Maliwan

From Slag to Shock, Maliwan

makes only elemental guns.

A poster advertising Maliwan weaponry

“

Isn't it time you take your weapons to the next level? Sure, old-fashioned slug throwers have served you well in the past, but so did Bologna sandwiches. You've grown. Your tastes have changed. They've refined. It's time you had a gun that evolved with you and didn't feel like a family heirloom. Maliwan believes in honoring the past by embracing the future. Every Maliwan weapon is designed by the skilled technicians in our bleeding-edge laboratories to pack as much elemental punch as possible. Our staff of artisans crafts each weapon to look as good as it performs. Maliwan offers a full line of pistols, shotguns, rifles, and rocket launchers to fit every style. If it's not elemental, it's not a Maliwan. — Maliwan sales pitch, Official Borderlands Guide

”

Maliwan is a weapons manufacturer on Pandora. Their weapons and shields always use some form of elemental technology, but due to this fact, they tend to lack in other areas. Base firepower in particular seems to suffer. Maliwan weapons are distinguished by their unique light blue paint scheme.

See Incendiary, Shock, Corrosive, and Explosive for more information on Elemental tech.

Borderlands

Products

The following are products made by Maliwan.

Unique Weapons:

• Revolver - Madjack
• Rocket Launcher - The Roaster

Legendary Weapons:

• Repeater Pistol - Firehawk
• Revolver - Defiler
• Rocket Launcher- Rhino
• Shotgun - Crux
• Sniper Rifle - Volcano
• Submachine Gun - Hellfire

Class Mods:

• Hunter - Assassin, Survivor
• Siren - Catalyst, Firefly, Specialist Maliwan Loyalty
• Soldier - Shock Trooper, Tactician

Grenade Mods:

• Contact - Corrosive, Incendiary, Shock

Shields:

• Shock Burst, Wave, Nova

Pearlescent Weapons:

• Submachine Gun - Tsunami (The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC only.)

Weapon Tiers

• Maliwan Standard = Level 13 - 21
• Maliwan Sterling = Level 22 - 30
• Maliwan Prototype = Level 31 - 39
• Maliwan Paradigm = Level 40 - 47
• Maliwan Pure = Level 48+

Quotes

• "Is shooting bullets just not cool enough for you? Buy a Maliwan and light some people on fire!" -- Marcus Kincaid
• "Maliwan guns shoot more lightning than the next leading competitor!" -- Marcus Kincaid
• "Where form meets function." -- Maliwan poster (see picture above)

Borderlands 2

Products

The following are items made by Maliwan.

Common Weapons:

• Pistols
  • Aegis
  • Animosity
  • Phobia
  • Torment
  • Umbrage
• SMGs
  • Gospel
  • SubMalevolent Grace
  • Provacateur
  • Revenant
  • Trance
  • Venom
  • Vexation
• Sniper Rifles
  • Corinthian
  • Jericho
  • Rakehell
  • Snider
• Rocket Launchers
  • Panorama
  • Projectile
  • Prowler
  • Punishment

E-tech Weapons:

• Pistol - Dart, Spiker
• SMG - Plasma Caster
• Sniper Rifle - Railer
• Rocket Launcher - PBFG

Unique Weapons:

• Pistol - Rubi, Grog Nozzle
• SMG - Bad Touch, Good Touch, Chulainn, Crit
• Sniper Rifle - Chère-amie, Pimpernel
• Rocket Launcher - Hive

Legendary Weapons:

• Pistol - Thunderball Fists
• SMG - HellFire
• Sniper Rifle - Volcano
• Rocket Launcher - Norfleet, Pyrophobia

Seraph Weapons:

• Pistol - Infection
• SMG - Florentine

Pearlescent Weapons:

• Sniper Rifle - Storm
• Pistol - Wanderlust

Class Mods:

• Legendary Siren
• Slayer Of Terramorphous (Mechromancer)
• Slayer Of Terramorphous (Psycho)
• Slayer Of Terramorphous (Siren)
• Rogue
• Catalyst
• Zapper
• Legendary Binder
• Legendary Catalyst
• Legendary Ninja

Grenade Mods:

• Leech
• Kiss of Death
• O-Negative
• Chain Lightning
• Fireball
• Fire Storm
• Lightning Bolt
• Magic Missile

Shields:

• Black Hole
• Flame of the Firehawk
• Impaler
• Antagonist

Prefixes

Weapons

Accessory Effect	Pistols	SMGs	Sniper Rifles	Rocket Launchers
Accuracy +	Punctilious	Guileless	Dandy	Pertinent
Fire rate +	Expeditious	Impetuous	Banbury	Predacious
Damage +	Potent	Consummate	Barking	Puissant
Reload speed +	-	Apt	-	Prudential
Swap Speed +	-	-	-	Parataxis
Stability +	Elegant	Lucid	Fashionable	-
Melee +	Eviceration	Acuminious	Sublime	Proximate
Critical +	-	-	Gentleman's	-
Magazine size +	Surfeit	-	Monstrous	Plenteous
Double	Binary	-	-	-
Fire	Inflammatory	Fervid	Scarlet	Pyroclastic
Shock	Electrified	Storming	Zooks	Parelectronomic
Corrosive	Trenchant	Caustic	Bumblebroth	Paraquat
Slag	Scoria	Feculent	Deuced	Purulence

