Poll: Borderlands 2, balance issues.

[TAGM]

Really depends on how you play. If you're talking multiplayer, really you want a diverse team of different people, so it really doesn't matter.

If you want to solo things, you probably want to go Gunzerker, simply due to survivability and damage output. It's a constant thing, unlike, say, Anarchy.

BUT! If you're willing to pull off a few easy-to-do glitches, Mechromancer just becomes a powerhouse, because she has a glitch that essentially gives you almost instant shield regen, to the point where elemental damage and small arms fire can't even hope to put a dent into your health. That, plus a decent level Shock weapon (That Moxie assult rifle that I forget the name of is a good one) And you're pretty much on easy street. Although, be VERY careful if you decide to go with any rocket launchers, as the kind of accuracy you have with max anarchy can easily send a rocket wizzing down so low as to insta-kill you even from full shields and health. No, really, it's happened, and it's lame as all hell.

Also glitching, a multiplayer Axton can basically have speed haxs. It doesn't exactly help, but it's pretty good for speedrunning, and kind of fun to do anyway. What DOES help is that a siren can basicaly keep two other players alive forever, AND gain experience for every time they "die" and get Rezed back up immediately afterwards. Well, assuming they haven't patched those glitches by the time you try them - though, it's been years, so, you know.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Nothing but raid bosses stand up to my Axton with dual Turret, rocket pod, double barrel Slag. Its like having 2 extra players with you at all times, and with a cooldown relic and the Engineer mod I only need to wait about 18sec before I have them back.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I've only got three characters running at the moment: Axton, Gaige, and Zer0. My most powerful build right now is Axton with his focus on the Survival skill tree and overall damage resistance -- along with a Rough Rider shield (no shield points, but massive health bonus), he's only died three times over the course of 23 levels. By far my most effective alt, and he's worked out better in UVHM than I ever thought possible. Axton is as close as I've come to an overpowered character.

Zer0? As much as I love to play him, he's a squishy gimmick alt, and he's far too focused on specialization to ever be considered overpowered.

Gaige could be a potential OP, but for the fact that her mech's AI is a fucking mess. He gets stuck in terrain, wanders off, loses targets, and sometimes doesn't respond at all. I am digging Gaige as a shock specialist, but she could be so much more effective with a little code tweaking.

I haven't touched the other characters yet so I can't comment on them.

The general consensus in the Borderlands community seems to be that Krieg is the most overpowered character in the game. He's next up on my list.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

I tried running Gige thru Anarchy but the accuracy penalties were so harsh I lost all interest. Now specced as a heavy Dethtrap build and electric specialist and I'm having so much more fun. When Dethtrap is on his game, my build feels borderline OP, but as stated, Dethtrap AI bounces around.

No, it's cool Dethtrap, keep shooting at that one annoying Rakk, I'll deal with these 6 bullymongs by myself.

 

[Souplex]

While all the characters have some overpowered builds, Gaige has the most power for the least skill.
Salvador seems to have the most DPS and survivability, followed by Krieg.
Maya is a debuffer/controller/healer, so she's good on a team, but not great on her own.
A sniping Zer0 with a Jakob's rifle has fairly spectacular single shot damage.
Axton's kind of just there. Not terribly good.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

First and foremost is the horrid issue of the accuracy with that many anarchy stacks. It sounds like you could just compensate, but play with it for a while and see if you're hitting anything.

Another major handicap in the Mechromancer is the lack of health upgrades. I haven't played her much, but I have a hard time believing that she can come anywhere near a tanked up Salvador.

As for the turret, others have mentioned the distinct differences.

The simple fact is, the characters don't matter NEARLY as much as the guns do. The right gun beats the right character any day and Sal can wield 2 at once.

On a completely unrelated note, I desperately want to punch your avatar in his smug little face and beat him to a pulp. No offense to you personally and if that's an animated picture of you, I apologize, but my god does that fucking image fill me with rage.

Kunai OP:


But nah, really, other than the obviously broken Salvador, the rest all have their little pros and cons. Actually I've never tried Krieg, but the other four are pretty well balanced. Salvador's the only one that sticks out.

