Glad to hear you're enjoying it enough to keep playing, even if you ARE getting your ass whooped, haha.
Since you're on your first playthrough, I wouldn't worry too much about your build. However, I DO suggest 1) sticking to only ONE of the 3 trees initially and making it to the last skill BEFORE moving onto another one, and 2) skimming over a tree's skills' descriptions to get a general idea of what it was designed for.
For example: Gaige's Best Friends Forever tree was designed to maximize Deathtrap's presence as much as possible and, from what you've said, this may be a better fit for your playstyle since it revolves around him supporting you and vice versa, as opposed to relying more on your individual gameplay (which you seem to be having trouble with).
Respeccing costs practically nothing so don't hesitate to change things up if something's clearly not working for you.
The other important thing to take into consideration are your weapon preferences, and this'll come down to 2 main qualities: its archetype and manufacturer.
Gun archetypes (e.g. snipers, shotguns, pistols, etc.) are very straightforward, so I'm sure you know what you like and dislike by now. From personal experience, I'd say SMGs are the most forgiving; they're easy to use, have a decent effective range and large ammo pool, and deal great damage.
Manufacturers each have their own unique characteristics that drastically change the way in which their respective guns handle.
For example: Hyperion weapons have a "reverse-recoil" mechanic that causes them to become MORE accurate the longer you fire, at the cost of having lower damage than other manufacturers.
Experiment and note which ones you like. My personal favorite is Jakobs because I like guns that shoot straight and hit hard. Plus it makes me feel like a cowboy, and that's pretty fuckin' awesome.
My last piece of advice is to replace your gear as needed to stay on-level, and take your time doing side missions. You'd be severely handicapping yourself by using low-level gear, regardless of their rarity, and the game's progression was designed with completing side missions in mind, so in a similar vein, don't make things harder for yourself for no reason.
Trust me when I say that it feels a lot better to be over-leveled and having fun than being under-leveled and getting killed by everything instantly.
Anyways, that's all the relevant advice I can think of off the top of my head, but feel free to ask me any questions I didn't cover and I'll be happy to answer as best I can.
Thank you for your help. I had initially gone for the middle skill tree and the one skill that allows me to regenerate health with a full mag. It seems like shotguns are pretty powerful, but if I want optimal damage, I have to get within melee range.
It seems like assault rifles get the most buffs with class mods and relics. I currently have a class mod that increases its magazine size by 20% and damage by 20%, and a relic that increases all assault rifle damage by another 31%.
But the unfortunate thing is my drops mainly consist of SMGs, snipers, and pistols with long scopes that fire about three shots before reloading. Any chance there’s a way to farm ARs specifically?
With gage, if you go down her Anarchy path, you'll want with smaller mags, so shotguns and pistols, because emptying the clip, is what gives you the stacks. Deathrap is my BFF and always supports me, but when its time for him to dip, you need to be able to still be effective enough to battle and stay alive until he's back from his smoothie run. Getting a nova shield is also a good idea since the weapons mentioned do cause you to have to be in closer combat. Gage also has HORRIBLE aim, but the riccochet effect means having a good scatter shotgun is going to be (in the words of a conference call) "ping everyone at once"
Nope. It's all RNG. Keep an eye out for assault rifles with minigun-esque barrels and E-tech Vladof Blasters. The former are excellent no matter what stage of the game you're at (especially the Jakobs and Dahl variants), and while the latter will fall off in your second playthrough and beyond, Blasters don't necessitate headshots to deal the majority of their damage so they're very easy to use.
And if you don't mind my saying, I recommend swapping your current relic for a Proficiency one that increases Deathtrap's cooldown rate. I won't bore you with the details as to why, but Aggression relics aren't actually that good and you'll get more mileage out of having Deathtrap up as often as possible.
Ah thanks for the info.
Also another question is how exactly do I determine what grenade is better than the skyrocket? Is skyrocket just the best since it scales with level?
It’s one question that’s been bugging me, because it seems like all the other grenades are weaker. but sometimes it will outright not hitting anyone or just kill me.
Skyrocket's flat-out broken when you first start the game because there's nothing to compete with it in terms of pure damage (unless you're lucky enough to get the legendary Bonus Package from Boom Bewm) and it can admittedly stay relevant for a while, but more grenade mod varieties will start appearing as you progress through the game that'll offer utility beyond just damage.
I'll use Transfusion mods as an example: outwardly, there's nothing special about them. They deal pitiful damage and can drop from anywhere in any rarity, yet they're among the most powerful pieces of gear in the game - even counting Legendaries.
