Borderlands 3 is Gearbox Software's looter shooter, published by 2K and on Steam since 13 March 2020 after six months of Epic exclusivity. Four Vault Hunters chase Troy and Tyreen Calypso across Pandora, Promethea, Athenas, Eden-6 and Nekrotafeyo, the first time the series leaves Pandora properly. The level cap sits at 72, with Mayhem 1 to 11 layered on top to scale enemies and loot for endgame play.
This guide covers everything you need: core mechanics, the best characters, weapons worth investing in, location progression, and the tips that actually make a difference.
Core Mechanics
Action skills and four skill trees
Each Vault Hunter has three base trees plus a fourth added by the Designer's Cut, and every tree carries its own action skill. Zane is the exception to the format: he can run two action skills at once, paying for it with his grenade slot.
Manufacturer specific gun behaviour
Jakobs guns fire fast and can ricochet critical hits onto another enemy, Maliwan charges then fires one of two elements, Tediore guns are thrown like a grenade on reload, Torgue fires explosive sticky rounds, Vladof adds barrels and rate of fire, Hyperion raises a shield while you aim, and COV guns overheat instead of reloading and eventually break.
Elements against health bar types
Shock strips shields, corrosive eats armour, incendiary burns flesh, cryo slows and then freezes, and radiation spreads on kill. Carrying one of each is the difference between a smooth Mayhem run and standing still shooting a Badass in the wrong element.
Anointments and Mayhem levels
Anointments are extra effects tied to your action skill, such as 300 percent bonus damage against targets above 90 percent health. Mayhem 1 to 11 raise enemy health and reward better drops, and Mayhem 11 specifically drops the random modifiers while keeping the top loot bonus.
Guardian Rank and True Vault Hunter Mode
Guardian Rank is account wide and keeps issuing small permanent bonuses long past level 72. True Vault Hunter Mode replays the campaign at your current level against tougher enemies, and it is where most players gear up before pushing Mayhem seriously.
For a deeper dive into how these systems interact, see our Borderlands 3 combat guide.
Characters Overview
| Role | Tier | Playstyle | Key Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amara the Siren | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| FL4K the Beastmaster | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Moze the Gunner | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Zane the Operative | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Fourth skill trees (Designer's Cut) | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
For full build breakdowns with gear and stat priorities, see our Borderlands 3 builds guide. For rankings, check the tier list.
Weapons Guide
| Weapon | Why It Matters | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Lyuda | A Vladof sniper rifle whose round splits into three after a short travel distance. | Boss damage at range, and it pairs well with FL4K critical hit builds that already multiply every shot. |
| Hellwalker | A Jakobs shotgun that fires a horizontal line of incendiary pellets and quotes Doom on its item card. | Close range flesh targets, and any build that wants to delete a room without aiming carefully. |
| Cutsman | A Maliwan SMG that fires two linked orbs which drift apart as they travel, cutting through anything caught between them. | Crowds and corridors, where the widening gap between the orbs catches several enemies per shot. |
| The Monarch | A Vladof assault rifle from the Bounty of Blood expansion. | Sustained damage on a stationary target, which suits Moze and anyone holding a defensive position. |
| Plaguebearer | A Torgue rocket launcher from Guns, Love, and Tentacles. | Slaughter waves and dense trash packs, and it remains one of the safest Mayhem 11 clear weapons. |
Lyuda: A Vladof sniper rifle whose round splits into three after a short travel distance. Against a large target all three fragments can land, which turns a single sniper shot into triple damage.
Hellwalker: A Jakobs shotgun that fires a horizontal line of incendiary pellets and quotes Doom on its item card. It is one of the rare Jakobs guns that carries an element at all, since the manufacturer normally does not.
Cutsman: A Maliwan SMG that fires two linked orbs which drift apart as they travel, cutting through anything caught between them. Damage scales with how long the projectile stays in an enemy.
The Monarch: A Vladof assault rifle from the Bounty of Blood expansion. It carries a bipod that deploys when you crouch while aiming, adding projectiles and damage at the cost of mobility.
Plaguebearer: A Torgue rocket launcher from Guns, Love, and Tentacles. It charges before firing and the shot spawns orbs that seek out nearby targets, so a single trigger pull can clear an area you never aimed at.
Full breakdowns in our Borderlands 3 weapons guide.
Location Progression
| Location | Level Range | Key Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Pandora | About 1 to 13 on a first run | Hellwalker, the first vehicle, and Sanctuary III as your mobile base |
| Promethea | About 10 to 18 | Atlas tracking weapons, Rampager and Katagawa Jr. drops, the city fights that define act two |
| Athenas | About 14 to 17 | Cutsman from Borman Nates, Maya's storyline, one of the shortest farm routes in the game |
| Eden-6 | About 18 to 27 | Graveward loot, Aurelia and GenIVIV fights, most of the Jakobs weapon pool |
| Nekrotafeyo | About 28 to 33 | Typhon DeLeon's logs and dead drops, General Traunt drops, the run into the final fight |
Pandora: The series home world and the opening act, covering The Droughts, Ascension Bluff, Devil's Razor, The Splinterlands and Konrad's Hold. Road Dog in The Splinterlands is the dedicated source for the Hellwalker shotgun.
