The Top 10 WILDEST NERFS in Borderlands History!

What nerf in any of the Borderlands games do you think was the craziest?
Check out the BIGGEST BUFFS in Borderlands History: • The Top 10 BIGGEST BUF...
Special thanks to Deceptix for the help with the pre-nerf BL2 content: / @deceptix
Thanks also to Paskaroni for allowing me to record the Echocast on his stream: / paskaroni
Also big thanks to Mental Mars for his super helpful site: www.mentalmars...
▸ Twitch - / ki11ersix
▸ Discord - / discord
Edited by Ki11ersix
My Borderlands 3 Level 72 Mayhem 10 & 11 Builds Playlist: • Borderlands 3 | Level ...
Backing track: Captain Haunt's Theme from the Bloody Harvest
Outro Song: "Dvynyty" by Ki11ersix
/ dyvynyty

[@Ki11ersix]

If you enjoyed please consider subscribing. Lots more deep dives in the works. Read through the hotfix and patch notes for Borderlands 3 here: mentalmars.com/game-news/borderlands-3-hotfix-and-patch-updates/ and the Borderlands 2 Hotfixes and Patches here: support.gearboxsoftware.com/hc/en-us/articles/205280050--PC-Update-Hot-Fix-Information

[@thetwitchywarlock]

the nerf they applied to their story writing team is what hit me the hardest /s

[@Ki11ersix]

Lol

[@747streams]

What they did in bl3 is unforgivable

[@beveryofa2546]

This is the truest comment I've ever read.

[@royruther4895]

no joke, sadly

[@VortexTalon]

May that child who ruined everything be burned at the stake after getting chopped up by bandits. RIP my favorite vault hunter

[@dwmarch]

Maya got nerfed really hard in BL3. From badass unstoppable Vault Hunting Siren to lucky if she could clog up an air filter.

[@keanuxu5435]

BURN!

[@backstaber5160]

@@keanuxu5435 you mean burnt past tense

[@Kiazi96]

@@backstaber5160yeah😂

[@vaulthunterfromterra4053]

They nerfed Recompense (canonically, not in-game) after 0-shot killing the big worm.

[@arthurlara4282]

Ouch

[@wryyyy321]

Not necessarily a nerf, but I wasn't a fan of giving a huge amount of bosses invincibility periods because I personally enjoyed seeing content creators speedkill bosses and explain how they exploited a lot of the game mechanics to make it work (Master Gi door crush, B0ring Hyperius, etc.)

[@SentientMattress531]

borderlands players when bosses have mechanics (facts though, some bosses are just so dumb because of this)

[@Halimat2.0]

​@@SentientMattress531invincibility phases just suck though especially when you try to farm rare loot, Hyperious the Invincible got mechanics like the reflector shield but you can kill him while its up and safe alot of time once you get the build ready for it

[@josephschultz]

Yes along with having to always run back to Lilith or sit through Dialogue after beating the game once you should be able to skip all this time wasting garbage it Kills Replayability in my opinion hopefully they see how not FINISHING a game and using Hotfixes, Patches and Nerfs kills a game and hopefully The Movie along with the Garbage of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands shows them Wokeness doesn't SELL

[@mtdfs5147]

​@@josephschultznot even about "wokeness" (what does that even mean anymore). It's just a bad product period. That's why people don't like it.

[@oobikenobi5328]

Really wish when they do balancing they would try smaller changes first. Seems like when they change something majorly they more often ruin what they were intending to "balance".

[@Denten62]

While that's always optimal unfortunately it comes down to an opportunity cost type of deal. By breaking it up and doing multiple changes they have to spend more time on it than making sweeping changes and hoping for the best, and that extra time spent is time that they aren't using on other projects/products that are necessary for the future of the company/game/franchise.

[@baileynightshade617]

@@Denten62 and than they realize that it would have spent more time on an item by changing it greatly as they had to go back on mostly all their big changes and undo them or refix them to work a little better instead of just move on from that. at the end of the day, smaller tests and tender care is the better rout and gearbox needs to put more consideration into that.

[@ghostridernz17]

They wouldn't do sumn like that since its not a competitive type of game like destiny or diablo

[@doctorprofessorstar7295]

The Tediore nerfs were just ridiculous. Those guns were a lot of fun.

[@Excessive_complaining]

Made me quit bl3

[@Wheniwasyoung15]

yep, it's insane they spent all the time making many unique reloads for tediore in BL3 only to nerf them to the point where no one uses them. The logic is astounding...

