Weisenheimer - Not as rare as you might think!

Borderlands 2 BL2 General Discussion
#1

Every now and then, we see someone claiming that the Weisenheimer is one of the rarest guns in the game. I’d like to get this out of the way, once and for all.

Weisenheimer is a corrosive Hyperion SMG with a Maliwan barrel. That’s it! Nothing special about it! The fire version is called Backburner, the slag version goes by Wellness, and the shock version is a Storm. If you get a Maliwan barrel on a Dahl SMG, it will be named Fox, Scorpion, Eel and Beetle (if memory serves me). Should you get a Bandit SMG, it will be named Barfy or Burny and stuff like that. You see where I’m going with this?

We see these SMG’s with maliwan barrels all the time. They’re not super rare or anything. They just have a name that stands out. The chance for getting a Hyperion SMG is 1/5. Then you have a 4/5 chance to get an elemental variant. Then you have a 1/5 chance to get a Maliwan barrel. And finally, you have a 1/4 chance to get a corrosive one, which in the end would render you a Weisenheimer. Green, Blue or Purple, it’s still only a Weisenheimer.

It’s just as rare as any basic gun in the whole game!

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What did you do in your most recent session, PT2!
#2

I’m curious about this. In the case of named weapons (Fibber, Sandhawk, etc) that come in all elemental flavours, the odds of an elemental version actually seem lower, as though the game either rolls for elemental vs nonelemental first, or weights elements lower than no element.

That said, can you get Maliwan barrels without them being elemental? Because that would seem odd (like getting a non-explosive Torgue barrel).

Hmm… back to my notes on the subject, I think.

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#3

The Weisenheimer and its relatives are kind of a running joke over on the Item Finds of the Day. ( as in : “oh look, I found the rarest gun in the game…again” )
I think we’ve collectively found dozens in the last few months.

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What did you do in your most recent session, PT3!
#4

While I completely agree that the Weisenheimer is in fact a no-big-deal gun on pretty much every level, I can honestly say that in my 1500+ hrs in-game (to date), spread across three main characters and a couple of abandoned/failed ones, I’ve found exactly one…

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…I kept is mostly as a curiosity.

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#5

its 1/125 chance, or .008% they’re quite rare.

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#6

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed getting one myself, though they’re easy enough to overlook and I didn’t know it was a joke for quite a while. I think it’s from some video where a guy claimed it was an incredibly rare drop?

I can say with more certainty - but obviously entirely anecdotally - that Backburners are pretty rare for me.

And yes, @VaultHunter101, I remember a knowledge pool on here before where we concluded RNG is against getting elemental versions of unique guns, though whether that applies to others I don’t know…

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#7

the rarest gun of all is in fact the Diamond weisenheimer, which only drops from buttstallion

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#8

^ You’re not helping :laughing:

Is that where this comes up from? I was wondering why it was on people’s radar.

I’m trying to remember the logic that made people think they were rare to begin with, like back on the old forums? I think it’s because each Maliwan barrel causes the gun to have a unique name specific to the element (where a Bandit Rokgun (Dahl barrel for example) will have the same name regardless of the element it comes with. That makes the Maliwan-barreled SMGs artificially more rare than if they all, regardless of element, shared a name. In the context of non-red-texted SMGs, they would be a bit more rare, but in the context of the entire weapon ecosystem, not so much.

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#9

If memory serves, the Diamond Weisenheimer (the gemstone version) was originally hyped as the rarest gun in the game in a Killer6 video. Later, Killer6 went back and said he was incorrect, but this idea had already taken hold by then. @DemoniteBL has a video on his channel debunking this myth as well. I’d be curious to see a post with the actual mathematical odds, but I agree with @DemoniteBL that the Cobra takes the title of the rarest gun, even after the buff rate to the drop. Obtaining a specific elemental hide of terra is probably close if we extend to rarest gear because of Terra’s deep loot pool and low odds of getting an elemental version in the first place.

edit:

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#10

I watched that video. His voice irked me deeply. Also, just from personal experience, I’d say Hyperion IS the rarest manufacturer, with corrosive or shock the rarest element.

