Thoughts on Special Abilities

[Krash Megiddo]

I've played 3 classes up to level 8-9, which takes them to Sanctuary.

The classes I've played so far:
1)Assassin: Turns invisible and creates a decoy. Damage buff when attacking.
2)Gunzerker: Dual wielding. Health/Ammo buff
3)Mechomancer: Summons Deathtrap.

I really like #1 and #3. #2 isn't much help to me. The buff to health and ammo is nice but it doesn't change the outcome of a tough battle. I died the most as Gunzerker.

#3 is my fav. It has rescued me the most. At least 3 times, I'm about to die and Deathtrap scores a kill and gets me 2nd wind. Maybe its considered OP, easy mode? I'm okay with that.

Have not played:
4)Siren: 'Phaselocks' enemies, paralyzing them for the duration. Skills can change this quite a bit, adding elemental damage or the ability to mind control enemies.
5)Commando: Turret

Thinking about starting a new game as Siren, now that I've seen her in action. The commando is the least interesting to me, I could be missing something.

[Talli <3]

commandos turret can slag enemies and his skills improve grenades and explosive damage

[Talli <3]

plus you missed Krieg who improves melee damage and just generally is really unique

[Nakos]

The trick with Salvador is to dual-wield pistols. Make one of them a Slag Rubi.

https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Rubi

(And of course, dual wielding Norfleets with a high percentage Sham shield is also popular).

Deathtrap is powerful in Normal mode, okay in TVHM, and he becomes somewhat weak in UVHM. However, by UVHM, Gaige can make full use of a Anarchy build, so Deathtrap is less necessary.

Maya is probably my favorite character. I suggest using a build that utilizes Ruin, Cloud Kill and Converge. I also suggest using a Proficiency Relic during Normal mode so as to be able to Phaselock more often. And put a few points in Sweet Release early on, it'll help keep you alive. At high levels, Maya can Phaselock almost constantly and can yank huge groups of enemies around the battlefield while doing it. Maya is also the character who least needs to carry a Slag weapon in UVHM. Her draw back is that she's a bit weaker against bosses.

Axton is ... okay. He's tough and resilient, and it's possible to make some grenade focused builds that are pretty powerful. But ... no, he's not as exciting as some of the others (in my opinion).

[Nakos]

Originally posted by soujoy:

plus you missed Krieg who improves melee damage and just generally is really unique

Don't listen to this person, he's clearly delusional. There is no such Vault Hunter named "Krieg". It's just a figment of his imagination.




Krieg is good with melee, and good with fire, but ... has a weird, self-damaging play style which I find completely incomprehensible. Hence my pretending he doesn't exist.

That said, some people love him.

[Casurin]

At that level you did not yet see how the characters actually play as you just barely unlocked the first few skills.
if you fundamentally dislike a character at that point - sure, just dont play that one. But that does not really tell you anything about how they play later.

I'd say stick to ~20 to get some feeling how they will play, with the tier6 skills comes the real change.

[Mr Nich]

My opinion of the classes

1, Siren, the best at everything in every way. Skills focus on critical hits, healing and elemental damage, action skill isolates a single enemy. Can easily go to lvl80 using only white items

2. Psycho, slightly frustrating melee only character, utterly useless until level 30 when he gets his proper action skill. Skills focus on melee damage, fire damage and damage resistance, action skill makes him go on a melee rampage, do not play multiplayer as people will steal all your kills making him useless, also never invest in the stupid skill that hurts himself, can easily go to lvl80 using only white items (because you wont focus on using items)

3 Mecromancer, fragile shooter. skills focus building up "stacks" that increase damage, but reduce accuracy, electric damage, and a robot helper. another frustrating one, seeing as you need to get those stacks high, once you do it is fun, but each game can be frustrating to get there, the bot is genuinely useful, can get to lvl80 on white items but is annoying to do so

4. Commando, the boring one. skills focus on grenades and not dying, action skill is to summon a turret. Turret is completely useless on high levels. character is boring as nothing fun or exciting. also I can never decide to go the "do more damage" or "never die" route with skills, not tried a white items run

5 gunzerker, shooter. My original class. Skills focus on shooting faster and health, action skill makes him shoot two guns at once. Good for multiplayer. his mega-ton punch is a handy skill. skills seem far more about his action skill than other characters (maybe other than psycho) no slag ability, tried a white item run, gave up at lvl51

6. Zero, assassin. the useless one. Never got this character. Skills focus on sniper rifles or backstabbing. Seen plenty of people in multiplayer use him and kill everybody in one hit, i hate him, just die ALL the time, no healing, invisibility is useless as they can still shoot you, melee damage increase is mediocre, what am I doing wrong???

