I just want to say that I agree with leveling new characters being super fun - I also love checking new loot to see if it’s worth using. Getting excited to find a green jakobs sniper. Being ecstatic to see orange drops from loot midgets.
I’ve been leveling my gaige over the last week and it’s been a total blast - using anarchy to blast through crowds, seeing how guns like sledge’s shotgun can wreck enemies even 5 levels above it…good times.
Axton will be my next play once Gaige hits UVHM.
There is no wrong way to play this game if your having fun. I don’t liked to be power leveled or I don’t like free drops. I like to earn every level and find every weapon myself. I’m a solo player so every boss kill is my own achievement. I think leveling and building is a big part of this game and your reward at the end is your a UBA in your own right. There is so many diffrent ways to play this game and none of them are wrong. I’m having a blast with this game and it will keep me busy for a long while! Have fun!
Yeah I agree, starting fresh is always fun! Sadly the campaign has worn out slightly for me so it’s mostly the leveling that’s fun. Recently started a commando, and exited to see how this goes cause in Borderlands I’ve always enjoyed the elements and all the different kind of effects and stuff, but Axton doesn’t have any type of elemental skills.
Yeah I played as Gaige through normal-mode and all DLC, so to lvl 36 perhaps. Began with the Anarchy tree but I dunno, the Anarchy-stack system didn’t quite do it for me, and then the final claw skill was just so disappointing IMO… From what I’ve seen on Youtube though it seems she potentially be a really strong (if not the strongest) character, so I suspect I just wasn’t exploiting her true potential.
Krieg though I love, such a powerhouse!
There’s nothing that says you have to take the capstone skill in a given tree if you don’t want it! I’m not wild about that particular skill either, so I’m more than happy to put the point elsewhere.
Anarchy stacks take some getting used to but, once you do, it’s a pretty powerful mechanism. Discord looping got me through Handsome Sorcerer UVHM solo last night, using a LBT/OC build. Seeing the final form of the HS lit up from 4 simultaneous Tesla grenades while keeping him slagged with a plasma caster was a thing of beauty! And two Gaiges running riot in Fink’s Bandit Circle of Slaughter was great fun: they can run, but they certainly can’t hide.
The trick for me is to get things perfectly balanced. Going in totally overpowered will quickly ruin the whole experience. I want to be able to kick some butt and be able to take some damage, but at the same time I want to work for it. So, even if I carry around all the powerful guns and gear, I don’t necessarily use them. I play UVHM a lot, but I also start from scratch just as often, and just go with what I find. That makes every chest interesting. When you already have the best gear you can get… Not as interesting!
This game has a lot of layers. Like an onion with boobs!
You naughty boy! 
Agreed. Although, there are times when for RL reasons I just want to annihilate everything 
. That’s why being able to load back up in normal is so important! 
Still one of my favourite TPS dialogue segments!
End game and leveling are both extremely enjoyabLe for me for different reasons. Leveling up a character is pretty obvious. Chests matter more, learning how a new class works, messing with different builds, no matter what you are doing you are working towards something etc.
End game stuff to me is much better though. I love that you have to figure out what the top gear is and top builds for your character are. I see how this is a turn off to some but I think it’s fantastic. Especially when you can find a new gun or build for a character that works on OP8.
I enjoy Normal a lot. Every gun works, levels come fast, skill points have a huge impact, and ‘builds’ are so thin that they differentiate experiences heavily.
TVHM is OK.
UVHM… Yes, please! Gimme some mo’! Areas scale to your level, so dropped weapons are useful. You can jump around between DLC and main game or back zones without screwing up balance. The difficulty is great.
And then we have OP8. This is, by far, my favorite game experience of all time. Digistruct Peak (!!!), a variety of ‘circle of slaughter’ areas, many bosses, and some very fun zones provide great opportunities to test yourself in fun ways. This keeps me coming back again and again, with 3 classes now solo through OP8 and still getting regular time with each. When I want a new experience, it’s a reset, respec, or fast travel away.
That’s true but in the Ordered Chaos tree almost all the skills relied on the Anarchy skill if i remember correctly, which kind of leaves you with the other two if you don’t like it. But yeah I suppose it can be pretty good, I just never got use to it I guess.
I get what you mean, and even though I’ve mostly played on normal I rarely experience the game as too easy to be fun, at least if I stay on missions and fight enemies on my same lvl. But I get your point, now playing a commando It’s been more challenging than before and it’s kinda fun. But love to wreck everything with melee-bloodlust Krieg! 
It’s counter-intuitive, especially if you’ve played a lot of other FPS games/characters where the FIRST thing you do during a lull in fighting is reload all your weapons! Once you master the ability to suppress that instinct, though, it’s actually pretty easy. (Currently I keep forgetting to re-load early in order to trigger discord so I stay alive more of the time. Discord is only 1 point though, so you can skip it if you find it too confusing, especially if you’re max level and have a healing weapon or two…)
It’s worth trying, though - just respec and practice in a lower difficulty mode before jumping right in to something at level, so you get a chance to adjust to the mechanics. It’s actually pretty awesome, and I’m loving the LBT/OC combination right now.
