(Newb here) Leveling in TVHM? - Loot drop rate in TVHM? and any good ARs?

Hi, I am sort of new to BL2 started playing a few weeks ago and a few days ago moved to TVHM. I am not exactly struggling but I am wondering if I am doing it wrong.

Here are a few facts:

  • I play Zer0 and put almost all skill points into Sniper tree.
  • Currently Lv39 (but most equipment is lower)
  • Current TVHM: A Dam Fine Rescue - just past the Mad Dog (?)

My questions:

  1. Is lv39 ~the right level for that mission? I feel most enemies are giving me a much harder time than I expect for their level (or is that normal in TVHM)? Or should I do some sidequests (I skipped all of them for now).

Background: I read posts about not to switch to TVHM too late to avoid ending above Lv50 which is bad for UVHM because of poor equipment. I was already Lv37 in the middle of TinyTina DLC and decided to interrupt and do TVHM first. (I had done 2 headhunter missions also Torgue and Marcus, but no other DLC).
Once started, I “rushed” through the TVHM main quests, avoiding to collect EXP where not necessary but upleveled 2 times fairly quickly, not doing any side quests. Now in the Bloodshot stronghold I find the enemies quite strong, requiring lots of ammo to defeat, need much more grenades etc. Drop into FFYL more frequently and MadDog (was lv40) one-shot-killed me 3 times.

It’s not that of a big deal, but I am wondering how much harder it will get or if I should uplevel first at least a bit and do a sidequest or 2 before doing the next story mission.

  1. Equipment: I am having a hard time finding useful equipment. Most of my equipement is L35-37 and the higher level equipment I find at the moment is still worse. Almost none of them have elemental damage or are otherwise worse than the low-level stuff I have. I had the impression that I had found better loot at those stages during my normal walkthrough and I don’t get the corresponding quality loot at the higher level now. Is this normal? Or is it maybe because I am not doing sidequests and they have the good loot?
    Also even though I fight now a lot of Badass and Super Badass enemies, they hardly ever drop anything and if so, it is usually white and useless. They don’t even drop much Eridium any more?
    Even Minibosses (like Boom&Bewm, Mad Dog and others don’t seem to drop much, I think I got one blue drop which was not even that good at one time).

Any suggestions to get better equipment?

Also some threads suggest to do the side-quests as late as possible to get the highest level version of the rewards. But I am not sure at what point the side-quest reward level gets “locked in” (I did not accept any side quests, they are all “undiscovered”). So I am not sure what to do.

What about E-Tech weapons? Apart from the Dr. Zed quest in Three Horns Divide, I never came across another E-tech weapon. I really liked the temporary assault rifle, but it DOES disappear from inventory when you “Save&Quit” even if you wait to turn in the quest. (You can still turn in the quest without the item.) Are they so rare?

  1. Assault Rifles

I can’t seem to find a useful assault rifle. In my entire normal playthrough I found only two, sort-of useful ARs, the Caustic Grenadier, which was a bit hard getting used to but then had it’s moments (not too many, though) and a bit later I found a blue (rarity) shock assault rifle (forgot the name), which had a decent fire rate when zoomed and sufficient accuracy and damage (IIRC ~450 damage at the time), but its now outleveled. Most ARs I find now have horrible accuracy, no autofire or otherwise poor firing rates AND poor damage. My SMGs all seem better in all aspects all the time.
Just for Ammo diversity I would like to at least find one decent AR. Any suggestions? Maybe they are not for Zer0?

Thanks everyone.

Some of the answers you seek are in the TVHM section of this post:

There’s a link in there to a thread on which side quests are worth keeping to farm for max level items. TVHM quest levels are covered in the following (last) section.

If you want elemental/etech and you’re not getting drops, burn some golden keys at the chest in Sanctuary. If you don’t have keys, there’s still a load of valid codes which you can find on the orcz.com site. You’re guaranteed purple/etech items at your current level regardless of progress through the game and mode.

There are some good ARs in BL2, but many of them do not stack up to other weapons (pistols, SMGs, shotguns) which is disappointing. Check the community resources sticky in the Zer0 sub-section for links to builds, COM guides, top gear, etc. - some of those will give you an idea of some things to look out for and how to continue with a sniper focus through the rest of TVHM.

