Is Borderlands 4 Supposed To Generate Non-Elemental Maliwans?

Gearbox seems to be in a conundrum regarding the Maliwans in Borderlands 4.

This all gets started when Twitter user LilGasmask shares feedback to creative directors Graeme Timmins and Grant Kao:

Heads up @ProdigyXL and @grantkao , it seems like drops from reward crates can have different rolls than if it was a dedicated drop, for example this ashers rise with no element. I also got a bonnie and clyde with like 1000 more DPS than any of the 100+ one i found shiny hunting

Gearbox’s Initial Response

Graeme responds immediately to LilGasmask:

Gear that is awarded via Reward Center doesn’t have any kind of bonus values or modifiers; it’s just a roll as if it were dropped into the world.

I think this is just an example of how deep the gear system is and how many parts can roll on a specific drop.

On the face of it, Graeme’s response does not completely make sense. The weapons manufacturer Maliwan is particularly known for making elemental weapons.

The base damage of their arms are not as high as Jakobs’. But Maliwan makes up for it as those elemental effects create increased damage over time.

So even if you’re fighting evasive enemies, you have a good chance of beating them. You can get only one or a few hits on them and then take cover while the elemental effect increases to eventually take them out.

The Feedback Piles Up

LilGasmask also replies to Graeme immediately:

I’m 99.9% sure this is bugged tho, it usually comes with 2 elements and its gimmick is useless with this bugged roll. It also has a weapon swap mode that just does nothing.

EpicNNG also replies to Graeme:

I don’t actually think this gun rolls in non-elemental. I have farmed it a bunch and not one single roll was non ele

Ancient Pagolin seems confident to declare what the issue is:

Maliwan weapons got broken after this last patch. If you check reddit there are multiple posts about Maliwan weapons dropping with no elements

This time, Graeme says this:

We’ll take a look.

Graeme also asks Grant Kao to double check in response to someone else’s feedback.

This is definitely one of the stranger bugs that have come up in Borderlands 4 since launch. Maliwan weapons that don’t have elemental effects are like Pikachus that don’t have the move Tackle.

Graeme may have just been confused the first time, but this bug definitely ruins the weapon balance. So we should expect Gearbox to address this as soon as they can.