[Feedback] Aurelia: Thoughts after finishing the game?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Lady Hammerlock the Baroness
#1

Since we have a thread with first thoughts about Aurelia I figured we need a another one with final thoughts.

Just a few minutes ago I beat the Sentinel in UVHM. It’s pretty much a love-hate relationship between Aurelia and me. This is primarily due to two reasons (keep in mind this is from a singleplayer perspective):

  1. I love how she performs in general gameplay, the extreme change of pace compared to the other vault hunters - in a positive way -, more strategically, less face-roll, heavy sniper action and “reliance” on my favourite element - ice/cryo. She’s efficient at killing multiple weak enemies one after another in quick succession. Less butt-stomping is a good thing, as well as the need of a lot more concentration than necessary for most of the other VH’s. There are other VH’s which kill enemies quicker with less effort, but who cares? It’s all about the fun and headshotting multiple enemies in a row is very satisfying!
    But…

  2. I hate how she perform vs. most bosses. Even with crappy gear and sub-optimal builds on the other VH’s UVHM’s bosses weren’t that big of deal. But Aurelia is different in a negative way. Some bosses are tough but doable because there’s a “margin” to adapt your tactics while fighting. But there are a lot - more than I prefer - bosses which gave me headaches since just a little mistake is lethal. And that’s with all the defensive end-game gear I farmed for and with my other characters. Sometimes I engaged an enemy just to try it again 5-10 seconds later (because I died that fast). Respawning 20 times (sometimes even more) and running back to a vending machine to fill up your ammo (including grenades) - in case you haven’t run out of money - isn’t fun. It’s totally frustrating. That’s also the reason why I think I need a break from Aurelia. I’d love to have the amount and kind of fun I had in general gameplay vs. generic enemies - but it doesn’t seem possible, at least not the way I’d like to play her. My thought is: why focus on sniper rifles and give the character a lot of skills which revolve around snipers if there are way better options even without skills that boost that kind of weapon?
    She has a lot of defensive potential. The same potential offers offensive bossts but that doesn’t work out if enemies don’t care for your defense. You can’t end a fight if you’re damage is high but not high enough to kill the enemy before he kills you.

Closing Word

I assume she’s a blast in coop and I’m a little sad that her third tree is nearly useless without a buddy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love her but I’ll avoid boss fights like the plague in the future, at least if I don’t find a setup which is fun and efficient and less frustrating vs. bosses. I assume I’m that frustrated because I had high expectations, way too high. But that’s my fault.

And now I’m anxious to read your thoughts, opinion, ideas or whatever you’ll call it. Maybe I find incitement to get back to Aurelia sooner. Cheers!

#2

I’ll copy & paste a conversation I had on the old forums. I think you might get an idea out of it:

enViable: I am now level 50 and trying to solo the raid boss Sentinel and I am already stuck with the first phase although I think that Empyrean Sentinel wont be that of a problem… impossible with cryo-only build in my opinion.

Using my 50 Shock Rosie it just takes ages to get rid off his shield… Dunno what I am doing wrong. Not speaking of the fact that he oneshots me everytime I am getting in his near…

ACNAero: I am going to be serious and say that the Rosie is your problem. The Rosie, in my opinion, is not that good of a weapon without a dedicated build. And it appears to me that Aurelia does not have a good way to make a Rosie build. I would suggest that you use some imagination instead of relying on an overused weapon. Play around with other guns, try out a Jakobs build, or try an SMG build. Experiment, think outside of the box.

enViable: no **** mate? Using a Rosie means I am not using my imagination? It is still one of the best options to get rid of shields. And by the way, I didn’t want to focus on the Rosie but the lack of survivability. By mentioning the Rosie I just wanted to emphasize her problem. That’s all.

Aurelia focuses on Cryo, Snipers and Co-op. Cryo is useless against bosses’ shields. So I guess, it will stay tough to beat bosses with Solo-Aurelia.

ACNAero: If you go off forum to reddit or youtube and ask what weapons were worth using end game, or what weapons to base a build around, I’m sure most will tell you to use a Rosie, and nothing else. When I say it’s overused, I really mean I think it is overused.

Also, about half of the co-op tree contains skills that work solo. Two of them can help you with a relatively more generalist build. “Quality Not Quantity” will increase the damage and fire rate of weapons that are blue or higher rarity, and “Next to Cleanliness” improves the damage done by Shock, Cryo, and Non-Elemental. I’m sure you can figure something out to fight the Raid with.

P.S. I hope none of this comes across as condescending.

enViable: Your first one did so.

