{
"post": {
"title": "Can I get a brief summary of character abilities in borderlands 1 and 2?",
"selftext": "Borderlands 1 and 2 is high up on my list of games I need to play and I noticed there were different characters to play as. I was wondering if I could get a recommendation.",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/Borderlands/comments/wazir8/can_i_get_a_brief_summary_of_character_abilities/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "[here you go ](https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Classes)",
"replies": [
{
"body": "right yeah, i shouldve just checked the wikis lol. thankyou",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That wasn't done sarcastically btw, I started typing the info out then caught myself lol"
},
{
"body": "It's worth noting since the wiki calls out the \"good with x weapons\" bit - Pistols and Revolvers in Borderlands 1 had different Ammo Pools and you'd initially think would be considered entirely separate weapon classes as a result. In reality they share weapon proficiency and boosts to \"pistol\" affect both, it's JUST a separate ammo pool since Revolvers in BL1 were true hand cannons.\n\nThey uh. They saw a bit of a downgrade in later games unfortunately."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "**BL1**\n\n*Roland*: Deploys an upgradeable automated turret and shield.\n\n*Mordecai*: Releases a killer alien bird for swooping attacks.\n\n*Brick*: Goes into a berserk rage and punches his enemies to death.\n\n*Lilith*: Becomes invisible and intangible, reappearing with a shockwave.\n\n**BL2**\n\n*Axton*: Deploys an uogradeable automated turret, similar to Roland.\n\n*Maya*: Creates energy bubbles that lock enemies in place.\n\n*Zer0*: Turns invisible and deploys a holographic decoy.\n\n*Salvador*: Fires two guns at once, regenerating ammo and health.\n\n*Gaige*: Summons an upgradeable floating killer robot.\n\n*Krieg*: Goes on an axe-swinging rampage with increased melee damage.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "thankyou sm"
}
]
},
{
"body": "I recommend the sirens in 1 and 2",
"replies": [
{
"body": "i’ve never played a siren in one of the games i don’t think lmao",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Missing out big time then ;)"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I haven't played BL1, but I have every character in BL2 except for salvador, so here comes a more in deepth analysis.\n\nSorry for gramatical errors, english is not my native language and the auto corrector Just makes It worse.\n\nI'll post this in parts, It got so big Reddit doesn't allow for all at once\n\nI'll be making this based on TVHM. Because few people enjoy playing UVHM and TVHM goes from LV30-50, enougth skill points to make a complete build and solidified playstyle.\n\n**Zero**\n\nACTION SKILL: gets you invisible for 6s and creates a decoy. The longer you stay invisible, the bigger the damage bonus for your next shot or meelee.\n\nGREEN TREE: zero gets a lot of critical hit bonus, he can one shoot most of the enemies, but the problem is you need to hit those criticals, he gets Very little gun damage aside from criticals.\n\nBLUE TREE: this is basically mandatory for zero, but you don't want to start with this one, It has skills to support the other 2 trees. It gives you the death mark ability to boost your damage even further. Since zero relies on crit and has Little to no survivability, you either one shot enemies, or run for your life. This three also provides regeneration while cloacked in deception.\n\nRED TREE: the meelee one, It gives you more meelee damage in vários different forms. Initially it's underwhelming because zero has the worst survivability out of all characters, so getting close and personall is a bad ideia.\n\nonce you hit LV31 you get \"many must fall\" so every meelee kill while invisible fully resets the invisibility, It gets Crazy, you Just keep one shooting enemy after enemy.\n\n++CONCLUSION: meelee zero is not a Very good starter, but It gets crazy after LV31, still you want to have the death mark from the blue tree, to make sure you one shot them, cuz If you don't you'll be in meelee range, without your special, and that get lead to a death.\n\nSniper zero is also Amazing, but It relies on hitting criticals. If you have good aim and likes to be rewarded for precision, then you could try It. Personally, I still manage to miss a critical even with deception + bore, in my hands zero has no damage, but a good zero player Just one shots everything before they even hava change to shoot back.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "**Axton**\n\nACTION SKILL: he deploys a turrent that shoots enemies and draws aggro, he can pick up the turrent to reduce the cooldown.\n\nGREEN TREE: lots of gun damage and free reload speed, this also has some nice upgrades for his turrent, giving It more shots, a Second gun and the ability to slag.\n\nAlso improves shield recharge rate and delay and gives a small regeneration.\n\nBLUE TREE: also a lot of gun damage, fire rate and ammo, all you need to keep firing Assault rifles.\n\nspecialy boosts grenades, this improves explosion damage in general, from Rocket launchers as well. It allows you to throw grandes in fight for your life and gives you more grandes to carr synergises Very well with tediore weapons.\n\nRED TREE: generally gives you more health, regeneration, better shields.\n\nIt has 2 notable features, like giving a force field to your turrent so It provides cover and also allowing you to have 2 turrents instead of 1.\n\n++CONCLUSION: axton is more about stats, more ammo, more damage, more reload speed, health, regeneration, shields. All stats. Alternatively, you can Focus on the turrent and let It do the work for you, It doesn't scale well into UVHM, but on TVHM, turrent is a monster."
