[Dominance Rework] P4CK Alpha

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

P4CK Alpha / ST4MPEDE
Using Attack Command summons your remaining 3 Pets to fight alongside Fl4k for a short duration. Immediately using their Command Skill aswell.

Duration: ~15 seconds
CD: ~30 seconds

Explanation:

  • when you use your Attack Command and you have your good boi skagboi with you, you’ll also summon the Spiderant, a Jabber and your new loader friend.
  • They will spawn in a randomly selected upgrade, using their command skill aswell.
  • after that they will stay and fight at your side for several seconds (should be at least 10 seconds)
  • All buffs granted by his pets WILL be granted by them for as long as they are present
  • they will all gain a copy of your shield (with the new purple middle cap stone)
  • basically every pet will be treated exactly like if it were your pet right now.

I still hope for a true Pet only playstyle, the purple tree might be a good step in the right direction, but the real problem still lies within the blue tree. This will be a huge first step to really make the gameplay feel more like a beastmaster.

I just want this in the game, as it is basically “promised” by their own trailer:

17 Likes
#2

I would love this honestly. Gives incentive to use AC as well.

4 Likes
#3

Cool idea that’ll most likely never happen.

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#4

That trailer was the reason I started the game with Fl4k, a Beastmaster, but in reality Fl4k is Zer0 2.0

Back on topic, I like the idea, plus having all of the pet buffs active makes it competitive damage wise against TPI and Megavore. I feel that the cooldown could be shorter (or maybe tied to your attack command cooldown), but still, I like it.

6 Likes
#5

thats exactly the reason why I think it is important. :slight_smile:

in that case it would be active all the time, which I personally wont have a problem with, but at the same time it would take away the feeling of summoning them as a cool and unique bonus.
right now with my suggestion it already has a 50% uptime if you really want it.

with a shorter cooldown, the duration must be shorter too, which I dont quite like, as pets are still slow and need to walk around, making at least 5 seconds out of the 15 walking anyway.
with lets say, 10 second duratio nand 20 seconds cooldown, the uptime will be the same, but 50% of the uptime will be walking animations, and the fun will be over quicker… so I rather have a larger effect tied to a “larger” cooldown. thats my thoughts anyway.

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#6

Linking that old trailer definitely helped sell me on the idea. Though I hate Dominance so my desire to get rid of it certainly doesn’t hurt…

I wouldn’t mind if the additional pets didn’t use their attack command ability when they were called in. It’s still just too buggy for me, my pets get confused all the time and just stand there doing nothing when I use it. That’d be my only possible knock to your suggestion, otherwise I think it’d be great.

2 Likes
#7

ofcourse everything can be subject to change, I just tried to make it somewhat competetive to the other capstones. but ofcourse just summoning them could be fine also, what ever can be programmed to work.

#8

Ah, I see what you mean, yeah, I said that because with TPI you can have it always on if you use your AS before it ends. And Megavore is always on.

Still, it’s a really cool idea. I hope they implement it.

1 Like
#9

Another great suggestion that could replace dominance. They’ll just throw it on the pile with the other hundred or so ideas that have been posted… really wish we could see this in game but I won’t hold out any hope. Still just a cool idea anyway nice work

6 Likes
#10

the only issue I can think of to why it isn’t in the game is performance… Maybe gearbox is afraid of lag for having to many entities on the screen at once. especially in multiplayer games.

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#11

And Zero was Mordecai 2.0, and Fl4k has more gameplay options than both of them combined, so… theres that.

#12

Not really. Zero had a much more fleshed out melee focus, Bloodwing was a completely different action skill than Deception, and had a much higher focus on big burst damage than Mord.

They were the same general archetype (ranger/assassin) but they still played very differently. And the pet was a huge part of that, the feeling a hologram gives is not the same as a friendly AI even if they both provide distraction.

#13

Eh, I disagree. I just see a progression in a “Hunter” style character. Naturally as the series progressed, AS, regular skills and etc grew and got better but its still a pretty straightforward progression.

Rakks are Bloodwing, Fade Away is Deception. Mord and Zero could have melee focused builds (Zero’s was more fleshed out…theres progression) I mean, I could go on. It’s all there in the skill trees and COMS though.

Fl4k can be a sniper, gunslinger, ninja (SHOTGUN NINJA!!!) and now a beast master (progression of character type) He even has melee builds people are using. He’s a combo of the the first two and more.

2 Likes
#14

I agree Fl4k is just a mishmash of zero and mordeci. I blame the multiple action skills for the lack of beastmaster depth they have if they just had the 1 maybe gamma burst and focused primarily on that it probably would have created an all around better beastmaster but c’est la vie.

#15

Not really. Not at all.

Bloodwing and Wolf may not have been able to kill bosses, but DT and Digi Jacks could on their own. For the amount of skills it takes to completely maximize FL4K’s pets, them not even contributing 25% of FL4K’s DPS vs single targets is hardly a pet build, especially when you need to use a class mod just to get them to taunt, which is something every other pet did naturally.

FL4K is a complete regression for Borderlands pet classes in just about every way.

4 Likes
#16

Well if you wanted the game to play like BL2 or TPS, then that explains everything. Its not BL2 or TPS. Just like BL2 was much different than BL1 in many ways.

