Presenting the sequel to my character guide for Borderlands 1 (https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=94623)!!! Same as before, I will talk about each character's trees, strengths, weaknesses, and tips to play as them. I am also including the DLC characters, Krieg and Gaige.

Axton - The Commando
Action Skill - Sabre Turret
Playstyle - Close combat/Non-elemental

Axton is similar to Roland from the first Borderlands game. They both have a turret as their action skill, and they both work best with non-elemental assault rifles. Of course, they can't be all the same. Axton's skill trees are Guerrilla (turret bonuses), Gunpowder (grenades and rocket launchers), and Survival (health and shields). The Survival tree is very useful for when you are on the brink of death. You can have bonuses to your damage while in Fight For Your Life, having a chance to gain half your health back instead of dying, and gain extra reload speed when your health is low. The capstone allows you to deploy two Sabre Turrets, allowing for maximum coverage. This can be extremely useful for large groups of enemies, but also for one-on-one.

Axton's next skill tree, Gunpowder, is all about fire rate and grenades. The ability called Metal Storm largely boosts your fire rate and recoil reduction when you kill an enemy. You can literally have over double fire rate with the right class mod, which I find extremely useful for almost any type of weapon. Another great ability is Longbow Turret, which allows you to deploy your turret almost anywhere. See a group of enemies off in the distance? Deploy your turret all the way over there for some free experience! This is also good in co-op if you respawn far away from the battle and your buddy needs some help. Another amazing ability is Do or Die, which allows you to throw grenades while in Fight For Your Life. This can be extremely useful with any grenade mods, especially Bouncing Betties or Singularity Grenades. The capstone allows your turret to set off a nuclear blast when deployed, dealing MASSIVE area damage. This can only be used once, only when you deploy your turret.

Axton's Guerrilla skill tree turns your turret into your biggest weapon. It improves turret damage, accuracy, shots per burst, and upgrades it to shoot rocket pods. The capstone adds a second gun to your Sabre Turret and causes it to slag enemies. This is different than Survival's capstone because you don't have double the turret health, but it fires slag rounds and the guns fire at the same enemies.

I would recommend Axton for anyone, really. He's very well-rounded and good in all aspects. However, he does have abilities that have bonuses to explosive damage and non-elemental damage, so I wouldn't recommend him if you like elemental guns too much. Also, if you didn't like Roland from Borderlands 1, Axton is basically a more beefed-up version.

Maya - The Siren
Action Skill - Phaselock
Playstyle - Support/Elemental

Yep, another Siren. Maya is the ultimate support class, but she is also extremely powerful in solo (at least until you get to the higher levels). Her action skill is Phaselock, which suspends a single foe in midair. You can then shoot at them while they're doing nothing in the air. It may seem weak at first, but it can turn into a very powerful tool. Maya's skill trees are Motion (shields/Phaselock), Harmony (healing), and Cataclysm (elemental/Phaselock). First off, her Motion tree adds some pretty useful augmentations to Phaselock. You can make Phaselock suck in enemies, and also have a chance to switch to another enemy if you killed the first enemy. You can also get an ability that makes you reflect all bullets and only take a fraction of the damage, so that's cool. The capstone changes Phaselock into Thoughtlock, which makes enemies fight for you. This is good, but can really screw up her Cataclysm skills.

The Harmony tree is completely about healing. Fully upgraded you can regenerate health, heal friends by shooting them, and instantly revive friends. Sounds a lot of Roland's Medic tree, huh? Well, one different skill is one that makes it so when you kill a Phaselocked enemy, they explode into life orbs that heal you and your teammates. The capstone changes your melee attack to throw an orb of slag, constantly damaging and slagging enemies until it explodes.