Badass don’t drop a whole lot, but you should on average get a green or blue. Super badass should drop between 1 and 4 eridium and typically 1 blue and 1 green (although two blue or the odd purple also drop). Don’t ignore green or white gear though - with the right parts an on-level item can get you out of an immediate hole and give you a chance to get something better.

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Hi,

Some of the answers you seek are in the TVHM section of this post:
[Guide] Borderlands 2 Basics for New Players

[…]

Thanks, this was indeed helpful. So side-quests uplevel all to lv50 after you beat the Warrior in TVHM. I had already seen the list of worthwhile items, but I had not yet a good understanding how efficient you can farm for something. The article described how to farm the Warrior, which is more encouraging than my assumption that “farming” means to do boss fights over and over again for hundreds of times which is not really my understanding of enjoying a game. I guess for most quest rewards there is a way to minimize the amount of fighting needed when you didn’t get the reward expected.

I wonder if I should go back to NVHM and try a few things. OTOH I heard while you can fight most bosses, they don’t drop their reward loot again (if it is dropped and not given). …

There’s a link in there to a thread on which side quests are worth keeping to farm for max level
items. TVHM quest levels are covered in the following (last) section.

Ok, it seems I am at the right level (upper range but not above). That’s good to know.

If you want elemental/etech and you’re not getting drops, burn some golden keys at the chest in Sanctuary. If you don’t have keys, there’s still a load of valid codes which you can find on the orcz.com site. You’re guaranteed purple/etech items at your current level regardless of progress through the game and mode.

I went through a bunch of shift codes and could only 2 get to work for a total of 10 keys. I can check again and maybe dig up a few more. I spent like 3 of my total of 11 (you get one from the start) so far, but wanted to save the rest for tougher times. Ok, I’ll check orcz.com again.

I think purple-rarity is different from e-tech, though, right? While you can get purple-rarity items from the chest, whether it is e-tech may be more random…

There are some good ARs in BL2, but many of them do not stack up to other weapons (pistols, SMGs, shotguns) which is disappointing. Check the community resources sticky in the Zer0 sub-section for links to builds, COM guides, top gear, etc. - some of those will give you an idea of some things to look out for and how to continue with a sniper focus through the rest of TVHM.

Thanks, I found some of these now.

Badass don’t drop a whole lot, but you should on average get a green or blue. Super badass should drop between 1 and 4 eridium and typically 1 blue and 1 green (although two blue or the odd purple also drop).

Hmm. Most enemies which are Badass in NVHM are now (at least) Super Badass. For example the Firehawk mission has a bunch of Super Badass Psychos (or the tougher version of the Psycho), but I recall they dropped mostly white and green. I never got a purple drop in TVHM yet. But ok. Maybe it is just bad luck. I also didn’t get much Eridium bars, I think in my entire so far TVHM run I got less than 10 bars of Eridium, but maybe the earlier maps just don’t drop them so much?

Don’t ignore green or white gear though - with the right parts an on-level item can get you out of an immediate hole and give you a chance to get something better.

Yes, I look at every item whether it’s actually better than existing (more rare, but lower-level) gear, but most of them time it’s not really. I think I got a better corrosive sniper rifle and a only slightly better shield so far. All my SMGs are still far superior than anything I found.

My Level 26(?) Lady Fist is still the best Pistol I found. Way better than anything else. Although I also have a Lv 35? Double-Something Unkempt Harold, which I never used, because the stats didn’t look impressive, and for consuming 6 rounds per shot it seemed not worth it. But reading about it I should probably give it an actual try.

Thanks so far!!

As others have said, ARs/CRs in Borderlands 2 are not great.
But shift your thinking a little, and get yourself some Lyudas. While Lyudas are technically snipers, their high fire rate and large mags make them sniper/assault rifle hybrids and very powerful. And easy to get after you complete the Good bad and Mordicai mission, an easy farm of Gettle at the church in the Dust.
TVHM is a little glitched in you can only farm 'em up to about lvl 35, but NVHM and UVHM give you on or near level Lyudas.

My game (except for Digistruct Peak) revolves around Lyudas. In fact it’s usually the only gun I use in most playthroughs, other than Hellfire SMGs.
–RoA

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It’s a 1-in-10 chance for one of the designated drop items from a boss. Some have more items in that pool, some fewer, so the chance of the item you want dropping varies from 1-in-10 down.

