The Florentine Love/Hate Thread

[Jefe (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ)]

I was inspired today by yet another debate about the perennially most-contested article of gear in the entire game : the revered , the despised , the under-appreciated , the over-valued , the superlative , the mediocre , the underwhelming, the invaluable FLORENTINE!

I’m a great lover/hater of the same debates that crop up over and over :

• Doc’s vs Rustler’s ( Doc’s is the correct answer )
• Flicker’s effect on Scorn ( none is the correct answer )
• DPUH or Hard/Crammed/Intense Harold ( the correct answer is anything other than DP )
• a 94% Sham vs a 93% Sham with better recharge ( inside joke… but 93% is correct )
• Blight Phoenix : awesome or stupid? ( Stupendous! was the correct answer if I recall correctly )
• and of course Slagga vs the FLORENTINE.

And just because I’m feeling sadistic/masochistic , I thought I’d dredge this topic up yet again so you can all love/hate me.
And so to the debating podium we go! (I’ll do all the debating for you. If you didn’t have an opinion yet, you can have mine )

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Why is the FLORENTINE so amazing?

• it slags and strips shields in one!
• it looks cool!
• that’s all I got…the above point was made in desperation (although granted it’s true).

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Why does the FLORENTINE suck?

• its main projectile is shock and the splash is slag, so any potential grenade and elemental boosts are lost, so your 2 ammo per shot does far less damage than a Plasma Caster ( gawd, even a Bandit PC).
• its slag chance is ridiculously bad compared with its nearest comparator , the Slagga ( and in fact, the Slagga’s damage is very impressive ). It takes half a mag to actually slag your target. Meanwhile all that damage your trying to lay out is getting shrugged off because the target isn’t slagged.
• shields are actually very easy to strip through normal (non-shock) damage once the target is slagged. In the cases of certain bosses, you’re going to use something a lot more aggressive than a puny no-splash FLORENTINE.

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Now the caveats : level has a huge impact on the usefulness of this gun. We all know the OP levels are ruthless at weeding out the under-achievers ; but at sub-OP levels, this is a perfectly viable gun that’s cool and fun to use. You can even use Adabiviak’s patented OP system to buff the damage ( i.e. use an OP6 gun in OP4 ).

Anyways, you’re now free to argue with me and each other if you so desire ; or you may silently agree with my assessment ; or you may silently regard me as a know-nothing jackass.
The choice is yours!

[ChemicalConundrum (What does it all mean!?)]

If you want a general all-purpose gun that slags and kills, then it’s a good option. It can’t compete with the Slagga for slagging…If you want a slagging gun, then use that or the slag pimp, there’s no comparison there. But the Slagga doesn’t really kill stuff (B0re excepted) and doesn’t have a tight spread of fire even if it did do damage. Like all Maliwan plasma casters, the Florentine shoots a steady straight line of projectiles and reloads quickly. It strips shields and likely slags the target by the time you’ve hit it enough to strip the shield. Is it completely necessary or one of the weapons on everyone’s top 10 list…no…but the slagga may be on some of those lists as the top slagging choice (plus the crushing B0re potential for Zer0 players) in the same way the grog is on every list because it’s hands down the best healing gun (and slags). I don’t think either the Slagga or Grog are great weapons on their own (Bandit SMG’s and Maliwan pistols aren’t exactly top tier), but they serve a specific role better than anything (or nearly anything in the case of the Slagga) else in their category.

The Florentine is definitely a trash mobby weapon, I use it a lot, but never on anything heavy.

[Adabiviak (Guajiro Pandoreño)]

Yeah, it’s like we’re playing different games.

• Doc’s vs Rustler’s? I’m not even sure what the difference is.
• Flicker’s effect on Scorn? Who cares? +5 every time because reasons.
• Harold Prefix? I have a Double Penetrating… it works, I guess.
• Sham… not familiar with inside joke.
• Blight Phoenix - I’m still not clear on its stun effect… I love the elemental damage though.
• Slagga vs Florentine? As a strictly allegiance player, this has no meaning for me. My favorite slag weapon is a Gwen’s Head though, so don’t ask for my advice.

[Jefe (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ)]

• Doc’s has +50% crit and a tightened spread. Rustler’s adds 2 projectiles but widens the spread. Jakobs is for critting, so Doc’s.
• DP…well, I’ve learned to hate its sloppiness.
• Sham debate was from Item Finds of the Day. It was pointless.
• Slagga vs Florentine? I agree comparing them is silly : that idea required more lampooning in my OP. They are two radically different guns.

[Carlton_Slayer]

For just slagging- Slagga
For stripping shields- Slagga
For killing enemies (which should be the primary purpose of any gun, Grog Nozzle excepted)- Slagga wins again. I was using an OP1 version on Ultimate Krieg’s Peak runs thru OP3 and was still able to kill/severely damage enemies with it. With an on level one it’s even more deadly…

[Hattie (Sloth in the time of corona)]

@Jefe this thread is ridiculously awesome, made my day (rather like your well-placed Xmas hat)

[Adabiviak (Guajiro Pandoreño)]

I don’t know… the Grog Nozzle really takes the edge off melee combat.

