Borderlands Beginner's Guide - Tips & Tricks

5-Minute Primer

Borderlands is not a traditional first-person shooter. If you treat it like Call of Duty or Halo, you will have a miserable time. At its core, Borderlands is a loot-driven Role-Playing Game (RPG) wrapped in FPS mechanics. It is often credited with creating the "looter-shooter" genre, and understanding that distinction is the single most important key to enjoying the game.

The foundational loop of Borderlands goes like this: you accept a quest, you travel to a location, you shoot bandits or mutated creatures, they explode into fountains of colorful loot, you compare the stats of your newly acquired guns to your current guns, you equip the better one, and you turn in the quest for experience points and cash. Every single mechanic in the game serves this exact loop.

Here is what you need to know in five minutes:

• Millions of Guns: The game's famous marketing slogan is technically true. Guns are not hand-crafted; they are procedurally generated by the game's engine combining different weapon bodies, barrels, grips, magazines, and elemental attachments. A level 5 sniper rifle is completely useless to a level 15 player. You will constantly be replacing your arsenal.
• The RPG Rule of Combat: In an FPS, a headshot with any gun is a one-hit kill. In Borderlands, a headshot is simply a damage multiplier applied to a math equation. If your gun does 20 damage and the enemy has 5,000 health, headshots will not save you. You must keep your gear updated to match your level.
• Elemental Damage is King: Guns come in Fire, Shock, Corrosive, and Explosive varieties. Matching the right element to the right enemy health bar will make the game a breeze. Ignoring elements will make boss fights grueling.
• Play with Friends (Eventually): The game is designed for co-op. The difficulty scales up with more players, but the loot drops scale up exponentially more. However, play solo for your first few hours to learn the story and mechanics without feeling left behind.

First Hour Checklist

The opening of Borderlands is intentionally slow. You arrive on a bus, get handed a generic pistol, and are told to go shoot some bandits. Use this time wisely to build habits that will last the entire playthrough.

• Finish the "Clean Up the Fyrestone" questline. Do not wander off to explore the vast desert just yet. Follow the main story markers until you have killed Nine-Toes and unlocked your first Skill Point. Progression is gated behind these early story beats.
• Test all four weapon types. When you first get a weapon of each type (Pistol, SMG, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher), take a few minutes to shoot a wall or a bandit with each one. Pay attention to the crosshairs. Notice how much the screen shakes when firing, and how accurate the bullets are at medium range. Find out which weapon "feels" best to you before you pick your character class.
• Unlock the Catch-A-Ride station. Completing the early vehicle quests gives you access to the Runner, a dune buggy with mounted machine guns. Take it for a spin. Learn how to toggle the machine gun and the rocket launcher (usually the Left Bumper / Left Mouse Button).
• Equip your Class Mod. Once you hit level 5 and unlock your first skill point, you will receive your first Class Mod. Open your inventory and equip it immediately. These items provide passive bonuses to your stats and grant bonuses to specific skills in your skill tree.
• Buy the SDU (Storage Deck Upgrade) for Backpack Space. As soon as you have a few thousand dollars, go to the town's medical vending machine and buy the backpack upgrade. Loot is your lifeblood, and running out of inventory space in the middle of a dungeon is incredibly frustrating.
• Understand the Vending Machines. There are three types: Health (red), Ammo (green), and Weapons (yellow). You can buy items, sell unwanted loot for cash, and, in the case of weapon machines, occasionally buy incredibly powerful, rare guns that are scaled exactly to your current level.

Key Systems Explained

Combat: Shield, Health, and the "Fight for Your Life" Mechanic

You do not have traditional health regeneration. Instead, you have a Shield and a Health bar. When you take damage, your Shield depletes first. Once your shield is gone, damage eats into your health. When your health hits zero, you do not instantly die. Instead, you enter a state called Fight for Your Life.

In this state, you fall to the ground and can still crawl around and shoot your weapon. You have a rapidly depleting timer. If you manage to kill an enemy before the timer runs out, you are instantly revived with a portion of your health and shields restored (a "Second Wind"). If the timer runs out, you respawn at the last New-U Station you passed, losing a small percentage of your cash.

