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.

There even is a reason and a way to keep you money low voluntarily: Slot machines. There's a low but reasonable chance to win Eridium there, and as cost of playing rises with the level of main quest, there's zero point in saving for later—money inflates, Eridium doesn't! My personal way of playing is to burn all my money in slots after each trip to battlefield. Longest forays usually net me mostly two to three "rounds"—that is, gambling sessions that end in full inventory (of course, buy inventory upgrades first).

Gamble!

• No money - no fear of death!
• Accidental good gun!
• Average of 0.1916 bars of Eridium per pull!
• Eventual "Jackpot!" badass challenge!

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, and trivial at the end of TVHM.

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

First off, money isn't all that useful in BL2. These are the only things money can buy:

1. equipment at vendors
2. ammo
3. slot machine pulls

For #1, As you play the game you'll notice that the vendor equipment isn't very good. You'll get better loot from drops and killing bosses. Plus, as you level up the loot you do buy is going to be obsolete rather quickly. Any non-legendary gun that's 3 levels below your enemies is basically worthless. Legendaries might get another 2-3 levels before they're obsolete. Therefore, you shouldn't worry much about #1.

For #2 (ammo) is mainly where you're going to spend your money. If you're worried about spending too much on ammo, you can always loot chests during your missions. There's plenty of ammo in chests.

For #3 (slot machines) is a really good place to spend your money at very low levels. The slots cost less at low levels and the eridium you get is really useful for expanding your backpack. After you've got the backpack upgraded a few levels you can stop using the slot machine.

So, basically don't worry about your cash. If you really want to beat the challenge, you can create a free Xbox live account (called "silver" level) and dump your money there. 20k is not a lot of money though. I wouldn't bother storing cash unless I had over 200-300k, which will probably be around level 30-40.

A few days ago my main had about 5 million on him. I cringed a little every time he died when i lost over 200k per death, but then i realize how useless having all that money is.

Answer 4

The previous answers covered everything you need to know about money and stuff but I have some general survival tips if you're dying a lot.

1) Find a fiend to play with. This is number one for me because it's always funner with a friend and there's less pressure on you to kill EVERYTHING (although the more players there are, the more enemies spawn, so pick someone trigger happy). Being able to rely on a friend to heal you if you're fighting for you life and there are no enemies around to kill is priceless. Plus if you go down and they survive long enough for you to completely respawn, the progress is not lost.

2) You mentioned elementals. How much do you know about them? When I started playing, I got bored during Marcus' mission when he explained them all to me and I was just having fun messing up the psycho he had tied up to the target. I then learnt more about them and they've been a lifeline ever since. Here are the rules: Fire - very good against flesh Shock - very good against shields, moderate against flesh Corrosive - very good against metal (loaders etc), moderate against flesh Explosive - good all rounder Slag - doesn't do anything on its own but hugely increases the damage of any elemental effect, including those induced by grenades or your skill tree

3) Now let's talk about weapons. If you're not at full ammo capacity, ALWAYS loot the crates you see about, even the tiny ones. It's the worst not monitoring your ammo consumption and having to switch guns if your main one is a legendary that eats through enemies like acid and you ran out of its ammo type and have to switch to a lesser weapon. When it comes to types, I always equip one of each of the following in my hot bar (but you can switch it up based on preference): Pistol - good close to medium range, generally quite accurate SMG - good close to medium range, fast rate of fire (good when you're panicking) Sniper Rifle - good long range, accurate and easy to get a head shot Rocket Launcher - medium to long range, great if you're facing a lot of or overpowered enemies, but can put you straight in fight for your life mode if you shoot something in front of you and you get in the way - this just takes a bit of practice and good timing I also ensure my guns are different elemental types so that I'm equipped for anything (but if you know an area will be full of loaders for example, you can have multiple types of gun that are all corrosive equipped ready). I go for fire pistol, shock SMG, corrosive sniper rifle (allows crits on the loaders eyes and does corrosive at the same time), explosive rocket launcher. Sometimes I switch my sniper out for a slag one.

4) Use phase lock SPARINGLY. I play as Gaige, whose skill is Deathtrap, a robot killing machine, so I just spam F to respawn him whenever I can. However, phase lock is enemy specific (until you level up and learn the skill that allows multiple enemies to be locked at once), so only target badass or more technically challenging enemies with this and focus instead upon using the right elemental type for the enemy and being strategic in your attacks (pick off weaker enemies first so your attention is fully committed to the stronger ones when you reach them). Also grenades are incredibly useful when you have multiple enemies, just chuck one and run away to recuperate for a minute (health regeneration is also great so if you have a skill that allows this, get it!!).

5) Strafe!! When you're running to a destination and just want to get somewhere because the enemies are too overpowered or you can't be bothered to fight them, take on a diagonal path. If you were running away from gun fire in real life you wouldn't want to give them an easy target by being predictable!

6) Look into getting a shield upgrade which increases your maximum health. I can't remember off the top of my head what make those shields are (I wanna say Pangolin but not sure), but it gives you a bit more wriggle room if you're dying a lot.

That's it for now, but if you have any questions, let me know!

Answer 5

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 6

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 7

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