Borderlands 2 - Page 18

You're not going to get a shield that has 4,000 damage protection until you get to L33 - L34 and/or somewhere near the end of the game. Even then, it's going to be a standard Turtle Shield, so don't think you're going to have 4K protection AND it's going to absorb ammo PLUS drop boosters while ALSO producing a huge nuclear blast every time it takes even the slightest damage. Opportunity isn't the peaceful place you likely think it is either, although if the enemies are levels lower than you, it may as well be.

My question is how are you even getting damaged when the enemies are 6 levels below you? At that point, you should be nearly able to walk up and punch badasses in the face and be done with it, let alone be worried about finding or using an obsolete weapon or shield that's 7 levels lower than your current one; regardless of color, race, or religious status of said gun. This makes no sense to me. When I was trying to get my 750 shotgun kills at close range for the Open Wide challenge, I would just waltz through a parade of baddies 5-10 levels below me, racking up numbers at will. It's like these guys couldn't wait to die...like strangling a kid at Camp Sleepyhollow with a cordless phone easy. I simply don't see why you would "need" a 4K shield for that.

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm still not getting why you're having difficulty.

Well, no matter what amount of damage you think an enemy several levels below me should be able to inflict, I'm getting clobbered in several places. Perhaps someone forgot to tell them that they were beneath me now.

In The Fridge, which seems to have increased the level of characters since I first passed through, I still get 2100 XP (or it SAYS I get that) for killing Rakkman and the Snow White clone. All of them die fairly quickly when I use the Minecraft shotgun I was given, but if I just let them shoot me even the 2000+ shield I was given disappears. Very very few of the riff-raff give less than 50 XP when killed, so they are very farmable.

Lynchwood, I haven't farmed by myself for XP yet. They are really dangerous due to being in the mid-20's. The shotgun also works well there so as long as I duck I might not pay too many revival fees. Perhaps you just duck better or something.

Once I visit Opportunity, I'll probably find new reasons to want better stuff. I hope the vending machines are high enough.

So I want REALLY big shields. Not turtle though, since they offer no benefits like spikes or absorption. I'm kinda sad that The Transformer doesn't offer much protection anymore, but I still slap it on when electricity should be avoided. And bigger guns. Ones that don't waver in the wind while I draw a bead on the target. The white Level 27 sniper rifles may hit hard, but getting a GOOD hit lined up is tricky. I still don't know what to look for in the features that prevents the wavering, but I'll keep trying to find it...

Well, Lynchwood sheriffs were Level 28 when I was there earlier, so they were just under me. I tried quit/continue, shopped and rummaged, then went to the roof of the trains station to snipe from there. Too slow for my tastes. Machines were not bad, though.

So I went to the Fridge, found that the machines there were lower than I could use and started to farm for XP, when I got an invite to run with the big boys in a Level 38 game. Usually that means me as fodder while they kill things, but when the XP took me from 29-3/4 all the way to 31-1/3 in like 30 minutes, I was OK with the number of deaths involved.

So am I going to find issues with being so high a level when my equipment isn't all that great? Dunno. Sure, I was given an orange shotgun (Striker) that seems OK, but it's the only Level 30 item I have. If the enemies scale to me rather than at some preset values, I may be in big trouble. I got some DECENT pickups in that game: white rocket launcher that does over 15,000 damage, 1500+ sniper, but they're like Level 34. Gotta wait.

This does bring up an interesting question: if you visit other games, over and over, getting XP from other people's missions and kills, CAN you hit Level 50 before you finish your first playthrough?...

Sounds good. Most if the friends I hang with are beyond the right level to shop 'semi god-guns' for me, so maybe I can cultivate a few more. However, Mass Effect 3 and its random team setup is far far better for finding new friends.

I'm at the bottom of the Cunning tree. Oddly, I wasn't required to fill out Innervate before I started on Two Fang, so that's something I might see changed if they do an update. I put points into Ambush and Rising Shot because my Survivor mod was crying to apply points to them. Bloodshed looks like the next way to go, since the Sniping tree I started with didn't lead to a lot of gratuitous violence. If my choices don't pan out, I CAN always look up what someone else is doing...

Clearing up one point: Level 24 bad guys (dwarves in The Fridge, for example) destroy my Level 26, 1766 damage explosive shock shield in nothing flat, no matter if I only get 1 XP for killing them now at Level 31. Enemies are not harmless just because they give less XP. Better gear, sure, they'll probably LOOK harmless.

Laney has dropped from 2100 XP to maybe 105. The farm is about to close...

Used a key today. Got two fairly-identical pistols. Tried both, kept one for sport. Not sure what's up, but with three keys used, getting 4 pistols and one rocket launcher, the full value of the keys is just not being seen here. Partial value: the gear continues to be at my level.

