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I find Fan the Hammer has the best capstone, but the rest of it isn't anything to write home about. Conversely, Riflewoman has more buffs that are beneficial to a dual wielding pistol maniac, but the capstone isn't as strong as Fan the Hammers.

For what its worth, while Hyperion pistols are good, all the footage I've seen and playing through so far, I've found Vladof are the best. I'd probably keep a Hyperion for FFYL for the accuracy, but I'd probably run Vladof pistols for psychotic RoF and generally obscene damage.

Unrelated, but as strong as Wilhelm is, I'm finding him not as exciting to play as, compared to Athena with Ceraunic Storm or Nisha because showdown is so much fun. Wolf and Saint are crazy strong with the Hunter Killer and Dreadnought trees, but its just not as engaging. Hitting 'F' to paint targets is about as exciting as it gets when you use Wolf and Saint to their fullest.

Ah well, SMG/Storm Athena is a blast. Looking forward to dual Vladof Nisha.

Fan the Hammer is a very focused tree, you are basically putting all your eggs in one basket, one glorious wild west bucket, I agree the individual buffs are insignificant but together they are greater than the sum of their parts.

I think that Vladof pistols have little synergy with showdown since you get way more value from the attack speed and reload speed then its accuracy increase so you may as well pick a pistol that will get the most efficient use out of showdown.

I'd value Hyperion pistols get the most out of it, then Jakobs.

Torgue free post here. I was looking online, did they really adjust the loot pool? I liked how 2 did it, you could farm for items-this feels like it'll be really random and only a handful of guns can be farmed-anything else is pure luck.

Krellnus wrote:Fan the Hammer is a very focused tree, you are basically putting all your eggs in one basket, one glorious wild west bucket, I agree the individual buffs are insignificant but together they are greater than the sum of their parts.

I think that Vladof pistols have little synergy with showdown since you get way more value from the attack speed and reload speed then its accuracy increase so you may as well pick a pistol that will get the most efficient use out of showdown.

I'd value Hyperion pistols get the most out of it, then Jakobs.

Don't get me wrong, its not a bad tree, it just lacks something, something I can't put my finger on, a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. Eh, there's like three solid kill skills in it, which pairs nicely with showdown.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on Vladof pistols. Because they already have such a high fire rate and mediocre accuracy, showdown grants them significant buffs. You're putting more lead down range with Vladof, which means baddies dying faster, and coupled with Ruthless (each baddie killed adds 0.5s to showdown), you can stay in showdown longer. Donwside is ammo consumption, especially with the two bullet ones.

Hyperion is good too, I just prefer Vladof. Add in the bonuses from the Riflewoman tree for better accuracy and you're cooking. If anything, Jakobs gets the worst deal from showdown, as its rate of fire is capped at how fast you can click. Not to mention the small magazine sizes means you're spending more time reloading than shooting.

Really, I plan on keeping a Vladof, Hyperion, and Maliwan at all times.

timetowaste85 wrote:Torgue free post here. I was looking online, did they really adjust the loot pool? I liked how 2 did it, you could farm for items-this feels like it'll be really random and only a handful of guns can be farmed-anything else is pure luck.

Different bosses have a higher chance of dropping certain oranges. Its not quite definitive yet, but the pools are being determined by the players as we speak. Though you have an equal, if not higher chance of getting your desired legendary from either vending machines, or grinding two legendaries you don't want into something you do want.

Beat the story last night with Athena, friend on Claptrap. Game was definitely a lot shorter, and the writing wasn't nearly as tight as the other games, especially Borderlands 2. Overall I'd but this game at the bottom of the pile of Borderlands titles.

There was writing for the first one? It felt entirely thrown together, and it was only fully polished in the second game.

 streamdragon wrote:
Beat the story last night with Athena, friend on Claptrap. Game was definitely a lot shorter, and the writing wasn't nearly as tight as the other games, especially Borderlands 2. Overall I'd but this game at the bottom of the pile of Borderlands titles.

Did you complete all the quests?

I felt content wise it was pretty close to Borderlands 2 when it was first released.

 Catyrpelius wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:
Beat the story last night with Athena, friend on Claptrap. Game was definitely a lot shorter, and the writing wasn't nearly as tight as the other games, especially Borderlands 2. Overall I'd but this game at the bottom of the pile of Borderlands titles.

Did you complete all the quests?

I felt content wise it was pretty close to Borderlands 2 when it was first released.

Except two. The race and the "bring 50 guns to us". Probably go back and do the second one, but I hate race missions.

