Shield balancing - Please balance the rough rider

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Is it me or is Gearbox spending alot of time nerfing/buffing guns and grenade mods, but shields are just left alone.
There is such a large number of almost completely unused shields.
The biggest one for me is the Rough Rider.

The bonuses of 23% reduction and 35% max health is underwhelming because not enough mods have high enough bouses to max health or skills boosting health are just missing.
I would ballance by changing the figures to 25% Reduction and 100% Max Health
This would take the average players health up to around 30-35k health points while using this sheield.

Whereas the average player using a shield/hp combo build would have around a total of 50-55k hit points.

There are so many builds which could benefit from a buff to the rough rider, while also providing an option to add a challenge.

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#2

Agreed, most life steal and health regen gear could possibly find new life if a shield like the rough rider was made at least useable. Note, the Stop gap with ASS trigger, the Transformer with a shock weapon doing splash, and the Old god shields would still be chosen over a buffed rough rider. Gearbox often makes small bumps like a 25% increase, which on M10 make no difference. A whole new line of builds could spring forth if GB makes this shield M10 viable.

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#3

Agree 100% damaging shields are also in a really bad place for the most part. Luckily they said they’re working on scaling the damage with Mayhem so I’m hoping that goes well. Rectifier is probably the worst offender in terms of a damaging shield. Rough Rider sucks in that there’s no difference from a lv1 Rough Rider and a Lv60 M10 Rough Rider.

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#4

As for other shields, GB could add interactions onto existing shields to bring interesting cooperating with other gear. For example, the Back Ham gives its damage reduction when attacked from behind but add onto that a 25% elemental resistance based on the type of elemental weapon equipped. The Rectifier gives a bonus 25% recharge rate when a Hyperion gun is equipped. The Ward boosts its regen to 15% per second when a Hyperion gun is equipped. In both of these examples, the fact both of these shield are Hyperion and can take advantage of the pairing with a Hyperion gun’s shield to possibly make these shield’s useable when paired with other gear that is not meta gear.

#5

Buff the Red Card so that it’s no longer a meme

#6

I do really want them to buff the Rough Rider. It was always one of my favorites.

That said, for now I’d use Mendel’s Multivitamin shield, or use the Initiative which drops from Vincent early on in DLC2. I’m using an Initiative in a blue/green tank Amara I came up with, along with a Stone class mod. With her arms , the Initiative, and the Stone all reducing damage, you are shockingly tanky as long as you have some life steal. I have about 28k life total and I’m able to complete the Guardian Takedown solo on M10.

#7

The only way to buff RR into relevance is to make it count as full and empty at the same time. Topped Off, the Zane skills about shield being full.

Healthgate doesn’t want MORE health.

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#8

Or allow it to roll with more than one bonus part. Double movement speed while depleted or reload speed and melee damage stacked would be nice.

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