Moze's Iron Bear Future - 4th skill tree potential discussion

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

So, currently there are four vault hunters and we have heard that there aren’t any plans for a new vault hunter but we will get new skills trees. For the vault hunters each one has very unique ways to each customize the action skills:

Amara has 3 main action skills with a few variations, a few augments, and can pick action skill element. Her Augments can also work across the different skill trees, sometimes.

Zane has 3 action skills each with several augments, two augments can be chosen per action skill, and he can choose to equip two actions skills.

FL4K has 3 pets and pet variants, 3 action skills with several augments each, and can only equip one, but his pet is permanent.

Moze really only has 1 action skill, but can choose between 6 different weapons and equip one augment.

So, no that’s out of the way, here is my thought. Removing Iron bear isn’t really an option. A lot of work was put into it and it is a staple of who she is as a character. There have been suggestions in these forums for things like buff this, buff that, blah, all can be tweaked. But how about when we get a fourth skill tree it be made into something slightly different.

Maybe the fourth skill tree could make it on a shorter cool down and do slightly less damage to compensate, but be a slow autonomous sentry turret. Something we can toss or place. It will move a little and be able to rotate 360 degrees. Cool down would be something like 45 seconds and the damage would be much less, but the goal isn’t to make this kill everything for you. the two weapons options and maybe a few skills could be more tactical and utility focused. Helping us do crowd control, buffing allies, or anything else utility based.

Anyway those are my thoughts on what could happen. We know were getting a fourth skill tree. I just hope it will be better than a 7th and 8th option for a gun on a skill with barely any use after the halfway mark.

Let me know what anyone else might think would be a good option. Your option could be wildly different than mine. All creative ideas welcome.

You know how they talk about expanding the characters?
#2

All i want out of iron bear is some sort of deathtrap augment. using autobear and hopping out to make it a turret is…fine. i guess. seems to pale in comparison to axton’s turret from 2 in terms of length of time and cooldown, but the shield bubble is much much better.
i’d like to see her be able to summon iron bear (withOUT getting in it!) and have it drive around and shoot/punch things. now that the game is out, this seems like something they have time to perfect, and I’d assume their work for AI on flak’s pets should have been good experience to do it right.

i’d also like to see different armor augments for iron bear. i’d have loved being able to change IB’s shape to either be less tanky but faster, or slower/unmoving but huge damage (i wonder if the game that rhymes with schmanthem had anything to do with them not having that)

also also, i’d like to see different weapons have elemental augments. the current system of flamethrower/railgun having elements inherently tied to augments is much less fun.

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#3

That is what I said. The ability to place it or toss it rather than get in it. She could digistuct it. As for length, it would last more than the stupid skill because it would be designed around on placing it. On a much shorter cool down. Maybe 25-30 second duration with 45 second cool down. That would be way better than 2 second duration with 120 second cool down.

#4

sad when you have to settle for using a mech as a turret because its so beyond broken, ive stopped playing until they fix it so they have my 100$ now im just waiting for them to produce some patch notes that seem competent.

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#5

I’m still leveling my Moze, but I’m going to play it like Axton with explosive and Tediore guns with Gaige action skill. Meaning you just ignore it.

#6

How exciting . Another deployable turret. Yay.

Not trying to be rude but after maining two characters in a row with stationary deployable turrets the last thing I want is yet another one.

I agree with a new tree focusing just on IB, and if you really want IB to be yer another deployable turret that can be like a 1 point skill or augment if you like, but the tree should focus on things like :slight_smile:

Armor return on kill
Random elemental damage applies to attacks
Chance to reflect bullets back at attackers
Chance to shock melee attackers
Constant radiation damage to close enemies
Maybe some kind of auto rocket like that auto shoulder canon Wilhelm had in TPS
Chance to deploy moze equipped grenade per attack
Capstone could either be a completely new super weapon (explosive laser gatling gun maybe ?), or firing off mozes equipped weapon in addition to his own ala Salvador gunzerking

Something like that. But forcing the tired auto turret trope yet again when riding a mech is conceptually the coolest and most original new skill is just a bad idea and boring imo

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#7

I’d rather have 4th tree not being lazer focused on Iron Bear.

It might be nice to have 4th tree to focus on closed quarters combat, like shotguns/melee.

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#8

I’m not forcing anyone into anything. This is a topic of free discussion. The only issue is even if you had all those skills the Mech would only last 5-10 seconds. Iron Bear is so big that the bad asses with rocket launcher gatling guns never miss. So 5-10 seconds every 120 seconds isn’t really that great. Providing utility is always welcome and could have a lower cool down. It doesn’t even have to really shoot or do damage. Moze does plenty, but group utility is great.

Also riding around is a mech is cool, but not that original.

#9

Maybe a skill that adds a couple automatic machine guns to the top of Iron Bear that automatically fires at nearby enemies, and doesn’t interfere with the two weapons you equip?

Maybe a skill that allows you to do a ground slam by jumping and crouching, which severely knocks enemies up and away?

Maybe a skill that allows you to hover and glide by holding down the jump button upon its second press? Instead of dashing forward, take flight!

Maybe a skill that, upon action skill activation, your Iron Bear airdrops wherever you are aiming, damaging enemies upon landing.

