Loot train farming results, an ongoing discussion

Borderlands 2 Loot and Weapons
#1

After some discussion in another thread, I decided I’d put some time aside to have fun farming the train. For the sake of clarity and transparency, here are the specifics, so far:

runs: 36
average time (determined using iphone timer): 4 minutes
best time: 3:31, worst time: 4:19
Those times were very easy to meet. In fact, I kept an Infinity in slot 1 and shot every snow pile on the way, without fail, no exceptions. That was a self check to make sure that I wasn’t pushing too hard.
average time at which I engaged the snowman: 1 min, 48 seconds
time to kill averaged less than 40 seconds
I didn’t rush train checks.

the rest of the story:
Siren with this skill build: http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#555011550114053000001554500501
OP6 gear vs OP6 difficulty
Legendary Cat, Bone of the Ancients (Fire)
Banbury Pimpernel (fire)

rewards:
9 legendaries (average of 1 every 4 runs, so 1 every 16 minutes)
multiple etech launchers, 4 plasma casters, 12 eridium per run.

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What did you do in your most recent session, PT2!
#2

I was just going to get this going! Instead, I will post here:

I’m going to post my results in tables, just so it’s easy to form a picture of the drops.

image

A few nice drops, especially the Topneaa and Hellfire…

#3

Those results seem very similar to what I usually get. I might do a few runs of my own tomorrow (I need an incendiary Fastball and a better Quasar, anyway). I’ll post my results here.

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#4

I’ve quietly wondered how the chances for particulars are weighted, if at all. The reason I say this is that I’ve gotten 4 Fastballs, 5 Neogenators (aside: I got a 6th Neogenator from a snow pile on the way to the snowman), and at least 4 Quasars from the loot train over 2 weeks before my current slump kicked in. Those are more heavily represented than other grenade mods, shields, etc in my experiences. I seem to get more difficult to obtain stuff from the train than I do “gimmes”. For example, no Kerblaster, no Harold, no Nukem, no Emperor, no Infinity, etc.

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#5

Did another 10 runs:

image

Nothing good really. This was more like my usual luck. Even the plasma caster was slag :frowning:

OK I better do some work lol

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#6

I have no idea about the actual math or reason behind this, but I’ve always had more luck in getting the legendary class mods, shields and grenade mods than any legendary guns. However, I never noticed any extra weight towards specific items. It still looks pretty random to me. I’ve got multiples of pretty much every legendary class mod, shield and grenade that you can get from the train, and very rarely do I get the same item twice in a row. From my experience, there doesn’t seem to be any weight towards specific items, including guns. My first Infinity and my first Nukem came from the train. I’ve gotten multiple Harolds from it and I got an Emperor just a couple of weeks ago. I got legendaries of every single weapon type in the game from the train.

#7

Another 10 runs down.

image

E-Techs galore. 2 Topneaas isn’t bad.

#8

Interesting note:
6/10 of the legendaries you pulled over 30 runs were COMs, for an average of 1/5 runs.

Your 1 legendary every 3 runs average (so far) isn’t bad at all.

I’ll do more shortly.

#9

Yep, the rate of drops isn’t too bad. However, the types of drops seem to be restricted somewhat to COMs and grenades, as evidenced by the solitary gun so far. OTOH, the rate of Topneaas seems to be great; I doubt that I’d have three Topneaas from 30 TR runs.

As a comparison, though, I feel like the TR or LLMs provide a wider range of legendaries, and access to pearls as well.

I have to ask - do we know if the Loot Train actually spawns pearls at all? I thought it was a variation of the standard red chest, so they would have a chance to drops pearls. I could be wrong though (I often am…).

Regardless, I’m loving this experiment. I’m gonna do the TR after I’ve finished 100 runs here, and then compare the results from the LLM farming (for which we already have a solid data set), Train farming and TR farming. Finally we might be able to answer the question of which is the best loot source with some data to back it up.

#10

Yes, it does. I’ve gotten a lot of pearls from the train. Tunguska, Unforgiven, Avenger and Storm are the ones I remember getting for sure, but there were others.

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#11

Very good news. That means that in theory at least, the train stands a chance of being the ‘best’ source of easy loot.

The experiment continues :smile:

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#12

With the train, whatever you get is guaranteed to be on level. Not so much with the midgets. In my mind, that’s another thing that makes the train a better source for random legendaries and pearls than the midgets. The midgets might have a better chance of dropping actual legendary guns (as opposed to legendary shields, grenades and class mods), but there’s also a pretty high chance of those guns being underleveled.

I’m doing my train runs right now. I’ll come back and post the results once I’m finished.

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#13

10 runs this morning:

7 legendaries. 4 were COMs, 1 shield, 1 gun, 1 grenade.

Averaged about 3 etech weapons per run.

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#14

I bought Marcus’s specifically for the train-farming potential…I have yet to see the payoff; below is the single best item I’ve taken from the train (that includes items I had/have no use for and were taken to be sold) in something like 100 runs or so…

image

…OK, it IS a perfect Skin, so there’s that. I’d expected to see a bit more overall, tho.

#15

I thought those relics only dropped from midgets. Nice find.

#16

Ahh I hadn’t thought of that factor. Yes, the on-level thing is important; another reason I’m a fan of the Treasure Room.

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#17

Class: Commando
Level: 72
Time per run: 3 to 4 min
Total session time: 80 min

1st run: Railer
2nd run: -
3rd run: Legendary Berserker Class Mod + Spiker
4th run: Legendary Soldier Class Mod + Launcher
5th run: Legendary Soldier Class Mod + Maliwan Plasma Caster + Tediore Plasma Caster
6th run: -
7th run: Tunguska
8th run: Legendary Hunter Class Mod
9th run: Legendary Soldier Class Mod
10th run: Legendary Soldier Class Mod
11th run: -
12th run: PBFG
13th run: Fastball
14th run: Spiker
15th run: -
16th run: Topneaa + Spiker + Dart
17th run: Tediore Plasma Caster + Spiker
18th run: -
19th run: -
20th run: PBFG

RESULTS:

1 Pearlescent drop
7 Legendary drops (1 grenade, 6 class mods)
13 E-Tech drops

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#18

Uh… There’s something wrong here. First of all, I don’t think you got that relic from the train. Take a closer look at the background on that picture. If that’s where it dropped, it isn’t the train. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve never found a single relic of the ancients on the train in all of my time farming it, and I’ve farmed that thing for a very long time. Also, you’re either doing something wrong while farming or your game is broken. Even before the legendary drop rate increase hotfix was applied I would never go more than 15 runs without getting something out of the train. After the hotfix I usually get two or three legendaries every ten runs or so, almost guaranteed. Even when you go a while without getting any legendaries or pearls, it still gives very high end gear on a regular basis, so you must have gotten something better than that relic at some point. Most of my perfect purples came from the train. Did I misread your post? You must have found legendaries and pearlescents on the train, even if they weren’t the ones you wanted. You must be the unluckiest vault hunter in all of Pandora if you did over a hundred train runs and still walked away completely empty handed.

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#19

Wow - RNG to the max.

6 ‘dead’ runs, but a Pearl as well. I’ve yet to see a pearl in the train, but I’ve not has as many dead runs either.

Was the Fastball the one you were after?

#20

I’m going to have to cast a bit of side eye at the Etech relic post, as well. nothing about that lines up.

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