This is a port from the Helsabot’s “Idiot’s guide to Gibbed items”, originally posted in the old GBX Forums.
Link to the original post: http://oldforums.gearboxsoftware.com/oldforums/20150309031846/http://oldforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=249847
DISCLAIMER: This is a GUIDE to modded items, I do not endorse the use of save editors unless it is in your own save game and you know what you’re doing. The use of modded weapons infringes the Terms of Service of both PlayStation Network and XBOX Live Arcade and can result in a PERMANENT ban of both your console and account. You don’t want that to happen, right?. Some weapon images were made with Gibbed with informative purposes.
Images uploaded to a new server (imgur)
To do list: more info on modded shields, class mods and eridian relics.
UPDATE, April 9th 2017: Looking for community patch stuff?, head this way Unofficial Community Patch Thread
This is a guide about gibbed/modded/altered weapons and items for people unfamiliar with them, that also acts as a channel for all your questions related to the topic!
You can personally decide whether the idiot mentioned in the title is the reader or the poster. (But keep the answer to yourself.)
I made this thread upon a request, and jumped on it immediately since a large portion of the community seems either misinformed or uneducated in the matter.
I will update it from here whenever necessary.
Having said that, no need to post any of the more common info - chances are I’m about to cover it already, so you won’t get any credit
Anything that is in great detail or hardly known is always welcome below or by PM though!
I can’t stress enough that this thread is still a work in the progress.
This thread covers:
Weapons with removed parts.
Weapons with removed sights.
Weapons with dual bonuses.
Weapons with wrong attachment.
Grenades completely without a fuse.
Grenades with dual bonuses.
Legitimately unobtainable combinations of parts.
Legitimately unobtainable skins.
Legitimately unobtainable NPC/test weapons.
Keep in mind that there is no “Level” of modding. It either IS modded, or IS NOT, which is what this thread is for. I understand there is a gap between removing the sight from your Maggie, and using a Slag Infinity, but regardless of what you tell yourself, you are still using modded weapons.
Now let’s talk about recognizing said items.
There’s a few giveaways, the most obvious being that anything “Black-rarity” is hacked, period. The Black color is due to a rarity not being specified, since rarity determines the color of the weapon.
(It can also be caused by having the “special” part of an additional gun placed in a location it’s not supposed to (e.g. second legendary barrel in the accessory slot).
Something about “Legendary part + Legendary part in the wrong place” makes the game color the weapon as black.)
Weapons literally cannot spawn without this field filled in, and in fact if you try to log out with a Black weapon anywhere but in the bank the game will delete it, due to error checking. (You can see how the above linked weapon acts in game Here & Here.)
(Also, a Black Item in world)
A modder can force the “None” code to be used on gun parts other than sights; e.g. if used on the barrel, the barrel of the gun will not exist. If used on Norfleet’s element, the game will try its best to compute this nonsensical code so it will substitute it with explosive damage instead.
And with guns losing a bit of their base damage to deal elemental damage, modders like to make things like that because then you will have a RL which you can use on anything and that has a higher base damage.
Changing the sight would make the gun “Constructed”. Removing it makes it modded.
Since removing the sight also removes the movement speed penalty of ADS, yes, you are gaining advantage through illegitimate means. That makes it a modded weapon, regardless of how severe it is.
Guns with weird colours (Abnormally white) are just guns with no “Material” assigned. In other words, the modder used the “None” code where the code for “Material” should be.
Beyond that, mostly it’s just remembering the rules that each weapon manufacturer keeps to:
-
Jakobs guns never have an element, except for three uniques (Stinkpot, Greed, and Twister)
(There are only four elements and explosive isn’t one of them.) -
The only weapons which are explosive are Rocket Launchers, Rocket- and Grenade-styled Assault Rifles, the Cobra, and Torgue-brand weapons.
-
All Torgue weapons are explosive. They do not come in any element. (Explosive is no longer an element, despite what Jack says)
-
Maliwan weapons always have an element. The only Non-elemental Maliwan is the E-GUN laser from BLTPS. And it’s the only one in all BL Series.
-
All Moxxi weapons (anything with her name or logo physically on the gun) are elemental, except for the Creamer (an explosive Torgue rocket launcher).
-
All E-Techs spawn with an element, excepting the Tediore Omen shotgun [DLC4], the Maliwan Florentine SMG (deals both slag and shock) [DLC4] and some variants of Hyperion Darts and/or Spikers [vainilla game].
-
The “Harpoon” from DLC3 (or a Boom that shoots harpoons) and the ERROR MESSAGE ERROR MESSAGE from DLC1 are both behind-the-scenes weapons that are never meant to actually be seen or used by the player. All offered on trades are obtained in a non legit way.