They are considered the same rarity level within the game, but they have slightly different colours. So a purple SMG might have similar performance to the same level e-tech plasma caster, but the latter will deal much more splash damage.

I meant the bosses, rather than un-named enemies. So Henry the Stalker, Saturn, Lee, Boll, etc.

The Lady Fist has a very high critical damage bonus which isn’t apparent on the card. You’ll notice that it has red ‘flavour text’ - any item (blue, purple, orange) with red flavour text has hidden bonuses or other behaviour that set it apart. The Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold is a good example: the double prefix means it actually fires twice as many pellets in the pattern, but those don’t cost you ammo. Many weapons have these extra pellets, which pair very nicely with amp shields. There are other variants of the Unkempt Harold which don’t consume as many ammo per shot and may fire faster/tighter. They’re all pretty deadly though - it’s considered a top tier weapon for every character regardless of build.

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All assigned drops have a fixed chance (usually 1/10) of dropping from their specific source (boss), there is no such thing as one time drop as far as i am aware of. The only exception would be tipping Moxxi for the Bad Touch, as that can be obtained once per character only, though there is a way around this too.

Yes and no, not quite sure how it’s treated in the game code, but E-techs can be considered purple weapons with the E-tech barrel. Then again, they have their separate color and all… :slight_smile:

I’m not sure if chances of getting higher rarity loot are increased in TVHM, but i usually just run through with whatever items i can get and they indeed are mostly greens and blues.
Your best bet of getting higher rarity loot is to fight bosses, ie BNK3R always drops a couple of purple items. Or there are places where you can farm some red chests, (these can spawn legendaries unlike the white ones, and usually have better loot in general). My favourite two are towards the end of the campaign though.

It’s just the way it goes in this game, you’ll have to grind a bit to get top notch loot, but even if you don’t you should be able to do with what the game drops.
FWIW, that Unkempt Harold you have is a delete button, try it and you’ll see.
I do prefer non-double versions for ammo efficiency though

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Thanks, RoA.

I didn’t even know about the Lyuda. Apparently it didn’t drop when I did the mission so I was not aware. Thanks to you and the loot-list that VaultHunter101 pointed me to, I seem to be better informed now.

Will definitely try to get it in NVHM and see how well it works (I suppose it will come at Lv30 though since I am not sure The Dust is leveled much higher than that in NVHM).

It’s a 1-in-10 chance for one of the designated drop items from a boss. Some have more items in that pool, some fewer, so the chance of the item you want dropping varies from 1-in-10 down.

Ah excellent, ok that’s not horrible, if the setup to the boss fight is not too annoying every time.

I meant the bosses, rather than un-named enemies. So Henry the Stalker, Saturn, Lee, Boll, etc.

Got it.

The Lady Fist has a very high critical damage bonus which isn’t apparent on the card.

It does appear on the card. 800% CritDamage. Which is probably why I tried it often enough to realize how well it works. :slight_smile:

You’ll notice that it has red ‘flavour text’ - any item (blue, purple, orange) with red flavour text has hidden bonuses or other behaviour that set it apart.

Ah good to know. I assumed the red text just means this is a quest reward with some funny message. I didn’t realize it also means always some hidden features that may make it better than it looks. I actually didn’t try or use many of the Red-Text weapons. (e.g. I carried 2 Law “De Da.” pistols at different levels around for a while and never used them. Seems I may have missed something. Thanks for this hint.

The Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold is a good example: the double prefix means it actually fires twice as many pellets in the pattern, but those don’t cost you ammo.

Well if it costs 6 rounds per shot, I wouldn’t say they don’t cost any ammo. At least it doesn’t cost 12 rounds per shot…

Many weapons have these extra pellets, which pair very nicely with amp shields.

Yeah, I guess interactions with various shield types is also something I may need to experiment more with. I had a decent amp-shield for a while, but reading up more on Zer0, it seems this doesn’t stack with OSOK (which I have maxed at the moment) so maybe I didn’t get much out of this bonus.

I heard a lot about the “bee shield” but didn’t get it yet to try it (but now I know better about farming).

Thanks!

You’re welcome. I have 7,000 or so hours in BL2 as others here do, so post all the questions you have, folks will help.
–RoA

You’re welcome. I have 7,000 or so hours in BL2 as others here do, so post all the questions you have, folks will help.