[Itsu]

It’s not good or bad just average
yea it does slag and strip shields but none of this things it does best its like the perfect example of jack of all trades and master of none
if you want a pure slag gun it is not the choice
if you want a shock gun it is not the choice
but if you want a gun that does both decently to i donno save one gun slot or something it is the choice

[Hattie (Sloth in the time of corona)]

I like the Florentine with Maya, or did when she used any Maliwan, slags and strips shields without having to swap (she does have comparatively slow hands).

Only my Krieg uses Maliwan now and he likes it a lot as an offensive weapon, interacts well with Hellborn. My other Krieg is Torgue and uses a Slagga, but it doesn’t help much on the damage front.

[Jefe (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ)]

One of the reasons for posting this thread ( other than some good old fashioned controversy ) is my disbelief at the difference in opinion and experience regarding this gun.

I have tried it with every character at varying levels and have been dismayed every time. Every time I’ve used it it has struggled to do anything. The only character that’s done anything acceptable with it is Gaige - and even then I’d deem it average.

I think it’s great that those of you who use it can make it work for you.

And @Hattie ( I just realized you shortened your tag ), credit goes to @Sun_Tsunami for the Xmas hat idea. You have no idea how long it took for me to figure out how to do it

[Hattie (Sloth in the time of corona)]

One of several reasons that I love Borderlands 2 so much is the wildly different opinions about weapons, and indeed fabulous variations in how the game is played.

I usually set out with the ambition of making everything work, but it’s not hard with the Florentine - may be my favourite Maliwan weapon.

As to self-fesitivisation, you and Sun have risen to the challenge and produced the best Christmas avatars

[VaultHunter101 (So long, and thanks for all the fish)]

My $0.007 CDN:

• Doc’s vs. Rustler’s - I’ll roll with whatever I get (I’m not into grind-farming)
• Flicker’s effect on Scorn - who cares? The question is, what’s the effect on other elemental damage?
• DP vs. other - depends on who/what I’m fighting, but see first point
• 94% vs 93% Sham - what’s a Sham?
• Blight Phoenix - stupidly awesome
• Slagga vs. Florentine - yes?

[Jefe (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ)]

Exactly.

But somehow this topic keeps coming up.
However @Itsu did a very convincing test yesterday so we’ll call it case closed.

[LunaticOne (LunaticOne Borderland's 2 & 3 UnOfficial #1 BadAss)]

You know it’s that thing Bunker drops, once every third Blue moon, but only on Fridays

Floentine Yes, rocked with a Slagga last night against the Ancient Dragons, so Yes.
Truth be told I tend to pick my SMG’s by, “Hmmm, haven’t used this to kill anything with in awhile”

I’m a Carnage guy, because “EXPLOSIONS”

[Kurtdawg13 (Loot Whore)]

I love this. Thank you!

My answer is: “Who F’ing Cares!”

I am! Love ya @Jefe

There are lots of ‘reasons’ why I would or wouldn’t chose one over the other. for total efficiency I’d side with the Slagga. But with TIME being an issue to get in some good game play lately, I’ll run with what I have in my backpack or if I don’t have either and I need one of them, I’ll jam over to The Tiny Tina DLC and purchase a Florentine if need be. I’m very situational with my gear selection and time availability to go through my mules and get out the very best of my collection.

Lately, I’ve been trying out items that become available during my game play. I just had an invader drop from Saturn. I have it on my Axton and was going to give it a go. I’m expecting to be thoroughly disappointed with it, but I’ll do it anyways.

[Piemanlee (Goodbye friends and not friends, it's been a fun ride)]

Ok I’ll shoot

Both good, depends on the character

It helps a little. It’s either flicker or helios, neither one is amazing

DP or hard. Intense throws away ammo for little gain. Crammed is mag size right?

Either or really

Useable, but not great

Both have there merits, but i prefer the slagga. I can usually ignore shields due to my other weapons damage or use grenades to strip them. Florentine has it’s uses tho, it’s not a bad gun

[Itsu]

TRIGGERED

[VaultHunter101 (So long, and thanks for all the fish)]

Got one of those and passed it on, just used it with Zer0 to get past Saturn and the constructors. Wasn’t so much help against Saturn (stupid rocket planes - and apparently they home in on you even when you’re in deception?) but it totally melted the constructors outside and inside the data pavilion.

[Ossie (Just...like, with a fork)]

Slagga.

I must leave now, for my work here is done.

[Jefe (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ)]

Oh no. You don’t get off that easy. This thread is to express your love, hate or indifference toward the Florentine.
I expect a full report on my desk by the end of day @Ossie!