Borderlands the Complete Series Guide
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Borderlands the Complete Series Guide
In this guide I'll discuss the mechanics that people simply don't seem to understand that cross game lines, general guidelines for each specific game, and build information for each character, but since a lot of the build calculators out there don't work to make sure the guide can survive if the ones that do work fail I'll primarily be discussing what makes each character blatantly over-powered.
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Accuracy and it's components
one of the most commonly misunderstand aspect of the game even those who are self-proclaimed "professionals" get the accuracy mechanics of Borderlands woefully wrong
Accuracy is a stat on the gun, but to be clear there are 4 elements that ultimate affect how successful you're going to be at hitting your target and they are Accuracy (the listed stat), Recoil Reduction, Accuracy Recovery, and Weapon Stability.
Elemental Damage
Elemental Damage is changed since Borderlands when Borderlands 2 and Borderlands:TPS. In Borderlands 1 Elemental Damage was handled by an Elemental Pool system which basically meant you gained increasing chance to apply Elemental DoTs after a period of not applying the Elemental DoTs. In all version Elemental Damage is superior than a comparable quality Non-Elemental weapon provided you are using the proper Element, if you are using an Element that is poor against the enemy then you will do far less than the Non-Elemental Weapon. In all versions having an Element reduces the base Damage of the weapon by 15% which means if the Element is neutral against your enemy then you are relying soley on the DoTs or the damage multiplier effect in the case of Explosive to make up the loss in base Damage. Since the actual values vary from game to game and the mods in the game I'll just give a brief summary of what does what and what they're good/bad against. When using Elemental Weapons you must also watch out for enemies of that Element, for instance even though Flaming Psychos are Flesh targets they greatly resist Incendiary Damage being Fire Element themselves.
Accuracy is very generic within game so I hope that helped clarify and I hope the full description of the Elements helps explain them better than the game's generic mentioning of what gets a bonus against what. Borderlands is truly a rather simple game so the only thing left to leave you with are general tips and build guides for the characters.
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General Tips for Success
-Increase Weapon Damage, no matter who you are, you're going to use a gun at some point.
-Prioritize Melee Attachments if you're going to use Melee, melee Damage scales with the character and a significantly lower weapon is not going to lose damage on Melee Attacks so an increase in Melee Damage is always going to be relevant on Melee Characters.
--Try for a Slag/Cryo Element on Melee Weapons, going with the above Slag or Cryo Element depending on which game you're playing is going to boost your Melee potential and isn't going to dwindle in terms of the effectiveness of that boost so keeping a Spiked Slag or Cryo weapon is going to be a benefit to any Melee Heavy Character.
-Try to have alternative methods for Slag/Cryo, 3 of the 4 main Vault Hunters in Borderlands 2 can Slag through use of their Action Skill saving you from having to switch weapons alternatively you can use Slag Grenades to spread Slag without needing a dedicated weapon intended just to Slag. The same can be said about Cryo effect in Borderlands TPS, Cryo applies a buff and is a fair enough Element that you aren't going to cost yourself much if you use a Cryo Grenades or Cryo Slams so it can be highly beneficial to have alternative methods to apply that debuff, in the case of Cryo even without taking advantage of the boosts from Freezing an enemy you can still enjoy the control that comes with Freezing or Slowing the enemy regardless of your play style.
-Always use an Elemental Weapon, Elemental Weapons do have weaknesses and they do suffer a base Damage loss, but the proper weapon in the proper situation is going to do vastly more Damage than a Non-Elemental Weapon can hope to achieve, some exceptions do apply in terms of Legendary Weapons however there are also Legendary Elemental Weapons that are entirely game-breaking and more than surpass most of the Non-Elemental Legendary Weapons if those Legendary Weapons can't spawn an Elemental Variant themselves.
- Pick the character for the play style you like not the Character or their Action Skill, If you pick your favorite character and you can't use that character how you want to chances are you won't like them as much when actually playing the game than the character that fits your play style. Along those same lines Action Skills are nice, but a lot of them take a back-seat in regular gameplay with a few exceptions that truly change the play style of a character like Brick or Krieg.
- Keep your Maximum Health as low as viable for most characters. Most characters prefer to survive on their Shields instead of Health and this helps them two-fold Shields recharge automatically and Health requires skills or special effects secondly a low Maximum Health means a lower Health Gate that is the amount of Health you need to avoid dying in a single shot (50% of Maximum + 2 Health) combine that with Healing that does set amounts rather than Healing based on percents of your Maximum Health then you can use the Health Gate multiple times to deal with enemies that are simply too strong for your Health or Shields by themselves to withstand.
