The first round of Vault Hunter balance changes in Borderlands 3 nerfed FL4K, buffed Zane, and tweaked some things about Amara the Siren. The only Vault Hunter to make it out of the first round of Borderlands 3 balance changes unscathed was Moze the Gunner, but now Moze has gotten a slight nerf herself. The latest update for Borderlands 3 makes a number of changes to the looter-shooter, with the most significant being changes to Moze, FL4K, and some of the bosses in the game.
One popular build for Moze the Gunner essentially gives her infinite grenades, but Gearbox is making that impossible with the new update. Now Moze's Means of Destruction ability will have a re-trigger delay of two seconds, effectively eliminating the infinite grenade spam that some players were doing in the game.
FL4K, who received the biggest nerf in the last Borderlands 3 update, is getting somewhat of a buff this time around. While the Leave No Trace ability is getting a re-trigger delay of 2 seconds, Rakk Attack's status effect is being increased to 100% and the stat bonus for Barbaric Yawp is being increased to 100% as well. The update also makes some changes to FL4K's pets to make them less of a nuisance, by making it so they can no longer push player characters and that players won't accidentally touch their pets when trying to collect loot or interact with other things in the game world.
While the Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters got some changes in the latest update, so too did the bosses in the game. In an effort to make some of the bosses in Borderlands 3 less frustrating, Gearbox has nerfed Gigamind, Katawaga Ball, and Billy the Anointed. Gigamind's health is being reduced, Katawaga Ball will no longer regenerate shields, and Billy the Anointed is losing 25% of his health. Gearbox noted that future changes could still come to pass when it comes to Borderlands 3 bosses, so fans should keep that in mind.
Nerfing these bosses will definitely please some Borderlands 3 fans, but many are waiting for news on the Bloody Harvest event. Unfortunately, we still don't know exactly when that's taking place, but more details should come to light sooner rather than later.
Here are the full Borderlands 3 10/3 patch notes:
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 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
Borderlands 3 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Stadia version also in development.
Source: Gearbox Software