Wow. I may take you up on that offer! :grin:

I do have indeed another question. Now that I learn more about all the different fancy loot etc. what is the best practice to store it all?

I suppose expanding the backpack and bank safe with Eridium does not scale very well to all the various great weapons that you want to have for certain situations (including grinding some challenges, etc.)

Are you all creating additional characters that you use for storing to swap equipment back and forth? Or do you just discard and then refarm when needed?

It’s a struggle across all the Borderlands games.
As you mentioned, more characters is the answer.
In BL2 on Xbox (I play on Steam, Xbox and PS4) I have 81 characters storing more than 2,000 weapons I want to keep.
That’s pretty much the only way to do it. After you reach a certain level of proficiency it only takes about 40-45 minutes to get a new character from creation to Sanctuary, so it’s not too tough to spin up a new “backpack” character. Then I repeatedly “farm” the lockers in Sanctuary for Eridium to buy more backpack space. Each time you re-load into Sanctuary the lockers get reset and you have more chances to get Eridium, I always pick up between one to 11 (my top) bricks of eridium from the lockers in the Headquarters and Scooters garage.
Though I usually take my OP6 character out, kill some stuff and grab it’s gear, pass the gear back to the new character to give the new guy over a million dollars, and play slots for Eridium.

Yes, ultimately the answer is create more characters to store yer stuff. And join the ranks of hoarders like me :slight_smile:
–RoA
P.S. I’m semi-retired so I have an absurd amount of time to play games, and my wife is tolerant of it (at least I’m not hanging out in some bar) so I play 5-8 hours of either 1,2, or 3 a day.

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Thanks for the confirmation. :slight_smile:

Small update:

  • Ok the DPUH is indeed nice. I realized, I just need to see it as a shotgun, best a short range, can do longer range and still has more ammo than most actual shotguns.
  • Couldn’t defeat W4RD3N on the Bloodshot ramparts before the barge came. I realized I used the wrong grenades (corrosive instead of shock) and then had run out of any. Also in the TVHM it seems to have its protective golden shield in the front on permanently?, so it seems hard to get crits.
  • Took a trip to NVHM and farm the Lyuda. It was more tedious than I expected, took me maybe 1:30h until it finally dropped. That greatly reduces my motivation to farm for special things (but ok, I know what to expect). It was (of course) only Lv30, so it seems not really much better than my Lv35 Dobby Pooshka, which doesn;t have the split bullets, but I am not sure how to best make use of them (I may need to re-spec and turn off Vel0city).
  • I engage W4RD3N now in the Friendship Gulag. It still has the golden shield and it doesn’t seem like to be generated by shield-surveyers. It just seems to have it on all the time. I am sure I find a way, though.
  • Generally I reached the point where I have to progress in TVHM at least as carefully as in the very first playthrough, but it seems I don’t really have the option to overlevel much (given the desired finish on Lv50). I wonder what that means for UVHM and even OP-modes.

Another question:

If I beat the warrior in TVHM and enter this “Playthrough 2.5” mode where all sidequests uplevel to Lv50, how useful is it to get most of the good quest rewards anyway?

  • I mean, just by doing some of the sidequests, I may probably uplevel way beyond Lv50, no?
  • So grabbing a bunch of really good Lv50 loot but by doing so I get to Lv53 etc. How useful is the loot then anyway in UVHM? It seems unless you want to stay in TVHM or NVHM, there is not really a benefit of sparing the sidequests with good loot for Lv50? With maybe a very small number as exception?

So maybe I should just ignore UVHM for now? Play TVHM as I enjoy; with a bit of overleveling and side-quests and even do the DLCs. Then in UVHM I get started with a bunch of golden keys if things are really bad…

That’s weird. Normally does not do that. Don’t know what’s going on.
And yes, Normal mode Lyudas stop at 30. You’ll need to open the quest in TVHM to get better ones. 1:30 for one drop is very very very low, keep trying, the dice rolls will even out.
As for farming quest rewards at what level, really up to you. Some folks save getting a Pimpernel, for example, at top level before going in to UVHM. (if you do want that enter at lvl 49, you’ll get a 50 pimp and not overlevel).
Keep in mind that in UVHM you can reset your play though anytime you want, so get a lvl 55 pimp, get up to lvl 60, reset your game, and get a lvl 60 one. And so on.
–RoA

And yes, Normal mode Lyudas stop at 30. You’ll need to open the quest in TVHM to get better ones. 1:30 for one drop is very very very low, keep trying, the dice rolls will even out.