Character Tips
Characters have multiple viable builds based on play styles so I'm simply going to focus on their "best" skills or skill combinations that can make them undeniably over-powered.
Borderlands 1
Mordecai
Brick
Lilith
Roland
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Accuracy and it's components
one of the most commonly misunderstand aspect of the game even those who are self-proclaimed "professionals" get the accuracy mechanics of Borderlands woefully wrong
Accuracy is a stat on the gun, but to be clear there are 4 elements that ultimate affect how successful you're going to be at hitting your target and they are Accuracy (the listed stat), Recoil Reduction, Accuracy Recovery, and Weapon Stability.
- Spoiler:
- Accuracy
Accuracy the most important thing when discussing the actual accuracy of a weapon (accuracy is important in being accuracy? Who would have guessed that plot twist?) Accuracy actually has 2 sub-values Accuracy Max and Accuracy Min, but it also can indirectly influence Weapon Stability.
Accuracy Min is actually the stat that determines the most accurate a weapon can be on most weapons (Hyperion weapons have inverted values in Borderlands 2 and onward)
Accuracy Max is the lowest value accuracy can reach after reach it's fullest recoil, like Accuracy Min this value is inverted for Hyperion weapons in Borderlands 2 and onward.
What are you getting when you increase the accuracy of your weapon?
The uncomplicated version is you're increasing the Accuracy Min and Accuracy Max and getting some Stability when aiming down a scope as Stability is influenced by the accuracy of a weapon, so basically you are getting shots that will be closer to where you're actually aiming your gun when hip firing a weapon and aiming down a scope will be bit more manageable and also be closer to where you are actually aiming your gun.
The complicated version is vastly complicated so to avoid all that issue I'll simplify it to how things are impacted which will be enough to use while playing without needing to know the actual numbers. (there are plenty of calculations if you need a number, but a number won't mean a whole lot since they'll be in terms of degrees from the firing point)
Accuracy can be thought of as the effective range of a weapon a weapon with extremely high accuracy will be effective a longer distance, while a low accuracy weapon like a shotgun will not be. Like many things in Borderlands the effectiveness of raising the Accuracy has a larger impact the lower starting point when something becomes 95% accuracy you're not going to actually notice much of a difference unless you have an extremely powerful scope which isn't practical given the limited spawn range of enemies.
What does this mean for playstyles?
Basically it means if you're the type of person that prefers Sniper Rifles then counter-intuitively you probably don't need to increase you accuracy aside from looking at the weapon card and then only weigh it if there is a decent gap between, try to keep a Sniper Rifle above 95% below that you're looking a loss of effectiveness for hitting crit zones at a distance, but the differences between say 97% and 98% are almost completely negligible for any reasonable scope. The lower the Accuracy or the higher the fire rate of the weapons you intend to use the more important increasing Accuracy is going to be to you for maintaining any distance capabilities. If you're the type that will be using hip-fire a lot then you can't compensate through better aiming like you could if you were aiming down sights so you're at the mercy of the Accuracy stat specifically your Accuracy Min and Accuracy Max for determining your gun's spread, so a higher Accuracy stat has a greater impact on hip-firing players far more than a player who primarily use the sights.
Recoil Reduction
Recoil Reduction is pretty straight forward it affects how fast you reach your Accuracy Max's value, it does not change this value. When aiming down the sights of a weapon Accuracy is depicted partly as the sway of your gun, when you fire while aiming down the sights you'll notice wild recoil as you fire this occurs as a more traditional recoil you'd find in other shoots, but you still have the spread increase as your Accuracy value drifts closer to the Accuracy Max's value. Recoil Reduction is fairly negligible on all play styles intrinsically however if you have difficulty with shoots and are aiming down the sights, the recoil reduction does reduce the wild recoil you experience while firing and aiming down the sights so it might be worth increasing for those players that lack confidence in their FPS abilities, but it won't have a significant impact on any weapon's hip-fire ability so it's not really worth increasing unless it's just sort of a side-effect of a better skill. Recoil Reduction is inverted on Hyperion Weapons from Borderlands 2 onward so it slows the speed which a weapon reaches it's most accurate state making it harmful to those using Hyperion Weapons. Hyperion weapons have no on-fire recoil.
