investigate and destroy the cult that worships Lilith
and got this orange rarity shield called the Flame of the Firehawk as the quest reward. Looks like a fairly standard fire nova shield with high stats, except with a slight change in wording... I haven't actually tried it out yet, but according to some google searching it sends out a nova once every two seconds any time it's drained, I think even with no requirement to ever have a full recharge. Holy crap!
Is this correct, and is it as awesome for farming the Super Novas shield challenge (killing enemies with shield novas) as it sounds?
Oh, and it's nice to see that the top rarity category isn't for weapons only.
it was over 3 days ago and according to the game's own information, working as intended. According to you it bugged or your wrong. try it out and see what happens, because I'm not rolling a new siren when I'm not even done on my first playthrough for pics proof.
You don't need to make a new siren, just reset your skill points at a quick-change station and don't reassign all of them.
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Revan avatar by kaptainkrutch.
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.
Two quick questions, what does tipping Mad Moxxi do? Where is the Creature Slaughter Dome and how do I get to it?
Tipping Mad Moxxi will eventually result in her giving you weapons.
So far, I've gotten 4 from her, each was a sub machine gun.
Moxxi's Good Touch is a SMG that does fire DMG
Moxxi's Bad Touch is a SMG that does caustic DMG
Both weapons are scaled to you, so tipping her every few levels to get new SMGs isn't a bad idea, especially for Maya, but it can be expensive.
The level 28 Good Touch I bought last night cost me around 12,000 to buy? But its worth it IMO.
So far, my play list is
1 Maya - Love the idea of Sirens
2 Salvador - His Rampage tree looks fantastic
3 Gaige - When she is released, until then move on to 4
4 Zer0 - Meh
5 Axton - Double Meh since I played as Roland in first game, and don't much like Axton's skills.
Personally, I'm having ALOT of fun with Maya's Cataclysm skill tree. My damage out put is insane because of the elemental stacking. Every other Maya I know chose the Harmony skill tree...strange.
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On the subject of an Illithid ressurecting a fallen party member-
Quote:
"...because every one knows that Illithid are notorius for being Clerics."
'The Wings of Death beat overhead,
Here to collect victims of The Red'
according to some google searching it sends out a nova once every two seconds any time it's drained, I think even with no requirement to ever have a full recharge. Holy crap!
Is this correct, and is it as awesome for farming the Super Novas shield challenge (killing enemies with shield novas) as it sounds?
Yes, it does work as you've Googled. It's maybe not as good as you think, though, because the novas will stop as soon as the shield starts recharging and won't start again unless the shield has had a chance to recharge fully before getting discharged again...it's quite a slow charging shield, so it takes a while for that to happen. Thus the only way you can be reasonably sure of getting continuous novas is to stay constantly under fire once the shield has depleted, and I think you see the problem there!
Personally, I'm having ALOT of fun with Maya's Cataclysm skill tree. My damage out put is insane because of the elemental stacking. Every other Maya I know chose the Harmony skill tree...strange.
Its not all that strange. As anyone you've meet is playing with other people and picking the good team based skills are going to be common. I'm sure the majority of the solo Mayas are picking the other trees, but pretty much by definition you aren't going to be seeing them.
And in the end everyone, no matter the spec, is good at skilling stuff, there are however only a few skills to help keep other people alive.
So far my favorite line of quests, and probably one of my favorite characters overall, is Tiny Tina. I just loved her Tea Party.
As for weapon choice, I too try to diversify my selection so I never have to worry about totally running out of ammo. I've been going with large clip weapons for my gunzerking pair with the 3rd and 4th weapons being utility or large, slower damage.
The first ones often end up pistols, but SMG and Assault rifles make it in there too. I'm not sure why but it seems like pistols often have better damage and the same ROF or better then most SMGs and assault rifles and with faster reloads and they don't often give up that much magazine size to get there. I've rarely found SMGs that really seem all that great, they are better for elemental then assault rifles but most pistols have elemental too.
Right now I've got a slag pistol and... forget one the matching weapon is exactly but its an elemental high ROF weapon. My 3rd weapons is a melee revolver, and the 4th is alternating between utility and high damage, something like a shotgun, or something with a less useful elemental damage like explosive or shock which get used sometimes but not for everything, and rocket launchers have started hitting here a bit more since they are starting to show up. The 3rd and 4th slots are where the Jakobs often end up, not being able to hold down the trigger makes them a PITA as gunzerker primary weapons.
