The best Borderlands 4 Siren build is all about becoming a self-sustaining DPS machine, sending out deadly Phase Clones for your enemies to focus on while you sit back and shoot. It’s a brilliant setup – particularly if you’re playing Borderlands 4 on your own – as Vex becomes a versatile damage dealer, building in some survivability while still being capable of taking out high-priority targets quickly.
It’s largely thanks to Vex’s Dead Ringer action skill on her The Fourth Seal skill tree, which allows her to summon both tanky Reapers and damage-oriented Specters with each cast. For this build, we’ll focus on buffing up the Reapers to keep Vex alive, then using the Dark Pact Capstone to keep her minions around for longer. Here are the essential skill points you need to unlock for this top-tier Vex build in Borderlands 4.
Borderlands 4 best Siren skills and build suggestions
As touched on, we’ll be going down The Fourth Seal tree for Vex, making her a jack-of-all-trades Borderlands 4 character and damage class. The important thing to note is that just because you can summon all of her clones at once, it doesn’t mean you should – for big boss fights and longer shootouts, it’s worth keeping one charge available as an emergency Reaper should you need it.
Below are the skills we’ll be using. Keep in mind that it’s better to spend your way into the later branches of The Fourth Seal as soon as possible, as there are some powerful buffs and augments that are more powerful in the early-game than minor stat bonuses:
Sanguine Fiends x5: Vex and her minions restore health with each kill
Cold Iron x5 : Increase gun damage for Vex & minions
Fell Inscriptions x3: Increase melee damage and maximum health for Vex and her minions
Cursed Blade x1: Vex’s melee attacks apply curse (melee hits make enemies take extra kinetic damage whenever they take gun damage)
Extra Cursed: Curses trigger on minion melee damage, and deal more damage when triggered by a critical hit
Obedient Fiends x5: Increased minion damage
Ancient Rites x5: Grants stacking minion damage
Diener: Extra charge of Dead Ringer
Death Follows Closer x3: Spawn a Reaper whenever Vex takes damage at low health
Coven (Augment) or Banshee’s Wail (Augment):
Coven: Spawning a Reaper grants health regen to Vex & minions, while spawning a Specter grants critical hit chance
Banshee’s Wail: Reapers periodically damage enemies and grant overshield, while reducing enemies’ damage
Wither (Augment): Specters cast Wither, dealing status effect damage and increasing their damage taken
Dark Pact (Capstone): Vex can equip an extra augment, hold the Action Skill button to heal all active minions, and buff their movement and attack speed
Start by putting all five points into Cold Iron for the flat 15% bonus to gun damage, then do the same for Sanguine Fiends to make sure that Vex can survive harder fights. Three points into Fell Inscriptions lays the groundwork for your minions to do more heavy-lifting, while one point into Cursed Blade and another in Extra Cursed helps to snowball minions’ damage capabilities.
While you’re limited to early Augments, activate Coven. This spreads buffs across both Reapers and Specters, meaning you have options for tankiness and damage. If you find yourself struggling to stay alive, switch this to Banshee’s Wail when it’s unlocked. Stack five points into Obedient Fiends, Death Follows Closer, and Ancient Rites, one into Diener for an extra summoning charge, and choose Dark Pact as your capstone.
This not only allows for an extra Augment – we suggest using the extra on Wither – but makes Vex’s minions far more survivable, creating more of a self-sufficient playstyle suitable for solo runs or more forgiving DPS builds.
Using all of this, you’ll want to summon a minimum of one Reaper and one Specter during any shootout, summoning extra Reapers if crowd control is needed and extra Specters if the goal is pure damage-dealing (like during a boss fight). The wide spread of buffs and debuffs this build uses ensures that minions will take the brunt of enemy fire while making them easier for you to kill, turning you into a surprisingly durable DPS machine.
Golden Keys from Borderlands 4 Shift Codes could bolster your build with powerful weapons, but a good loadout can take you only so far, so you might want to check out our Borderlands 4 tips to help with your vault hunting too.