Accuracy Recovery
Accuracy Recovery is how fast your weapon recovers towards it's Accuracy Min. Accuracy Min is determined by the weapon and can varies among manufacturers, weapon classes, and can be modified by the weapon itself.
Stability
Stability only factors into a weapon when aiming down the sights. A weapon with a higher stability sways less than the same weapon with a lower stability, but a much higher accuracy weapon can sway less than a weapon with significant bonuses to stability, but a low Accuracy. Unlike most other Accuracy related stats stability is not inverted for Hyperion Weapons as it is a single constant value that serves as a base for the actual weapon's sway, this become particular important for things like Hyperion Sniper Rifles as they start off with their maximum sway making them difficult to use for some.
Elemental Damage
Elemental Damage is changed since Borderlands when Borderlands 2 and Borderlands:TPS. In Borderlands 1 Elemental Damage was handled by an Elemental Pool system which basically meant you gained increasing chance to apply Elemental DoTs after a period of not applying the Elemental DoTs. In all version Elemental Damage is superior than a comparable quality Non-Elemental weapon provided you are using the proper Element, if you are using an Element that is poor against the enemy then you will do far less than the Non-Elemental Weapon. In all versions having an Element reduces the base Damage of the weapon by 15% which means if the Element is neutral against your enemy then you are relying soley on the DoTs or the damage multiplier effect in the case of Explosive to make up the loss in base Damage. Since the actual values vary from game to game and the mods in the game I'll just give a brief summary of what does what and what they're good/bad against. When using Elemental Weapons you must also watch out for enemies of that Element, for instance even though Flaming Psychos are Flesh targets they greatly resist Incendiary Damage being Fire Element themselves.
- Spoiler:
- Incendiary - Incendiary damage has the potential to cause a burning DoT. Incendiary suffers a decrease damage against both Shields and Armor dealing an increased damage to Flesh. Incendiary damage can cause enemies to panic when they're on fire effectively stopping them for a short time, this occurs most often when dealing with their intended targets of Flesh enemies. In Borderland TPS you require Oxygenated Environment to light people on Fire drastically hurting it's effectiveness on most areas.
Shock - Shock does largely increased damage to shields and like most elements can also apply a Dot effect though it's DoT is high damage over a short period of time compared to Incendiary and Corrosive. In Borderlands 1 it did reduced damage to Flesh and Armor, but this was done away with in 2 making it a neutral element just lending to a pure advantage against shields. Shields offer the greatest benefit against their particular area of expertise however this benefit is mitigated that rarely are there those that don't have another large body of health under their shields.Shock Weapons tend to have a large AoE when proc'ing their elemental damage and also tends to stun or slow their targets.
Explosive - In Borderlands 1 Explosive was a Neutral Element dealing additional Damage to vehicles, which made Explosive a desirable and versatile element for any situation. Unlike other elements in Borderlands 1 all damage was dealt upon impact and based on the Level of Tech the damage was effectively multiplied by a % of damage when the Element proc'd. Explosive created an AoE explosion when it proc'd making it useful for closely grouped targets or even damaging enemies on a slight miss if you hit something next to them or the ground by their feet. In Borderlands 2 and onward explosive is somewhat limited to Torgue Manufactured Weapons. They deal additional damage in a AoE manner and a direct hit will cause impact damage and the Splash Damage effectively increasing your damage. The down side is Explosive Damage is now resisted by Shields and move slower than standard bullets with some exception. A variant of explosive weapons exist that only deal the Splash Damage even if you get a direct hit. Explosion Damage varies based on the Weapon Class used for example an Assault Rifle will deal 80% of the listed Damage on the Weapon Card as Splash Damage effectively making the weapon deal 180% damage on a Direct Hit from the rifle assuming it is not the Torpedo Barrel'd variant that travels faster than the Gyro-Jet Standard variants, but only cause the Splash Damage however the Splash Damage from the Torpedo variants do full listed Weapon Card Damage. Explosive Weapons in Borderlands 2 and onward tend to be equally as strong as their Non-Elemental counterparts thus tending to make them a stronger choice in terms of raw Damage, but as mentioned they come with their own set of flaws. All Splash Damage is boosted by the Grenade Damage this includes the Torpedo variants that deal full listed Weapon Card Damage as Splash Damage as well as non-Explosive Elemental weapons that can have a Splash Damage component makes Explosive Weapons effectively get double boosts from Weapon Damage and Grenade Damage. It is worth noting that enemies killed by Splash Damage might not trigger certain Kill Skills.
