Borderlands 2

[Bunk]

Also worth noting: don't just look at the numbers on guns. Many of the guns with red descriptors do something beyond the norm. Almost all of the E-Tech guns doing something weird. I have an E-Tech Slag Sniper that has mediocre stats for its level. When you actually zoom and shoot though, the bullet speed is near instantaneous, and it fires a three round burst, that bounces if it misses. Its pretty much insta gib for anything in its level range. Never would have known had I just looked at the base stats.

Then there is the Fibber...

[Goldenmean]

Then there is the Fibber...

The Fibber drives me absolutely up the wall. That gun was made explicitly to drive spreadsheet min-maxers like me around the bend. Unless I'm hurting for guns, I almost always sell that thing untested. It might be awesome, but it's not worth the time I'll spend hemming and hawing and trying to figure out if it's good, and if it is, when to upgrade it.

[Yegolev]

That's the wild card here.  You really have to use the guns to be sure.  That Fibber, though... I sold it because it was a Hyperion and I really hate Hyperion weapons.  Except shotguns because who cares.

[schild]

I'm only level 29 on one character and like 14 on another and have 47 hours played. Me thinks this game is too fucking grindy.

Or I spent 20 hours at the slot machine.

[Evildrider]

Fuck that slot machine.  lol

[Bunk]

The version of the Fibber I got splits it's bullet in to ten after it ricochets off something. If I aim it at the feet of an even level Crysalisk, it typically takes two shots. I ended up using it on the warrior, because it was almost impossible to miss the rebound shot, I just kept aiming in front of it.

The other really crazy gun I got was an acid darter that had red text "Dodge This". Forget which quest it was from, but the thing would home in on targets completely out of sight. I killed the giant Skag mom with it while staying completely on the other side of the big boulder the entire fight. I'd use it in the really big areas where the soldiers spawned really far away. Just unload the clip and wait for the explosions ten seconds later.

Then of course there's Bane. I got an acid version I used for about ten levels.

[Yegolev]

I'm only level 29 on one character and like 14 on another and have 47 hours played. Me thinks this game is too fucking grindy.

Or I spent 20 hours at the slot machine.

I don't know how many hours I have (360) but I might suggest you stop worrying and learn to love completing the main story.  I admit freely that I'm OCD and I'm all into the Badass collection, but if you purposely stick to the main missions, BL1 P2 style, you'll be just dandy.  TVH is where you belong, I'd warrant, and UTVH is absolutely unfair, I'm told.

[Goldenmean]

The other really crazy gun I got was an acid darter that had red text "Dodge This". Forget which quest it was from, but the thing would home in on targets completely out of sight. I killed the giant Skag mom with it while staying completely on the other side of the big boulder the entire fight. I'd use it in the really big areas where the soldiers spawned really far away. Just unload the clip and wait for the explosions ten seconds later.

Pretty sure you get that one from the Lost Treasure quest that starts with a treasure map quest in Sawtooth and leads you on a scavenger hunt through Caustic Caverns. I sold my version of it pretty quickly. The homing was nice, but the fire rate on mine was absolutely abyssmal on top of the pause before the shots actually detonate, and seeing as I was already vastly overleveled for everything in normal mode, I wasn't worried much about survivability and decided I could do way more damage in spray and pray mode with an SMG or the like.

I'll probably hold on to the TVHM version a lot longer.

And oh god, the Bane... That stayed in my inventory about 3 seconds.

[Fabricated]

I used the bane for quite a while before I blew one of my keys on a chest after having really terrible luck with getting anything usable.

E-Tech weapons seem to be pretty universally good outside of the pistols; the dart/spiker stuff the E-tech pistols do is annoying IMO. E-Tech Maliwan SMGs are pretty ridiculous when fighting enemies at or below your level; some of the DLCs throw gigantic clusterfucks of mobs at you and in those cases I literally just lined them up and held the trigger down and melted a stream of dozens of enemies in seconds.

