I have been playing Borderlands 2 ever since its release in 2012 (It’s 10 years old this year!). During those years of playing the best shoot-and-loot game ever, I have picked up a few Borderlands 2 tips to help new players.
Table of Contents
Don’t Get Attached
For the first tip in our Borderlands 2 tips: You’ve stumbled upon an exceptional firearm. It could be a purple-tier weapon or one of those boss-exclusive guns with unique characteristics. Initially, you effortlessly dispatch every enemy in your path. However, as you advance through the main story, the weapon’s effectiveness diminishes. Even its special feature becomes increasingly futile. Nevertheless, parting with it is out of the question; it’s a truly one-of-a-kind firearm.
Once you come across a superior weapon, discard your beloved one without hesitation. It occupies valuable inventory space and offers no benefit. In subsequent playthroughs, you will encounter boss weapons that far surpass their previous strength. Letting go may prove challenging, but it is essential. Towards the game’s conclusion, you may even discover a new favorite that better aligns with upcoming battles.
The game often features grey weapons, which are the most frequently found rarity. Surprisingly, even these can surpass legendary weapons in effectiveness when obtained at higher levels. Hence, it is essential to maintain flexibility in your weapon selection.
Don’t Go For One Weapon Type
Here is my next Borderlands 2 tip. Since the ammo pool for each weapon type is shared. Having the same weapon type for all 4 of your equipped means you risk being out of ammo very quickly. Once you are out of ammo you’ll have to scavenge some which can be difficult during a heated battle. I recommend that each slot in your equipped weapons is a different weapon type. This way you will always have a weapon to switch to when your ammo runs dry for one weapon type.
Also as you progress through the game you will gain access to elemental weapons. These are super effective against specific enemies:
- Burn – Effective against Red Health Bars.
- Shock: Effective against shielded enemies.
- Corrosive – Effective against orange armored enemies.
- Slag – Weakens enemies so they are less resistant to damage.
You don’t need to have all four elemental types. At the beginning of the game, you are better off with burn weapons, as most of the enemies will have red health bars and very weak shields. But as you progress, the shields get stronger, so it becomes useful to keep a shock weapon equipped. There are areas where all you will be facing are Handsome Jack’s robots. These are very susceptible to corrosive damage; at this point, you can do away with the burn weapon type until later. Slag, though useful, doesn’t come into its own until your second and third playthroughs, when the enemies are very resistant to attacks.
Side Quests Galore
The next entry in our Borderlands 2 tips is that you shouldn’t complete every single side quest. As you progress through your first playthrough, your character levels up very quickly. As they progress in levels, the side quests start to become less difficult. With the least difficulty being Trivial and highlighted in a gray color. At this point, do not bother doing the quests, as the reward is very small and the time spent completing the quest could be spent doing more difficult quests or even the main quest line.
Since there is a second playthrough option where the difficulties start to ramp up for all quests, you can then complete any quests that you missed in your first playthrough. Allowing you to explore the interesting lore of the game while leveling up your character at quite a pace.
Selecting Perks Effectively
The next entry in our Borderlands 2 tips, is that each character has at least one playstyle. Each character also has three development trees that focus on one aspect of the character. When leveling up your character, it’s important to consider what type of build would be useful for them to get the most out of them. Instead of providing builds here, I have suggestions below that provide great ideas for builds for each character. Choose one and see how it feels. If you get it wrong and don’t enjoy the playstyle, your skill points can be reset at the Customization store, one of which is located in Sanctuary near the job board.
Move On
The final entry in our Borderlands 2 tips, is to get ready to move on. Once you reach level 35 or higher in the standard playthrough, it is time to move on to True Vault Hunter mode. You carry over all your weapons, skills, skins, and levels. The game starts again, but this time the difficulty is increased to be suitable for level 30 characters. If you stay in normal mode, you will find that the quests are not rewarding enough, nor is it enjoyable to play since you are killing everything with relative ease.
If you get to the end of the game and somehow you are under level 30, Make sure to complete any sidequests so that you stand a chance in this new game mode. Otherwise, it will be less enjoyable and borderline frustrating. This new mode also ramps up the difficulty from area to area. So you may find yourself having to grind to farm better weapons to move forward with the story.
Borderlands 2 Tips
I hope the above Borderlands 2 tips have helped you play one of my favorite games (especially on handhelds). If there are any tips I missed, please place them in the comments section for me to add to this list.