Ah ok, I will try again, maybe something else. Just learned that the Badaboom is dropped by King Mong. I got an ~L10 Badaboom from a Loot Midget and it was so awesome, I used until my mid-20s. So maybe even an L30 badaboom will be better than the stupid launcher I have at the moment.

As for farming quest rewards at what level, really up to you. Some folks save getting a Pimpernel, for example, at top level before going in to UVHM. (if you do want that enter at lvl 49, you’ll get a 50 pimp and not overlevel).
Keep in mind that in UVHM you can reset your play though anytime you want, so get a lvl 55 pimp, get up to lvl 60, reset your game, and get a lvl 60 one. And so on.

Yeah… I guess I need to decide whether I want the UVHM pain at all… :-}

The golden shield over the ‘eye’ drops in to place whenever a constructor is preparing to launch nukes. It should not be permanently in place, but I believe the choice of attacks used is determined through RNG so you might be unlucky and roll several nuke attacks in a row. The surveyors restore health and regular shield (blue health bar) so take those out ASAP.

If you’re around level 35 at Warden, you should be fine level-wise. If you do some side quests to over-level now, you’ll earn less XP until the current mission and your character level are a closer match.

Be selective, as you’ll still be earning XP and levelling (but at a much slower rate.). I’ve got up to level 53 playing in TVHM before now, and was down to 1-5 XP per kill. The highest I’ve seen someone go is around 56, but it took a loooooong time. Better to grab just a few things and still be level 50-51ish.

Hi,

The golden shield over the ‘eye’ drops in to place whenever a constructor is preparing to launch nukes.

Yes, I confirm that’s what I observed in NVHM with the various constructors encountered (I did quite a few runs in Opportunity and all the sidequests there).

But that’s not what’s happening with W4RD3N (neither on the Bloodshots ramparts nor in Friendship Gulag). It does not launch any direct attacks at all (no rockets, no laser), it either does nothing (when it has not detected me), or it starts constructing loaders and these angel-guards. It always has the golden shield on. Sometimes there is an orange bright light or seemingly shining at me, like the laser beam it sometimes sends, but it does not seem to hit me or cause any damage).

It should not be permanently in place, but I believe the choice of attacks used is determined through RNG so you might be unlucky and roll several nuke attacks in a row. The surveyors restore health and regular shield (blue health bar) so take those out ASAP.

No attacks, nuke or otherwise. Anyway, I try to defeat it later today and maybe I figure out what is happening there.

If you’re around level 35 at Warden, you should be fine level-wise. If you do some side quests to over-level now, you’ll earn less XP until the current mission and your character level are a closer match.

I am Lv39 now (Warden is also Lv39). I entered TVHM at Lv37 and I would say only the CptFlint mission was underleveled (and I still got to Lv38 just by running through it, and avoiding any fights where possible). The Firehawk mission already seemed quite close to my level, but you can avoid almost any fight before the final one in the Firehawks lair and because Lilith helps you it was not too hard fight. Brought me to almost to Lv39 also with very little fighting. Bloodshot stronghold was essentially at/slightly above my level and I earned between 150xp and 1500xp per kill.

Be selective, as you’ll still be earning XP and levelling (but at a much slower rate.). I’ve got up to level 53 playing in TVHM before now, and was down to 1-5 XP per kill. The highest I’ve seen someone go is around 56, but it took a loooooong time. Better to grab just a few things and still be level 50-51ish.

Ok, I’ll see how fast I progress further. At least to Lv40 it seems to go a bit more slowly than to 38 and 39.

Thanks.

