for "half a second" because he wouldn't have any delay. His shields would always be recharging. The fact is that there does exist some delay, and I suspect that Reynard is under-reporting the actual amount of time it takes his shields to start recharging.
B) I tested a 4.2 second Bee with 10/5 Ward and -7.2% from Badass points, and there's no way it started recharging in the .53 seconds suggested by that math unless there's some hidden "hard" delay cap that somehow exists despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.
C) All negative-signed modifiers in Borderlands 1 were handled via the reciprocal method wherein a "100% reduction" was actually a "100% increase in rate" AFAIK.
D) Other negative modifiers don't work like that now. -100% Accuracy halves your accuracy, it doesn't increase your spread to literally screen-wide proportions.
Max Anarchy + Close Enough + The Nth Degree = Aiming is for suckers
This, though I have no idea how to check if Nth Degree procs off of ricochet shots from Close Enough. Because the heavens know that it's not going to proc off a regular shot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aethernox
I think that is extraordinarily unlikely:
A) If that were the case, and Reynard did have -100% SRD, he wouldn't have to wait for "half a second" because he wouldn't have any delay. His shields would always be recharging. The fact is that there does exist some delay, and I suspect that Reynard is under-reporting the actual amount of time it takes his shields to start recharging.
B) I tested a 4.2 second Bee with 10/5 Ward and -7.2% from Badass points, and there's no way it started recharging in the .53 seconds suggested by that math unless there's some hidden "hard" delay cap that somehow exists despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.
Well, it feels like half a second in combat. I agree, there is very likely either a soft or hard cap on shield regen reducers.
__________________
2e Exalted Player/ST.
My IA Award and some quotes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard
Planning just wastes valuable time that could be spent doing.
A) If that were the case, and Reynard did have -100% SRD, he wouldn't have to wait for "half a second" because he wouldn't have any delay. His shields would always be recharging. The fact is that there does exist some delay, and I suspect that Reynard is under-reporting the actual amount of time it takes his shields to start recharging.
B) I tested a 4.2 second Bee with 10/5 Ward and -7.2% from Badass points, and there's no way it started recharging in the .53 seconds suggested by that math unless there's some hidden "hard" delay cap that somehow exists despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.
C) All negative-signed modifiers in Borderlands 1 were handled via the reciprocal method wherein a "100% reduction" was actually a "100% increase in rate" AFAIK.
D) Other negative modifiers don't work like that now. -100% Accuracy halves your accuracy, it doesn't increase your spread to literally screen-wide proportions.
To clarify on this, the system Borderlands 2 uses for modifiers is VERY convoluted, basically a 100% recharge delay reduction doesn't mean 100%(base)-100%(variable)=0% it instead means
100%(base)/(1.00(base)+1.00(variable)). Also, instead of adding reducers, you multiply the so in the example:
Have to say, I more or less saw that coming from the moment they first announced that Hyperion was the villain for this game. You know, because of the whole "Guardian Angel is (in) a Hyperion satellite" thing after you kill the Destroyer.
On a semi-related note, I am so not buying the whole "Wilhelm nearly took down the Vault Hunters 1.0" thing it's not even funny. Even story/"canon"-wise, there's no way he's anything but a certifiable chump compared to the Destroyer, or General Knoxx, or Crawmerax, or M.I.N.A.C., or...
__________________
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrylius
That's how wizards beta test their new animals. If it survives Australia, it's a go. Which in hindsight explains a LOT about Australia.
HOLY FLAMING BALLS! Just started a Mechromancer and Midge-Mong dropped a 111 damage orange assault rifle. I'm level 5, it does more damage than my sniper rifle and seems to have a rocket launcher type area of effect. Bastard guns for bastard people!
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Thanks to Veera for the avatar.
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClericofPhwarrr
Dhavaer, your ideas are like candy from the sky, sprinkled lightly with cinnamon.
Are you sure that you multiply each and every modifier? In the first game, at least, i'm fairly certain that it added all of your modifiers together and then applied them depending on whether the total was positive or negative.
I am starting to think that I am playing Salvador wrong. I just killed Captain Flint and popped level 9, so I know I have a long way to go, but he seems to be a suicide machine. The only to way to activate his special power is to run in the middle of everything. Then I lose my shields and start losing health. By the time I am out of gun-zerking, I'm lucky to have 1/4 of my health left. (More likely, I have a tiny sliver left on my health bar.)
Is there another way that he is supposed to be played that doesn't lead to his frequent death?
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