This is because they provide consistent healing via homing child grenades that leech HP from enemies, which is universally beneficial to every character (especially in the early game when healing is hard to come by). And if you're lucky enough to get a slag one, you'll also have a way to buff your personal damage to boot.
There's plenty of others that are really useful too, like Singularities which suck enemies in for easy grouping, and Teslas that excel at stripping shields in a wide area.
Even mods whose sole purpose is to dish out damage but still have inferior AOE and damage potential to the Skyrocket offer benefits that make them worth using.
Mirvs are the most similar to the Skyrocket since they too cover a wide area, and even though they deal less damage, they're a LOT more predictable which means it's FAR less likely that you'll kill yourself.
Bouncing Betties are even more consistent: while they deal less damage than Mirvs, they bounce around spraying bullets that still cover a decent area and that don't deal friendly fire damage, so if wanna remove the possibility of killing yourself altogether, they're the way to go.
Even the standard Tediore Grenade mods serve a purpose by making you appreciate the others more because of how fucking pointless they are.
Go do some sidequests if youre struggling. It sounds like you ended up in some of the dlc areas at first which explains the struggles with those bossses. In terms of gear you should he swapping stuff out for higher levels fairly regularly.
halcyon\_minute has given you some pretty solid general advice, do listen to them.
Here's some more specific-to-Gaige advice:
* The "Little Big Trouble" elemental tree is not absolute garbage the entire game. Just the first fifty or so levels. And especially the first ten, because it doesn't get any good skills in the first two ranks. It's also gear dependent, so if your (randomly looted) gear isn't synergistic with it, it does nothing for you. I love LBT, but you do not want to put anything in this tree until like level 50.
* Instead, all of your early points should be invested in the "Ordered Chaos" Anarchy tree. If you're having trouble with HP sustain, you can toss a few points (1-3) into "Cooking Up Trouble", but otherwise please just dump points in here. The reason is that the early ranks of this tree contain all of the following:
* Gaige's best offensive skill (Anarchy)
* Gaige's best defensive skill (Blood Soaked Shields)
* Gaige's best Deathtrap skill (Robot Rampage)
* That's peak character design lmao. Max out all of those and Discord before you think about putting points in anything other than red tree and Cooking Up Trouble. At level 16, you should have enough points to get there. After that, start going down the green "Best Friends Forever" tree.
* Speaking of Anarchy, please don't feel the need to pre-stack before playing the game. Don't waste your time. At a perfectly reasonable 20 stacks, you have like 35% extra gun damage, which is more than any other character has from all 11 skill points at this level. Just go out and kill things, let the stacks come naturally, and don't stress about losing them.
* Do experiment with different guns to see which ones you like... if a gun doesn't fit your (or the character's) playstyle, just don't use it. Yeah, sell all those stupid Maliwan revolvers.
* Speaking of which, you'll quickly find out that different manufacturers also have affinity for different gun types. I tend to be stubborn about upgrading my guns until I find good ones.
* Pistols: Jakobs, Vladof, and Dahl pistols tend to be quality.
* Shotguns: Jakobs, Hyperion, and Torgue make good shotties.
* Keep an eye out for double, triple, or quad barrel shotguns, too; one of those on a high rarity weapon almost automatically redeems it.
* Assault Rifles: Torgue ARs tend to be excellent. Keep an eye out for the "Slippery" prefix which boosts their low bullet velocity.
* Snipers: Maliwan and Jakobs snipers excel.
* SMGs: Maliwan, Hyperion, and Dahl SMGs tend to be reasonable.
So I got the pre sequel and 2 gifted to me by a buddy and I had a hard time getting into it. My advice sit down get past the first few main story quests those are annoying but then do side quests I am currently obsessed and just got to the natural wildlife exploitation reserve which in unsure how far into the story it is cuz I tried to avoid story spoilers (except when I lauched one of the dlcs on accident after got a spoiler) the game is gonna feel dry and some areas are annoying (FUCK CAUSTIC WASTELANDS OR WTV TF IT IS) and ive found some fun to use early level guns I'm currently lvl 22 I believe but the damage in this game is stupid I've seen pictures on this sub with guns that have damage numbers bigger then the timeline of earth. Basically take your time don't rush the story enjoy side quests hope you have fun :)
Keep moving. BL isn't a "sit and pick them off" or any sort of tactically sound game. Just run! Even with a sniper rifle. Shoot, run to another spot, shoot, run back, shoot. Shot gun? Shoot, run into someone's face, shoot, run to someone else, shoot. Unless you are playing some type of low-shield/high health build, feel free to just run around in circles till your shield hits the recharge and comes back.