[@candyhochstmann4632]

they are still, just go offline and start the game. no hotfixes will load (look at the sign in the mainmenü) For example online lvl 72 moze´s bear 3,6million hp, go offline and you got the not nerfed version with over 5million hp

[@Null82085]

I never really used them because I always accidentally reloaded and wasted my ammo but I gotta admit those explosions hit hard, now it’s like tossing sponge at people

[@fezthedracky8468]

Kinda surprised to not see the Porcelain Pope Bomb not mentioned. Nerfed in the first week, incredibly easy to obtain and the worst possible parts still MELTED Graveward even with it being 15 levels beneath him. Definitely the biggest hitter in my mind and sticks there for how quickly it was done and how much it destroyed the nade

[@Jammin585]

I got this before graveward at like lvl 22 and I carried it with me to the end of the story before the nerf. Good times

[@doakesanddrax]

I don't think this was a nerf though, as in balance change. Was a bug not balance. But I did enjoy those early graveward kills lol. Was a thing of beauty

[@SteamedPickles]

It wasn't nerfed, it was fixed, though I guess if he included the evil smasher glitch you could count that I don't view those as nerfs though if they weren't actually intended The pipe bomb was hilarious though

[@baileynightshade617]

along with the flakker shotgun that thing was insane definitely the hardest hitting gun before it had its damage toned down

[@mrsurprise2294]

​@baileynightshade617 it's still a monster but need specific gear now. Before was fine by itself

[@CrownXR1987]

Ah yes the Ion Cannon with 300% Phaseslam and a Nimbus class mod. Used to just melt everything.

[@timemage88x13]

I remember that build. Know how it works now?

[@btricky127]

You’re mention of bl3 being rough at first then good at the end is true, but what baffles me to this day is that they didn’t take those changes and implement it into wonderlands. At release, they basically had to make the same changes when they could’ve prevented that in the first place.

[@Ki11ersix]

EXACTLY!!

[@sirkelendor5429]

And lets not forget they made the grind much worse for much less payoff in wonderlands as well

[@sneed915]

Hey kid you wanna grind in arena? No no we promise its content! You liked mad moxxi right?

[@josephschultz]

It's a Unfinished piece of Woke garbage if BL4 has any of it I'll keep on playing all my 10-12 year old games

[@Crowman299]

The nerf to the liquid cooling really stung me. Mostly because it was like a day after i finally got it.

[@ELREGA2]

In wonderlands money is hard to make, so i found a volatile liquid cooling on a vending machine, i sell everything i have i got it and finished the game a week later it was nerfed, i was really más and sad.

[@mrsurprise2294]

Same 😢

[@PartOfTheGame]

I was just about to comment the same thing. The game had barely been out, and to this day still doesn't have a satisfying end-game grind, and then they nerfed the one weapon that could truly be considered "OP". Sad thing is, is that while it was good, it was never as good as what BL2 STILL has. It was a solid weapon, but character builds could still go above it.

[@llcxntll941]

The liquid cooling was a beast before the nerf 😢

[@armyofninjas9055]

Wonderlands disappointed me in so many ways.

[@bobjohnson113]

The one that made me sad was the Cutsman nerf. I took the time to make sure I farmed up all I could for each element for my elemental Amara build and took a break for a week. Came back and I wasn't doing anywhere near what I was pre-nerf and subsequently just stopped playing.

[@Ki11ersix]

That entire patch earned its spot on this list. It was BRUTAL

[@KennyLiang]

Ditto -was a reliable option in maliwan takedown, overjoyed to see it go thru objects to hit targets.

[@xemmino588]

No one is talking about the nerf to the King and Queens Call. That pistol was so much fun to use on fl4k before the fire rate was nerfed significantly

[@arthurlara4282]

That was such a good time.

[@stefsmurf]

2 you didn't mention: The torgue stickies being nerfed in BL3, to the point where some of them disappear if you apply too many on a single enemy. The other one is Amara richoet gameplay just being removed mostly altogether now. There is a sickly version of this playstyle, but nothing compared to the OG version.

[@Ki11ersix]

Yeah I thought about the extra projectile nerf but ultimately I think that one was to keep consoles from catching fire lol

[@DOG-zq1hz]

​@@Ki11ersix Haha, I forgot about that. I remember when I got a Recursion with an ASE extra element on my Amara, that thing would melt everything in the room, including my PS4

[@stefsmurf]

@@Ki11ersix I understand, but it wasn't just one nerf. I think I would call almost all the nerfs in bl3 that aren't character specific to be variations of dealing with projectile counts and interactions. From the unintended (Lyuda, Porcipine Pipe Bomb (the only bl3 nerf I never personally received as they fixed that so quickly I didn't even know what mission to hunt down to get it.)), to the too powerful (Crossroad, Torgue stickies, Recursion, Hex, Yellow cake) to the literal game breaking (also Recursion, Carrier's extra projectile, OPQ alt mode barely making any dupes anymore) to the non-existence (projectiles that actually didn't appear when they were supposed to, tiggs boom, the shooting star shield, and another one I'm forgetting off the top of my head.)

[@ELREGA2]

Yeah my ps4 had lag spikes with ricochet amara, but the game have more fps problemas now than before mayhem10, and i still get crashes in maliwan take down when i check some vending machines

[@bobloblawesq.5533]

Man I miss the recursion ricochets with Amara. It needed to happen I get it, I would soft lock the maliwan takedown often at the bridge section or outright crash my Xbox with all those projectiles. But damn It was fun.

[@ttr_coco]

OP10 in BL2 really is the craziest nerf in all the games, all characters (except Sal lmao) had their build variety's massively limited and made the grog nozzle even more mandatory to stay alive

[@arthurlara4282]

Yeah Sal is the only character I ever got to OP10. I gave up on Maya at 8

[@Mojave_Ranger_NCR]

That’s why I will never play the OP levels. I’m gonna stay at lvl 80 UVHM, where the enemies aren’t complete bullets sponges and I’m not made of glass for the sake of making things more difficult.

