Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
7/17/2021 10:53:17 AM
Subject:
ILA - re: BL3 leveling
With reference to our conversation last night, I can't say I know much about leveling correctly. I just pick things that look less dumb than others, but I do this without much understanding of Borderlands' mechanics.
Like Diablo 3, the Borderlands series has synergizing relationships between skills, guns, shields, and artifacts. I think if I had a better grasp of all this, I would be able to make a more useful toon. I suppose that will come with time. I do know that the skill trees for every class have very powerful combinations, especially if one knows how skills on different trees interact.
Meanwhile, this is what I've found out:
1. Enemies get faster, meatier, and more punishing as the game progresses. At levels 1-10, they're just targets with slow, clumsy athletics, feeble ordinance, and bad aim. By a little past mid-game, they have better armor, smarter moves, more health, decent if not great weapons, and better accuracy. By endgame, their shielding is more complex, the group tactics are considerably improved, and they have a lot of "big" weapons capable of 2-shotting you at max shield capacity/health.
2. To keep up with the progression in 1 above, I started trying to find decent weapons with core elemental damage. By "core," I mean the basic kinds -- shock, corrosion, and fire. I discovered that I needed at least one good weapon for each element, as some enemies were more susceptible to one kind of damage than to others. Ideally, I wanted a different kind of gun for each element, e.g., a shock pistol, a corrosive assault rifle, an incendiary smg, etc. Later on, both you and enemies will start using cryo (cold) damage, which makes the target more vulnerable to ballistic and melee damage. You can get really hurt as a result of cryo's effect, though initially it doesn't seem to be doing much. Radiation is effective if it has a delayed explosion effect; otherwise, it's not anything outstanding, and enemies don't use it much.
3. The first few character levels should focus on building survivability. I tend to put points into max health and health/shield recharge (early on it's better to have a shield with fast recharge than a large capacity; later the capacity will matter more).
4. The bars above enemies' heads will tell you which weapons to favor. A red bar is basically flesh, which is best whittled down with fire dmg, though pretty much any element or even strong ballistics will work. A light blue bar means that the enemy has a shield and will be killed faster if you have a shock weapon to burst down the shield. A yellow bar means that the enemy has armor, so a corrosive weapon is the best choice. Some enemies, like mechanicals, will only have a blue or yellow bar but no red one. Obviously, they'll go down faster with the appropriate elemental weapon.
5. Doing the main mission and side quests give the most XP. Second to that is fighting enemies at your own level, preferably on the ground instead of in vehicles (for some reason, XP is reduced while in vehicles).
6. It's best to over-level before boss fights for obvious reasons -- you're bigger, stronger, better. But you may also RNG yourself a great weapon by messing around or side-questing.
Most of this is obvious and not very useful. I'll try to pass along anything more interesting or unique if I discover it.
