Gaming deep(er) thinkery
Been replaying some Borderlands and Borderlands 2 lately and having a few deeper than usual gaming thoughts along the way. While I have never been one to delve deeper into games than I needed to or think more about them than what I need to do next to achieve my latest goal, I've been having just that of late. Current topic to occupy my mind and make me want to talk a little about my thoughts regarding it has been Action Skills.
You see, in both BL1 and BL2, one of the special effects of the game is the character's individual action skill. it helps set them apart from just, person who shoots gun and makes silly and/or witty comments when you score cool criticals and stuff. Since each character has a different action skills (aside from Roland and Axton who are really just the same guy in different skins when it comes to this aspect of the game), how you use them is different. How I end up using them is what lead me to this chain of thoughts.
In BL1, I've only ever played Lilith. In BL2, I've played Zero, Salvador, and Gaige. I started with Zero and in all the time I played him, while still new to the Borderlands world, I never could get the hang of just what I was supposed to do with his action skill. It didn't seem all that helpful or useful at all. In ways, it still doesn't. This told me that perhaps, as a character to play, Zero might not be the one for me.
While having different action skills, Lilith her phase walking and Gaige her robot, how I use those skills are remarkably similar. For both characters, their action skill is a OMG, this isn't going well, save me/get me the hell out of here. I use Lilith's to escape. health is low, mobs are beating me up and/or too many, so I hit the action skill, run, hide, regroup, and try again. Gaige's action skill, while still used to save my bacon, is a little more involved than that though.
I use Deathtrap for both OMG, this is bad, and for crowd control. There are too many here, get em bot. Or Occupy these while I focus on the main danger myself. Yep, Deathtrap is a real friend and players of Gaige wouldn't have it any other way. But these 3 all have one thing in common; I use their action skills as a secondary reaction to how I'm playing the game. This is not true for Salvador, the Gunzerker.
To truly play Salvador right, the goal is not to use your action skill when you desperately need it, but to arrange it so that those times you're not using it are the exception. I found a build that works very well where your time spent out of Gunzerking mode is where you're actually trying to stay alive. The moment your action skill comes back up, you reactivate it, heal up super fast, kill like there's no tomorrow, and be practically invincible while doing it.
As a result, you want to always to be Gunzerking. not Gunzerking is not only boring, but a waste of your abilities. And oh how fun it is. Couple that with 2 super awesome bandit weapons that have ammo for days and the fun never ends (until your Gunzerking runs out at least).
So, yeah, that's my random thoughts on BL action skills. I realize I know next to nothing about Mordecai's, Brick's, Roland/Axton's, or Maya's and I don't own Krieg, so no psycho for me.
You see, in both BL1 and BL2, one of the special effects of the game is the character's individual action skill. it helps set them apart from just, person who shoots gun and makes silly and/or witty comments when you score cool criticals and stuff. Since each character has a different action skills (aside from Roland and Axton who are really just the same guy in different skins when it comes to this aspect of the game), how you use them is different. How I end up using them is what lead me to this chain of thoughts.
In BL1, I've only ever played Lilith. In BL2, I've played Zero, Salvador, and Gaige. I started with Zero and in all the time I played him, while still new to the Borderlands world, I never could get the hang of just what I was supposed to do with his action skill. It didn't seem all that helpful or useful at all. In ways, it still doesn't. This told me that perhaps, as a character to play, Zero might not be the one for me.
While having different action skills, Lilith her phase walking and Gaige her robot, how I use those skills are remarkably similar. For both characters, their action skill is a OMG, this isn't going well, save me/get me the hell out of here. I use Lilith's to escape. health is low, mobs are beating me up and/or too many, so I hit the action skill, run, hide, regroup, and try again. Gaige's action skill, while still used to save my bacon, is a little more involved than that though.
I use Deathtrap for both OMG, this is bad, and for crowd control. There are too many here, get em bot. Or Occupy these while I focus on the main danger myself. Yep, Deathtrap is a real friend and players of Gaige wouldn't have it any other way. But these 3 all have one thing in common; I use their action skills as a secondary reaction to how I'm playing the game. This is not true for Salvador, the Gunzerker.
To truly play Salvador right, the goal is not to use your action skill when you desperately need it, but to arrange it so that those times you're not using it are the exception. I found a build that works very well where your time spent out of Gunzerking mode is where you're actually trying to stay alive. The moment your action skill comes back up, you reactivate it, heal up super fast, kill like there's no tomorrow, and be practically invincible while doing it.
As a result, you want to always to be Gunzerking. not Gunzerking is not only boring, but a waste of your abilities. And oh how fun it is. Couple that with 2 super awesome bandit weapons that have ammo for days and the fun never ends (until your Gunzerking runs out at least).
So, yeah, that's my random thoughts on BL action skills. I realize I know next to nothing about Mordecai's, Brick's, Roland/Axton's, or Maya's and I don't own Krieg, so no psycho for me.