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Confessions of a Borderlands Junkie

To the best of my recollection, 60% of my guns and shields legitimately spawned in the game. Couldn’t remember what backpack sizes 58s originally had (because I’d played with them at 300 for so long), but there was an attempt later on to thoroughly go through and figure out how much they should’ve had – and did that. Better late than never? It occurred to me one day: Wouldn’t it be fun to try to stay within the bounds of a legit backpack size?

Why did I say 60%? Because while farming at Knoxx’s Armory, 59s, 60s and 61s spawn. A 58 can’t use 59s, 60s, and 61s, so it was necessary to level them down. I’m not going to pretend like I was never greedy for a 58, either. Later, way near the end of my farming runs at Knoxx, I’d roll a 12-sided die and use that to decide what to do. You don’t have to lecture me on why that isn’t a perfect system, either.

Most the loot farmed through Knoxx in the last two years was obtained by 1-shotting Knoxx. If I had the money, I’d have been doing the same thing I was doing when I was playing on the PS3: 2-player game, use Sledge’s Shotgun to land behind the locked door. That was 99.9% of my farming route in those days. Fast-forward to recent days, I didn’t have the money, so I had to make one of those guns.

For what it’s worth, I’d never even picked up a 1-shot gun before. I’m sure, at one point, I’d picked up a chimera before I learned what loot was supposed to look like in the game, though. Always despised 1-shot guns. There’s literally no reason to ever have one. But then, if I wanted to farm at Knoxx, I needed to make one, so there you go.

I can count on one hand the guns I’d changed one or two parts because I was so heartbroken, too. Ever wanted a two-shot brl4 Red Hyperion? Well, with my 2-player game and shotgun in-hand, it extended an olive branch and gave me an AX420.W. Needless to say, a part of me died that day.

By the way, I really don’t know if 60% is accurate. Go farm Knoxx at 58 and make up your own mind.

Obviously, in the last two years, I was doing co-op with ‘four players’. It was when that Torgue Steel Mauler spawned, I thought to myself, ‘Well, I guess that does it!’, and haven’t played since. (Yes, of course, I cycled it in for awhile before putting the game down!) If I recall correctly, it was a 61.

There was a brief time (three to six months circa 2010), when I was passing off even leveled-down guns as legit on the forums. Sorry, I guess. Doubt that’ll make anyone feel better. On the bright side, my conscience eventually did catch up to me!

I don’t know if there’s any Borderlands nerd out there who feels, as I do, that it fucking sucks you can’t uninstall DLC on PC. Constantly having to level myself down is soooooooo absurdly dumb!

Also, there was that one time I gave a gun I’d upgraded the parts on to a random. It wasn’t long after I felt it sucked to have tried on that face. It’s lame shit, dude.

Uh…

Yea, I’m real sad that post that explained how to get GearCalc on Flash Point is lost to the ages. It wasn’t until I’d had to reinstall Windows that it became clear it worked (it’s a long story). The writing was on the wall they were going to shut down the new forums, but I didn’t feel the urgency. One day, maybe it’ll make its reappearance. Damn, I loved playing with GearCalc again!

Uh…

I want to put my Skyrim and Borderlands saves online. I think that’d be pretty sweet.

I don’t know what they did right with Borderlands (2009), but fuck, that shit was fun!

Rushing in with the spiderants @ Rust Commons West (by the cliffside)… Fuckin’ uh… spiderants and scythids @ Rust Commons East. Obviously, Crimson Lance out @ Old Haven gets a shout-out. As a rule of thumb, always start your day with a loadout of shock @ The Descent. Even skags were sometimes fun to wipe out! You know, I could literally just name every location and every mob spawn point, and that still wouldn’t tell you how much fun I had. This game is gold! Really wish I could’ve seen it with a working Vengeance.

Oh yea… I did make a Hornet Dove after around 200 runs (not to be confused with actual Doves). I do think I put in some time; nothing compared to what I’d seen other guys put in, but I did keep farming for it after making it, too! Maybe, really, only 30 or so runs, if I’m going to be honest…

Oh yea… I’m not even close to trying to fool you saying this: I had farmed up a pt. 2 Savior Bone Shredder after, I kid you not, ~40 runs – but then, lost it because I accidentally overwrote the toon somehow. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, sadly, but I did go and make a pt. 1 variant out of spite, and played with that a little. Put it on a new Lilith with (yes, a legit) Mercenary w/ regen. Had some good fun seeing how long I could go without needing to use anything else.

I put some stupid amount of time into farming in this game. You want to know how many Reapers I seen? Two. And they were like brl0 garbage!

At about this point, you may be wondering, ‘Why the hell were you farming at level 58?’

Easy! 69s have waaaaaaaay too many skill points, man! I don’t want to be a god on Pandora, man! I want to have to really, really, really try to spec the build for how I play! Yea, you could rebut with ‘Just don’t allocate the points, then!’ But my feeling was ‘I didn’t want to have to limit who I could play with (No-DLC Gang) – because I knew all the 69s were always turning up their noses at us 58s. (If you want an honest answer, you’d have to ask me back around 2010, but I do recall there being a mixture of things like believing the retards who’d jump into games 1-shotting everything would prefer to join 69-sessions.)

Lilith > Roland > Mordecai > Brick.

I’d always imagined Mordecai being so much fun for people with good eyesight.

Tormentor (Spark, obvs., mat2) > Gunslinger (never got my hands on a Relentless +4, mat2) > Bombardier (Wide Load, mat3)> Catalyst (because bunnies, mat2) > Ranger (you know I love making it rain, mat don’t matter) > Sniper (4 don’t matter, mat3) > Tempest (Silent Resolve for giggles, mat3) > Heavy Gunner (just have every one of them in case) > Tactician (Quick Charge, mat3). After that, Shock Trooper can be pretty fun with Refire; Phoenix, Firefly, and Mercenary have a place in my heart (especially Phoenix, though bugs hurt); Mat3 Killer Assassin & mat2 Fast Hands Survivor are on my wishlist; If Bombardier weren’t so much fun, I could argue in favour of Blast Master and Titan. Of course, I’ll admit, a Revenge Blast Master is a little fun every now and then. And a Safeguard Titan + Pangolin is pretty good for the giggles!

Pretty well always use Tediore and Anshin. Pangolin are just so damn cool though, and a Muscleman’s all right for those times you want to feel like a powerhouse. There is a part of me that wishes I didn’t lose so much loot when shit got real in ’13 (a bunch of my stuff got destroyed), because I did used to have a perfect mat3 Atlas. Obviously don’t remember what level.

Yea, and that’s about all I can think to put here. Hope you enjoyed the read. If I find I have more things to say about Borderlands, I’ll put it on the site.

PS: Why does the Borderlands fandom not have all the barrels for repeaters and machine pistols? Maybe they’re somewhere else on the website?

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