I don't know the overal main story seemed much shorter to me than Borderlands 2, where you had the various subsections of the game. (Get the power module from Willhelm, Find Sanctuary after it teleports, Find Angel, Free Lilth, Kill the Warrior). Borderlands 2 just seemed to take so much longer to finish, as evinced by the fact I was WAAAY higher level when I did.

Could just be misremembering.

My wife played it longer than I did, but we felt the same - it just feels like an expansion for Borderlands 2. It's more of the same with little changes. A lot of them are good, like The Grinder, but overall, they feel...lacking. The game was "okay", but I don't feel compelled to go for New Game+ right now, even if we had the time.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Serious question time: is it possible to actually give yourself MPD? I'm wondering if my back and forth with Torgue is unhealthy.

Firstly, MPD is no longer called MPD as the name is highly inaccurate to the actual presentation and led to a belief that it's something it's not. It's now DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder.

That addressed, no, you can't give yourself a dissociative identity. They're most often co-morbid, meaning that you have one or more other disorders than may or may not be associated with it and there's no clear cause for developing DID. In fact, the theories surrounding development of DID within a person, ranging from traumatic development to being induced by "memory recovery" therapy, are highly controversial in the mental health community. Scientifically, evidence points to DID being an epiphenomenon of Borderline Personality Disorder and the rarity of there being diagnoses in children of DID puts the validity of it as a separate disorder in doubt. You also can't have a back and forth between alters as the disorder causes Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, and Depersonalization Disorder. For most people, the alters are aware of the existence of the others, but you don't remember details of each other(knowledge and memories are compartmentalized) and don't know what each alter is really doing while dissociated.

So your back and forth with Torgue may be unhealthy, but for entirely different reasons.

So after giving a try to Athena, Nisha, and Wilhelm, I have to say Wilhelm is my favorite, followed by Athena, then Nisha. I figured nisha would be my favorite but I was wrong. I have no interest in Clap Trap after watching my friend play him.



FETH ANNOYING ROBOTS WITH PROGRAMMER ISSUES!!! ROCKET PUNCH AND "THROWS SHIELD WELL" ARE BADASS. GUITAR SOLO!!!!

I'm similar, but I'd rate Athena higher than Wilhelm in terms of fun/enjoyment, but Wilhelm higher in power level. Hunter-Killer + Dreadnought is insane. You don't even need a gun at that point.

I have my dual wielding Nisha now, which was actually a tad disappointing. I thought both would fire at the same time, but they just alternate, so really, you're just getting super big mags. Might swap over to Riflewoman, because all the skills in that tree are better than FtH's skills.

Maliwan Storm Athena is my favourite.

Gonna give Jack a shot when he comes out. Badass Digi-Jacks and bonuses for Hyperion gear sounds like a fun and fluffy character.

I started playing Claptrap: funny, but unpredictable.
Then i tried Athena and Nisha, i like the way Athena playes, Nisha is a bit one-sided gameplay for me.

And after getting to know how Athena and Nisha play, i got back to Claptrap and i will stick to him at least in this 1st playthough. His skills are unpredictable, but can easily match the impact of the skills of Athena and Nisha.
And it's claptrap, so i am happy.

I will also try willhelm later.

In relation to Borderland 1 and 2 up to now i can say that i like this one too. 1 was quite a short playthough, could be done in 3 to 4 hours, that was impossible to do in part 2.

I don't know how long this Borderlands will be yet, but i like the way it is the same, but different. I don't expect a Borderlands 2, but expect to be entertained and i am entertained.

First off, how could you complete Borderlands in 3-4 hours? Thats...not even possible. You can't kill level 15 guys if you're still level 4. The game makes it impossible. It's like a 25 hour game, and that's even blowing off the low XP side missions.


Anyway, Handsome Jack's body double is insane. Very powerful passive, and his middle skill tree is great. Just don't expect to be friends with the people you're playing with, as you'll appreciate them being in FFYL, and you'll wanna keep them there.

Yeah, three to four hours doesn't sound right at all.

In a similar vein, I'm over 150hrs on TPS. I have a 50 Athena, 44 Wilhelm, 39 Jack, and 39 Nisha.

Jack is rapidly becoming my favourite character. Running a Hyperion allegiance build using the middle and right hand tree. Eventually going to put 5/5 in Absolute Advantage (40% chance to not consume ammo after a kill) with a +6 class mod for an 88% chance to not consume ammo after a kill.

Couple that with Leadership (the capstone from the middle tree) which means my Digi-jack's deaths count as kills, and I can shoot everything forever! Use 7 Hyperion items for a constant boost to accuracy and critical damage plus a Jakobs Quad shotgun, and shoot forever doing stupid damage.