[@Derchlands]

On your launcher note, i think gearbox needs to figure out what they want launchers to be. Bl1 launchers had plenty of ammo but were pretty weak where you could use them as a main gun. Bl2 they drastically lowered the ammo so they were a get out of trouble only gun but not being able to crit really weakened how effective they were as difficulty scalled. TPS they did better by seemingly keeping bl2 power but giving more ammo. Bl3 they nerfed the ammo back down. Do they want people to be able to do launcher builds or are they only a ffyl gun? IMO if you are going to have them in the game let people really use them and make builds around them. Not just in a shamfleet kinda way

[@zantar2482]

The worst nerf for me was the Atlas Carrier and the elemental splitting 'bug fix'. This gun was sooo much fun and watching all of the bullets flying was so cool.

[@Ki11ersix]

Yeah I think that was a solution to keep consoles from melting

[@grimsprice]

@@Ki11ersix I agree with this a lot. It wasn't a nerf, because it was an actual bug fix. But it was for sure, no questions, the biggest power change to anything in borderlands history. Ricochet witch before and after was such a legendary fall from grace. Shooting the Recursion, then looking down to fakegrasp so I keep my speed up and seeing the game hitch because i landed a nice shot was so satisfying.

[@viridisgreens9855]

I miss the BL2 Sandhawk. The Conference Call was no longer stupid busted but a new shiny SMG took its place in my heart

[@Cross177]

The nerf I knew was an eventuality was gonna happen was the Porcelain Pipe Bomb. That infinite bomb spawn, even at low levels was hilariously broken as hell.

[@davidSFL79]

I remember getting into BL2 just before the Bee and CC combo got nerfed. While I never got to experience the sheer absurdity of that combo for myself, it sure would’ve been nice to have done so. Also ion cannon nerf was inevitable. But dang it was fun to blast everyone and everything into smithereens wit such ease

[@devingilliam5601]

I mean the fact they needed to need it because Gearbox forgot PEMDAS, is just hilarious though. It was fun to melt Teramorphus in half a second though.

[@shakyboi]

I remember the Fl4k nerfs like they were yesterday. I quit BL3 for a good two years before finally returning to it. They gutted Fade Away to the point where I felt like Fl4k was no longer playable. It wasn't until I found the Gamma Burst build (That I call Point and Click) that I was able to play him again. Until that point, I became a Moze main.

[@archduke0000]

CC + Bee melting the DLC raid bosses was completely justified when they tried to limit how many times you could fight the bosses per day.

[@Ki11ersix]

Yeah those lockout timers were so dumb

[@EpicNNG]

When Gearbox hit Clawbringer with 3 weeks of BACK TO BACK nerfs, I was genuinely speechless. Nerfs are crucial to the health of any game, but those ones were not warranted in the slightest. I really wish I knew what they were thinking at the time.

[@Ki11ersix]

Same.

[@bakomusha]

After playing Moze as my main for the launch of BL3, and Clawbringer for Wonderlands, I felt like the devs where personally targeting me! I still feel Wonderlands feels over tuned, and I can never deal more then chip damage to enemies.

[@snoopdogg3677]

They weren't thinking. Simple as.

[@bobloblawesq.5533]

I don't understand why they make these same mistakes with every release. Bl2 launched without or limited targeted loot farming, then The pre-sequel, then BL3 and then sure enough Wonderlands. Its like they make certain decisions like nerfs and QOL changes that were previously implemented in prior games with the intent of walking them back just say "see we're listening".

[@snoopdogg3677]

@@bobloblawesq.5533 that is really scummy if it were true. Still, their main source of revenue doesn't come from dedicated players since there's no microtransactions involved, so I don't quite see this changing

[@notsoracistraspberry4168]

I hate the Garcia nerf. It was so fun to basically full auto it on zane before they made it pump action. It was a good gun, ate all your ammo, and was fun. It wasnt really over powered especially if you were constantly running out of ammo and it just killed most the uniqueness to the gun. It became a jacobs with a big mag but still just felt like a jacobs shotgun. Without the fire rate nerf it still felt like a jackobs but it felt unique.

[@miralistheking8882]

The Flak nerfs upset me since he was the character I was using from launch but I did not want to get dissuaded from the game and continued playing. Until they randomly hit the king and queens call (drops from the end of the game) and then hit everything I was finding pretty fun and useful. After that I decided that since all they cared about was the builds they wanted us to use i did not want to play it anymore

[@lonewolffang]

I remember the Loot Midgets patch. That was a bad idea to patch it. Still hate they nerfed the Yellow Cake.

[@lbgstzockt8493]

The Yellowcake is still pretty powerful imo. You don't even need to do boresplosion for it to kill things.

[@bignath250688]

You actually did win the linoge. I didn't believe it until now. I never got to experience the 100,000% shlooter but it looked fun

[@legdig]

The tediore nerf was tragic. made me stop using them entirely.

