Buffing/Nerfing/Balancing Wilhelm the Enforcer's Skills

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Wilhelm the Enforcer
#1

Venom Bolts

Effect changes to:
“10% chance (per level) of Wolf’s attacks inflicting elemental damage (whichever the enemy its’ attacking is weakest against)”

Kill Switch

When this effect activates your Action Skill cooldown meter is instantly filled by 10%

Man and Machine

Your Shield Capacity: +3% PL --> +4% PL
Your Max Health: +3% PL --> +4% PL

First to Fight

Gun Damage Bonus: +8% PL --> +12% PL

Meteor Slam

Additionally, increases slam damage by +5% per level.

Heatsinks

Shield Recharge Rate: +6% PL --> 9% PL
Shield Reharge Delay: -3.4% PL --> -6% PL

Zero Hour

Healing Per Second (in Zone): +8% --> +12%

Kinetic Armor

  • Becomes a 1 point ability
  • Health Bonus: +5% PL --> +12%
  • Explosion effect remains the same.

Hard to Kill

Damage Resistance Per Stack: .1% PL --> .5% PL
Max Stacks: 100 -> 20

1 Like
#2

To be honest, even if we’re buffing Venom Bolts, it’ll still be bad, as Corrosion in TPS is the worst element.

That is a good idea !

Pretty negligible to be honest, Man and Machine doesn’t need a buff.[quote=“King_Tadpole, post:1, topic:1552562”]
First to Fight

Gun Damage Bonus: +8% PL --> +12% PL
[/quote]

I think instead of boosting the Gun Damage provided by it, we should just reduce the cooldown time. But boosting the Gun Damage would give Wilhelm a huge situational stand, which is good, specially with the Siege Howitzer COM.

Great idea ! You’re already doing massive amounts of damage with the regular slam + Siege Howitzer so with this you should be causing some serious mayhem.

Base or while cooldown ?

16% is too much for the cost of 1 point, and 8% is okay imho.

We should just buff the explosive feedback to make it viable. It would be a good skill to pick up when playing Howitzer Wilhelm.

Great idea, it would make the Damage Resistance more viable and less situational.
Another way to improve it is to make it kinda like Anarchy stacks : it lasts forever. So you have to stack your Hard to Kill before playing the game. But your idea is really good !

Another cool thing that would improve Wilhelm is to reduce Power Fist’s cooldown by 2 seconds, since I love this skill on an Explosive build.

#3

I adopted most of your suggestions.

On Hard to Kill, I tend to find abilities you can load up in advance a bit gimmicky. You don’t want to be able to go to a weak area, get damaged 100 times by a bunch of weak enemies and then teleport to a difficult area and have an unfair advantage.

1 Like
#4

That could get weird with shielded enemies and the enemies in CV that take on the element you damage them with. I can imagine wolf bugging out a lot.

That would mess with OC chaining builds. They want the cooldown to start so they can get to their next burst of damage.[quote=“King_Tadpole, post:1, topic:1552562”]
First to Fight

Gun Damage Bonus: +8% PL --> +12% PL
[/quote]

Still wouldn’t be taken because of the 5 second downtime where you have to stop deal damage in order to deal more damage. 60% extra for 5 secods (additive buff) doesn’t make up for the 5 seconds you spent dealing no damage.[quote=“King_Tadpole, post:1, topic:1552562”]
Meteor Slam

Additionally, increases slam damage by +5% per level.
[/quote]

Yes, yes, and more yes, It’s really weird that they gave Nisha of all characters a slam damage boost.

1 point for 12% health and a weak knock back? No thank you.

#5

In perfect usage FtF would average out 30% more gun damage over the course of the fight if boosted to 12% per point.
However, perfect usage would be incredibly difficult. Get tagged by an enemy half a second from turning it back on? Now you have to wait 5 additional seconds on top of the 4.5 you just waited. And that’s also assuming you’re dropping everything to do so, which would mean quitting the battle mid Overcharge, mid ER, mid kill skills. Which would all not be worth missing time on to get the extra base gun damage.
Even at 60% I would say you’re maybe getting an extra 10% effective gun damage out over the course of a shoot out. Unless the battle is small enough that you spend most of it with FtF, in which case, you probably didn’t need it to begin with.
It either needs to cycle 5 seconds on 5 seconds off without any limitter, or it should be bigger.

#6

I have an idea :
First to Fight is triggered when you engage the combat, and it ends when you don’t deal damage for 5 seconds. If you don’t deal damage for 5 seconds, you have to wait for the skill to cooldown.

#7

Although Wilhelm is probably my favorite Vault Hunter in the series, I agree that, of all the TPS Vault Hunters, he has the most skills that need work. Here are the changes I would make.

Hunter Killer –
Venom Bolts --> Frost Bolts: Wolf has a chance to shoot extra Frost Bolts that may Freeze enemies. 6% chance per level. Additionally, you gain increased Freeze Chance (+2%) and Cryo Damage (+5%) with guns and grenades.
Cold War: +6% Freeze Chance and +4% Cryo Weapon Freeze Chance
Escalation: Cooldown can begin during Action Skill, much like Salvador’s Get Some.
Omega Strike: Increase damage and/or frequency.

Cyber Commando –
First to Fight: Boosts are changed to Gun Damage +10%; Grenade Damage +5%; Fire Rate +4%
Power Fist: An extra +200% Melee Damage; cooldown 8 seconds
Shock Absorbers: You can also sprint while moving backwards and while strafing. Gun Damage is now added simply by moving, not just running.
Meteor Slam: Also increase Slam Damage +6%
Vengeance Cannon: Duration 20 seconds; also increase damage

Dreadnought –
Fortify: Also increases Grenade Damage while Saint is active by +4%
Kinetic Armor: +8% Maximum Health; Explosion Chance up to +8%; explosion deals more damage; +3% Explosive Damage
Hard to Kill: Stacks don’t decay; all stacks are lost when you die.