Borderlands 3 | The Complete History of the Meta!

In this video I cover the complete history of the meta in Borderlands 3. I take you through a journey of the most powerful weapons and items throughout the history of Borderlands 3, showcasing each change in the meta from launch day 2019 until now.
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00:00 Intro
00:27 Original Meta
2:08 Porcelain Pipe Bomb
02:40 Early Nerfs
04:11 Rise of the Cutsman
04:42 Shield King Crowned
05:44 ION CANNON OP
06:31 The Buffs Begin
07”49 Anarchy & Friends
09:19 Mayhem 2.0 + More
11:48 Meta Nerfs
13:53 Bounty of Blood
15:11 Recursion
16:30 Doom Guy Arrives
17:27 Arms Race
19:06 Complex Root Reaches Final Form
19:33 Crit
20:17 Face-puncher
21:27 Directors Cut
23:49 Cartels Returns

[@SpartanGameZone]

What was your favourite meta loadout in Borderlands 3? I want to hear them 👇

[@WissenstattGlauben]

Opq and yellowcake were the best times.

[@ChamberpotCharlie]

I want my 4 pellet crossroads back 😭

[@TheBlackAbyss1]

I want the conference call to be as good as it was in bl2! It feels SO UNDERWHELMING to use 😢

[@phoenixomega3641]

That last bit was perfect. I like the chain lightning and the guardian angel. I play with all of those weapons depending on what I feel like using at that moment.

[@doakesanddrax]

Kings call. Was such a blast

[@pinapple9999]

As a Zane main the moment seeing dead was introduced I knew it was over. The meta didn’t matter anymore long live hamster ball

[@TariqSWOLEn]

Yeah bro zane/hamster ball/redistributer/seeing dead is still probably the fastest takedown build. Just keep the cannon to proc anoints and keep a free radical, and flipper or plasma coil for boss damage

[@waygyanba2195]

IT NEVER STOPS

[@Quasartist]

I'll still never be over the fact that they nerfed so much stuff only to release things that were even more broken weeks, sometimes just days later. Insanity.

[@CentauriTT]

This makes me think about the Crit. Like you can stay using this gun in a play through and never have to switch off it. If it gets under leveled just tip Moxxi for an on level one.

[@Quasartist]

@@CentauriTT What an immaculate point. They really just give you an infinite supply of an incredible gun with no strings attached. I'm even more mad now lol I didn't even think about the Crit in all this. At this point in the game's life they really should just reverse all the nerfs they ever did because I think it's pretty likely that everybody who was ever going to buy the game already did, aside from the players new to the franchise. Then it would be cool for the new players to be able to experience the hugely powered guns like pre-nerf Sandhawk and Yellowcake and such.

[@rippenzong2455]

@@Quasartist you can download a custom hotfix mod which will let you choose what hotfix to play on. its not great but it can bring some of those other metas back for fun

[@Frank_Torre]

I honestly like how the Meta ended up. Yeah during the life cycle of the game our favs went up and down, but never to the point we were just sitting on our thumbs waiting for the next broken thing to come along. Playing as a Moze main the nerfs never hit that hard as long as you had bottomless mags your damage was always there, even if you weren't melting bosses at lightspeed as you were before a huge nerf ruined your favourite damage dealer.

[@shanagins007]

I miss the broken ppb. Not because it was broken, but because i could crash my friends game when I used it. Came in handy when he would grief me lol. Those were a wild 2 weeks.

[@MacaqueStinx]

Same man

[@SuperSneakySteve]

Getting rid of the extra projectiles was the worst nerf of all. It killed almost all of the Jakobs weapons as well as the Recursion and Root.

[@HumanitysGrace]

Extra projectiles Made All guns essentially usable once they got rid of it Jakobs became more of a "Fl4k" kind of weapon and that sucked tbh Carrier the weapon died. I wish it got a bit of tuning to make it usable Cause it was the first of its kind in that game and it was fun.

