I’m not new to Borderlands but I was thinking about doing the OP levels. But I had some questions about it before I started.
First of all what are OP level? Are they just harder playthroughs? Is that the only difference between OP levels and UVHM? How much preparing should I do? How long does it take to get from one OP level to the next
You stop leveling up at lvl 72 and thus don’t get any more skill points or HP. By completing OP runs, you can get gear at OP levels (OP 1 is like having lvl 73 gear, OP 5 is similar to 77 and so on up to OP 8 which is similar to lvl 80).
You can change the overpowered level any time you want and isn’t necessarily it’s own playthrough. Think of it like a modifier for UVHM. Since you can get overpowered gear, OP levels aren’t THAT much harder, but they are less forgiving if you do something dumb.
Depends which character you play as. When doing them as Sal, it takes like 20-30 minutes. Did OP 3 as Krieg and it took me like 45 minutes. Also depends if it’s co-op or not and if anyone in the party has access to OP gear above the current OP setting.
What happens to OP gear if you then start your game and dial back to OP 0 (level 72) - does it take a debuff, or what?
If you find an OP weapon it will stay on this level with this stats.
Does that mean you can use, say, an OP3 gun in OP 0 and still have the full stats on it?
Correct.
You need to save & quit to change OP level, so every drop and every enemy will scale to the level you select. The gear you once picked up will remain at their OP level. You can use OP 8 gear on a level 72 playthrough.
To raise your char one OP level, you need to complete a run through Digistruct Peak. Needless to say, it gets harder and harder, so even if you theoretically could level up to OP 8 in ~4 hours, you’ll need to farm for some higher leveled gear in between runs. If you’d try to go all the way with only level 72 gear, then you’d have a SERIOUSLY hard time. It’s already hard with leveled gear.
Normally I farm for new weapons on OP3/4 and then again on OP7. This should be enough to get through the Peak in my opinion.
Maybe farm one or two items between this levels but more could be a waste of time.
The overpower levels exist for those that can steam role UVHM and want an extra mountain to climb. Though the enemies do not act any differently and there are no real changes in spawn rates enemies become stronger and stronger as you climb up the overpower levels. Where one setup and build might work in standard UVHM it may start faltering if not fail completely in the overpower levels.
Though on the other hand you can go into the overpower levels and then go back to normal UVHM and just wreck everything with weapons you liked but were not up to snuff in their non-overpowered forms.
Thanks for all the help and advice guys I really appreciate it.
To make on elast point on this- certain gear can last to OP8 even though it may be level 72. I used level 72 The Transformer shields to deal with the surveyor attacks on the Peak while with Gaige, the level 72 shock Redundant Fibber she had helped me unlock OP8- sometimes it just depends on the character and the gear itself…
Also certain playstyles require certain pieces of equipment in order to succeed in the overpower levels. Take for instance Krieg. While your health does not go up his self damage if you go all out melee with him does through Silence the Voices. In order to use Krieg as a buzz axe totting psycho you have to use the Rough Rider or the self damage is so high it outweighs whatever reward it originally had in standard UVHM. The funny part is though is that explosive damage boosting abilities bump up his self damage more than actual melee.
Also if I am not mistaken certain shields like the Hoplite will lower your health into the negatives making them obsolete. Unless that has been fixed that is.
rr+bloodlust+numbed nerves does cut down on the self inflicted damage… a grog doesn’t hurt either.
Or don’t use Silence the voices in the first place. Between Release the Beast, Empty the Rage, Salt the Wound, the Rapier, a roid shield, a melee relic and your BA rank, you have enough melee buffs to deal with most enemies. Just be sure to slag a few of them first.
Not to be a party pooper but there are a few problems with what you mentioned. One, Salt the Wound is an extremely hard skill to keep up and to do so you’re required to be hit in order to maintain the stacks which fall off quickly. Self inflicted damage, elemental or otherwise does not count. Unless you are in a fight with Pete and are using the Grog and the FoFH and have some other method to continuously deal damage it is very hard to stay at twenty stacks.
I use the Rapier all the time…until I am around 30% health to where I can kick in RtB. While you do more damage than you will ever do in BxR or RtB you have no where the damage resistance and lack the health stealing.
A melee relic and the BA melee bonuses are a drop in the bucket compared to Silence the Voices, though the roid shield does help. Also relying on slag in a pure melee build is, well, rather chaotic and a Grog sort of throws a wrench in the works if you are trying to chain RtB back to back. Now I will say this: slagging someone before poking them with the rapier is pretty damn satisfying especially if it starts a chain of bloodsplosions.
Numbed Nerves damage boost while in RtB is extremely unpredictable. Unless you are using the Flame of the Fire Hawk, have chucked Storm Fronts or some other elemental grenade every where, or just get really lucky with Fire Fiend the damage reduction is not going to kick in and help to awful much.
With RR, a damage resistance relic, 100 stacks of Taste of Blood, and RtB you can ignore the self damage of StV while taking a tremendous amount of punishment from enemies as well
Just my experience with using Krieg in melee and what I have seen people have done in the overpower levels. If you what you say works in the overpower levels for you than more power to you. You can obviously ignore what I wrote.
As far as the Hoplite goes, I think that’s now been fixed so that you have a minimum 1 point in Health. But basically that means you have to be really careful against shock weapons!
With my Axton characters zero health kicked in at OP2. I managed to use an OP1 Hoplite, which still allowed me some health, but if I tried an OP2 one my health went down to 1. It’s one of the main reasons i decided to stay at OP2 as I mainly use Hoplites with him.
Another point to bear in mind is that the higher the OP level, the faster the mobs regenerate health and shields. Some enemies can be really frustrating to kill because of this. It’s like they’ve all got 10 points in Stat! Surveyors can be particularly annoying as you have to take them down fast.
So, really OP if you drop down to one of the standard game modes then!
Well, I have gotten to OP 4 with Krieg this way (using Fotf and a Storm Front/Pandemic and it is enough to keep me alive against most enemies). Your points are valid, I just didn’t feel like typing them all out. But to me, it’s worth it to not be killed at a crucial moment, especially since it would stop the Fotf, cut down on FFYL when I don’t want it to, interrupt attacking if I can somehow melee when in FFYL to revive, and possibly be the end of a raid boss or OP run.