Scrappy Weapon / Borderlands 2

While Borderlands 2 has become well-loved for fun, engaging randomized loot, it's not to say that every item here can be good...

Examples of Scrappy game mechanics can be found here.

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General Weapons and equipment

• Specific manufacturer and weapon type combinations simply don't benefit one another very much. Examples include:
  • Maliwan pistols, which usually consume 2 or more ammo per shot combined with constantly low magazines, making you lucky to find a Maliwan pistol that has more than four shots. The only Maliwan pistols worth a damn are the types that can heal the player with slag rounds, the Rubi and the Grog Nozzle.
  • Hyperion and Dahl Sniper Rifles — the aforementioned source of motion sickness that is the starting recoil and an extremely low fire rate for the former and burst-fire for the latter, which tends to get in the way of precision shots and drains ammo like nobody's business. These traits are absolutely antithetical to the marksman's seal of quality.
  • Unless you're playing Gaige with an Anarchy build, Jakobs Shotguns due to being a Critical Hit Class combined with a low magazine, making them basically useless if missed. The Quad-barreled shotgun is a debatable example, but many argue whether or not the damage output is worth the constant reloading.
• One of the most hated weapon parts is the Torgue assault rifle barrel, which converts the weapon's projectiles into either rockets or grenades, depending on the manufacturer. Unfortunately, it also makes shots cost two to four ammo and renders the weapon unable to crit. Furthermore, the projectiles do not benefit from grenade damage bonuses, making them awkward to build around.
• Vladof's spinning minigun-style barrel is an Awesome, but Impractical addon for most assault rifles. Most of the time, you're stuck with a slowly accelerating firing rate, forcing you to maintain fire for a period of time to make use of it, which costs a lot of ammo, ammo of the sort that isn't exactly plentiful to find in the wild. While this barrel behaves differently for Jakobs and Dahl weapons (simultaneous fire and a fast starting firing rate, respectively), Bandit and, ironically, Vladof assault rifles aren't so lucky. Torgue ones on the other hand, have an even more impractical oscillating fire rate, but compensate by the fact that a faster firing Torgue assault rifle does a lot of damage.
• Rubberized grenades are universally despised due to how counterintuitive their means of being launched are; instead of homing on targets, propelling themselves straightforward, or simply being thrown like a traditional grenade, these things bounce all over every surface, making it difficult to use them against enemies. Good luck throwing them over cover without killing yourself!
• Regular Amplify shields sound useful for snipers on paper, but it very quickly becomes apparent that they have no hope of scaling into lategame, or not at all in some cases. You only get the damage boost when the shield is full, and the damage boost drains a portion of the shield, so you have to wait for your shield to recharge between shots to take advantage of the effect. This isn't so bad in Normal Mode, where a decently-strong sniper can take out most targets with a single headshot, but it significantly drags out combat against True Vault Hunter Mode's more durable foes, and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode completely negates its viability by giving enemies health regeneration on top of making them even tougher. And of course, this is assuming you're only facing down a single target and not getting hit, which are almost never the case. Only The Bee is considered worth using in this category, as it doesn't drain any shields for amplified shots, making it considerably safer to use, but even that has the drawback of having a relatively small shield capacity compared to other shields of equal level and quality.
• E-tech weapons are universally seen as a major disappointment, considering they're hyped up in an early sidequest. Whether it be their added ammo consumption, strange and often Painfully Slow Projectiles, low DPS, and the difficulty (if not near impossibility) in scoring critical damage, people tend to jump off the E-tech hype train pretty quickly. E-tech pistols and E-tech sniper rifles are universally hated due to their weakened projectiles (and in the case of spiker pistols; having no direct damage input whatsoever), E-tech shotguns can't benefit from critical hits, and E-tech assault rifles simply consume too much ammo to be considered viable. Overall, the cons of E-Tech outweighed the pros so much that many weapon companies decided to ditch E-Tech in favor of adding alien tech barrels based on Eridian technology in 3 and they're far more powerful. Only the submachine guns^note because they still fit well into the close-range spray-and-pray nature of other submachine guns with essentially no noticeable downside, and SMG ammo is plentiful enough for them to be decently sustainable and rocket launchers^note for their comically huge blast radius that can even hit enemies through walls, combined with a potent Damage Over Time effect on anything that survives and a much smaller self-damage radius so you don't kill yourself every time you shoot one are considered worthwhile. To elaborate:
  • Both E-tech pistols, the Spiker and Dart, fire rounds that stick to enemies and detonate after a little while^note think the Mine Thrower from the Resident Evil series, and while the damage they cause is comparatively high, they can't crit, consume more than one round per shot (up to 3), and the delay means more hurt coming your way before the enemy dies, which becomes more troublesome as levels increase and by very very late-game (Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode with Overpower Level 10) they're Better Off Sold. Good luck trying to survive Fight For Your Life with one. Better to just pick a Jakobs or Torgue if you're REALLY transfixed by the high damage per shot, or a Maliwan for elemental effect. Special mention must go to the Wanderlust, a pearlescent-rarity E-Tech pistol that sacrifices absolutely all of its accuracy and a bit of damage for the ability to ricochet its projectiles towards enemies.
  • E-Tech sniper rifles are generally disliked for their inability to score meaningful critical hits in most cases, which is something of a problem given that the main advantage of a sniper rifle is the ability to score critical hits easily; a sniper Zer0, with a bunch of critical hit damage enhancers, will generally do better by selling all of his E-Tech snipers and just buying Jakobs guns instead — the enormous critical damage bonus from a common Jakobs Diaub or Muckamuck is much more rewarding and uses less ammunition.
  • E-tech shotguns essentially shoot large balls of goop in a ballistic pattern, causing splash damage. That would be fine if we're talking about Splatoon, but this is Borderlands, where hitting critical zones for better damage is a must. The goop bullets are also affected by gravity, making these shotguns poor at range. The SWORDSPLOSION!!! and its Effervescent counterpart Unicornsplosion are exceptions to this rule, though being explosive Torgue weapons, they were never really meant to cater towards critical hits anyway.
  • E-tech assault rifles are basically what happens if Maliwan made assault rifles, but fell short. Dahl E-tech assault rifles fire in a trident pattern, which can make for some decent damage up close. At range, it falters against anything but the largest targets, and eats up more ammo per shot. The Dahl E-tech assault rifle is also made redundant with the legendary Veruc, a Dahl assault rifle that also shoots in the same pattern but doesn't consume nearly as much ammo. Vladof Blasters are less problematic to use since they fire in a relatively normal pattern and can ricochet off surfaces, but given that this is Vladof, they chew through your ammo like nobody's business.
  • The BlASSter E-Tech assault rifle combines all the downsides of a Bandit weapon and an E-Tech assault rifle in one weapon. It has low damage and accuracy and a massive ammunition consumption. It also lacks an element that pretty much every E-tech weapon comes with, including other E-tech assault rifles. Being given one as a mission weapon for "Medical Mystery: X-Com-Municate" (which is an early-game mission so you WON'T have the assault rifle ammo capacity to keep up with it) just adds to the frustration (although the mission doesn't technically require it, it just specifies "an E-Tech weapon", meaning that if you wish, you could go on a rampage with a PRAZMA CANON or any Plasma Caster instead).