[@MegamanXfan21xx]

The Anarchy is still worth using. Especially if you're Moze, so there's no risk of reloading early.

[@gsjacobs]

The nerfs to U-rad, consecutive hits, and 150-over-90 (formerly 300-over-90) anoints were a pretty big deal back in the day. The idea was that these non-class-specific anointments were overpowered and therefore overused. (The blame for that lies squarely on how terrible the class-specific anoints used to be.) Since they DID dramatically buff the class-specific ones in exchange, these nerfs weren't terrible and actually had the intended effect of encouraging more diversity in builds between characters. Instead of everyone just using consecutive hits, now e.g. FL4K uses Fade Away active, Moze uses next 2 mags after Iron Bear, Amara uses Phasegrasp active, and Zane uses...well, still consecutive hits lol. But these nerfs, like the ones to Tediore chuck damage, did have an unintended effect...but on Arms Race rather than the main game. Since you can't use Action Skills in Arms Race, most anointments are useless...but some of those non-class-specific ones still function! If you found a weapon with 300-over-90, a decent grenade, and an artifact with +splash damage, you could harness that to 1shot most groups of mobs. Similarly, the U-rad anoint turned the Front Loader into an offensive beast and made almost any weapon it was on into a go-to for getting a Second Wind. And good old consecutive hits? Its quick-stacking damage bonus made normally-underpowered Vladof weapons actually viable. All these anointments still do good work in Arms Race (mainly because there's zero competition) but they're not nearly as strong as they were when the mode was released.

[@mrsurprise2294]

Arms race can be crazy those maliwan ba melt you fast and the maliwan dogs

[@mettaursp309]

Consecutive hits on Zane is an odd choice when Violent Momentum and next 2 mags & ASE splash exists. Barrier crit, Digi-Clone swap, Digi-Clone ammo, and SNTNL cryo also work more universally when you don't use cannon.

[@gsjacobs]

@@mettaursp309 I definitely might have forgotten about Sentinel cryo 😬

[@mettaursp309]

@@gsjacobs Not gonna lie I kinda have as well ever since cannon. Next 2 mags is just too good and more adaptable, but SNTNL cryo will always be a staple.

[@ryanbruce]

They shouldn't have nerfed guns in BL3 while there were still huge bugs

[@nave12343]

I never abandon fl4k, actually i was kind of a fl4k purist till i started watching your videos, for some reasson i could never find play styles I liked on the other characters, but after binge watching like 12 of your playthrews i started playing the others, now mose is my fav char😂

[@nightmare62089]

I miss the 300 over 90 anointment. Probably has the same benefit as the Bee/CC nerf, but it was still fun while it lasted. For those who may not remember this, it's an anoint that gives 300% bonus damage while an enemy was over 90% health. Gearbox had it coded originally so it only counted the enemies' actual health bar, not shield or armor. So on weapons like the Yellowcake(which had also just been released with the cartels along the 300/90 and several other anoints), or against bosses that only had shield/armor bars like Katagawa Ball everything was getting rinsed. The anoint is still in the game, but now it only works over 90% of the total between all bars, not just health so it gives a really powerful first shot but is basically non-anointed afterward.

[@JAYDOG1337A]

Yeah the Bee kinda needed to be nerfed, but I think it should've been a Bee specific nerf, so other amp shields could still fully amplify all the projectiles of a shotgun, it would add some balance to the game because lets face it, the Bee renders literally every other amp shield completely useless. It would give players a reason to use the other amp shields rather than always being relegated to being trash to be sold.

[@ArmedAndHammered]

Unnecessary nerf imo. This didn't save BL2. No one forced anyone to use the Conference Call + Bee shield combo. All nerfing it did is remove a build option from players. After the nerf, players went on to the next best thing. Beehawking, Pimperhab, deputy build, etc. No one forces anyone to use busted builds in these titles. If you desire a challenge, then don't use the obviously strong setups. Simple.

[@wretchedpkmn]

Interesting part of the nerf for the Bee- they added a fixed Torgue part onto the body slot of the bee. Prior to the bee nerf, you could get a triple maliwan bee. It was just very unlikely you'd ever see one even with thousands of hours of farming for just it specifically.

[@chriskeeney4278]

I was pretty sad when they nerfed ricochet on Amara. Ricochet recursion was broken strong and could clear entire rooms at the cost of hefty fps drops. Then they nerfed it to a max number of projectile splits. I understand the nerf but it was so fun to hit an enemy with a recursion projectile and watch it spawn into 1000 projectiles in a few seconds all bouncing around the room.

[@trx_ardentblade6861]

I miss the original three burst lob in borderlands 3 but I also see why they did it 🤣

[@xxpotato_network6367]

The nerf to the Super Soldier shield in bl3 rubbed me the wrong way but I get why it was nerfed. It was unbelievably good on Moze with her phalanx doctrine skill. Used to just blitz across maps in seconds and melt everything

[@TheAmazingSW]

I saw that video recently and wondered if it got nerfed. I never knew about it

[@zaoshikung2756]

I'm still using it it's not nerfed. Immortal moze still exists.

[@TheAmazingSW]

How did this glitch work?