Promethea: The Atlas corporate world, taking in Meridian Metroplex, Meridian Outskirts, Lectra City, Atlas HQ, Neon Arterial and Skywell-27. It is where the Maliwan war plot runs and where Katagawa Jr. and the Rampager sit as bosses.
Athenas: A small monastery world reached early and revisited later, home to the Order of the Impending Storm. Borman Nates on Athenas is the dedicated source for the Cutsman SMG, which keeps players coming back at every level.
Eden-6: The Jakobs swamp world of Floodmoor Basin, The Anvil, Jakobs Estate, Voracious Canopy, Ambermire and Blackbarrel Cellars. Graveward in the Jakobs Estate was the most farmed boss in the game for the first year after launch.
Nekrotafeyo: The Eridian home world and final act, across Desolation's Edge, Tazendeer Ruins and The Pyre of Stars. It closes the Calypso story and holds General Traunt as a repeatable farm.
See our maps & locations guide for detailed area breakdowns and our walkthrough for the optimal progression path.
Tips That Actually Matter
- Keep a shock gun, a corrosive gun and an incendiary gun equipped at all times. Enemy health bars are colour coded by type, and a corrosive weapon against an armoured Badass roughly halves the fight compared with the wrong element on a higher damage gun.
- Anointments outweigh rarity by a wide margin at endgame. A purple weapon with a 300 percent bonus against enemies above 90 percent health frequently out damages a legendary with no anointment, so check the bottom of the item card before you sell anything.
- Push straight to Mayhem 11 rather than sitting on Mayhem 10. Mayhem 11 keeps the highest loot and experience bonuses while switching off the random modifiers, which removes the runs where a bad modifier roll makes a boss unkillable.
- Run True Vault Hunter Mode instead of grinding one boss in normal mode. It replays the whole campaign scaled to your level with better drop quality, so you gear up while making progress rather than resetting one map for hours.
- Slide and mantle are not decorative. Sliding cancels reload animations on several builds and mantling breaks enemy tracking, and Borderlands 3 is built around far more movement than Borderlands 2 ever was.
- Learn what your manufacturer is actually doing. Tediore guns become a thrown explosive on reload, so reloading a full magazine deliberately is a damage move, and COV guns overheat instead of reloading and will break permanently if you never let them cool.
- Guardian Rank keeps paying out past level 72 and is shared across every character on the account. Spending points into the Enforcer, Survivor or Hunter lines early means your second Vault Hunter starts noticeably stronger than your first did.
- Farm Graveward on Eden-6 or General Traunt on Nekrotafeyo when you need volume rather than a specific item. Both have short runs back from the fast travel point, and the total loot per hour beats hunting a single dedicated drop most of the time.
- In co-op, check whether the lobby is on Cooperation or Coopetition. Cooperation gives every player their own instanced loot and level scaled enemies, while Coopetition uses shared loot and one enemy level, and joining the wrong one is why loot disappears before you reach it.
- The four DLC campaigns, Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot, Guns Love and Tentacles, Bounty of Blood and Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck, hold several of the strongest guns in the game including The Monarch and the Plaguebearer. They scale to your level, so there is no wrong time to start one.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Carrying four guns of the same element and then wondering why armoured enemies take three magazines.
- Selling unanointed legendaries while keeping anointed purples out of the loadout, which is exactly backwards at endgame.
- Staying on Mayhem 10 for the loot bonus when Mayhem 11 gives the same rewards without the random modifiers.
- Never letting COV weapons cool, then losing them permanently when they break mid fight.
- Treating Zane like the other three by picking one action skill, when his design assumes two running at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the level cap?
72, reached through a series of post launch increases ending with the Director's Cut. Guardian Rank then continues as an account wide progression track with small permanent bonuses, so there is still something to gain after the cap.
Which Vault Hunter is best for a first playthrough?
Moze and Amara are the most forgiving. Moze has Iron Bear as a panic button and heavy splash damage options, and Amara's Phasegrasp locks a dangerous enemy in place while you deal with everything else. FL4K rewards precise aim and Zane rewards knowing the systems.
Do I need the DLC?
Not for the story, but the weapon pool argues otherwise. The Monarch comes from Bounty of Blood and the Plaguebearer from Guns, Love, and Tentacles, and the Designer's Cut adds the fourth skill tree to every Vault Hunter, which changes builds more than any single gun.
Is Borderlands 3 still worth playing in 2026?
It runs as an offline capable single player and co-op game with no live service dependency, so nothing has been switched off. Content stopped with the Director's Cut, which means the build and farming knowledge in older guides is still accurate.
Does Borderlands 3 support cross play?
Yes between Steam and the Epic Games Store, which was announced alongside the Steam release on 13 March 2020. Console cross play arrived later and PlayStation was excluded from it for a long stretch.
More Borderlands 3 Guides
- Borderlands 3 Best Builds
- Borderlands 3 Tier List
- Borderlands 3 Walkthrough
- Borderlands 3 Beginner's Guide
- Borderlands 3 Tips & Tricks
- Borderlands 3 Weapons Guide
- Borderlands 3 Combat Guide
- Borderlands 3 Boss Guide
- Borderlands 3 Maps & Locations
- Borderlands 3 Crafting Guide
- Borderlands 3 Classes & Characters
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