Borderlands 4 best builds and class tier list
Best class builds for Vex, Amon, Rafa and Harlowe.

Figuring out the best class in Borderlands 4 ultimately comes down to how you prefer to play and the style you like using to take down various enemies that cross your path.
There are four classes to choose from in Borderlands 4 via the four new Vault Hunters, Rafa, Vex, Harlow and Amon. Each one is unique in their abilities and style, so knowing their best class builds is a must if you want to make the most of them.
On that note, here's our picks for the Borderlands 4 best class builds and our class tier list.
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Borderlands 4 Class Tier List
The best class in Borderlands 4 is ultimately up to you! (Don’t roll your eyes, you know it’s true.) This is because everyone has a different preferred playstyle, so while perhaps Vex suits you, Rafa may be a better choice for someone else.
That being said, we do have recommendations for beginners, returning players, and solo players if you’re having a hard time choosing who to be:
- For beginners: Vex, her skills around restoring health, shields, increasing damage and dealing damage with her action skills, as well as being accompanied by her Minions, make her a smooth introduction to combat in Kairos.
- For returning players: Harlowe or Rafa, this is because both characters are a mixture of ranged and close-up combat. As Borderlands is heavily a gun-toting game, you ideally need to be confident with your timing and dodging abilities to get the most out of both characters.
- For solo players: Vex or Amon, Vex as her Minions or Trouble (the big cat) can help you out if you're in trouble, and Amon is the token tank character whose shields and Onslaught ability can help you survive waves of attackers. I’m currently soloing as Vex.

Borderlands 4 Best Vex Build recommendations
Our recommendation for the best Vex build is the Blood Letter build to boost your overall damage per second, we recommend the Blood Letter one for beginners and veterans alike as you can ultimately one-shot major bosses and bring hordes of enemies to their knees with little effort.
For the Blood Letter build, you need the Blood Letter skill from The Fourth Seal skill tree. In short, this skill gives you the chance to apply bleed to enemies if you land a critical hit from other skills or guns. Bleed will inflict kinetic status effect damage for a period of time - and this build is focused on enhancing that to a point where you can one-shot an enemy, then leave them to bleed out while you move on to another target.

Use Dead Ringer as the action skill and then use Coven as the Augment to significantly boost Vex in this build. You'll then want to focus on maxing out skills that boost your overall gun damage and status effect damage, because Bleed is a status effect inflicted by guns, so it makes sense to boost that where you can. Passive skills can feed into this too. Also, the Blood Letter build relies on your critical hits and kinetic damage, so make sure you're maxing out any skills that increase your chance at landing a critical hit, like the 'Keen Suffering' passive and the 'Target Prescience' skill to increase kinetic damage.
The exact same rules apply to choosing which weapons you're equipping, gold tier legendary weapons are naturally the better choice, but if you're struggling to find them then purple tier ones will work too. Again, like skills, you should focus on using weapons that will boost gun damage, critical damage, critical hit chance and kinetic damage. Also, apply this to gear and class mods you equip to vex. Specialisations-wise, Daredevil and Killer are good routes to follow.
Ultimately, build Vex focused around her ability to land high-damaging critical hits that will leave enemies bleeding with the Blood Letter skill.
If you want to see this build in action, check out this video from IGN. Looking for a different build? We've listed the top three best Vex builds too.

Borderlands 4 Best Harlowe Build recommendations
Our recommendation for the best Harlowe build is to focus on utilising her CHROMA Accelerator action skill and building her around this to maximise the damage output from it.
First of all, after choosing CHROMA Accelerator, equip the Neutron Capture augment from the Creative Bursts skill tree. This means any damage her Unstable Energy Pocket deals is stored, when it explodes some of the stored damage is sent to Harlowe's gun allowing her to deal bonus Radiation damage.
Most of this build happens on the Creative Bursts skill tree, though you can pull in skills from the other two when it will help you out - predominantly the Seize the Day tree.

Initially, focus on spending skill points on ones that will boost your overall elemental damage or action skill, like 'Elementary'. Ideally, as your build progresses you'll want to continue this focus but also try to add in ones that lower the cooldown rate of your Action Skill as this is the main thing you'll rely on in this build. There are several skills in the Seize the Day skill tree that will help with this, like the 'Pulse Drive' passive.
Later in the build you'll want to focus more on specific elemental damage, in short, Radiation Damage as this is the primary type you'll inflict with CHROMA Accelerator.
Now, Harlowe's class trait is Entangle, and once you've boosted everything mentioned above (and when you've got the skill points) you'll want to then focus on increasing that ability. Entangle will, effectively, increase the spread of the damage you cause.
As your build relies mostly on the action skill, there's a bit of freedom when picking your weapons. We would recommend, however, using rapid fire weapons like SMGs to inflict damage quickly between using your action skill.
If you want to see more of this build in action, check out this video from RageGamingVideos. Looking for a different build? We've listed the top three best Harlowe builds too.

Borderlands 4 Best Rafa Build recommendations
Our recommendation for the best Rafa build is the Ricochet build - and straight away we should say that yes, Jakobs weapons are the ones you should be using for this build. Ideally, you'll need to get your hands on Legendary weapons like the Hot Slugger shotgun, or something on that level with the ability to ricochet projectiles.
Now, this build does put all your skill points on the Remote Agent skill tree. You'll want to equip the Peacebreaker Cannons as the action skill and then install the Instinto augment alongside this. This augment boosts the Peacebreaker Cannons Critical Hit chance.

Overall you'll want to focus on increasing your gun damage, overall damage from all sources (like with the El Valiente skill), and boosting projectile as well as action skill damage. Due to this build being a ricochet build, gun damage should be your first priority, then spread out to other boosts.
Also, equip skills that will directly give your weapons and projectiles a chance to ricochet like that 'Lateral Plinking' skill on the Remote Agent skill tree.
For this build the Daredevil 'I Am A Gun' specialisation is worth having to give your chosen Action Skill a boost and increase gun damage too. Also, build on this by equipping the Sharpshooter 'In The Zone' specialisation that will increase gun and critical hit damage per second while aiming.
If you want to see more of this build in action, check out this video from RageGamingVideos. Looking for a different build? We've listed the top three best Rafa builds too.

Borderlands 4 Best Amon Build recommendations
Our recommendation for the best Amon build is the Ordnance and Melee build. Now, Amon is the game's token Tank class choice, he's got strong defensive capabilities and this build puts more focus into increasing his offensive output and damage skills.
Weapons, firmware and gear-wise you do have a bit more freedom with your choices than you do with other class builds on this list. Aim for weapons that suit your preferences, but do try to boost your damage and increase your health recovery.
For this build you'll be splitting your skill points between Amon's Vengeance skill tree and the Calamity skill tree. You can pick skills from the Cybernetics one, but your main investments should be in the first two.
Equip the Scourge Action Skill that creates a shield that absorbs all damage coming from the front as Vengeance, when the Vengeance meter is filled by this it'll give damage reduction instead. You can then launch a Forgewave out that inflicts Cryo Ordnance damage to any enemies caught in it. Also, equip the Eternal Winter Augment as this allows Forgewaves to partially restore Action Skill Duration and Firewall Duration. It can be activated three times in a row, on the third one it will release a 'massive' Forgewave that inflicts greater damage.

For the rest of the skills you'll want to focus on ones that boost Cryo damage (as that's the main elemental damage type Forgewaves create), like the 'Ancient Ways' passive on the Vengeance tree. Also, equip skills that reduce Action Skill cooldown time to give you more chances to use your powered-up Forgewaves during battle.
Now, on the Calamity tree you'll mainly want to focus on skills that boost status effect damage like the 'Wield the Storm' one, and skills that boost melee damage like 'Titanium Knuckles'. Also, any skills that boost your defense are recommended too.
If you want to see this build in action, check out this video from EpicNNG. Looking for a different build? We've listed the top three best Amon builds too.

Borderlands 4 Classes explained
Each Vault Hunter in Borderlands 4 is essentially a class, they all have their own playstyles which are rounded out by their individual skill trees. Notice we said trees? That’s because each Vault Hunter has three skill trees to fill out and use to build them out in a way that’s best for you.
Before you start your adventure across Kairos, here’s a quick rundown of each character:
Vex
Vex is The Siren. Her action abilities are Dead Ringer, Incarnate, and Phase Familiar. Her main pull is that she can spawn a Phase Clone Minion (choosing between a Specter or Reaper) or summon another Minion called Trouble who can become Badass. Trouble is a seperate minion, you cannot have a Specter or Reaper and Trouble out together so you do need to decide who you want, also Vex's skill trees can heavily boost her overall damage and healing.
Harlowe
Harlow is The Gravitar. Her skills are CHROMA Accelerator, Zero-Point, and Flux Generator. Her main pulls are dealing Cryo Damage, Radiation Damage, putting enemies into Stasis (damaging ones who aren't affected), and entangling enemies.
Rafa
Rafa is The Exo-Soldier and his trait is Overdrive. His action skills are Apophis Lance, Peacebreaker Cannons, and Arc-Knives. Rafa's action skills spread out between using an off-hand cannon to deal damage, inflicting shock damage and kinetic damage, and using melee attacks to inflict shock damage too.
Amon
Amon is the Forgeknight, his trait is Forgeskill. His action skills are Onslaughter, Scourge and Crucible. In essence, Amon is a Tank. His action skills spread out between melee damage, shield regeneration, dealing cryo damage and throwing Forgeaxes.

That's all for now! If you're looking for more Borderlands 4 content, Legendary Weapons and Items list, Black Market Vending Machine location or our page showing you how to respec.