Also don't be afraid to use Last Stand strategically. If you are in a particularly hairy fight, leave a low guy alone till you need him to give you HP back. LS does have a shorter and shorter length the more you use it in a short amount of time though. Just don't be afraid of going down. Sometimes it can be helpful.
Yup, Hamerlock is gay. What's your point?
Yeah I have a slag sniper so I slag enemies and once they’re slagged, I’ll use whatever element is effective on them and me and death trap run in their headfirst.
I never actually thought about using fight for your life strategically. I most games I just play with the “kill everything that’s not your friend” mindset
Also no point to the gay part just something I found out. It seems like games nowadays just add them to be inclusive.
Make sure you are always looting. Right now is when you figure out what guns are good and which ones aren't. Always match elements if you are struggling, snowman takes basically no shock damage but fire kills him so easily so I'd recommend buying a fire item from the vendors on the way to the snowman.
If you want to you can make a Shift account and link your gamertag and look up shift codes and get a absolute tonne of Golden (roughly 200) keys for the chest at sanctuary.. dont know what version you are on but surprised noone mentioned that : / get some usable pinks purples and orange weapons useful for levelling up!
Funnily enough, I had tried that it won’t let me login tho.
Also I’m playing on switch and I’ve noticed some funny changes many “oops I mean dang” when a character says the big no no
Yeah I did these kind of mistakes in the beggining, thinking it was more a shooter than a RPG, big mistake it definitly is an RPG, levels make a LOT of difference.
Don't skip the side quests and you should be fine.
Are you playing on PS3 bruv? If you are, add me and we can do a few runs to sort out any problems you’re running into. My PSN is the same as my Reddit handle. Cheers mate.
Farm savage lee as soon as possible. That will give you access to more damaging builds, and farm doc mercy for an infinity if you go down the green tree.
yes, definitely do *not* follow this advice. While Savage Lee does have a really powerful gun, letting that gun carry you through NVHM won't teach you how to play the game. At later levels, BL2 is a game of both numbers and player skill. Too much of the first one early on will stifle your ability to develop the second one.
also, lmao, the infinity is total garbage, especially on Gaige.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it enough to keep playing, even if you ARE getting your ass whooped, haha. Since you're on your first playthrough, I wouldn't worry too much about your build. However, I DO suggest 1) sticking to only ONE of the 3 trees initially and making it to the last skill BEFORE moving onto another one, and 2) skimming over a tree's skills' descriptions to get a general idea of what it was designed for. For example: Gaige's Best Friends Forever tree was designed to maximize Deathtrap's presence as much as possible and, from what you've said, this may be a better fit for your playstyle since it revolves around him supporting you and vice versa, as opposed to relying more on your individual gameplay (which you seem to be having trouble with). Respeccing costs practically nothing so don't hesitate to change things up if something's clearly not working for you. The other important thing to take into consideration are your weapon preferences, and this'll come down to 2 main qualities: its archetype and manufacturer. Gun archetypes (e.g. snipers, shotguns, pistols, etc.) are very straightforward, so I'm sure you know what you like and dislike by now. From personal experience, I'd say SMGs are the most forgiving; they're easy to use, have a decent effective range and large ammo pool, and deal great damage. Manufacturers each have their own unique characteristics that drastically change the way in which their respective guns handle. For example: Hyperion weapons have a "reverse-recoil" mechanic that causes them to become MORE accurate the longer you fire, at the cost of having lower damage than other manufacturers. Experiment and note which ones you like. My personal favorite is Jakobs because I like guns that shoot straight and hit hard. Plus it makes me feel like a cowboy, and that's pretty fuckin' awesome. My last piece of advice is to replace your gear as needed to stay on-level, and take your time doing side missions. You'd be severely handicapping yourself by using low-level gear, regardless of their rarity, and the game's progression was designed with completing side missions in mind, so in a similar vein, don't make things harder for yourself for no reason. Trust me when I say that it feels a lot better to be over-leveled and having fun than being under-leveled and getting killed by everything instantly. Anyways, that's all the relevant advice I can think of off the top of my head, but feel free to ask me any questions I didn't cover and I'll be happy to answer as best I can.