Gun Appearance by Quality

Schema of the colors of Maliwan weaponry

• White: Mostly white with faded light blue and orange bars at rear of weapon
• Green: More vibrant colors; front of weapon is dark blue, middle is white, rear is orange
• Blue: Reflective frame with honeycomb texture; front is orange and blue, white middle, black rear
• Purple: Metallic frame with honeycomb texture; front may be black and orange, middle white and orange, and rear black
• Purple with prefix Aquamarine: Metallic frame with honeycomb texture; colors alternate from navy blue to purplish-grey. Parts of the weapon feature a reflective light blue material.
• Legendary Variants:
  • Hellfire: Matte blue and yellow colour scheme with white accents.
  • Pyrophobia: Singed metallic light orange and red colour scheme with black accents.
  • Volcano: Charred colour scheme similar to Blue quality variants, but with more saturated colours.
  • Thunderball Fists: metallic Red and silver colour scheme with blue accents and thunderbolt decals on the magazine.
• Seraph Variants:
  • Florentine: Similar design to the Hellfire, but with silver and black instead of Blue and Yellow (respectively).
  • Infection: Shiny Sea green with accents of other colours.
• Pearlescent Variants:
  • Storm: Exactly the same as a purple variant Snider sniper rifle.
  • Wanderlust: Metallic, dark orange cyan and black design.

Rarity-specific visual changes:

• Blue and purple SMGs have a magazine that is shaped like a disk that spins as the weapon is fired.
• White and blue Pistols lack the triangular casing over their magazine that their variants of other rarities feature.

Usage

• As the elemental specialists, Maliwan guns tend to excel against one specific type of enemy and to have severely reduced effects on others (e.g. Incendiary weapons are very effective against bandits, but robotic enemies are highly resistant). This encourages Maliwan users to carry spare guns with different elemental effects at all times, and use them according to the opposition they are facing.
  • As a result, players are encouraged to use Maliwan in the later gameplay such as in TVHM, when they have more inventory slots, and the elements does more damage to their corresponding enemy.
• Choosing the right element for the right opponents can make the Maliwans extremely effective despite their generally low bullet damage.
• Some enemies (like crystalisks with the exception of explosive) are immune or resistant to any kind of elemental damage. Maliwan guns will perform very poorly against them.
  • Slag will still do normal damage, although cannot apply effect if the target is immune.
• Maya uses the elemental properties of Maliwan guns to great effect, as her Cataclysm skill tree have several skills that improve elemental damage and effects. Gaige and Krieg also paired well with Shock and Incendiary Maliwan weapons if invested Little Big Trouble or Hellborn skill tree.
• Upon impact, bullets from Maliwan firearms will explode and deal elemental damage in a small radius.
• Bullets from Maliwan firearms tend to have slower traveling speed than most other brands, only faster than Torgue gyrojets or E-tech.

Quotes

• Maliwan - Where Form Meets Function (Maliwan Weapon Video)

Notes

• Maliwan guns are always elemental (either slag, corrosive, incendiary or shock, never explosive) and generally have increased elemental effect chance and damage when compared to guns from other manufacturers.
• Most Maliwan weapon types almost always have the "Bonus Elemental Damage" trait, the amount of bonus damage differing between weapon types
  • ​Pistol bonus damage is equal to 100% of the damage listed on the item card. 
  • Sniper rifle bonus damage is equal to 60% of the damage listed on the item card.
  • Rocket launcher does not seem to deal bonus damage directly, but a fraction of the damage value is delivered in a short radius around the point of impact. 
  • SMGs do not typically have the "Bonus Elemental Damage" trait.
• Maliwans have a very sleek and futuristic design, with rounded corners, bright colors and many blinking lights.
• Maliwan guns tend to have quick reload times and reasonable accuracy, but come with limited magazine size and bullet damage (due to elemental effect reducing raw damage).
• Maliwan weapons in Borderlands 2 have unique reload animations. Sniper rifles use a break-action system in which the player inserts an elongated magazine, pistols use revolver-like triangular cartridges, submachine guns use either an energy pod (white or green rarity) or a constantly rotating ammunition disc that is wound when reloaded (unique, purple, and legendary rarity), and rocket launchers use a large, segmented cartridge of rockets that spin into place.
• Maliwan weapon sights often share similar characteristics; rocket launcher sights are small and rectangular with detailed screen statistics, SMG and pistol sights are small hubs that produce a holographic, rotating reticle, and sniper rifles have futuristic scopes that feature a hexagonal pattern when zoomed in.
• Prior to Patch 1.7.0, purple-rarity Maliwan SMGs were more common than those of other manufacturers, and the only blue-rarity Maliwan SMG was the Chulainn. All other SMGs were affected by a bug in the parts list for blue-rarity Maliwan SMGs which mandated use of the "Type C" body. When present, the "Type C" body automatically elevates the weapon to purple rarity, including the inherent boosts to weapon damage and price. This was fixed in Patch 1.7.0 which allowed blue-rarity Maliwan submachine guns to spawn naturally.
  • Though stats-wise such "attempted blue" SMGs are identical to their fully purple counterparts, the automatic increase in rarity will not change the skin used by the weapon, making it possible to determine if a weapon is "naturally purple" by careful visual inspection.
  • Despite the patch, "attempted blue" Maliwan SMGs in players' backpacks and storage are still considered valid, and retain purple rarity. This includes any Crits already in possession. Previously a purple mission reward, the Crit is the one unique Maliwan SMG affected by the fix.

Trivia

• Most of the named and legendary weapons seem to be named after destructive natural elements and events.
• In Borderlands 2, Maliwan no longer manufactures shotguns.
• In the Maliwan radio ad in Borderlands 2, a rifle named Deus Ex Arma is mentioned.
• Maliwan produces its own brand of alcoholic beverage named "Maliwan Black Label", that can be found scattered across Pandora.