Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3

Highlights

  • Borderlands 3 has unique Vault Hunters with dynamic playstyles, making the game replayable for different experiences.
  • Each Vault Hunter excels in their own way, making it more about player preference and gear rather than a “bad” character.
  • Understanding each character’s skill tree is crucial for maximizing their potential in combat and creating unique playstyles.

As a seasoned Borderlands veteran, I must say that Amara, the Siren of Borderlands 3, has truly captured my heart (and the battlefield). Coming from a lineage of badass Sirens like Lilith and Maya, she’s got that in-your-face combat style that never fails to make my pulse race.


In Borderlands 3, you can pick from four distinct Vault Hunters, and it seems that Gearbox Software doesn’t intend to introduce new ones for now. The unique playstyles of these existing characters are a significant factor that makes the game so engaging when replayed, as each character offers a different experience. Each Vault Hunter excels in their own unique way based on how players decide to utilize them, making it hard to label any of them as subpar or less desirable in the game.

Determining the best Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 is challenging since it largely depends on a player’s skill and the equipment they gather. Each Vault Hunter has unique abilities, making it essential for players to try them all to see which fits their style most effectively. With suitable gear, every character can become invincible; however, some characters are more adept at using that equipment than others.

5 How Borderlands 3 Skill Trees Work

Don’t Be Intimidated By The Amount Of Boxes

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3

In Borderlands 3, each character you can control offers a multitude of diverse skills that can be further enhanced in various ways. This diversity allows players to develop highly individualized and dissimilar playstyles. Here’s a summary of the primary traits and skill branches for the characters in Borderlands 3.

  1. Action Skills – every character has 3 different action skills to choose from, but can only use 1 at a time (except Zane…). These skills can provide defense or offense but likely provide a healthy combination.
  2. Passive Skills – these make up the majority of skill trees and provide passive benefits to a character like faster reload speed or better damage. These abilities can typically be maxed out with multiple points to increase their effects.
  3. Augments – after players put a certain number of points into a specific skill tree, they can unlock Augments that provide powerful bonuses for their Action Skills.
  4. Capstones – these are the last perk in any skill tree and require 25 points in a tree to unlock.

4 Zane The Operative

A Great Option For First-Timers

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3
Gender Male
Race Human
Voice Actor Cian Barry
Favored Weapon Type Any, but typically Sniper Rifles and Pistols
  • Strengths: he can become quite tanky, which is good for new players with lots of build flexibility, and he can technically use two Action Skills
  • Weaknesses: Zane’s power potential is hard-capped compared to the other playable characters of Borderlands 3 and his skills can require a more tactical approach to combat, making it hard to effectively use his skill trees easily
  • Bottom Line: best for more experienced players to extract the most value out of his versatile kit

Zane is incredibly potent when utilized effectively, excelling both in engaging enemies and dishing out damage. However, he’s undeniably the most challenging character to access among the Borderlands 3 roster. His abilities demand a more strategic approach to combat compared to other characters, necessitating players to invest time in understanding the optimal moments and locations for employing them. He possesses the ability to summon a duplicate of himself, a drone, or an invincible barrier, each of which can be indispensable in specific scenarios.

Most players typically speed into his Hitman skill tree due to the capstone skill, Seein’ Red. This allows Zane to automatically activate every Kill Skill immediately after using his Action Skill. Zane’s Kill Skills buff just about every stat imaginable, including Fire Rate, Damage, and Movement Speed, but they require work to stack up. He also swaps using two Action Skills for being able to toss grenades. It makes him a jack-of-all-trades character that isn’t as flashy as the other three. Zane should be given a chance, but he’ll probably be best suited to the more experienced Borderlands players.

Barrier (Under Cover) 24-second cooldown Drops a Barrier to block incoming projectiles that Zane and allies can still shoot through for increased damage for 14 seconds. Pressing G or F while active will have Zane pick up and hold the barrier, reducing its size and bonuses.
SNTNL (Hitman) 60-second cooldown Sends an automated SNTNL drone into battle that attacks enemies. Pressing G or F while active will make the drone attack any enemy in Zane’s crosshairs.
Digi-Close (Doubled Agent) 28-second cooldown Spawns a Digi-Clone of Zane for 15 seconds that stays in place but fires at enemies to distract them. Pressing G or F will swap Zane and the Clone.
MNTIS Shoulder Cannon (The Professional) 12-second cooldown Equips a mounted shoulder cannon with 3 max charges for 46 damage. Pressing the Active Skill button fires the cannon, consuming one charge.

