November 4, 2012

Mooshot Farming in Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 Moonshot Farming
I've been playing Borderlands 2 probably a bit more than I should have, but I'm having fun and I've found some guys I'm enjoying playing with.  These guys have helped me level up some characters so I could get the Xbox achievements.  They've also given me some items and I've passed on the favor when I could.



One aspect of the game that isn't that pleasurable is farming for items.  After you've played through the game twice with one character you can go back and fight a large number of mini-bosses (and not-so mini-bosses).  These foes have a chance to drop rare loot.  Quite a few people collect these rare items.  Some are pretty big sticklers on having non-duped items, considering duping items "cheating", but the drop rate for these rare items is very low, as in single digit, or even a fraction of a percent.  Some items are simply impossible to get because you had to make a choice one way or another to get access to possibly getting that item, forever locking yourself out of the other other side of that decision tree.

One of my new gaming friends badly wanted a Maggie, a rare pistol.  He had chosen the other decision tree than what I had.  I helped him farm for a Maggie and he gave me a Slagga, which really worked better for me with the way I was playing my Commando.

Anyway, the discussion on duping or farming in general isn't my purpose.  I had been reading various forums and discussions and the term "Moonshot" keeps getting mention, but rarely ever explained.  I have yet to find a detailed instruction on exactly how to do a Moonshot farm, so I figured this was a good topic for my blog.  One important thing needs to be mentioned though:

If you don't like the idea of Moonshot farming, or think farming at all is "cheating", then don't bother to read on.  Just because you don't like to take advantage of a particular aspect of the game, it doesn't mean the game is broken and everybody else has to conform to your world view!

Hyperion Moon Base
Borderlands 2 is not a competitive game.  You basically play just with yourself and up to three friends.  I've been getting pissed at people pissing about certain aspects of the game, aspects they can simply not play.....as in they have to go out of their way, usually very far out of their way (like farming for a couple hours or even days) to experience these aspects, which they can simply choose not to do even when they get it, and then demanding that Gearbox fix these "issues" so everybody has to play the way they want.

Now that mini rant is out of the way I can describe the Moonshot Farm.  It is important to follow these instructions to the letter as it is easy to get to a spot where the farm is spoiled and you have to start over....and I mean over as in start up a brand-new game.

Steps:

  1. Play through the game once and start over in "True Vault Hunter Mode".
  2. Get your character to level 50 before fighting Jack and the Warrior
  3. Once the Warrior is downed, you will hear Lillith tell you to call in the Moonshot from the Hyperian Moonbase.  Do not call in the shot!
  4. Save and quit your game.
  5. Before continuing you game, change your games network settings to "Offline"
  6. Bring in another local player with a second controller (split screen).  You can use an Xbox Live Silver account for this.
  7. Once the game has continued, move your main character away from the save point, but make sure you do not go down the stairs.
  8. Let the second character go down the stairs and call in the Moonshot.
  9. Let the second character pick up any/all of the loot.
  10. Have the second character save and quit.
  11. The main character dashboards out.
  12. Repeat steps 5-11 as desired.
If you want to trade out items, you can start up a saved game for a different character and bring in the guest character or you can swap items between the guest and main and save both without having the guest go down the stairs.

While technically the Warrior can drop any legendary, realistically he is only going to drop one of four legendary items, the Conference Call Shotgun, the Flakker Shotgun, the Leech Grenade, and the Volcanoe Sniper Rifle.  He will also sometimes drop a legendary Head, which is odd because there is no difference at all between a legendary head and a regular one.  Moonshot farming for a tenth of a percent chance at a legendary class mod isn't a good use of your time.

The Warrior will not drop a legendary item every time, but the drop rates are significantly higher....enough that it is probably closer to 70%.  Also, from my experience, if he drops a head there isn't a legendary weapon and I have heard sometimes he drops two legendary items (very rare).

I hope this helps.....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks. how far away exactly does p1 have to be from the save point?

Christopher Stogdill said...

I would put that player up against the cliff face to the left of the trail. There is a pocket of sorts before you would drop down.

Anonymous said...

thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Unfortunately I finished PT2 the other day so cannot do this until I have another character there... However, I have a couple of questions:
Do you have to have an online account for this or just need 2 controllers?
Does p2 have to be a certain level or could you use a newly created level 1?
Thanks!

Christopher Stogdill said...

Local split screen would work fine and a level 1 for the 2nd character is fine.....it will level quickly.