I can't find a decent Assault Rifle to save my life though, and they're my preferred weapon. Dahl, Vladof, and Torgue rifles are all pretty good...right now I'm using a really nice Torgue gatling rifle but a really nice E-Tech Dahl would be a hell of a lot better.

[Bunk]

I found a couple good etech assault rifles on my main playthrough, but they chewed up ammo so fast that I could only use them if I equipped a +70% AR Ammo artifact. They all seemed to use multiple ammo per shot.

[Fabricated]

Yeah, all E-tech weapons use 2 ammo per shot I think. Also Torgue stuff is a nice goto for stuff that seems to be stupidly resistant to all your elemental weapons; I haven't really noticed anything capable of resisting explosive weapons.

Slag weapons are kinda stupid solo; I know that slagging a mob and swapping to a normal weapon to instagib it works but slag doesn't seem to really last long enough to make it efficient for big groups of enemies. As a commando I took the slag-turret so I don't really need them at all.

[Segoris]

Yeah, Slag duration is shit. I do think that similar to how fire/corrosive have damage variance, slag should have duration variance on weapons. So that low damage pistol or smg with slag may stay good for 10 levels if it has a 10s duration, while that high damage slag would suck with it's 2s duration.

[Job601]

I went for the commando and took slag-turret because I knew I wouldn't have the patience to switch between weapons to apply slag on every enemy, or choosing a bad slag gun over a good one of another element.  The problem with a double-damage mechanic like slag is that it's either going to be overpowered or else absolutely necessary in the end-game; since it seems to be necessary I prioritized getting the least annoying form of access to it.

[Miasma]

I've never played multiplayer but I imagine the idea is to have one of the four people spraying slag bullets so that the other three can focus fire the purple dude down.

[Segoris]

not in the first two playthroughs, but it does help and make it faster.

[Fabricated]

Okay yeah no wonder everyone is going nuts over the Tiny Tina DLC for BL2; it's basically reddit/mmo nerd BL2

Theres:

-A "fake geek guy" quest where Mr Torgue wants to play (the pretense is that this expansion is actually the original cast and tiny tina playing dnd) and Lilith gets mad because he's a big muscle dude so obviously he's a fake geek; Lilith whines that she had to 'suffer for her geekdom' and that he can't just 'join my subculture because it's cool right now'. I get it!!

-A quest that's a pretty overlong Dark Souls shoutout where you go light bonfires and collect souls for "Crestfallen Player", then after you give him his souls back he becomes human again and you fight "n00b_k1ller" the red phantom, complete with a "your world has been invaded" popup

-A quest where you try to killsteal from another group of adventurers, then force them to ragequit by meleeing them to death and teabagging them; complete with a dude who shouts stuff like "YOLO HASHTAG ESPORTS 420 BLAZE UP EVERYDAY" and a guy named 720_noscope

[Miasma]

- Game of thrones quest (keep hitting jeffery until he runs out of dialogue).

[Miasma]

This is ten bucks for the next seven hours on steam.

The season pass is ten bucks for the next seven hours on steam.  Season pass is pirates dlc/torgue dlc/hammerlock dlc/tiny tina dlc.

Tiny tina is three bucks for the next seven hours on steam.

A God damn four pack is only thirty bucks for the next seven hours on steam.

I don't even want to play as Krieg the psycho but for only three bucks...

[Rasix]

Yeah, got the season pass.

[schild]

I wish every gun was a Tediore gun.

[koro]

My biggest gripe with the game so far, after getting about level 20 doing nothing but co-op, is that finding a good assault rifle for my Commando is a game in itself. They're not common as loot, Marcus rarely stocks them, and when one is  around, it's either one of those Jakobs guns with a magazine that's gone in a sneeze, a Torgue gun that fires those slow explode-y bullets that you can't hit shit with (while also having a magazine that's gone in a sneeze), or some shithouse Bandit gun. Couple that with the low overall amount of AR ammo you get, and I've been finding myself going to SMGs more and more often.

It's very irritating.

[Teleku]

Actually the exploding bullet rifles are pretty good.  Made great progress with my gunzerker using one.  I just got really good at aiming at bad guys feet, and do crazy damage.

