Meet Krieg, he’s a Psycho Bandit, his favourite pastimes include dishing out brutal melee attacks, self-immolation, breathing fire and throwing explosives – he’s the new guy in Borderlands and he’s positively bonkers.
This new Psycho class is the most complex and interesting addition to the character lineup with a host of power-up boosts across three skill trees – Blood Lust, Mania and Hellborn – that will force gamers to balance debilitating affects such as health-damaging attacks that have the bonus of increasing your strength or speed.
Your most basic power is “Buzz Axe Rampage” and it’s a good place to start, using the BAR you’ll run around gaining health by tearing through your enemies with your trusty axe and if you get “hurt” you’re rampage will last longer – winning. But that’s just the beginning, Krieg’s level-ups encourage his madness and the more damage he takes – the better. Borderlands 2 Creative Director and designer of Krieg Paul Hellquist told us: “Krieg’s too driven and thirsty for blood to worry about things like…pain.” And that’s him in a nutshell.
Blood Lust
Blood Lust works on a very simple concept – damage your enemies and you’ll gain stacks that help you damage your enemies more effectively – but the real kicker is in the cyclic boost of Blood Over Drive, Fuel The Blood and Blood Bath. Levelled up to Tier 2 Overdrive will boost melee damage when you inflict bullet damage, Fuel The Blood at level 3 rewards melee murder with increased grenade damage and Blood Bath boosts bullet damage when you blow enemies to smithereens using grenades!
Top skill Bloodsplosion sees fallen enemies explode causing elemental damage to surrounding foes depending on the element of the weapon you used to kill them.
Mania
This skill tree capitalises on you being near death, perpetually, and contains (probably) the most risky set of skills to rely upon. “Fuel The Rampage” allows friendly fire and enemy attacks to reduce the cool down period of his Buzz Axe Rampage and “Thrill Of The Kill” boosts your health when you deal overkill damage.
One of the most fun elements to this skill tree is “Light The Fuse” which boosts the psycho’s version of Fight For Your Life. When on the brink of death, characters usually fall to the floor and pathetically bottom shuffle as they attempt to pick off weak enemies in order to be revitalised by gaining a kill. But Psycho’s don’t bottom shuffle and die on their arses!!! No, they do what any nutter would do whilst knocking on death’s door and awaiting an answer – they run around chucking dynamite at everyone, and if they manage to kill an enemy in the process they’re antics will be rewarded with the gift of new life. But if you can’t be bothered to run, you could also hold X or Square and kamakaze your way to health if you manage to catch any of your enemies in the blast radius.
If you manage to level up to the top tier, you’ll be rewarded with “Release The Beast” which when activated – during low health ofcourse – will transform your Psycho into a powerful monstrous mutant with a giant arm, even more equipped to deal crushing and devastating damage to your surrounding foes.
Hellborn
The most fun skill tree to complete IMO however is Hellborn, inspired by fire Psychos, encourages Krieg to be on fire – all the time. Krieg thrives when you get up-close and personal, boosted by causing damage as well as taking it thanks to his skillset being based on and risk vs. reward system – the more berserk you are, the more damage you’ll cause, but even more so when you’re on fire. One perfect example is his “Hellfire Halitosis” melee override skill, when used Krieg will satisfyingly breath fire on his enemies and thanks to skill “Burn Baby Burn” and “Pain Is Power” you’ll increase the chance that you too will catch on fire and see stepped increases in your accuracy, mag-size, reload speed as well as boosting melee and weapon damage – 15% each level if you’re on fire, compared to 5% when you’re not. The result? Fire – good. Pain – good. Being boring whilst playing as Krieg – bad.
The top-level skill in the treasured Hellborn skill tree “Roving Retribution” will even shoot homing fireballs back at enemies that are foolish enough to mess with your crazy arse, and if they set on fire, yes, you’ve guessed it – again, you’ll likely set on fire too – it’s a glorious cycle of flaming carnage that sums up why this wonderful character is insanely fun to play with.
The Krieg DLC for Borderlands 2 will be available on May 14 for £7.99 or 800 Microsoft points.
