As a Moze Main, even I can recognize the need to fix Iron Bear

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

Moze is a blast to play right now, but I think anyone who is being honest can admit that Iron Bear is going to need fixed to ensure that it’s not AFK Auto Bear Killing Wotan.

So how do we fix this? How do we get Iron Bear to a point where it is:

1.) a viable action skill
2.) actively something you want to use
3.) not capable of AFK clearing some of the hardest content in the game.

Honestly, I’m not 100% certain how to fix it, while Action Skill Damage is a set value that scales from Mayhem. I’m sure that they can go in and tweak the numbers, and get it to a point where it’s useful, but not doing the type of damage that it’s currently doing.

The simple solution for Auto Bear AFK, would be to just gut the damage of Auto Bear. This means that Iron Bear is still an action skill that is truly amazing, but isn’t overcompensating for the fact that you are now out of the mech, and also doing damage.

But, even if that is a suitable solution in the short term, I’m not sure that this “future proofs” Iron Bear, so that it doesn’t end up trash or AFKable, in the future.

Would scaling Action Skill Damage (at least for Moze), based on Gun Damage work? Probably, but I’m not certain how that lines up with being a viable coded solution, and would also limit the gun selection of Moze, because you proc the anoint right after leaving Iron bear, and changing guns while in Iron Bear isn’t a viable option.

I’ve brought this idea up here on the forums before, and I still think that it makes the most sense in a “Future Proof” sense, but I’m still not sure how it works as a practical coding solution.

So, if that’s not the answer, what is? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad that Iron Bear is the baddest mech in the Borderlands. It’s been great and, if I’m being honest, feels like a long time coming. I’ll be sad when it is corrected. But I can recognize that it needs corrected.

Ideally, a solution should be

1.) Scalable for future game changes.
2.) Doesn’t allow Moze to only wear a Com, and still be amazing.
3.) Allows Iron Bear to be the type of Action Skill that it needs to be, based on the fact that it completely replaces your character for an amount of time.

Anyone else have ideas? Are we just going to watch the values get tinkered with? Is there something else that could be done to make it viable, but not broken?

2 Likes
#2

if its just to distunguish iron bear and auto bear (and i am a heavy supporter of auto bear)
the weapon anointment should work inside IB (but be weaker ofc)
and there should probably be skills that specifically boost your stats (damage, fuel, fire rate, what ever) while piloting
for example, security bear should make that you transfer your shield mod on iron bear when you pilot him

10 Likes
#3

The main problem is that we can upgrade Moze’s gear, not IB’s.
A viable way to solve the problem would be to add more interaction between IB and Moze’s gear. As lolli said, maybe add weapon anointments to IB. Or add anointments like “While Moze is in IB, it deals x% more damage.”
That way, IB would not be totally overpowered from the start, but he would once you get the skills and the gear, like any VH.

5 Likes
#4

I like the idea of anointments on Iron Bear, but it would need to be functionality that is added to Iron Bear, and not "new Anoints"that further clog up the loot pool.

I’d love to see Iron bear’s weapon set have some sort of alteration based on types / branding of weapons that you had equipped / ready.

I’d love the idea of Security Bear’s shield scaling based on Moze’s Shield.

I’d love the idea of Moze’s Grenade Mod having some impact on Moze.

I mean, it’s a long shot, and something that I don’t think that could be added at this point, but I’d LOVE a system where you could “slot” weapons into Iron Bear that didn’t count towards your normal loadout, and those guns would then have some sort of tangible effect on Iron Bear’s damage, fire rate, Auto / Burst / Semi Auto / type of rounds, etc… I just think that doing something like that would have had to have been introduced during the design of the game, not as an update later.

2 Likes
#5

Is this not what the weapon augments for IB already are?

You have railguns for long range single shot.
Bear fist for melee.
Miniguns for sustained dps.
Flamethrowers for close range elemental.
Grenades for cover crowd control.
Middle launcher for high cost high damage.
Each one with different types to change up how IB is played and interacts with enemies. Learn how to adapt to what we have and you’ll realize that most of the things you want are already there.

Unless of course you mean you want them to add more to IB trees to add more augments which they might when they add the 4th tree.

#6

People always claim that there is no interaction between IB and Mozes gear and that IB should require a proper “build” but most of these people never really looked at how things actually work otherwise they would have realized that ~90% of IBs damage already comes from Mozes gear / build. This is what Hammerdown Protocol without investment actually does vs. a random flesh based trash mob on M10:

Not even 25% of its health and that by horrendous fuel consumption and a quite long CD.

Here is the issue with the “I would be ok with IB being strong if the player would actually have to invest into it” argument: people already do. What do you think most Moze players usually invest into? And now take a guess what you would have to invest into if you want to build for IB.

3 Likes
#7

https://clips.twitch.tv/MagnificentTangentialWormTheTarFu

Here’s a clip of LazyData (a member of the Borderlands stream team) one-shotting the final boss with Iron Bear. If you look at his Twitch clips and VODs, he has a bunch of content showing how Iron Bear in its current state basically demolishes every challenging encounter in the game.