[Krash Megiddo]

Melee is my least favorite combat. But I'll give Commando another look.

[Radiowavehero]

These are just my personal feelings on how each characters special ability feels to play, it doesn't reflect how strong they actually are.

From favorite to least favorite.

    
1. Maya , this one is probably a "gimme" The siren class puts a ton of focus on the special ability , making it powerful , making it have lots of utility , making it useful in multiplayer etc etc , it's great , personally I love making a special focused build with Sub-Sequence , converge , Helios , all the Phaselock proc effects and having them go off repeatidly as it chains around the battlefield killing things automatically.
   
       
2. Mr Torgue this is a mod based character but it's become my second favorite , it's just a big ass explosion , simple , useful , everything dies and Mr Torgue says something funny , that's all I need.
   
       
3. Salvador While making this list I almost forgot about Gunzerking even though it is actually really useful , personally I don't really play Salvador at all but compared to the next ones on the list Gunzerking is a step above.
   
   From this point on the skills are pretty much "Meh" to me, I usually don't even bother using them unless I need to distract enemies and I rank them both the same.
   

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4. Gaige My favorite character but her ability is boring to me, it's fine if you have some annoying enemies or need a distraction and you can make it useful with sharing is caring but I'd rather do other stuff instead.
   
       
5. Axton like Gaige I just use this one for a little extra dps or a distraction, I barely play axton , I know you can get a lot of utility out of turrets but like Deathbot it's just boring to me.
   
   These next ones I actively dislike.
   

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6. Krieg I really want to like Krieg but even after trying multiple builds I just don't enjoy the ability , I don't like meleeing in gun games even when it's good.
   
       
7. Zer0 Decepti0n ugh , I hate this one , I know if you get the knack for it you can do some crazy combos but I just don't like it (same problem as krieg with not liking melee)

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Wow I never thought about it but the special abilities in borderlands 2 don't really appeal to me much , I like phase lock because it has a lot of options for how you build it and it's a viable active playstyle, I like torgue's for the same reason.

Gunzerking is just a damage boost with some optional combos depending on your offhand. So I still rank it 3rd despite not playing Sal much.

The rest feel like the Ability itself doesn't really matter or to make it good you need to do something I don't enjoying like melee.

Comparing this to Borderlands TPS , Overall I like the BL-TPS abilities better but I like the passive trees in BL2 more and I love the BL2 setting and writing.

These next abilities I rank at the same level as the top 2 in BL2.    
1. Nisha's ability is fun. Vats in my borderlands ? I'll take it.
   
       
2. Aurelia's ability reminds me of a toned down phaselock, but I suppose it could be seen as a better Deathbot , it's useful , homing but still has some active playstyle involved with it , not as good as phaselock but better than deathbot.
   
       
3. Jack's clones are kinda meh like a lot of the BL2 summon type abilities but overall I like them better than Sabre Turrets or Deathbot and a few builds are a lot of fun.
     
    
4. Wilhelm reminds me of Gunzerking , it's just a solid ability but kinda boring.
   
   The rest are around the same level as the "meh" rank from BL2 list or slightly better.
   

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5. Claptrap is weird , random and sometimes useless but it's at least interesting.
       
6. Athena reminds me of Krieg and Zer0 the ability isn't strictly bad and I want to like it but it requires you to play in a different way and a lot of her passive tree ties into her special so I end up just not playing her at all.

A mod to bring TPS characters into BL2 would be awesome.