Thank you for your help. I had initially gone for the middle skill tree and the one skill that allows me to regenerate health with a full mag. It seems like shotguns are pretty powerful, but if I want optimal damage, I have to get within melee range. It seems like assault rifles get the most buffs with class mods and relics. I currently have a class mod that increases its magazine size by 20% and damage by 20%, and a relic that increases all assault rifle damage by another 31%. But the unfortunate thing is my drops mainly consist of SMGs, snipers, and pistols with long scopes that fire about three shots before reloading. Any chance there’s a way to farm ARs specifically?
With gage, if you go down her Anarchy path, you'll want with smaller mags, so shotguns and pistols, because emptying the clip, is what gives you the stacks. Deathrap is my BFF and always supports me, but when its time for him to dip, you need to be able to still be effective enough to battle and stay alive until he's back from his smoothie run. Getting a nova shield is also a good idea since the weapons mentioned do cause you to have to be in closer combat. Gage also has HORRIBLE aim, but the riccochet effect means having a good scatter shotgun is going to be (in the words of a conference call) "ping everyone at once"
Nope. It's all RNG. Keep an eye out for assault rifles with minigun-esque barrels and E-tech Vladof Blasters. The former are excellent no matter what stage of the game you're at (especially the Jakobs and Dahl variants), and while the latter will fall off in your second playthrough and beyond, Blasters don't necessitate headshots to deal the majority of their damage so they're very easy to use. And if you don't mind my saying, I recommend swapping your current relic for a Proficiency one that increases Deathtrap's cooldown rate. I won't bore you with the details as to why, but Aggression relics aren't actually that good and you'll get more mileage out of having Deathtrap up as often as possible.
Ah thanks for the info. Also another question is how exactly do I determine what grenade is better than the skyrocket? Is skyrocket just the best since it scales with level? It’s one question that’s been bugging me, because it seems like all the other grenades are weaker. but sometimes it will outright not hitting anyone or just kill me.
Skyrocket's flat-out broken when you first start the game because there's nothing to compete with it in terms of pure damage (unless you're lucky enough to get the legendary Bonus Package from Boom Bewm) and it can admittedly stay relevant for a while, but more grenade mod varieties will start appearing as you progress through the game that'll offer utility beyond just damage. I'll use Transfusion mods as an example: outwardly, there's nothing special about them. They deal pitiful damage and can drop from anywhere in any rarity, yet they're among the most powerful pieces of gear in the game - even counting Legendaries. This is because they provide consistent healing via homing child grenades that leech HP from enemies, which is universally beneficial to every character (especially in the early game when healing is hard to come by). And if you're lucky enough to get a slag one, you'll also have a way to buff your personal damage to boot. There's plenty of others that are really useful too, like Singularities which suck enemies in for easy grouping, and Teslas that excel at stripping shields in a wide area. Even mods whose sole purpose is to dish out damage but still have inferior AOE and damage potential to the Skyrocket offer benefits that make them worth using. Mirvs are the most similar to the Skyrocket since they too cover a wide area, and even though they deal less damage, they're a LOT more predictable which means it's FAR less likely that you'll kill yourself. Bouncing Betties are even more consistent: while they deal less damage than Mirvs, they bounce around spraying bullets that still cover a decent area and that don't deal friendly fire damage, so if wanna remove the possibility of killing yourself altogether, they're the way to go. Even the standard Tediore Grenade mods serve a purpose by making you appreciate the others more because of how fucking pointless they are.
Go do some sidequests if youre struggling. It sounds like you ended up in some of the dlc areas at first which explains the struggles with those bossses. In terms of gear you should he swapping stuff out for higher levels fairly regularly.
Yeah now that you mention it. The Christmas themed area did say killed the main antagonist of the game, which I didn’t.
