About Fl4k and its recent nerfs (also about Gearbox new policy)

Hi. How you all doing.

First things first: this isn’t drama. I enjoy Borderlands 3, I’ll keep playing Borderlands 3 and, even if I don’t have all the time in the world, I’ve already put 200+ hours into Borderlands 3. Like most of you, I’m a veteran too. But not in the sense that I’m a pro or my abilities excels everyone else. I’m referring to the kind of player who’ve put thousands, thousands of hours in Borderlands and Borderlands 2 (and “just” 660+ on TPS); to the kind of player who, like you, enjoy doing OP8 Melee Zer0, Bloodsplosion, Tediore Axton and replaying Borderlands 1 endlessly. One who love this franchise and has a bit of understanding about it’s playability and how it has developt after the years. One who suffered the New Haven chest farm back in the day or had another broken as ■■■■ Lilith. Fun times. Fun times that still remain for the most part, except for the agressive nerf-policy.

I started playing Borderlands 3 with Fl4k. I finished the game the day after, after 22 hours of playing non-stop. Fl4k was “broken”. A few days after, I felt like the character was a bit too OP so I started Zane, which is my main by the way and the char i’ve invested the most hours. Here’s the thing: I never asked for a nerf, nor did I feel the necessity. At that point in time, there were no guides. No builds. No meta. No nothing. Everyone knew about Fl4k because he had the easiest time when it came to dealing bursts of damage. Characters like Amara or Moze wasn’t as obvious to work with and we didn’t even know if Zane was “good” or “bad”.

But Fl4k wasn’t nerfed in that context. When nobody knew ■■■■. Fl4k was nerfed when Moze and Amara were totally broken. Here’s the thing. Have you seen what Moze does, right? I’m not asking for a nerf. In fact, I love how Moze is and how she plays. But she is broken, broken as ■■■■. Hell, even after the changes, you can rush through anything at Mayhem 3 neutral OR negative modifiers just spamming mirvs/lyuda/flakker and everything dies, it just drops, and your shield is never below 50k. It’s that absurd. What can I say about Amara that you don’t know already.

Question is: how can you even ask or considere a nerf on Fl4k seeing, at the same time, a class than can run any proving grounds -25s spamming G at the general direction of the red dots. How can you even consider a nerf on Fl4k when, at the same time, a Siren that can wipe 10+ enemies by grabbing someone and shooting they with the rowans call exists.

You remember back in the day when Lilith was recking the earth with anarchy smg. Can you imagine Gearbox nerfing Brick or Roland because Metal Storm or because Brick could glitch its movement speed with the berserker-cancel while Lilith is laughting at their faces as the do seemengly nothing? Or aim at the wrong character?

And again, I’m not pro-nerf. But this is some nonsense that, as a Zane main, doesn’t affect me directly, but it does affect me as a fan of this franchise.

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Hey at least they toned down the nerf to leave no trace, making it at least useable again

Fl4k has also gotten buffs to their other two play styles, Rakk Attack buffs being extremely weighty (double damage, double debuff power on anointment). Dare I say that FL4K has had the most game-changing buffs so far, more than Zane’s.

I think we can still expect a few more positive adjustments as well.

I think they should add back another 1-2 sec to GITM. Currently people rather not use it because of the short use. I guess another second could change that.

Also they should buff the Queens/Kinds Call back a bit. I really like the look and feel of the weapon, Give it just a bit more speed.

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They need to stop neglecting GB. Rakks weren’t starving for more Anointments it can make use of, while GB only has one. On top of its many general weaknesses.

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Leave no trace was never intended to proc on multiple pellets, so it was more of a fix than a nerf. As for the Gitm nerf they are probably just trying to find a right balance for damage and duration. I wouldnt be suprised when they change the duration again very soon.

Infinite grenade spam or total invulnerability without any kind of effort wasn’t intended, nor was intended breaking each part of Crawmerax with just one shot of a unforgiving masher ending the fight in 20 seconds and there you have it.

I dont see ur point

If you caught Gearbox couch coop stream Thursday they said there are more anointment changes coming. Also performance issues, FL4K pet, and iron bear changes coming in the big patch.

Neither do I.

Borderlands has never been about balancing superb skills as if it was a competitive FPS. Borderlands started as a RPS with crazy skills, ones crazier than others, and I’m pretty sure in a game with said characters in their actual state of play (namely Amara and Moze) vanilla Fl4k can exist.

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