How to deal with money and death

Question

I just recently started playing Borderlands 2 this weekend and I am running into some problems. I am kinda new to gaming, so forgive me.

So the character I picked is Maya, and I started pretty good I guess. I follow the story line, but whenever I see side missions I do them first, and then go on with the story. I died a few times, not a big deal, but I felt I made good progress.

Last night I hit lvl 16, and had about 26,000 in my pocket. From there it went all downhill. I have 2 open side-misions, and the main mission. One is for Tiny Tina, and one for Sir Hammerlock. In both of them I have to kill flying insects which are just impossible for me. In the main storyline I just got the bombs from Tina.

The last couple of hours playing I died a lot. I died during the side mission, I died during parts of the main story, some just out of stupidity.

As it stands now I only have about 17,000 left, when I die it costs me 1,000+. If I play some more today I will end up a broke man, I guess I have to change my gameplay. I have good weapons/mods/shields, I always keep the best. I also buy the best that's in the store, no matter the price.

I am still having problems, what should I do?

1) Is there a way to store my money in the bank?

2) Should I respec? I have 5 x ward, 5 x Kinetic Reflection, 1 x Converge.

3) Can I just lose my money and get enough later in the game

Answer 1

In general, your build in early game does not matter much. Just make sure you phaselock those mutants as often as you can. If you are still uncomfortable with your build, try shifting into Harmony to heal better.

As for money, no, you can't store it in the bank, but just stop caring! Every time you die, you lose 7% of your current money—the less you have, the less you should be afraid of dying. I've never had problems with money—even if you miss that rare gun in the shop, it is not like you won't find a better one soon.

The only thing you need a lot of money for is "For the Hoard!" achievement - and accumulating 3,000,000 is fairly easy even at the end of Normal, not to mention end of TVHM.

Chill out, man. Just shoot some stuff and feel good about it.

Answer 2

1) Is there a way to store my money in the bank

Unfortunately no. You can store money by trading to another character, but this requires an intermediary player (trade to a coop buddy, trade back to another char you don't use). But I wouldn't consider this worth it unless you're protecting your hoard of $5 million before going off to fight a Raid boss and thus dying literally 20 times.

2) Should I respec? I have 5 x ward, 5 x Kinetic Reflection, 1 x Converge.

Playing better will always help, but there's nothing wrong with that build per-se. If you're dying too often it's more often a case of you being underleveled or out geared. Personally I'd recommend Flicker and the Cataclysm tree, but if you're having trouble killing things, leveling up generally helps more than skills in the first playthrough. Get a couple levels ahead of your enemies and you'll usually be good with only modest skill.

3) Can I just loose my money and get enough later in the game

Basically yes. The price of guns goes up linearly as you go on, you'll be selling guns for $1k or so by the end of the first playthrough (I think, been a while since I was that low level). Money isn't that significant except for buying ammo (almost never a problem) and buying gear at shops (item of the day is usually the only good stuff).

Answer 3

It's nice to have money to buy things but it's not that common that you'll find something awesome to purchase. I would focus more on using the correct elemental damage depending on what you're fighting. I think the bugs you're referring to are weak vs incendiary damage.

Answer 4

Can I just lose my money and get enough later in the game

Yes, this is the best thing to do.

You lose 7% for each death. If you die 20 times (while earning nothing), you'll have 23% of the money you started with.

If you think you are going to die a lot, it is better to spend that money!

Answer 5

1) Is there a way to store my money in the bank?

Nope.

2) Should I respec? I have 5 x ward, 5 x Kinetic Reflection, 1 x Converge.

That really depends on you. You should use the build you find fun to play with and you're comfortable with. You can finish the game with pretty much any build, so don't bother yourself too much with it, use the one you like, as long as you adapt to it you wont have problems.

3) Can I just lose my money and get enough later in the game?

Well the amount of money you currently have is really nothing compared to the amount of money you'll be having later in the game. So yeah don't feel bad about dying and losing money at this point, I'm pretty sure you'll get used to the game and get better at surviving before you start making the big money.

Some tips regarding your issue

• When you're fighting enemies and you lose your shield, run around or hide untill your shields regen, then start fighting them again
• When buying or deciding which shield to equip, watch out for BOTH defense points and shield regen speed as they're both equally important
• Some weapons are better then the others with certain enemies, especially the elemental ones. Find out what the enemy weakness is, and use elemental weapon according to that to kill it faster