[@zaoshikung2756]

@TheAmazingSW it's not a glitch. Moze has a class mod that makes hp regen turn to shield regen. You then also get an artifact with hp regen and use a lvl 1 super soldier shield preferably with an amp damage roll on it. Start shooting and bamn permanent bubble shield/amp damage also making splash damage radius increase skill not deadly to you anymore. If you have the right setup you will still gain some movement speed increase but not like before when the shield said gain a good amount of movement speed as well. They had to remove speed from the shield not to nerf it but because it was causing performance issue and crashing consoles from how much speed you got.

[@BorderlandsBoy0]

#8 Around this time a nerf was made to Zane so (Cut purses + Facepuncher + clone double barrel = Infinite ammo) No longer worked .

[@garretthooton6685]

I truly miss that build, made the Ripper actually usable at the time as well.

[@jonesj99]

I remember i built up my Moze build, got all the near perfect rools on all the gear and couldn't wait to start shredding through the game. Literally the next day my build was trash. Heart breaking

[@RemingtonSteel]

The extra projectile nerf killed thw Recursion and Richocet Witch. Along with so many other guns

[@the1Nonly43]

The Nerf to Zane's commitment skill was a major blow to my heart.

[@zonedout3390]

Everyone quit the game around the 1st dlc. They killed their own game BL3 was and is a ghost town to this day compared to what it should've been. I'm in the camp of no nerfs ever and only buffs in a PVE game. They took away my black rarity in BL2, my bobblehead glitch in BL1, and you know what thats fine i made and modded some of the most broken stuff to this day in those games that you can play online with. I made white rairty 1 shot weapons no lvl requirement in BL1 it does so much damage it one shots every single boss and then i distributed it out to 100s if not 1000s of players at the time. In BL2 i made lvl 125/150 character saves then that got patched, I made Black rarities a new weapon color rarity which got patched and then deleted, then I found out you could modify the Badass rank percentages and did that on my 360 with a editor and usb =) now i have 99M % on everything except fire rate because it will crash your game its around 200%. Oh also Maxxed out skill trees for every Character except Kreig bc his tree is awkward. In BL3 I just moved on after every single nerf and hot fixes, patches, etc. It just wasn't worth the fight with Gearbox and there wasn't any save editors at the time to build guns or have infinite Golden Keys, but what sealed the fate for the last thing they nerfed was the world drops and just every skill, gun and i said nomore and dropped the game, nerf lands 3 you can have it and never came back. Idc what they did now or have done, its what they DID do at the start. I like bein OP in every way possible, if i can 1 shot cool, if i can throw one grenade cool, if i can use my skill and it 1 shots cool, i dont want balance i want a broken game design.

[@robertduffy3174]

I have still not gotten over when they changed the Garcia’s fire rate in bl3. Originally it was an automatic Jacobs shotgun. Ton of fun. Then gearbox nerfed to a semi auto with significant time between shots. They have a full auto revolver, but can’t have a full auto shotgun? Come on now. The Garcia is still one of my favorite shotguns, but reduced my joy of the game because of it

[@ゲンガー666]

Probably minor for most but the nerf of 50/150 to 50/100 killed a ton of my niche builds. Might seem like a minor damage nerf but some of my builds relied too heavily on it and that nerf destroyed em :(

[@xAshamonx]

My number 1 was Evil Smasher. Evil Smasher - Infinity Pistol was hilarious

[@Tzhz]

I found it a few months after the game release and spread it

[@ForgieDusker]

I was personally really saddened by the torgue shotgun sticky pellet nerf in BL3. I used that throughout the whole campaign when the game first came out and loved it for farming Graveward. They nerded Gravy Boy's loot too, but that was probably warranted imo. The sticky pellet damage increase could have burnt out some people as well, sure, but i never get tired of hearing that cavalcade of explosions and seeing the health get chunked. I actually went back to BL3 not terribly long ago, on PS5 since my pc sucks nuts, and got the second season pass to give it a burl. It was pretty fun, but after so long, it feels like I don't even recognize the game. Probably doesn't help that i was playing Amara trying to go for a melee build, either, though. Maybe I'll try again with Moze, since i never got that far as her. I just really don't want to have to do the campaign again lmao

[@devaughnsalter6264]

Get the Blade Fury on Amara with a Cutpurse Planetoid. You'll thank me later.

[@timwrobel5603]

I've never got to experience the Bee/Conference Call pre-nerf. I think I was around rescuing Roland when the fixed that. It was one of my favorite go-to combos for farming the Warrior after the level caps were implemented.

[@whysegawhy]

Yellowcake and OPQ nerfs still bug me to this day. People were having too much fun using them and we can't have that in a PVE game.

[@Ki11ersix]

OPQ is still very strongZ so is Yellowcake but it’s not broken strong now

[@scottishboy112]

There’s another thing with number 3 as well. Some characters, for example my main Moze from release, are bugged to the point that red chests don’t have that timer. A few friends I know had characters like that when some of their other characters did have the timer. Still. . . It was a ‘Problem’ they tried to fix at a time when there were bigger issues. Namely near launch.

[@davidwhidden9337]

The Pre-Sequel nerf to roid damage hurt. All because of Athena and one specific shield that at launch was insanely hard to get.