Corrosive - Corrosive can deal a DoT like Incendiary, a low Damage over a moderate time when compared to Shock Element. Corrosive is best used against Armor and suffers a penalty against both Shields and Flesh targets. In Borderlands 1 while under the Corrosion Effect enemies suffered 15% additional Damage from all sources, but this effect was removed in Borderlands 2 making the way for the Slag Element.
Slag - Slag is a Neutral Element acting entirely like a Non-Elemental Weapon Damage-wise, but once Slag is applied the target will suffer additional Damage from non-Slag sources of Damage. Slag normally lasts about 8 seconds making it beneficial to have non-weapon ways to Slag so you don't eat up the Slag counter switch weapons. DoTs applied before Slag will start dealing increased Damage once the enemy is Slagged so certain characters can use their various Action Skills or Skills to apply DoT while using a Slag Weapon. In Normal Mode and True Vault Hunter Mode the Damage to Slagged Targets is Doubled, but in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode the Damage inflicted to Slagged Targets is Tripled as well as Slag on Slagged Target damage being increased by 50% and lasting longer, meant to compensate for the large amount of damage enemies can withstand in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, encouraging players to use Slag as a method of compensating for this "Artificial" Difficulty.
Cryo - Cryo Damage can apply a DoT as well as Slow or Freeze it's target. Frozen Targets take increased Damage from Melee, Explosive Element, and Critical Hits. The benefit from Freezing and enemy can apply to the Cryo Elemental Weapon itself when scoring a Critical Hit however it is at a reduced effectiveness when doing so. Melee Damage is boosted by 250%, Explosive Damage is boosted by 200%, and Critical Damage is boosted by 200% or 110% if using a a Cryo Weapon. Cryo Element does full Damage against Flesh and Armor, but suffers a reduction against Shielded enemies. The player character cannot be Frozen, but instead can suffer a large reduction in Movement Speed to the point where Sprinting Speed is lower than that of the Regular Walking/Running Speed.
Accuracy is very generic within game so I hope that helped clarify and I hope the full description of the Elements helps explain them better than the game's generic mentioning of what gets a bonus against what. Borderlands is truly a rather simple game so the only thing left to leave you with are general tips and build guides for the characters.
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General Tips for Success
-Increase Weapon Damage, no matter who you are, you're going to use a gun at some point.
-Prioritize Melee Attachments if you're going to use Melee, melee Damage scales with the character and a significantly lower weapon is not going to lose damage on Melee Attacks so an increase in Melee Damage is always going to be relevant on Melee Characters.
--Try for a Slag/Cryo Element on Melee Weapons, going with the above Slag or Cryo Element depending on which game you're playing is going to boost your Melee potential and isn't going to dwindle in terms of the effectiveness of that boost so keeping a Spiked Slag or Cryo weapon is going to be a benefit to any Melee Heavy Character.
-Try to have alternative methods for Slag/Cryo, 3 of the 4 main Vault Hunters in Borderlands 2 can Slag through use of their Action Skill saving you from having to switch weapons alternatively you can use Slag Grenades to spread Slag without needing a dedicated weapon intended just to Slag. The same can be said about Cryo effect in Borderlands TPS, Cryo applies a buff and is a fair enough Element that you aren't going to cost yourself much if you use a Cryo Grenades or Cryo Slams so it can be highly beneficial to have alternative methods to apply that debuff, in the case of Cryo even without taking advantage of the boosts from Freezing an enemy you can still enjoy the control that comes with Freezing or Slowing the enemy regardless of your play style.
-Always use an Elemental Weapon, Elemental Weapons do have weaknesses and they do suffer a base Damage loss, but the proper weapon in the proper situation is going to do vastly more Damage than a Non-Elemental Weapon can hope to achieve, some exceptions do apply in terms of Legendary Weapons however there are also Legendary Elemental Weapons that are entirely game-breaking and more than surpass most of the Non-Elemental Legendary Weapons if those Legendary Weapons can't spawn an Elemental Variant themselves.
- Pick the character for the play style you like not the Character or their Action Skill, If you pick your favorite character and you can't use that character how you want to chances are you won't like them as much when actually playing the game than the character that fits your play style. Along those same lines Action Skills are nice, but a lot of them take a back-seat in regular gameplay with a few exceptions that truly change the play style of a character like Brick or Krieg.
