My problem in general with the AS’s that do direct dmg is that they always seem to pale in comparison to CC or utility AS’s. There really only seems to be one clear choice for ultimate end game builds for each of the characters (except Moze until Iron Bear is inevitably buffed). FL4K’s Fade Away is far more powerful then their other 2 AS’s so why would anyone ever use those? Amara’s Phase Grasp mixed with Avatar would allow her to control the entire battlefield so why even use Slam or Cast? And Zane’s clone/barrier combo is leagues better than anything dealing with the drone.
Balancing of the AS’s in general is way off so far, at least from the gameplay we’ve seen. I really hope they’re either planning on lots of patches or there are com’s that significantly change how this all plays out. But the thing with com’s is that if they exist to buff the junk action skills then they also exist for the great AS’s which leaves us exactly where we started.
For 20% max health regen per second to all characters using Burst Aid… that’s why I’m going Gamma Burst. Or the 25-50% damage boost from using The Power Inside in tandem with Rakk Attack (which can still do SOME damage if not a lot).
Yeah, I noticed it for sure. Iron Bear in particular seems quite underwhelming currently. 120 second cooldown (the longest in the game), below average DPS output (being easily beat by legendary and even purple and blue weapon damage), fast fuel drain (I’ve seen videos where Iron Bear ran out of fuel in about 10 seconds), and low base armor. It seems like the only way to make Iron Bear decent is to spec into making him decent in the blue skill tree. The teammate turret also has laughable DPS output. Amara’s action skill damage and Zane’s drone damage also looked underwhelming to me in videos.
I want to play Moze first, but as much as I like her design and her Shield of Retribution skill tree for it’s huge defensive and offensive buffs, seeing how underwhelming Iron Bear is makes me consider playing Zane or FL4K first. Zane’s red tree capstone skill gives his clone a copy of his weapon, allowing you to give your clone a legendary gun, which has huge implications for damage output. Meanwhile FL4K’s cloak skill allows him to do 3 automatic critical hits, when combined with a good shotgun or sniper this seems to deal enough damage to kill a badass enemy, and since the shots are critical hits they automatically richochet into other enemies if you use a Jakobs weapon. FL4K’s blue tree action skill seems pretty good as well, and the blue tree capstone will allow him to possess badass enemies, which will really boost his damage output as well. His flaming Rakk action skill also seems to do good damage and have a fast cooldown.
I really hope that Gearbox got alot of feedback about the underwhelming action skill damage for Amara, Zane’s Drone, and Moze’s Iron Bear at Gamescom and these recent youtuber/Streamer gameplay events, and buff the action skills before release via the day one patch.
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narfkeks
(May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)
#24
We need to play those first to make a good judgement to be honest. I heard multiple streamers just loving The Rakks for being basically always up (and doing serious damage!) and the rift is pure role-playing as you buff up the pet you’ll probably spec into. And the rift has some hefty augments. 20% healing per second sounds busted as all hell considering that it is for everyone standing close to the rift.
I agree however that Action Skills that do basically nothing but damage need to either be very flexible (like Fl4ks Rakks) or need to leave a mark on the battlefield (like Kriegs Buzz Axe Rampage, although that was more than just damage).
Something else that could be done for Amara is to almost guarantee a DoT effect when an enemy gets hit by an Action Skill. DoTs seem pretty good right now, so giving Amara guaranteed DoTs would increase her Action Skills damage potential considerably.
I’m not surprised by low damage action skill. It kinda had to be expected from what we’re used to. Sure Deathtrap can be devastating and, on console, Axton turret is anything but insignificant. I see the “bonus damage” as just that. Some extra pips that help you finish the mobs.
I’m sure Amara will do just fine and if something need to be adjusted it’ll be something else.
I’m much more concerned about the other girl.
At the very beginning I was worried how she’d perform without her mech. Now it’s the opposite. A defensive skills that cut your damage can be useful under some conditions but I don’t “feel it” here.
Prrety sure they will. I’m somewhat confident they’ll do appropriate adjustments after release.
I am not really worried about IB damage output as I have not seem a Cryo + Explosive combination yet, neither a fully especed IB with maybe 2 miniguns or a come over here Bear Claw with a Flamethrower to follow up.
