Mazuo
2821
I’m having the most fun with my Mordecai using a handcannon revolver. Sure, you may only have 2 rounds before reloading, but they’ll be devastating and the reload time on a pistol is fast, blazing fast with talents.
As for taking down turrets, corrosive elemental weapons are absurdly powerful against them. In my current game with me and a friend I’ve seen him use his combat rifle to very little effect barely scratching the paint. Meanwhile I line up one or two good shots with my corrosive revolver and it evaporates.
Things may change now that we’re on playthrough two, but I suspect I just need a new gun after using the same one for over 20 levels now and I’ll be golden.
Ammo regen is actually superb on Soldier class mods, but yes, the stockpile skill is not very powerful from what I’ve seen of my partner’s. But for the longest time he had a +10 ammo regen class mod and we could just ignore any ammo drops or caches. The turret can be powerful if spec’d for the rocket attachment and outdoors so it doesn’t explode on low ceilings, but yes, it’s mostly only there to grab enemy aggro for a bit. Still, my mostly unbuffed Bloodwing is rather pathetic most of the time as well. 30s cooldown to rarely do more damage than a few shots from my weapon.
I didn’t start having mindless fun until I got some of the pistol talents, a gunslinger class mod, and the Vengeance machine pistol with 15ish fire rate and scope and recoil reduction. It dumps the 26 rounds in a second or so. Zoom in, press the button, and see if you can get all the hits to be headshots.
I found a Thanatos later (larger magazine, slower rate of fire) but it didn’t have a scope.
Sepiche
2823
I’ve played through with a soldier solo and with a full team, and I think they have their place in both worlds. A lot of their abilities definitely compliment a team though.
To be honest I started out using cauterize, but I found it to be pretty ineffectual. Once I got the ability that gives the soldier a healing radius whenever he kills something, that was generally all the healing the team needed. I found that skill to be far and away one of the best skills for both solo and team play. Ammo regen is certainly more efficient with a team, but it still works great for solo play. The only crappy thing about using ammo regen with a team is all the bitching about ammo if you decide to try out another mod for a while. :P
And I find the turret to be quite useful. It’s damage scales well, and as long as you place it somewhere with a good field of fire and plentiful targets it usually gets a few kills before it goes away. It’s not as flashy as the berzerker or the siren, but it’s a solid special ability.
My first two plays were with a Soldier, and I loved every second of it. The turret is extremely handy if you upgrade the damage, especially if you don’t stand behind it but instead run in front of it, drawing enemies to you so the turret hits them in their soft bits. This works best against Skags because of their annoying frontal armor.
I tried a Hunter after that, and it’s by far my most favorite character. Pistols are amazing when you’re specced properly, and I use a mod that regens ammo so he can blast away all day. Hated the Bloodwing, though. It never went where I wanted it to go. Didn’t spec it to daze, though, so maybe it would be more useful with that skill.
Trying a Siren now, but not really getting into it. The Hunter ruined me.
My Soldier is around lvl 35 and I’m really enjoying it so far. Oddly enough, my main gun is a green assault rifle I found at lvl 15 or so. It has close to a 16 fire rate and with my skills has a 58 shot clip. With my ammo regen I never run out of assault rifle ammo. All I have to do is point it at what I want dead and it’s dead. I’ve tried numerous slower, more powerful guns but nothing compares so far.
As for the Turret, I’ve found it’s best to drop it along the edge of whatever area you’re fighting in and then run around out in front of it. As the enemies close on you the turret will help take them all down and watch your back to a certain degree.
I’ve finished the game once with a sniper-hunter and really enjoyed it, one or two shotting everything is just too much fun. It’s much less run and gun, but I’ve always like playing snipers where I could scout out the scene and set up my position before attacking.
I have yet to try out the Knoxx DLC, but will be doing that fist on my Soldier. Can’t wait to see what the new DLC has to bring.
Using Phase Walk extensively is the key to enjoying the character. You can ignore the hawk with the hunter if you want to, but the Siren’s phase walk is a big “don’t die” button. I found the “I never die!” yell of the hunter when bleeding out ironic after playing both, since the Siren really doesn’t die and the Hunter dies in plenty of circumstances.