[Kobeth]

The Siren is probably the best for a beginner, but the Gunzerker is definitely the best class in this game without contest and his action skill is the main reason for that. You just got to know what guns pair well together (usually a moxi weapon in one hand for healing and a high damaging weapon in the other)

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Radiowavehero:

These next abilities I rank at the same level as the top 2 in BL2.    
1. Nisha's ability is fun. Vats in my borderlands ? I'll take it.
   
       
2. Aurelia's ability reminds me of a toned down phaselock, but I suppose it could be seen as a better Deathbot , it's useful , homing but still has some active playstyle involved with it , not as good as phaselock but better than deathbot.
   
       
3. Jack's clones are kinda meh like a lot of the BL2 summon type abilities but overall I like them better than Sabre Turrets or Deathbot and a few builds are a lot of fun.
     
    
4. Wilhelm reminds me of Gunzerking , it's just a solid ability but kinda boring.
   
   The rest are around the same level as the "meh" rank from BL2 list or slightly better.
   

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5. Claptrap is weird , random and sometimes useless but it's at least interesting.
       
6. Athena reminds me of Krieg and Zer0 the ability isn't strictly bad and I want to like it but it requires you to play in a different way and a lot of her passive tree ties into her special so I end up just not playing her at all.

I played Athena, because she's the canon character, but ... never really enjoyed playing her that much, I also tend to dislike melee focus in this sort of game.

I played Wilhelm, he was fun, I loved his minimalist grunts and barely emotionally engaged one word answers. I just found his attitude to what was going on to be amusing. Also, he's good with Lasers. He plays a lot like Gaige and Axton, but unlike either of them, his action skill also includes a default heal, which I liked.

Overall, I liked Nisha's game-play the most. She's like a version of Sal that isn't broken. But she struggles with self-healing, which can be annoying.

Jack: Nope, sorry, too weird.
Aurelia: Ennnh... no, she's too mean spirited (and feels too much like an after thought in terms of how she fits into the story).
Claptrap: Yeah... still too weird.

Originally posted by Radiowavehero:

A mod to bring TPS characters into BL2 would be awesome.

Yeah, that would be interesting. I'm not much one for mods for these games, but that one might be get me to install it (if it existed).

[Krash Megiddo]

I started a Siren character yesterday. Her special power is pretty cool

[Angkol]

Lets play

[Renfrew]

The year is 2024 and people still don't know how to play Krieg. It's not even funny, it's just sad.

Here's Joltz running through OP10 peak in less than 15 mins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTeYi_IclfU
Where is the melee and where are the fire weapons? If someone says Krieg is a melee or fire character, that is objectively wrong. It's almost as if reading a character's skills is important...

Krieg only has three skills related to fire damage. One is worthless (Hellfire Halitosis), one is overpowered because of how Krieg works even against Armour (Raving Retribution), the last is subpar, niche and isn't even needed against flesh enemies (Burn, Baby, Burn). Krieg is so strong, you don't need his action skill. As the last character added he actually received the best balance and was made the most versatile. His self-damage which was supposed to balance that out is irrelevant at higher levels.

Once mastered Krieg can do anything the others can do but more consistently (except Salvador, because Salvador is overpowered and broken, and no one comes close to Salvador).

• Melee: Krieg is not squishy in melee like Zer0, and doesn't need to waste 50% of playtime farming a perfect Hide of Terra. Krieg also has a higher weight value, which prevents him getting knocked back like Zer0. Anarchy melee Gaige is a meme build, not taken seriously by anyone. The other characters aren't even worth mentioning.
  
• Gun damage: Blood Bath has no accuracy penalty unlike Gaige's anarchy, allowing Krieg to do much better and consistent damage, since he can actually hit crit spots. Maya and Axton are not even worth mentioning in this regard. Zer0 can exceed this with Critical Ascensi0n, but it's overkill for majority of content which is time spent killing mobs, and this forces you to one gun type and one playstyle.
  
• Grenades: Axton doesn't have Bloodsplosion and a skill that when boosted guarantees grenade ammo to drop, making Krieg's grenade damage and usage more consistent. Other VHs are mediocre with grenades, not worth mentioning.
  