3 Moze The Gunner

Just As Obsessed With Explosions As Mr. Torgue… Probably

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3
Gender Female
Race Human
Voice Actor Marissa Lenti
Favored Weapon Iron Bear
  • Strengths: Moze offers players fantastic survivability, flexible build potential, and updates that make Iron Bear more powerful
  • Weaknesses: She isn’t known for DPS and Iron Bear moves slowly and has a huge hitbox. Without Iron Bear, Moze can be exceptionally squishy and gear-dependent
  • Bottom Line: best for new players who want a one-trick pony and easy-to-understand-kit or veteran players who can min/max Mayhem Mode Iron Bear

If you’re looking for pure destruction and fun, Moze the Gunner is your character. She’s delightful, especially when you leap into a mech! Yes, that’s Iron Bear I’m talking about. It serves as a versatile weapon in battles, capable of both defense and offense. In dire situations where you’re near death, Iron Bear provides an excellent escape route. However, be aware that it’s quite cumbersome, sluggish, and easy to target. Plus, it has a cooldown of about 110 seconds. At the game’s initial release in Mayhem Mode, Moze wasn’t as potent due to Iron Bear’s scaling issues. But thanks to recent updates, Iron Bear’s weapon damage is astronomical, capable of reducing bosses to mere scraps in Mayhem 4.

Each of her skill trees is worth using. That being said, most players love to spec in both her Bottomless Mags and Demolition Woman trees. Bottomless Mags gives Moze so much ammo regeneration and Demolition Woman is just splash damage galore. Those who like the idea of their grenades doing critical hits will want to invest in Moze’s Pull The Holy Pin skill, which gives grenades a 30% chance of landing a critical. If players have a weapon that spams multiple grenades, then each of those also has a chance, leading to some satisfying and explosive results.

In summary, Moze is likely the top choice among the four characters in Borderlands 3 for beginners due to her proficiency at quickly defeating weak enemies and bosses. She’s incredibly enjoyable (even with a bit of humor) to control, making her an ideal pick for new franchise members. Her abilities don’t demand as much pre-planning or strategic thinking compared to the others. However, she may need better gear to unleash maximum damage and/or durability, which moves her down to third place on the list.

Shield of Retribution Railgun (initial) Bear Fist (unlockable) Iron Bear equips a railgun to fire electrified high-velocity projectiles, dealing shock damage after a charging period. Iron Bear equips a close-range fist capable of dishing out huge damage.
Bottomless Mags Minigun (initial) Salamander (unlockable) Iron Bear equips a minigun to rapidly fire sustained rounds quickly. The weapon can overheat and become temporarily inoperable. Iron Bear equips a flamethrower to deal incendiary damage for as long as the fuel holds out.
Demolition Woman V-35 Grenade Launcher (initial) Vanquisher Rocket Pod (unlockable) Iron Bear equips a semi-automatic grenade launcher that fires bouncy projectiles that detonate after a delay or when coming into contact with a target. Iron Bear equips a rocket launcher that fires unguided explosive rockets rapidly. When not being fired, it automatically reloads.
Bear Mother Iron Cub Summons the Iron Cub — an automated, smaller version of Iron Bear requires less fuel but deals less damage. It equips 2 of the 6 available weapons from the 3 skill trees such as two instances of the Railgun. Iron Cub follows Moze to target and attack enemies and benefits from shields on Iron Bear.

2 FL4K The Beastmaster

Their Kit Comes With Friends

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3
Gender N/A
Race Robot
Voice Actor SungWon Cho
Pets Jabber, Spiderant, Guard Skag, and ION Loader
  • Strengths: Has pets to back them up in combat and is capable of dealing tons of critical damage
  • Weaknesses: “Fade Away FL4K” is often the only way to maximize damage with the character, making them feel limited
  • Bottom Line: best for solo players who want to deal massive gun damage and score tons of critical hits

In this game, FL4K is the class known as the “Pet Master,” who is always accompanied by a loyal pet. Each of their skill trees comes with a unique action skill and a corresponding pet. An interesting feature of the game is that players can actually name FL4K’s pets! Among the pets, the Skag is the most useful because it boosts FL4K’s damage when the player has it in their party. FL4K truly shines during boss battles due to its skill “Fade Away.” When fighting Wotan, having an FL4K in your team can significantly reduce his health bar in a brief moment of time.

