So I know that you should avoid side quests in playthrough 2 as they scale up once you reach 2.5, and you can get better loot, but you don't get enough XP to keep up with the difficulty doing just the primary story quests.

So how did you guys handle it? Do you just avoid sidequests that give items you may want at level 50? Or did you just not care, since I guess there's not really any reason to get items at level 50 anyway.. once the DLC comes out, new items will just be better. There's the final boss I guess, and my goal is to kinda beat him since I'm sick and have nothing to do.

Spoilers below this

Anyway, how did you guys handle it? Also if anyone is on PC around the part after roland gets kidnapped and wants to play 2.0 with a commando, let me know. I'm Pinworm45 on steam

If you've finished everything in P1 you'll hit 50 quite a bit before you fnish PT2 (I'm abit over halfway through PT2 and I'm 47,5). That is with doing sidequests though, but still even if you don't save them you'll most likely have a good deal of them left. And either way, if you actually care about getting better loot after 50 and killing PT2 Warrior, aren't you gonna be farming like crazy anyways ?

i finished playthrough 1 around lvl 33 i think, then i explored a lot in 2 and just ground out certain areas, changed specs a few times to suit certain enemies, actually had more fun than in playthrough 1

I'm on my second play through now and I'm taking my time and finishing every single side mission since I rushed through it to see the deep story that Borderlands 2 offers(sarcasm). That's my recommendation 1 but if you already finished all the side quest during the first play through, I also recommend re distribute your skills. Changing your skills definitely change the way you play the game.

There are very very few actual sidequests for which it is worth putting off the reward until 2.5

Stuff like certain relics: shotgun reload and dmg, health%, or firehawk shield for example.

You can safely do most of the sidequests you want as gun rewards are practically worthless and a lot of them give only money and xp or erridium.

@Tennmuerti said:

There are very very few actual sidequests for which it is worth putting off the reward until 2.5

Stuff like certain relics: shotgun reload and dmg, health%, or firehawk shield for example.

You can safely do most of the sidequests you want as gun rewards are practically worthless and a lot of them give only money and xp or erridium.

This makes sense, I guess I saw all the posts saying AVOID SIDE QUESTS and assumed it meant all of them. I see now the game says what the reward will be, so I can do many of them. I just made the game a lot harder for myself by fighting things way higher level, awesome.

Thanks

@Pinworm45: Just keep in mind that if you accept a quest then it will not scale once you reach 2.5. You actually need to leave quests untaken for them to scale later on.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Pinworm45: Just keep in mind that if you accept a quest then it will not scale once you reach 2.5. You actually need to leave quests untaken for them to scale later on.

Yeah I knew that part, thanks, it's nice enough to show what the reward will be before you even take the quest

@Tennmuerti: What exactly is playthrough 2.5?

@McGriddle550 said:

@Tennmuerti: What exactly is playthrough 2.5?

When you kill the end boss and finish the last story mission in playthrough 2, all the enemies in the world including previous bosses will scale to lvl 50-52. It's what people have taken to calling the endgame of Borderlands since the first one, where you try to get the best highest lvl gear and kill the new scaled bosses.

It's an unofficial but pretty much defacto name. A shorthand for a scaled up 2nd playthrough.

Like Tennmuerti said you can do all sidequests that give you green loot, if it's blue or purple skip it. Either that or grind exp out of enemies the same level as you.

@McGriddle550: I assume that once you kill the final boss (and you're level 50 at that point), you can travel around the world to pick up all the sidequests you didn't take earlier. Their questrewards are now scaled to level 50, which they weren't when you first were able to take them. I'm just guessing, because I just started my second playthrough...

EDIT: Derp, already answered above me. Well, I was correct! :)

@Tennmuerti: Thank you I have been wondering what it meant for a while. Are there any quests in particular that I should save for 2.5?

Not on topic of the thread but I thought you cats would know better than most..

Apart from backpack/ammo upgrades and chances at fighting that big old impossible boss, is there any other thing to spend eridium on?

I recall seeing something in another thread implying that there were difficult optional bosses that were considered the end game over just beating the game again in 2.5. What's the deal with those?

@McGriddle550: I honestly don't remember the quest names and all the rewards (besides the 3 already mentioned). Also some of the side quests that give cool grenade mods might be best saved up.

If you really want to dig deep and prepare there was a thread on Gearbox forums somewhere on the unique item rewards from quests.

For an easy rule of thumb, as long as you do side quests that don't give loot or give just greens you should still be totally fine in terms of keeping up with the level of the main quests. Like @TheDudeOfGaming: mentions leaving the blue and above for later also works.

@YI_Orange:

There are 2 optional "raid" bosses. Terramorphous the Invincible the the official one that has a quest for him even, that you will get when finishing the main quest. Then there is the sort of slightly "secret" one Vermivorous (or some shit like that) the Invincible that is a pain in the ass to spawn as it needs a varkid to evolve from badass->super badass->ultimate badass->Verm and has no quest associated with him.

@Scooper: nope

For my first couple of characters, I'm just not worrying about it. I figure it'll give me incentive later to play through with more characters and grind out badass ranks. For now, I pretty much play how I like, which is pretty scattershot but deeply enjoyable.

@Tennmuerti: Oh, one more question almighty cow-man: are any sidequests missable? Considering that Roland dies, I figured that might be the case if there are any sidequests before that happens? Was planning on getting the "Did It All"-achievement on playthrough 2.

EDIT: Looked around a bit more, and it seems that most guides say that no sidequest is missable. So yay for that!

Unused eridium is needed to fight 'invincible' bosses. Something like 20-25 pieces per battle. Keep farming and you'll always have plenty. I've found that if equipped with an orange level 50 weapon than your chances increase greatly when farming for orange weapons. Not sure why.