None of the other manufacturers really stand out to me, though the high magazines make Bandits decent for gunzerking I don't think they are very good for elemental.
I have a feeling my assassin will be using a lot of Jakobs. At least as secondary weapons, they make great snipers. But I'm still planning on a melee primary build for him, though I need a few more levels (8-9 right now I think) before I'm really sure on that. I just don't see enough times where sitting back and sniping is a practical option.
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Steampunk Farseer thanks to The Randomizer
Personally, I'm having ALOT of fun with Maya's Cataclysm skill tree. My damage out put is insane because of the elemental stacking. Every other Maya I know chose the Harmony skill tree...strange.
Cataclysm is amazing, though I did drop 2 points into harmony for the heal; which also tends to be the most visually obvious effect. You might just not notice the movement and cataclysm skills.
I gotta say, Axton's turret is SO MUCH better than Roland's in BL1. For me, the most significant metric of this is that I actually use Axton's turret. Also, Roland's turret can't get a rocketpod as early.
Also, who love's the Loaders secondary crit boxes which knock the arms off? As far as I'm aware, it works on all of them but the Dozers (from in front) and the 'Angelic guards'?
I have a feeling my assassin will be using a lot of Jakobs. At least as secondary weapons, they make great snipers. But I'm still planning on a melee primary build for him, though I need a few more levels (8-9 right now I think) before I'm really sure on that. I just don't see enough times where sitting back and sniping is a practical option.
Obviously, a lot depends on what you find fun as a playstyle (and the subjective opinion of "enough times"), but I've been trying to sit and snipe pretty much the whole game (I'm level 23 now), and I've been pleased with my ability to do so. There are, to be sure, certain enemies who are either too mobile or too annoying to use the rifle on, but most of the time it's pretty reasonable, I think.
Just to quantify that a bit (and because I was curious), I looked at the "Kill X dudes" challenges for each weapon, to see how often I killed with each weapon. Percentages and pie chart in spoiler, apologies for the truly awful presentation.
Spoiler
Sniper Rifle (scoped): 44.9%
Pistol: 13.5%
Shotgun: 8.1%
Shield: 7.4%
Other/unknown: 6.8%
Vehicle Turret: 5.6%
Melee: 4.1%
Assault Rifle: 3.2%
No-scope Sniper rifle: 2.9%
Grenade: 2.0%
SMG: 1.6%
Other/unknown is the difference between my day kills + night kills (1423) and the sum of all seperately listed weapons above (1326). It's stuff like running people over, exploding barrels, that sort of thing.
My SMG usage is going to go up (since I've decided to use the legendary one that I found), but I use the Sniper rifle almost as often as everything else combined, and I think do think it's fairly viable (most of the time).
For what it's worth, I do mostly use Jakobs guns. Had a nice Maliwan slag rifle I used, and even a Hyperion for a little while, but I've used 7 sniper rifles and 5 have been Jakobs.
I'm almost on playthrough 2.5 as a level 45 Zero, so I thought that I'd share my experiences.
Melee is fun for a while. That last part is pretty key, though, because it's mediocre until you get the Melee capstone (because, before then, in any situation in which you could melee you could have instead used a shotgun to similar to better effect) at which point it suddenly becomes really fun. However, you reach a point not long (within 10 or so levels) into playthrough two where melee becomes tough, and while it excels at clearing trash mobs it's entirely unviable when you need it most: against the toughest enemies in the game. This wasn't unexpected, and though I was a bit bummed out I thought I'd switch over to sniping to cope.
But, man, sniping isn't great. The problem is that Sniping doesn't really have any damage outside of Critical Damage. Crits are great and all but he doesn't really get any strong, accessible sources of fire rate or gun damage to really put those multiplicative damage boosters to work. Axton and Sal get a ton of mixed +damage modifiers and so even when you're reliably landing your crits as Zero I don't really feel like I would be out-performing the other gun classes.
Which brings me to my next points. Crits aren't reliable. Lots of enemies are easy to crit, but quite a few simply aren't. Stalkers? Jet loaders? Skag swarms? Threshers? Varkid? Physically shielded enemies? Pretty much every flying enemy in the game in addition to several notable bosses? Skill and accuracy are one thing but it would take unusually gifted mechanics to reliably crit several enemy types in ordinary game situations.