The Cataclysm tree is where it really gets crazy. It's all about elemental effects and adding them to your Phaselock. Some good abilities are Immolate which ignites your bullets when you're down, Reaper which makes you deal largely increased damage to enemies that are above 50% health, and Helios which makes your Phaselock release a nova of fire. Additionally, you have Cloudkill. Cloudkill is possibly the most powerful ability in the entire game. Cloudkill causes your shots to create a corrosive cloud that deals absolutely f***ing massive corrosive damage to enemies standing in it. It lasts 5 seconds and you can only have one cloud active at a time. Up in the higher levels this gets less useful, but from level 1-50 you'll be killing everything in one hit. Mix this with Converge from the Motion tree, which makes your Phaselock suck in enemies, for massive area damage. The capstone of the Cataclysm tree is Ruin, which makes your Phaselock add all elemental damage to all nearby enemies.

I would recommend Maya for newer players, co-op players, and people that just want to have fun. Her utility is massive early on, but her damage slowly becomes less and less useful later on. If you don't have the level upgrade packs, I would recommend Maya because she stays amazing all throughout. Harmony is the best support tree in Borderlands history, while Cataclysm is potentially the best elemental tree from Cloudkill alone. Oh yeah, Motion is a nice tree too... I guess.

Salvador - The Gunzerker
Action Skill - Gunzerking
Playstyle - Tank/BULLETS, BULLETS EVERYWHERE

Salvador is the Tank class of Borderlands 2. His playstyle is best suited for close-quarters combat. His action skill, Gunzerking, allows you to dual-wield guns. This can be extremely effective with different combinations, so try some out! I like to do one slag gun and one other gun, and sometimes dual-wield rocket launchers when fighting near-invincible enemies. His skill trees are Gun Lust (damage/fire rate), Rampage (magazine size/Gunzerking), and Brawn (tanking). The Brawn skill tree is mostly about health and damage reduction. There are many skills that also increase your damage when your health is low. The capstone allows you to flip off enemies while Gunzerking, refilling your health and making you take about 35% damage.

The Rampage skill is my personal favorite. Do you want to dual-wield for eternity? How about fire forever without reloading? Perfect! The first skill on the tree, Inconceivable, gives you a +10% chance per rank to not consume ammo, depending on how much health you have left. In the second tier you can massively increase your Gunzerking time via Last Longer, and in the fourth tier you can increase Gunzerking duration every time you kill an enemy. The ability 5 Shots or 6 gives you a 5% chance per rank to add ammo to the magazine instead of consuming it. Combine this with Inconceivable and a legendary class mod and you can literally have infinite ammo. There is also an ability that causes you to throw a second, free grenade while Gunzerking. The capstone of this tree gives you up to +88% fire rate and +25% reload speed while Gunzerking if you hold the trigger.

The Gun Lust tree doesn't have a lot of mindblowing abilities, but it is still really good. It's basically all about adding base damage and skills that add situational damage (e.g. the last bullet fired in your magazine deals bonus damage). There is one amazing ability before the capstone, however, and that's Down Not Out. Down Not Out allows you to Gunzerk while you're in Fight For Your Life. This can be extremely useful, especially when mixed with the Rampage skill tree. The capstone allows overkill - Basically, when you kill an enemy, the next time you fire you deal extra damage equal to the amount left over from killing the enemy before. This can essentially give your shots double damage.

I would recommend Gunzerker for anyone that likes the feel of shooting tons and tons of bullets. He's very expensive with all the ammo you'll be using, but it's definitely worth it. Many players consider Gunzerker to have the most potential out of any character due to his dual-wielding. Double the guns, double the damage. I would also recommend Gunzerker for anyone who just wants an easy character that they don't need to focus on too many mechanics with. Also, a tip, don't use Jakobs with Gunzerker. You need automatic fire!

Zer0 - The Assassin
Action Skill - Decepti0n
Playstyle - Sniper/Melee

Zer0, the character with all the annoyingly named skills, like F0ll0wthr0ugh and 0ne Sh0t 0ne Kill. His playstyle revolves around sniping, critical hits, and melee attacks. However, he is very unique in many ways, which you'll soon see why. His action skill, Decepti0n, spawns a decoy and turns Zer0 invisible. While invisible, your next attack deals bonus damage. The longer you're invisible, the greater the bonus damage, but the longer the cooldown. His skill trees are Sniping (crits/sniping), Cunning (Decepti0n), and Bloodshed (Melee). His Sniping tree has bonuses like piercing bullets, bonus gun zoom and steadiness, and dealing extra damage with the first bullet in your magazine. The capstone adds stacks of Critical Ascensi0n every time you score a critical hit. This gives you 5% bonus damage and 6% critical hit damage with sniper rifles, stacking up to 999 times. Maxed out (which never happens), that's 50x damage and 60x critical hit damage. If you're a good aim, this is an amazing skill.

