Background
Borderlands 2 is an action fps shooter video game that was released on September 18, 2012.
It’s the second title in the Borderlands series and the sequel to 2009’s Borderlands first.
The game has central quests campaign and optional side-missions that treasure seekers aka Vault Hunters can play.
The story takes place on the planet Pandora where the Vault Hunters goal is to find a new alien vault and liberate Pandora
From Handsome Jack that took over the planet to become a dictator.
In this article, we are going to focus on borderlands 2 characters.
This is an overview of all the playable Borderlands 2 characters and Vault Hunters.
Vault Hunters
Initially, the game had only four-player characters to play while two more are latter addition in the two coming DLC.
Overall you have six characters to choose from called Vault Hunters, each with a unique skill and special ability.
To advance to the next level, the player has to gain experience points.
The original game (borderlands) had 4 Vault Hunters that turned into NPC this time.
They serve as secondary characters to support the main story and optional missions.
Axton the Commando
Axton is the Commando class in Borderlands 2.
He has 3 main skills: Guerrilla, Gunpowder, and Survival, but his Action skill is Sabre Turret.
Sabre Turre is an automated weapons platform that can distinguish friend from foe and dominate a small area of any battlefield.
This unique weapon takes 3 seconds to deploy with a base duration of 20 seconds and has a base cooldown time of 42 seconds.
It can be equipped with ammunition belts, rocket pods, a targeting laser, an extra gun, a shield emitter, and mag-lock bases.
Axton’s Skill Tree Overview
Guerilla
The Guerrilla tree focuses on getting Axton into the fight and improves the Sabre Turrets’ ability to perform continuous high damage attacks.
Tier 1
Sentry – Increases the number of shots your Sabre Turret fires in each burst, as well as your Sabre Turret’s Duration.
Ready – Increases Reload Speed
Tier 6
Double Up – Adds a second gun to your Sabre Turret and changes both guns to fire slag rounds. Slagged enemies take additional damage from all non-slag attacks.
Gunpowder
The Gunpowder tree focuses more heavily on medium-range explosives and weapon damage.
Improves many of Axton’s offensive combat stats, and improves the turret mostly as a tactical deploy/distraction.
The 6 tiers go from Increasing Gun Damage and Melee Damage to Deploying your Sabre Turret sets off a small Nuclear Blast.
Tier 1
Impact – Increases Gun Damage and Melee Damage.
Expertise – Increases your Weapon Swap Speed and Aim Speed. Also, your Movement Speed is increased while aiming.
Tier 6
Nuke – Deploying your Sabre Turret sets off a small Nuclear Blast.
Survival
The Survival tree focuses on defensive stat boosts and abilities, using the turret frequently, and pulling Axton back from the brink of death.
Tier1
can add+6 Maximum Health per level or Preparation +3 shield capacity per level
Tier 6
Gemini – allows you to deploy two Sabre Turrets.
Maya the Siren
Maya is a playable Siren class character in Borderlands 2.
Maya’s action skill is Phaselock which gives her the ability to suspend foes in another dimension.
This ability preventing the desired target from fighting back for a short time, Some enemies cannot be Phaselocked and instead instantly take damage.
The skill is useful for crowd control in both co-op and single-player modes.
The Base cooldown is 13 seconds while each level in the Quicken skill increases the cooldown rate by 6 , reducing the cooldown to 10 seconds at level 5.
Enemies that cannot be Phaselocked but may take a large amount of damage instead are:
Converge, Helios, and Ruin will still take effect, while Suspension, Sub-Sequence, Thoughtlock, Sweet Release, Elated, and Chain Reaction does not.
Maya’s Skill Tree Overview
Motion
The Motion tree focuses on crowd control, defense-based skills and allowing her to brainwash enemies into fighting each other.
Tier 1
Ward +5 Shield Capacity and 8 Shield Recharge Delay per level
Accelerate – +3 Gun Damage and +4 Bullet Speed per level.
Tier 6
Thoughtlock – Phaselock causes enemies to switch allegiance and fight amongst themselves.
Additionally, Phaselock’s duration and cooldown are increased (3s and 4s respectively).
Harmony
The Harmony tree focuses on healing abilities on herself and her teammates while providing some benefits to Maya’s DPS.
Tier 1
Mind’s Eye – Increases Critical Hit and Melee Damage per level
Sweet Release – Killing an enemy who is currently Phaselocked creates 1 Life Orb per level which automatically seeks out and heals the player and allies.
