Pitchford has stated on his twitter that raising the cap without giving new skillpoints would be "incredibly lame." They're going ahead with it. However, their tune has changed from "the first fiscal quarter of 2013" to "definitely some time this year." So they've reneged on their original deadline, and all we know now is that the level cap will be raised some time before January 1st, 2014. Supposedly.

That's some bad news. Now for some good news. Saint Valentine's Day skins and a free Heartbreaker shotgun are available via these linked Shift codes. They're good until the 17th. You automatically get the skins for every character, but only one character gets the gun. It's the first character you load up after inputting the Shift code, and it will be leveled to that character, so if you want it to be at level 50, load up a level 50 character first.

 

I was in a good mood this afternoon, so I was popping in and out of people's games to let them know about this.

Missing golden keys is no big deal, really; you can always get more. Hell, I have 30 of them, because I just don't use them that often. On the other hand, missing out on skins that (at least in theory) you can't get after the code expires, would be pretty damned irritating. :fire

 

The new character is an ex-bandit psycho named Kreig. His skills are primarily melee-based. His action skill activates his buzz-axe for a powerful melee strike, which also restores his health to full on a successful hit. He is a "high-risk high-reward" style character.

His Hellborn skill tree gives him elemental bonus damages (speculated to revolve around fire, corrosion, and slag), allows him to deal more damage while on fire, and gives him a self-auto-ignition chance every time he attacks an enemy.

His Mania skill Tree gives him extremely high-risk high reward abilities. It massively increases his damage in melee combat, makes it so taking damage causes his Action Skill to recharge faster (even more faster if it's health damage), and opens him up to friendly fire, albeit at a 50% rate of damage.

His Bloodlust tree gives him a stacking mechanic similar to Gaige's Anarchy. Stacks of Bloodlust are built by achieving kills with explosions such as grenades and rocket launchers. These stacks increase the amount of damage he does with grenades and explosives, and also increases the drop-rate for rockets and grenades from enemies.

His official pictures are all huge, and I'm at work, so I can't host them. Go here if you want to see him and the official reveal video (it's just the old teaser, only he isn't a black shadow. I'll edit in an official picture later.

I don't know about you, but I'm already planning his loadout. Depending on the precise specifics of his abilities, I'm going either Hide of Terramorphis Shield for fire immunity, Roid damage, and a Fire Spike effect if Hellborn is better, or a Rough Rider for Mania for damage reduction and extra health. I also want to know if stacks of Bloodlust boost the damage of Torgue gyrojet ammo. If they do, then Krieg could be even more amazing with a full Torgue loadout than Axton.

Also, there are other announcements.

- The level cap will be raised 11 levels. This DLC will be free to season pass holders, and cost 4.99 for everyone else

- A new difficulty mode is being introduced: Ultimate True Vault Hunter Mode. This will be a difficulty tier above True Vault Hunter, and will include new and more powerful enemies that are automatically scaled to the highest level member of your party. This new difficulty mode will be seperate from the level cap and free to download.

- A new tier of weapon rarity has been introduced: Pearlescant, back from the first Boarderlands. The identity of these new weapons remains unknown. We also do not know if Pearlescant weapons are a part of the level cap DLC, or the free Ultimate Vault Hunter DLC.

 

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed when they revealed this character.

The silhouette in the teaser, and the line "Deep beneath Pandora, an experiment has escaped..." lead me to think the new character might be related to the Lab Rats that you run into in places like The Fridge and Lynchwood.

Since when do bandits come from "deep beneath Pandora"? The rat characters are mostly encountered either underground, or near mining operations.

A Lab Rat vault hunter could have had those eye beams as a melee weapon or its action skill (and, if you caught on fire, you'd "smell delicious!").

For the new vault hunter to be, essentially, cut from the same cloth as the bandits you slaughter by the thousands... Meh.

It's not a huuuuge deal, and I'm not saying it will be a bad character, but this seems like a lost opportunity, in my opinion. :|