Oh, and Money is Power is amazing. Really, Jack is amazing.

Then again I haven't been afraid to use the glitch where you can get the loyalty reward guns at whatever level you're currently at. Bullpup is love.

Can you tell me about the glitch? I love that gun.

For anyone else interested, this only works if you have a save file from the previous games. You would have also gotten the reward at the start of the game.

To get the two guns (+30 moonstone) at your current level,first start by selecting a new game. Watch the intro movie until you can skip. You'll then be brought to the character creation screen; just hit escape and go back to the main menu. From there, select the character you want and select continue.

You'll load into the last spot you quit at, and two reward messages should pop up. If you did it right you should have a Bullpup and Smasher in your inventory. These weapons can't be used in the grinder. Note they also come with a variety of prefixes that change the gun, so doing this a few times might result in the best gun for your build. For me, a Decisive Bullpup is the best, as it grants +50% crit damage. It can spawn in any element too, or with a melee attachment.

That worked on my 360!! Thanks man!!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
That worked on my 360!! Thanks man!!

No worries!

Don't go easy with that.

I used that trick a few times to get a corrosive Bullpup before facing RK5 with Wilhelm. Was struggling to get even below half health until I get that shotgun. After I got it I took him down in two magazines.

Bullpup is love.

I have a bullpup in all 4 elemental flavored now, that was great. Playing solo, I can switch em out as needed since inventory pauses the game.

Does Iwajira only drop a Thingy on TVHM?! I played for 2 hours farming him at the end of regular, and got nothing. And my luck on rare loot in games is uncannily good. So this is bizarre.

He recently got nerfed.

Someone described the change in rate from being approx/roughly 1 in 50, to now being 1 in 500.

On the plus side, the expansion coming on 16th is giving us UVHM, the Holodome (presumably where we fight bosses and such in quick succession) and normal farmable bosses. Oh, and level cap to 60 too.

And only now did I finally get that Doc's Coach Gun my Jack so desperately needed.

Well, gak feth balls.

Back to farming vending machines, huh? Is the level 50 version at least still a good farm?

You couldn't pay me to use anything Scav.

Vending farming is where I've got roughly 80% of my oranges. The other 19% from grinding. I think I've had one orange drop from a boss.

I like most purples better anyways. Like the Legendary Jakobs shottie, the Striker, isn't really any better than a purple Jakobs Coach Gun, especially when you get the Doc prefix.

As an add-on, any interest in doing an online meetup to farm raid bosses once I actually hit 50? If you have it on 360, that is. I'm currently at 32 with the Doppleganger. Pulled a Celestial Class Mod out of a vending machine for him, so he's a happy boy currently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I don't want the Thingy for usage: I wanted it to grind good gear. Lol. I was wondering if the 50 still had good drop rates to get multiples.

While I have 4/5 characters at 50 myself (don't play Clappy myself), I'm on the PC, so we unfortunately can't hook up.

The drop rates for the Thingy on Iwa are pretty bad. You're better off farming the Invincible Sentinel and other bosses (Felicity mainly) if you're looking for oranges. Then again, you might as well just collect purples to grind in the hopes of getting an orange.

You can triple grind purples for orange? Sweet I have 500 moonstones thanks to Iwa and your heads up over the loyalty reward, so I can farm and dupe to get some. But you should get a 360 and do all that work again. Haha. I won't use Clappy either, at least until all others are maxed. His explosions sound fun, but he's too much of a pain to potential allies. And random. Too fething random.

Three purple weapons equals a chance at an orange. Same for shields, grenades, and Oz kits, but not class mods. You can't use moonstone on those grinds, its just a random chance.

While I do have a 360, I don't know if I can go back to playing with a controller.

And grinding 4 characters was bad enough. I ended up enjoying the last two characters I grinded anyways, being Jack and Nisha. They're both loyalty builds, which is fun for me.

I have got a few legendaries from grinding purples now.
But this time i have less reason to collect them, because i don't really feel the need to play the game with the other characters this time.

There is less story (Jack changes a bit, but no not that much and too fast).
And allthough there is humour, Borderlands 2 was funnier, especially with the add-ons.

I love the game playing claptrap, but the other character types are not different enough to interest me.
In 1 and 2 i played everything and above all always played both a shooty and a close combat character to the highest level.
And allthough Athena is nice, but she is no Brick or Zero, does not give me the real up-close-and-personal feel.
And when you play Claptrap, Nisha, Wilhelm or Jack's Double are, for me, just less fun ways to shoot yourself through the game.

The Pre-Quel is fun and it works, but i hope for good add-ons in the near future.