Borderlands 4, depending on your familiarity with looter shooters, can be a taxing affair. While it is welcoming and forgiving overall, many newcomers may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of skill trees and gun stats, and ultimately bow out. The thing is, most of these numbers are necessary for getting started, and you can breeze through the first few areas of the game with just an itchy trigger finger.
Naturally, many players will want to know how to approach it solo. While I love playing looter shooters with friends, not everyone is available all the time, and occasionally, I like to just relax by myself and try out a new character. If you’re that type of person, Vex is easily the best solo Vault Hunter pick.
Best Character For Solo Play In Borderlands 4
Vex Is Really Effective Solo
Having tried all four launch Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4, we can safely say that Vex is an extremely good pick if you’re playing solo. Pretty much all of Vex’s skills and trees are conducive to solo play. Dead Ringer (Fourth Seal) allows Vex to spawn Phase Clones, which can distract enemies and keep you alive for longer. Incarnate (Vexcalation) is an area-of-effect blast that clears out foes while healing you, keeping you in the fight.
Trouble Is A Good Place To Start
Trouble, her trusty perma-minion, is also an obvious enemy sponge. Given that Trouble cannot be permanently killed and can be resurrected after a certain amount of time, it’s obvious why Vex is so strong in solo. As for her skills, we recommend investing in the Here Comes Trouble tree first. This tree is specifically meant to power up Trouble, which includes passive damage reduction and shields.
Don’t forget to use Trouble’s active ability, which temporarily increases its aggression.
Try to focus on the passives first. Here’s a handy list:
Hasty Fiends
Grave Command
Overprotective
Yowl and Bay
Overheal
Blast Rites
Hexus Nexus
Hexus Nexus is a crucial skill, as it allows Trouble to taunt enemies, and force them to target him more often. When you buff up Trouble and gain more skills, he essentially becomes another player, and your own personal tank. Try and experiment with different trees if you’re having issues, but getting used to Trouble can take a lot of heat off of you, especially when learning boss fights.
Vexcalation Is Fantastic, Too
If you’re more confident that you can wreck shop, and have a lot of genre experience, try the Vexcalation build. This eschews minions and distractions in favor of focusing on the raw firepower of Vex herself. This tree’s ability, Incarnate, is also extremely strong, and can get you out of jams consistently. Interestingly, Vexcalation is also focused on survivability; it simply doesn’t have an animal companion linked to it.
Here are some skills to focus on in the Vexcalation tree:
Leeching Attunement
Guns and Needles
Fiendish Invigoration
Channeling
Iron Maiden
Raidant Attunement
Conjunction
With these skills, Vex can withstand a significant amount of punishment, especially given that Conjunction increases her damage reduction as her health decreases. If you find that this tree forces you to live a little too close to the edge, you can always try other builds.
The Fourth Seal Can Give You Breathing Room
The Fourth Seal skill tree enables Vex to spawn Phase Clone minions, which are basically extra allies that are meant to be temporary and more fleeting than Trouble. They constantly lose health after they spawn, but with specific skills, you can keep them on the battlefield for longer and increase their effectiveness.
Keep in mind that the Phase Clones essentially mimic a lot of your skill tree choices, as well as your current damage type. You can use this to your advantage to debuff enemies and keep them off your back more often. Just note that the Reaper clone is an active tank/taunt tool that excels in melee range, and the Specter clones are stationary by default.
Here are some great skills for this tree:
Sanguine Friends
Coven
Cursed Blade (into Extra Cursed)
Ghasterbait
Banshee’s Wail
Spirit Bomb
Death Follows Closer
Grim Reaper
All of these skills focus on survivability, with a combination of defensive skills and debuffs that can prevent enemies from acting, moving, or dealing damage effectively. Once you get Grim Reaper, a lot of the encounters in Borderlands 4 will be easier in solo. This allows Vex to spawn a special Grim Reaper clone that can both damage enemies and heal. It can also cascade new Reaper clones if it kills enemies.
Given that you can respec your skills, experiment with different Vex builds as you play and encounter different milestones and roadblocks. While Trouble might let you get used to the game initially, you may end up switching to a different tree and vibing with that one more. Borderlands 4 is not a static game, and it rewards changing things up.
This is especially the case for Vexcalation. As you gain more game knowledge and Vex becomes pumped up, stat-wise, Vexcalation and the Incarnate skill can do a lot of damage in just about every single encounter in the game. If you’re a Borderlands veteran, you may even want to try Vexcalation first.
Best Weapons And Gear For Solo In Borderlands 4
Focus On Survivability
In solo, staying alive is the number one priority. While multiplayer parties can often provide covering fire for each other while another player recharges their shields (or is revived after going down), in solo, you’re on your own. That’s why it’s important to focus on gear and weapons that provide shield or health bonuses, or heal you in some way directly.
Kinetic weapons are key here. Vex can use these to steal life from enemies, keeping you alive longer, especially during the copious amounts of boss fights in Borderlands 4 that feature trash mobs/adds to use as a battery for your health bar.