2. Borderlands General hints and tips

Characters

The very first thing you’ll have to do is decide which character, or class, you wish to play as. You have a choice of either Brick (Berserker), Lilith (Siren), Mordecai (Hunter) or Roland (Soldier) . With each class comes different styles of gameplay and characteristics. Each class also has it’s own special ability.

Name: Brick
Role: Berserker
Action Skill: Berserk - This will set Brick into a fit of rage and your screen will tint with red. With this you’ll be impervious to any damage whilst your health also regenerates at a rapid rate. Along with this, Brick will holster any weapon he has equipped and will fight using only his fists. Very useful when overwhelmed with enemies.
Weapon Speciality: Rocket Launcher
Skill Trees: Brawler, Tank, Blaster
Best used as a “tank”, meaning the one you use to distract the enemy and inflict the most damage. He is mainly a brawler, with his fists being his preferred weapon of choice. He is also useful as a “demo” man as he is extremely effective with Shotguns, Rocket Launchers and Grenades.

Name: Lilith
Role: Siren
Action Skill: Phasewalk - Lilith will turn invisible and increase her speed. When entering and exiting Phase Walk, she will perform a Phase Blast, sending out a small wave of damage to any adversaries nearby. Although whilst in this state Lilith cannot attack, jump or collect loot and performing a melee attack will end this state.
Weapon Speciality: Submachine Guns (SMGs)
Skill Trees: Controller, Elemental, Assassin
Think of her as a rogue-type character. She uses her brains more than her brawn and makes particular use of the elemental damage system (see below).

Name: Modercai
Role: Hunter
Action Skill: Bloodwing - The Bloodwing is a small bird (it may well be a Hawk or something of that stature) that Mordecai will unleash upon any given enemy, dealing a large amount of damage. The Bloodwing also has the ability to heal, collect extra loot, and daze.
Weapon Speciality: Sniper Rifles
Skill Trees: Sniper, Rogue, Gunslinger
Consider him the long-range specialist or Sharpshooter. He utilises the Sniper Rifles extremely effectively.

Name: Roland
Role: Soldier
Action Skill: Scorpio Turret - The Scorpio turret is exactly how it sounds. Roland will drop this on the ground, where upon the turret will attack any enemies within it’s range with a variety of weapons.. The turret also has the ability to regenerate health and ammo to any team mates within it’s range.
Weapon Speciality: Combat Rifles
Skill Trees: Infantry, Support, Medic
Roland is geared mainly towards the support of the team, supplying them with health and ammo, but is particularly useful with most gun types.

Within Borderlands there are 4 elemental damage types: Corrosive, Explosive, Incendiary and Shock. Some weapons contain a multiplier to one of these elements which can be extremely advantageous, especially against tougher enemies with large shields. However, some enemies may be immune to such elements, so just be wary of which elemental weapon you are using against these enemies. When looting for weapons, I’d suggest keeping an eye out for weapons with “x4” elemental damage as these will nearly always fire the corresponding amount of elemental damage, whereas weapons with a “x2” multiplier won’t fire every shot as an elemental shot.

If you see a “Catch-A-Ride” station, make sure you grab a vehicle as Pandora is very large and having a vehicle makes getting around a lot easier and quicker. You’ll also have the benefit of being able to lock on to enemies with the Rocket Launcher that is attached to certain vehicles, making for quicker kills.

A lot of the boss battles in the game are assisted by smaller enemies, or as I like to call them, “Henchmen”. Try and keep these henchmen alive before you kill the boss. The reason being that, if you find yourself “downed” by the boss you can kill one of these henchmen to receive a “Second Wind” and you’ll be able to battle on.