Borderlands – Why is Voracidous the Invincible forcing the player to respawn without causing enough damage to kill

borderlands-2

I've been messing around on Normal mode just to play through the story without leveling past my gear too far (currently a lvl 57 Mechromancer). I've been having fun repeatedly killing Voracidous the Invincible (lvl 30), to see if I can find a legendary class mod (even if it's low level, I just kind of want one because it's shiny).

Every once in a while, Voracidous knocks me backwards and I immediately respawn. I do not take much damage, I do not fall off a cliff, and I do not enter FFYL mode. Even more odd is the fact that as a Mechromancer, I do not even lose my Anarchy stacks which would normally happen upon death. This is apparently a thing that can happen in certain cases when falling off a map, but the battle is kind of in a pit, which would preclude that from happening, unless there's an invisible cliff I'm getting knocked off of.

Is this a known bug that I'm encountering, or am I doing something wrong that causes this?

It's definitely not real damage that I'm taking, since I'm way too overleved to actually be fighting this enemy, it's just for fun and quick farming for low leveled rare items.

After my third or fourth time of this happening over the past few days, my current working theory is that I am getting knocked backwards out of the gate before it closes but after I first attack. I will test this.

Best Answer

My current hypothesis for this is that Voracidous is producing a knockback effect while the arena door is still closing, forcing the player underneath, then causing an insta-death.

My reasoning for this is thus:

  • When I die in the manner stated in the question, I do not go "down" into FFYL, but die immediately
    • When this happens, as a Mechromancer, I do not lose Anarchy stacks
  • I tried standing under the door as it closed, and I went directly to the respawn point without a death animation, in the same manner as in the original question
    • I also did not lose my Anarchy stacks through this method

I have not managed to completely intentionally reproduce this effect while fighting Voracidous properly, but am reasonably convinced that it is a door-based death, as opposed to a more ephemeral glitch.

If I do manage to reproduce it on video(and I now have learned how to do screen captures, thanks Windows 10!) I will check back in and provide more evidence.

It's also possible that the knockback is from the blast nova as opposed to the arena attack, in which case this may only crop up if a player can do 80% of Voracidous's health in a very short time (before the door closes) which is only likely to happen if you are way overleveled to fight him (20+ levels above).

Ending suggestion: Watch where you stand when you start the battle, in case Voracidous knocks you back into the closing door for insta-death.

Related Topic