},
{
"body": "** Gaige**\n\nACTION SKILL: deploy a robot that draws aggro and fight for you, it's generally pretty slow and low damage on it's own. It has a 60s cooldown and also lasts for 60s.\n\nGREEN TREE: this one has a mix of random skills + robot upgrades. If you want a lazy build and let your robot do the work, this is the tree for you, gives him more damage, more health, shield, New abilities.\n\nAside from that It has some abilities that are good support for your main red tree, but none of those are good alone.\n\nBLUE TREE: this focus on elemetal, or at least It was supposed to. It gives you a higher elemetal effect chance and more shock damage. But this boosts aren't all that good, instead you get New elemetal abilities.\n\nFor example, killing an enemy with a critical causes a shock explosions. Enemies that are effect by shock have a chance to catch fire as well. reloding causes a shock explosion as well.\n\nIt also has some robot upgrades like more damage and making him elemental, cuz why not?\n\nRED TREE: the Cherry on the cake, this thing makes gaige the best early game character. LV 15 and you have blood soakes shields, fully reset your shields after every kill. \n\nYou also gain anarchy, an unique mechanic, you gain 1 stack every kill and every time you empty a maganize, It increases damage and lowers accuracy.\n\nThere's another skill that gives you reload speed at the Exchange of lower maganize size.\n\nWhat makes this really broken is discord and rational anaschist, both costing 1 point each.\n\nDiscord triggers when you reload manually, it consumes your stacks, 1 per Second and gives you a 3% HP regeneration, better accuracy and fire rate. For you to understand How Crazy this is, axton needs 5 points to get a 2% HP regeneration but only when he damages enemies. Gaige gets better regeneration and other boosts for Just one point.\n\nRational anaschist is Very simple, If you have 0 stacks, you gain 25 stacks. Basically a free 40% damage boost Just for existing and allows you to Just spam the regeneration.\n\n++CONCLUSION: the red tree took longer to explain, but that's because it's Basically the entirety of gaige's gameplay, Green and blue are kinda bad, and mostly and after though, the best skills of Green and blue are the ones that makes red even better.\n\nHer robot has underwhelming damage, but it's a great bait for enemies, I'd say It draws aggro better than axton's turrent, but deals much less damage.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "**Krieg**\n\nACTION SKILL: krieg picks up his axe, cannot use Guns nor grandes for the duration, he gets a massive damage and move speed bonus, killing enemies fully heals him.\n\nGREEN TREE: the First time you look at It, it's gonna be \"wtf, How's this suppose to work?\" it's the most confusing tree on the game. \n\nIt has an unique mechanic of bloodlust, you get a stack everytime you damage an enemy, but the stacks decay REALLY fast. Each stack gives magazine size, fire rate and gun damage. But also If you kill an enemy with a granade you get meelee damage, and vice versa, but this scales with stack.\n\nSo you don't really know If you're supposed to play this with SMG, AR, grandes or meelee. Because you want to keep up the stacks, but you need a fast weapon for that, and the grenade/ meelee damage don't really synergise together.\n\nIt can be played as a full gun build, but it's not the way krieg is usually played.\n\nBLUE TREE: the main tree of krieg, this Focus on meelee and taking damage. That's right, taking damage.\n\nYou get more meelee damage when your shield is out, taking damage also decreases your special's cooldown and each damage you take gives you a damage boost for shotgun and meelee.\n\nYou get an unique ability called light the fuse. When you die, instead of going for the usual fight for your life, krieg grabs a bunch of dynamite and gets a move speed boost instead of being slowed. You can throw dynamite at the enemies and even do a suicide bomb for insane damage, best of all, the suicide bomb also revives you If It gets a kill. This doesn't scale well into UVHM, but in the other modes, it's amazing.\n\nLast but not least, release the beast. If your HP Falls below 30% and you use your special, It gets a massive damage bonus and fully heals you Just by using It. Then when It ends, the cooldown fully resets for you to do It again.\n\nRED TREE: this one is all about fire, more fire damage and light yourself on fire. While you are burning, tou get 50% damage reduction and other stats overall, like more burn damage, more fire rate, more ammo.\n\nYou get all those stats bonus by default, as a passive (except the damage reduction), but they get doubled when you are burning.\n\n++CONCLUSION: If gaige is the best early game, krieg is the worst. He is too risky and needs some sort of external healing, a transfusion grande, otto's idol or moxxi weapon. Light the fuse helps with that, but It doesn't stop him from falling, It Just makes him fall with style.\n\nAfter you get release the beast, It shifts, he becomes one of the hardest to kill characters, his meelee one shot most of the enemies and even kill bosses in like, 5 hits.\n\nGotta say, It was a pain to get through normal mode with krieg, but he is the most Fun character, It really feels like psycho, falling with other characters is like \"oh shit, I need to revive fast\" falling with krieg is like \"you fools, you Just activated my trap card\".\n\nWhen other characters get low HP \"dang, I'm dying\", with krieg \"call an ambulance, but not for me\".\n\nHis bloodlust is okay, but If you want a gun character, go for axton or gaige."