Wait wait wait.

What the hell was happening in that video? Doesn't Money Shot only affect the final shot? Also what weapons?

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Every character can take solo terramorphus on UVHM in a matter of minutes if built right, I really don't think any characters are particularly OP, I know amazing Maya players that comfortably and reliably out DPS good Salvador players using a blue Dahl SMG.

Leveling-wise, Gaige is probably the easiest to level and zero the hardest I would say. But they all have potential. Hell, zero can solo some raid bosses using melee on UVHM.

 

[Schadrach]

Fellow Escapists, I need your help.

I've been doing some research and I am almost positive that the "Mechromancer" is by far the most overpowered class. With a full stack on anarchy a pistol that should be dealing around 30 damage will deal up to 200 instead... And if it happens to be a critical then... Yeah.

Her robot, Deathtrap has much more health than Axton's turrets even when they have their shields and longbow trait (110% extra hp).

Deathtrap has the possibility to stay in the fight permanently due to the perk that lets him stay summoned longer every time you and him get a kill, the turrets have no feature like that.

The reason I am comparing Axton and Gaige is because in my opinion and with a lot of research and testing, Maya and Zero suck. I mean they can be great, just like any character but... They just aren't as good Axton or Gaige.

The Gunzerker also seems a little handicapped in the way of having no accuracy and only dealing huge damage in an enemies face which in a lot of situations isn't that good.

---

TL;DR?

Long story short. Can anyone convince me with mathematics and explanation how Axton could at all be as good as Gaige or possibly even better? (Or any character in the game apart from Krieg, convince me that any are better)

Well just wanna point out with max Anarchy stacks if you really wanna hit them for full damage you kind of have to be in their face as well. Which I find to be pretty fun. Though a shotgun and some ricochet works pretty well too, it's a bit more unreliable.

Conference Call FTW. My Mechromancer uses it, even after all these DLC, on the premise that "if I can't shoot where I'm aiming with 600 stacks of Anarchy, I'll just shoot everywhere at the same time and hope that talent from the beginning of BFF that makes some of them ricochet fixes it."

 

[go-10]

Salvador - gunzerking, with 2 Conference Call, the Bee Shield, and Yippe Ki Yay/I Could do this All Day. Add to that life on hit and stat boost, you will kill anything and everything!

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Salvador - gunzerking, with 2 Conference Call, the Bee Shield, and Yippe Ki Yay/I Could do this All Day. Add to that life on hit and stat boost, you will kill anything and everything!

The Bee + Conference Call combo isn't the best anymore (hasn't been for a while now). You'll want a Sandhawk or something similar where the bullet count isn't indicated on the weapon's stats.

 

[The Lugz]

Fellow Escapists, I need your help.

-snip snip-

TL;DR?

Long story short. Can anyone convince me with mathematics and explanation how Axton could at all be as good as Gaige or possibly even better? (Or any character in the game apart from Krieg, convince me that any are better)

nope because they/he are/is not

the mechromancer is simply psychotically overpowered, I have a 7 shot pistol that does 200k damage at level 51 and reloads fast enough that I can have full anarchy up in a few minutes.

oh, it also does explosive damage to which i have a 30% bonus from my equipment now if i found an electric one.. i could get the electric bonuses too.. 'rubs hands with glee'

it's overpowered, but it is't also damn fun to just blitz through the game i've soloed everything ive come across except for the dragon bosses in tiny tina on uvh, so i've gone back to do it on normal just for poops and gigs.

 

[Suave Charlie]

Salvador - gunzerking, with 2 Conference Call, the Bee Shield, and Yippe Ki Yay/I Could do this All Day. Add to that life on hit and stat boost, you will kill anything and everything!

The Bee + Conference Call combo isn't the best anymore (hasn't been for a while now). You'll want a Sandhawk or something similar where the bullet count isn't indicated on the weapon's stats.

Salvy with dual Harolds. Drops all non-invulnerable raid bosses.

