FL4K action skill speculation

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

So I’m super excited for FL4K but I have no freaking idea how they’re going to work! I’ve been having fun trying to guess things.

So we know from the cosplay guide and trailers that they have 3 pets. The skag, spiderant, and jabber (gun cat monkey). It seems kinda obvious that summoning these pets will be their action skill, like it just fits really well with the 3 skill trees and 3 main action skill varieties that we’ve been seeing for everybody so far.

But in another trailer, we also see FL4K do something that looks like invisibility, and in yet another trailer it looks kind of like they might also have some rakk? How are these skills going to work? Are they going to have a second action skill like Zane, but for Zane it eats his grenade slot, would FL4K also have to give something up to use a 2nd skill?

If their skills like invisibility are not 2nd action skills, how do those skills work? Kill skills? Action skill overrides? I’m usually not a huge fan of pet summoner classes because I really like having more active action skills, with Gaige it feels like presses action skill button to summon Deathtrap, Deathtrap is out doing Deathtrap things for a long time, Deathtrap goes away and is on cooldown, 5 minutes later you actually get to press your action skill button again. If FL4K’s pets are ones that get summoned and are out for a long time doing their own thing, then maybe when the pets are out the action skill button can be used for a secondary ability like invisibility. But then there might be situations where it’s like tries to go invisible, doesn’t notice pet is off cooldown, accidentally throws skag at somebody’s face.

Their class mods look like their 3 pets. What happens if you equip a class mod that doesn’t match your pet?

Can we give the gun cat monkey a gun? And how?

I have so many questions. :smiley:

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#2

My current guess is that they’ll have one slot for an AS and that players can change which summon they have with augments. Like Amara (sorta). I think that it behaving similarly to Zane (two action skills with one taking the place of grenades) isn’t too far-fetched and completely possible.

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#3

I expect that his pets will not be summoned by an action skill but they will be accompanying FL4k all the time. It makes sense to do it this way. If you design a character whose main distinction is fighting alongside summons why limit the time for summons? Make it an always present gameplay feature.

They can implement choosing what pet you use by giving you passive skills that you need to equip (just like how Amara picks an element) with new pets unlocking as you progress through the skill trees. When the pet dies they can just make a cooldown of a minute or more before it reappears.

As for the actual action skills I remember seeing only two of them in the last trailer - invisibility and some kind of a healing on the pet (ressurection perhaps?) I have no idea what the third one can be.

I wonder if they will make FL4K vulnerable to corrosion instead of fire? His pets are flesh so it could introduce some interesting dynamic to how you approach your enemies depending on their element.

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#4

The problem with this is that the pet will either be overpowered (AKA: sit behind cover while the pet does all the fighting) or that it will constantly hinder the player (AKA: you’ll need to revive it constantly while in combat as you would with any other ally). I’m not saying it isn’t feasible to implement a permanent pet in a way that can make both of the above possibilities null, but it would be VERY hard to balance that and I just don’t see it happening.

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#5

Actually, Fl4k’s action skill build could be a lot closer to a traditional pet class from a MMORPG (ala WOW’s Hunter class). You can have your pet out at all times but the critter will have health that you have to keep an eye on. I draw this conclusion from the fact that actions skills in BL3 are more varied in structure per character than in the previous games (Zane can equip two at the cost of his grenade slot whilst Amara is more limited, but more focused as result.) Flak is able to have pets and go invisible. I am guessing he has a tree dedicated to pets and another to sniping/sneaking. It could go in any number of ways as we have seen from the various class reveals so far.

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#6

They’ll probably function as Augments. Like Zane’s or Amara’s do, secondary effects triggered with or by the action skill. Summon out little Mr. Skaggles and you go invisible for a few seconds while he draws more aggro. Amara has even shown us that a character can have more than 3 action skills, so having more than 3 pets to pick from is entirely possible too.

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#7

Having the pet or the pets out all the time is indeed a possibility, Gearbox refering to Fl4k as they could be a hint to it too.
Being invisible is also a good way to mitigate the drawback of having to revive them.

The thing is: could ALL of them be out at the same time? Do the COM change the pet by your side or skills do it?

So far Fl4k seem to have unique mechanics, as the others VH as well.