Actionable Advice: Always carry a weapon with a high fire rate or a wide splash radius (like a shotgun or an explosive assault rifle) specifically for getting Second Winds. Sniper rifles are terrible for this because aiming precisely while panicking on the ground is nearly impossible.

Economy: Cash is a Means, Not an End

Money in Borderlands is primarily used for two things: buying ammo/health and purchasing the incredibly expensive Storage Deck Upgrades (SDUs) from vending machines. You will find yourself constantly hovering around a few hundred thousand dollars because you are constantly dumping it into SDUs.

Do not hoard money. If you see a really good gun in a vending machine that is a direct upgrade for your current level, buy it. You will make the money back by selling the old gun and the random trash loot you find in the next cave.

Actionable Advice: Never sell a gun that has a red text box in its item description. Red text indicates a "unique" weapon with a special, hidden behavior that you cannot get from random drops. These are often incredibly powerful or just incredibly fun to use.

Progression: XP and the Level Scaling Wall

You gain experience points (XP) by killing enemies and completing quests. The game uses a strict level-scaling system. An enemy that is one level below you will die quickly and deal little damage to you. An enemy that is exactly your level is a fair fight. An enemy that is just two levels above you will feel like a bullet-sponge raid boss that can kill you in two hits.

Actionable Advice: If you hit a wall where you are constantly dying, look at your level compared to the enemies. If they are two levels higher, stop doing the main story quests. Go back to previous areas and complete the optional side quests you skipped. Gain a level or two, upgrade your gear at the vending machines, and then return to the main story.

Build / Character Choices

Borderlands features four distinct Vault Hunters. Your choice dictates your active ability, your passive bonuses, and the types of weapons you will naturally excel with. Here is a breakdown of each class and a recommendation on who to pick for your very first playthrough.

Lilith - The Siren

Lilith's active ability is Phasewalk. She becomes invisible, moves incredibly fast, leaves a trail of damaging energy, and upon exiting Phasewalk, she deals a massive elemental shockwave of damage.

• Pros: Phenomenal survivability. Phasewalk is essentially a "get out of jail free" card that lets you escape bad situations, heal up, and reposition. Her skill tree heavily boosts elemental damage and SMG proficiency.
• Cons: Her damage is highly dependent on elemental effects, which means her effectiveness drops off slightly in areas where enemies resist the elements you are using.

Mordecai - The Hunter

Mordecai's active ability is Bloodwing. He sends out a predatory bird that flies across the screen, automatically seeking out enemies and attacking them for massive damage, applying Daze (slowing their movement and aim), and restoring health to Mordcai.

• Pros: The ultimate boss-killer. Bloodwing's cooldown can be reduced to near-zero in the late game, allowing you to spam it. Mordcai naturally excels with Sniper Rifles and Pistols (Revolvers).
• Cons: Very fragile in close-quarters combat. If enemies rush you, Mordecai struggles to fight back effectively. You have to constantly manage your distance from the enemy.

Roland - The Soldier

Roland's active ability is Scorpio Turret. He throws down a deployable automated turret that shoots at enemies, provides a shield for you to hide behind, and—depending on how you build him—can heal you or supply infinite ammo.

• Pros: The most self-sufficient class. Roland is built to support himself and a team. He has passive abilities that instantly heal him when he kills an enemy, and his turret draws aggro, letting you catch your breath.
• Cons: He lacks the massive burst damage of Mordecai or the cinematic escapability of Lilith. His combat loop is very grounded and methodical.

Brick - The Berserker

Brick's active ability is Berserk. He puts his guns away, pulls out his massive bare fists, and goes into a rage mode. While berserking, he runs faster, gains massive damage resistance, and every punch heals him for a percentage of the damage dealt.

• Pros: Unmatched close-range destruction. Brick excels with Explosive weapons (Rocket Launchers, Explosive Shotguns) and absolutely shreds enemies in confined spaces. He is the easiest class to get a Second Wind with because his berserk punches heal him.
• Cons: He is entirely useless at long range. If an enemy is across a canyon, Berserk won't help you. You are forced to close the distance, which can be punishing against high-level enemies.