1 Like
#8

Correction he is “one-shotting the final boss” with MS micro grenade chains which seems to be more of an issue with how the micro grenades scale.

7 Likes
#9

I nuked Gehenna. And please don’t gut auto bear - one explosion can delete him. IB is a glass cannon right now even will the bubble shield and 1,560,490 armour, the mech has no FFYL and if you’re silly enough to get IB smoked in seconds you get punished with extra CD time…

Iron Bear is in a good place

20 Likes
#10

Can’t wait for all the “IRON BEAR IS USELESS AGAIN!” threads when GBX uses the nerf-hammer protocol on Moze (again). I guess I will just play for now and just uninstall when the nerf hammer arrives.

All the other vault hunters can one-shot trash mobs without proper builds but as soon as Iron Bear does it people be like:

WAIT THAT’S ILLEGAL!

16 Likes
#11

Here’s how I see it - Bear now has the damage and the agility but is frail to a degree. Moze can dish the same damage and can fight for her life, she ain’t frail.

The only overpowered aspect imo is the Nukes… You can spam jump boost in circles and make ground zero on the spot.

#12

Please just let this be so I can have that ok feeling like I did with all the other BL’s before this. If I or anyone else has a way to one shot or effectively kill a boss of any type so it can be farmed effectively. Then please let it be. This is why guns and gear get merged that shouldn’t be nerf get it. Try asking for stronger bosses or mechanics.

Being an old school former Destiny player. Gearbox is starting to go down the same road that Bungie did. Why do I have to have " Balance" in a game that is pve only. If I’m OP and not literally making the game shut down. Let me and others be.

Thank you for the time.

7 Likes
#13

Amara still does more damage, and Fl4k has been one-shotting bosses for months. It’s ok for a character to be strong. Iron bear is fine.

21 Likes
#14

I just hope a good middle ground is found, if they nerf him. Also, peop,e seem to focus on his damage a lot, but forget that IB is an also kind of an extra life, which is very useful. They could do compensation buffs in that area

2 Likes
#16

However damage gets tweaked up and down ( and up and down again and so on…) I’ve always thought what Moze and IB need the most is more synergy with each other.

Jack, Axton and Wilhelm all had great synergy with their pets whereas Moze feels more like Gaige, who had little to no interaction with DT. She is either in IB or out of him by design (ignoring Auto Bear for now) so I’m all in favour of ‘in IB anoints’ or scaling IB somehow on her gear.

Saying that the anoint pool is hugely inflated with useless crap so I’d rather see a bunch weeded out before more are added.

Given the lvl and power creep in this game GB needs to walk a fine line between encouraging the ongoing hunt for new gear and totally turning people off with endless unrewarding grinding, and I’d say we are already on the wrong side of that line.

6 Likes
#17

My honest opinion is you need to nerf auto bear to do like half the dmg (as an example) of iron bear and after that you can adjust iron bears dmg a little bit down. just a little bit.

The problem that everyone sees is something like: OMG auto bear soloing stuff,
also think of it: if you dont sit in ironbear you can fire your weapons which probably do still a ton of dmg right now. which they should do so dont nerf the current weapons too much.
As you know Iron Bear REPLACES your Vault Hunter.
so you want to make it as powerful as the Vault Hunter but you want to prevent a situation where
Auto Bear + Vault Hunter > Iron Bear.
the perfect balance you wanna achieve is a
1 : 1
Moze + Auto Bear : Iron Bear

the only way you can achieve this is nerf auto bear to do a percentage of iron bear.
Otherwise you will always end up with the same problem you deal more dmg with Auto Bear + Vault Hunter and have 0 reason to use Iron Bear.

3 Likes
#18

It would be bad design tho
“You not inside so the nuke is hitting less hard”
You are not inside so the aiming is worse, the attack rate is lower by nature, he cant walk, he doesn’t shoot what threatens him or moze, he shoots what he wants to
The only thing I would change would be like the cool down refund on auto bear
Rocketeer is a full dedication to that
But the in-out-in-out-in-out ASE spam doesn’t really look intended
(Still people used it because it was BiS)

#19

It wouldnt be bad design
right now its bad design
the logic behind the system just makes no sense
as long as you treat autobear and iron bear the same you cant change anything
any possible change dosent change this fact.
it always favours 1 playstyle of using autobear as additional dmg
so you can shoot at the same time.
if you dont change it you just talk around the core problem complicate everything and cause even more balancing issues for the poor programmers that now need to fix additional problems like too much annointments. or whatever may be the result of talking around the actual problem instead of fixing it once and for all.

#20

Auto bear is probably my main issue with Iron Bear at the moment. I can get out of IB and literally do nothing and Auto Bear kills everything for me and this is on M10. Probably shouldn’t be this way as it makes things pretty effortless even in the end game content.

I do like how strong Iron Bear is right now though. I can instagib most things anyways with a variety of different guns so it makes sense that IB can too.

2 Likes
#21

Well you can say the same about Amaras guardian angel skill. Not that it’s easy for mobs do down her in the first place given all the invulnerability / reg / dmg reduction stuff she has access to. Also if IB blows up you’re instantly in FFYL.