Borderlands 2: When to Play the DLC?

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm nearly done my first playthrough of Borderlands 2, and I haven't touched the DLC yet. I'm worried that if I play the DLC I'll end up severely overleveled for the main game, considering without DLC I'm still always two or three levels above every new zone I discover.

If I do play the DLC, should I save them all for True Vault Hunter Mode, or should I play them after completing the main story for Playthrough 1?

 

[momijirabbit]

As soon as you can pre True, you can never be too OP in borderlands, for True once you beat the story play through it again so you can get the loot at a higher level.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Do Captains Scarlett's and her Pirates Booty after rescuing Roland from the Bloodshot base. You should be at just the right level.
Do Tourgues Campaign of Carnage straight after, enemies will be a bit stronger than you.
Sir Hammerlocks Big Game Hunt should be done straight after the main quest is complete, should be pretty easy.
The last Dlc, Tiny Tina's, will be the last you do, by this point you will probably out level everything by 5 levels.

If you have already done the main quest do the dlc in normal mode first in any order. You will probably be super OP but will learn about the enemies you counter. Crit spots and so on. This is a better alterative than going up against them first time in any of the harder difficulties because you will die all the time that way.

 

[ThriKreen]

Normal Mode caps out around L35, True Vault Hunter extends it to about L50, and Ultimate Vault Hunter is about L72.
I believe the DLC tends to scale and you can redo them for each tier (i.e. once for each normal, true and ultimate).

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Normal Mode caps out around L35, True Vault Hunter extends it to about L50, and Ultimate Vault Hunter is about L72.
I believe the DLC tends to scale and you can redo them for each tier (i.e. once for each normal, true and ultimate).

So If i was a level 35 by the end of Normal mode, every DLC from thereon would be capped at 35? Or would they scale as I leveled up to say 40?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Do Captains Scarlett's and her Pirates Booty after rescuing Roland from the Bloodshot base. You should be at just the right level.
Do Tourgues Campaign of Carnage straight after, enemies will be a bit stronger than you.
Sir Hammerlocks Big Game Hunt should be done straight after the main quest is complete, should be pretty easy.
The last Dlc, Tiny Tina's, will be the last you do, by this point you will probably out level everything by 5 levels.

If you have already done the main quest do the dlc in normal mode first in any order. You will probably be super OP but will learn about the enemies you counter. Crit spots and so on. This is a better alterative than going up against them first time in any of the harder difficulties because you will die all the time that way.

When you rescue say post Bloodshot base does that include all the current sidequests?

 

[Dalek Caan]

Do Captains Scarlett's and her Pirates Booty after rescuing Roland from the Bloodshot base. You should be at just the right level.
Do Tourgues Campaign of Carnage straight after, enemies will be a bit stronger than you.
Sir Hammerlocks Big Game Hunt should be done straight after the main quest is complete, should be pretty easy.
The last Dlc, Tiny Tina's, will be the last you do, by this point you will probably out level everything by 5 levels.

If you have already done the main quest do the dlc in normal mode first in any order. You will probably be super OP but will learn about the enemies you counter. Crit spots and so on. This is a better alterative than going up against them first time in any of the harder difficulties because you will die all the time that way.

When you rescue say post Bloodshot base does that include all the current sidequests?

In my playthrough I left them till after I did the DLC so I'm not sure what effect it would have if you did them before the DLC.

 

[ThriKreen]

So If i was a level 35 by the end of Normal mode, every DLC from thereon would be capped at 35? Or would they scale as I leveled up to say 40?

It caps and resets for each mode you are playing in, so in essence you can play each DLC 3 times, once for normal, once for true, and once for ultimate. It scales for the mode you are in, so playing a DLC in normal, means it'll be from L1 to 35ish depending on what level you are at. If you play on true, it'll be L36-50, and ultimate, L51-72 or thereabouts.

So if you stuck to normal and were L40, the DLC would stay at L35 (normal's cap). But if you switched to True, it would reset and start you from the beginning of the adventure, but scale it to your current L40 level (instead of starting it off at L36).

 

[Ticklefist]

I do them at the end of each playthrough unless I'm just trying to powerlevel.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I suggest you played the DLC before you hit their level capped. I bought the game of the year edition and I passed the standard level capped (35) on the story on normal mode meaning when I got onto the DLC after beating the game, I became overpowered (althought Tiny Tina Assult on Dungeon Keep did provided a challange).