Iron Bear needs a new approach of gameplay

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

don’t get me wrong, i like IB. like, in person. but he is not useful. action skills are usually supposed to support the character, resultin in a burst of damage or sustain while still dealing damage. (lets keep krieg out of this) amara has short damage burst skills that also apply debuffs. zane and fl4k have companions that support them in battle. iron bear either replaced moze on the battlefield, completely taking her and all her equipment out of the damage calculation for several seconds or he slows her down with immensely long exit and enter animations. now you can say “rocketeer”. but “rocketeer” should be the default. not a reason to sacrifice a class mod. there might be people who enjoy a little round of titan fall in between borderlands 3 and i also like to hide in IB when i get focused too hard. but focusing on any other playstyle like bloodletter or bottomless magazines, iron bear becomes useless. he is not your main damage source. moze is. and iron bear should support her. i really like the 15 seconds when he stands next to me, softening my target. (when there is only 1 target because if there are more targets, he will most likely start catching rakks instead of focusing the boss. can you please add an attack command for him?) but thats only 15 seconds. and then you have like 6 seconds reenter and reexit, every time.
so the minimum of what i expect, would be to expand the effect of autobear with the effect of “rocketeer” as a default. now when we have the situation that you dont have to hop in hop out hop in hop out all the time, anointments might change and you could also give us the possibility to enter and exit iron bear at will while he is active, without screwing up the balance.
instead of just weapons and (re)usetime, you could focus the 3 skilltrees on different ways to use iron bear. Sitting inside, tanking and distracting enemies, being a glass canon with a REALLY impactful selfdestruction, hopping in and out, triggering effects, there could be done a lot with all the slots that are currently just used for fancy play weapons while moze still deals way more damage with the right build.

i dont know…i have called this like half a year before launch. its just not enjoyable and i really love moze for everything else she can do. i will not main an other character. but iron bear seems to be a worse death trap right now.

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#2

IB could use some tweaking, but he’s not terrible. No other VH has a way to have a second form of damage that you can decide whether you want to be invincible or not. If IB did more damage than Moze, it would be wayyyyyy over powered. I have a feeling people that are mad about IB are running a deathless build and expecting massive damage. That being said, if IB did more damage than Moze, no one would play as Moze because you would want to do the most damage possible. You would play as IB. Not to mention, if you put 1 skill point in a tree, he becomes a tank and draws enemies fire for 15 seconds no matter what damage he takes. Any beastmaster would love for that ability alone. I would agree with you except people are successful with IB as he is now. If they weren’t, no one would play as Moze.

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#3

I run a deathless Moze when I played her but me hating IB has nothing to do with that. The animation and the time it takes is why I hate IB, it absolutely ruins the flow of the game. If you could just spawn bear by activating something in a skill tree I bet most people would be much happier.

#4

Maybe., But during that animation you and IB are Invulnerable. It’s a giant, "OH DURN IT button. Even with wotan you take 0 damage during the animation.

1 Like
#5

i dont want him to deal much damage
i want him to be a companion like deathtrap by default. not by using a class mod. that should be like…in the package

i dont want 2 different ways of dealing damage. i want MY way to be supported and not be slowed down or completely ignored by my action skill

and yes, cheesy invulnerability mechanics are fun but not the goal of good game design.

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#6

^THIS. Anointments for moze are bad design. She was my main but now i can’t stand playing her because in order to proc your anointment you have to go through a long animation + you have have to ditch your ultimate which is kinda weird.

#7

if IB would get just spawned next to you by default, there could be so many different anointment options.
while he is spawned, based on his damage dealt, based on his damage taken, probably even shooting him like deathtrap. you could do so many things if it wasnt the idea to just enter and leave him and thats it.

#8

When I chose to play with Moze I was expecting IB to onehit kill almost everything. That’s my understanding of an action skill: beeing overpowered for a short moment. But I also like your idea of having rocketeer as a default. He would be like Deathtrap.

#9

yea, thats kinda the 2 ways of how you would imagine the gameplay
but right now, the most common way is to enter->exit, have him for 15 seconds and enter again, shortly after
and thats just soooo annoying, most of the time you will just ignore it and try to kill everything without him

#10

Or, you could try a different build, and see what strength you can get out of bear. Try my Torgue build, or @kabflash’s bearonator and actually use the bear. It’ll be as strong as Moze on foot and still viable for endgame builds. Annointments are strong, but so is bear. Try for the best of both worlds?

1 Like
#11

i like moze xD i want to play HER in the first place
i just dont want her action skill to be useless when i play HER

#12

Play her however you like, I’m just giving you options, not trying to readjust your worldview. Happy hunting!

#13

this thread is not even about how i play her :confused:
i know how i am playing her. i am asking gearbox to think about their design for the action skill

an action skill should always support the character in every kind of playstyle. now you could say, shields of retribution: when you enter bear, he will recharge your shield (veeery slowly, remember how deathtrap did it just right when you spawned him?)

in this skilltree, IB and moze could have the ability to always compensate their shields when standing in a certain distance to each other and adding a small regneration that always runs. making them an unstoppable team, keeping each other alive.

in the bottomless tree, IB could become a glass canon that would benefit from mozes gun stats and trigger a REALLY hard suicide when he is down

demolition tree could still focus on staying in iron bear

but right now its more like, demolition tree is the only tree that even considers iron bear to be relevant and the other trees straight ignore his existance xD

#14

Oh…

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#15

if there is a possible build in the game, even motivated by a class mod, its not something snowflaky to play this way.
its not like i am making something up. i am simply playing a 1 hp bloodletter moze and there is no way that this build would in any way profit from using iron bear other than enter->exit->enter->exit->enter->exit all 20 seconds

#16

That’s the balance. Giant tank, or damage build.

200k armor in IB with huge damage… IB isn’t supposed to hold your hand in the game.

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#17

thats not the point
a character is supposed to use both their gear and their action skill in the game
moze is doing either one or the other

#18

Krieg and Brick. It’s not unprecedented.

#19

thats why i said, keep krieg out of this discussion xD
but they are at least using their armor items
when moze is playing as a bear pilot, she is basically playing an other game or an other character
so you could say, moze is 2 characters
you either play moze or you play iron bear or you are playing rocketeer, which is the only way to play HER with HER action skill

#20

One thing IB needs is a window washer…

Firing blindly into flames or green goo just doesnt seem fuel efficient.

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