What changes are you hoping for FL4K's pets?

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

Since Noelle mentioned that GB are looking into FL4K’s pets for Mayhem 2.0, what changes do you hope they’ll make? Since this would be hotfix changes I’ll just focus on numerical changes rather than bug fixes or major mechanical changes.

Now that we have a better idea of how pet damage works, I’m looking to the Iron Bear changes for a lot of what we need.

  1. The base damage of all the non-splash scaling attack commands need to be bumped up to at least where Countess is at 17,330 to make them competitive - We have a splash dependency just like Iron Bear does. The pets that scale with splash also do the most attack command damage out of all the pets easily (at least double what most of the others hit, Gunslinger 6x). If we increase the damage of the other attack commands it will give us more options.
  2. Increase the pet’s health - We haven’t had an upgrade to this since October. While we do gain some ability to keep our pets alive better through the higher DPS we deal with time, their base health isn’t much of a cushion and the die pretty easily.
  3. Increase the values on Sic Em’ - The damage attack commands do is way too low to justify a base cool down of 20 seconds. After the recent hotfix, Auto Bear can throw out nukes that deal 300k damage with a 3.5 second cool down. The damage formula for Auto Bear and the pets is pretty similar (Moze can get 30-40% more splash than FL4K, but Specialist bear is much weaker than the combined total of FL4K’s pet buffs), yet even with full investment the only pet than approaches that is Gunslinger Jabber with 320k * 3, and that is on a 20 second cool down. Even with 6/3 Sic Em’ it only goes down to 13 seconds. For the level of damage we’ll need for higher mayhem levels, it’s just too long to wait for too little damage.
  4. Buff Gamma Burst’s pet damage - I understand that maybe Gearbox doesn’t want the pets to be too powerful without investment but Gamma Burst is the skill specifically designed to buff pets. At this point in the game, knowing what Gamma Burst (doesn’t) scales with, I think it’s safe to say that increasing the value of the damage that it provides the pet would be a welcome buff. I think something around 300% would be enough to tie Gamma with the Go for the Eyes + splash anoint set up and make normal melee attacks worthwhile.

So, what are your hopes on what Gearbox is going to change?

4 Likes
#2

Do pets deal bonus damage to frozen enemies? If not they should. Also would love it if we could swap long press and short press for attack commands.

#3

Nope. And as much as I hope they can, I doubt that is something that can be fixed in a hotfix.

#4

A bonus to pet damage scaling, and maybe buffs to pet skills, like ferocity (20% per point) or psycho head on a stick (maybe 50% damage and 20% speed? so you have an incentive to kill mobs instead of watching your pet doing all the work).
Probably if the nail the pet damage, there’s no need to buff Sic’em.
And after that, maybe we could talk of gfte! needs tweaking or not.

#5

Some form of one-shot protection would also be very welcome. Barrels and some enemies can one-shot a pet with as much survivability skills as possible on. Doesn’t help that barrels get your Elemental ASEs for some reason and one-shot you and the pet no matter what

BFFs could possibly be a natural perk of the pet system. Friendbot’s Pet Revive on kill too, depending on what changes are going to be made.

3 Likes
#6

Psycho Head only works when FL4K gets the kill, same as all the Hunter kill skills…

Buffing the damage doesn’t change the fact that it’s a 20 second cool down, 13 at best. It could definitely use some adjustments.

Let’s not get carried away. I don’t expect that in a hotfix, but that skill needs tweaking.

#7

I’d like to make it so that pets do not attack boss enemies unless you specifically command them to. This would keep them from charging into Wotan and dying in two seconds.

2 Likes
#8

Buff the pets according to Mayhem base health modifiers. This is the best solution to keep them from becoming absurd at lower levels/playthroughs.

2 Likes
#9

The Pet’s health and damage really just need to scale with the content.
Much easier said than done, but that is about it.

Make attack commands actually work where the pet will follow the command, and tweak it so you can ask your pet to defend an area instead of just running off on their own.