Three more keys left. Not sure when I'll use them, but I think I'll be carrying a sniper rifle when I do to show it what I prefer. The E-tech pistol might have fooled it...

Considering keys are FREE, if you get ANYTHING at all, then it's a bonus.

As for me, I'm not using a single one of my precious keys until L50!

In regard to E-tech, I gave my wife my L26 sniper (with 1450 damage and fire elemental) since I prefer my burst one, knowing that ignition is virtually guaranteed at 40% chance to ignite X 3 bullets. She's perfectly suited for it, however, as she's a deadly headshot artist that only needs a single bullet at a time to get the job done. Combine that with the fact that my son finally figured out how to actually use Zero (get yer sorry ass in there and do some stabbing) and we make a pretty good team now. Still amazed at how Axton's turret just wrecks groups of enemies!
Edited by spyder696969 - 10/9/12 at 6:12am

No, that's not how the value is measured. It's not what I paid for them, it's what @GearboxSoftware thinks makes them so wonderful that we have to wait with bated breath for the next tweet to provide us with another one.

Sure, some folks think they have little value when other stuff falls like rain from dead enemies. THAT loot usually sucks and gets sold instantly. The key-access items aren't awful, they just aren't guaranteed to be items that you were in need of. How many pistols does anybody need? Even ones precisely at your level?

Sure, it's not as bad as finding out that a chest you've been drooling over for hours turns out to have exactly one use no matter how often you quit/continue, but it's close...

At the bottom of the Badass score page in the menu you get by pressing the Back button, there's a count of keys you can use. Each one opens that chest near the teleport station in Sanctuary one time only.

IMHO, it's not a good deal to open it early in the game. And, don't count on anything you NEED either. Look for Michael Mamaril in Sanctuary instead since every time you find him, he hands you something just about as good and he's free...

How on Earth would Gearbox know what you "need?"

You think they should make every chest opening event have 2 orange snipers that do one million base damage AND lights enemies on fire, corrodes, shocks, and slags all at the same time? That's NOT what I "need" at all. That's not even what I want. The keys are designed to give you a chance to get something you might WANT, but there's no guarantee. Considering they're FREE, who cares? I'd bet that even if I used all 7 of my keys right now that I wouldn't get anything better than what I'm carrying, all of which is either white, yellow, or blue. That's right, I finished the game without using a single orange item. Not one. Hell, I rarely kept purples unless I thought my wife or son might use them for a moment (until something better popped up from some random enemy) or just for the novelty of showing them how silly the weapon actually was. Most of that "red text" crap was junk anyway. A vibrating gun. A gun that makes annoying noises and won't let you run. A gun that bitches every time you reload. A gun that ricochetes bullets off the ground. Joy.

mike, you've completey gone off the deep end with the farming/hunting/Michael/searching bit. You're NEVER, EVER going to feel like a BL god while farming items that are 3-5 levels lower than you. EVER. Enemies will never, ever catch up until you advance, hence, the drops are going to NEVER level up either. I could give you one million keys and you'd likely never, ever be happy, since even if you got that magical drop of a sniper with a high rate of fire like you want, in 2-3 levels, it would be obsolete again. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems you hate the game. What, exactly would make you happy enough to the point where we wouldn't have to hear about how the game has failed you to the point that you think it's broken and cheating you somehow? Seriously, I want to know, as I'm sure do others.

I think this post shows who went where...

Yes. I stumbled across a Blast Proof Turtle that I *thought* didn't lower my health since it didn't give a value, but I was wrong. Health drops about 1400, but the over 75% increase in shielding plus whatever blast resistance it provides is too good to skip. I can't count how many explosions left me shieldless...

Michael just handed me a purple Level 30 Razrez Horrorshow, 1897 damage, +120% critical bonus.

This beats the Level 34 Bumblebroth Corinthian I have in storage, although that one is corrosive. Not sure what I'll do with that. Still 2 levels to go before I can see how it does.

Do NOT say that farming Sanctuary is unproductive. Just say it didn't work out well for you...

That's it? I got about 20 sniper rifles from the robot cirlce of slaughter that had much better stats that ended up in the scrap pile and didn't even make it out of the arena due to the lack of worth, either in monetary value or stats. In the 100 hours you spent farming Sanctuary for that one gun, you could have went on and finished the game (TWICE) and farmed Terramorphus hundreds of times for items that were actually great, not just decent for a level or two.

To be fair, I take no issue with you (you do seem like a nice person, after all) or the fact that you're farming, searching, running the same area a million times, sitting in one spot, or anything else you so choose to do. What gets tiresome is the continual whining about how unproductive you find it to be, and yet, you still do it anyway and defend your actions as though it's the only way to play. You act like the game can't possibly be finished without this mindset; that we're all going to die the moment we step out of Sanctuary without the most orange, badass weapons that ever existed...and yet, millions of others have completed the game numerous times without farming a single item. Gearbox doesn't owe a single person a god gun, be it from a fallen enemy or a magical golden chest with free keys.