- Keep your Maximum Health as low as viable for most characters. Most characters prefer to survive on their Shields instead of Health and this helps them two-fold Shields recharge automatically and Health requires skills or special effects secondly a low Maximum Health means a lower Health Gate that is the amount of Health you need to avoid dying in a single shot (50% of Maximum + 2 Health) combine that with Healing that does set amounts rather than Healing based on percents of your Maximum Health then you can use the Health Gate multiple times to deal with enemies that are simply too strong for your Health or Shields by themselves to withstand.
Character Tips
Characters have multiple viable builds based on play styles so I'm simply going to focus on their "best" skills or skill combinations that can make them undeniably over-powered.
Borderlands 1
Mordecai
- Spoiler:
- Mordecai may be a Sniper, but Pistols are his bread and butter for making him truly a terror on the battlefield. What makes him so strong is his ability to combine Gun Crazy, Relentless, and Trespass. He gets access to a very powerful Mod to compliment his pistols with either the Gunslinger Mod, Gunslinger suiting his general power with a Double Thantos already high firerate by boosting it further and offering a method to keep him using his Pistols by offering Ammo Regeneration giving him effectively Infinite Ammo without using a weaker Legendary Weapon that provides Ammo Regeneration. Mordecai's Raw DPS is among the highest in the game when using Pistols, while he lacks a little survivability he makes up for the fact that this damage melts absolutely everything including bosses, to use Trespass you do however have to use a Non-Elemental variant as the Elemental Damage will affect the Shield and not Health Directly costing him some of his sizable advantage that he has with Trespass. It's truly shuttering to think that he'd be even better with Pistols if his Gunslinger Mod had Hair Trigger which increases the Firerate and Magazine Size of Pistols instead of Loaded which increases the Magazine Size of Sniper Rifles as it was probably intended to have being a Pistol COM.
Gun Crazy allows you two fire an additional shot every time you fire a shot, this effect only works with pistols, but it is a Tier 1 skill and causes no additional recoil essentially making it a straight percentage boost after all your other modifications are factored in making it simply one of the strongest skills in the Borderlands 1.
Relentless increases Firerate by 40% now this works with any gun, but you'll see Mordecai Shining with a fast Repeater like a Double Thantos, couple this with the added bonus of being able to deal a lethal shot that does 100% more damage 25% of the time then you have a skill that is worthy of a capstone even if you need to get that first kill to use it.
Finally Trespass renders Shields completely useless, shields can get quite tough especially with Eridians, this was designed to help Snipers get a one shot kill, but it works with everything and he has far greater buffs with Pistols than with Snipers, the good news is he still has the ability to use Sniper Rifles to great effect or alternatively and more effectively powerful Revolvers that boast Sniper like Accuracy, increased Crit Damage like Snipers, and still get all the benefits of his Pistol based skills.
Other notes:
Sniper Rifles don't quite have the effectiveness of sheer DPS that Double Repeater Pistols can reach particularly the Thanatos, but Mordecai is rather effective with Snipers boasting the ability to kill Crawmerax's weak points with a single shot to each, but he tends to be weaker against mobs and other bosses requiring more time to line up careful shots than what is required with just spraying ammo in the general direction of the enemy like he can with the Thanatos. In that same respect he is rather effective with Revolvers which largely count as Pistols for most things so as a Pistol Build he still has access to considerable ranged options. Masher Revolvers can be both quick firing and extremely powerful leading to more DPS and still killing enemies with ease on Critical hits with just a few bullets and less stress than a Sniper Rifle so while good with Snipers there's no real value to use that build in terms of sheer effectiveness, but the option is there for Sniper aficionados and he plays that role rather well though probably to a less degree than Lilith does given Lilith gets a Bullet Velocity skill and the DLC granted her a Sniper Com so she can more than compete with Mordecai's raw Sniper Damage. Mordecai's Bloodwing doesn't quite sync with Mordecai as Bloodwing attacks the shields which Mordecai should be Bypassing, it's a fairly poor ability if being perfectly honest as it tends to get stuck or conflict with his build however when built for Bloodwing we see Mordecai gaining some survivability and team synergy allowing him to Daze multiple enemies. A Bloodwing built hybrid with a Ranger Mod can be a more relaxed Sniper/Pistolero that helps the team, his Ranger Mod is buggy where Accuracy Recovery actually gives the opposite effect and the Team Critical Damage only buffs those with published Critical Bonuses as well as all Revolvers which works out fine for a Revolver toting Mordecai, Bloodwing abilities give Mordecai more Survivability with Out for Blood and Bird of Prey being boosted by the COM certainly can spread Daze around, deal decent damage, and make sure when Bloodwing Returns you are amply healed, Daze of course making mobs easy targets for your team as well as yourself. Finally you can exploit the extremely broken Legendary Weapon the Pestilent Defiler, with it's massive Corrosive Effect and how Elemental Damage works in Borderlands 1 you don't even need to replace it for most situations. Being a Revolver Mordecai is naturally skilled with it, but to further that he has a Corrosive based Mod in the Assassin Mod that increases the Damage, the Chance for a larger Proc of the Corrosive effect on the Defiler as well as solid skills, the worst of which Lethal Strike can be helpful in it's own right, but is really more aimed for a dedicated sniper that would otherwise lack close range options for enemies that charge them over somebody using a Revolver that works extremely well hip-fired giving you a better field of vision and more relaxed firing than always needing to scope.