His Cunning tree has some interesting abilities. One of them, Unf0reseen, causes your decoy to explode when Decepti0n ends. Another, Deathmark, is one of the most useful abilities in the game. Hitting an enemy with a melee attack marks them for death, increasing all damage done to them by 80%. This is super useful against any powerful enemies. It's multiplicative, too, meaning the 1.8x damage is multiplied with other boosts. For example, slagged enemies take 2x damage. If this weren't multiplicative, and slagged and Deathmarked enemy would take 2.8x damage. but since it is multiplicative, 1.8 x 2 = 3.6x damage. The capstone allows you to throw Kunai while in Decepti0n that deal damage and cause elemental effects (like slag!)

Zer0's Bloodshed tree is my personal favorite. This can turn him into potentially the best melee character. One of the first abilities, Killing Bl0w, gives +100% melee damage per rank against enemies with under 30% health remaining. This can be extremely useful against bosses. There is another interesting skill that gives you bonus damage while you're moving. This could be falling, jumping, running, or even the split second of slowing down after you let go of the key. A very powerful ability is Execute, which makes any Melee attacks while Decepti0n is active deal massively increased damage. The capstone extends the duration of Decepti0n if you kill an enemy with a melee attack. Oh yeah, this also lets you stay in Decepti0n forever: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcqMx6kmyI0[url]

I would recommend Zer0 to any players more familiar with the Borderlands series. He is a lot harder to play than most characters, given his glass cannon playstyle. He's very fun, but can also be very frustrating because he has virtually no survival abilities.

DLC CHARACTERS

Gaige - The Mechromancer
Action Skill - Deathtrap
Playstyle - ???

Gaige could either be the easiest character to play as or the hardest character to play as. Everything depends on how you level her. Gaige's three skill trees are all very different from each other. Her action skill is Deathtrap, a flying robot that automatically seeks out and attacks enemies. Her skill trees are Best Friends Forever (Deathtrap/shields), Little Big Trouble (Deathtrap/shock damage), and Ordered Chaos (ANARCHY!). The Best Friends Forever tree boosts Deathtrap and gives him new abilities. You can give him the ability to restore your shields, improve his melee damage, and give him an explosive clap attack. The capstone gives Deathtrap a shield equal to yours. This is extra useful if you have a nova shield, especially Flame of the Firehawk (which you get from a quest).

The Little Big Trouble skill tree is pretty rad. You can give Deathtrap two new abilities with this tree. The Stare gives Deathtrap a laser beam, and One Two Boom gives Deathtrap the ability to shoot a giant orb at an enemy. The orb doesn't do anything until you shoot it, but when you do shoot it, massive shock damage will happen in a radius. A non-Deathtrap ability on this tree gives your electrical attacks a chance to also deal fire damage. Also, Shock and AAAGGGGHHH! is an ability that causes an electrical explosion whenever you reload. The capstone of this tree allows you to charge Deathtrap with an element by shooting him with a gun of that element. His attacks will deal bonus elemental damage. This is extra effective with slag or shock, I've noticed.

Ordered Chaos is what makes Gaige one of the most difficult characters to play as. To get past the first two abilities, you need to activate Anarchy and Smaller, Lighter, Faster. Anarchy is a unique mechanic that increases your damage but decreases your accuracy when you empty a gun's magazine or kill an enemy. You get a stack each time you do this, with +1.75% damage and -1.75% accuracy per stack. Smaller, Lighter, Faster reduces your magazine size so it's easier to get Anarchy stacks. There is also an ability that increases the amount of Anarchy stacks you can have by +50 per level. With that maxed out and with a class mod, you can have +1050% gun damage and -1050% gun accuracy. See why Gaige is so hard to use? Because of all that, she pairs very well with shotguns (because they have low accuracy and high damage anyways), especially Jakobs shotguns. The capstone turns her melee attack into a life-stealing attack with damage based on your Anarchy stacks. Your melee damage is boosted by 0.6% per stack. This isn't an amazing bonus since Gaige isn't melee oriented, but do you really need that anyways? Anarchy is amazing!