On the topic of crits, Critical Ascension just kind of sucks. Stacks decay really quickly, and while the damage you get is certainly worth a one skill point investment I'm not convinced that it's worth buying yourself the entire skill tree. It's a nice bonus, but it's not nearly as game-changing as... well, as any other capstone in the game.
On the other hand, though, the middle Assassin tree (Cunning) is just absolutely ****ing fantastic. Seriously, just pick up some double-firing pistols, SMGs, or solid shotties, put 5 points in Ambush, Rising Shot, and most importantly Two Fang and go to town. Effectively, you're just playing Lillith from the first game except that your Phasewalk lets you throw absurdly strong Kunai. Which is really good, because Lillith was bar-none the most overwhelmingly powerful character in BL1. I'm aiming for something like this and I can't really think of anything that would make Zero stronger. With a high-level "Professional" class mod, you score 10/5 skill ranks in Two Fang, thus giving every one of your manual shots a 60% chance to fire an additional bullet. It's pretty good.
I totally agree, Aethernox. I tried a sniper Zero, and it just didn't have enough going for it over other characters to warrant a build. IMO, Zero is a melee-centric toon. If you want to stand and fire, go with Axton.
Speaking of, here's my current notions on my Commando build:
Maximum uptime, maximum whup-ass turrets, personal durability, and a quick dip into Impact for bonus personal damage. By my math, I'll have a 33.6 second cooldown on the turrets, and they'll have a 30 second duration. If I'm very lucky, I'll find a class mod that sports a couple bonus ranks of resourceful, and I'll have always on double turrets, and who wouldn't want that?
I didn't save my practice builds, but I think both of those are about what I had picked. I know my assassin was mostly cunning, though I had points in both of the other trees... not that I actually expect to take any character to 50, if its anything like BL1 my group won't stay together past one playthrough.
And the commando, I was putting a bit more into grenades, I really like the MIRVs. Grenades seem to be underutilized by a lot of people but I've found things go so much better when you remember to toss them out.
As for the sniping in general, I think it really depends how much you play with other people and how good those players are. You will just be swarmed most of the time if you go solo but they work much better in a group if you don't have to worry about saving those people and closing range quite a lot. Latency can be a lot bigger issue too when you're trying to snipe in faster moving situations because the enemies do a lot better job at not sitting still for long and if you aren't hitting criticals all the time you may as well have a revolver.
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Steampunk Farseer thanks to The Randomizer
I've found having a decent (Dahl or Maliwan) sniper really useful when fighting baddasses as a Siren. Phaselock 'em and shoot the critspot for massive damage. Jakobs are nice, but haven't found a sniper that compares with either my Sexy Maliwan or the Dahl rifle I call Destroyer of Souls, a 600 damage burst fire shock monstrosity that just ends things.
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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.
But, man, sniping isn't great. The problem is that Sniping doesn't really have any damage outside of Critical Damage. Crits are great and all but he doesn't really get any strong, accessible sources of fire rate or gun damage to really put those multiplicative damage boosters to work.
Re: fire rate--what about a burst sniper? You can actually find those quite easily (the only burst sniper guns in the original game were extremely rare legendaries), and for example I have one that'll empty its 6-round clip into an opponent when scoped. You run out of ammo hella quick, of course, but you certainly have no reason to complain about the fire rate!
5 Axton - Double Meh since I played as Roland in first game, and don't much like Axton's skills.
I've only played Axton to level 7 so far, then moved on to Zer0, but Axton is loads better imo than Roland. First and foremost, the fact that you can pick up your turret if it's no longer needed and regain some of that cooldown.
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Spoiler
Dr. Cox: Newbie, if the next two words out of your mouth aren't 'See ya' then the third word will be 'Oh my god. My crotch. You've punched me in my crotch.'.
Part of II.I.
Legionary of Valor Inner Circle
OOC Mafioso
I've found having a decent (Dahl or Maliwan) sniper really useful when fighting baddasses as a Siren. Phaselock 'em and shoot the critspot for massive damage. Jakobs are nice, but haven't found a sniper that compares with either my Sexy Maliwan or the Dahl rifle I call Destroyer of Souls, a 600 damage burst fire shock monstrosity that just ends things.
