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Borderlands[]

Skills are various class-specific abilities that modify a character's abilities. By choosing a particular combination of skills, a player customizes their character, making that character more effective for certain play styles.

Skill Points[]

Skills are selected and developed by investing skill points, awarded as a character increases in level. Each time that the character increases in level, they receive an additional skill point. The first skill point is gained at level 5, and must be used to acquire the Action Skill for that character's class. Subsequent skill points may be invested in a number of different skills that unlock as the character progresses.

Multiple skill points may be invested in a single skill, increasing the character's effectiveness in that skill. Each skill other than the Action Skill can receive up to 5 points.

By equipping class mods, a character will receive additional points in one or multiple skills. For the bonus to any skill to take effect, the character must have at least one point already allocated to that skill. Use of a class mod may give a character an effective rank in a skill of greater than 5.

If a mistake is made while investing skill points, or another build is desired, money can be spent at a New-U Station to "respec" (redistribute) a character's skill points. Upon purchasing a respec, all skills are reset, including the Action Skill, and the player must reallocate all that character's skill points. The cost of a respec increases as the character's total number skill points increases, but will never exceed $15000 even for a maximum-level character.

Action Skills[]

Main article: Action Skills

Each character has a single Action Skill. This is the first skill that is learned, acquired at level 5.

Brick[]

Brick's Action Skill is Berserk. While in this state, Brick's vision becomes clouded with blood, he starts laughing maniacally, and he puts his guns away in favor of using his fists to pummel enemies. His melee damage is increased, he takes less damage from enemy attacks, and he regenerates health in battle.

Lilith[]

Lilith's Action Skill is Phasewalk. When Lilith uses Phasewalk, she turns invisible and can move quickly. When Lilith goes into Phasewalk, there is a small shockwave that damages enemies in the area of effect. Skill points can be used to increase the melee damage whilst in this state, and to limit damage when coming out of it.

Mordecai[]

Mordecai's Action Skill allows him to send an alien pet, a falcon-like bird named Bloodwing, out into the fray to attack enemies.

Roland[]

Roland's Action Skill is Scorpio Turret. This is a turret that attacks enemies while providing cover for the team with an attached shield. It can be upgraded to supply teammates with health and ammo.

Skill Trees[]

Brick skill tree

Example of a skill tree. This one belongs to Brick.

Beyond the Action Skill, access to the different character skills is regulated by a tree structure. Each class has three distinct skill trees. Each of these trees comprises seven different skills, arranged into four successive tiers; the first three tiers of a tree have two skills each, while the last tier only contains a single, powerful skill.

Initially, the character has access only to skills in the first tier of each tree, unlocked by the Action Skill. For every five skill points invested in a particular tree, another tier in that tree unlocks, allowing skill points to be invested in new skills. Skill points may be invested in any combination of the skills of the available tiers: maxing a single skill by investing five skill points in it is possible, but not necessarily required to advance. Likewise, characters need not be dedicated to a single skill tree, but may distribute skill points between trees as a player sees fit.

Unlike the Action Skill, the skills in these trees require no explicit command. They either take effect automatically under particular conditions (e.g., when the character scores a kill, as in Mordecai's Killer, or when the character inflicts explosive damage, as in Brick's Liquidate), or else are permanent effects (e.g., the bonus to shield capacity of Lilith's Diva, or the reduction of action skill cooldown time of Roland's Deploy).

Brick[]

Brick's skill trees are Brawler, Tank, and Blaster.

  • Brawler focuses on melee, especially using Brick's Berserk fists.
  • Tank focuses on damage mitigation and recovery.
  • Blaster focuses on weapons, particularly explosive weapons.
Brick Build

Lilith[]

Lilith's skill trees are Assassin, Elemental, and Controller.

  • Controller focuses on mitigating damage and dazing enemies.
  • Elemental focuses on interactions with tech effects and elemental damage.
  • Assassin focuses on doing damage, especially with Phasewalk and melee attacks.
Lilith Build

Mordecai[]

Mordecai's Skill trees are Sniper, Rogue, and Gunslinger.

  • Sniper focuses on effectiveness with sniper rifles.
  • Rogue focuses on using Bloodwing and increasing the loot gained from enemies.
  • Gunslinger focuses on improving damage/critical hits and effectiveness with pistols.
Mordecai Build

Roland[]

Roland's skill trees are Infantry, Support, and Medic.

  • Infantry focuses on offensive ability with weapons and Roland's turret.
  • Support focuses mainly on defenses and providing extra ammunition.
  • Medic focuses mainly on health and keeping the party alive.
Roland Build

Interactive Skill Trees[]

Borderlands Official Website offers an interactive skill tree for each character. Note that skill points gained through DLC completions are not used in the skill calculator, meaning a maximum of 57 points can be allotted into the trees.

An unofficial skill tree that includes DLC skill points

Notes[]

  • Without any DLC, characters can accumulate 54 skill points by the time they reach the maximum level of 58. However, with the addition of the Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution, it is now possible to attain a maximum of 69 skill points:
    • +2 Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot
    • +2 Claptrap's New Robot Revolution
    • +11 The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
  • To be able to fill all skills, a character would need 37 additional skill points, since the total would have to be 106.

Borderlands 2[]

Skills are various class-specific abilities that modify a character's abilities. Borderlands 2 features three skill trees per character.

Unlocking Skills[]

Skill Points[]

Skills are selected and developed by investing skill points, awarded as a character increases in level. Each time that the character increases in level, they receive an additional skill point. The first skill point is gained at level 5, and must be used to acquire the Action Skill for that character's class. Subsequent skill points may be invested in a number of different skills that unlock as the character progresses.

Skill Levels[]

Most skills have five levels, each requiring one skill point to unlock. However, the Action Skill and some other skills only have a single level, and the Mechromancer's Smaller, Lighter, Faster only has four levels.

Skill Tree[]

Each character has three skill trees and each skill tree has six tiers. The first tier is the top row of the skill tree and is available for spending skill points on as soon as the Action Skill of the character is unlocked. Every five skill points spent in a tree unlocks the next level of that skill tree.

Tiers are unlocked by the total number of points invested in each tree.

Skill Types[]

Action Skill[]

Each character has an Action Skill, which the first skill point must be spent on. Action Skills represent the "signature move" of the character.

Passive Skill[]

Most skills are passive, and influence the actions that a character takes.

Kill Skill[]

Some skills are triggered on killing an enemy; these can be distinguished by a hexagonal frame (as opposed to a square frame for other skills). Gaige's kill skills have a square frame however.

Melee Override[]

Melee Override skills allow a character to perform a special attack in place of their regular melee attack.  Three of the five Melee Overrides have cooldowns; the character can make normal melee attacks while the ability is cooling down. Gaige's override costs one stack of Anarchy to be performed and can be performed without a cooldown as long as she has a stack of Anarchy to spend on it. Zer0's override has no cooldown, but can only be performed while using his Decepti0n action skill, and only on enemies further than standard melee range away from Zer0. Each character, except Axton, has a single Melee Override skill:

Gamechangers[]

Each tree has a one-level skill at tier 3 (henceforth referred to as a minor gamechanger) and at tier 6 (major gamechanger) that fundamentally changes the play of the character or their Action Skill. The major gamechanger in particular tends to be especially powerful. Some skill trees also has skills with one-level on tier 2 or 4, but provides smaller change. Anarchy is also considered a gamechanger despite being a tier 1 skill.

It requires at least 11 Skill Points in a tree to acquire a minor gamechanger and at least 26 Skill Points to acquire a major gamechanger. There are 46 skill points available in the initial release of Borderlands 2, which means that it is only possible to acquire both gamechangers in one tree and the minor gamechanger in another, or all three minor gamechangers. With the Ultimate Vault Hunter Pack, players have 57 skill points available, allow them to acquire both gamechangers in two skill trees, or all three minor gamechangers and a major gamechanger.

With the release of the Digistruct Peak Challenge DLC, character have 68 skill points available, allowing them to hold all three minor gamechangers and two major gamechangers.

Specific Skills[]

For specific skills, see the appropriate character pages.


Salvador skills
Gunzerking
Gun Lust Rampage Brawn
Maya skills
Phaselock
Motion Harmony Cataclysm

Elated • Life Tap • Mind's Eye • Recompense • Res • Restoration • Scorn • Sustenance • Sweet Release • Wreck

Zer0 skills
Decepti0n
Sniping Cunning Bloodshed
Axton skills
Sabre Turret
Guerrilla Gunpowder Survival
Gaige skills
Deathtrap
Best Friends Forever Little Big Trouble Ordered Chaos
Krieg skills
Buzz Axe Rampage
Bloodlust Mania Hellborn


Borderlands 3[]

Skills are various class-specific abilities that modify a character's abilities. Borderlands 3 features three skill trees per character.

Skill Types[]

Compared to Borderlands 1 and 2, skills act differently in Borderlands 3. In 3, you can choose what skills you want and it's not limited to only having 1 player in your co-op group anymore.

For specific skills, see the appropriate character pages.


Amara skills
Brawl Mystical Assault Fist of the Elements Enlightened Force
FL4K skills
Master Stalker Hunter Trapper
Moze skills
Demolition Woman Shield of Retribution Bottomless Mags Bear Mother
Zane skills
Under Cover Doubled Agent Hitman The Professional
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