Borderland 4’s diverse skill trees can be intimidating to look at, especially when the game starts providing you with skill points to spend immediately after your first level up. To help speed up the process, this guide provides sequential skill choices to help you efficiently fill out your skill tree from level 1-50 when playing Rafa the Exo-Soldier.
As a Looter-Shooter with a lot of procedural generation, no two Borderlands 4 playthroughs are the same and this leveling build has been designed with cognizance of that fact. The skills used in this guide are completely gear independent, serving their purpose no matter the hand that lady luck has dealt you and while also being playable alone or with friends.
- Works well with any weapon.
- Strong against all armor types.
- Action Skill does all the heavy lifting.
- Very dependent on Action Skills.
- Limited defensive capabilities,
Quick Navigation
- Skill Overview and Playstyle
- Skill Point, Augment, and Capstone order
- Strategy
- Gun and Gear Priority
- Quick Tips
Skill Overview and Playstyle
The Peacebreaker Cannon’s are the focal point of this leveling build, providing you with two huge guns that will automatically target and shoot down enemies in your vicinity while you go about your business. The skill-point distribution of this build maximizes this potential to provide you with a consistent way to dispose of enemies, removing your need to constantly be on the look out for your next big weapon upgrade.
Skill Point, Augment, and Capstone Order
The following sequence of Skill Point allocation allows you to be at your strongest at each level without having to worry about resetting your Skill Trees and reallocating points. The goal of this leveling build is to reach the Beam Team Capstone to turn your Peacebreaker Cannons into lasers before moving toward the Lateral Plinking to add a powerful ricochet effect on top. This is complemented by a variety of damage-boosting skills to maximise your potential.
| Skill Point | Skill | Skill Tree |
|---|---|---|
| Action Skill | Peacebreaker Cannons | Remote Agent |
| 1-5 | Deft Hands | Remote Agent |
| Augment | Instinto | Remote Agent |
| 6-10 | Juerga | Remote Agent |
| 11-13 | Maestro | Remote Agent |
| 14-15 | El Valiente | Remote Agent |
| 12-15 | Grave Quickening | Remote Agent |
| 16-20 | Vitriol | Remote Agent |
| 21 | Concentrated Build-Up | Remote Agent |
| 22-25 | Pain Reaction | Remote Agent |
| Capstone | Beam Team | Remote Agent |
| 26-30 | Asymmetric Warfare | Remote Agent |
| 31 | Ardid | Remote Agent |
| 32-35 | Errant Spark | Remote Agent |
| 36 | Lateral Plinking | Remote Agent |
| 37 | El Alacrán | Remote Agent |
| 38-40 | Inspirado | Remote Agent |
| 41-45 | Midnight Oil | This Year’s Gimmick |
| 46 | Errant Spark | Remote Agent |
| 47 | Pain Reaction | Remote Agent |
| 48 | El Valiente | Remote Agent |
| 49 | CYA | Remote Agent |
The specific ordering of the build comes with some room for personal preference. While it is important to distribute your skills in such a way to reach your Beam Team Capstone early, many of the choices along the way are interchangeable based on personal preference, such as picking up CYA earlier for more survivability. After picking up Lateral Plinking the order of remaining skills in the build interchangeable should you feel the need to pick them up in a slightly different order.
Strategy
Early Game (0-15 Skill Points)
The early game yields some of Rafa’s most powerful Peacekeeper Cannon skills, namely Juerga, Maestro, and the Instinto Augment. This combination will increase the power of your Peacekeeper Cannons Action Skill while providing you enough of a boost to your Action Skill Duration to keep them active almost indefinitely.
In order to play to your strengths, you should try to stay in combat as long as possible to continually benefit from the Action Skill Duration increase provided by Juerga and Instinto. At this point in the build, you need only worry about positioning yourself in a way that your Peacekeeper Cannons always have enemies to automatically shoot at and trigger these effects.
Should you find yourself in a position where your Action Skill is on cooldown, then it is immediately advised to go on the defensive. During this time, focus on staying alive through the use of Medkits and any other healing you may have, doing whatever it takes to stay alive until you can activate your Peacekeeper Cannons once again.
Mid Game (16-24 Skill Points)
In the mid game you will start to gain passive Elemental Damage in the form of Corrosive damage from Vitriol and some Shock damage from Concentrated Build-Up. You may choose to take advantage guns that can deal a high amount of damage in a single shot, such as a Sniper Rifle or Jakobs Pistol. However, your Peacekeeper Cannons will still make up most of your damage off the back of your early-game skills.
Late Game (25+ Skill Points)
Upon reaching the late game you gain access to the Beam Team Capstone, turning your Peacekeeper Cannons into two powerful lasers that deal Corrosive and Shock damage. This will immediately empower you against enemies that use Shields and Armor, such as enemies from The Order, while making enemies that rely on Health more resistant, so make sure you plan your fights accordingly.
Once your Skill Points push into the 30s you can start spending Skill Points in Errant Spark to provide additional Incendiary damage to your Action Skill, patching up your previous weakness to Health-based enemies and letting you indiscriminately tear through enemies for the remaining levels of the build.
Teamplay
The aggressive nature of this build lends itself well to fast-paced teamplay. The presence of allies in fights will draw some of the attention away from you, giving you opportunities to stay in the thick of the action to let your Peacekeeper Cannons go to town. Should you be unfortunate enough to have your Action Skill on cooldown, playing in a team will also make it much easier to wait it out before getting back into the action.
Gun and Gear Priority
As with most leveling builds, you should have no real issues regardless of your gear choices. However, some choices do have more synergy with the build than others. Consider the following tips:
- Prioritise slow-but-powerful weapons to make full use of Vitriol. This will most commonly be a powerful Sniper Rifle or Shotgun, but can also come in the form of a Jakobs Pistol or some unique Assault Rifles.
- Consider choosing Armor over Shields. While either can work, Armor’s ability to keep charging while you are taking damage will allow you to stay on the offensive.
- Many powerful skills like Fiesta and Cruel Accrual as hidden deep in other skill trees. Try to utilise Class Mods with unique skills like these to diversify the build even further.
- As the built itself covers your offensive needs, look for a Medkit that will allow you stay fighting for longer. Those that can regenerate Armor or Shields are particularly powerful.
- Look for Ordnance with damage rather than utility as skills like Asymmetric Warfare, Errant Spark, and Lateral Plinking will significantly boost your damage output.
Quick Tips
- Stay fighting while your Peacekeeper Cannons are active.
- Your Cannons will continue to shoot during Fight For Your Life!
- Play passively while your Action Skill is on cooldown.