Unique Weapons and equipment

• All of Captain Blade's weapons are cursed. And this curse manifests in huge disadvantages for the wielder of the gun that makes them useless:
  • The Midnight Star^note Torgue MIRV grenade mod with increased damage which spawns less child grenades in a shorter range may sound good on paper due to its high damage rating for a MIRV grenade... until you realize that its cluster bombs always launch themselves towards you.
  • The Rapier^note Unique Vladof Assault Rifle that deals +200% melee damage but has reduced bullet damage, it also makes its user take increased damage from melee attacks has some situational uses, mainly in melee Zer0 and Krieg builds for its enormous melee damage boost, helped by them both having ways to shrug off its downside. Outside of them? Better Off Sold.
  • The Orphan Maker^note Unique Jakobs Shotgun with increased damage and reduced pellet count that deals 5% of the damage inflicted onto enemies to the player sees use in a certain Salvador build for its sheer stopping power. And that's it.
  • The Otto Idol^note Unique Eridian Relic that restores health for every killed enemy at the cost of reducing total "Fight For Your Life" time reduces total "Fight for Your Life" time, making you more prone to respawn, which is doom when trying to complete certain missions such as the Circles of Slaughter. It depends on you being quick to deal death, if you aren't, this relic is just a huge burden.
  • Finally, the Manly Man Shield^note Unique Torgue Shield that gives bonus damage to explosive attacks, but makes its user take increased elemental damage from all sources gives a boost to one damage class (which is seldom used), but boosts elemental damage from all sources. You can see where this is going. It becomes Better Off Sold in the Slag-dependant Ultimate Vault Hunter and Overlevel modes.
• The Bane^note Hyperion SMG with high damage and magazine size but reduced accuracy and recoil rate which slows the user's move to something close to "Fight for your Life" mode and contains an annoying voice module is an intentional example — it has a slow reload, it slows movement to a crawl, and every noise associated with it is intentionally obnoxious. It is, however, hilarious to watch, and it actually packs quite a punch.
• Few things beat out the Landscaper^note Torgue Shotgun with reduced pellet count and fire rate which fires pellets in a square pattern; the pellets stick to any surface and explode after six seconds in terms of sheer universal hatred - a square shot pattern that is nigh impossible to aim at anyone, and low DPS make it nigh-impossible to like. It also lacks a punchline to make it a funny Joke Weapon, unlike more self-aware cases such as the Bane, Morningstar, and Tidal Wave. This weapon, among other reasons, is why some people always side with the Zafords over the Hodunks at the end of the Clan War arc.
• The Bearcat^note Dahl Assault Rifle that shoots three grenades at the cost of 6 ammo units is exceedingly unpopular for being an unimaginative Pearlescent-tier weapon based on an already-reviled weapon type: the Grenadier, Dahl's Torgue-barreled assault rifle. While it does consume less ammo per grenade than a Grenadier, each shot fires three grenades, resulting in a net increase in ammo consumption per shot. It also features a hefty spread, making it inaccurate at anything but short range. And it makes a return in Borderlands 3, where it is admittedly a little better, but still not worth using.
• The Storm^note Maliwan Shock Sniper Rifle with increased elemental chance and projectile damage but reduced fire rate whose shots release five orbs upon impact, shocking all enemies. is considered to be, if not, one of the worst sniper rifles out of the Borderlands games. It is a Pearlescent-tier sniper rifle that instead of firing normal bullets, it fires exploding lightning bullets that release several shock orbs that zap nearby enemies. The catch? The bullets barely do any damage, and given this is a sniper rifle, it is very slow even taking in mind that the Storm is not bolt-action. As for the shock orbs, they barely deal any damage and have very little range to boot, as they require the enemies to get really close to even attack. Thankfully it has improved greatly in 3.