I’d also wager your complaint centers more around viable pet builds doing the hardest content at the highest difficulty. THose things have always required specialized builds. So, in that vein, I’d agree that Red F4ng is probably the only viable pet build. But, 2 things:

  1. Its still a pet build and very Beast Master, so…theres that.
  2. Outside of the hardest content on the highest difficulties, there a metric f@ck ton of builds that you could use. Pets or otherwise.

Also, comparing them to Digi Jack and DT makes no sense to me, as Fl4k is not the natural progression of those characters. His AS is not a pet. He has a pet that follows him. So, naturally his pets will function differently than an all out action skill.

In any case, thats all I got to say. I think you just need more patience and more imagination. You’ll figure it out.

1 Like
#17

Yes, because pets with FL4K’s level of investment (mostly with much less) have been able to do the hardest content easily. That FL4K’s pets can’t with double the pet damage most other abilities got, an action skill, several class mods, and an anointment is objectively a regression.

What about it is a pet build? The pet existing doesn’t make it a pet build.

Gaige builds where DT was a distraction weren’t considered pet builds. Wilhelm builds that just took Laser Guided weren’t considered pet builds. Digi-death builds weren’t considered pet builds in the same way digi-life builds were. What about Red Fang makes it a pet build? Your pet gets shot, you get buffed, it does little to no damage on the big enemies…that sounds like a turret.

Dude, Slaughter Shaft is still immensely difficult for pets. That hasn’t been the hardest content since last year. If pet builds were seemingly all the rage, why is it that there is barely anybody who is seriously exploring them? The dozen or so of us who do are pretty much in lock step agreement that they need serious work and that FL4K is terrible as a pet class.

See Gamma Burst AKA Promote the Ranks but nerfed to hell because it doesn’t actually increase the pet’s damage at base.

Patience - It’s been nearly a year and we don’t even have all of FL4K’s hunt skill scaling pet damage. The time for patience ended a while ago.

Creativity - [Build] Killer Queen - M10 Billion Damage Pet
It’s not like I’m some random mook coming out of the woodwork to bitch. Pet FL4K has literally been the only thing I’ve played with for the entirety of the game. I won’t say I know everything, but I will say with confidence that I know 99% of everything there is to know about pets. And with this being the last level cap added, there are no new tricks to learn. The level of performance the pets are at now is pretty much where they’ll stay. And even with all the points we have and tricks we’ve learned, I can’t even get my Jabber pet to one AC Traunt with 150% amp from Execute, and considering he’s a story boss in an early area of the game that is easily destroyed by dozens of other builds, I think that says a lot.

Just because this game is different doesn’t mean we should accept regression. Gamma/ Fang FL4K doesn’t do anything Axton’s turret couldn’t, and nothing the pets do is special compared to any other pet. FL4K is a fine class, but a terrible pet class.

3 Likes
#18

I guess. Just seems you’re upset that you can’t have it the way you want, so you’re saying its broken.

Like I said earlier, its normal that you can’t use just any old build doing the hardest stuff. And, while Fl4k is a “Beast Master”, again you gotta understand that his Pet is NOT his primary skill or source of damage. Thats because unlike Gaige and her Death Trap, Fl4ks pet is not their action skill. I’ve played Fl4k since day 1 as well, and I NEVER saw my pet as my primary source of damage. They are there to assist. Fl4k is not the same as Gaige or as Timothy. They’re just not. It seems you’re upset about that, but if thats what you want, maybe Moze with her Auto Bear, or the new Mini Bear?

If you use primarily Red and Blue trees you can use Rakk and your Pet. thats two different beasts, and with the right COM (complete with good rolls) you can really have Pets all over the place wreaking havoc. If you want a Death trap, I think you picked the wrong class.

AFAIK the only way you’ll get a pet like a DT is to use Gamma /w Red F4ng which you already poo poo’d, so I don’t know what to tell you.

1 Like
#19

Dare I ask what “any old build” would be in this case? Killer Queen is THE most pet damage focused build in the game, has a 56x multiplier for the pets and utilizes mechanics that I can’t even be sure are intended, and the pet damage is still fairly weak. That isn’t a build issue, that’s a balance issue.

On the action skill point, Gamma Burst is an action skill that exists to buff your pet. During Gamma Burst, your pet is your action skill.

Good for you that you didn’t see things that way, but that doesn’t mean pets weren’t meant to do damage. Even at launch FL4K had 200% pet damage. Another about 200% was added with Mayhem 4.

By getting shot? Because unless you have a taunt skill they don’t do much besides that. No other pet ability needed skills or augments to distract enemies. Their passive bonuses suck with BY, and most of them still do with BY. Aside from Gunslinger, all of the other pets suck at building and maintaining frenzy and need He Bites to stack it somewhat decently. If you have Not My Circus, pets will prioritize doing that long animation over reviving, and Jabbers will prioritize barrels over reviving you.

They aren’t really great assistants compared to what we’ve had before.

FL4K is the beastmaster of BL3, the dedicated pet class. Of the pets are bad, why should the solution be to play another class?

If you think that Red Fang Gamma is like DT, I don’t know what to tell you. Red Fang Gamma can’t even do this

#20

Maybe by Beast Master they meant Fl4k can control and send out lots of different beasts to AID them? Maybe they didn’t intend for you to be able to sit back and let your pet do all of the work?

I just don’t have these problems you are referring to, so at this point it seems like they didn’t do it the way you wanted, so you’re unhappy. I get it. there are things I was unhappy with in BL2 and in this one as well, but I’m not going to say its broken just because Gearbox made different design choices than I would have.

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