Gearbox nerfs Borderlands 3 fan favorite, FL4K, again

Moze also slightly changed

Gearbox has been toiling away trying to fix some of Borderlands 3's bugs, and with those bug fixes come character tweaks: some good, some bad.

FL4K, a very popular character in the base roster of four has been getting adjustments here and there, and now Gearbox decided to alter a few underused talents and nerf one big one. In addition to fixing a bug where pets push characters, Rakk Attack now has a 100% chance to trigger its status effect, Barbaric Yawp's bonus is now increased by 100%, and "Touch Pet" doesn't take priority over other actions like opening doors/looting/interacting with the environment.

Most notably, Leave No Trace, a skill that gives you ammo back for critical hits, is now massively nerfed with a re-trigger delay (read: cooldown) of two seconds. Not only will shotgun blasts fail to return tons of ammo, but pretty much every rapid-fire weapon will suffer the same fate. In other balance news, Moze's infinite grenades are no longer an option, with Means of Destruction gaining a re-trigger delay of two seconds.

Another huge fix: the Ultimate Vault Hunter achievement bug should be fixed, which a lot of folks have been waiting a long time for. Given Gearbox's semi-hands-off take on Borderlands 2 nerfs, it's been interesting to see how hands-on they are for Borderlands 3, even though the entire game is PVE-oriented.

Borderlands 3 Patch and Hotfixes: October 3, 2019 [Reddit]

Stability

• Addressed a reported issue where an infinite loop could occur when hitting the Guardian Rank experience ceiling

General Fixes and Improvements

• The Hollow Point Guardian Rank skill no longer damages yourself or allies
• Hollow Point Guardian Rank skill has been re-enabled
• Addressed a reported issue where some players were unable to unlock the Ultimate Vault Hunter achievement on Xbox
• Addressed a reported issue where mouse functionality may have been lost when hot joining a friend’s session on PC
• Addressed a reported issue where some players’ inventory would not be saved in their bank

This week’s Borderlands 3 hotfixes, which will be live on all platforms by or before 3:00 PM PDT today, contain some player character balance changes and address some player reported concerns regarding enemy behavior.

Our goal is to make sure all three Action Skills for each Vault Hunter are viable, but we have noticed some skills have been outperforming others. To encourage more build diversity, we made some adjustments to FL4K and Moze this week.

We also looked at a few boss fights and made balance changes to make their combats more enjoyable. Finally, we went over some enemy behaviors that could have affected mission progression and adjusted some attacks to happen with more frequency.

Vault Hunter Adjustments

FL4K

Rakk Attack! is great for constant damage output, especially when paired with Anointed gear. The base skill still seems to be lacking, so Rakk Attack! now has a guaranteed status effect on any enemy that it damages. Leave No Trace was returning much more ammo than intended, and we have added a re-trigger delay to keep its ammo return within expectation. Barbaric Yawp has an increased bonus, as we didn’t feel that the amount of investment had an equal payoff. In addition, we felt that FL4K’s pets were demanding too much attention, which was interfering with players trying to stand still for any length of time, so we disabled the ability for them to move you around.

• Rakk Attack! status effect chance as been increased to 100%.
• Leave No Trace now has a re-trigger delay of 2 seconds
• Barbaric Yawp stat bonus increased by 100%
• Pets no longer push around player characters
• “Touch Pet” prompt is now a lower priority and should no longer interfere with looting or vending machines

Moze

Infinite Grenades is not an intentional build for Moze—even if it is hilarious. To lower the power (and spam) of this build, a re-trigger delay has been added to the grenade portion of Means of Destruction.

• Means of Destruction now has a re-trigger delay of 2 seconds

Miscellaneous Changes

• Adjusted the balance of Gigamind, Katagawa Ball, and Billy the Anointed

These three boss fights had concerns with their health and shields that made their combat loops more difficult than we intended. Gigamind had a little too much health, so that was reduced slightly. Katagawa Ball will no longer regenerate its shields; we found that while players contended with the adds during the fight, it would unfairly regenerate its shield, negating the players’ progress. Finally, Billy had 25% of his health removed; we agree that this fight often dragged on needlessly. We will be monitoring each of these bosses and may make further adjustments in the future.

• Bloated Rakks no longer spawn so many Rakklesnakes

This change should make the Cistern of Slaughter in particular much more fun.

• Adjusted the cooldown values when they are displayed for Zane’s skills
• Amara’s Glamour will now turn enemies on each other, as described in the Action Skill
• Modified the loot spawn for Sera of Supremacy
• Spiderant Emperors occasionally wouldn’t drill back out of the ground, which created a potential progression blocker in the Proving Ground of Survival; we have adjusted this and the issue has been addressed
• Resolved an issue that could have prevented enemies from spawning while in Devil’s Razor
• Lavender Crawly’s physics were adjusted to prevent them exiting the world like a popped balloon
• Further safe guarded Apollo from being launched out of world as well
• The Rampager will no longer enter an idle at state at inappropriate times
• Saurian Slingers attacks were addressed
• Guardians now use all their attacks in Playthrough 2
• Guardian Wraiths now reliably use all their ranged attacks
• NPCs in the Slaughter maps were reported to sometimes attempt to automatically revive players in the arena. Going forward they will no longer attempt to revive players
• Minimized the glow effect when opening Eridian ammo chests, can more easily see the ammo inside when opened.

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