3 Likes
#10

Since I run with a Gunslinger Jabber, my desires are probably different than everyone else’s, because I want NEW skills that play to the Jabber’s unique position as a sentient, or at least nearly-sentient, creature that can use guns and other human tech! And on that note, here’s what I personally want (but, as always, Your Mileage May Vary):

  1. I want to be able to change out the Jabber’s weapons to guns from my inventory of my choosing. That way I can give him something really good that’s optimized against the enemies we’re fighting.
    1.5) Or, at the very least, let me add any Elemental Effect of my choosing to his weapon attacks, so they can be optimized against the enemies we’re fighting!

  2. Jabbers are humanoid and can use guns. So, when I’m driving an Outrider or Technical, let my Jabber hop up in the turret and be my Gunner! :smiling_imp:
    2.5) Or, at the very least, let him jump in/on the cargo bed of the Technical and use his own guns to attack enemies! This would be similar to the way Maya “rides Shotgun” on the Technical during that one mission where she accompanies you!

Bottom line, I have a Gunslinger Space Monkey as my sidekick, let him help me when I’m in a vehicle, too! :wink: :+1:

3 Likes
#11

That’s very different and very unique! Definitely not getting that in a hotfix though, but I like those ideas!

My only wish if this did come to fruition would be to allow the other pets to equip roid shields. Melee pets already get trounced by Gunslinger damage wise, so if he can equip gear they should be able to as well.

2 Likes
#12

Since mayhem 2.0 will be a patch and not a hotfix there are alot of things they can do if they wanted. We need a flat way for pets and iron bear to scale without constant damage increase changes there should be a way for then to maybe do that better idk.
Atm base damage of pets needs a major upgrade AND the pet damage increasing skills honestly need a increase of 50%minimum even with a base pet damage increase.

As stated gamma burst buffing the pet needs to be much much stronger. Along with the augment for aoe radiation dmg and the one that extends duration and increases pet damage

We need a pet damage boosting annointment but it shouldnt just be a weapon one honestly need it to be on either shield or grenade and obviously it shouldnt stack if pet damage is boosted properly.

Someone else stated pet cooldown abilities need more damage as well.

Pet health needs a boost and should actually be increased more by the health increase skill in green tree.

My biggest and I do mean absolutely biggest wish list is making the final skill in blue tree useful. I’d say if it converted a enemy and made them gain a damage increase from your pet damage boosting abilities that would be amazing BUT also make it to where you get a big boost depending on the type of enemy you turned kinda like hunters eye. Humans=damage boost.
Robots= action skill boost
Beast= fire rate/reload speed
Those are examples anxiously it can be anything good.
That’s all I can thithinthithink of off the top of my head

1 Like
#13

Definitely buff pet’s scaling as others have stated. Pets run fine in M4, but during the Takedown they can go down pretty often, although it’s a raid. Generally, pets can use a damage and hp buff.

3 Likes
#14

I think we’ll get Flak pet buffs soon right after GB is done with Moze buffs. It’s gonna happen.

2 Likes
#15

Not to rush them along, I was just hoping they would start on the FL4K buffs this week. No reason they can’t buff 2 characters at once :grin:

3 Likes
#16

Fl4ks dominance capstone changed to allow jabbers to use your equipment, skags to hold your grenade in their mouths causing explosions on attacks, spiderants to be effected by anointments

1 Like
#17

I mentioned something similar to this in a different thread once. I said the Gunslinger should get a copy of the weapon equipped in your 1st weapon slot, Countess should get your shield, and Eridian Skag get you grenade mod.

But having a monkey in a machine gun sounds very appealing lmao

2 Likes
#18

Zane’s clone gets you shield and weapon, IB get’s your grenade and shield effects, I don’t see why FL4K’s pet can’t get a little something…

Here’s to hoping :grin:

3 Likes
#19

All 3 pets out at once would be awesome. Kinda like in Diablo 3.

#20

Even though I know this is probably too drastic to hope for, I wish they would just scrap dominance all together and make a different capstone. “Make an enemy fight on your side” types of skills are just rarely good, especially in this franchise. I wish they could just make it something more useful/interesting.

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