Borderlands 4 players have stumbled upon an utterly broken damage build that lets them obliterate bosses in a flash, even on the game’s most challenging difficulty settings. This isn’t just powerful; it’s practically infinite!
As gaming news outlets report, YouTuber NickTew recently showcased this incredible Vex build. It turns Borderlands 4’s formidable enemies into mere fodder, demonstrating just how laughably overpowered it is. The gaming community is buzzing, and everyone expects Gearbox to nerf this build soon. As NickTew himself suggested, “abuse it while you can.”
To put this build into action, you’ll need the Vampiric Vivisecting Throwing Knife equipped with the Penetrator Augment. Land a single hit with this special knife, and for the next five seconds, all subsequent damage dealt to that target will automatically register as critical hits.
Now for the real magic: combine this with bleed stacking. Every single tick of the bleed effect will count as a critical hit. Yes, you read that right – every single one is a crit!
While this strategy is fantastic for any class, it’s exceptionally potent with Vex due to her Bloodletter passive. This ability grants her gun and skill critical hits a chance to apply bleed, which scales with the initial gun damage dealt. Vex’s Contamination passive further amplifies the chaos, boosting her status effect application chance with critical hits up to 100%. This ensures the bleed effect consistently re-applies itself, creating an infinite loop of devastating damage.
NickTew demonstrated this power by wiping out a boss using only a level 32 weapon on the Ultimate Vault Hunter Level 5 difficulty. For context, enemies on this difficulty boast an additional 350% health, yet the boss still crumbled in mere seconds. It’s truly a sight to behold.
The main challenge with this build is acquiring the specific knife augment, as it’s a rare drop. Hopefully, you haven’t sold or discarded one you might have picked up earlier in your playthrough! You’ll likely need to spend some time farming, with areas like Splashzone rumored to be a good spot. Once you have that knife, however, the build is essentially ready to unleash its full potential.
For those diving deep into Borderlands 4, remember to check for updated hourly SHiFT codes. There’s also a massive interactive map available, and a handy Borderlands 4 planner tool, courtesy of our friends at Maxroll. Plus, don’t miss our expert players’ diverse opinions on which character to choose – spoiler: no one could agree!
It’s worth noting that this particular build seems to have some issues when used in co-op mode, though the exact reason remains unclear.
Gearbox will undoubtedly investigate this situation. Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins has stated that the developers won’t “knee jerk react to anything,” but many fans argue that this build absolutely needs a nerf because it fundamentally breaks the game’s balance.
One YouTube commenter perfectly summed it up: “I honestly think this has to get nerfed. There’s OP build and then there’s this. It just trivializes the game to the point that the guns don’t even matter anymore. Just apply the penetrator debuff and bleed and then watch it go exponential in damage. Probably not an interaction the devs picked up on in balance testing.”
Beyond this game-breaking build, Gearbox is also busy addressing other community concerns, including improving PC performance, adding a field of view (FOV) slider for console players, and developing future post-launch content.