The biggest problem with FL4K, however, is that Fade Away trumps all other Action Skills in Mayhem Mode. Fade Away allows FL4K to turn invisible for a few seconds with the next three shots being guaranteed critical hits. Once players have unlocked FL4K’s Guerillas In The Mist Augment (which gives FL4K unlimited critical hits for a short few seconds at the cost of less critical damage), they’re really not going to want to use any other Action Skill. With less build variety, some players may view FL4K’s kit as limited. In contrast, others feel like FL4K is the best Vault Hunter in the game, which is understandable considering Fade Away can be super overpowered.

Rakk Attack! (Hunter) 18-second duration 18-second cooldown Summon 2 Rakk to dive-bomb enemies for 35 damage that scales with player level. The skill provides multiple charges.
Fade Away (Stalker) 15-second duration 45-second cooldown Cloak FL4K, making him invisible with increased health regeneration and movement speed. They can fire 3 shots while cloaked for guaranteed critical hits.
Gamma Burst (Master) 20-second duration 30-second cooldown Create a rift at a target location and teleport your pet through the rift, dealing 56 radiation damage to enemies nearby that scales with player level. The pet also becomes irradiated, deals bonus radiation damage with attacks, and grows in size. Using this skill when a pet is downed or dead revives it with 30% health and doubles the skill cooldown time.
Gravity Snare (Trapper) 16-second duration 36-second cooldown Toss a snare to knock up and stun enemies periodically for the skill duration. Pressing E while standing close to the snare picks it up and refunds part of the cooldown duration.

1 Amara The Siren

This Siren Is All About Getting Up Close

Best Playable Characters In Borderlands 3
Gender Female
Race Siren
Voice Actor Zehra Fazal
Favored Weapons Fists
  • Strengths: Amara is a total powerhouse who does well in close-quarters combat with her gravity-defying AoE abilities
  • Weaknesses: players must aim at least a little to maximize her ability effectiveness and her cooldowns can be long
  • Bottom Line: best for fans of in-your-face combat that isn’t necessarily gun-related, Sirens, and dealing AoE damage

In Borderlands 3, Amara serves as the Siren character, blending traits from previous game protagonists Lilith and Maya while introducing melee combat for added excitement. Players can pick one Action Skill, an element (Fire, Shock, or Corrosion), and an Action Skill Augment with this character. The unique aspect is that all Amara’s Augments are compatible with every Action Skill, unlike other Borderlands 3 characters. This makes her an excellent choice for managing large groups of enemies, excelling in crowd control.

She has a ton of abilities that allow her to take full control of the battlefield. For example, her Ties That Bind Action Skill is the same as her Phasegrasp, except this time, nearby enemies are linked and they all share a portion of the damage dealt. When doing the Maliwan Takedown, it’s great to have an Amara and bring down the number of enemies in quick succession. She also has a melee build option, but this still needs a few buffs to be worth taking on Mayhem 4. Since she’s the Siren class, she’s best utilized for her massive elemental damage output.

As a gamer, I’ve found Amara’s most underrated ability to be the Remnant. After taking down an enemy, this skill fires off a tracking elemental orb that seeks out more foes. The damage it inflicts is directly related to the excess damage from the previous kill, which can lead to a massive chain reaction of destruction without much effort on my part. If you’re looking for high DPS without constant shooting, Amara is your gal!

Phaseslam (Brawl) NA 35-second cooldown Damage: 98 Jump into the air and slam down on the ground to deal damage to all enemies nearby, also knocking them up into the air.
Phasegrasp (Fist of the Elements) 7-second duration 16-second cooldown Grasp Immune Damage: 40 Summon a huge fist that breaks through the ground, locking a target enemy in place for a time. If an enemy is immune to grasp, they take immediate damage instead.
Phasecast (Mystical Assault) NA 28-second cooldown Damage: 92 Send forward an Astral Projection of Amara to deal damage to everything in its path.
Phaseflare (Enlightened Force) 30-second duration 48-second cooldown Impact Damage: 27 Area Damage: 5/second Summon an Orb of Elemental Energy to deal consistent damage to enemies nearby. Press “V” to send the Orb flying toward an enemy, damaging them. If Amara melees the Orb, it gains accordingly boosted damage. Press “F” to return the Orb to Amara.

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2024-08-19 13:54