[@timford1270]

They did the change to red chests pretty early on. They had done an event where your chances to win a red chest were increased by a lot. Some streamers were farming that chest and the normal streamers complained because their viewers were being stolen. It was while we had a mailbox capacity of 125 and they never expired

[@ravenknight4195]

I still think them nuking irajiwa's drop rates killed what little post game TPS had

[@Ki11ersix]

Yeah. Sadly that game was already dying fast. Need to launch with dedicated drops, balanced world drops, endgame (multiple raids) and a decent, well-paced story or else BL4 is doomed

[@katehikes1645]

​@@Ki11ersixI never understood why Gearbox basically removed dedicated drops after BL2. I guess killing one enemy for a random legendary with random parts and random elements is good gameplay for them, but talking seriously. Gearbox made BL2 that improved every aspect of BL1 and made it work so for all the next instalments they just... Not do what BL2 did on launch?

[@Ki11ersix]

Don't forget... BL2 at launch was missing dedicated drops in some loot pools. Had a 3% dedicated drop rate for most enemies and had a ton of other balance issues. People only remember three years later when they fixed these issues with the Handsome Collection.

[@canyuxel]

IonCannon nerf mad me maaad.. Right after I've had gotten a perfect x2 for my Moze. Still shredded, though

[@matthewmcdaniel875]

Ummm...you missed what they did with Zane's clone. Having it go from being a mid level capstone to an all content melter while never dying mechanism overnight was crazy.

[@Ki11ersix]

that's going in the WILDEST BUFFS video.

[@MsToshi1990]

The biggest one is 100% all of Wonderlands getting destroyed by patches. It's unplayable on console and not fun anymore. On PC it is of course fun with the Redux mod. But....yeah....unbelievable.

[@blazikenking]

One nerf I can't believe hasn't happened is a real crossover with Nerf Guns. Yes, the Girth Blaster is a thing, but I'm talking about the stuff on store shelves. Make some of the most popular guns as Nerf Guns and they'll probably sell.

[@Ki11ersix]

yeah, would be a great crossover

[@corythescnd]

I think when they nerfed the bloodletter, there really weren’t a whole lot of resources for Moze in terms of damage and survival until the sapper. It was awful for solo players like myself, because you couldn’t solo content anymore, and the new classmod at the time was behind the wall of mayhem 4 and Maliwan takedown. I put BL3 down until they released psycho krieg, and admittedly I’m very glad I picked it back up.

[@devaughnsalter6264]

Use a Health Re-Router with a Crit with next two mags Rad or Cryo. You'll thank me later.

[@ghostridernz17]

Idk at the time the nade build was still constantly healing you. Granted to needed a maddening but i mean i never felt like crap using her. My main gun was the craps in sticky with a maddening and its been my build to this day even when she got hit with the big nerfs it was still ok and survivable now tho she feels stronger than she did before to me but thats just cuz iron bear is good

[@CturiX.IREALLY]

With most of this list, its good to know that waiting for the Steam realease for BL3 really saved any struggle i could have had with these nerfs

[@sprinkleddonuts6094]

The most sad for me Was the Flakker, Cutsman, porcelain pipe bomb, and Hex nerfs… i mean they are still useful but idk about PPB. They buffed a whole bunch of stuff but still, nerfing cause alot of players playing with certain gear etc in a single player coop game is a tad much. But yea not complaining.

[@ravencrovax]

Worst nerf they ever did was getting rid of weapon merging. They did it after the last DLC came out after it had been in the game for years at that point. There was no reason for them to do it other than "Reasons?"

[@DeliciousBooger]

the recursion being insanely broken on amara early on right when maliwan takedown dropped, making it have incredibly fast clears, basically instant clears.

[@VioletRM]

For me at least, the most outrageous nerf is how they did maliwan weapons so dirty in bl3. That charge up delay before you can shoot absolutely slaughters any fun you could have with the weapons. Anytime a maliwan or tediore drops, just throw it at the vending machine

[@Ki11ersix]

Plasma Coil, Flipper and Trevonator though…

[@Azure_fae]

Crazy how Salvador is a walking bug and he never really got the nerf hammer. Yet zer0 did? Poor zer0, b0re is his only broken skill anymore and that really only works with the bunker and hyperious, whilst Salvadors entire action skill is just broken and krieg has bloodsplosion. And with the new stacking kill skills bug, Maya and gaige have a broken build of their own. Axton and zer0 really have been left in the dust.

[@katehikes1645]

I guess Zer0 can stack critical ascension and rising shot,.and gaige is just a bad character

[@Ghost_Macabre]

I was actually suprised to not see the porcelain pipe bomb on this list, craziest nerf ever, but rightfully deserved.

[@Deeplycloseted435]

Completely ruining an entire brand of weapon, tediore nerf, was insane. It ruined so many weapons that were fun to use, and they weren’t even that strong…..and for what? Because white tediore’s were decent in Arm’s Race?

