Kreig Review Part II

The Kreig Review Part II
(Part I posted in May 2013)

Well after a shamefully long amount of time on Xbox, I have finally maxed out Kreig the Psycho, and here is the fabled PART TWO of my character review.

To say Kreig is overpowered is the understatement of the year. Borderlands 2 usually provide a challenging experience. Usually. While level scaling enemies do get tougher to deal with, the actual gameplay stays at an even pace. Then there is Kreig. As he levels up higher and higher, and HIGHER, he seems to be…GODLIKE! His higher-level abilities give more ammo, more melee damage and up to 80% damage reduction! And that is without his class ability. Normally an enemy that does damage over time is a problem, at higher levels it’s a race against time to find a way to shrug off that damage, however Kreig doesn’t mind this. In fact he embraces it! With a lot of his abilities actually giving him boosts on his damage resistance, and even his melee damage, the more he is injured the more “Salt on the Wound” stacks he gets with each stack giving a boost to melee and shotgun damage. Even doing damage Kreig has his “Bloodlust” stacks, which increase his clip size and give other bonuses to his other abilities for every stack. And then there are his elemental passives, where he can light himself on fire! Now this is the most varied of his skill trees in my opinion. He can do more damage while on fire, take more damage while on fire, and even be lit on fire from other elemental sources from Kreig or enemies (or even teammates!) giving Kreing on his own quite an advantage against higher level enemies. And with the right regeneration class modes and relics, Kreig could easily stand against the toughest of bosses.  

The dreaded Raid Bosses are no match for him either! What would normally take a long time in co-op Kreig can (most of the time) deal with any raid boss whether it is Terramorphus, Pyro Pete, and Hyperuis. Even the Dragons featured in Assault on Dragons Keep literally have chunks of their life bar shaved away while Kreig is in his Rampage mode. Now I know this sounds overly hyped, but it’s true. Even the toughest enemies on Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode have difficulty putting him down.

Now for his glory, Krieg does have his limits. Any enemies capable of blocking damage, for example Shield Nomads, are a pain unless caught off guard, or in co-op. Badassasuarse is another example with a lot of it’s body capable of blocking and even reflecting damage back unto Krieg, and with many of his abilities requiring him to be near death, it can be easy for a random mook to sneak in a lucky shot! Which brings me to Krieg’s “Light the Fuse” while yes it is cool that he throws dynamite and explodes with a lot of damage, it really isn’t that good. And I found a lot of the time I had to rush to the enemy with the lowest health to even have a chance of getting Second Wind. In all actually it’s better to just skip out on “Light the Fuse” and instead opt for more explosive, and assault rifle “Down But Not Out” damage while using a higher level Torgue gun. My last little pick at him is well, his look. Of all the things they could have done with his Skins and Heads, only a few of them are actually worth it in the end. I really don’t want to see Kreig wearing anything other than the most BADASS HEADS, but the ones that are available are EXTREMELY RARE. His Skins are also not impressive. 2K could have done so much with the whole tattoo thing a lot of the time it seems to just be one of the gun makers logos slapped on to his chest, and every other one looks to be some kind of default Photoshop clip art, which leads to use to end up using the tribal designed skin from the DLC the most, as it seems to fit at least two of the heads he came with.

All and all Kreig is an amazing character! Heavy hitter, a good scrapper, and he even has an interesting back story…But that’s about it. All his potential was really wasted and things that should have been good were either nerfed or not included.

BUT, if I had to give him a final score, right now, flaws and all it would be at least a 7.5/ 10