So I’ve read different opinions on how to play the DLCs but I’m totally confused.
So I’ll be starting a new character and I want to play all the DLCs without being too high for them. I don’t want to be high either while playing the story mode.
AND, I’d love to all that with minimal replaying (I hate doing more than one playthrough on the same character as it gets pretty boring, so if I can do all that some how on my first playthrough, I’d be grateful).
Lastly, I assume whatever advice I get can be applied to Borderlands The Pre-sequel right?
BL:TPS has different content and different XP rewards.
I don’t see any way to complete any or all DLCs as well as the main story without being over-leveled for one of those things. Especially not in the first playthrough. MAYBE you can get away with completing a DLC (and only one DLC) in TVHM and then return to the main story without things feeling too unbalanced.
The order of completing particular DLCs doesn’t have any real bearing on the XP that you gain either.
This is what makes UVHM an ideal mode since you never have to worry about that sort of thing.
If you are not planning to replay the game on higher difficulty levels, then I suggest completing the game and then playing all the slaughter domes and the DLC’s. You may end at level 50.
If you do all the dlc’s in normal mode, you will be VERY overleveled. I did them all in NVHM once (including slaughterdomes and HH-packs)… I was way past level 40 when I was done. Not much enjoyment there! You can do one or maaaybe two dlc’s depending on which level you are at the start. If you do all the side missions, then I’d recommend that you only do one. If you save them until after finishing main story in TVHM, they will scale to level 50, and will be really nice.
If you do them all in TVHM, you will be around 53-54 when you’re done. And if you’re going to do UVHM, that’s a tough spot to start from, since your gear will be level 50, but the enemies are 54.
So you need to decide how far you wanna take it. To get the most pleasure from them, you should at least wait until TVHM.
Well, this is kind of what we’re saying, is that there isn’t an optimal way to play through everything in a single playthrough. This is why the game allows you to play through the story multiple times.
In the first Borderlands game, there actually was an ideal or ‘optimal’ playthrough because the game was much more strict when it came to hard-leveled areas and quests.
Otherwise, I guess you could look up the starting level of any of the DLC’s missions in normal and true vault hunter mode and figure something out for yourself.
A playthrough means completing the main questline. You’re not required to do the side missions for this to happen, but it will keep you at par with the level of the main questline. After completing the main questline, you will get a message saying that you’ve unlocked the next mode. True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM) or Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM), depending on which mode you’re currently playing.
The optimal way… One question, and a hundred different answers. If you have guns and equipment that are around level 54 stashed away, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t do all the dlc material in TVHM. But if you don’t have that… Then I’d recommend that you wait until UVHM. The enemies in UVHM scale to your level, so you will be struggling a lot if you start it at level 54 or higher. This is because the loot you get in TVHM will never be higher than 50.
You can also complete TVHM, and then start UVHM by doing all the dlc’s instead of the main quest. Since the dlc’s have some spoilers in them, it’s recommended that you do at least one playthrough of the main quest before doing any of them. Whichever dlc you wanna start with is entirely up to you. I usually do them in the same order as they were released: Pirate, Mr. Torgue, Hammerlock and Tiny Tina. Same thing applies for HH-Packs.
I didn’t really play much of BL 1, so for that part, you’ll have to wait for the others to reply. Good luck with all the missions!
So if you’re curious about the ‘optimal’ playthrough for the FIRST BL, not TPS, here it is:
Play through the game once, without doing any DLCs.
Then do it again.
Start General Knoxx’s DLC, and kill Knoxx.
Now you’re free to start either Zed’s DLC or Claptraps’s Robot Revolution or finish up any sidequests you want to do in Knoxx’s DLC or in the main game.
BL1 - Play the main story once, then Knoxx and Dr. Zed’s. Don’t bother with Claptrap Revolution.
BL2 - Main story, then Mr Torgue, Pirate’s Booty then Tiny Tina. I wouldn’t bother with Hammerlock unless you really want to. It’s incredibly bland compared to the rest.
TPS - Haven’t played the DLC, but I’d recommend doing the normal story twice before DLC. There’s a whole new set of banter with your character (Tina/Brick instead of Lilith/Roland) that’s worth it.
In BL2, I always play the main game doing all the side missions and then, in TVHM, I start the DLC without doing the sides so I end up in lv 50. The order I usually do the sides is: Hammerlock > Scarlett > Torgue > Tina.
Hammerlock is the easier so I can run through it, the same for Scarlett. Running through Scarlett I can get the gear to complete Torgue and the explosive weaponry helps with Tina skeletons. I leave Tina for last because I can get a near 50 spell grenade or Bee and they help to faceroll the main quest after the DLCs.
FYI, this thread is two years old, so starting your own thread would have been a better approach.
To answer your question, you have enough slack in your xp budget for precisely one full DLC before starting UVHM. The optimal method is to do Tina’s at the end of NVHM. You’ll finish around 35, which is fine, TVHM will catch up to you fairly quickly. The key is that you’ll have the dragons unlocked for efficient eridium farming - once you’re in UVHM, just drop down to NVHM, hit the dragons a few times to fill up on rid-rock, buy whatever you need from Earl, repeat as needed. Much faster than using the Warrior as your eridium farm.
If optimization is not a concern, do whatever DLC you want. Hammerlock is fine at the end of NVHM since like Tina it scales up to 35. If you want to do Scarlett or Torgue, do them at the very start of TVHM since they cap at 30 in NVHM.
If you start TVHM at 30 and do the main game without DLCs, you’ll probably end up detouring for a significant amount of side-questing at various points to keep your level on target. I’ve never done it that way, but even starting at 35 I’ve needed a side-quest detour before Sawtooth Cauldron. It’s a level 49 zone in TVHM, even though Toil and Trouble is level 47 (and Arid Nexus is a level 48 zone), so one often has a very bad time there… That also means that you have to work pretty hard to finish TVHM below 50 - the thing to worry about is finishing above 50. Which is why you have room for just one DLC before UVHM as I mentioned above. I usually spend levels 52-60ish doing nothing but DLCs to make up for that.
To avoid further thread necromancy here, I will try to keep this short.
It’s quite possible to finish NVHM main story at level 29, and go straight into TVHM. The white and green gear you get at the start is quite enough. The game has a certain amount of adaptability at this stage of the game, simply because it’s hard to predict the level where a player is at when switching to TVHM. In short… The XP you get will be balanced to the level you’re at. @Worblehat answered the rest.
If you have guns and equipment that are around level 54 stashed away, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t do all the dlc material in TVHM. But if you don’t have that… Then I’d recommend that you wait until UVHM. The enemies in UVHM scale to your level, so you will be struggling a lot if you start it at level 54 or higher. This is because the loot you get in TVHM will never be higher than 50.