Yep, as others said, you’ll blow through levels and loot so fast it’s not worth looking for anything specific. Just grab whatever works well enough till you outlevel it and move on… AR’s are not great in BL2, though they are better if you playing solo with the 1 player enemy health. There are some decent ones, but again, just grab anything decent you find (green Maliwan Sniders will outdamage most weapons in the game of any rarity) and go with that would be my advice…

Alright here is another update:

  • The shield in front of Warden was apparently a fluke. When I resumed last night, the shield was still there, I even took a screencast. The bright light was the constructor’s laser, no clue why it failed to hit and do any damage, but I heard it say “firing laser” or something multiple times. Shortly after the shield went away and 30 seconds later Warden also went away (3-4 bursts with my Dahl shock sniper made short work of it). Turning it in brought me to Lv40.

  • Then I rushed through Train to Catch and had much more trouble with Wilhelm (Lv42?) (much much more than during my NVHM run). And it seemed fairly easy at first: throw shock grenade then hit him where it hurts with the (although Lv30) Lyuda and build up CA… only to run out of SR Ammo. Until I regrouped, its shield was almost all regenerated and I went into FFYL like 4-5 times and died once. In the end I could down him with the (Lv30) DPUH on my last bullet. I had a hard time with the surveyers, they were hard to hit and kill quickly (shielded and armored), so I just left them alone and focused on keeping the damage on Wilhelm.

  • Then again I rushed through Rising Action and Bright Lights Flying City. Tried to just run through the Fridge, which almost worked, but I died once. In the outwash I found the ominous red chest on top of the tower near old slappy point (which I had missed before). Interestingly the Bridge was down (I suppose the maps are not really reset in TVHM), but I still went with the cargo-carrier. On the other side was a Constructor v2.0 which was a bit more trouble than in NVHM but not really. The Gluttonous Thresher was now much easier than in NVHM but mainly because I was clueless during the NVHM run.

  • Then the beacon fight at Overlook was much harder than expected. I didn’t realize that the timer resets when you die, but maybe it doesn’t really? It was confusing. I guess it was good that I died, because once respawned near the Catch-a-ride, it seems the loaders focused on me instead of the beacon and in the rocket-light-runner it became much easier in the end to finish the mission.

  • Returning to Sanctuary still on Lv40, the Wildlife Exploration mission is now Lv42 and it seems I caught up with the right amount of leveling and I decided to do some side missions after all.

But here is the most disappointing thing of all that: almost no loot. :-((

  • Warden: I found a green shotgun, inferior to what I had. That’s it. Could have been dropped by a loader or by warden.
  • Wilhelm: dropped some ammo and cash and 1 bar of Eridium. A bit further away was a white plain shield, worse than what I have, probably dropped by a surveyer. I think in NVHM it dropped tons of items including at least 2 blue ones.
  • Constructor v2.0 in Highlands Outwash: literally nothing, not even ammo
  • Gluttonous Thresher: literally nothing either
  • Constructor v2.0 in Overlook: unclear. After this fight there was a ton of cash and ammo lying around and even 2-3 white and 1-2 green items (none worth keeping). But there were so many enemies, including Super Badass Loaders, not idea who dropped it.
  • A bunch of red chests (in Friendship Gulag, Highlands Outwash, etc.): mostly white and green items, I think there might have been a blue pistol somewhere. But that’s what I am used to from chests. So this is not really a concern.

I guess I need to do more side-quests, just to get at least some at-level decent equipment. Now it seems I have 1.5 levels to grow anyway before continuing the story.

Cheers.

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I have nothing to tell you, but one formula.
Slag + Matching Elemental + Crit = universal solution.

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I have been fortunate to find appropriate sniper stockpile relics. At that level in the game, I have a sniper relic giving 56% more ammo, which is of course great. Keep an eye out for stockpile relics.

It’s down until you get close and the exploder spawns, then goes up and the exploder destroys the control console. Using the cargo carrier is fine, but you can also run around in the water, find the ladder near the control console/bridge, climb it, kill the exploder before he can destroy the console, and use the bridge.

Yup. Doing the Overlook missions will help that. Get the medicine mission from Scooter in Sanctuary, get the Stalker of stalkers mission from the bounty board in Overlook, and then as you complete those you’ll get the shield mission from Overlook/Camina and the Henry mission dropped from a stalker. Those should get you to, or close, level 42.
Also you can now go to the Sanctuary bounty board and get the Good Bad and Mordy mission and that will help with leveling also (as well as Too close for missiles, which should be done at the same times as G-B-M. Those two will be a little underlined for you, but the mission experience helps.

Loot wise, it’s a crap shoot…
–RoA

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