Brick
- Spoiler:
- Poor Brick is so buggy that it limits his options however he's not in the least weak, just falls short comparatively. Brick is all about his Action Skill which is entertaining, but regrettably as mentioned falls short of the power others can achieve. Brick's Blaster Tree doesn't really work for Rocket Launchers as intended since Master Blaster is bugged, Rocket Launchers are weak overall and quite frankly you're more liable to blow yourself up than effectively kill the enemy. Brick's primary boon is his survivability and increasing that should be a priority. The best weapon a Brick would use to play to his strengths is bugged the Reaper was supposed to give 300% damage to Melee and Heal upon kills which would have been great, but sadly both these effects don't work. Class Mods can vary between preference, if you want to be an unstoppable truck then the Berserker Mod is for, if you don't want to be a one-trick pony the Ogre Mod works well and if you have a team of Bricks and all want to be unstoppable walls of meat then running Skirmisher Mods will make you all greater than focusing solely on yourself as is with all Mods it's weaker for the individual however more so it only really benefits other Bricks as a Team Bonus. Brick only has one absolutely must have skill in his arsenal and that is Diehard, so I'll be detailing his builds instead of going into depth with skill descriptions, he really only has 2 builds that "work".
Diehard is Brick's only stand out skill it should be in all your builds along with a gun you're able to hip fire well enough to get a Second Wind. Diehard is a subtle but obscenely strong skill, increasing the Fight For Your Life timer is amazing, you cannot be hurt while Down But Not Out so you can use the extra time to weaken additional enemies in Single Player as long as you make sure at least one you can kill isn't going to run away and cost you your life, but you can also use the increased health to make sure you don't just fall again. In team play it removes the pressure off your teammates a bit and at the same time helps you if you team kills the enemy you were going to use to get yourself up, again the extra health means you're not going to take a knee immediately after getting up at least hopefully it means that. Using FFYL as a weapon instead of a penalty is a totally viable strategy so Diehard subtly gives you a very powerful offensive and defensive tool no Brick should be without.
Build 1 - The Incredible Hulk
To become a true Roid Raged Behemoth you need a Beserker or Skirmisher mod either or it only matters on if you team is supporting your "Hulking Out", if you're solo the Beserker covers it or likewise if you team isn't directly supporting you i.e. not another Brick since nobody but Mordecai can benefit from Melee damage and that's questionable as well as the increased Health not being great for the other characters. Skill-wise you need to Reach Bloodsport that's going to help keep you happy and healthy and punching people's faces until they explode. Using a lvl 50 build it'll look pretty much as follows:
5/5 Iron Fist
5/5 Endless Rage
5/5 Heavy Handed
5/5 Shortfuse
5/5 Bloodsport
5/5 Hardened
5/5 Juggernaut
5/5 Payback
5/5 Diehard
With the additional skill points you can pick up the additional survivability skills in the Tank Tree as well as Sting Like a Bee and you can use the Explosive Relic and get more Damage with Endowed, but the bare bones of the build is what gives you your actual power.
Build 2 - Explosions, fists, and a misanthropic disposition.
