My heart sunk a little looking over the commando classes skill tree, only to find that my beloved shotgun skills or any iteration of them are gone. Shotgun Roland would be very unimpressed. I am still looking forward to the game still. Just not 'as" much as I was.

Where does one see these skill trees?

The only class who still has weapon specific skills is Zero, who can focus on sniper rifles. Gearbox wants people to be able to use whatever awesome guns they find.

There don't seem to be very many weapon-type-specific skills at all.  I'm pretty sure one of the classes had one for assault rifles, but that's all I remember seeing.  I think they just want you to use whatever gun is most fun/effective in that moment, rather than pigeonhole you into using one or two weapon types with things like proficiencies and gun-specific skills.
 
I don't really mind.

Most guns don't have any skill trees related to them. Gearbox designed them differently this time.

@Iodine said:

Where does one see these skill trees?

http://www.borderlands2.com/us/skilltree/commando.html

@Iodine said:

Where does one see these skill trees?

If you go to the Borderlands 2 website and view the character profiles, you can see the skill trees for them.

@SomeDeliCook said:

@Iodine said:

Where does one see these skill trees?

http://www.borderlands2.com/us/skilltree/commando.html

@PeasantAbuse said:

@Iodine said:

Where does one see these skill trees?

If you go to the Borderlands 2 website and view the character profiles, you can see the skill trees for them.

thanks

Gunzerker double shotgun for always.

@Phyrlord said:

My heart sunk a little looking over the commando classes skill tree, only to find that my beloved shotgun skills or any iteration of them are gone. Shotgun Roland would be very unimpressed. I am still looking forward to the game still. Just not 'as" much as I was.

If you like shotguns, you probably like close-quarters. I'd check out Zero and his bloodshed tree, mixed with a bit of his other two trees. You should be able to make a melee heavy build that works perfectly with a shotgun.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@Phyrlord said:

My heart sunk a little looking over the commando classes skill tree, only to find that my beloved shotgun skills or any iteration of them are gone. Shotgun Roland would be very unimpressed. I am still looking forward to the game still. Just not 'as" much as I was.

If you like shotguns, you probably like close-quarters. I'd check out Zero and his bloodshed tree, mixed with a bit of his other two trees. You should be able to make a melee heavy build that works perfectly with a shotgun.

This is exactly what I'm doing, then popping off my decoy when things get hairy.

My Commando is going all shotgun(witrh some snipers) with this build that focuses on damage:
 

Seems their new credo was to not tie you down with weapon proficiencies and the like. Probably a good idea, but I hope that means loot is instanced this time round. Anyone hear about that?

Loving the skill titles. The Gunzerker has both "Out of Bubblegum" and "I'm Your Huckleberry."

I love that the skill tree Jeff tweeted has none of the "extra" stuff that changes the action skill. All flat bonuses and modifiers.

That's a build I can appreciate.

@Rayeth said:

I love that the skill tree Jeff tweeted has none of the "extra" stuff that changes the action skill. All flat bonuses and modifiers.

That's a build I can appreciate.

I just looked it over and... Jeff continues to be one of the most boring gamers I've ever seen.

@Yummylee: Gotta get that health regen, son!

@Yummylee: Yummy you better be playing PS3! We haven't played since that beautiful Red Dead boar hunting afternoon.

I'm super happy about the lack of weapon specific skills. I loved playing a gunslinger in the first game, but being unable to mix it up meant I ran out of steam with my character by the time the DLC was coming out. I like that every character in 2 can be built to take advantage of pretty much any weapon type. They found ways to build diversity into the classes that doesn't really on assigning out weapon specialties.

@Phyrlord said:

My heart sunk a little looking over the commando classes skill tree, only to find that my beloved shotgun skills or any iteration of them are gone. Shotgun Roland would be very unimpressed. I am still looking forward to the game still. Just not 'as" much as I was.

Are they with another class? The Gunzerker perhaps?

It's a good thing, really. Generally, the way I played the first game was that I used the best weapons I had at that moment in time regardless of type, so I usually specced away from those kinds of skills anyways. Oh well. It's clear that the Assassin is the way to go if you want to be a dedicated sniper or whatevs.

Gonna be rolling hard into Zer0's sniper tree, also backstabbing fools with a sword.

Yeah I was a bit surprised at first, but when you think about it it's really a great thing that you don't have to tie yourself down to specific weapon types. I played the first one with Sniper Hunter and Shotgun Siren, but since this game is probably going to be extremely similar to the first one I think I'm going to mix up my play style and go balls to the wall with the Gunzerker and use every possible weapon preferably two at a time.