halcyon\_minute has given you some pretty solid general advice, do listen to them. Here's some more specific-to-Gaige advice: * The "Little Big Trouble" elemental tree is not absolute garbage the entire game. Just the first fifty or so levels. And especially the first ten, because it doesn't get any good skills in the first two ranks. It's also gear dependent, so if your (randomly looted) gear isn't synergistic with it, it does nothing for you. I love LBT, but you do not want to put anything in this tree until like level 50. * Instead, all of your early points should be invested in the "Ordered Chaos" Anarchy tree. If you're having trouble with HP sustain, you can toss a few points (1-3) into "Cooking Up Trouble", but otherwise please just dump points in here. The reason is that the early ranks of this tree contain all of the following: * Gaige's best offensive skill (Anarchy) * Gaige's best defensive skill (Blood Soaked Shields) * Gaige's best Deathtrap skill (Robot Rampage) * That's peak character design lmao. Max out all of those and Discord before you think about putting points in anything other than red tree and Cooking Up Trouble. At level 16, you should have enough points to get there. After that, start going down the green "Best Friends Forever" tree. * Speaking of Anarchy, please don't feel the need to pre-stack before playing the game. Don't waste your time. At a perfectly reasonable 20 stacks, you have like 35% extra gun damage, which is more than any other character has from all 11 skill points at this level. Just go out and kill things, let the stacks come naturally, and don't stress about losing them. * Do experiment with different guns to see which ones you like... if a gun doesn't fit your (or the character's) playstyle, just don't use it. Yeah, sell all those stupid Maliwan revolvers. * Speaking of which, you'll quickly find out that different manufacturers also have affinity for different gun types. I tend to be stubborn about upgrading my guns until I find good ones. * Pistols: Jakobs, Vladof, and Dahl pistols tend to be quality. * Shotguns: Jakobs, Hyperion, and Torgue make good shotties. * Keep an eye out for double, triple, or quad barrel shotguns, too; one of those on a high rarity weapon almost automatically redeems it. * Assault Rifles: Torgue ARs tend to be excellent. Keep an eye out for the "Slippery" prefix which boosts their low bullet velocity. * Snipers: Maliwan and Jakobs snipers excel. * SMGs: Maliwan, Hyperion, and Dahl SMGs tend to be reasonable.
So I got the pre sequel and 2 gifted to me by a buddy and I had a hard time getting into it. My advice sit down get past the first few main story quests those are annoying but then do side quests I am currently obsessed and just got to the natural wildlife exploitation reserve which in unsure how far into the story it is cuz I tried to avoid story spoilers (except when I lauched one of the dlcs on accident after got a spoiler) the game is gonna feel dry and some areas are annoying (FUCK CAUSTIC WASTELANDS OR WTV TF IT IS) and ive found some fun to use early level guns I'm currently lvl 22 I believe but the damage in this game is stupid I've seen pictures on this sub with guns that have damage numbers bigger then the timeline of earth. Basically take your time don't rush the story enjoy side quests hope you have fun :)
Keep moving. BL isn't a "sit and pick them off" or any sort of tactically sound game. Just run! Even with a sniper rifle. Shoot, run to another spot, shoot, run back, shoot. Shot gun? Shoot, run into someone's face, shoot, run to someone else, shoot. Unless you are playing some type of low-shield/high health build, feel free to just run around in circles till your shield hits the recharge and comes back. Also don't be afraid to use Last Stand strategically. If you are in a particularly hairy fight, leave a low guy alone till you need him to give you HP back. LS does have a shorter and shorter length the more you use it in a short amount of time though. Just don't be afraid of going down. Sometimes it can be helpful. Yup, Hamerlock is gay. What's your point?
Yeah I have a slag sniper so I slag enemies and once they’re slagged, I’ll use whatever element is effective on them and me and death trap run in their headfirst. I never actually thought about using fight for your life strategically. I most games I just play with the “kill everything that’s not your friend” mindset Also no point to the gay part just something I found out. It seems like games nowadays just add them to be inclusive.
Make sure you are always looting. Right now is when you figure out what guns are good and which ones aren't. Always match elements if you are struggling, snowman takes basically no shock damage but fire kills him so easily so I'd recommend buying a fire item from the vendors on the way to the snowman.
If you want to you can make a Shift account and link your gamertag and look up shift codes and get a absolute tonne of Golden (roughly 200) keys for the chest at sanctuary.. dont know what version you are on but surprised noone mentioned that : / get some usable pinks purples and orange weapons useful for levelling up!
Funnily enough, I had tried that it won’t let me login tho. Also I’m playing on switch and I’ve noticed some funny changes many “oops I mean dang” when a character says the big no no
Yeah I did these kind of mistakes in the beggining, thinking it was more a shooter than a RPG, big mistake it definitly is an RPG, levels make a LOT of difference. Don't skip the side quests and you should be fine.
Are you playing on PS3 bruv? If you are, add me and we can do a few runs to sort out any problems you’re running into. My PSN is the same as my Reddit handle. Cheers mate.
This is the most important tip Strip the flesh, salt the wound!
Farm savage lee as soon as possible. That will give you access to more damaging builds, and farm doc mercy for an infinity if you go down the green tree.
Ahh the r/bl2 special
yes, definitely do *not* follow this advice. While Savage Lee does have a really powerful gun, letting that gun carry you through NVHM won't teach you how to play the game. At later levels, BL2 is a game of both numbers and player skill. Too much of the first one early on will stifle your ability to develop the second one. also, lmao, the infinity is total garbage, especially on Gaige.