• The CHOPPER^note Bandit Assault Rifle with a huge magazine size that continuously fires 4 projectiles at the cost of 6, has low accuracy and decreased reload speed is an assault rifle that has a magazine equaling to 100% of your ammo capacity and is capable of firing automatically without holding down the fire button. For an assault rifle, the gun drains ammo way too fast and has barely any damage comparable to other assault rifles, especially when they have lower critical damage compared to other guns. The CHOPPER fires four bullets at the cost of six ammo, which hardly makes sense for an assault rifle that fires normal bullets. And the fact that this is dropped from Dexiduous the Invincible, who is infamous for its up to 99 Eridium cost compared to 8 from the other raid bosses, it's considered to be hardly worth farming by most players.
• The Emperor^note Dahl SMG with high damage and magazine size that fires a 6-round burst when zoomed in and whose bullets can penetrate enemies, at the cost of reduced fire rate and accuracy is a submachine gun with a good amount of damage and a huge clip, but gets flak for its horrendously slow fire rate that really cripples its DPS. As a result, it's simply outclassed by numerous other options, Legendary or otherwise - while its burst fire can be decently strong, its damage output is outperformed by the Lascaux, which becomes available at around the same time as the Emperor and is a guaranteed drop if you know where to look, and the Sand Hawk from the Scarlett DLC simply blows the Emperor out of the water.
• The Madhous!^note Bandit Assault Rifle with increased damage, accuracy and magazine size whose bullets follow a zigzagging path of random orientation and split in two upon impact; the bullets become faster after bouncing is fairly unpopular even for a Bandit weapon due to its bullets following an erratic waving pattern in the air; despite these bullets being able to split on contact with walls and terrain, it's still so inaccurate that using the weapon is essentially like playing Anarchy Gaige but without the damage bonus. It's not unheard of for the Madhous! to empty half a clip at enemies within almost point-blank range and still miss a good number of its shots.
• The Whisky Tango Foxtrot^note Dahl Booster Shield that releases IED Boosters rather than regular boosters; the boosters release 3 shock grenades after some seconds is a booster shield with the gimmick of deploying IED Boosters instead of regular boosters when shot, which can be picked up to replenish shields like normal boosters but also spit out Shock grenades for a few seconds when spawned. Those grenades can also damage the wearer. You should be able to see the problem. It doesn't help that the WTF tends to drop from Chubby enemies in place of something more useful and less likely to kill you. Thankfully 3 fixes this problem as the IED Boosters no longer harm you.
• The Cradle^note Tediore Shield mod that, on depletion, is launched as a Tediore weapon, causing an explosion upon impact is a unique case of a weapon getting shafted not by its concept, but by an unfortunate bug that somehow went unfixed throughout the game's update history. It's a Legendary Tediore shield that is thrown away and explodes after being depleted, which could make for a cool item concept (particularly for Gaige and her ability to instantly recharge it with Blood-Soaked Shields). Unfortunately, the explosion damage doesn't scale properly, meaning The Cradle essentially has no gimmick as it barely tickles enemies at even moderately high levels.
• The Dahlminator^note Dahl E-tech Corrosive Pistol that fires slow-moving homing projectiles, the projectiles bounce if they hit a surface and stick to an enemy before exploding and dealing AoE corrosive damage is an E-tech pistol, with all the problems such condition entails. What's worse about this weapon is that it's a reward for completing a fairly lengthy side mission. The Vault Hunters had to go through all the trouble with finding a secret treasure in the Caustic Caverns just to find this weapon.
• The Pot of Gold^note Bandit Booster Shield that has a chance to drop money is a Unique Booster Shield that drops money upon being damaged. While this seems to be a useful utility shield to make money, the problem is that both the amount of money dropped and the chance to drop money are low, meaning that the novelty of the shield runs out quickly. To make things worst, the shield only drops from a single enemy that only appears in a sidequest, and that enemy only has a chance to drop the shield upon being killed.

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