Two thoughtlock questions

Borderlands 2 Maya the Siren
#1

This seems like something I should know, but I don’t. I’ve used thoughtlock very little, and I’m therefore something of a novis on the subject. I can put together an effective build, so that’s not the problem.

  1. Which enemies do you guys thoughtlock first? Weakest or strongest enemy?
  2. Are the thoughtlocked enemy somehow immune to your AoE- or BB-grenades?
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#2

  1. I’ll typically go with the biggest guy - opposite to SS. The advantage to TL is the increased duration ; the disadvantage being the increased cooldown time. So you want to get the most out of your TL target. @Adabiviak has a few alt uses iirc (TL a surveyor for example, which can heal you).

  2. I’ve never come across any mention of a TL target being resistant or immune to damage, but we did talk about the Bee. If you use a Bee on the TL, it doesn’t make the Bee sound but it DOES work. So it’s possible that other forms of damage work despite the fact that you don’t get any indication.

Edit : all this is assuming no SS!!

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#3

I use thoughtlock differently based on the situation. Badasses with launchers=thoughtlock. If I’m low on health=surveyors (also an easy kill after you’ve healed enough for you but aren’t quite full). If it’s a mob with a badass w/ no launcher sometimes I grab a little guy for SubSequence procs and let them sort that out while I pepper them from range. As for immunity to damage I think the only thing that you need to adjust for is that homing mechanics (magic missiles, kiss of death, homing nades in general, are the things I’ve noticed this with, Maya has never had a Seeker and I’m not sure where else it would be.) don’t work on Thoughtlocked enemies in my experience.

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#4

Even though I main a Siren, I have never used Thoughtlock. I should do something about that.

If Maya is specced into Restoration, can she heal the Thoughlocked ally?

It would be kind of weird if Elated would continuously regenerate its health.

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#5

Dee Lightful uses a TL/SS build and I kind of play it the opposite of most folks- I kill the TL target first to get the healing orbs from Sweet Release, TL tags another target, kill it, get more healing, wash, rinse, repeat…

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#6

I’m pretty sure cloud kill does not proc on the thought locked enemy but other damage sources seem to work fine.

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#7

That’s what I thought too! :smile:

What I mean by immunity is that they can stand in the middle of an AoE and not take any damage from it. Enemies that aren’t TL’d can stand right next to them and take damage as per usual.

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#8

As far as I’ve noticed anything you can take damage from they can too. So anything you could stand in they would be able to do the same. I don’t really use nades for damage as much as function (singularities, slag) though, so I probably haven’t been in a position to really take note of that. I know I’ve been fragged by my own Quasar but not pulled by the singularity so I would expect it to be the same for the TL’d target.

And this has been my experience as well.

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#9

I forgot to mention that unlike others I don’t combine TL and SS. Just so it puts my first post into perspective.

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#10

Pun of the day :laughing:

I almost always grab the weakest guy, just to fire a ‘free’ Sub Sequence and re-Converge immediately to really condense the mob (full 5/5 sub sequence here). If I wasn’t playing allegiance, I’d use singularity grenades to pre-shrink the mob, but I enjoy re-firing Converge (and Helios, Ruin, all that) over having, say, sustained Elated and Wreck by grabbing the big guy.

heh - It’s been years since I used Thoughtlock with anything besides the singularity grenades that come with Hyperion allegiance that I’m not sure. Confirmed not hearing the thwack of amp damage on them, but I’ve never tested it to confirm.

Also - as mentioned above, Thoughtlocking a Surveyor while hurt can heal you fast, since Elated is on deck in conjunction with the Surveyor. I could have sworn that I had this recorded somewhere. :thinking:
Anyway, here’s some Thoughtlock with Sub Sequence in slow motion:

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#11

As far as I remember TL didn’t increase the cooldown time (or was it patched, or am I wrong)?

I would also not use Sub Sequence (I didn’t use it in general anyway), preferably TL’ing the psycho-equivalent of enemies whilst focusing fire on the stronger ones.