[@ewanjb99]

Back in the good old days of early borderlands 1 (13ish years ago) I remember having a full inventory of modded weapons such as rapid jackobs revolvers, "Pea shooter", Infinite rapid hive spams, dropable skill points etc... Gearbox removed all of this with their dlc patch upon release. This is not so much of a nerf to the game, but to my heart :(

[@grimmary4187]

I still miss the original damage of the yellowcake launcher and OP Q system

[@LNSLateNightSaturday]

Same, but at the time they were practically the only viable weapons in the game. It was either nerf them or buff literally everything else. ;)

[@mrsurprise2294]

​@@LNSLateNightSaturdayThey was the best but everything was viable you just had to get the 300/90 annoint since enemies had so much health then. Then they nerfed that lol

[@extrashifty578]

I'll always remember weapon merging although I don't need it to clear content it was hella fun to mess with it

[@raoulduke2924]

Cutsman was so fun and that nerf killed it, I think they also reduced the number of damage ticks it would do when passing through enemies.

[@rubencp93]

My number one is, and always will be, the Crossroads' nerf. I loved that weapon immensely, and seeing what they did to my baby was very saddening! Now we have things that are even strong, to the point they're actually ridiculous, and my baby is still dead in a gutter... Rest in peace, my sweetheart! You'll never be forgotten!!

[@mrsurprise2294]

Crossroads has a special place in my heart helped me complete the slaughter star 3000

[@creightonthewanderer6373]

The Garcia’s straight up fire rate removal in BL3. Used to be a semi auto jakobs shotgun that just blasted like an auto cannon but now it’s 2 shots with a second and a half between them, then your character pumps the shotgun comically slow, only then can you fire again. Straight up paperweight gun now.

[@LokoGringo]

The nerf that bugged me was the changes to the Garcia in BL3.

[@NegativeROG]

The one that made the least sense to me was the nerf of the U-Rad anoint. That one hurt me, because literally, it HURT. You have to give up 51% of your health. No other anoint required you to give something up, so the 150% to 100% nerf was almost mean-spirited. I noticed my hours count in BL3 began to slow around that time. Gearbox giveth, Gearbox taketh away.

[@mrsurprise2294]

Man I just started using it now and it's good imagine with 50% more

[@Akiro367]

I remember the lob was the worst weapon in the game they buffed it and made it a three round burst the dialed it back to a single shot

[@karlkriz508]

I really can remember this 1 desastrous big natch (nerf&patch)...allmost all the fanfavourites got hit. Butcher, cutsman, hex, lyuda, crossroad, lucians call...what an absolute mess. Gearbox didnt make ANY friends in the early days of bl3

[@animechic420]

Yellowcake BL3. I remember that thing being absolutely OP.

[@syn710]

Late to the party but the worst part of the ion cannon was the flavor text said something like "nerf this", then nerfed it

[@lunatik383]

The Moze/October nerfs completely killed my will to play the game. Put so much effort into getting perfect butchers, class mod, etc. havent played consistently since the halloween dlc

[@twistedturnip8487]

the grenades healing moze nerf is funny to me since when I was playing borderlands 3 I was able to still put together a build of infinite healing with the monarch (among other weapons), sapper class mod and most of her ammo skills, the monarch ended up with around 100-200 bullets that would barely budge without overuse of the bipod mode and so long as there was someone to shoot near endlessly outside of being overun, I was functionally immortal, so immortality was still possible to pull off. the "walking war of attrition" build.

[@lostella81]

The Evil Smasher glitch was insane. I could kill everything in the game with an Infinity pistol 😅

[@YakuzaMenace]

The nerf that decreased the fire rate of the king and queens call. They're still good, just not as good as they use to be at launch. Instead of a "fast as you can pull the trigger" fire rate its more like the fire rate of The Unforgiven now. That gun on a fade away crit build on Flak, regardless of what artifact or class mod you had, melted any and every boss

[@azizadeniji642]

The nerf to the Lob was just disastrous

[@Ki11ersix]

Did you see the buffs that it got since then?

[@moss4618]

#2 was the darkest day in borderlands for my mates and i , we always played together and all of our weapons and grenades got nerfed in the same patch, we had no idea what to do after that, gearbox sapped all the fun out of the game for us by ruining our all of our favourite items all at once...

[@Hgraves102]

The infamous Porcelain Pipe Bomb was crazy

[@khrashingphantom9632]

Wasn’t so much a nerf but a patch that pissed me off to NO END was then patching the 4 Player difficulty glitch a Raid Boss gates. It made solo spawning enemies like Vermi or tubbies EVEN HARDER and more rare which was already a frustrating endeavor. I mean why patch something that makes the game optionally harder without at least addressing reason people do it in the im first place. Just increase the rate spawn rate enough where farming for stuff like The Quasar and Norfleet isn’t near impossible. And YES I have gotten all of the weapons I mentioned to drop including The Twister but I only did it ONCE and never again! Those who have farmed Triple O understand my anger. Lol

[@keynanmartinez]

Luckily with a Big Brain you can loophole these nerfs.

[@johnathanfleming3236]

The one nerf ion BL3 that really changed the game for me was the extra projectile nerf which prevented some weapons (looking at you recursion) from lagging the game to oblivion and demolishing content but also nerfed a whole host of weapons that never made a real comeback like the Carrier and the Wagon Wheel which still remain as my favorite weapons. This was also when they nerfed Amara's "fake grasping" and really put her down as a character for a while and with the nerfs to the other characters it felt like they wanted every character to have a tough time doing even the maliwan takedown.