While the first build was painfully obvious Brick can be a good hybrid character, but if you're looking or a Gun Based Character look somewhere else, Brick simply doesn't have the tools to compete on a Gun basis with the other Characters. Now with Explosions being in the title you'd think maybe a Badass Mod, it's made for Explosive Damage after all well you'd be wrong, while the Badass Mod does give you more Damage all around for you Berserk Action Skill and for the guns you're going to be using it doesn't provide that certain flair you really need to attempt to compete with the other blatantly over-powered Hunters Lilith and Mordecai, the Ogre mod can...somewhat...well maybe not, but at least you shouldn't die. Boosting Diehard to 10/5 makes you FFYL timer long enough you can kill pretty much any boss in TVHM using your initial health combined with the 10/5 Diehard timer, this ofcourse works better if you're solo as the bosses are weaker, but with a team you have your team supporting you damage and potentially reviving you so you don't have to attempt it, versus Crawmerax you'll be able to serve as nice worm bait for a time and since it's hard to revive people when fighting Crawmerax you'll have to rely on yourself to get up and the minions in Crawmerax are rather strong. The Ogre Mod is DLC so you should have a maximum points available so I'll just touch on the skills that you should get that may not look so appealing either because they're bugged or you want to get your Tank and Brawler skills for your Berserk Action Skill. For this build since the Ogre Mod works wonders with Shotgun you really want to make sure you have a long range shotgun which come in the form of fix pattern shotgun like the Friendly Fire, Crux, and Blast Hammer, but being Brick you're primarily want to stick to the Explosive variants that are the Cruz and Blast Hammer.
-Endowed, Endowed buffs the power of your Explosive Relic Fists, which just happen to be the best general Relic for you Action Skill since it does neutral damage to everything and can't hardly switch after you've activate your Action Skill like you could if you were using guns it also gives you a nice base for what type of weapon you should be using.
-Rapid Reload, Reload Speed is important, recoil reduction can be important, but if you want to use a shotgun at range, both are important. Even the shotguns you'll be wanting to use like the Crux or Blast Hammer get a wider pattern even if they are predictable as they're fired so the recoil reduction helps keep them on point while shotguns have a low(er) clip you'll be reloading more often than most so it makes it that much more important to have a good reload speed.
-Revenge, Revenge is a strong ability that triggers after a kill any kill, so you can have it active for when you come out of Berserk which will in turn help you keep your close range carnage going with your choice of shotgun.
-Liquidate, Liquidate is extremely effective in getting you Berserk back, but don't be in too much of a rush to Hulk Out if you use it a bit more sparingly you don't need Endless Rage and you'll be more effective by not being locked into Melee Range giving you more versatility than a Berserker build the best reason to choose a close range hybrid over a pure Berserker Build. Liquidate runs off any damage that causes yellow damage (Explosive Element), so that means your Crux and Blast Hammer or even if you play your non-Berserk Brick extremely close range non-fixed Explosive Shotguns can potentially have higher Damages than the one that are easiest to use and have the best range.
Master Blaster, Master Blaster is bugged the reason why you're note a Rocket Launcher toting Badass is because Master Blaster doesn't recover Rocket Launcher Ammo, it is still a good skill that synergizes well with a Crux.
Outside of the above Blaster skills wish is pretty much the whole skill tree I personally prefer my Tank skills over the Brawler skills, but that's because Brick is very strong with Shotguns due to the Ogre Mod that you don't need to Berserk as often and can reserve it for closing gaps on groups of enemies getting a few kills and then finishing them off with shotguns ready to rinse and repeat and if you have the Brawler skills you lose survivability as a Hybrid which can really hurt Brick, with the Tank skills a Hybrid Brick is more powerful than a pure Berserker Brick in my opinion trading DPS for versatility and in groups you may not be able to rely on Bloodsport to heal you when you need it since allies tend to target enemies closest to then and a Beserker Brick has to run upto them in Berserk Mode to start to use his DPS as a Beserker as an Ogre you don't have to do that and Beserk Mode remains a viable way to recover Health and kill immediate threats quickly.
Lilith
- Spoiler:
- Lilith is broken, her Phasewalk Ability allows her to avoid Damage, deal considerable Damage with the right skills, move quickly, restore Health, confer Damage Reduction bonuses, can apply Daze, and it can probably make you breakfast in bed. On top of her immensely broken Action Skill Elemental Damage is extremely potent in Borderlands 1 and she works it like no other, giving her a Draco, Hellfire, Pestilent Defiler, and maybe a Bitch or something similar for a certain crustacean and she'll be able to melt anything in her path whether they resist fire or not, but if you're worried the Pestilent Defiler is there and is every bit as broken if not more so than the Draco and Hellfire. If you can't play as Lilith you should probably just quit the game that's how broken she is. The skills that standout are the ones that modify her Phasewalk and of course her broken in it's own right Mind Games which gives a whole new meaning to dazed and confused reducing enemies you don't Phaseblast into oblivion into Autistic Non-threats. Skills that modify Phasewalk that are worth picking up are:
Inner Glow - Healing while sitting in Phasewalk
Hard to Get - Phasewalk more often
Radiance - Deal passive Shock Damage while in Phasewalk that is enough to kill most people it can also detonate barrels safely hurting enemies, but not you.
