The Bosses
So we’re finally here. This Saturday is the big day and we are all excited to be playing some Borderlands 2 and raising some money for Child’s Play. We’ve been practising and preparing and we’re ready to go. This will be my last bestiary post for this year and what better way to end the run than to talk about the Bosses we will face during our Borderlands 2 run. I’m only going to talk about the major bosses here i.e. The ones that occur at major story points and have big health bars on the HUD.
Lets pwn some Bosses:
Wilhelm
The real first boss in Borderlands 2 is the Hyperion Engineer Wilhelm. He is found at the end of the Tundra Express area and it is from Wilhelm that the vault hunters get the second power core for Sanctuary. Now Wilhelm comes with quite a bit of preamble and foreshadowing. Throughout the game we learn that apparently at some time in the past, Wilhelm very nearly killed the original four vault hunters. He is a crazy cyborg with the upper body of an engineer and the legs of a Loader. He comes armed with a mortar cannon, grenade launcher, powerful melee attacks, and the ability to summon surveyors to heal him. He is heavily shielded and has lots of health and can also pick up and throw train cars that will also reveal Loaders that were trapped underneath them. When fighting him it is very important to keep an eye out for surveyors and destroy them as soon as possible. We usually have one person doing that and attacking any Loader adds while the rest of the group focuses on keeping him slagged and burning him down.
Slagged Bloodwing
The second major boss of the game is Mordecai’s former pet Bloodwing who has been captured by Handsome Jack and mutated by eridium. Bloodwing is now huge and angry and the vault hunters must fight her in order to put her down. Along with a larger size, Bloodwing also now has various elemental attacks which she will cycle through as the fight progresses. Bloodwing attacks by dive bombing, swiping with claws, and breathing elemental projectiles. All of these attacks can be easily avoided. Sometimes Bloodwing will also land and add a powerful melee attack. During the Fight she will switch elements which will also refill some of her health. She will cycle through fire. shock, and corrosive. The key to this fight is awareness. All of Bloodwing’s attacks can be avoided so with some decent timing you shouldn’t take too much damage. An adaptive shield (which protects from the last kind of elemental attack that stuck it) will also help. You also have to be aware of when to attack. Shooting at Bloodwing when she is far away is a waste of bullets. Focus on attacking her when she closes in.
BNK3R
BNK3R is the huge flying Hyperion robot that guards Angel at the Hyperion facility in Thousand Cuts. BNK3R assaults from the air and is heavily armed with six turrets and a large laser cannon. It also has a mortar attack. Various loaders including JET Loaders will also be deployed during the attack to defend BNK3R. During the fight you will have some aid from Slab Buzzards that will both attack and draw fire. BNK3R also has several weak points. The turrets can be easily destroyed, but will regenerate. There are also several red eye areas which can be hit for critical damage. During this fight we will have to switch from mobility in attack and taking cover. BNK3R will stop occasionally hovering in air as it attacks. This will be the easiest time to hit it’s vulnerable places. The large laser can do quite a bit of damage and can’t be shot off, but the smaller guns can and should be whenever possible.
Handsome Jack
The CEO of Hyperion, the chief antagonist of Borderlands 2, and and all round despicable guy, Handsome Jack is one of the final two Bosses in the game. The fight is not too complicated and is really only a lead up to the final Warrior fight (see below) but being able to fight Jack after enduring all of his previous abuse is particularly satisfying. Jack will use holograms to distract opponents but they are relativity easy to blast through. Jack will also summon Surveyors to shield him and Loaders to help fight you off. Killing the Surveyors and the Loaders as soon as they appear is best so that you can again focus on Jack. If you get knocked down during this fight and there is no one around to help pick you back up, there are several Rakks in the sky that can be shot for a second wind.
The Warrior
The Warrior is the final Boss fight of Borderlands 2. It is an eridium fueled super weapon that with four legs, a long neck and tail, and wings looks quite a bit like a big volcanic dragon. The Warrior attack with its tail as well as with breathed fire attacks and by hurling rocky chunks at the players. It will also step on the vault hunters as well. The fight with the Warrior takes place within a rocky volcanic area. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The rocky outcrops can be used as cover from most of the Warrior’s attacks, but every once in a while the lava levels will rise causing harm and limiting mobility. There will also be Volcanic Crystalisks that will spawn which must be quickly killed before their projectiles become a nuisance. The Warrior can be critically hit in the mouth but also in several spots located under plates on its chest which can be shot off. While the mouth is the easiest to hit, the chest spots will do more damage. The keys to this fight will be teamwork staying power. We will have our Gunzerker running an ammo regen mod so we shouldn’t run out of bullets and as long as we keep to cover and avoid the lava we can stay alive. We can assign people to kill adds and communicate when crit spots are exposed. As with the Handsome Jack fight there will be Rakk in the sky we can use for extra targets to get second winds.
That`s it for our series of bestiary posts. I hope you have enjoyed them. As usual more information can be found at http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Borderlands_2_Enemies and be sure to tune into out even this Saturday May 18th at 12:30 EST starting at right here.