}
]
},
{
"body": "**Maya**\n\nACTION SKILL: she creates a bubble that Locks one enemy up in the Air. It's called phase Lock.\n\nGREEN TREE: this Focus on improving phase Lock, giving It shorter cooldown (it's already the shortest on the game by default) making It last longer and allowing to hit multiple enemies.\n\nBLUE TREE: this is healing, she heals while phase lock is active and gets a massive heal If she kills a character that's in the bubble.\n\nShe can shoot allies to him them and gives herself a small regeneration.\n\nIt also gives more gun damage against an phase locked enemy, to make sure she kills them.\n\nAnd for whatever reason, her meelee attack slags enemies. This should be on the red tree since that's the elemental one.\n\nRED TREE: elemetal once again, but this time, the best elemetal abilities you'll see on the game. Krieg was fire, gaige was shock, Maya is fire and corrosive\n\nHer phase Lock has a fire explosion now and also makes an acid cloud. When your shield is out It also makes an explosion, killing an enemy gives you fire and corrosive damage.\n\nAnd this tree also has reload speed, gun damage and ammo because why not.\n\n++CONCLUSION: Maya is mostly a late game character, when playing her It always Felt like I needed at least 2 trees to have a decent built.\n\nGreen gives you more duration for you phase Lock and It can hit multiplies enemies now, but the damage I need to kill the enemy is on the blue tree.\n\nRed causes that fire explosion but you need that Green skill to make It happen multiple times. Maya has Amazing skills, they could have just rearanged It better so you get a full build in Just one tree.\n\nYou might recall I Said zero needs 2 trees as well, but zero still has a Full build with Just one, If I want sniper zero I Go Green, If I want meelee I go red, blue tree for zero is to make absolutely sure I can oneshot, we can call It an overkill, damage exageration. For Maya tho, she does needs 2 trees.\n\nThat's not to say Maya is bad, she has crowd Control, healing and the best elemetal tree, It Just takes longer for her to get a complete build.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "awesome, thanks"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I'll talk about the BL1 characters, since they're the ones I'm most familiar with. I'll also talk about playstyle, since action skills aren't always very integral to a characters gameplan.\n\n​\n\nBrick: Action skill is Berserk, which makes him tougher, heals, and lets him punch things to death. His left tree makes him better at punching things, his middle skill tree makes him much better at tanking hits, his right tree significantly improves bullet damage and makes rocket launchers more convenient to use. Brick's immense damage is locked behind trigger conditions, so relying on his powerful defense to play aggressively lets you keep the pain train rolling. Note: Brick either relies on Berserk or doesn't, there's very little middle ground.\n\nRoland: Action skill is Scorpio Turret, which shoots things. It can be improved to offer support abilities that overshadow it's meager offensive abilities. His left tree mostly focuses on slight offensive bonuses, his middle tree offers ammo regen and shield skills, his right tree offers team support and health skills. Roland can greatly increase magazine size and most of his damage is passive, so he's great at sustaining fights, and his support skills make him good for team play.\n\nMordecai: Action skill lets him throw out a bird called Bloodwing that attacks enemies. His left tree mostly focuses on Sniper Rifles, his middle tree mostly focuses on improving Bloodwing, his right tree mostly focuses on Pistols. Mordecai is the definition of a glass cannon, he hits hard but dies to a light breeze. His preferred weapons also tend to require accuracy to use effectively, making him quite challenging to play.\n\nLilith: Action skill is Phasewalk, which allows her to become intangible and move very quickly, exploding at the start and end of the skill. Lilith's left tree focuses on dazing enemies and health/shield skills, her middle tree focuses on elemental skills, her right tree focuses on damage. Phasewalk is busted for a variety of reasons, allowing her to constantly become intangible and be nearly unkillable afterwards. Her damage is passive, but her reliance on killing to Phasewalk and the durability she gets after Phasewalking encourages aggression.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "thankyou!!"
}
]
},
{
"body": "You havent played them? 😲, its so much fun. I wish I was you...😄 Im a fan of \"helpers\" so I went with Roland and his turret or The hunter guy with his bird for BL1 and Im playing GOTY as it has improvements. I played BL1 when it was initially released and the GOTY is definately improved but the drops/loot are not very balanced. Something I dont remember the first time around. For BL2 (absolute great game) I go with Axton and his turret or gaige and her robot helper. Either one will be a total blast for your first time."
}
]
}