I feel as Flak is starting to have a difficult time in the meta from going from a DPS god to a sub par burst damage character which is sad as a flak main. Especially playing Zane or Amara you can destroy whatever is on the screen without too much effort due to the insanely good driver mod and the insanity good seein’ dead mod and recent zane buffs. Even Moze received some huge buffs but flak got some pretty underwhelming and what feels like pretty weak buffs… not saying he particularly weak compared to the others but he doesn’t feel as lethal as he once was. That being said I’d like to put forward an idea I’ve had for a while. With the stackbot class mode being so picky in terms of what you can do with it and the limits it comes with I feel a good buff to it would be giving it the leave no trace perk with no cool down period for unlimited ammo regen as well as increasing your damage, so upon scoring a crit flak ammo is returned to the mag and damage is increased. I feel this would be a huge and great buff to flak opening more doors to use a variety of different guns and different play styles. I believe that it would tie in to the name stackbot as you’re stacking ammo and damage. As an alternative maybe instead of adding leave no trace to stackbot reverting the early nerf to the skill would also be a much welcomed buff, by removing the 0.3 second cool down period of being able to regen ammo improves flaks dps in a tremendous way. I feel as it would bring flak back into level playing fields as the other characters have some really strong tech Moze has a bottomless mag, Amara 1/2 hits everything in the game and Zane has unlimited action skill duration and great damage. The game has become a lot harder and a lot more complex from going to graveward and burning him down with a auto sniper and feel this nerf is no longer needed especially when looking at the other vaulted hunters. Feel free to leave feedback and your own suggestions sorry for the long thread but I’d love to be able to run around with a jackobs pistol and burn down any bandits or bosses that stand in my way again.
Fl4k is not having a difficult time they are fine. They have a variety of builds that can be use to clear every content. Zane and Amara just have 1 very bloated build and every argument that is used to compare Fl4k to that is a bad one. The biggest problem Fl4k has is their pet doesn’t do any damage once thats fix they will be good.
It’s a combination of things.
- Unjustified nerfs in the first few weeks of the game
- FL4K’s lack luster anointments, particularly Fade away
- Poor survivability
So in the beginning, FL4K could do the most damage, but had the worst survivability which wasn’t really an issue
THEN
MT dropped, and FL4K’s survivability issues magnified. Amara and Zane setups got more damaging. Now he is completely outclassed by Amara and Zane. Not only does he not have a damage advantage, he can’t reduce incoming damage, has no lifesteal, and is much slower than the above VHs.
Fl4ks pets were overestimated by GB in his balance in terms of their aggro reduction, and perks like galactic shadow don’t even work for aggro reduction. So those are two means of damage mitigation that don’t even work for FL4K. Fl4K is also targeted in fade away. If those were fixed, FL4K could be competitive with Amara and Zane.
He has a bunch of DR skills though.
Turn Tail and Rund gives 17.4
Hive Mind gives 15
Shared Spirit gives 50
Hunter’s Eye gives 21.9
Countess gives 5
Most are small on their own, but FL4K does already have these skills. There are already plenty of ways for FL4K to survive in the tree, the current means they have just need to be improved upon. The aggro generation would be a great start. As soon as you poke your head out enemies start shooting at you no matter what skills you have…
I have to ask if the damage reduction values from Fl4k’s skills have been proven? You have been FAR more thorough in Fl4k testing than I have.
I ask this but then I think about it and realize how glass cannon my build really is lmao BUT I have ran TTD w/o an Otto Idol ( Pearl of Knowledge is insane ATM ) They cant kill ya if they are already dead 
I can’t agree with survivabilty. They have plenty of skills that heal them combine that with defensive gear like stop-gap, recharger, and the new lunacy survivabilty isn’t really an issue.
Hunter’s eye is only against beast. And you loose the rest of the bonuses if the pet dies except TTAR. And the pet will die on true takedown, and probably shaft as well. Moxsy even said that FL4K was the toughest to get through TD due to low survivability. He did a VH ranking here:
It doesn’t really change the fact that the skills are there. They are conditional, no argument there, but FL4K does have them.
Also, I don’t put a lot of stock in rankings like that. Moxsy is a good player, but different players have different strengths, and some just don’t gel as well with certain characters. I don’t see much of a difference in survivability between a Gunboy FL4K and other chars. And if the TD wasn’t full of armored enemies, you could just use Gamma w/Red Fang and this survivability issue wouldn’t be an issue. Since the next TD is supposed to be Eridian, I think we’ll see a meta shift that favors FL4K since you’ll be able to use Red Fang with no damage loss.
I’m not saying it isn’t an issue at higher levels, but FL4K does have tools to handle it like every vault hunter does. I think a lot could be gained by utilizing the tools FL4K has better.
