Classes

Three of the Vault Hunters who go to work on Elpis have a full build breakdown on this site, and reading the three side by side turns up something the individual pages never say out loud. Every one of the nine skill trees is judged by our writers on the same question: how many other players have to be in the lobby before it starts earning its points?

Nine skill trees, sorted by who else is in the game

Only two of the nine are written for anybody but the person holding the controller, and they belong to Athena and Claptrap. Nisha has none at all. Her page does give her a job in a party, the primary damage dealer who arrives to finish what everyone else started, but not one of her three lines spends a point on a teammate.

The two trees that need somebody to protect

Phalanx keeps Athena and the people beside her upright. Vanguard hands allies health while the shield is out, United Front pushes a quarter of everything Aspis eats back into their shields as well as hers, and Clear! throws the shield across a room to pick a downed friend up. Our page is blunt about the cost: with the shield down, and with the shield only stopping damage that arrives from the front, this is not a line to take into a solo campaign.

I Love You Guys is the other one, and it is the better of the pair. Best Buds 4 Life and High Five Guys open a line of selfless buffs that mostly point outwards, which is why the BuddyTrap build sinks a whopping 39 points into it. That build is the one to read when other people are waiting on you, and our page says the line only shows its colours once a full squad is out there with him, doubly so after True Vault Hunter Mode begins.

The trees for a lonely moon

Xiphos is Athena's answer for a single player: melee gains from Gun Kata and Clarity of Purpose, then Rend to make enemies bleed and Bloodlust to feed off them while they do. Bayonet weapons matter here, and Blood Rush turns the dash itself into the attack. Fragmented Fragtrap runs on the opposite fuel, a Subroutine roulette that buffs one part of Claptrap while punishing another, so it wants a backpack full of different weapon types and a player willing to change plans mid fight.

Nisha's two damage lines are also solo work. Law & Order rewards a long fight, since Order climbs as she absorbs punishment and gives her a chance to heal from it, while Fan the Hammer is a Showdown machine: Ruthless stretches the timer with every kill, High Noon raises gun damage for every second it runs, and One for Each of Ya puts a second Jakobs pistol in her hand for the finish. She is the easiest of the three to learn and the least forgiving to build, because our page is clear that anything she gains in damage she gives up in staying power.

The trees that wait for you

Ceraunic Storm is dull on the first pass and dangerous on the second. Early enemies fall to anything, so the elemental payoff barely registers, but by the time Vault Hunter Mode is picking the fights it becomes the only line that lets a melee character work at range. BoomTrap is a similar trap in reverse: it is offered first and should be taken last, after the basics have taught you how the robot moves, meaning Drop the Hammer plus Fuzzy Logic and then Maniacal Laughter. The Riflewoman never stands alone either; it exists to plug the gaps in Fan the Hammer, with Snap Shot and Quick Shot making hip fire viable enough to keep the kill chain running.

What a finished build asks you to bring

Only one of the twelve builds on these pages names its whole loadout, and it is Nisha's raid setup: an electric Rosie laser rifle, Jakobs revolvers with the Two-Fer prefix, an adaptive shield to feed Order, a Precision Strike Oz kit and a Kiss of Death grenade, aimed at the Empyrean Sentinel's three faces. Both halves of that shopping list have their own home here, the laser in our items guide and the fight itself in the boss tips. If the class mod refuses to drop, the Grinder takes any three of the same rarity and hands back one for whoever pulled the lever, which is covered with the rest of the recipes in our mechanics guide.

Every one of these trees is paid for in levels, so the real cost of any of them is the climb itself, and our levelling guide prices it to the exact experience point. The rest of what Elpis asks of a new Vault Hunter is gathered on the Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel hub.