Yup, I'm also glad they ditched weapon-specific talents.

@Unlogik said:

@Yummylee: Yummy you better be playing PS3! We haven't played since that beautiful Red Dead boar hunting afternoon.

Ha, wow. I'm surprised you even still remember all that. And yes, I am indeed getting it for the ps3. Dibs on Maya the Siren >_>'

@huntad said:

Yup, I'm also glad they ditched weapon-specific talents.

I think maybe I just really loved my shottie Roland.. It will be nice to be able to dive into different weapon variations with out having to change up spec.

Have the weapon proficiencies been cut out as well? I don't care about the class-specific weapon buffs, but I did like how I would slowly get better and better with this type of gun the more I used it.

@Spoonman671 said:

There don't seem to be very many weapon-type-specific skills at all. I'm pretty sure one of the classes had one for assault rifles, but that's all I remember seeing. I think they just want you to use whatever gun is most fun/effective in that moment, rather than pigeonhole you into using one or two weapon types with things like proficiencies and gun-specific skills. I don't really mind.

Pretty much this; in the first one, I found myself sticking to assault rifles and shotguns and never even looking into other guns because I didn't have any skills for anything else. Rocket launchers, for instance, were universally pitiful for me but assault rifles could take down literally anything pretty quick.

It doesn't look like they're going for obvious gun skills, but from what I'm hearing a lot of skills lend themselves to gun builds like this "Shotgun Ninja" build for Zero that Gearbox keeps talking about. Also, I imagine people are going to be fighting for awhile about what the best dual-wield combination is for Salvador.

I feel like weapon proficiencies are going the way of the dodo in games in general. Like others have pointed out B2 still has other abilities that empower more general play styles like Close Up or Far Away, so there's that. I imagine proficiencies make loot drops more difficult to balance, since in a game like B2 the developers wouldn't want you running around too long with the same gun, just because nothing dropped that you could use effectively.

@Yummylee: That was exactly my reaction when I saw it.

@GERALTITUDE said:

I feel like weapon proficiencies are going the way of the dodo in games in general. Like others have pointed out B2 still has other abilities that empower more general play styles like Close Up or Far Away, so there's that. I imagine proficiencies make loot drops more difficult to balance, since in a game like B2 the developers wouldn't want you running around too long with the same gun, just because nothing dropped that you could use effectively.

My assault rifle proficiency in BL1 is insanely high, and all of my other proficiency levels are below 10. So now almost every single gun I find is totally worthless to me, because they're all inaccurate, slow and weak, and none of the assault rifle drops are better than the one I have. As a result, I've been going around with the same gun since level 40 or so. I'm super-glad they ditched them and decided to work in Badass ranks instead.

They're leaving room for DLC characters.

@The_Nubster: Case in point then. Weapon proficiencies are a pretty archaic way of thinking about abilities, and they might just not work that great for some games. I only barely played Borderlands but I get the distinct feeling Gearbox knew just how to tweak the second game.

@The_Nubster said:

@GERALTITUDE said:

I feel like weapon proficiencies are going the way of the dodo in games in general. Like others have pointed out B2 still has other abilities that empower more general play styles like Close Up or Far Away, so there's that. I imagine proficiencies make loot drops more difficult to balance, since in a game like B2 the developers wouldn't want you running around too long with the same gun, just because nothing dropped that you could use effectively.

My assault rifle proficiency in BL1 is insanely high, and all of my other proficiency levels are below 10. So now almost every single gun I find is totally worthless to me, because they're all inaccurate, slow and weak, and none of the assault rifle drops are better than the one I have. As a result, I've been going around with the same gun since level 40 or so. I'm super-glad they ditched them and decided to work in Badass ranks instead.

Oh yeah, I completely forget about the Badass rank thing. In fact I think I remember saying in another thread that it'll make for a great alternative to the weapon proficiency mechanic... Still, I never had too much problem with the different proficiencies during BL1 because I was always using so many different weapons. They (eventually) allow you to equip four weapons at once after all, and I heartily took advantage of that fact and would constantly switch between 'em.

However, those Eridian weapons were pretty useless--courtesy of the weapon proficiencies--though, considering how far into the game it is before you start finding them.

@Yummylee: Perfect! I don't have a Siren in the crew yet XD