For example, if we’re just talkng about Wotan, Bounty Hunter makes bosses count as Beast too, so with a God Butcher bounty Hunter you’ll have over 30% DR vs bosses. Turn Tail gives you 17% while moving, which is all the time. I’m not sure about Stop Gaps, but I tend to use booster shields that roll with Fortify charges when I can for a little extra DR. And that is independent of just using Life steal anoints or other build specific strategies.
Moxsy also barely ever plays Fl4k and doesn’t have a deep knowledge of the class. Kind of like how he started putting out Moze builds and didn’t understand half of what he was doing so he made all kinds of mistakes Moze mains cringed at. He’s been learning a lot more of her lately though and his Moze stuff is looking better. But I almost never see him on Fl4k I’m sure he has a long way to go to understanding the class.
edit - If you want to see a content creator who has a good understanding of Fl4k watch Lazydata.
Again Killersix is a great and entertaining dude but his understanding of the classes and how to use them and different mechanics in the game is sub-par. I don’t watch Chadly99 really but from what I’ve seen he does have a better understanding of how to use mechanics and theory craft good builds, and a quick look at his channel shows a lot of videos claiming Fl4k builds that destroy Takedowns.
Fl4k might not get as much move speed but try 6/3 Fast and the Furryous combined with Fade Away and he gets some pretty stellar movespeed. One of my favorite combos. Not every VH has to have the same strengths and people keep comparing everything to 1 cookie cutter OP Amara build and 1 cookie cutter OP Zane build. Have you ever tried a True Takedown on ASE Zane or even CCC Zane? Things become a lot different when Seein Lame is out of the picture.
One thing about Fl4k I will admit is a big issue is pets becoming basically useless in a Wotan fight with anything other then Red Fang builds. It’s quite annoying.
Ugh the first thing he says is Moze’s 1 hp builds are her strongest and she’s only good for bossing. MOVING ON I can’t even watch the rest after his completely utterly wrong explanation of Moze.
A video trying to say who’s best is already a stupid concept. Every VH has strengths and weaknesses and sometimes it takes a lot of learning to be able to work around the weaknesses. And they all have weaknesses including Amara and Zane when you take the 2 broken class mods out of the picture.
It’s funny - what you guys are going back and forth about is exactly the debate I was having with a friend last night. He plays Fl4k but does not like Fl4k as much as Amara for survivability reasons.
The literal entire reason I like Fl4k is because Fl4k has low survivability. With all the ridiculous gear that GBX has unleashed and the extra elements that were introduced with the Takedown, BL3 is really, really easy right now if you have ever played an BL game before - even at BL3’s hardest difficulty levels. Maybe I am sounding like an elitist here, but I truly do not mean to if I am.
All I am saying is that part of the attraction of Fl4k for me is that he does have less survivability than Amara and Zane. This at least makes the game a challenge. With where Amara and Zane are right now with their COMs and gear, the game is basically a joke. I don’t play Moze, but my assumption is that she is in kind of the same spot as Fl4k - more of a skill-based character as far as playstyles because of survival issues. Again, I am not sure about that so take it with a grain of salt.
To bring it all around, I do not think Fl4k needs more survival. He has plenty already, especially with the level cap increase making more of the green tree available (or blue, depending on how you spec, because a lot of Fl4k mains are already heavily invested in the red tree). Can we keep this game minimally challenging for at least some of the characters?
Moxsy isn’t an authority on FL4K. For Amara, sure, but he has 1 FL4K build. I can’t take his opinion on FL4K with the same weight I’d give to someone like Dakquan, Ratore, Gypsy, or Abbyhour. They main, or have spent far more time with FL4K than he has.
While it is build specific, I would again bring up Gunboy. Being invisible with over 40% move speed and over 5% health regen, and the option to use a life steal anoint if need be, should adequately address most issues with survival. Even in the White stagecoach TD video I linked a few days ago, I don’t think that guy went down more than 5 times in that video.
If we’re going to compare characters like this, then we should at least be thorough. Yes, Seein Dead Barrier/Drone Zane has FL4K beat for survival even with Gunboy, but does Clone/Drone? Does CCC? What other set ups do the other VHs have aside from their “meta” set ups that compete with Gunboy? Is the difference as bad as people make it seem? Because I can’t look at Dakquan or Ratore running through the MTD and think “FL4K is so much worse”. I’ve seen the others go through it. The difference isn’t that much.
About LnT, I think that Fl4k is the only character that can use the Stagecoach without reloading, even against Moze. So I think that right now it’s ok, but I recognize that if LnT had no cooldown, it would help GiTM.
Right now the thing that Fl4k needs the most is a fix to pet’s damage, so we can do pet builds and also because they’ll add damage to Fl4k too.
And if they fix the Interplanetary Stalker skill damage not benefiting from hunt skill power, Fl4k would be insane.
The survivability is no issue, it has a lot of defensive skills and items to prevent that, plus the pet for aggro relief (in theory lol).