Fire / Corrosive in TPS

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL:TPS Discussion
#1

Is it just me, or do the Fire / Corrosive elemebts in TPS seev vastly under-utilized?

In my first few months of TPS, where i did co-op only and wasnt realky taking much time to mess around with Explosive / Cryo and all the more deadlyc

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and efficient enways of killing, i used fire a lot, but only because i had normal mode to do with 4 brand new toons and with my first character i found this amazing level 13 Purple Maliwan Fire blaster with plus 203 continous damage bonus that i used right up to level 25-30 with all my first 5 toons.

I had also found a level 15 homing Stormfront and a purple Shock laser almost identical to the fire one.

So, with Nisha, Athena, my firsr Clappy, my first Wilhelm, and Jack, for Normal mode, i used those two lasers, my stormfront, an Eddie and a Bulwark.

Then i essentially just farmed or traded for duplicates of all that when i took Athena, Nisha, and Jack through TVHM.

Then i took a TPS break around Christmas / New Year to finally give BL1 a proper try, and Mercenary Double Anarchy Lilith introduced me to the pure, pristine beauty of non-elemental damage.

The only time i felt i ever HAD to use elements was for Craw Worm / Maggot slaying.

Then, of course, there was BL2, where there was a time and a place for more elements and, in fact, in BL2 normal and TVHM, fire was kind of all you needed, since EVERYWHERE had atmosphere, and Corrosive was useful as well due to the prevalence of robotic / armoured enemies.

Then, i picked TPS back up in February of this year, my first time solo only, as Aurelia, then Clappy, and now Wilhelm, and have discovered the beauty and power of Cryo paired with explosive / NE Critd backed up by shock homing grenades for shield stripping.

But Cryo even makes that unnecessary.

It’s not like you cant freeze shielded / armoured enemies (although it is tougher), especially with the bonuses against shields and Armour Aurelia gets for Cryo.

I know Fire is a big part of Athena’s CS tree, but it almost feels tacked on or unnecessary, as Shock is definitely the star of the CS show.

Imagine if the Fire in the CS tree had been replaced with Cryo!

It’s as if they knew Aurelia was coming in a dew months and wanted to save Cryo for her, which is cool.

I did use Fire pretty extensively from level 20-30 with my latest Clappy, but thats just cuz i had found a level 19 Hellfire and it was very effective with his Maniacal Laughter skill boosted by his Short Circuit com, a shock weapon would have been even more effective.

And then there is Corrosive.

Seems almost utterly useless in TPS.

Sure, you occassionally run into Armoured enemies, and yes, I know Wilhelm can boost Corrosive damage, but it just seems even less useful than Fire.

I only use it against RK5, and even then it’s optional.

I was VERY happy to have the glitched Corrosive Blaster I found from “The Spyware Who Came In From The Cold” take me through literally the entire DLC with great effectiveness, but, even then, I knew I could have been doing the same thing with Cryo / Shock.

Wow.

That got…pretty long!

What do you guys think?

#2

For Fire, it would’ve been a lot better if 2K Austrailia said “SCREW SCIENCE, FIRE IN A VACUUM!!!”, because not being able to light Scavs on a barby in their vacuum mooncamps was kind of disappointing. Corrosive is VERY utilized in Claptastic Voyage though. At least we don’t have loaders everywhere… But mostly fire, because ALOT of legendaries and uniques utilize just that element, which is kind of irritating.

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#3

I still use fire in a vaccume because the impact to flesh still gets the full 1.75 multiplier and ends up doing more damage than shock could ever hope to do.

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#4

Are you saying Fire is actually more effective than Shock in TPS?

#5

Yes. If you noticed when we were doing our Aurelia/Athena co-op, I was using fire guns because they do more damage because of the elemental multiplier. The fact that Tear and Omega-Senshu were multiplying my damage only made it more obvious that fire kills flesh enemies quicker than shock could.

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#6

See, there was a reason i used rhat fire laser so damn much!

Cuz enemies WOULD die really fast!

So why do so many people go on and on about Shock / Cryo and never bring up that fact about Fire?

Is it because Fire just isnt as effective as it COULD be due to being somewhat reliant on atmosphere?

#7

Because it can’t DoT in a vaccume. That’s it. But the math does not lie: fire mulitplies the damage against flesh by 1.75, shock against flesh has a multiplier of 1.00, meaning that it doesn’t effect the damage at all. And with 10/5 Tear and 5/5 Omega-Senshu multipling my damage by 105% before being multiplied by another 75% only made it much more obvious that you should still use matching element to kill faster. Then add the fact that emenies had more health because we were in co-op, and it made the enemies have enough health that I was able do a bit of experimenting among the chaos of your ice machine and see that fire comes out on top.

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#8

Cool.
And wow.

But what about for other characters who don’t get fire damage bonuses the way Athena does?

#9

If you see, I didn’t factor in Malestrom because it’s constanly fluctuating. However, math will never lie: 1.75 fire multiplier will always beat out shock against flesh. By the way, this is not counting red-text guns with special firing abilities or spread abilities. Because the Flakker would win a damage fight hands-down. Just normal guns with a diff element.

#10

@FlamesForAll It’s just you buddy lol

Elemental matching is still very much a part of the gameplay for me. Even Cryo+Explosive is optimizing. Athena can get away with only using Shock more than others because of Ceraunic Storm’s inherent abilities. I’m guilty of it too but that’s just because I get lazy. But against enemies that have more health I’ll make the effort to match.

#11

So the only reason Shock is considered “top” (or one of) element in TPS is because there are so many shielded enemies in the game and because there is so little atmosphere for Fire DoT to proc?

#12

Well BL2 had lots of shielded enemies, but Slag made them basically non-existant. So in a way, yes. And kind of yes to the second question.

#13

What do you guys think about Corrosive in TPS?

#14

It has it’s uses. Mostly against RK-5 and Eclipse/EOS.

#15

I think people discount fire simply because of the no atmosphere parts. Sure, you get no DOT, but you still get the damage modifier. Of course, with no DOT you could easily switch to something like an explosive weapon or whatever else works with your oz kit equipped if it’s a duality.

I still use a ton of fire weapons. Maelstrom Athena and Maniacal Laughing Claptrap do love their oxidizers and phat stacks.

I don’t use a lot of corrosive weapons outside of some of the legendary grenades I find. You have armored outlaws and some guardians. I usually toss a storm front to remove shields and cover the area for consistent DPS, freeze with an excalibastard, and use an explosive weapon to finish them off. Might be inefficient compared to a corrosive gun, but it does the job well enough.

The problem with corrosive weapons is there isn’t one that I’m really fond of. I suppose a corrosive Gwen’s Other Head would be interesting, but I’m not going to try and find one. I know their names sort of imply that they would be locked in to the corrosive element, but the fact that the Blowfly and Viral Marketer are only corrosive is kind of a bummer. Blowfly is a little hard to get crits on unless fired at point blank on a frozen enemy (which then defeats the purpose because as stated above, I would have used the excalibastard already even if not planning on using corrosive weapons) and I’m not a fan of Hyperion weapons in general. Good against RK5, will give them that.

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#16

Same here. Fire element does plenty of good damage to enemies sensitive to it, even in a vacuum. It just won’t add the DoT or the flames.

#18

Fire is probably lowest on my list, but I started using it a lot more in the DLC against the glitches.

Corrosive has always had uses on the armored enemies, Felicity, and RK5. And again the DLC has offered even more uses for it with all the armored enemies.

But, yeah, cryo is just so powerful, that I find I wind up freezing stuff all the time.

And Shock … good for most things that cryo fails on.

I don’t keep a fire weapon very often, but I do keep a corrosive weapon most of the time. Both usually in the backpack for use as needed.

#19

Maybe all those “boosted fire damage in a vacuum” duality kits are trying to improve upon the inherent weakness of fire in vacuum?

That way, your fire weapons can be effective in both Vacuum & Atmosphere?

#20

They’re already effective in a vacuum. 1.75 multiplier…

#21

Yes, but you can’t argue they are LESS effective in a vacuum, due to DoT being unable to proc.