“ | "Any paradoxes, or reality-leaks should either resolve themselves, or we will all be obliterated before we can feel too much pain. Sounds fun, doesn't it? I call it "Mayhem Mode"."
— Tannis introducing the Vault Hunter to Mayhem Mode.
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” |
Mayhem Mode is a Borderlands 3 option providing configurable game-play alterations increasing both risk and reward. Availability is triggered by main story completion, and continues throughout True Vault Hunter mode.
Activation and configuration are performed using either the "Mayhem" section of the character menu, or a mysterious Eridian terminal aboard Sanctuary III.
Overview
Once enabled, Mayhem mode will offer ten difficulty levels, with each having a number of modifiers.
Semi-random modifiers determine each level's particulars, subject to limited control by the "reroll" command. Rerolling one level will reroll the entire pool across all levels. Changing levels or logging off the game will not reroll the modifiers. Rerolling or changing levels requires reloading of the area if not aboard Sanctuary III.
These modifiers are separate for each level and can be rerolled at any time via the Mayhem menu tab. Modifiers will remain permanent for each character's save file until they are changed.
Effects
As the Vault Hunter goes higher up the ladder, each level increases the difficulty of the modifiers (from Easy to Very Hard), and total selection amount of modifiers (from 1 up to 4).
All opponents receive:
- Increased body durability (AP, SP, and HP).
- Increased vehicle durability (applies to Vault Hunter's vehicles as well)
- Mayhem-exclusive buff/nerf modifiers.
While enemies receive increased durability, enemies' damage to players is not increased, barring any applicable modifiers. This can lead to some disparity between player-to-enemy damage ratios, which makes certain damage effects (such as damage reflection and non-Cryo status effects) deal negligible amounts of damage at higher levels.
Rewards
In exchange, Vault Hunters receive:
- Increased combat experience and currency.
- Increased drop rate of higher quality items.
- Increased drop rate of Anointed items.
- Enemies will now drop Mayhem Mode exclusive items on Mayhem 4 and Mayhem 6 or higher.
- Weapons will now drop with Mayhem Mode buffs; the higher the Mayhem level is that the item was obtained from, the higher its damage stats.
- Exclusive to enemy kills. Quests rewards, chests, vending machines, and any other loot source will not gain Mayhem level boosters.
- Items obtained with the Lootsplosion modifier will have a Mayhem level boost.
Mayhem Levels
Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 1 | ||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 2 | ||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 3 | ||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 4 | ||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 5 | ||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 6 | |||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 7 | |||||||||
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Mayhem Mode | LEVEL 8 | |||||||||
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Mayhem Modifiers
For the sake of keeping information clear and understandable to the reader, some effects had their description rearranged, such as removing flavor text, or grammatical structure checks. Their name, however, is kept untouched.
Easy Modifiers | |
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Name | Special Effect |
Big Kick Energy |
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Galaxy Brain |
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Lootsplosion |
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Speed Demon |
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More Than Okay Boomer |
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Slayer |
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Medium Modifiers | |
Name | Special Effect |
Healy Avenger |
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Charred Mode |
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High Voltage |
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Acid Reign |
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Chilling Them Softly |
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Totally Radical |
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Mob Mentality |
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Freeze Tag |
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Floor is Lava |
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Pain Tolerance |
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Hard Modifiers | |
Name | Special Effect |
Chain Gang |
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Drone Ranger |
Temporarily removed from the selection pool as per Hotfix April 30
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Pool Party |
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Laser Fare |
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Boundary Issues |
Temporarily removed from the selection pool as per Hotfix April 30
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Ticked Off |
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Very Hard Modifiers | |
Name | Special Effect |
Buddy System |
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Post Mortem |
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Dazed and Infused |
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Rogue Lite |
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Not the Face |
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Holy Crit |
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Changelog
June 11, 2020
- Tweaked armor, shield, and health percentages on Mayhem 7 and above.
- Decreased Mayhem 7 from 5,000% to 4,500%.
- Decreased Mayhem 8 from 7,500% to 6,000%.
- Decreased Mayhem 9 from 10,000% to 8,000%.
- Decreased Mayhem 10 from 12,500% to 10,000%.
- Added support to show Mayhem Levels on Item Cards.
- Addressed a reported concern of a crash that could sometimes occur when engaging with enemies with the Wedding Invitation with the Galaxy Brain Mayhem modifier active.
May 21, 2020
- Addressed a reported concern that dedicated drops for Wotan were not dropping in Mayhem 4
May 14, 2020
- Addressed a reported concern where Mayhem would occasionally not award cash, Eridium, or XP after death.
May 7, 2020
- Addressed a reported concern that the Mayhem modifier Galaxy Brain could sometimes cause Graveward’s loot to drop in a location the player could not access
- Addressed a bug with Mayhem Mode that led to lower than intended drop rates for all Mayhem levels.
April 30, 2020
- Adjusted the drop rate for Legendary items in Mayhem Mode.
- Adjusted the drop rates for Anointed gear in Mayhem Mode.
April 23, 2020
- Permanently updated Mayhem Mode to Mayhem 2.0.[1]
- Addressed a reported concern that Mayhem level was not displaying correctly for clients.
- Addressed a reported concern that Mayhem Mode would remain active after resetting mission progress in TVHM.
