Borderlands/General Tips
From SDA Knowledge Base
- Use your scope! Scopes in the game don't guarantee 100% accuracy, but they do tighten the spread of your weapons. Sledge's Shotgun has insane spread due to having 0 accuracy, but looking down the sights will still result in a tighter pattern.
- Using your melee attack after shooting certain weapons will cancel the "recovery" animation (e.g. pumping a shotgun). Although your melee attack must finish before the gun is able to shoot it again, it may be faster than waiting for the recovery animation to finish.
- Like cancelling a weapon's recovery animation, melee attacks will also cancel reloading animation, which again, may or may not be faster than the actual reloading animation is self. Note: the shells/rockets/clip must have been reloaded into the gun before you can cancel the reloading animation. If you melee before, the gun will not be loaded. An easy way to tell if a gun has been reloaded is if the ammo HUD shows that the gun is loaded (e.g. 6/84 shells in a shotgun).
- Be aware of your shield, health, and enemies when drop reloading. You do NOT want to die before you pick your gun back (and it happens far too often).
- Always keep an eye on your Phasewalk skill and when it recharges. Remember - it's not just a tool to get from point A to B faster; during enemy encounters, utilizing it can save your butt.
- On that note, be aware of where your Phasewalk will end - you create a small explosion when you exit that's strong enough to set off explosive barrels. You definitely do not want to kill yourself when no enemies are around.
- Use medkits! They're cheap, take only a few seconds to buy many, and will help you survive tough situations. It takes 10 seconds for the medkit to finish healing, so when stringing together heals for constant healing over time, watch your timer or health regen.
- If you make a mistake and drop Sledge's Shotgun into an abyss, either: die and savewarp while in the purple warp, or go back to Headstone Mine and kill Sledge again for another Sledge's Shotgun. Although it takes a few minutes to kill Sledge again, keep in mind that your run is NOT over if you somehow lose your shotgun.
- Mash that sprint key. A lot of things will make you stop running in Borderlands (gunfire, (invisible) steps, etc.), and walking is illegal in speedrunning in most cases.
- When spawning a car, you can use the arrow and enter keys to spawn and teleport into the driver seat instead of clicking each individual option.