I would recommend Gaige for very advanced players. Her Anarchy feature is extremely hard to use, but gives her potentially the highest damage output in the game. Her Deathtrap is also very useful for getting second winds. It's basically Axton's turret but with less damage, more health, and it moves.

Krieg - The Psycho
Action Skill - Buzz Axe Rampage
Playstyle - Melee/Kamikaze

Krieg is overpowered. I'm just gonna say that, right off the bat. His action skill gives you 500% melee damage, increased movement speed, completely refills your health on kill, and you get -1 second from the cooldown for each 3.5% of max health you lose. He already deals extra melee damage, so that's already massive damage. At level 5 when you first unlock his action skill you're already gonna be killing everything in 1 hit. His skill trees are Bloodlust (Bloodlust stacks), Mania (melee/suicide), and Hellborn (fire).

The Bloodlust tree is filled with bonuses for every Bloodlust stack you gain. Every time you deal any amount of damage, you gain a Bloodlust stack up to a maximum of 100. You're usually going to have Bloodlust near full. The tree is full of boosts like +0.05 seconds of Buzz Axe Rampage per stack, +0.5% damage per stack if you kill an enemy with a grenade, etc. The real power of this tree lies in the capstone. Killing an enemy causes them to explode with a nova of the element used to kill them (non-elemental is explosive). Overkill is also added to the nova damage, and each Bloodlust stack increases the nova's damage by 5%. So yeah, when you're fighting a crowded group of enemies... BOOM BOOM BOOM.

The Mania tree is broken. It's all about melee damage and losing your shields. When your shields are down you gain bonuses with some skills. For example, Embrace the Pain gives you +7% fire rate per level when shields are down and adds +1 sec shield recharge delay per level. Near the bottom is Silence the Voices. This ability gives you +50% melee damage per level, but +12% chance to attack yourself with your melee attack per level. Maxed out you'll be dealing absolutely insane melee damage, especially with your action skill. The capstone allows you to turn into a BADASS PSYCHO MUTANT if you activate your skill below 33% health. This halves damage and gives you double melee damage. Also, this resets the cooldown on your action skill. So if you keep yourself under 33% health whenever you're not in your action skill, you can always be a Badass Psycho Mutant and kill basically everything in one hit.

The Hellborn tree is also pretty broken. Basically, you can light yourself on fire, but you gain massive boosts to all stats while on fire. This doesn't synergize super well with the Mania tree, though, because the Hellborn tree is more about having full health and the Mania tree is more about having low health. There's also a few abilities in the Hellborn tree that boost melee damage. The capstone is Raving Retribution. Whenever you take damage while you're on fire, you shoot out a homing fireball to seek out enemies and explode.

So uh yeah... Krieg is based on stupidly high melee and fire damage. Each one of his capstones is immensely powerful. I would recommend Krieg to any advanced players who want to be a FRICKIN CRAZY PSYCHO MUTANT THAT LIGHTS HIMSELF ON FIRE AND KILLS EVERYTHING IN ONE SWIPE. Krieg is consistently powerful from level 1 to level 72, but he's harder to use.



So yeah, that's my character guide for Borderlands 2. I've played Borderlands 2 for around 130 hours with many characters so I consider this guide to be mostly accurate. Maybe, but probably not, expect a Pre-Sequel guide. Thanks for reading the guide, I hope I helped you choose or taught you more about the game!

TheFadedWarrior : And again another amazing guide you have done here. I will from now on look forward to any guides that you might plan on doing. I really do hope you plan on doing more in the near future if you do please summon me.