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Borderlands 2 is a loot shooter that hides an RPG under the gun. Six Vault Hunters, three skill trees each, an account-wide Badass Rank that never resets, a currency you can only spend on carrying capacity, and two raid bosses that ignore everything you thought you knew about your build. This page arranges our Borderlands 2 coverage in the order a playthrough needs it.
Pick a Vault Hunter
Axton, Maya, Salvador, Zer0, Gaige and Krieg each get one action skill and three trees. Our builds guide lays out all six and gives the spreads our pages recommend for Gaige, Krieg, Maya, Salvador and Zer0, while the skill-by-skill numbers for every tree, Axton's included, are in our skill trees guide.
Work the missions
Our walkthrough guide covers side missions region by region with their rewards, the two ECHO recorder hunts that start without a bounty board, and the Commander Lilith quest that pays out Hector's Paradise. If you want to sweep the map itself, our named locations guide lists every discovery site behind the Arctic, Urban, Highlands and Blight Explorer achievements and World Traveler.
Chase the loot
Our items guide goes slot by slot: shield and grenade types by manufacturer, class mods, purple and orange gear for Decked Out, cosmetics, Vault symbols, and the Captain Scarlett DLC's Seraph Crystals and treasure chests. The ten guns worth farming for are ranked in our legendary weapons guide.
Make the numbers go up
Our mechanics guide covers the three progression systems: skill points, the 274 Badass Tokens that challenges pay out, and Eridium for backpack and ammo upgrades, along with the farming routes and the duplication exploit. If you would rather just level faster, our leveling guide has eight methods, from pairing with a higher level player to the Tiny Tina and Marcus XP glitches and the bosses worth refarming.
Fight the raid bosses
Terramorphous the Invincible is the base game's wall and Haderax the Invincible is the Commander Lilith DLC's. Our bosses guide covers both with co-op and solo builds, the weak spots that matter and the gear each fight assumes.
Playing on PC
The game runs on Unreal Engine 3 and takes tweaks well. Our performance tweaks guide covers the WillowEngine and WillowGame ini edits that fix texture lag and expose hidden settings, and our PC errors and fixes guide covers launch crashes, installation failures and the rest. For context on how the game grew after release, our DLC packs announcement is the original word on the four campaign expansions and the season pass.
Frequently asked questions
Which character should I start with?
Salvador or Axton. Each has a safety net built into the action skill, and forgiveness matters more on a first run than raw damage.
What is Badass Rank for?
It is account-wide. Challenges raise it, it pays tokens, and the stat boosts you buy with them apply to every character you own, including new ones.
Is the Commander Lilith DLC worth playing?
It is free, it bridges the story into Borderlands 3, and it adds a raid boss and a legendary pistol. Our walkthrough and bosses guides cover both.