Tier 6
Scorn – Melee Override. Press [melee] to throw an Orb of Slag that constantly damages enemies near it.
Cataclysm
The Cataclysm tree focuses on elemental effects
Tier 1
Flicker – +6 Elemental Effect Chance per level.
Foresight – Increases Magazine Size and Reload Speed with all weapon types. +4 Magazine Size and +5 Reload Speed per level.
Tier 6
Ruin – Action Skill Augmentation. Phaselock now slags, corrodes and electrocutes all nearby enemies.
Salvador the Gunzerker
Salvador is the Gunzerker class character in Borderlands 2.
His main skill Gunzerking, allows him to dual-wield any two weapons in the game for a limited time.
The base cooldown for Gunzerking is 42 seconds, the base duration is 20.
Salvador’s Skill Tree Overview
Gun Lust
The Gun Lust tree focuses on swapping and reloading guns and gives Salvador various gun abilities.
Tier 1
Locked and Loaded: Improves fire rate after reloading a weapon. Additionally, this effect can be triggered by a later Gun Lust skill, Auto-Loader.
Quick Draw: Improves weapon swapping speed and critical hit damage with all weapons.
Tier 6
No Kill Like Overkill: Grants a damage buff to Salvador’s next shot equal to the excess damage dealt with the enemy just killed.
Rampage
The Rampage tree focuses on extra ammunition and Gunzerking.
Tier 1
Inconceivable: Gives a chance that shots fired do not consume ammo, this chance increases the lower health and shields are.
Filled to the Brim: increases magazine size of all gun types, in addition to increasing the ammo carrying capacity of all gun types.
Tier 6
Keep Firing…: While Gunzerking gain up to 85 fire rate and 25 reload speed as long as the trigger is held down.
Brawn
The Brawn tree focuses on physical toughness by soaking up for damage for allies due to massive health generation and also gives Salvador some physical abilities.
Tier 1
Hard to Kill – Regenerates and increases maximum health.
Incite – Taking damage increases movement and reload speed.
Tier 6
Come At Me Bro – While Gunzerking, the player can taunt enemies to attack them while instantly regaining full health and massive damage reduction for a few seconds
Zer0 the Assassin
Zer0 is the playable Assassin class character in Borderlands 2.
He is an assassin for hire, his “Decepti0n” grants him the ability to deploy a holographic decoy of himself and enter an invisible “stealth mode.”
While cloaked, Zer0 can inflict more damage on his enemies.
however, the shorter Zer0 stays cloaked, the sooner he is able to use the skill again.
Decepti0n has a base cooldown of 15 seconds and gives up to +650 Melee Damage or +200 Gun Damage and +250 Gun Critical Hit Damage.
Zer0’s Skill Tree Overview
Sniping
The Sniping tree focuses on guns, particularly sniper rifles, as well as critical hits.
Tier 1
Headsh0t – Increases Critical Hit Damage.
0ptics – Increases your Zoom with all gun types. Additionally, your aim is not disrupted as much when taking damage.
Tier 6
Critical Ascensi0n – Scoring a Critical Hit with a Sniper Rifle increases your Gun Damage and Critical Hit Damage with Sniper Rifles. This effect can stack up to 999 times. Stacks slowly decay if you haven’t scored a critical hit in awhile.
Cunning
The Cunning tree focuses on improving Decepti0n, and abilities that benefit both ranged and melee combat.
Tier 1
Fast Hands – Increases Reload Speed and Weapon Swap Speed.
C0unter Strike – After getting hit, your next melee attack has a chance to deal massively increased damage.
Tier 6
Death Bl0ss0m – Action Skill Augment.
Press F while Decepti0n is active to throw a handful of kunai. Each kunai will explode with a random elemental type. Kunai does not benefit from the Decepti0n damage bonuses, but throwing kunai does not end Decepti0n and can apply Death Mark.
Bloodshed
The Bloodshed tree focuses on melee attacks.
Tier 1
Killing Bl0w – Massively increases Melee Damage against enemies with low health.
Ir0n Hand – Increases your Melee Damage and Maximum Health.
Tier 6
Many Must Fall – Killing an enemy with a melee attack while Decepti0n is active causes you to deploy another holographic decoy, re-stealth, and adds time to Decepti0n’s duration. This can be done multiple times in succession.
Gaige the Mechromancer (DLC)
Gaige is the Mechromancer class in Borderlands 2 which was added as post-release downloadable content released on October 9, 2012.
She is able to spawn a mech onto the battlefield to help you crush your enemies.
Deathtrap stays on the battlefield for 60 seconds and has a 60-second base cooldown.
