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All Borderlands 4 elemental damage types and status effects explained
Joe Chivers
16 September 2025
Everything you need to know about elements in Borderlands 4
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(Image credit: 2K)
Borderlands 4 elements and damage types are crucial to dealing the most damage against different enemies, and dealing bonus damage along the way. Borderlands has always had an emphasis on matching elemental damage types to enemy health types and applying status effects to make those big numbers even bigger, but Borderlands 4 has a particularly strong focus on this.
The game also does very little to actually explain what any of the elemental damage types and their status effects do, so it gets pretty confusing when you’re trying to combine character skills and your guns into a powerful build that covers lots of elemental bases. To help you understand how it all works, I’ve explained all of the different types of elemental damage in Borderlands 4 and what their best uses are.
Every element in Borderlands 4
(Image credit: 2K)
There are six different types of damage in Borderlands 4 – standard Kinetic damage and five distinct elements. Each of the elemental damage types is capable of applying its own damage-over-time effect (DoT) and sometimes other status effects. Importantly, all six damage types also deal varying amounts of damage to different health types, with some being more effective against flesh (red bars), shields (blue bars), or armor (yellow bars).
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The six different damage types in Borderlands 4 are:
Kinetic (white): Standard, non-elemental damage
Best for: All-around damage dealing
Kinetic doesn’t excel at anything, but it’s the most consistent performer, dealing 100% damage to all health types. If your gun’s description doesn’t mention elemental damage, it deals kinetic damage. Some skills for certain Borderlands 4 characters let you deal bleed damage as a form of kinetic DoT.
Incendiary (orange): Fire damage
Best for: Flesh
Incendiary damage does tremendous damage to flesh, dealing out 120% damage to flesh on easy mode, 150% damage on normal, and 175% on hard. It’s not particularly useful against either of the two other types of health bar, doing 90%, 75%, and 50% damage to both shield and armor health on easy, normal, and hard.
Shock (blue): Electrical damage
Best for: Shields
Shock damage is your absolute top pick if you’re struggling to take down an enemy’s shield. This type of damage does 120%, 150%, or 175% damage to shields, but loses its efficacy against both flesh and armor.
Corrosive (green): Acidic damage
Best for: Armor
Armored enemies can be deeply frustrating in Borderlands 4, but there’s a solution – turn their armor into acidic goo! Corrosive damage does up to 175% damage against armor, but it struggles against both flesh and shield health bars.
Cryo (light blue): Ice damage that can freeze enemies solid
Best for: Flesh and armor
Cryo damage is as good as kinetic damage against flesh while also being effective against armor, but not as effective as Corrosive damage. The added benefit of Cryo damage is that applying enough of it can freeze an enemy solid, applying DoT and causing them to be out of the fight until they thaw.
Radiation (yellow): Primes enemies to explode upon death
Best for: Flesh and shields
As with cryo damage, radiation damage is as good as kinetic damage against flesh and is good but not great against another health type, being shields. Also like cryo damage, radiation has the added effect of causing enemies to explode when killed, potentially dealing a nice chunk of damage to clustered enemies. If you’re following our best Borderlands 4 Harlowe build, you’ll be using lots of radiation damage as it’s a strong and versatile damage type.
(Image credit: 2K)
Kinetic is the most reliable, dealing good damage against all types, but for maximum damage, you’ll want to have a mix of elemental damage types available in your build from your Action Skill, guns, and other gear, using whatever is most appropriate against the enemy you’re currently fighting.
If you are wondering how to tell what kind of elemental damage (if any) your gun inflicts on enemies, you just need to take a look at the item card for the gun. There, you will see what kind of elemental damage it does, or, if you’re lucky, what kinds of elemental damage it does, as guns can have multiple elements applied to them – Maliwan-made weapons are especially notable for this!
You can also see a gun’s chance to apply damage over time as well as its damage on the item card. Each elemental damage type has DoTs that last different lengths of time, with corrosive damage dealing DoT for the longest period.
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(Image credit: 2K)
Finally, elemental damage isn’t only something that you (and enemies) can inflict, it’s something that you can be protected from, too. Some shields have elemental resistances, displayed as a percentage resistance on their item card. If you know the enemy you’re going against, you can prep in advance and negate some of their bonus damage with the right shield.
Now you know all that there is to know about elemental damage in Borderlands 4, and how to pair the right gun for the right occasion. If you’re rolling with a team, you should ensure that you have at least one gun capable of inflicting each damage type across your squad, which can help out in tough boss fights.
Borderlands 4 Shift Codes might help you get some powerful elemental legendary weapons, but you might also want to consider a Borderlands 4 respec to choose skills that up your elemental power!
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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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