With Maya (or Lilith, for that matter), the elemental procs on a corrosive or incendiary sniper weapon really help burn people down. With a sniper or revolver you have a very large initial impulse on a hit, and that impulse drives the amount of proc damage, which is further magnified by the fact that you're a Siren. That doesn't help Zer0 (or Mordecai) much though, because he doesn't have that additional magnification from "Sirenity".
In the first game, there was an explosive sniper with splash damage (a Torgue Cobra) that was fantasitc with Mordecai. Better even than the Maliwan Volcano. I wonder if there was something similar that carried over.
Personally, I'm having ALOT of fun with Maya's Cataclysm skill tree. My damage out put is insane because of the elemental stacking. Every other Maya I know chose the Harmony skill tree...strange.
I'm actually planning to put most of my points in the Motion tree. More and longer phase locks, and it bouncing to another target if the first one dies? Yes please. The rest of my skill point plan involves getting Wreck (because that bonus is just ridiculously huge, and with all the Motion stuff it'll be active a lot) and Minds Eye because I like sniper rifles and phase lock makes getting headshots easy. My multiplayer build will also pick up Res because it's such a potential game changer in a team and I'd already qualify, and I'll probably pick up a little Elated too, but I'm not planning to go any further than that in Harmony.
Quote:
Originally Posted by factotum
Yes, it does work as you've Googled. It's maybe not as good as you think, though, because the novas will stop as soon as the shield starts recharging and won't start again unless the shield has had a chance to recharge fully before getting discharged again...it's quite a slow charging shield, so it takes a while for that to happen. Thus the only way you can be reasonably sure of getting continuous novas is to stay constantly under fire once the shield has depleted, and I think you see the problem there!
I've tried it out now, and there's no way in hell that the time between novas is 2 seconds. More like 1 second, or even less. And it needing a full recharge before starting again isn't much of a problem because by the time it stops everything's dead. Combat almost degenerates into just running straight at the nearest enemy and watching him die burning, possibly after nicking me a time or two (most likely with ranged attackers) and extending the novas. Of course, I see how many I can take out before that happens, but any time the shield does drop it usually finishes the battle for me.
Flame of the Firehawk is a pretty strong candidate for best shield in the game, I think. Assuming it scales to your level when you get it, I might postpone that quest in playthrough 2 just to get a twinked out max level version of it.
In other news, the last few posts have convinced me that I should search for and try out a Dahl burst fire sniper. I've been using mostly Jakobs snipers so far, but if the bursts don't disrupt accuracy too much the multiplier from extra shots might be worth a drop in damage per shot.
So has anyone tried a melee Zero with the Love Thumper shield? Or is that just a trap shield?
For those who haven't gotten it:
Spoiler
Love Thumper is one of those shields that grant bonus melee damage when the shield is depleted. It is a unique purple because it has a huge Roid damage bonus, and it's shield recharge delay is a staggering 250 seconds. I guess the point behind it is that once it is down, you get access to that huge buff for a very long time.
Dosen't seem like it's worth it though, which is why I ask before testing.
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag SudsyPolecat
So has anyone tried a melee Zero with the Love Thumper shield? Or is that just a trap shield?
I saw that shield just recently but the implication of the really long recharge timer didn't occur to me at the time. Not sure if it is a specific version or if it is a scaling one, but I saw it around level 22.
The main issue I would see with using it is the fact that sometimes the time between shields dropping and you being dead is very short by those levels. Maybe if you put a lot of skills and gear towards increasing your health and health regen, but I could see you getting knocked down early and then having to be saved every 5 seconds because you are only picked up with about 20% health. I think it could probably be done with some planning, but I think you would almost have to build your character and all of your equipment around trying to make it work.
The one really annoying thing I've found with sniping as Zero so far is that every time I spawn the shadow it runs right in front of me and blocks my view of what I want to shoot. The very quick use timer on the skill also gives very little time to switch from the activation animation and get zoomed and and get aimed and get that critical shot.
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Steampunk Farseer thanks to The Randomizer
Sounds like a good tool for the Roid Rage challenge. On looking things up a bit more, it appears that each of the shield challenges has a specific unique or legendary shield that is spectacularly good for that specific challenge.