[@NebulaMoony]

I think it was a recent one where i started playing moze after a long break and i got the BL3 CC and when my friend said the CC got nerfed and i was in disbelief

[@clash_blazr5095]

The ION Cannon literally has "Fun detected. Obliterate" in the red text. I think Oboeshoesgames even predicted a nerf incoming when The Handsome Jackpot first released

[@mikeadrew1]

The Tediore and Crossroads nerfs should be reverted at this point.

[@shanecampbell0218]

That commitment skill for Zane's fourth skill tree, where you can stack it a bunch with the seein dead mod

[@brawlkillers13]

The flakker nerf was so uncalled for

[@bradyf9168]

As one who was instantly hooked on the franchise by BL1 in 2009, I can tell you that the third installment always seemed amazing to me and I never even noticed any of the reductions. Wanna feel nerfed? Go back and play BL1 - where getting five shots in a burst instead of three was big news. As always though K6, very impressed with your thorough coverage of the topic. Thanks for taking the time to make this vid.

[@salt1838]

i remember one shoting wotan's last phase with the ion cannon, i was both suprised and exited

[@keithwaggoner2375]

BL3 Recursion. that thing would bounce all over the place and just wreck everything. Then they capped the number of bounces and no one used it again.

[@tigeryumyums9407]

One of the biggest problems with the conference call nerf was how difficult raid bosses were for the average player in BL2. It created a pseudo soft lock for some legendaries once they nerfed CC. In BL3 whenever something was nerfed it wasn't a massive deal because there were so many other options.

[@Halimat2.0]

well something called the Invincible shouldn't just melt away the first dozens times you attempt it

[@tigeryumyums9407]

@@Halimat2.0 I agree with this sentiment. However Borderlands 2 had a major flaw in that there was realistically only 1 character that could consistently solo all content. Especially on OP10. Couple this with a very very small collection of meta weapons, horrible save farming, incredibly low drop rates and you can begin to see why the nerf was so massive.

[@zaoshikung2756]

​@@Halimat2.0you say that but Salvador still can hit damage cap with pimpernel and shred even the strongest op 10 bosses in under 5 seconds.

[@Halimat2.0]

@@zaoshikung2756 you abuse some glitches to do that and have to get a specific build otherwise its only strong but not able to kill invincibles in seconds aswell as salvador beeing 1 character but anyone can use conference call and beeshield so if that were still broken people would still pretty much only do that

[@zaoshikung2756]

@Halimat2.0 Ah got it so it's fine for some busted glitch to make a character hit the damage cap and one shot everything in the game but not for other classes to be able to come anywhere close to that(like seriously the og bee and conference wouldnt even scratch a few op ten bosses let alone the one bugged that you have to use salvador to kill since its hp is just waaaay to high). Got it. See the thing is about borderlands is if you don't wanna use the overpowered items you just don't. Want a super hard challenge just equip all white gear and test your metal. Your confusing it with a pvp game where broken crap actually matters because it infringes on another players gaming experience. But it's ok your allowed your own opinions as is everyone else so I'm not saying you don't have the right to feel that way.

[@kvetoslavzeleny1764]

"Fixing" extra projectiles with extra elements was on almost same level as nerfing AMP in BL3

[@dragonix8881]

I disagree when it comes to gearbox learning from the number 2 slot. They did the same with tiny tina.

[@Ki11ersix]

It’s like they learn some things and forget others

[@ironbru1986]

You touched on this at the end, but I've always been of the opinion that nerfing things in a PvE game is unacceptable. "Nerfing" things that are genuingly due to bugs (actual bugs and not them just saying so to justify nerfing things) is fine as they're not working as intended or designed, but anything else is BS in a PvE game IMO. This is especially true when it's a developer that is know for nerfing things but not fixing things that are actually broken like the many perks, gun skills, mission progress been blocked, etc that gearbox constantly ignore. There has been a memory leak in Borderlands GOTY Enhaced Edition that has been there since it released over 4 years ago that they just refuse to fix, but don't have a problem taking money for it even though it is fundamentally broken.

[@chicketychina77]

Really don't understand why they nerfed Melee Amara for no reason but Zane can run through the game at 1000 mph and kill everything.

[@RemingtonSteel]

Yup

[@Ki11ersix]

I mean, Amara can phasegrasp one enemy and make everything else in a 10 mile radius die in a single shot, so...

[@Spid4r1]

I mean, its a pve game completely broken and Fun to make your own shit in the whim, so.... ​@@Ki11ersix

[@dr.narwhalmd4885]

I think one of the biggest nerfs that I noticed (which i agree had to take place unfortunately) was when they capped zane's commitment skill. Now ofc being able to stack an ability that gives you 20% bonus damage like 30 times was very busted (even though moze has phalanx doctrine she cant spam a cannon every .5 seconds to give herself free skills), but for a short period of time zane was literally a god amongst the vault hunters. It was especially nice because for most of the game before that he was considered much weaker than everyone else.