Good lord, I knew they were a bit meh, but FL4K used to be my main until a month ago. Now, even with kill skills up, they have horrible reload speeds. I swear it feels slower than the item card numbers, with buffs up. FL4K just feels weak in every way. Maybe I’m just used to playing Zane with all of his skills and buffs. But FL4K is so disappointing now. Their performance along with the annoy pet are reason enough to shelve em for good once I finish my last mission. Yikes.
I think playing SD Zane is skewing your perspective. 
He’s still very strong, Zane is more like Sal in terms of being the extremely easily powerful class (well, with that one com. The Takedown challenge showed he’s a skill-based class without it) while Fl4k is more like Zer0 in which you have to balance your various attributes.
but yeah, those nerfs were unwarranted. GiTM is legitimately useless now (outright lowers your DPS in fact). LnT is still good but it’s a pain in the ass having to completely avoid investing in fire rate for guardian rank so you can max out the guns it works with.
EDIT: fixed some points for fairness
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Yeah they didn’t nerf Fl4k. Zane is just way better now with the Seein’ Dead mod.
Also, if you think Fl4k is bad, try being a Moze main… Haha.
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In Fl4k’s case they didn’t so much make him weaker as they reduced the number of ways he could be strong or the no. of items he synergized with (ironically the opposite of their ‘build diversity’ goal).
For Moze…yeah they way they handled the whole Vampyr/MoD/Hex thing was shortsighted at best, irresponsible at worst. Also the whole shield/grenade elemental 10 second ASE just screwed her over further since she couldn’t even take advantage of that like with ‘2 mags’ (would it seriously kill them to make equivalent anoints ‘while AS is active?’).
Also the way they keep shoving the ASE regime down both character’s throats is making them (or really, the game in general) less interesting than they started out.
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Sounds like you just need to change your build up.
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Fl4k is still super powerful. I can walk thru M4 with my build and don’t have to switch anything to take on mobs or bosses so it’s very versatile as well.
However, they SHOULD fix all the things that are broken with him. Skills that don’t work, coms that don’t work.
I think st4ckbot can be our SD mod if it worked correctly. ( for crit players )
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Fl4k has one skill effecting reload speed, and it wasn’t touched. In fact, most people barely put points in it anyway from what builds on the interwebs indicate.
You’re perception is being skewed by playing Seein Dead Zane. It’s not the absolute most powerful spec ( although it is definitely in the top 3) but it is the best in terms of power->effort. Fl4k is excellent, but you do need to work a bit harder in terms of gearing to really get those deepz.
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Have you checked your Guardian Rank perks? With the last update that added the ability to turn them on/off, the default was all off. If you had a big boost to reload from GR and didn’t turn GR back on, you would certainly feel it.
The general vote here is exactly on point. I haven’t noticed anything being nerfed, rather than Zane’s is just super cheesy now.
I main Fl4k and I enjoy the glass cannon feel, but if a character is going to have a offensive favored skill tree I feel like they should be THE damage character. I wish overall character performance was considered more before they put the handcuffs on Fade Away augments.
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Thank you everyone for the feedback, insight and advice, it is greatly appreciated. I agree that my experience with Zane must be skewing my perception a lot. I started with FL4k, and he was my most enjoyable character. But I can no longer stand the pet behavior and noises. I think the final straw for me was dying multiple times in Moxxie’s heist when my spiderant decided to spawn next to every barrel I passed. I haven’t died so often to my pet since Dark Age of Camelot.
Guardian Ranks are enabled. I know my gear isn’t optimized, but I expected to be able to clear the circle of slaughters. Even on normal mode, they were a struggle. Reloading every weapon felt like it was taking forever. Moving felt sluggish, even with Fast and the Furryous cranked up and full health. Though I did notice that the raks hit really hard, they pretty much carried me in a lot of fights.
I’ll come back to him again, maybe up his gear too. I forgot that he was 53 but his gear was still mostly 49-50. Not sure how much that matters. But really the reload and movement speed just felt so much slower. I know Zane’s faster, but something felt off.
Thanks for the encouragement, I had assumed that I missed some major adjustment since the last patch I played him in. Maybe Zane’s just been a bad influence on me. He’s like that.
Fl4k was unwarrantedly nerfed during the first 2 weeks of the game. This is likely due to a young and inexperienced combat lead and team. I think the biggest problems for FL4K are bugged perks in the orange tree, COMs that don’t work properly like the stalker, and st4kbot, and being targeted while in fade away. Fl4k needs to be able to sacrifice his pet for a big buff, since gearbox is not capable of fixing them.
No. No. A thousand times no. That’s not a need at all, it’s a copout ajd a terrible idea. Why is it that pet classes always need to have some way to blow up their pets to function? Leave corpse bomb to the necromancers, there is absolutely no reason why killing FL4K’s pet should ever be a positive. You only get one for *** sake.
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I mean fl4k’s pets are basically cosmetics at this point don’t of it as killing. Its more similar to taking an ear ring or a necklace off.
Disagree. Fl4k’s pet aren’t cosmetic at all, if you spec into blue three and run a Gamma Build they actually provide some good bonuses and since the pet can’t die in Gamma Burst, that’s basically perma dps bonuses. Great Horned Skag/Eridian, Frenzy (good synergy with He Bites), Barbaric Yamp, Who Rescued Who.
Fl4k isn’t about Stagecoach and Fade Away only.
With both of my FL4Ks, the pets are more than cosmetic.
Being a solo player, I rely on them for the health regeneration and to act as a distraction. We work together taking out enemies.
My Crit FL4K has always had the Spiderant and often I use Fade Away to revive her if something happens.
My Rakk FL4K uses a Friend Bot comm so his Great Horned Skagg is rarely down.
I do wish they gave us a command to tell the pet exactly where to go, not necessarily attack.
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Flak is still pretty strong he just needs some sort of Life steal he is very squishy.
I agree they can be useful I love gb build but outside of gamma burst just cosmetics to suicidal to last in a fight and without gb are constantly downed often just a liability Imo.
I agree which is why I hate using pets outside of gb just it just runs and attacks everything and with the pets dps it aint doing much but getting its self killed and with how agressive it is it gets downed often and just becomes a hassle to keep around.