Turtle shields, health gate, and tough bosses.

[No.]

So... I was reading about this health gate thingy, where you can't get downed with a single hit as long as you have over 50% of your max health, and after getting completely rekt by Terramorphous last night, I was thinking that maybe using a Turtle Shield could help by lowering the maximum health, and thus making it easier/faster to get back to 50%, but I can't really nail how to execute it.

I'm using a siren, so I guess it would involve removing all points from Restoration, throwing 5 into Sustenance, and everything else into damage, then get one of those weapons with life steal. Is that alright? Any suggestions?

I also wanted to ask if the phaselock-triggered skills work when you use your phaselock on a phaselock-immune enemy. If that's the case, I could throw another 5 points into Elated, to make it yet faster.

[Loup Garou]

I dont know much about health gating but I'm pretty sure Elated only works if they are in the actual orb.

[z00t]

My mech found an OP8 Legendary Turtle shield - tubby loot. Using it the shield capacity is over 6.5million. Health is 1. Not a misprint. 1. I haven't tried it with my siren yet, but it does raise all sorts of interesting ideas.

Your movement is almost like moving in slow motion though. Sprint? Hah! Not Bane slow, but still slow.

I am tempeted to try it with a Breakneck Banshee mod and see what happens. Movement might end up being something like normal, although with the Banshee health penalty as well, it might not be a good idea, or because of the existing health hit from the shield it may make no difference at all.

[ShinkuTear]

Since Healthgate works when above 50%, you would likely need at least 3 Max Health for the idea to work.

That said, all Moxxi weapons, such as Good Touch and Bad Touch, heal you for a % of the damage you deal, so they would indeed work with super low HP.

[z00t]

Originally posted by philipscran:

are you referring to the Hoplite Shield? this did take health down to 0% but was patched 15 months ago.It enabled Siren to kill Hyperious with half a clip of a Fire Sandhawk.this can still be done with two players.

Fabled Tortoise is the name of the shield, it is a Legendary Turtle Shield. I know and have assorted Hoplites, and this is not one of them.

http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Fabled_Tortoise

According to the numbers on the shield, the health hit is considerably more than my mechromancer's health - around a million reduction, and the normal OP8 mechromancer is nowhere near that in health. Since using a shield is not supposed to kill you, the game rounding up the health numbers results in a health of 1.

Hyperius with half a clip of Sandhawk ammo? I am tempted to go and try this out on Voracidous. Certainly a Fire Sandhawk does enormous damage when his shield is gone. Hmm. I havn't tried it with my siren yet.

--------------update--------------

Tried it with my siren. The health bar said 0, and only went to half full. Bit over 7 million for the shield capacity though.
Tried it out. Simply killed the first couple of skags I found, phaselocked a rabid skag, wasted it with a B!tch and went into FFYL for no reason at all. No other enemies around. Curious indeed.
Legendary Cat class mod. Relic for extra ammo.

Not sure what to make of that, apart from OP8 Fabled Tortoise and siren do not seem to play well together. Movement speed is dire though. Sprint is slower than normal walking.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=440312450

[No.]

Thanks for the replies. Will post an update later when I get some new gear and try it again. (:

@z00t: Perhaps you have that skill which heals you after killing a phaselocked enemy, and when it triggered, the game noticed that you had 0 health and threw you into FFYL.

[Murc]

Apparently if you have 0 HP *overpowered Hoplite shields will do this* you will go into FFYL after any damage is taken, even if this damage wasn't enough to destroy the shield to begin with. This makes overpowered Hoplites completely worthless, you're better off without a shield.

As for shields to help you, a Rough Rider can help since you're considered with a depleted shield meaning fleet is always active, and there's always the good ol' beehawk combo along with ruin for easy slagging.

Enemies immune to being phaselocked just take damage from it and don't trigger any effects from it that require being lifted.

The longer your fight against Terra goes the harder it will be so fire beehawk or unyielding banshee immolate will probably be your best options for a quick kill.

[ShinkuTear]

Originally posted by Murc:

Apparently if you have 0 HP *overpowered Hoplite shields will do this* you will go into FFYL after any damage is taken, even if this damage wasn't enough to destroy the shield to begin with. This makes overpowered Hoplites completely worthless, you're better off without a shield.

For what it is worth, this is partly related to how Maya would rip Hyperius apart. The glitch was basically triggering Immolate, +10% Fire damage(per point) on you weapon during FFYL... but without going into FFYL.

Assuming that the only difference between when the glitch was in its prime, and now, is wether or not you go into FFYL, then a Hoplite + mass Fire damage build should still be able to rip large amounts of Health off Hyperius... you might not kill him during FFYL, but the damage should be massive by Maya standards.

[Wiergate]

OP, what you're talking about is referred to as 'extreme healthgating' and it works well for some characters as long as you have passive health regen and Moxxi weapons.
The higher your OP level, the more health will get knocked off by a Pangolin shield - they scale, you don't. At 72, the effect won't be as pronounced but the principle is the same.
Avoid things like the Hoplite, since (as people have said) they put you in a dangerous Limbo WRT healthgate at OP levels besides hampering your movement.

What's important for Terra is a Maliwan capacitor to protect you from fire DOTs. Beyond that, the 'worse' the shield, the better. A white-quality one will knock off more health.

Phaselock-immune enemies do not grant you any of your PL-related skills, so Elated, Wreck, Chain Reaction etc. are out. It's dumb, but that's how it is.
Ruin still slags though (and-insta heals you if you have a Grog equipped). Less useful against Terra since he shakes it in a second, but always good to have.

Hope it works out!

[No.]

Did some Google searches about extreme healthgating, and yeah; that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you. ^^

It looks perfect; there are videos of people who get less than 20k hp, which is something that you should be able to recover in a matter of milliseconds if you have a life leech gun.

That said, it looks like everyone doing that is using OP8 gear, and my Siren isn't even 72, so I guess I'll just do some side quests and get back to murder terry once I get to the max level.

Thanks for the replies. (:

[No.]

So...
OP8. Managed to get my health down to a bit less than 5,000.

The strategy wasn't that useful against Terramorphous, mostly because his wormhole attack is faster than the regeneration delay.

That said, this extreme healthgating thing proved ridiculously good against normal bosses and enemies in general. I don't even need to use a life leech gun, since the nurse mod regenerates way more health than I have.