• Health regen:Krieg can regen health from simply applying a DoT, considering elemental weapons are the best in the game, you will pretty much always be healing while in combat. This is onpar with Maya's Life Tap, except it's not even a kill skill. Who needs to lock an enemy out of combat with phaselock, when you can just stand there and tank the damage? Of course Moxxi weapons exist, but if you factor that in, then even less reason to pick Maya.
  
• Slag and maintaining DPS: Krieg can swap and reload weapons insanely fast and has the best elemental chance increase skill in the game. This allows him to consistently slag and maintain his DPS in a fight. The only thing that beats him in slagging is Maya's Ruin capstone, which is guaranteed, that said Krieg can achieve virtually the same thing with tier 1 skills, and the only limitation is how much ammo you have, he doesn't have to wait on a cooldown.

[Krash Megiddo]

Originally posted by Ad Hoc:

The year is 2024 and people still don't know how to play Krieg. It's not even funny, it's just sad.

Here's Joltz running through OP10 peak in less than 15 mins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTeYi_IclfU
Where is the melee and where are the fire weapons? If someone says Krieg is a melee or fire character, that is objectively wrong. It's almost as if reading a character's skills is important...

Krieg only has three skills related to fire damage. One is worthless (Hellfire Halitosis), one is overpowered because of how Krieg works even against Armour (Raving Retribution), the last is subpar, niche and isn't even needed against flesh enemies (Burn, Baby, Burn). Krieg is so strong, you don't need his action skill. As the last character added he actually received the best balance and was made the most versatile. His self-damage which was supposed to balance that out is irrelevant at higher levels.

Once mastered Krieg can do anything the others can do but more consistently (except Salvador, because Salvador is overpowered and broken, and no one comes close to Salvador).

• Melee: Krieg is not squishy in melee like Zer0, and doesn't need to waste 50% of playtime farming a perfect Hide of Terra. Krieg also has a higher weight value, which prevents him getting knocked back like Zer0. Anarchy melee Gaige is a meme build, not taken seriously by anyone. The other characters aren't even worth mentioning.
  
• Gun damage: Blood Bath has no accuracy penalty unlike Gaige's anarchy, allowing Krieg to do much better and consistent damage, since he can actually hit crit spots. Maya and Axton are not even worth mentioning in this regard. Zer0 can exceed this with Critical Ascensi0n, but it's overkill for majority of content which is time spent killing mobs, and this forces you to one gun type and one playstyle.
  
• Grenades: Axton doesn't have Bloodsplosion and a skill that when boosted guarantees grenade ammo to drop, making Krieg's grenade damage and usage more consistent. Other VHs are mediocre with grenades, not worth mentioning.
  
• Health regen:Krieg can regen health from simply applying a DoT, considering elemental weapons are the best in the game, you will pretty much always be healing while in combat. This is onpar with Maya's Life Tap, except it's not even a kill skill. Who needs to lock an enemy out of combat with phaselock, when you can just stand there and tank the damage? Of course Moxxi weapons exist, but if you factor that in, then even less reason to pick Maya.
  
• Slag and maintaining DPS: Krieg can swap and reload weapons insanely fast and has the best elemental chance increase skill in the game. This allows him to consistently slag and maintain his DPS in a fight. The only thing that beats him in slagging is Maya's Ruin capstone, which is guaranteed, that said Krieg can achieve virtually the same thing with tier 1 skills, and the only limitation is how much ammo you have, he doesn't have to wait on a cooldown.

You convinced me. I just got Maya to Sanctuary, maybe I'll give Krieg a try now. The health regen is something I miss from the Mechomancer.

Btw, Maya is my first character to get to Sanctuary without dying completely at least once.

[Palehorse]

Originally posted by soujoy:

plus you missed Krieg who improves melee damage and just generally is really unique

In NVHM or TVHM the damage that Krieg does by hitting himself (Silence the Voices skill) may seem insignificant, but in UVHM it is totally different, because if he hits himself, he (Krieg) can fall into "Fight for your life " by just one hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruoV-jvinBI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwEHRwCYxPw

Silence the Voices

https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Silence_the_Voices