-The only E-Tech that Torgue manufactures is the SWORDSPLOSION!! from DLC4 [TTAoDK]
Worth noting;
Weapons with a rarity of Purple or higher have to have an accessory, so any Legendary that doesn’t have a prefix is modded. (Rapid Infinity being the exception to the rule)
Weapons without manufacturer are modded. (The Infinity being one of the only weapons where that would work. On weapons, brand determines reload animation. No brand (or a brand that doesn’t make that gun), no reload animation. But since the Infinity never reloads…)
And speaking of the devil; Slag Infinities are modded.
That Cobra you just got in a trade? They have dropped, but only a few though. Since the chance was raised, they are more common to see, but still a rarity.
Blast Proof shields cap lower than the equivalent elemental immunity ones; e.g. (Lv50) Blast Proof The Bee at +42225 AMP, elemental immunity ones at +46678, making ones without reduced stats modded.
The shield simply called Blast proof is also modded.
All it is is a Fabled Tortoise without the “Accessory” slot filled in. Apparently the capacity boost is part of the shield’s rarity, but the slow effect is not.
Funnily enough, a similar exploit with the Hoplite does not exist. All that happens is you get a shield with no body that STILL slows you down + raises the capacity for how many people are wearing it (including you).
Then there is also the impossible combinations of traits and parts.
Sometimes they even have the wrong manufacturer.
Keep in mind that on shields, the manufacturer is a completely irrelevant setting. It doesn’t grant any bonuses and the game doesn’t error check it.
Here is an example of a gun with the elemental part removed: There is no physical piece visually missing. The Elemental Capacitor is sometimes really obvious like for sniper rifles and ARs. For most guns, it’s just some fancy glowing colours like a corrosive Norfleet will glow green in some places.
Gun with the sight removed:
Grenade with the fuse removed:
Grenade with dual bonus (notice the red text from the Fire Bee and the Rolling Thunder)
Gun with dual bonus: (Slagga/Infinity)
Gun with mismatched prefix and attachment, the correct prefix for Maliwan bladed weapons is Evisceration:
Example of a skin not obtainable in the game by normal means: (There are 4 for each character: Emerald Hornet Set, Empress Set & the GBX Skins.)
A non-elemental Maliwan SMG. Sure enough, the prefix on it is “Technetronic”
Works and fires like a normal SMG, survives relog [patch v1.6.0] too. Of course why you’d want a “plain bullets” Maliwan SMG is beyond me.
Now, here’s another common hack done to Maliwan weapons: removing the element to produce an explosive effect.
This too will survive relog. Note the “deals bonus elemental damage”, despite there not being an element. Oh yes, and it IS explosive, despite the lack of an explosive icon.
And then you have the ones where error checking KIND OF catches it.
Here’s a Maliwan SMG with the Pimpernel’s special barrel bolted onto it. The game can’t render a sniper barrel correctly on an SMG, so it winds up looking like this:
Quite obviously missing the main barrel portion of the weapon. It will still fire though, and yes it does produce the Pimpernel bomblet scatter with each shot. Also note the “purple rarity weapon with red text”. Yet another way it gives away that its hacked.
Like I said though, error checking will KIND OF catch this weapon. It won’t delete it completely, but it will remove the invalid parts on relog, so you’re left with this:
That’s right, it’s so Impetuous it doesn’t need anything else. Just Impetuousness. Quite obviously broken.
Not all partial error checked weapons are this obvious. Some are missing parts which don’t alter the name. Still reasonably easy to spot though.
There is also guns/items that appear just as their in game loot/drop counterparts, but are actually created by someone.
In this scenario there is very few options, sometimes none, to tell.
Info list on Sights & Sight_None
“GD_Weap_Pistol.Sight.Pistol_Sight_None” is the code that tells the game “put iron sights here”.
“None” is the code that tells the game “Gun part for this does not exist. ERROR ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE”. Only the Greed & Interfacer can naturally spawn with this for their sights.
This is also why forcibly removing sights via modding will produce the same ADS speed effect on the modded gun that only comes with them.
If that confused you;
“Sight_None” means iron sights.
“None” means that a gun part does not exist there.
Seraph gear will ALWAYS have a sight. *Interfacer will never spawn with a sight.
Rocket Launchers will ALWAYS have a sight.
Sniper Rifles will ALWAYS have a scope. (with the Buffalo/Elephant/Longbow being the only exceptions)
All White, Green, and Blue quality items can spawn with Sight_None.
All Purple quality items will always have a sight.*
All E-Tech will spawn with a sight.
All Legendary items will ALWAYS have a sight.
All Pearlescent items will ALWAYS have a sight.