Gaige’s Skill Tree Overview
Best Friends Forever
The Best Friends Forever tree focuses on survival and aiming.
Tier 1
Close Enough – Your bullets that hit walls or other objects have a chance per level to ricochet toward a nearby enemy for reduced damage.
Cooking Up Trouble – While your gun’s magazine is full you regenerate health
Tier 6
Sharing is Caring – Grants a copy of your shield to Deathtrap.
Little Big Trouble
The Little Big Trouble tree focuses on elemental effects and damage, favoring Shock damage out of the four elements available. It also adds some elemental power to Deathtrap, in the form of high-powered heat-beams, shock blasts, and, later on, even the ability to mimic the element of any weapon Gaige shoots him with.
Tier 1
More Pep – Increases your chances of applying Burn, Electrocute, Corrode, and Slag Status Effects.
Myelin – Grants you a Resistance to Shock Damage. Also increases your Shield Capacity
Tier 6
Make it Sparkle – Shooting Deathtrap with an elemental weapon charges him with that element, causing his melee attacks to deal additional damage of that element.
Ordered Chaos
The Ordered Chaos tree focuses on Anarchy, which increases damage but decreases accuracy.
Tier 1
Smaller, Lighter, Faster – Increases your reload speed but decreases your magazine size.
Anarchy – Killing an enemy or fully emptying your gun’s magazine while in combat grants you a stack of Anarchy
Tier 6
With Claws – Melee Override Skill.
While you have a stack of Anarchy, melee to distract claws and swipe twice at an enemy, dealing damage based on the number of Anarchy stacks you currently have and restoring health.
The lower your health the more health you gain. This attack consumes an Anarchy stack.
Krieg the Psycho (DLC)
Krieg is the playable Psycho class character in Borderlands 2.
He was released on the DLC of May 14th, 2013.
He is able to transform into a psychotic killer and his main Action skill is Buzz Axe Rampage.
Armed with the Axe, Krieg puts away his currently equipped weapon and takes out his buzz axe, gaining massively increased melee damage and increased movement speed.
Each time he kills an enemy, he fully regenerates his health.
By holding the aim button, he takes aim with his buzz axe, firing causes him to throw it with a parabolic trajectory.
Being damaged decreases Buzz Axe Rampage’s cooldown, but taking damage to shields is less effective than to his health.
It has a Base duration of 16 seconds and Max base cooldown of 120 seconds,500 melee damage, 300 melee damage when thrown.
Krieg’s Skill Tree Overview
Bloodlust
The Bloodlust tree focuses on ranged combat and getting Bloodlust Stacks to improve his skills.
Tier 1
Blood Twitch – Kill Skill. Enables the Bloodlust mechanic. Increases weapon swap speed by 0.3 per rank for every stack of Bloodlust.
Blood-Filled Guns – Enables the Bloodlust mechanic. Increases magazine size by 0.5 per rank for every stack of Bloodlust. When stacks decay, any ammunition added to the clip beyond a weapon’s native capacity is returned to the ammo reserves
Tier 6
Bloodsplosion – Killing an enemy causes them to explode with an elemental nova matching the element that killed them. Nonelemental damage causes an explosive nova. Damage is based on the amount of Bloodlust stacks.
Mania
The Mania tree focuses on melee combat and health mechanics.
Tier 1
Empty the Rage – Increases melee damage; further increases melee damage when the shield is depleted or magazine is empty,
Pull the Pin – Drop a free grenade upon death. Kills with this grenade are worth double experience, and are announced by a popup once Krieg has respawned.
Feed the Meat – Increases max health and shield recharge delay.
Tier 6
Release the Beast – Activating Buzz Axe Rampage at 33 of max health instantly heals and transforms Krieg into a Badass Psycho Mutant, increasing melee damage by 100 and reducing damage received by 50 , respectively. Buzz Axe Rampage instantly recharges after Release the Beast ends. Release the Beast does not replace Buzz Axe Rampage; all bonuses added by Release the Beast are applied in addition to those already provided by Buzz-Axe Rampage, not instead of them.
Hellborn
The Hellborn tree focuses on elemental effects, particularly setting oneself on fire.
Tier 1
Burn, Baby, Burn – Increases burn damage and the chance to set oneself on fire.
Fuel the Fire – Kill Skill. Increases the chance to set oneself on fire. Increases elemental effect chance.
Tier 6
Raving Retribution – While on fire, taking damage from enemies will spawn homing balls of fire that seek out attacker and explode.