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#11

Demonite can’t exactly help speaking in a German accent… Whether or not Hyperion is the rarest manufacture (of which there is zero evidence for this claim) the Cobra drop rates make it the rarest gun. The diamond weisenheimer is no more or less rare than any elemental gemstone weapon.

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#12

it’s not even the german accent. just his voice itself. It just bugs me. Though there are quite a few accents that straight up make me cringe. like boston accents. I have hyperacusis, which is pretty common in autistics and ADD, which i have both of. Plus I have alexithymia, all of which culminates in me liking my space to be quiet and alone.

It’s nothing against him.

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#13

No. Non-elemental is much more heavily weighted, as seen in Sandhawk farming for example. More like 50% NE, 12.5% each element (with a fair bit of uncertainty, unless someone has tracked this with more detail than I did, could just as easily be 60% NE 10% each element from my observations).

Exactly; that and the fact that many of those names are memorable and/or funny-sounding (Weisenheimer, Barfy) is why we find them more noteworthy than other non-red-text guns.

I have never seen one, and didn’t know what the Weisenheimer’s fire counterpart was called until this thread. :slight_smile: Excellent Hyperion names in both cases (Wellness and Storm are rather disappointing on that front).

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#14

If I remember correctly, @mlociks found a perfect Diamond Weisenheimer a couple months ago.

Matiss? Can you confirm?

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#15

I also found one back in the ps3, level 61 though. After every coop session me and my friend will visit buttstallion to feed her. We got it after a week, the same session we got a cobra from the beatdown. We might be lucky that day.

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#16

They drop on a regular basis around my characters. I probably miss them sometimes, but I can honestly say that I get one or two on pretty much every single playthrough. Not Weisenheimers exclusively, but also Backburners, Storms and Wellness.

I didn’t include the weighting at all. I simply meant that there are one non elemental, and four elemental. I was counting on the rest of you guys to lay down the actual numbers. But my point still stands… It’s not a rare gun!

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#17

Created: ‎Monday, ‎July ‎10, ‎2017, ‏‎3:21:06 PM

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Been farming Buttstalion a lot and I’m still looking for lots of other gemstone guns. Coincidentially Hyperion smgs with maliwan barrels is one my most complete sets for elemental non-maliwan weapons.

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#18

Oh how I hate this thing and it’s all because of the misinformation but that has been elaborated enough as is.

Now a big problem is how people try to make out the Diamond the rarest guns evur but that is neglecting that this is only the result of going throw several gear checks. Is it an SMG? Is it from Hyperion? Does it have the Maliwan Barrel and a Corrosive Element?

Of course it’s going to be rare but as mentioned it’s only a specific combination of parts that got a unique title depending on manufacturer and element. Thus, it would be no different than trying to get a Diamond Thinking with an Hyperion barrel and an element like corrosoive you really want, it just doesn’t have a unique title.

Additionally, the Weisenheimer is only one of 19 variants of the same family which are roughly the same in rarity, Maliwan aside as they are always elemental and thus more likely to fit into these very specific result. This also makes them the only “Weisenheimer Family” variants that can drop as white gear.

These are all possible variants:

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Chances are, people have found most of these but paid no mind to them because ultimately, they aren’t special, they just have a fancy title. No doubt the Weisenheimer feels the rarest of them if you specifically want that one but that’s also no different that farming the BNK-3R and hoping for a Sham. Of course it will feel rare when the other drops just make what you want harder to get even though they all have the same rarity.

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#19

I’m wondering if it have to do more with name than rarity. I mean, when getting into farming, there is learning curve to recognize good parts that spawns on guns. - So for people that haven’t gotten into that part recognition deal all guns might as well look same and easy to get. But with exception of parts that appears to be unique and interesting, as there should be things that should be easy to pick up. So I guess maybe the reason for the status of Weisenheimers rarity is it’s unique name that makes it easy to remember.

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#20

They are decent weapons too. The Maliwan barrel gives some nice elemental buffs, so there’s reasons to look out for it.

Honestly I hear it raised as a joke these days far more than a real assertion.

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