I compare it to folks in real life that complain to me about having no money. If they're working hard and saving, I'll listen intently and with empathy. If they're out blowing $50 a night on booze and strippers, then it becomes hard to take.

Again, I ask you...what, exactly would make you happy with this game?

I do missions when the available weapons and mods are farmed out. Like now, I have the ending mission plus a bunch of side quests, and as soon as I've replaced as much of my equipment with Level 30 stuff, I'll do some. Right now, I'd *like* a purple Assassin Survivor mod for Zero that has more health and health regen. White ones pop up with one or the other feature better than the blue one I'm using, but purple *could* have higher specs plus cover all three skills. The fact that every once in a while I see a purple Assassin mod I don't want encourages me to keep looking for the one I do along with the other stuff.

I came *this* close to replacing my slag sniper rifle, but the wrong element came up. I have a Level 18 Skorry Droog, and some of the Droogs (like this one) come with a 26-shot magazine and over 6 rounds per second. You can paint things with slag and hurt them a lot with 26 quick shots. My 263 damage rifle is kinda obsolete, so when Droog popped up in a machine with the 26-shot mag and all, I was really excited until I saw it was the corrosive model. Sure, 1080 or so of damage compared to 263 would have been good, but I've gotten (from Michael, just after the other good get) a 1700+ corrosive so I passed. And wait for the next Droog.

As part of the evening, I decided to tip Moxxxi again to see what specs her SMG would have. Almost 400 damage, double the fire SMG I had, so I decided to try to upgrade. After each Sanctuary run, which ends at Marcus' place so there's an auto-save when you come back up from there, I went to Moxxxi. Tipped her until I got a SMG or I passed like 50,000 which was way more than I thought it was worth anyway. The guns I got for a while had mid-300's damage so I exited the game and retried. Eventually, I got her Consummate model with 402 damage for around 40,000, and settled. Seemed like an OK deal to me.

I see no reason to go out with whatever I happen to have. There's no pressure to finish. There's no Achievement I know of for killing bosses with old, obsolete equipment. If I turn the search for loot into a mini-game, what harm is there? I really don't plan on going to Level 50 with Zero, but if the shared storage works as expected, I should be able to give my next character a whole pile of good Level 30 stuff, 4 items at a time. If not, I'll just have to shop until I drop once more...

Be aware that elemental items aren't very effective on VHM. Also, guns tend to become obsolete after 1-2 levels on the second playthrough. Just a heads up!

Good for you. Don't know where that circle is. Might never bother, since I have the circle Achievement. More orange (heck, pearlescent) equipment. A few that generate their own ammo like BL1, where I carried crappy guns so the good guns would remain full. Stuff like that.

Otherwise, all I really need is for people who have issues with my posts to just give up complaining to me. Telling me how you do this or that, get better stuff with less work, whatever, isn't affecting how I play. WON'T affect how I play. Sorry...

Thanks. What with the 13,000 damage Level 50 sniper rifle my friend had, I know what's coming. Not saying I'll participate, but I know...

I'll stop trying to help you understand the dynamics of BL2 when you stop whining about how the game is "broken" and you're being "cheated" by Gearbox for not giving you a god gun every time you walk into Sanctuary or from every enemy that falls at your feet when you use an underleveled, worthless (BUT, BUT, IT'S...ORANGE!) gun that took you 10 hours to find on them. Sound good?

Again, play the way you like, but the victim attitude got old a long time ago.

Could you please quote the post where *I* said the game is broken? I can't recall that one.

Also, please, the cheated one. Unless it's the same one.

See, I've been here before. I write something on the Internet, and it gets churned into something that kinda slightly resembles what I said but isn't. If I said it, then this isn't another churning, so that's where I need those posts. If you did a kinda-slightly-resembles thing above, then I'd like to know that too.

Orange is better. Once the orange weapon/shield/whatever is obsolete, I'd like a higher-level orange weapon/shield/whatever. Not sure my Chimera pistol from BL1 was orange, but I had to settle. Killed the end boss just fine anyway.

You had to settle for non-orange in at least one pass through BL2, since I believe you posted that you never got anything orange. Why you feel I also should have settled is beyond me. For all I know, Michael could hand me an orange weapon tomorrow. Or someday. Hope exists.

Perhaps you assign this 'victim' thing to anyone who complains about anything but doesn't just stop doing that thing. To me, complaining may get change. DLC that includes more orange weapons, or (fingers crossed) the return of Bessie. I see value in complaining. You see 'victims'.

Anyway, I gotta get back to farming. Those lockers in Scooter's garage won't empty themselves...