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#12

The skill description says it does, but I usually run with various cooldown buffs (bones, leg siren/binder, quicken), so I might not have noticed. I can say that when I specced out of Thoughtlock it seemed quicker, so maybe it acts as intended currently?

I only specced SubSequence after @Adabiviak suggested it to me. I think that if you spec for Helios/Ruin/Converge it certainly has its uses, but I never felt like I was missing much without it. It guarantees that your phase/thought lock is out there for the entire duration instead of starting to cool down after the target kicks the bucket (which I was avoiding while I was getting used to Thoughtlock after using traditional Phaselock until that point, but was less of a concern for me after the getting to know you period) which may or may not be desirable. But with those other 3 skills specced it allows for a little more crowd control as well as bonus slag and DOTs, so it’s a trade that may or may not be worth it depending on your preferences. Maybe try it both ways and tell us what you think @Ronnie_Rayburn.

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#13

Yeah, this does lend itself to my playstyle - I love bunching enemies up as close together so splash weapons can hit more than one target at once. I don’t have Cloud Kill in this build, but if you time things right, you could repeatedly pull enemies into that death zone with Sub Sequent Converges.

If I was more into 'locking the local tank and getting a summon on the fly, I’d pass on Sub Sequence.

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#14

Sub Sequence basically boils down to one question for me. Helios, or no Helios. With Helios, you can get some fantastic results on a mob with one single thoughtlock. As long as it doesn’t stick to a really strong enemy, it will devastate the whole bunch once they are slagged. Without Sub Sequence, Helios will strike on unslagged targets every time, and that’s just a waste of good skill points to me. This is if you’re using Ruin as your main slagging tool, ofc. If either SS or Helios is speced, then the other one should be aswell.

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#15

I feel like you can do this with subsequence too. I’ve been known to pop a Goliath’s helmet from a distance and then thoughtlock the rager and let it thin the herd while I close in, and i still have the option of grabbing a little guy if I want the extra procs. It’s essentially another option for me, and I do like to keep my options open.

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#16

am i missing something? isnt it phaselock? not thoughtlock?

#17

The enraged Goliath is already aggro on the locals, no? (Or is this in a situation where you’re the closest target)?

If you grab the capstone skill at the end of the first tree, Maya’s action skill behavior is different enough that calling it by the name of this skill describes what is happening in someone’s description of the combat better.

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#18

I’ve actually done it in various situations, but that one is the best and I’m not far enough into my daily caffeination to be accurate. Oops. I’ll leave that unedited so everyone can laugh at me as is my usual habit. Best example is Bug Gulch by the Black queen spawn. When I go for the tank it’s usually a Blaster spawning up top. If a regular flavor Goliath spawns I’ll pop his helmet and then grab a smaller target so I can have 2 distractions at once plus added procs.

I’ve also thought locked a rager to get it to turn it’s back to me after everyone else has gone the way of all pixels, which is basically what you said.

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#19

I’ve always taken this at face value :

image

But looks like you’re right (from the wiki):

Despite the in-game description of this skill, Thoughtlock does not lengthen the cooldown of Maya’s Phaselock by 3 seconds.

Otherwise, regarding TL with and with SS, it’s a preference. If I’m playing with SS, I prefer PL ; so if I decide to respec for TL it’s because I want to play differently.

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#20

I just tested it, and the longer cooldown is a fact. The reason we don’t think it’s there is probably because it’s added to the base cooldown value, and with the various bonuses, the formula most likely looks like this:

Leg. Binder = 29%
BoA = 47%
Quicken = 30%

(13 + TL) / (1 + 0,29 + 0,47 + 0,3)

With TL = 3s, the math says 16 / 2,06 = 7,77s
Without TL, but with the otherwise same setup, the cooldown is 6,31s. It’s not a huge difference, and I think it’s easy to miss just because it’s relatively small once you have the whole setup. And I think that most people who do a TL build will have exactly this setup.

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