[@michaelpoger6662]

Man, I missed these videos!

[@JoshuaFearn]

I just remember the nerf to flakker off the bat was the patch that killed AdmiralBahroo's enjoyment of the game, so he quit entirely as he had been so hyped to drop a guide about it LMAO

[@Ziler_]

Incredible video SGZ. The nostalgia was unreal.

[@musichowl]

love the video as usual, keep up the awesome content!

[@DurtyDan]

I still find it strange that this pve game had a changing meta over its lifespan

[@christophermaclennan914]

Excellent vid Spartan! Keep up the great work!

[@SpartanGameZone]

Appreciate it!

[@IzInAZ]

I miss the days of Hex. Back then I would run around with Moze and quickly clear entire areas with rad recurring Hex. You could use any explosive gun, so I had a Lasersploder in every element just cause I really like that thing :)

[@benedictward3435]

I recently did another play through of bl3 for the first time in years, and I was actually really happy. A lot of people complain the meta is too OP now at endgame but you don’t even have to use that stuff unless your min maxing. As a Zane main, I’m able to do all level 70 mayhem 10 content with a build entirely consisting of base game items which is great! And then when I wanted to use new stuff I just used the canon and unforgiven and can easily do true takedown mayhem 10 at level 70 using just the mantis.

[@johnuotela8270]

Nice job man love it 💪💪👍👍🤎🤎

[@ZachIdso]

I remember those host shotguns conquering the slaughter maps for me but I don't think they could compare with legendary stuff as time went on so might cool to go back and see what was up. Always fun to get lucky with the stats

[@CalvinKlyde]

Great vid 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

[@crocsarethepurestformofwea3122]

A nearly 30 minute video of metas in BL3? Hell yeah! Just what I need to curl into bed to.

[@SpartanGameZone]

Sweet dreams! 😴🛏️

[@rippenzong2455]

my fave meta was cutsman meta. it felt good to use and was a good weapon to critswap with. if i had to pick a second its def the amara recursion meta

[@LoneWandere76]

Omg... I can't believe it's been 5 years since it came out already..

[@eatsnowanddie]

even then the meta guns arent guns you must use, there are plenty of other weapons that may not do the same work but are just as fun to use, my fav will always be the double barrel minigun

[@francescofichera3323]

great video

[@kinsan89]

I'm genuinely surprised you didn't mention the Redistributor from the Maliwan Takedown

[@externalboss9404]

The Borderlands 3 meta for me was a OP modded grenade which some random guy gave me. It crashed my game so much it's that OP.

[@madfazesupporterxx5596]

Thanks bro

[@luismakeup08]

Rakk stab build is my fav build, so current meta

[@deadbeatdrop999]

The fact that you said the doom shotgun was "meta" and you never brought up the roisens thorn pistol is actually irritating.

[@owencummings4663]

You didn’t mention the very beginning…(and very short lived) Crossroad meta. I didn’t see much of it, and I started day 1, but still thought it should be included. Either case tho, I really wish the Cutsman was meta again. It needs somewhere between a 75-125% damage buff with a 20% projectile range increase. Making it infinite might crash the game due to the elemental beams everywhere, although not visible. But I still think it needs a amsll projectile range buff.

[@SpartanGameZone]

Yea the crossroad was up there, I just couldn't bring myself to relive how they treated my boy.

[@nenenenenedudududu]

On launch everyone was using blue or purple torgue shotties on flak and 1-maggin every boss

[@Dabneh]

Hellwalker is such a badass gun 🔥

[@joshuasummers9174]

The Cutsman with a good build can still shine

[@valentinpicard3319]

The face puncher on Amara is absolutely better than the Blade Fury. Even in the x7 version the amount of body and mind hits easily out Dmg the even a modded X4 full auto fury.