Except Game of Thorns, looks like that one has to be done with a regular spike shield. Guess it's a good thing I picked Game of Thorns to be my first shield challenge to max out (I completed it a short time before getting Flame of the Firehawk).
Sounds like a good tool for the Roid Rage challenge. On looking things up a bit more, it appears that each of the shield challenges has a specific unique or legendary shield that is spectacularly good for that specific challenge.
Except Game of Thorns, looks like that one has to be done with a regular spike shield. Guess it's a good thing I picked Game of Thorns to be my first shield challenge to max out (I completed it a short time before getting Flame of the Firehawk).
I forgot about the shield specific challenges. Though that reminds me of another question. Do you get anything for completing the Cult of the Vault? Or is it just more badass points?
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag SudsyPolecat
I gotta say, Axton's turret is SO MUCH better than Roland's in BL1. For me, the most significant metric of this is that I actually use Axton's turret. Also, Roland's turret can't get a rocketpod as early.
As awesome as Axton is, I have to respectfully disagree, as Axton's turret doesn't have the aura of god mode that Roland's had with ammo and health regen. Granted, it's awesome in its own ways. Axton is definitely a more offensive character than Roland was.
I think I figured out my glitch with the telescopes freezing my character in Southern Shelf Bay. It only happened when my co-op partner tried using the telescopes at the same time I did. Annoying glitch still.
But it worked out well in the end since I got two explosive Combat Rifles in the end, one of which was orange. And then I got the Eridian Jackpot on the first try and upgraded my Combat Rifle ammo twice. Also keeping two blue shotguns and two decent pistols.
I kind of want to get two awesome Torgue Shotguns with low magazines that explode when you reload them just to see if those guns actually become viable in gunzerking.
Still haven't tried Maya and I started a solo with Zer0 before remembering just what a pain soloing is in this game.
__________________ RP's
Bleach in the Playground OOCIC
I am willing to make and roleplay as characters for people's factions, etcetera on request.
Just started last night (no spoilers please) with Salvadore. I played Brick exclusively in BL1 and Salvadore is just as much of a beast even without the melee. Gunzerking gives you a massive heal and you get even more love from the Hard to Kill tree but for now I'm focusing on Rampage to get my GZ cooldowns as low as possible and make it last as long as possible.
There is just something immensely satisfying about dual-wielding shotguns and ignoring cover
I forgot about the shield specific challenges. Though that reminds me of another question. Do you get anything for completing the Cult of the Vault? Or is it just more badass points?
Just more badass ranks, as far as I know. Considering the permanent tied-to-account nature of those that's still a pretty good reward, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscipleofBob
I kind of want to get two awesome Torgue Shotguns with low magazines that explode when you reload them just to see if those guns actually become viable in gunzerking.
The explode on reload thing is exclusive to Tediore.
I've found the Tediore shotguns to be insanely powerful when you just shoot one shot and just throw the rest. But my favorite Tediore weapons are the launchers! The erratic flight path of the launcher just adds a very nice touch of random chance to the mix.
EDIT: I should mention, I haven't found any of the other Tediore weapons to be as useful when shot once and thrown as the shotgun.
Also, I can't recall ever seeing a Tediore Sniper rifle. Do they even make those?
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag SudsyPolecat
One orange Tediore shotgun I found homed in on targets, firing shots as it went (even with an empty clip!) before impacting and exploding. Near as I could tell, remaining ammo in the clip also affected how powerful the shots where while it was flying.
It was pretty good, but it was quicly outclassed by better stuff later on. I can't recall the name though.
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag SudsyPolecat
So has anyone tried a melee Zero with the Love Thumper shield? Or is that just a trap shield?
For those who haven't gotten it:
Spoiler
Love Thumper is one of those shields that grant bonus melee damage when the shield is depleted. It is a unique purple because it has a huge Roid damage bonus, and it's shield recharge delay is a staggering 250 seconds. I guess the point behind it is that once it is down, you get access to that huge buff for a very long time.
Dosen't seem like it's worth it though, which is why I ask before testing.
Melee Zero can't really survive with no shields and just Resurgence or whatever, even in solo play, so Love Thumper is pretty much just out-classed by another melee shield that comes later in the game. It's a cute gimmick while it lasts, though.
Edit
That Shotty is called Deliverance, and it drops off of a Wildlife Preserve boss.
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