I did not say that the Rosie isn’t overused. I know that and I didn’t put it into question. What I wanted to say is, EVEN with the Rosie it seems pretty difficult to challenge raid bosses.

Haven’t really looked into the co-op tree yet because I was fascinated by the cryo buffs, which honestly aren’t worth it when it comes to shields and tougher enemies. It seems like flesh or the “normal” health is eaten up veryvery quickly by cryo-damage. Do you think Piercing Rounds Moonshine could be an approach, if I stick to full-cryo-build? It’s just theoretical because I want to know what you can reach with a full-cryo build. But thank you for the tips within the Co-Op tree.

#3

The only boss I really had trouble with was UVHM Bosun, but overall Aurelia definitely requires a different type of strategy as opposed to playing with any of the previous characters.

#4

I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me. Is that a suggestion to not only focus on cryo? If so, I use pretty much all elements on her. And there are just five skills in her third tree which work in SP, I’d have to spend four points in skills which only work with a coop partner (they’re wasted) and only two of the five skills would slightly improve the performance of my char vs. bosses.
No offense.

#5

Funny, Bosun was IMO one of the easiest boss fights for me. :smile:
What’s your setup?

#6

I somewhat ran into similar issues with my comrade jack build. Focusing on mainly cryo and crits it great but then I ran into the sentinels’ first phase where there is no crit spot. I was able to do it because of Jacks survival skills but it was a long fight.

The other fights were not so bad with him though. So ill see how she turns out. But yeah just strapping on a Rosie and thinking that solves it is usually a very bad idea.

1 Like
#7

Why is everyone talking about the Rosie? :smile:

#8

I just thought you might gain some ideas from that conversation. If not, then sorry for wasting space.

#9

Because of @ACNAeros post. I’m working on a fun gearset but I’m still early in the game with her so we will see.

#10

Actually I experimented with all kinds of gear and elements, switched skills, etc. pp. But nothing solved the issue of dying way too fast. The damage wasn’t the issue, the survivability was and spending over an hour just to hit and run until a boss is tired isn’t fun.
I appreciate you’re trying to help me but I’m not sure what I could do to improve my char because I tried all what you suggested to enViable. Have you beat the game? If so, how did you managed the bosses and how challenging was it?

#11

Ah, I see. How about a little teaser of your approach?

#12

No, she’s still at level ten. I’ve been busy the past few days, on top of the fact that I’m slow at leveling characters. I just think (emphasis on think) I’m good at theoretical builds. Apologies if I’m talking out of my ass.

#13

Usually the same goes for me but I fell in love with her when I started to play her. I haven’t had much sleep the past few days. The build I created right before her release worked out great and with the gear from my other chars it was fairly easy to progress.

No need to apologize. “Never apologize for something you did with good intentions.” You tried to help me.
Generally the builds I create in theory work great - more for general gameplay, less for bosses because I love killing masses of enemies and not single tough ones. However, I never had as much issues vs. bosses with these builds - until I played Aurelia.

#14

I’m feeling you, DankRafft, and having the same experience right now in UVHM vs. Zarpedon (I’m level 53). But, instead of "respawning 20 times … " I’m dashboarding out, switching things around, and trying again! (Had to stop, will try again later.) Maybe a com I found with health regen will be the next thing 'cause I don’t get very far before FFYL.

For general mobbing I was relying a lot on “Frigid Touch” – "Killing an enemy converts … cryo damage … to healing … " But, in the raids, there aren’t enough minions around to kill for healing.

So while I haven’t finished, wanted to chime in with my experience, which is very simiar to yours (e.g., using the best-of-the-best gear my five other characters found in their playthroughs).

#15

The biggest problem I have with her in Boss fights is Avalanche. Whilst the skill is great for general mobbing and boosts Cryo damage esp with a Com that boosts it above 5 points, you can’t keep the stacks up against a single enemy that takes a while to kill. Therefore, you lose a lot of your potential cryo damage.

The healing is also a bit of an issue as CDR said.

#16

Still in normal mode soo a lot will change but I’m thinking of a pure Jakobs co-op build since I mostly play co-op.

1 Like
#17

Try her melee overide during her action skill, it does a massive amount of damage off frozen. I also have had a few tough spots with bosses, but then again I came from playing nisha and she requires no thought when killing things in my opinion.

#18

Lucky dog! You probably play with all the ‘stars’ on the forum, too.

#19

Her co-op tree is a lot of fun ands its Nic to play with good people rather than the randos I used to play with on Xbox.

#20

Now I want to play coop again, too. :scream_cat: