New Capstones?!

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#21

I didn’t expect 80 in BL2 but…

#22

Yea, moze could be fixed as well :smiley:
Turn vampyr to splash life steal, make force feedback useful, add speed to rushin offensive
New skills should give new things, not fix things <3

#23

BL2 was MUCH more stable than BL3 though.

#24

I was going to suggest the same thing. With no new VH coming I suspect something like this is in the works to add a major new element that shakes things up like a new VH might. A 4th skill tree seems like it would fit the bill. Like you mentioned it would give GB an opportunity to tweak the existing VH balance/viability in a major way.

There is no reason they have to make a full skill tree. They could make a half tree or whatever size makes the most sense for however many points they plan to add into the system. If they make the tree to be supplemental by design it could really enhance the other skill trees, add utility or create some cool synergies between the skill trees.

#25

I just want a skill for Moze where you summon Iron Bear without ever having to get inside it then eject

and a fix to Amara so you don’t have to phasegrasp the ground 5x to achieve maximum potential for a few seconds, it’s really disruptive to flow of combat

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#26

A half skilltree sounds like weird game design
I’d rather farm for level 72 or 80 :smiley:
But I also don’t think, this is necessary
You can simply have more choice. Doesn’t mean, you should GET everything

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#27

I would be perfectly satisfied with more skills inside of the three current trees. A 4th would be cool as long as we get enough points to invest enough to be meaningful

#28

I don’t see a reason for borderlands to not have a skill system where you completely leave out 1 tree
Cases like TPS are terrible and destroy the whole character building aspect of the game

#29

My Fl4k build is like that now lol

#30

That’s fine, tho
I also just have like 11? Points in BM?
Just because there is a 4th tree, doesn’t mean we should be able to max out 3 trees
It would simply provide more build diversity
And I’d run with that
I would be willing to give up on 1 hp or short fuse, to fully spec into a co-op bear tree
Although I love my current build (as far as I can with the broken skills etc.)

#31

With the direction of the new weapons/buffs, I’m afraid it would completely eclipse current trees.

I feel this game is about to get very bloated with damage numbers, I hope I’m wrong tho

#32

Damage numbers can be tweaked
But character building and theory crafting are a core aspect of this genre
Just: gEttIng it aLl :partying_face:
Isn’t cool
(I already have to argue about that in the diablo forums…)

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#33

Yeah this wasnt supposed to be the nature of the thread lol Sometimes the greatest discoveries are by accident though

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#34

Quoted for truth

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#35

I personally would rather have a whole new Skill Tree for each Vault Hunter, considering that the max level will probably be 60, that would mean that we could only fill 2 of the then 4 skill trees of each vault Hunter. There should be a real choice to make, a sacrifice, to go deep into one tree over another. That way we get way more build diversity. The only problem that is there is that the new skill tree’s will almost certainly be stronger than the old ones due to them being designed around the evolved version of the game and not the base game. That on the other hand would also make new adjustments necessary. Also, the new skill tree’s would make old class mods weird to use, which is why there would also be the need to either expand on the old class mods or just throw a bunch of new ones into the mix as well. And we’d need more Augments and action skills too. Work well-done creates more work!

Because of all those complications I would also more or less “just” expect new game changers and capstones and maybe a few new Augments. Here are some things that I came up with for the 2 Vault Hunters that need good skills the most in my opinion:

Moze
BM:

  • Tier 3 Game Changer: Not-so-stale, mate!: Grants life steal the longer Moze holds down the trigger. Full bonus after 3 seconds. Lifesteal: Up to 10%.
  • Capstone: Ravaging Leadstorm: Moze now gains increased gun damage and critical hit damage the more full the mag of her currently held weapon is. Up to +35% weapon damage and up to +30% critical hit damage.

DW:

  • Tier 3 Game Changer: Splinter: Grants damage reduction to Moze the lower her total health and shields are. Damage Reduction: Up to 70% (with empty shield and less than half health). Splash damage reduction: Up to 89% (same requirements).
  • Capstone: Iron Panzer: Iron Bear gets additional damage the lower his remaining armor is. When Iron Bear runs out or gets destroyed Moze keeps the last damage bonus for a short period of time. Damage increase (multiplicative): Up to 75% (with 33% or less armor). Duration of Moze’s bonus: 15 seconds.

SoR:

  • Tier 3 Game Changer: Bullets? What Bullets?: Kill skill (5 seconds): After killing an enemy Moze refills 3% of her max shield per second.
  • Capstone: Electrical Veins: If Moze would regenerate health, she now regenerates twice that much shield instead. Additionally if her health is full or capped off by gear or skills, she gains +20% shield recharge rate and +30% shield recharge delay.

Fl4k
Stalker:

  • Game Changer: Lead to the target: Hunter Skill: Fl4k now permanently regenerates health. Additionally that bonus stacks up to twice after killing an enemy. Health regen: 3% of max health per second. Stack duration: 5 seconds.
  • Capstone: Soaking up Blood: Grants Fl4k 5% lifesteal.

Master:

  • Game Changer: Ravage them!: Doubles the damage of Fl4ks pets and doubles the damage bonuses they get from Gamma Burst.
  • Capstone: Show no Weakness!: Fl4k can now control 2 pets at once and both can get buffed by Gamma Burst.

Hunter:

  • Game Changer: Chasing the Prey: Hunter Skill: Whenever Fl4k kills an enemy they gain a stackable bonus to their critical hit damage. Stack bonus: +10% critical hit damage, stack duration: 10 seconds, Stack limit: 10.
  • Capstone: A Banquet of Bloodlust: Every critical hit has a chance to refill half of Fl4ks health. Chance for a banquet: 20%. Also increases the critical hit damage by 20%.

Edit: I have to say though that I don’t know if we really should be able to get both capstones of a tree or just one. Getting 2 Capstones might throw off the balance of the game in a bad way.

Further edits due to grammatical errors.

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#36

THIS is the kind of reply I love to see lol

I agree with a fourth tree as long as it doesn’t completely eclipse current builds, and a level 70 cap.

I’m no grammar Nazi lmao

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#37

What makes the 4th tree that problematic aren’t even the basic skills. Most skills still are just numerical increases or additions, so that’s easy enough. But Gearbox would need to make new pets (1 pet in 3 variants) for Fl4k (give me that Saurian or Thresher!), 2 new hardpoints for Moze (I would love an Unreal Tournament 2004-style Flak Cannon-esque shotgun), 2-4 new action skills for Amara, a new gadget for Zane, new Augments and the game changer skills in addition to the basic numerical skills. And all that in distinct themes that fit the characters with art and skill descriptions in multiple languages. There’s a lot of manpower that would need to go into adding a new skill tree.

By adding new game changers and capstones to existing skill trees Gearbox wouldn’t need to create a new gameplay-niche for each character as they would have the themes of the skill trees to bounce off from, they could easily rearrange artworks to save on that end a bit and due to it being 24 skills instead 40-50 skills they would also save money on the localization. Yes, they would still have a lot of work with the programming and animation of the skills as those would be more unique than the average skill is, but as you might see with my post many skills, especially those that would try to compensate for specific weaknesses (like Moze’s and Fl4ks sustainability) would still boil down to scripts that we already have in the game in one shape or another.

So overall the best solution that balances out player enjoyment and finances would probably be the implementation of few, but impactful skills instead of whole skill trees.

But that can easily be months in the future and we don’t even know if we ever get any additional skills at all. Just because Randy mentioned that a couple of times doesn’t mean that it’ll come to fruition.

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#38

I agree that fake grasp is dumb. That’s why I pretty much don’t use it. In most cases I think it’s overkill. Besides, the other issue with Amara where your grasp just misses 50% of the time builds it up for you by accident. lol.

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#39

I agree half a tree might be a little weird but I guess it depends what you want. Full trees but having to completely ignore a huge portion of skills to make a build or a tree designed to supplement the other trees but got more fully utilized. I’m good with whatever…either way it would at least give some added options.

#40

I don’t disagree with what you are saying about the work involved with adding a new skill tree but in the context of this being in lieu of adding a new VH it still seems appropriate. GB stated they aren’t adding a new VH because their metrics show that not enough people stray from their original VHs to justify the time/effort of adding a new VH…not that it was too much work.

So if the plan is to do something else instead of a new VH…adding a skill tree to existing VH’s is still less work than adding a completely new VH and is also inline with their metrics because it will enhance/expand existing VHs across the board which benefits all players…thus making it a justified expense of time/resources.