BL1 is kinda all over the place

I went into BL1 to see where BL2 started and it was a very interesting experience. Playing as Lillith I got stuck dying over and over again on the very first psycho boss, until he fell into the entry pit, stopped throwing grenades as I ran out of ammo and proceeded to punch him to death.

Once I got the “definitely not gen 1 fleet from maya” skill though, the game completely changed and I proceeded to start running and gunning chaining shotgun kills all over the place and am now wildly overleveled just from doing basic quests.

Are other people’s experiences like this?

Edit: Just fyi I did do all of the side quests before the boss in question, and I was actually referring to roid rage and not 9 toes (he was easy), I just forgot there were two psycho bosses. I have finished a full playthrough of BL2 so the formula is not lost on me, it just was a hard start.