Only three weeks after its release of Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software came out with their first piece of downloadable content: Gaige, the Mechromancer. She is the fifth playable character on the return trip to Pandora, and she brings a whole new set of skills to the table.
Gaige is an interesting addition to the roster for Borderlands 2. She has a little capability for support, but primarily her stats are primed for dealing massive damage to her enemies, either through status effects or through her robot, Deathtrap. I played around with her for a while before I found my perfect mix, but let’s run through some things, shall we?
Her first skill tree, Best Friends Forever, focuses a bit more on defensive stat boosts than anything else. Skills in this tree focus on making your shields recharge faster, giving Deathtrap some new attacks, and eventually a shield of his own. The notable skill in this tree is Close Enough. When leveled, it gives your bullets a 50% chance to ricochet off of any surface and hit an enemy at half the damage. Not too bad if you’re not much of a shot, and an interesting skill to mix with others, as I’ll explain later.
The second skill tree, Little Big Trouble, is all about dishing out massive amounts of damage to your enemies. You have your basic skills mixed in, ones that boosts shield recharge rates, damage that Deathtrap deals, and increasing your resistance to damage. Where this tree really shines is in skills like Shock and “AAAGGGGHHH!”, an ability that makes it so that every time you reload an electrical storm surges around you damaging all nearby enemies. Combine that with Evil Enchantress, a skill that boosts your elemental damage whenever you kill an enemy, and the battlefield will crumble before you in mere seconds.
The final tree, Ordered Chaos, focuses around the ability Anarchy. Every time you kill an enemy, or auto-reload your weapon, you get a stack of Anarchy. Each stack increases weapon damage, while simultaneously decreasing accuracy. Anarchy stacks can reach up to the hundreds, and with how fast paced combat is, you’ll begin noticing the effects immediately. The damage you deal with a single shot could kill multiple enemies, but hitting them becomes the real key since your accuracy has plummeted.
Personally, I went with a little from each tree, giving myself the Anarchy ability backed with Close Enough to compensate for the accuracy loss, and then plowed into the Little Big Trouble tree for even more damage boosts. Massive amounts of damage, bullets ricocheting through the air, electricity storms frying those who remain… Needless to say, my run through with Gaige was nothing short of apocalyptic mayhem, and I loved it.
At 800 Microsoft Points, only ten dollars, you can pick up Gaige and reap more havoc on Pandora, a choice which I recommend highly. I’d also recommend just bucking down and paying the thirty dollars for the Borderlands 2 Season Pass and guarantee yourself every piece of DLC that Gearbox is going to release for Borderlands 2. It’s a deal I couldn’t pass up! And with the frequency of DLC dropping from Gearbox, I’m glad I laid my money down early! These are things that should not be missed!
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