All Seraph items will ALWAYS have a sight
*Maliwan SMGs were subject to a bug: anytime the game tries to generate (or even to process) a Blue Maliwan SMG, it’s rarity automatically gets bumped up to Purple. It didn’t change the parts; it just upgraded the rarity. Since Blue weapons can spawn without a Sight, Purple Maliwan SMGs can have no sight. It’s the only exception to the rule, though, and as I said: it was a bug. In fact, the only Blue Maliwan SMG in the game was Chulainn, but got patched [patch v1.7.0]
Another fun fact: The Good Touch and Bad Touch are listed as Rarity 3 (Blue) if you check, but still highlight as purple. Bizarre eh?
Question: does upgrading the rarity also upgrade the damage, or does the weapon still have the damage of a blue SMG?
A: The answer is, yes, they do get a damage bump. Here’s two otherwise-identical Maliwan SMGs: Blue / Purple.
You’ll note that the stats are identical, although the look is not. This is because when the game bumps the Maliwan SMG’s stats up to purple it doesn’t change the weapon’s skin to match.
Also of note is the fact that while the stats are identical, the part lists are not. Blue Maliwan SMGs can spawn with no sight and no accessory, whereas Purple Maliwan SMGs must have a sight and an accessory.
The fact that the material hasn’t changed makes it easy to tell which weapon is an Attempted Blue and which one is a Purple. This is important for determining legitimacy of a purple SMG; the fact that a purple has no sight and no accessory could lead people to dismiss it as modded, when in fact it’s just an Attempted Blue.
Look for the large diagonal stripe in front of the magazine; On an Attempted Blue, this stripe is blue, and on a Purple, the stripe is white.
This also means that the Good Touch and Bad Touch are actually ending up stronger than they were supposed to. (and just for fun I’ve linked what all maliwan damage prefix good and bad touch should be like - images by lcbelgarath.)
Uniques that always have sights:
Dahlminator
Slow Hand
Teapot
Shotgun 1340(Torgue, Hyperion, Jakobs only)
Uniques that have the option to spawn with Sight_None:
Shotguns:
Jolly Roger
Roksalt
Teeth of Terramorphous
Heartbreaker(Always spawns as Sight_None)
Orphan Maker
Tidal Wave
Triquetra
Blockhead
Octo
Landscapper
Assault Rifles:
Scorpio
Stomper
Stinkpot
BoomPuppy
Evil Smasher
Hail(Torgue/Vladof/None sight only)
Kitten
Rapier(Torgue/Vladof/None sight only)
Submachine guns:
Bone Shredder
Good Touch/Bad Touch
Lascaux
Sandhawk
Bane
Commerce
Chulainn
Pistols:
Tinderbox
Gwen’s Head
Fibber
Lady Fist
Judge
Law
Greed(*Spawns without any sight.)
LittleEvie
Rubi
Pocket Rocket
Veritas
Grenade Element Rules:
Generic Grenades
All “Area of Effect” grenades only come in Incendiary, Corrosive, and Shock.
Mirv can spawn in every element.
Singularity can spawn in every element.
Transfusion can spawn in every element.
All Elements Uniques
Fuster Cluck, only spawns with “Lob” delivery.
Bouncing Bonny.
Nasty Surprise, can only spawn with “Nasty Surprise” delivery
Crossfire, cannot spawn with “Homing Sticky, Lobbed Sticky, and Longbow Sticky”
O-Negative
Specific Element Grenades
Rolling Thunder - Explosive Only, only spawns with “Rolling Thunder” delivery
Meteor Shower - Explosive Only
Bonus Package - Explosive Only
Sky Rocket - Incendiary Only, only spawns with “Sky Rocket” delivery
Fire Bee - Incendiary Only, cannot spawn with “Homing Sticky, Lobbed Sticky, and Longbow Sticky”
Pandemic - Corrosive Only, cannot spawn with “Homing Sticky, Lobbed Sticky, and Longbow Sticky”
Stormfront - Shock Only, cannot spawn with “Homing Sticky, Lobbed Sticky, and Longbow Sticky”
Quasar - Shock Only
Kiss of Death - Spawns in every element except Slag, can only spawn with Homing Sticky delivery
Fastball - Spawns in every element except Slag, can only spawn with “Fastball” delivery
Leech - Only Spawns in Corrosive, Inciendary, and Shock
Contributors:
Blut Fatal - Made me do this.
Bahroo - Info list on Sights & Sight_None + Grenade Ele-lists.
yukichigai - Half of the pictures, some of the text.
Loot Turtle - Impossible Gun Prefixes Guide.
swk3000 - Worded (and went in-depth on) the Maliwan color rarity bug.
All of the people mentioned above have also actively posted in this thread with great insight.
2013/03/02 - added majority of the stuff posted to the thread.
2013/03/27 - Cleaned up the thread and lists for an easier reading experience.
2013/04/09 - Thread is up to date, including everything discussed so far (and pearls).
2015/08/26 - Thread updated and ported to the new forum by xmngr