Maybe a skill that makes bullets reflect off of Iron Bear 100% of the time, taking reduced damage?

Maybe a skill that makes each step Iron Bear takes produce a shockwave that staggers and damages enemies nearby?

Maybe a skill that makes it so whenever the Iron Bear runs out of health, a singularity effect occurs before a powerful detonation?

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#10

Bingo.

Saying flat out "IB will always suck and get destroyed in 10 seconds no matter what " Is simply not true at all. The BL games have always had skills you dump points into ,and overtime, their initial minuscule effect suddenly are game changing. IB is no different. Imagine a skill where lets say 20% of the time bullets reflect back to opponents , or like JuicyRaveApple said a 1 point skill that adds independent guns on top that auto shoot enemies (kind of like my initial post ala Wilhelm in TPS)

IB can be a beast just like your lowly label 1 Vault Hunter eventually becomes with enough skill points

#11

I have yet to see a build where IB is “Beasting” in TVHM M3.

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#12

As far as I know, this is heavily inferred from statements in interviews. Was it specifically stated somewhere?

#13

I like the idea of IB deploying without us having to climb in and out, but I don’t think it should remain stationary.
IB has legs, why doesn’t it move around on the battle field when autonomous?
Keep Auto Bear as is, but add the feature that if you hold down the deployment button, it just deploys next to you without getting in it.

Moze likes splash damage, why doesn’t IB do more Novas?

No VH has a radiation focus, why not Moze?
4th tree could give IB a Tesla Coil as a base weapon, with radiation as an alternative weapon.
“Reactor Leak”: IB has a constant radiation aura that increases in size as fuel runs out; aura maintains maximum size while Auto Bear is deployed.
Capstone could give Moze a Bloodsplosion-esc chain reaction skill.

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#14

You know that’s a great point about radiation damage: no vault Hunter really specializes in it and a big bad mech would be perfect to specialize in radiation

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#16

I said it could walk around in my original post. I agree on the radiation that could be fun.

#17

Shield Of Retribution - is about trading off some attributes in favor of high dps. There is literally one point that rewards using IB.

Mags has a single point that boosts IB and then a single point that rewards you for NOT USING IB anymore (Some for the Road).

Dem woman is all over the place. Not only is splash damage a bad synergy with IB, the rockets aren’t effective enough to use over rail guns or ice chain (if you use him at all).

All that setup was just to say rather than making a single tree for IB, they need to modify talents THROUGHOUT Moze’s entire loadout to support IB, and a third tree could be left to new player loops.

Sure ideas like dropping IB from sanctuary into a giant singularity crowd control nuke, or letting you reenter him after exiting would be cool, but overall, Moze needs IB to matter no matter where you spec.

Think how Amara has an augment or alteration in at least 50% of her talents that synergize with her action skill. This needs to be rethought for Moze in all 3 (or 4) trees.

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#18

Rockets aren’t as effective as chain guns or rail guns?

What game are we playing? The standard rocket pods with no augments are far and away the highest DPS IB can do, and it’s not even close.

Believe me I tried them all, with all combos. The corrosive Salamader comes close but you have to stand really close to enemies and that lowers your survival time and thus overall damage potential.

Here’s the thing though: I’m heavily specced into Demo woman tree, including max all the splash damage skills. I can tell you IB procs Fire in the Skag Den despite the skill only mentioning moze … this makes me wonder what other skills that only mention moze already apply to IB as well?

Regardless I have no idea how anyone could say the rocket pods dont do massively more damage than all of IBs other weapons. It’s not even close

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#19

That’s fair. I didn’t do too much testing. My experiences were just that electric rail gun with autobear allowed me not to spend time swapping from electric weapons. I saw that as a larger damage increase, albeit not supported by any evidence.

If IB scales in some special way that the right class mods and talents would add value to, I think the Devs need to communicate that, so the community can build characters around what seems to be the intended playstyle (bear being a temporary mega-buster?).

Anyway. I think the rest of what I said still makes sense, considering Dem woman is the only tree that supports any bear at all. Seeing as I play with friends who complain that all the EXPLOSIONS ™© blind them, I’d prefer the trees all reward me for playing supportive with bear but also not all explosionsey™

#20

Not with its current iteration. It simply is not comparable in any sort of setup to what Moze can do without when she’s already Mayhem 3 worthy.

And honestly, I like it this way, I much rather have Moze be that one VH who is kicking asses without relying on VH ability and instead have IB be a decent backup plan/oh ■■■■ button. With its long base cooldown, armor and iframes - I am sure it is also what it is meant to be and I’d rather keep it that way.

They just need to make its armor and damage scale reasonably with Mayhem levels.

#21

I get what you’re saying. It’s just, u know how Deathtrap was supposed to be this very protective buddy/friend who flew around assisting people and what not?

It seemed like IB was gonna be something of a reimagining of that with some cool tanking abilities and such. It wasn’t only heavily featured in the character trailer he was essentially the only thing featured there. For IB to feel more like a short term emergency button, it feels like marketing and development didn’t communicate well at least, and didn’t care at worst and I hope it’s the former.

I think they can design scaling and cool down timers in a way that you can be satisfied with him being an Oh Sh*t Handle and others to use him as a team tank or whatever. The balance is there maaan. I swearrrr!!..

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