A Healthy Discussion About FL4K Nerfs

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

While I think we can all agree that we saw a nerf to FL4K coming, I personally feel the way Gearbox handled it was particularly lazy. FL4K using Guerrillas in the Mist now for mobbing is barely usable. You have no time to reload, reposition, or anything of the sort. Even with 3 points in Persistence Hunter, you can’t get back to the 8 second duration, and that’s what really hurts. I think they saw people using Guerrillas in the Mist and a King’s/Queen’s Call, disregarded all the other skills, augments, and gear choices and immediately labeled Guerrillas in the Mist as the problem. And then broke it.

I see Guerrillas in the Mist like Salvador’s Money Shot skill in BL2. Money Shot was not inherently broken. It was a really solid burst of damage that was reliable. However, Money Shot, when used in combination with skills like Inconceivable & 5 Shots or 6, and gear choices that could benefit the most from Salvador’s skills, Money Shot was immediately singled out as the problem.

So here’s the point I’m trying to make: Guerrillas in the Mist was not inherently broken, and the duration was certainly not the problem. Unblinking Eye is.* The problem with pre-hotfix FL4K wasn’t; Guerrillas in the Mist + King’s/Queen’s Call. It was; Guerrillas in the Mist + King’s/Queen’s Call + Unblinking Eye. Pre-hotfix FL4K could easily out-damage Fade Away by using just Guerrillas in the Mist and Unblinking Eye without using other crit based skills or gear. It also doesn’t help that Not My Circus and Until You Are Dead just are nowhere near as appealing or beneficial augments as Guerrillas in the Mist or Unblinking Eye, so they became used by default. I think we can all agree that Rakk Attack and Gamma Burst do not scale well at Mayhem 3, but I have to give credit to Rakk Attack for having all of it’s augments being really solid, with the only arguably “must have” choice being Rakkcelerate.

So here’s my proposal for nerf/buffs to FL4K to help smooth over this really bad choice as of 10/2/19:

Admittedly, these numbers and changes aren’t perfect.

  • Increase Fade Away critical hit damage from +200% to +300%
  • (Optional) Slightly increase the movement speed and health regeneration of Fade Away to make Until You Are Dead more appealing as an augment
  • Revert the nerf of Guerrillas in the Mist, putting it’s critical hit damage back to 50% and duration back to 8 seconds
  • Reduce Unblinking Eye critical hit damage from +75% per hit to 25-33% per hit
  • (Optional) Increase the duration of Until You Are Dead from 10 seconds to 15-20 seconds

With the changes to Fade Away, you now get 900% bonus crit damage spread across 3 hits as long as you land them for huge burst of damage. With the changes to Guerrillas in the Mist, it makes it usable again and ensures that you can still have a DPS increase, even if you miss your shots or need to reload. With the changes to Unblinking Eye, instead of a 225% increase for doing next to nothing except landing 3 hits consecutively, you get an additional 75-100% increase for doing next to nothing except landing 3 hits consecutively. And the (Optional) changes are just ideas I had to try and make Until You Are Dead better.

The whole reason I typed up this dumb thing was to try and show that just nerfing something without taking the time to research and gather data about what makes something “broken” is a really bad approach. Yes, with the official nerf FL4K got, his boss melting potential hasn’t changed all that much, but his mobbing has taken a significant hit and honestly isn’t even fun anymore.

also please buff the legendary drop rates add the Bekah to the world drop loot pool and add more backpack and bank space plz ok thx bye

3 Likes
#2

I agree with this sentence 100%. This community is now asking for Moze to get nerfed too… Fl4k was melting GraveWard in a second or two… remember when melee Zer0 could kill the final boss in BL2 in one hit?

We need to wait for the endgame content to be launched before nerfs are pushed through the game. We may find that Fl4k is under-powered against an invincible boss without the extra 3 seconds of GITM.

2 Likes
#3

Part of the ability to swap action skills and augments is to fit certain situations.

So maybe GitM is more of a boss’s augment and less for mobbing.

Personally I never thought it was a great mobbing tool, fl4k wips mobs with ease. But it wasted bosses.

I use rakks for mobbing, but if you want to use fade mobbing and don’t want the reduced time to position, use other augments.

#4

I use rakks with the green capstone for the permanent +50% damage buff and it’s quite insane for mobbing. I’m also farming bosses with this build right now and it’s just alright.
The thing with fade away is that it was too easy to use, you didn’t need good gear or practice. Other caracters like amara need a really specific build with good anointements to perform (even better than fl4k). I think the nerf was necessary and it doesn’t really restrain the caracter too much. Fl4k with fine gear can still roll m3 and m3 bosses, and with a good anointed gun you won’t even have to reset for good modifiers.

1 Like
#5

All they really did was limit the stalker tree for mobbing. Base fade away is still good for bosses and gitm is still good for bosses. Neither excel really for mobbing. So that choice is gone. Now base fade away is arguably better for mobbing because longer cloak.

#6

Fl4k doesn’t need fade at all for most mobs, its way over kill. I can one shot badasses with powerful guns on fl4k without even maxing out his damage. So I would save it for anointed only really.