I love bloodwing!
I have my hunter specced to max power and attacks for it and it will wipe out an entire room in a single throw.
Yeah, I understand the Hawk can be good if spec’d correctly, though I never found it so. The point I was making is that it’s not required. You can enjoy the other characters while using the special ability rarely if at all, but the Siren really turns entirely on using Phase Walk.
This really is a catch-22, though. You say that you don’t use the bloodwing, and then you complain that the hunter dies often. In contrast, you DO use phasewalk a lot, and then conclude that the siren doesn’t die much.
Using the bloodwing does actually raise the survivability of the hunter: 1) it kills the crap out of most everything, 2) it dazes the crap out of everything it doesn’t kill and, 3) it heals you to max health with every use (which can occur every 10 seconds).
Bloodwing and Phasewalk are equal on the “not required” scale. Either character can be played fine without use of the skills. Either character can be played more effectively (i.e., less with the dying) WITH use of the skills. Both skills require a fair amount of point investment to be truly effective. Phasewalk is better out-of-the-box if you simply use it as an occasional escape button. However, it can never reach the offensive potential of the bloodwing.
Arboris
2830
Should I pick this up for the PC or PS3?
Any pros or cons?
Mazuo
2831
If you have a PC that can play it and enjoy playing games on PC I’d go that route. I’m on Nvidia and it runs my card awfully hot, but fan speed settings help with that. My friend on ATI was having crashes all the time but found the secondary Crossfire link between his cards was the issue and is having a solid play experience now finally.
Plus Steam has had sales on the game and DLC before and will most likely again with the new DLC and GOTY version dropping soon. Not sure if the GOTY will be on Steam immediately, but it’s probable.
Squee
2832
Been playing through again co-op 2 player with new characters and having a good time, but figured I’d ask really quick since it’s been ages since I was a new character, what’s the recommended play order for the game and DLC?
I seem to remember Zombie Island scaling to whatever level you want, but Knoxx I think doesn’t, so should we go base game, Knoxx, Zombie Island, playthrough 2/quit? Or is Knoxx leveled in such a way as to expect you to go through Zombie Island first?
Apart from that, the game seems a lot tougher two player and a hell of a lot more fun, though I had a decent time just loot whoring by myself.
I have both the PC and 360 versions, and I’d say get it for the PC. Fast precision aiming is just much easier with a keyboard + mouse combination.
You’re correct that Ned scales to your level, though that seems to be fixed depending on when you first use the rapid-transit system to reach Jacob’s Cove. So don’t go until you’re really ready.
Knoxx starts at level 35. So go do Knoxx when you get there, roughly after you finish the Vault. You can do Zombie Island whenever it suits you, though I suggest getting all the weapon-slot upgrades first - as I recall, you get the #4 slot about the time you hit New Haven.
stereoD
2834
It’s a much faster and more aggressive game on PC because of the mouse, which makes it great for solo play. But like I’ve said before, if you’re planning to play online you should know about the FOV issue and the “fix” which may or may not ruin your fun. Otherwise, it’s a great game on PC.
Wait for the GOTY edition if you can.
Mitya
2835
How would modifying the FOV ruin his fun? I fixed that and didn’t notice anything different about the game other than the increased FOV.
Hell, I’ve not touched any options really and if people hadn’t mentioned the FOV I wouldn’t know there was an issue. I do remember setting FOV in Quake 2, though :)
Pogo
2837
Did they fix the bug where enemies would “hear” you fire your shot and start moving before the bullet actually reached their head?
stereoD
2838
Because the setting doesn’t stick when you play online unless you always host. Every time you stop sprinting or get out of a vehicle, the FOV returns to default, then you hit your bind and it goes back to your custom setting. That led to a lot of FOV ‘popping’ which was nauseating for me.
The partial solution is to bind FOV to your forward movement key. It still pops a bit, but a bit more smoothly.
Just playing at the reduced FOV for any period of time will make me motion-sick. I didn’t bind the reset to “foward” key but just hit it every time I got out of a vehicle.
