Borderlands 2: Wizards of the Coast are talking to their lawyers.

[weirdguy]

the spillover alone on a splashing weapon on a crowd of weak targets transferring to a sniper rifle shot would be catastrophic to the receiving end

[Recyth]

Yep, Steam is handling the servers this time around.

[Catbread]

the spillover alone on a splashing weapon on a crowd of weak targets transferring to a sniper rifle shot would be catastrophic to the receiving end

I do so enjoy the idea of a rocket launcher shot, used to kill one of those kitten-worm things, transferring all its damage into a single pistol round.

Yep, Steam is handling the servers this time around.

YESSSSSSSSSSSS

[The_Codfish]

Gawd, can't wait to play this game. Thinking of playing Axton first, but after seeing Maya's moves, I'm pretty much torn between the two of them.

[WordsHere]

When did I say that was a problem? I just said I didn't recognize it was him right away.
get your panties out of a bunch
Fuck, I change my avatar constantly, and I remember I got "Man, why aren't you 'Kid' from Bastion anymore?"

:< Nobody gets my jokes.

[Catbread]

:< Nobody gets my jokes.

There, there. Sarcasm is hard to hear online.
(Or maybe it's just me.)(Or both.)

Incidentally I highly recommend giving the skill trees on the wiki a look. Some of those talents are... well, here's a sampler.

show spoiler

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Death Bl0ss0m: Action Skill Augment. Throws a handful of Kunai knives. Has a random elemental effect. Does not take character out of Decepti0n. Can be used five times per cooldown. Can apply Death Mark.

Knives everywhere 0h g0d

Like the Wind: +3% Gun and Melee Damage per level when moving.

G0tta g0 fast

Critical Ascenti0n: Scoring a Critical-Hit will apply equal damage to the next consecutive Critical-Hit. (Stackable)

Take the damage from a headshot, then multiply that by, oh, I dunno, pick a number.

Inconceivable: Up to 10% chance per level for shots not to consume ammo depending on how low your health and shields are.

"I'm too light-headed from blood loss to remember that guns consume ammunition"

Sexual Tyrannosaurus: Taking damage gives +0.4% Health Regeneration per level for 5 seconds. This effect does not stack.

um

Come At Me, Bro: While Gunzerking, you can press [Action Skill] to taunt your enemies into attacking you. You instantly heal to Full Health and gain massive damage reduction for a few seconds.

Salvador can dual-wield middle fingers. This causes him to heal to full. I love this game.

Thoughtlock: Phaselock causes enemies to switch allegiance and fight amongst themselves. Additionally, Phaselock's duration and cooldown is increased (3s and 4s respectively).

A skill so powerful, it increases your cooldown.

Res: You can instantly revive a friend in Fight for Your Life by using Phaselock on him/her.

PHOENIX DOWN

Cloud Kill: Shooting an enemy creates a lingering Acid Cloud, which lasts for 5 seconds, dealing constant Corrosive Damage to enemies who touch it. Only one Acid Cloud can be active at a time.

I hope you like acid, everywhere, all the time.

Mag-Lock: Your Sabre Turret can be deployed on walls and ceilings.

"I like what you've done with the place"

Longbow Turret: +10000% Turret Deploy Range, +110% Turret Health.

Could this be considered sniping?

Nuke: Deploying your Sabre Turret sets off a small Nuclear Blast.

Could this be considered sniping with nukes?

Can't wait.

[MobileMammal]

Death Bl0ss0m sounds like a certain mister D. Brando's move. I like.

Also, I can't tell if Sexual Tyrannosaurus is a really good skill, or a really useless one.

[Wesley Foxx]

I know I'm running Maya because healz and because fire and corrosive EVERYWHERE.

Edit: looking over her talents, I'm probably going to pass on all the non-healing stuff until after I grab stuff like her pseudo-Overload (only +20% clip size at 5 points? Bluh. :< Still, +30% reload speed to go along with it.) and Helios (Whats better than healing phaselocks? Healing phaselocks that slags, corrodes, electrocutes and sets on FIRE everything around it.) Then put some points into Movement. (So, phaselocks that heal allies, apply ALL the status effects to enemies, last longer, AND suck them towards it)

[Recyth]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...-Borderlands-2


Yeeeeah. Lots of people will be irritated by this one i imagine.

[MobileMammal]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...-Borderlands-2


Yeeeeah. Lots of people will be irritated by this one i imagine.

Yeah, but Steam users get a good deal, too.

They have it on a platform that won't destroy itself on-purpose and they can use a mouse to aim.

[Recyth]

I got mine from Amazon for like 7 pounds cheaper.

[Wesley Foxx]

Yeah, who really cares about it being cheaper on the xbax, mouse and keyboard is inherently superior control for this sort of game.

[weirdguy]

Death Bl0ss0m sounds like a certain mister D. Brando's move. I like.

Also, I can't tell if Sexual Tyrannosaurus is a really good skill, or a really useless one.

It's probably pretty good, because it's basically healing whenever you get hurt, on top of other healing you might have from a shield. Like some sort of hydra. A hydra that's great in the sack-okay I'll stop now.

[MobileMammal]

It's probably pretty good, because it's basically healing whenever you get hurt, on top of other healing you might have from a shield. Like some sort of hydra. A hydra that's great in the sack-okay I'll stop now.

That was pretty awkward. I bet you are pretty embarrassed. I'll take some of the heat off of you.

ALL Hydras are great in the sack.

There! Now we can both be embarrassed!