[Fabricated]

The Torgue gatling rifles are actually pretty good for bosses, huge mobs, and gigantic clusterfucks of mobs. You may need to reload often but explosive rounds seem to be the best go-to for enemies that don't react much to elemental weapons. They fucking destroy the bigger enemies in Tiny Tina's DLC.

My preferred Assault Rifles are Dahl models, but those seem to be rare as fuck. Bandit assault rifles can be okay but you need a neigh-magical combination of parts for them to be useful.

[amiable]

Got my mechromancer for 3$ so I am happy.  Played for a good few hours last night.  Is it just me or is it MUCH more difficult to find decent guns in this game?

[Trippy]

Just you.

[Segoris]

Just you, because it has always sucked finding a decent gun in this game 

Actually played single player last night starting a Kreig character....wow is that slow going. I almost always played multiplayer before so this is a bit different. On that note, LFG for BL2 if anyone sees me playing it just add me.

[Nija]

I had a Tedidore pistol for the first 20 levels that did fire damage when you threw it to reload.

Either it was bugged or it just did a crapload of damage, because I could kill even bosses in 2 or 3 tosses. For 20 levels.

I finally replaced it when the base damage on it shots was about 4x lower than the normal white guns that dropped.

To use it I'd just fire a shot into the air and reload. It was like having infinite grenades. I've been looking for a higher level version of it ever since. 

[Trippy]

That happens when the clip is large enough or the damage per bullet is high. I did the same thing with a level 8 SMG. I used it until my early 20s as my "bread and butter" non-sniping weapon (now I use Moxxi's shotgun for that purpose). Only did 25 damage per bullet but the clip was huge so I could take down Nomads in two throws through their shields, among other things. Plus it had a fire elemental effect which was icing on the cake.

Edit: BTW you can easily test weapon and grenade damage by using the target "dummy" in Marcus's shop. E.g. it can be tricky to compare sniper rifles if some have the critical hit bonus and others do not cause the 120% bonus doesn't act the way you think it should.

[Yegolev]

I'll restate that you'll often want to test your guns as well as read the numbers.  There are a lot of variables.

[Miasma]

I am replaying from the start on a different class (using a full blown cheat program so that I can just waltz through it) and only now realized that there is a tiny tina reference way back on the glacier.  Handsome Jack taunts you with owning a diamond pony which he calls butt stallion...

[Rendakor]

How is that a Tiny Tina reference?

[Fabricated]

The spell grenades in Tiny Tina's DLC are awesome. I got an Orange one from a normal playthrough. I'm level 44 and in True Vault Hunter Mode now and it STILL fucking annihilates whole groups of mobs if they aren't resistant to shock.



It's a hit-scan grenade. You throw it at something, a lightning bolt arcs instantly to them then jumps to all enemies in range (and I think the initial contact does an AOE that can set off barrels and hit more mobs). It's crazy. I wish I had a level 40-something version.

[Rendakor]

Wow, that looks badass. Going to do Tina's DLC tomorrow with 2 friends. Currently playing as Krieg, who is a pretty cool melee character even if he feels pretty weak. Shitty luck with drops is a big reason, as always, but the Mechro felt much more overpowered.

[Fabricated]

There's three types, and there's standard blue versions too.

Lightning Bolt - Hitscan lightning, I don't think the blue one arcs?
Fireball - Literally just throws a big ol fireball that explodes on contact
Magic Missile - Shoots a bunch of tracking missiles.

Best part is that in the DLC (doesn't happen outside of it I think sadly) is that your character shouts the name of the spell when you throw it. Lightning Bolt!

[Goldenmean]

How is that a Tiny Tina reference?

The spell grenades in Tiny Tina's DLC are awesome. I got an Orange one from a normal playthrough.

I ended up with the orange fire one. I've never used normal grenades all that much, but I love these. The ammo constantly regenerates and there's no fuse delay on them. There's not really any throw time either. They just detonate immediately wherever you're pointing at the time. It's great.