The Best Choice for Beginners: Roland

Start with Roland. His Scorpio Turret is the most forgiving active ability in the game. If you get overwhelmed, throw the turret, hide behind it, and shoot from safety. His passive healing from kills removes the need to constantly scavenge for health pickups, allowing you to focus entirely on learning the game's elemental weaknesses and loot mechanics. Once you beat the game with Roland and understand how everything works, Mordecai or Lilith are fantastic choices for a second playthrough.

Pitfalls to Dodge

Even with the right character, new players consistently fall into these traps. Memorize these pitfalls to save yourself hours of frustration.

• Ignoring Element Matchups: Do not just use the gun that has the highest raw damage number on the card. Look at the element. Fire does bonus damage to fleshy targets (bandits, skags) and causes them to burn. Corrosive melts armored targets (Lance soldiers, spiderants) and eats away their armor over time. Shock drains shields instantly and is vital for fighting Guardians. Explosive is neutral but splash damage bypasses enemy cover. If you are shooting a heavily armored soldier with a Fire weapon, you are doing essentially zero damage. Always swap elements based on the enemy.
• Hoarding "Cool" Guns for Later: You found a legendary shotgun at level 10. It is amazing. You decide to put it in your inventory and not use it so you can "save it for the endgame." Do not do this. By the time you reach the endgame at level 50, that level 10 shotgun will do less damage than a level 50 white (common) pistol. Gear has a shelf life of about 2 to 3 levels. Use the best gun you have right now.
• Sleeping on Revolvers and Repeaters: Many new players gravitate toward SMGs and Assault Rifles because of their high fire rates. However, in the base Borderlands game, Revolvers and Repeater Pistols are secretly some of the highest damage-per-second (DPS) weapons in the game. A high-quality Masher (a revolver that fires multiple pellets in a spread pattern like a shotgun) can one-shot enemies well into the mid-game.
• Forgetting to Equip Class Mods: Class Mods drop randomly from enemies and are found in chests. They are easy to miss in the heat of battle. Get into the habit of checking your inventory after a tough fight to see if a better Class Mod dropped. Equipping a mod that gives +3 to a specific skill can completely change how your character plays.
• Fighting on Foot When a Vehicle is Available: The open-world maps in Borderlands are massive. If a quest marker is three miles away, do not sprint there on foot getting ambushed by random bandit patrols. Fast-travel if you have the location unlocked. If you don't, go to a Catch-A-Ride station, spawn a Runner, and drive there. The Runner's machine guns will effortlessly mow down the bandits on the road, netting you easy XP and loot without risking your life.
• Skipping Optional Quests Entirely: While you shouldn't do every side quest (to avoid over-leveling), you absolutely must do the ones given by named NPCs in town. These quests often serve as tutorials for new mechanics, but more importantly, they frequently reward you with unique, red-text weapons that are scaled to your level. Missing out on these means your gear will fall behind the difficulty curve.

Next Steps

Once you have beaten the final boss of the main story, you have only experienced about half of what Borderlands has to offer. The game features a mechanic called Playthrough 2 (often referred to by the community as "True Vault Hunter Mode" in later games, though the mechanic originated here).

Playthrough 2 restarts the entire story, but all the enemies are scaled to your current level (which should be in the mid-30s by now). The loot quality is vastly improved, and the enemies gain new AI behaviors and elemental immunities. This is where the game shifts from a casual loot-fest into a challenging, tactical shooter. It is highly recommended that you complete Playthrough 2, as the final boss of this mode drops some of the best gear in the base game.

After completing Playthrough 2, the game unlocks Playthrough 2.5. This does not reset the story. Instead, it scales all enemies and loot in the entire game to the maximum level cap (Level 50 for the base game). This is the "endgame farm" state where you run specific bosses over and over to hunt for perfect weapon rolls and perfect stat combinations on your Class Mods.

Finally, consider the DLC expansions. The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is a fantastic, atmospheric detour with a great sense of humor, though it lacks the traditional loot grind because enemies don't drop many guns. Moxxi's Underdome Riot is a massive arena horde mode, but be warned: it provides zero experience points and can be incredibly frustrating for solo players. The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is widely considered the pinnacle of Borderlands DLC, raising the level cap, adding highway driving mechanics, introducing the brilliant "Crawmerax the Invincible" boss fight, and dropping the best loot in the game. Play Knoxx last.

Welcome to Pandora. Grab a gun, find a shield, and go kill some skags. Millions of them.