[Flyingphish]

The Talent Calculators are up
Direct links if you're too lazy to click through
Commando
Assassin
Siren
Dwarfzerker

[Wesley Foxx]

So I can in fact have a phaselock that sets everything around it on fire/acid/shock/slag, gives me +30% fire rate, +18% damage, and a 40% chance that my bullets will hit additional nearby enemies, AND causes everyone around me to regenerate 5% of their health per second while active, AND when the phaselocked enemy is killed, then drops 5 healing orbs. A reminder that the cooldown on phaselock is only 13 seconds. This is in addition to having a 20% larger magazine size, 25% faster reload speed, 30% higher chance to apply elemental effects, and creating lingering clouds of acid wherever I shoot things. And the ability to shoot people to heal them and phaselock them to instantly revive them. And whenever I kill something I exude an aura of fire and acid.

Everything around me will be reduced to a puddle.

[Catbread]

So I can in fact have a phaselock that sets everything around it on fire/acid/shock/slag, gives me +30% fire rate, +18% damage, and a 40% chance that my bullets will hit additional nearby enemies, AND causes everyone around me to regenerate 5% of their health per second while active, AND when the phaselocked enemy is killed, then drops 5 healing orbs. A reminder that the cooldown on phaselock is only 13 seconds. This is in addition to having a 20% larger magazine size, 25% faster reload speed, 30% higher chance to apply elemental effects, and creating lingering clouds of acid wherever I shoot things. And the ability to shoot people to heal them and phaselock them to instantly revive them. And whenever I kill something I exude an aura of fire and acid.

Everything around me will be reduced to a puddle.

And that's not including class mods.

[Portalboat]

So, wait, one of the skills for Axton increases movement speed....
while in fight for your life.

wat.

[Flyingphish]

Okay, best case scenario for a Sniper Zer0...

14205% extra base damage, 175299% extra crit damage
With a Penetrating bullet that does 100% more damage to each enemy it passes though...
From a Sniper rifle(possibly a skullmasher equivalent) which already have high damage and bonus crit...


Also, you can "crawl" in fight for your life now portal

[Wesley Foxx]

I assume that means that with points in that skill, you can continue to move around while in fight for your life, up to 70% of at LEAST crouching speed if not walking speed. While doing 40% more gun damage.

Not sure if I like his talents as much as Maya's. They're good but they're also kind of generic. Which I guess is appropriate.

Also its possible to have two, surface-clinging, longbow-teleporting turrets that provide shielding against enemy ranged attacks and boost your damage by 30% while active that you can deploy every 30 seconds. And also have a 20% chance to not only NOT die when you otherwise would but also regain half your health.

I actually REALLY like how much they've made the action skills something you will want to frequently use rather than just a panic button.

[WordsHere]

I dunno. High level Mordecai, I'd do plenty of action skill use. Actually, I'd hardly fire a bullet. :0 Go, Bloodwing! Hit 30 targets super fast at high damage and make them spray loot out while you're at it!
I'm definitely running down the Bloodshed tree first. Being able to chain infinite Decpti0n is too cool.

[Not The Author]

I am trying that tactic in BL1 right now, actually - got a real nice class mod with 4 Predator - and it's really great!

It's really great when Bloodwing stops flailing around in close orbit of enemies without actually hitting them! When he doesn't get caught on the environment on return, preventing his cooldown from resetting! When he decides he is able to see enemies "hiding" behind cover!

Bloodwing why are you such a dumb bird

[Wesley Foxx]

Even looking back over Salvador's skills, I could see myself having a LOT of fun with fast-recharging, health-regenerating, fire-rate supercharging gunzerking combined with increased mag size/carrying capacity and kills both extending how long I can keep 'zerking, reducing damage taken and giving me an ammo refund on top of a chance to not consume ammo in the first place.

Additionally, looking at his talents overall, I have to wonder just how fast you can get his weapon switch and reload speeds to.

They did an amazing job with the talents this time around is what I'm saying.

[Not The Author]

Actually, I've been wondering, given how Badass Ranks work, what getting +100% Reload Speed would do. It'd take a long-ass time, sure, but the question persists. Or, for a slightly more realistic example, Salvador can get up to +75% Reload Speed from Incite (procs on taking damage), All in the Reflexes (flat bonus), and Keep Firing... (hold fire during Gunzerking). If you stacked those with +25% Reload Speed from Badass Ranks, would you, in this very specific set of circumstances, have a reload time of nothing?

I'm planning to focus my Badass Ranks on Reload Speed, Elemental Effect Chance, Recoil Reduction, and Shield Recharge Delay; get those all (at least close) to +100% quick as possible so I don't need skill ranks in things that give those, and can focus instead on raw damage and survivability. No guarantee that getting those to +100% will actually have the intended effect, because ~numbers~, but what's the point of unreleased games if not having unrealistic expectations?

Relatedly, I'm hoping that the weapon cards reflect bonuses gleaned from Skills and BARanks this time around. The base numbers are great and all, but when you're comparing two different types of weapon against each other, wouldn't it be nice to know (say, if you're Salvador with I'm Your Huckleberry) if your buffed weapons really are better than similar-but-not-buffed ones? (In this example, Machine Pistols v SMGs.)


Edit: Regarding Reload Speed, Zero can actually attain +100% very, very easily, via Fast Hands for +25% and Killer for +75% on kill. That, by level twenty. So pretty easy to test, all things considered.

[Flyingphish]

Don't forget weapon proficiency!