IB can function as a Sentry too with Auto Bear, so there are more options than just doing insane amounts of damage because it is an AS.
Deathtrap did nothing without its Capstones and gamechangers. Gaige also remained vulnerable.
One other thought that crossed my mind. These latest vids at higher levels I believe are pre geared. Its entirely possible the pre-gen gear they were given to try the modes out had fixed stats and may have perfect part builds.
I’m sure Fade Away will remain the most popular AS for Fl4k, for good reason. But it has a really, really long cooldown of 45s, making it difficult to integrate into gameplay. On the other hand, the Rakk’s have a 18s cooldown, which combined with the 2 cooldown skills and augments can become almost no cooldown, allowing you to freeze the whole room without ever having to swap weapons, which is huge, cos Fl4k has no swap speed. For speedrunners, this may be the preferred AS.
Likewise, Barrier/Clone has alot of utility, but Drone/Clone supports more fast-paced playing styles, and your clone can apply cryo and radiation on the whole battlefield.
I do agree about Amara though, Phasegrasp is just plain better in utility and has far better cooldown management. IMO her other 2 action skills would be far better if they had a similar or shorter cooldown.
I really want to start as moze and with her IB being so bad I’ll probably just spec for moze damage herself and forget about iron bear if they don’t change anything. Phalanx doctrine and whatever else to go along with that will probably still keep her at the top for dps potential. But if nothing is fixed for IB, I’ll probably go with fl4k or amara.
I wouldn’t let it concern right now. Most of the content you see if people been thrown into an earl;y build with little choice of gear and class mods etc. It’s like taking a normal white or green SMG or using a Bitch or Hellfire versus correct enemy.
The action skills won’t really be understood until you’ve played a lot. Maya was the same, and her Phaselock wasn’t powerful until later in the game with more points. But the actual damage it did wasn’t all that. It’s about what it does for you, mainly crowd control and utility.
As a firm Zane fan from day 1 of reveal, I’m just intrigued over how much HP base clone has and his damage. Does he also get any shield? How would it scale too because I would be right gutted if my clone gets one shot in end game.
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narfkeks
(May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)
#33
I have yet to see the clone go down once while specced into “Boom. Enhance.”. Before that I have seen it go down when letting it be a sitting duck before a badass, but that isn’t the way it should be played anyway. Played accordingly I have not seen it die, except by letting it fall off a cliff to rescue Zane himself^^. It has no shield unfortunately, but it doesn’t seem to need one either.
I saw that gameplay, the only reason the shotgun was doing that much damage is because it gets buffed by your melee damage. And she has +275% in melee damage buffs, so that’s, like, insane!
But I see sntnl has been nerfed to just 4 damage per shot, so yes there is reason to be concerned. I sure hope that damage scales up somehow… perhaps they are using the players level as a multiplier. and the official site just doesn’t show the damage numbers change as you level up.
I thought it scaled with melee damage vs buffed by it. IDK, Still the perfect gun for Amara… and literally only Amara (at this point). It still means that Actions skill damage pales in comparison to gun/melee.
I don’t think that SNTNL doing 4 per shot at level 2 is too bad given how a lot of the weapons we’ve seen up to level 10 deal maybe 9 damage a shot on the high end. However, if that scales terribly then there is most certainly changes that need to be made to my preferred builds. IDK, this new gameplay and action skill analyses are certainly throwing people’s plans for a loop.
Hopefully so… would love if they improved the scaling to fit the level of gameplay especially for end game. The turrets of bl2 offered nothing but a couple of seconds of distraction.
Not sure how we can know that for certain since we have only seen a small amount of gameplay and the devs clearly have plans to change a few things before release.
Saw on few gameplay videos when people were checking weapons in backpack. Few of them had 9-14 damage and 10-15 DOT.
Of courae it can change at release. That’s why they tested it now at PAX, E3 and Gamescome.
Do you know what the elemental/status chance was? I’m guessing the standard ~10%. That does seem a tad ridiculous, but could potentially give Amara a leg up early game. I’m kinda avoiding watching too much gameplay for fear of spoiling the experience for myself.
I am super glad they gave people this chance to check out the numbers in… greater numbers. Hopefully things appear (and are) more balanced by the time they get out to us.
I’m somewhat confident they’ll do appropriate adjustments after release.