Yep! Going to town with your buzzaxe is… Liberating! 
The best way I’ve found to deal with premature reloading is to keep a Jakcobs 2 mag shotgun in one of my slots. Since Anarchy will reduce that to a mag size of 1, I never have to worry about accidentally reducing my stacks and it always keeps Cooking Up Trouble active… 
Yeah, seen that mentioned a few times in different gear and build threads. Not much help when your build is based around something with a bigger mag size, though! Then again, with a Hail you really don’t need passive healing from CUT.
True- but when I first started playing this game weapons like the Hail and their special effects were unknown to me- but the self healing skill was easily accessible. Also, this is more of a means to keep from accidentally reloading than it is to heal. Needless to say, a lot of my unique gear in normal was sold when I found something with better numbers- ah, ignorance… 
It’s worth mentioning that there are many ways to change play experience, even at OP8 and with the content ‘completed’. Even something as simple as a weapon change can make runs in the same area, with the same spec, feel very different. For example, Hammer Buster vs Heartbreaker, or even two corrosive pistols – Gub vs Hornet. The style and pace favoring each is different, sometimes dramatically.
Loot, grind, level, reset.
Reset.
Reset.
Reset.
At max level? No problem. I still reset UVHM on a regular basis. I love the climb and the story campaign. I could care less if I have nothing left to grind for, I enjoy the trip from Three Horns to the Vault of the Warrior, from Baddass Crater to the T-rex, from the Unassuming Docks to Dragon Keep against the Handsome Sorcerer, all the way through all the Headhunter missions…
It keeps me coming back every month. I love it.
I tend to play a character to max level and then get the others up and I tend to feel like, “shoot, I don’t have character Y at max level yet” and I feel like that’s more important than getting all the best gear for my guy at max level. Getting all the top gear at max level is like my second concern I guess. The problem is that I don’t have as much gaming time so I usually end up just leveling a couple to max level and then getting a new game or something that I end up spending time on.
But I totally feel that same desire to get all characters to max potential.
I kinda wish I could get to max level once and then create a another character at max level right in UVHM. But there definitely is something fun about raising your level yourself. It’s designed to be a hobby more than just a once through videogame. I often wonder about people who only play through once and done. I feel like players should play at least one character to level 50 to get a better feel for what the game is like as intended.
But as someone who likes to play just about all characters, damn. It would be nice to see an accelerated start option at some point. Maybe it’s a level 30 or level 50 jump start rather than max level.
I love finding legendaries and I do farm a given boss sometimes but usually not more than 3 to 5 times in a row before I feel the need to move on to another thing in the game.
As far as builds go I usually look at builds that focus on where skill points go and why, rather than needing specific hard to find gear. Because I know that I personally might lack the time or luck to find a certain item.
There is definitely something to say though about what you do once you are max level. Wandering around looking for better and better gear until you feel like a powerhouse. Discovering yet another piece of equipment that is 1000 stats better here or there. That is one of the endgame design intentions. Especially if you play just one class/character.
I think their intention is that a given player will either:
a) play through all missions once, including DLC as released. they might end up around level 35, still in playthrough 1 or a little of playthrough 2 but then they play the next videogame on their list. They probably expect that some of this type of player do come back a year later and continue their same character.
b) or like player A but they just play one character until max level. In less than a month on average.
c) or like player A but they stop at level 35 for a bunch of classes. Maybe they try each character at least once and bring each one to at least level 15 and at least 3 classes to level 35. maybe one to 50. Maybe.
d) or like my usual goal. all characters to max level. and each one at least feeling like a
e) or they are the type that tends to just powerlevel online and never really finishes their own missions completely. They just want some characters at max level even if they miss some benefits along the way (like being able to host your own game and having more than 2 weapon slots)
It basically boils down to a lot invested in mostly one character or that same amount of time spread amongst multiple characters and therefore less time on each one. Each person definitely gets their own enjoyment out of this.
Okay, sorry for my lack of engagement in this thread, haven’t been on here for months…
Really cool to see all the response, and it’s both interesting and motivating what you guys say are your reasons for doing endgame I have now started a Hellborn Krieg (lvl 23 atm), thought perhaps I might combine with Mania, and intend to take to endgame. Just have to go though the campaign 3 times 
Any thoughts for other shields than Flame of the Firehawk? Seing the constant fire/explosions it causes, which seems annoying, I’ve been thinking I might go for something else…
You can use whatever you like, of course. In areas where you get jumped a lot I like to use spike shields e.g. any area with stalkers, a shock spike shield is great. If I’m still trying to get my ammo storage up earl-game, an absorb shield is also good (e.g. the 1340 shield). If you’re playing Krieg as melee, obviously some kind of roid shield. My main thing while levelling is, what’s going to get e through this next stretch with my current character, build, and available weapons?