[@robbob1866]

I'm hoping with BL4 that it will be better written with a great story, but I would like to see as much of the free extra content that Gearbox gave us in this game. It was a lot of fantastic gear and items that some didn't seem to appreciate

[@bryanjr3531]

damn i just forjet how everything was, i actualy dont play but when i was playing it was such a good memories in my xbox one s, nice video, i think i playing back

[@trishablankenship340]

Can u still stack fire rate with the infinity pistol

[@axxjazz.]

i thought they also increased the cutsmans bullet speed, so it wouldn't hit the target multiple times

[@albertomendez7063]

This video could have a 3 part. Nice 10 min videos.

[@BRatindustrys]

I miss the extra projectiles from extra elements.

[@mikegonzales8520]

The guardian angel only affects weapon damage now - not grenade damage, e.g. was that always the case?

[@SpartanGameZone]

It affects all forms of damage like it always has

[@doakesanddrax]

I enjoyed this. I lived through all these. Even did some pipe bombing. Enjoyed the trip down memory lane

[@reignmanss]

I'm up to the Krakatoa but no mention of the Crossroads? That was before the Cutsman, no?

[@reignmanss]

Also the OPQ when the level cap was raised to 60 was still a top tier option.

[@fknGandalf]

If your soup was too hot, it would blow on it for you 😂

[@harleybaughmanin9433]

Ngl I have to disagree when u say that the Amara Melle build is the most possible dmf, Zane, hustler transformer, shock/ cryo complex root does infinite amounts for dmg to a whole room/ boss with 1 shot

[@HUKIT.]

I’ve never understood all the nerfs and increases as it’s not a PVP game. The meta just makes nearly everything else unplayable, especially on higher Mayhem levels.

[@johnuotela8270]

I played moze and the flakker was the gun nr1

[@brynnbirdsong4870]

I’m appalled Flak sticky stacking isn’t on this list

[@gwoody4003]

This is why I don't preorder/buy games on release anymore. I only had learn the game once 😂.

[@pikator9153]

«waiter ! Waiter! More damage please » ahh weapon

[@custommizerOG]

They massacred my boy. Flakker was amazing at launch and would be a great endgame option if they left it alone 😢

[@stefsmurf]

It's great for Moze still. I'm surprised Spartan didn't mention the Torgue nerf at the beginning of BL3. Normal Torgue guns never recovered from that nerf.

[@agustinpugliese1715]

Remember when the maliwan takedown was actually a challenge? Yeah... Thus game became way too easy, I miss how borderlands 2 actually required some degree of skill for op10. Thr powercreep was just to much for bl3

[@frederickgibbons6918]

I grinded for a full auto kaosan of each element. What a colossal waste of my time.

[@Ars-Nova258]

Borderlands 3’s Meta was schizophrenic as hell. They spent until Mayhem 2.0 regularly nerfing weapons to then spend the better part of an entire year buffing weapons for their (also nerfed) Mayhem system. Weapons from Hellwalker to every Jakobs Handgun were getting buffs when part of the reason they needed them was because of prior nerfs. It was one of the reasons why I dropped the game altogether.

[@slimmortal213]

all of the nerfs we had to go through over this game's lifecycle were so miserable. what's worse is they didn't even learn and did the same thing in wonderlands

[@welds8424]

Nerfs werent meant for the devs to learn it was to make you use whatever new shit they add lol

[@slimmortal213]

@@welds8424 but instead of that happening they just managed to drive people away lol. If you’re a casual player and they nerf the build you spent time grinding for you aren’t going to grind for a new one, you’re going to switch games

[@josephschultz]

ah yes loved running around Farming for something new as the new Hot Fixes nerfed all the good guns and other Artifacts

[@w01dnick]

Lyuda is not lie-u-dah but lew-dah.

[@horizontk]

Why do you talk so annoyingly

[@montgomeryfitzpatrick473]

Lyuda was only meta for Moze, no one else could deal with its ammo consumption

[@ChamberpotCharlie]

And that's still the case 2day. Also the only one who can use it effectively for mobbing

[@MRWANg-pz9oo]

Clone ammo regen