Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
We have a follow up on Gearbox’s plans to fix Rafa and Soltado in Borderlands 4.
A Quick Review
Rafa is one of the four new Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4. Soltado should be one of Rafa’s most potent skills in his Skill Trees.
Soltado doubles all the damage and movement bonuses in his Level 1 Skill, Overdrive.
The problem with Soltado is it should be augmented when you equip Class Mods. But with a Class Mod like Devastating Dancer, Soltado only adds a bonus with the first point from the mod.
Creative director Graeme Timmins confirmed that they are working on a fix, but they were not able to add it to yesterday’s patch.
Gearbox Is Going To Wait And See With Rafa
As fans found out, Rafa didn’t get any big changes with the latest patch at all. Graeme was asked about this and he had an interesting response.
Grame said this about fixing Soltado, and other future changes to Rafa:
That’s in for a future patch. We want to monitor the Rafa updates today and see where they land in terms of their effectiveness before we do more.
Why Is Gearbox Holding Back?
After committing to that fix, you may wonder why Graeme sounds hesitant to buff up Rafa once again. But there’s a case to limit what buffs they should give to Rafa.
If you review Rafa’s Skill Trees, you’ll find out that Rafa has a lot of skills that increase both Critical Hit Chance (the percentage % that your hit will register as a Critical Hit) and Critical Hit Damage.
This means, clever players have already been making powerful Rafa builds. And these builds are potentially so powerful that they can match or even exceed builds with Vex and her infamous Crit Knife.
Of course, Amon and Harlowe are not pushovers either. But if we are talking about this in terms of balance, Rafa may not necessarily need to become even more powerful.
Of course, Gearbox needs to think about this at a level above what gamers can see and experience. They will know what technical limitations hold them back from making specific changes that their players can’t possibly know about.
But like a good chess player, you can also imagine Gearbox to figuratively see all the pieces on the board, and what works and what won’t. Ultimately, we rely on Gearbox to figure this all out and give us the fun experience without having to worry about it.
