This has probably taken far too long, but it's about damn time.
Hi guys! Earlier this week, Lux and I finally managed to reach Overpower Level 8 (aka OP8) on Borderlands 2.
If you've been around on this blog for a
few years by now, you might have seen a
few blogposts related to this "Overpower Level 8" thingamajiggy.
Truth is, we've been on/off with Borderlands 2 a lot in the past four years, so obviously, we wouldn't always have time or a lot of attempts for this because this is a two-man job. There isn't much I haven't said in those other two blogposts, so if you're interested in more "behind the scenes" knowledge, I'd say check those those out.
So, what changed from then to now, given we've been Overpower Level 7 for almost two years? A lot of reinventing the wheel - trying new things out. Actually, also screwing up badly. Not Lux his fault - but mostly mine. The first time we got almost to the
final boss of
Digistruct Peak somewhere in 2015, my wireless keyboard had big issues with pressing E to revive at the last trench. In another run, Lux got knockbacked off the map due to one of those
Slagged Centurion Spiderants. Went game over a lot in the
Assassin round. Became a bit too greedy with shooting
Saturn and thus risked too much. So, we went back to the drawing board and tried to tackle certain issues in our gameplay.
One of the first things that had to be fixed was probably my build as a Zer0. Zer0 can hit insanely hard with
Melee builds - it's one of the main reasons why I like his gameplay so much. But getting the
Hide of Terramorphous isn't as easy as it might sound, as a Zer0 is unlikely to beat him on the PC version with a
Sniper build, as some of the common console cheeses (i.e. the rock where you can hide from attacks) doesn't work the same here. So, breaking the ice: if the Hide of Terramorphous is that of a gamechanger, then I shall probably need it. That is why I've created a
Gunzerker purely for the sake of killing that raid boss - and as you know with my average luck, it took over 80 runs to even get
my first. And immediately after I tried out the shield, the vast improvement was notable.
While I haven't learnt many new things on my Zer0 back between 2013 and 2015 - Borderlands 2 is still surprisingly active as a game and community. Certain things like the
Pimpernel and
Interfacer only surfaced much later as a "well-known" solid option for late OP modes and I tried them out. Like how sometimes speedrunners find new shortcuts in games that are over a decade old, y'know? And having that Gunzerker as a grind mule really helped a lot with obtaining a few things I would most likely not be able to get with my current Zer0, like the Interfacer itself and a new
Chain Lightning. Or, at least - obtaining them a LOT easier.
The same thing applied to Lux his build as well. Tried out some new things and see what sticks. It's even hilarious that we managed to get him through Digistruct Peak with a
standard purple Tediore Quick Shield because Axton has so many awesome skills that improves shield recharge delays and recharge rates. He also figured out that the
Fastball hits hard after it got buffed during the
Loot Hunt event - and oh boy, he was damn right.
So, we're now OP8 - and don't ask me already when we're going back to the next part of our
Borderlands 2 Let's Play. We barely have touched the game after we got to OP8, as we still want to get perfect equipment and everything first. Enjoying the game, y'know. And then we can finally try out the
Pre-Sequel because we've been holding off to try that until we finished the second game. But at least I can tell you there is no excuse to not resume the Let's Play anymore. So yeah Lux, I know you're reading this.
That's it for now - I'll see you guys again next post!