- Addressed a reported concern that exploding enemies would sometimes not die when self-destructing with the Buddy System Mayhem Modifier.
February 20, 2020
- Addressed a reported concern that Oversphere enemies occasionally would not shoot with their optic lasers in True Vault Hunter Mode or Mayhem Mode.
- Adjusted the balance for Tony Bordel and Petunia in Mayhem Mode.
December 12, 2019
- Added numbered icons to the Mayhem Mode icon on the HUD.
- Addressed an issue where Mayhem Mode icons on the HUD would sometimes become inconsistent when adjusting difficulty.
November 21, 2019
- Mayhem 4 introduced.
- New Legendary weapons and class mods exclusive to drop on Mayhem 4.
- Tweaked Mayhem station.
- Players will activate Mayhem through the center pillar and increase or decrease Mayhem levels by using the pillars on each side.
October 31, 2019
- The chance of receiving a weapon penalty as a Mayhem modifier will continue to be reduced at the same rate as the Mayhem on Twitch Week.
- The drop rate for Anointed gear has been increased.
October 24, 2019
- [Consoles Only] Mayhem mode is now available in True Vault Hunter Mode on Consoles.
- Added ability to specify Mayhem Mode while matchmaking.
- Fixed a reported UI issue where the Mayhem Modifier menu would sometimes not appear for certain players.
September 19, 2019
- Scaled down the amount of loot drops in Mayhem Mode.
September 13, 2019
- Release.
Tips
- The higher the difficulty, the more encouraged it is for the player to always carry an ammo-on-melee resupply artifact due to the nature of damage sponges.
- Damage-over-time status effects may become irrelevant on high levels, requiring much superior damage per second.
- Be cautious around Anointed enemies; due to the massive increases of durability stacking of Mayhem with the already spongy Anointed enemies, it can lead to some tedious, long-lasting conflicts.
- Cryo is your friend; cryo efficiency is based on health percentages of enemies, not total, so you will always feel safe to freeze enemies to catch a breath.
- Some modifiers are not recommended to ever use, and to simply reroll for a better listing:
- Freeze Tag deploys a high shield points entity that constantly chases the player and triggers cryo novas. This can easily interfere and bring doom to any Vault Hunter that wasn't able to sprint away from danger.
- Floor is Lava punishes players for playing it slow and safe, which is what players will need in order to have control of a fight, or even trying to regenerate health and shields.
- Pain Tolerance punishes for up to 60% damage reduction on damage-per-second weapons, giving a serious punch to automatic weaponry items.
- Rogue Lite removes your chance to revive yourself from any possible unseen outcome, restarting any progress you may have had in a boss fight without any exceptions. Don't.
- Holy Crit heavily increases the durability of enemies, at the cost of a minimal critical damage boost. While it may sound efficient, some enemies are hard to get a critical hit on, thus making them unnecessarily tougher.
Notes
- The Slayer 'glory kill' effect may trigger at around 15% to 50% HP remaining.
- All Mayhem-spawned enemies, such as Healy Avenger, Laser Fare, or even Post Mortem, will see their durability increased as well.
- Chilling Them Softly and Dazed and Infused enemies with the cryogenic effect are not immune to being frozen using Zane's Brain Freeze.
- Laser Fare turrets' lasers can go through walls, but not Zane's Barrier.
- Anointed gear is more likely to appear the higher the Mayhem level is.
- On Mayhem 10, there is a 100% chance for anointed gear to spawn.[2]
Trivia
- Several of the Mayhem modifiers are pop culture references.
- Big Kick Energy is a play of words from "Big Dick Energy", a phrase used for doing something with full confidence.[3]
- Galaxy Brain is a reference to the Galaxy Brain/Expanding Brain meme.[4]
- Its modifier, the comical big head, is based off "Big Head Mode", a common completion reward in early 3D games.[5]
- Speed Demon is a reference to the 1989 single Speed Demon by the pop singer Michael Jackson.
- More Than Okay Boomer references "OK Boomer", a catchphrase used to mock the stereotypes attributed to the baby boomer, or "Boomers", generation.
- Slayer's name and effect are a reference to the protagonist of DOOM (2016) and its gameplay mechanic, Glory Kills.
- Chilling Them Softly is a reference to the 1996 album song Killing Me Softly by the hip hop group Fugees.
- Chain Gang may be a reference to the 1960 single Chain Gang by the R&B singer Sam Cooke. Otherwise, based on its literal definition.
- Dazed and Infused may be a reference to the 1967 single Dazed and Confused by American writer Jake Holmes, although popularized by the English rock band Led Zeppelin released in 1969.
- Otherwise, could be a reference to the 1993 comedy film of the same name, Dazed and Confused.
References
- ↑ Gearbox Software (April 23, 2020). Borderlands 3 Patch and Hotfixes: April 23, 2020" Borderlands Official Website. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
- ↑ Noelle_GBX (April 30, 2020). "Borderlands 3 - Hotfix [4/30/2020]" Gearbox Software's Official Forum. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
- ↑ neptuneestate (June 26, 2018). "big dick energy" Urban Dictionary. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
- ↑ Multiple Sources (February 17, 2017). "Galaxy Brain" Know Your Meme. Retrieved April 27, 2020
- ↑ Collaboration (October 30, 2011). "Big Head Mode" TV Tropes. Retrieved May 1, 2020.