 

[Laughing Man]

A full stack of anarchy will also have your accuracy be diminished by as many percent as your bonus damage. Good luck hitting anything that isn't standing right next to you and takes up all of your screen.

This, Axton when fully specced is a much better character right from the word go. From the first round he is able to do damage at pretty much any range and the turrents act as an effective distraction as well as a being able to lay down some serious fire.

Gaige can do some serious damage but her damage is purely dependant on the player doing a good amount of ground work to increase her anarchy stack, you then add in the fact that she also looses accuracy alongside it you either have a character that does next to no damage with a low anarchy stack at any range or you have a character with super high damage but it you have to be sitting on the targets face to ensure a hit and all it takes, especially in the later levels is for the bad guy to get a lucky shot or for you to miss a beat and push the reload button and you're toast.

Sum it up Axton is consistently a powerful character Gaige needs to be prepped and comes with some serious trade off to get a powerful character. Having played both I found it easier to play as Axton, especially on the later levels.

 

[Phantom Kat]

Salvador is probably the most OP due to his tankiness and damage output. Krieg is better against mobs of enemies but not as good against bosses.

Gaige is insanely good with max anarchy stacks and a conference call but of course she has to get all those stacks first. Apparently a melee build on gaige is pretty good though I'd rather just play Krieg if I was going to melee.

 

[Frezzato]

It's all a matter of how you play them, really. I've heard stories of Krieg nearly killing Raid bosses in one hit when he has the correct setup of skills, weapons and mods. Same for all the characters, really (yes, there are videos of Maya killing Raid bosses in a few seconds with the right setup). So while one character can be seen as doing the most damage without preparation (Salvador, just for his gunzerking), they're all killing machines with preparations, and your example of Gaige with full anarchy stacks won't work for every player due to the way some play.

I hate to ask this, but has anyone here taken advantage of the Shift key generator via Gearbox online? Or is that considered, I dunno, lame?

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I haven't played B2, though my roommates own it.

I can say that I found rocket launchers practically useless in B1. I was always puzzled. For context, I had corrosive, explosive and incendiary rockets using the soldier class and they all seemed to do minimal damage compared to my pistols. To the best of my recollection, the stats boasted 400 damage for one of them.

I think balance will always be an issue in games where there are so many options. I think that's why COD has such an issue with it; there are simply too many options to account for.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It's all a matter of how you play them, really. I've heard stories of Krieg nearly killing Raid bosses in one hit when he has the correct setup of skills, weapons and mods. Same for all the characters, really (yes, there are videos of Maya killing Raid bosses in a few seconds with the right setup). So while one character can be seen as doing the most damage without preparation (Salvador, just for his gunzerking), they're all killing machines with preparations, and your example of Gaige with full anarchy stacks won't work for every player due to the way some play.

I hate to ask this, but has anyone here taken advantage of the Shift key generator via Gearbox online? Or is that considered, I dunno, lame?

What is that Shift key generator you speak of?

 

[Festus Moonbear]

I hate to ask this, but has anyone here taken advantage of the Shift key generator via Gearbox online? Or is that considered, I dunno, lame?

Not lame at all, most BL2 fans use Shift codes. They can really help you out of a tight spot sometimes when you can't find a good gun for your level. One of my best-loved guns in the game, cherished and passed from character to character, came out of the golden chest.

 

[Isalan]

I'll be the first to admit I haven't played a lot of BL2, but I always found Zero to be pretty scary, especially against the bigger single enemies. Get a single shot shotgun, +80% damage on the first shot, deception, and the iron sights/scope improves damage skill and you can do crazy damage in one shot. Its one shot every 30 seconds, but what a shot. With my epic shotgun whose name I forget at level 30, I've hit a 35k crit on a dude before. Again, not played a huge amount of BL but its been a lot easier than some of the other characters I've abandoned.

Saying that I've been playing a Mechro with Anarchy and the skill that makes 50% of misses rebound and hit and that is just broken. Hardest part of playing a Mechro is remembering not to reload.