Silent Resolve - Makes sure the little time you aren't immune to Damage you remain just as broken, by ignoring most of the Damage enemies can deal and what little they do deal you can just heal off next Phasewalk.
Hit and Run - Stay in Phasewalk longer, which means more time for Shields to regenerate more Healing from Inner Glow, and more Damage from Radiance.
Blackout - Stacks with Hard to Get to pretty much allow you to Phasewalk again any time you get a kill.
Other Notes:
Thanks to High Velocity and a DLC Sniping Mod from General Knoxx, Lilith not only has everybody else beat in terms of survivability while being able to deal large amounts of Damage she also steps on Mordecai's toes and is an arguably better Sniper. With High Velocity you require less lead time for bullets to hit their mark while this only comes to play in the longer shots and since enemies don't like to spawn until you're right on top of them the benefits may seem marginal, but keep in mind she also has Critical skills like Mordecai so she does solid damage along side that unique benefit of hers. Unlike Mordecai not being able to bypass shields can be a problem however Orion has a good Fire rate, solid Damage, and is Shock Element to remedy Lilith's meager shortcoming while giving her a versatile weapon that has the potential to deal incredibly high Damage on Body Shots if you know how the Red Text effect functions.
Roland
- Spoiler:
- Roland is the Jack of All Trades and master of team support. Roland is an expert at healing and keeping ammo through liberal use of his Scorpio Turret while nothing is really noteworthy for being glaringly over-powered when just talking about skills, but the Scorpio is a great distraction in and of itself and being able to quickly heal and disperse ammo just adds to the general power of his Action Skill making him fairly versatile.
When talking about the overall power of Roland one has to discuss the weapon synergy he can have specifically with an extremely powerful rifle called the Draco which unfortunately is bugged to appear as a generic Blue or Purple Rarity S&S Fire Elemental weapon of x3 or x4 Element. You can tell it's a Draco by the fact that it doesn't lose the power and has a larger ammo pool than most comparable high Element weapons, when firing the weapon and in practice you'll notice what I like to call the Hellfire effect in that it does the same thing as one of the most common and most overpowered weapons the Combustion Hellfire in stacking DoTs on top of DoTs making the damage quite significant and since the DoTs in Borderlands 1 are based on the enemies Health and not the level of the weapon you can in theory use the same Draco the entire game and be perfectly fine. So why the Draco and not the Hellfire? It's true that the Hellfire tends to be the stronger gun by itself, but with Impact, Metal Storm, and Assault all make Roland a force to be reckoned with when wielding a strong Assault Rifle. Sure only Assault is specific for Assault Rifles, but the Combustion Hellfire is more about stacking the DoTs than Bullet Damage and tends to have a fast Firerate and poor(er) Accuracy than an Assault Rifle which means you're not going to be as effective at scoring Critical Hits so Impact won't be as effective even though the Damage boost applies to all weapons equally, Metal Storm on the other hand is great for SMGs a powerful Firerate boost is perfect for stacking DoTs and the Recoil Reduction ensures that you don't suffer that much Precision to boot, but again staying Accurate is more of a Precision weapons game even with the Firerate boost you'll appreciate the rapid Critical Hits the very stable and generally Accurate Draco can provide. If you pair both these skills with Assault for further recoil reduction you have an effective laser beam with the right Draco for the first few shots after each pause in successive shooting which is more than enough to kill a target and then recover your Accuracy as you switch to the next, the added Magazine size to S&S already large Magazine will keep you from reloading in the middle of a fight and can keep the body count piling up where the Maliwan made Combustion Hellfire despite being 'stronger' will have to pause to reload more often between kills making the Draco a much better fit for Roland and something the Hellfire can't do, the Draco can actually be useful for Crawmerax where the Hellfire falls short in the actual Bullet Damage respects. All in all Roland is a nice relaxed Character who's good for beginner players especially those playing in groups with more competent players who don't mind taking on that supporting role for the synergy of the team.
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