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#8

What if…his pets are actually the ones who give him invisibility, healing skills, etc? Like, for instance, if you choose to summon his Skag friend (nicknamed Skaggles because DUH) he can randomly grant you invis or maybe if you tap the action skill button again while he’s active then you activate invis. And maybe his Spiderant pet (nicknamed Beyonce) could allow you to activate a healing AOE or whatevs.

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#9

I seem to remember hearing ‘Zane is the only one with two action skills’ somewhere but I can’t off the top of my head remember where. Also, they have said that each character has something a little different than the others in regards to how their skills work, which is another reason I think Zane is the only one with 2 action skills at any one time.

-Amara is close to BL2 style skills but her augments have some great effects.
-Zane can have two action skill slotted at the same time.
-Moze i have no idea.
Flaks difference must have something to do with how his pets work but no idea what. I think you’re probably right about augments swapping the pets at the moment.

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#10

I’m also guessing that FL4K just gets one action skill so they’re not too much like Zane, and has some kind of different mechanics from everybody else.

Permanent pet would be interesting, at the same time it could be kinda annoying like oh no Mr. Skaggles plz stop aggroing all the enemies I am trying to shop at this vending machine, sit, stay. I wonder how interactive the pets are. Like if you can tell them to do stuff or if they’ll just be off doing their own thing.

Having secondary abilities like invisibility that activate with the action skill button when pets are out kind of makes sense to me. Like how Zer0’s action skill button turns into kunai when they’re invisible.

I was being a huge damn nerd and going through some stuff in the trailers frame by frame and saw this, the skag is out in the top corner here right before FL4K raises their hand and goes invisible.

Skaggles in the corner:

fl4kinvis0
fl4kinvis0.jpg887×557 122 KB

Hand gesture and invisibility right after that:

fl4kinvis2
fl4kinvis2.jpg887×557 109 KB

So if this is actual gameplay, it looks like you can have your pet out AND invisibility at the same time somehow.

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#11

Gods and Goddesses, this looks so cool

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#12

Most likely each pet is an action skill and the invisibility is an augment

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#13

This is my guess as well.

1 Like
#14

This would also be my guess.

It’d be something along the lines of each pet relating to a hunting thing; like stealth, trap, kill type of thing.

Skag would have stealth augments (hunt prey silently)
Spiderant will have trapping augments (like webs and pits and stuff)
Jabber will just be a DPS buff (Monkey-thing with guns) with maybe some augments for jumping/gaining higher ground (so jump/mantling buffs).

That’s what I hope for at least. That way you can switch up your pet depending on what you’ll be doing. If you’re trying to sneak around, flank, etc unnoticed get the Skag. If you’re trying to CC a bunch of enemies, Spiderant etc etc.

4 Likes
#15

Yup. That is exactly what I think FL4K’s skill trees are going to be like.

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#16

I would play this for 1 billion hours if I can have web traps and poison fangs. Maybe we can even have web powers and start swinging around like Spider-Man! I mean…they did say this game is much more vertical than BL2. Haha

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#17

yeah i hope his pets are just out all the time, and the action skills are just a way to micro manage and do cool things, i am worried though cus the mechromancer, death trap is still bugged so bad you can get killed from friendly fire lazors and death trap some times will heal enemeys with buck up. just hope the Ai is better this time around.

#18

In the gameplay reveal event trailer there seems to be some kind of Augment at work (around the 2:06 to 2:08 mark) A huge nova goes off, with heart/cross-signs all over the screen and shortly after the initial explosion, the Skag appears in the center. My guess is that it’s an augment that triggers a healing nova when you call your pet. Could be exclusive to the Skag though, as that has been shown with a heart emote before.

So it might be possible that Fl4k is our support class!

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#19

FLAK will have 3 action skills with augments as we saw with amara and the 2nd slot will be a permanent pet. You will unlock more choices through tree choice. I’m even thinking; hex slot = skill, diamond slot = pet, that wing slot = additional pet.
Gearbox has already stated the pets are not related to action skills and instead companions that are always around. We see invisibility and that weird healing thing. I am guessing are action skills or one is an action skill where the heart is a normal resurrection.

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#20

Where did you see Gearbox say the pets are always around?

If invisibility is a main action skill… Okay I would actually love that I main Zer0 and I’ve been so psyched about FL4K having invisibility. :smiley: FL4K having a support tree would also be awesome. Story-wise It could make sense for them to have learned healing skills to look after their pets.

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