You can still mob fine. Hell the other day I shot the unforgivn and 3 enemies died from one shot.

I don’t see how fl4k has any issues mobbing at all. He shreds them. When you run into an enemy that you need the extra boost, then fade, like anointed militants.

3 Likes
#7

Yea I understand but even though jakobs has synergy with fade away and gitm doesnt mean those weapons are used by the individual. They may have a preference that excludes using jakobs munitions. This is where more so for gitm it helped with mobbing. Or maybe you get a mayhem modifier that debuffs non elemental twice or those specific weapons.

#8

I just used that as an example torgue shotguns still rip down badasses fast, the flakker can destroy large groups of enemies, I’ve had good luck with maliwan guns, vladof, etc…

#9

I also use Rakk Attack for mobbing on base TVHM, but I can’t help but feel noticeably handicapped if I try and use of them on Mayhem 3 which is why I use GitM on Mayhem 3. In addition to using it as a DPS increase to thin out the horde, I would use it as a panic button to get some health, regen shields, and back off or get closer. Yeah, sure, if I want it solely for repositioning, I’d use Fade Away. My problem with Fade Away is that it just doesn’t feel as good as GitM. On Mayhem 3, those 3 shots matter all the more and the 200% should on paper make a difference, but if never feels that way. Even with my ~432% crit Unforgiven, most bigger enemies stay standing. Something just always feels off with Fade Away. I also can’t help but feel like Fade Away should be an augment to GitM, not the other way around.

3 Likes
#10

Here’s just some anecdotal stuff:

I went to the Anvil on Mayhem 3. I took off GitM and put on Until You Are Dead and Unblinking Eye. I activated Fade Away and shot a Buckshot Zealot with my 432% Unforgiven 3 times. Didn’t kill it. I checked the modifiers and got: - Normal Bullet Damage, - 50% crit damage. So, okay, not exactly the best “test” (as if testing on Mayhem 3 could exist tbh). So I reset and spawned in. This time, I got: + Normal Bullet Damage and + 50% Pistol Damage. Saw a Buckshot Zealot, killed it in 2 hits with Fade Away. With the last shot in Fade Away, I one shot a Fire-Maniac-Guy. Then with just hip-fire, I took out an Maniac with a ricochet shot off an Enforcer’s shield, then one shot the Enforcer. So far so good, right? Well, then a Badass Tink and an Anointed Enforcer spawned. Even with Fade Away, I barely put a dent in the Anointed Enforcer’s health. So even with the “extra boost”, as you put it, from Fade Away, I couldn’t kill the target I needed to.

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#11

I think we can all agree that Torgue shotguns, specifically the Double-Penetrating Shredded Bangstick with x18 is nuts and way overkill. Also, the critical hit damage bonus from the Unforgiven is… passive. Like the Lady Fist was. So, they should probably address that. Even with that, though, some mobs can still tank it while Graveward can’t.

#12

Yes, but maybe we want to use the action skill for mobbing because it is fun? And we were using GITM for mobbing and now it is nerfed into uselesnes and much less fun. That is the reason why people are upset.
And on top: People don’t understand why it was nerfed in this way, because it only hurts mobbing. Killing bosses is as fast as ever thanks to weapon buffs. It looks very rushed. The OP has some very good ideas in his post and also a lot of other people had the idea to nerf Unblinking Eye and not shorten the duration of GITM. Why not listen to the community?

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#13

While I 100% agree with you, that doesn’t sounds very fun… I want more choices not less. I remember seeing a video where the makers of this game made decisions based on what is fun, I’d like to keep it that way.

Ex) Is it fun to take damage from falling, “no”, so we will not have that in the game (paraphrased, and I don’t remember where I saw it)

So is it more fun to be able to play all options, or have someone eliminate choices for you?

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#14

They should simply reverse the character nerfs and focus on buffs.

Play with the weapons only for now (ex, they have all of these awesome shields, why are we all only using 1-3 of them across all characters?).

Let’s eliminate all nerfs until such a time that they launch real endgame content.

3 Likes
#15

This would balance it for Guerillas but would make it very underwhelming for base Fade Away especially with its damage boosted. Augments should be valuable primarily with the default action skill, synergy with each other should be just gravy on top.

2 Likes
#16

Yea I dont think unblinking should be touched as it would nerf fade away at that point

#17

Like I said, the changes I suggested aren’t perfect, but I think nerfing the duration of GitM was the wrong way to go. Fade Away is kinda just underpowered as it is and, sure, Unblinking Eye fixes it slightly, not by much though tbh. There has to be a happy medium somewhere, we just haven’t found it yet.

#18

I mean, yeah. But if Fade Away got buffed, Unblinking Eye wouldn’t be needed to make it slightly more useful.

#19

Fade away in the right build can one or 2 shot bosses right now and that might make that skill broken

#20

In TVHM, I might agree with you, but in Mayhem 3, oh boy. Refer to the anecdotal thing I posted. I just don’t think they should be balancing things around an optional difficulty modifier thing. And like polochampion said: