SegmentNextBosses
Borderlands 2's raid bosses are a different game from its story bosses. They have no weakness you can exploit with a good element, they cannot be knocked over, and they punish the kill-triggered skills that carry a normal build. This guide covers the two our pages walk in detail, Terramorphous the Invincible in the base game and Haderax the Invincible in the Commander Lilith DLC, and the preparation both of them assume.
Terramorphous the Invincible
Gearbox called Terramorphous nearly impossible to kill, and then a QA tester soloed him. Our Terramorphous guide gives four co-op builds and two solo ones, and its opening point is the one people skip: a build is not the deciding factor. Weapons, class mods, shields and grenade mods are, and nobody walks in at level 50 with ordinary gear and wins.
| Character | Role in the fight | Tree focus |
|---|---|---|
| Axton | Support gunner and partial tank, keeping the Sabre Turret out and himself alive | Survival, for health and survivability |
| Maya | Selfless support: constant damage, watch the party's health, save Phaselock for anyone in Fight for Your Life | Harmony, with points in Cataclysm and no kill skills |
| Salvador | Front line, surviving through Gunzerking | Brawn and Gunlust, skipping Bus That Can't Slow Down |
| Zer0 | Sniper, further back than anyone, built on Deathmark rather than kill skills | Sniping and Cunning |
The rule underneath all four is the same. Kill skills do nothing here, because nothing dies during the fight, so any point spent on a bonus that triggers on a kill is a wasted point.
Soloing him
Our page's position is that Zer0 and Maya cannot realistically solo Terramorphous, while Salvador and Axton can, because both have trees that make them tanky enough to stand in front of him. The solo builds it credits to Bahroo3 are also the counterintuitive ones: almost no investment in Brawn for Salvador, almost none in Survival for Axton, and everything into damage on the assumption that the gear is already absurd. He killed Terramorphous repeatedly in under 30 seconds that way, once in seven.
Note the caveat before copying the Axton spread: it relies on a class mod granting four bonus points in Impact, Expertise, Sentry, Ready and Healthy, which is its own farm. Our items guide covers class mods, and our builds guide covers what those trees do at every other point in the game.
Haderax the Invincible
Crawmerax from the first Borderlands came back for the Commander Lilith DLC under a new name. Our Haderax guide covers both getting to him and killing him.
Getting there takes some work. You need to be at least level 30 and to have finished the DLC story, which opens new quests in the hub area. Work through those, then join Sir Hammerlock one floor beneath Vaughn and take A Most Cacophonous Lure from him. That sends you into the Burrows and on to Writhing Deep. Ride the lift down to four Eridium containers and put five Eridium into each one to start the fight.
Before either fight
Both pages assume the same preparation: be at the level cap, buy every SDU so you can carry as much ammo as possible, and bring gear rather than hope. Our mechanics guide covers the Eridium you need for those SDU upgrades and the Badass Rank that quietly raises your stats before you ever load in, and the DLC's other raid bosses, Hyperius and Master Gee, are the Seraph Crystal farm covered in our items guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can Terramorphous be soloed?
With Salvador or Axton, yes, given very strong gear. Our page treats a Zer0 or Maya solo as effectively out of reach.
What level do I need for Haderax?
Level 30 at minimum, plus a finished Commander Lilith story so the hub quests unlock, and 20 Eridium to fill the four containers that start the fight.
Why does my build feel worse against raid bosses?
Because kill skills stop working. A build that depends on bonuses triggered by kills loses all of them in a fight with a single target that never dies until the end.