By Joe Chivers
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Joe Chivers
17 September 2025
How to make Rafa into an powerhouse for solo and multiplayer in BL4
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(Image credit: 2K)
Best Borderlands 4 character builds
(Image credit: Gearbox)
Borderlands 4 Vex build
Borderlands 4 Harlowe build
Borderlands 4 Amon build
The best Rafa build in Borderlands 4 creates an exo-soldier that’s an absolute juggernaut at close range, capable of equipping an extra weapon and tearing enemies up. In this Rafa build, those extra weapons are a pair of Peacemaker Cannons that automatically fire at enemies in the direction you’re facing. Combine this damage with Rafa’s impressive critical hit output, and you’ve got a build that will have enemies (especially armored ones) begging for mercy.
This is paired with a few vital skills from Rafa’s APOPHIS Lance skill tree, granting massively increased damage and other bonuses to using guns with small magazines. Find yourself a shotgun with a low ammo count, and you’re going to be even better placed to combat all that Kairos has to offer.
Borderlands 4 best Rafa build and skills you should take
(Image credit: Gearbox)
This build guide owes an inspiration to RestAssured’s One Shot Infinite Kills build, which helped me make Rafa an absolute joy to play in both solo and multiplayer modes. The linchpin of this whole build is Rafa’s Peacemaker Cannons. Sure, there are fun builds to be had with the Arc-Knives (turning Borderlands 4 into something even more Diablo-esque), but the Peacemaker Cannons are impossible to beat. Unlike if you choose to go the Arc-Knives route, you can still fire guns while your cannons are active, meaning it augments your firepower instead of replacing it.
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I’ve had the Peacemakers give me a second wind multiple times, too, which makes it helpful for solo play. The peacemakers do kinetic damage to begin with, which, as you’ll know from our Borderlands 4 elemental damage guide, is a great all-rounder. Let’s take a closer look at the skills you’ll need to pick up to match our best Exo-Soldier build:
Sitiar x5: This skill gives Rafa’s build a flat increase in gun damage, 25% increased damage when fully-levelled.
Juerga x5: Giving +15% skill duration restore per critical hit when maxed out, Juerga helps you keep up the fire for as long as possible.
Instinto: This augment increases critical hit chance for your Peacemaker Cannons, pairing superbly with Juerga. It also grants a Kill Skill, giving you increased Action Skill duration but also making it drain faster.
Resiliencia x5: For a brief change of pace, this skill decreases the damage you take, rather than increasing the damage you dole out. When in overdrive and with the skill maxed out, you can reduce damage taken by 34.05%.
Now it’s time for you to take the best Borderlands 4 Rafa build to another level. Switch into the blue skill tree, labelled APOPHIS Lance. We’re not going to equip the lance, but there are some amazing skills on offer.
Rinse x5: This skill grants you increased reload speed, and to quite some degree. If maxed out, your reloads will be 20% quicker. This is solid on its own, but with the following skills, it gets fantastically OP.
Preparado x5: This skill, when maxed out, grants you 15% faster Action Skill cooldown rate when you reload, stacking up to three times. Pair this with a gun that can only fire once before reloading, and you’ll be able to keep your Peacemaker Cannons blasting much more frequently.
First Impression x5: Another fantastic skill, First Impression gives you up to 50% increased damage to the first shot from a fully-loaded magazine.
This combination of skills boosts your Peacemaker Cannons’ damage output precipitously while also giving any guns with small magazines an absolutely apocalyptic damage boost. It’s just an absolute joy to tear your way around with this, making it, in our view, the best Rafa build in Borderlands 4 by far.
After this, you can diverge as you wish. We would recommend maxing out Vitriol from the Peacemaker Cannons tree, as this gives the first round from a fully-loaded magazine up to 55% bonus corrosive damage, helping you cut through even the most well-armored enemies. The other augments after this point change your Peacemaker Cannons in a fundamental sense. You could choose to grab Double-Aught Autoshot, an augment that replaces your Peacemaker Cannons with shotguns that have increased pellet count and ricochet chance.
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If that doesn’t work for you, however, you could grab Beam Team, which replaces the cannons with two beams, with one doing corrosive damage and the other shock damage. This can easily destroy both shields and armor. It also increases Action Skill damage when you apply a status effect, which pairs fantastically well with Vitriol.
Finally, you could also grab Explosive Hollowpoints, which gives you rockets instead of cannons. These deal splash damage, and, if paired with five levels of Barrage, this splash damage is massively increased, turning you into a walking Katyusha artillery piece.
Our recommendation would be to pick Beam Team and three levels of Inspirado and El Alacran. The Inspirado skill grants you increased Action Skill cooldown rate and increased Action Skill duration rate when you inflict a status effect. Maxed out, this decreases cooldown by 9% and increases Action Skill duration by 9%, and can be stacked five times. In addition to this, El Alacran gives increased chance to inflict status effects to enemies hit by your Peacemaker Cannons (or beams, in this case). The chance is increased by 35% for eight seconds, playing extremely well with Vitriol and Inspirado.
How to use the best Borderlands 4 Rafa Build
(Image credit: Gearbox)
Using this build will grant you massive boosts to corrosive damage, while also giving you a huge boost to damage on your guns. We’d recommend pairing your Peacemaker Cannons with a set of weapons with a small magazine count to really make the most of Rinse, Preparado, and First Impression. Think of this build as being for an up-close bruiser, and grab yourself a single-shot shotgun or a similar weapon for the highest possible return on your skill investment. This build will work equally well whether you’re playing solo or with a group.
Don’t forget to check Borderlands 4 Shift Codes regularly as well to get more loot and weapons to help your build sing with bullets.
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Joe Chivers
Contributor
Ever since getting a Mega Drive as a toddler, Joe has been fascinated by video games. After studying English Literature to M.A. level, he has worked as a freelance video games journalist, writing for PC Gamer, The Guardian, Metro, Techradar, and more. A huge fan of indies, grand strategy games, and RPGs of almost all flavors, when he’s not playing games or writing about them, you may find him in a park or walking trail near you, pretending to be a mischievous nature sprite, or evangelizing about folk music, hip hop, or the KLF to anyone who will give him a minute of their time.
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