One of the most critical choices you will make in a Borderlands game is picking your Vault Hunter. Fortunately, every Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 is a ton of fun, and you can’t go wrong playing as any of them. That said, they are designed differently around specific playstyles, so it helps to know a little about how they play before starting the game. In the article below, you can find an overview to help you see which Vault Hunter is right for you.

We hope you find what we’ve detailed helpful for you in deciding which character you want to play first. For more Borderlands 3 features, be on the lookout for our beginner’s guide and gallery highlighting all the craziest guns. We’ll also be updating this feature in the coming days with links to standalone guides about each Vault Hunter, so be sure to check often. And if you haven’t already, be sure to read our Borderlands 3 review.

Amara (The Elemental Brawler Siren)

If you liked playing as Brick in Borderlands and Kreig in Borderlands 2, you’d most likely enjoy Amara as she’s the Siren equivalent of those two put together. Though she does come with some support and defensive abilities, Amara is almost entirely offense-focused and at her best when she’s in the middle of a fight, punching bandits with her fists and crushing soldiers with her elemental arms. If you want to be aggressive, like all the time, then you want to pick Amara.

Each of Amara’s three active skills is designed to get her into an opponent’s face as quickly as possible. Many of them can be evolved with secondary perks to aid Amara in close-quarters combat–like keeping her elemental arms out to deflect bullets or extend the reach and power of her melee attack. She never wants to leave the fight.

As Amara, you’re always charging forward because her attack power grows when closer to an enemy. So if you pick Amara, you’ll always want to be surrounded. Playing her requires good spatial awareness–there’s a lot to account for when multiple enemies are hitting you from more than one direction. Shotguns and close-range pistols are your best friends. If you enjoy tossing grenades and sniping enemies from a distance, then Amara is not for you.

Amara is a bit more challenging to use in comparison to her fellow Vault Hunters as a result of her emphasis on overwhelming her opponent with close-quarters elemental damage. Some late-game enemies and bosses can fly or have sturdy elemental resistances, both of which put Amara at a disadvantage. You may want to hold off on picking her for your first playthrough if this is your first Borderlands game. But if you think guns are silly and that you’d rather punch every enemy to death, then look no further than Amara.

Zane (The Hit-And-Run Grenade Throwing Maniac…with a Drone)

Zane is a hit-and-run character and a grenade stacking maniac. Unlike other Vault Hunters, he can use two active skills at once–though there is no reason to do so in your early playthrough due to the second skill taking the place of grenades. Part of what makes Zane such a capable hit-and-run tactician is his potential to blow up everything in the immediate area and then instantly teleport out. This power comes from his Digi-Clone ability.

The Digi-Clone is one of Zane’s active skills in his Double Agent skill tree that allows him to summon a stationary copy of himself. Zane can swap places with the clone at any time and even use the clone to revive from the “Fight for Your Life” state. The clone can be used creatively to bound up a battlefield, fall back to reload, or only as a distraction to draw fire.

As Zane progresses down his Double Agent tree, several abilities begin to increase his explosive power. For example, Fractal Frags where the clone throws a copy of your grenade, Duct Tape Mod where Zane will randomly fire a grenade, and Dobblebanger where the clone explodes at the end of the skill timer. Combining these abilities with any grenade that has the MIRV trait, which splits into multiple munitions, can be satisfyingly destructive. However, the biggest threat to Zane is himself. It’s essential to retreat from an area blanketed with grenades by leaving the Digi-Clone behind.

If you want a completely different Zane–one that posts up behind a barrier and sends out a drone to flush enemies from cover–then his other two active skills Barrier and SNTNL make him into less of a solo build and more of a support team player. You can even pick up and move with his shield.

The final thing to know about Zane is he’s a pretty funny guy and acknowledges his age. He wheezes if you run for any length of time and often makes it clear he’d instead be drinking in a bar somewhere else. If you’re looking for a character who got smarter and deadlier with age, then Zane is your Vault Hunter.

Moze (The Scrappy Mech-Driving Soldier)

Moze is perfect for series newcomers and highly recommended to those with an itchy trigger finger. On her own, she doesn’t have much combat abilities, but when you jump into her Iron Bear mech, a world of possibility is available to you.

The Iron Bear is only available for a limited time, but in that short duration, it’s well-capable of wiping out entire rooms of enemies. It starts with three weapons: the V35 Grenade Launcher, the Minigun, and the Railgun, but that arsenal expands by investing in each of Moze’s three skill trees–opening up options to equip other types of firepower, like a flamethrower and a rocket volley. And each can also be customized with skills that modify their capabilities.

The Iron Bear can be used in a variety of strategic ways: you can summon it frequently to rain down everlasting hell upon your enemies, or you might keep it as your ace in the hole during boss fights or when a firefight goes south. Heck, you can take both approaches; it’s up to you! Moze can also be useful as a tank (conceptually and literally) for other players. After all, the Iron Bear is a near-invincible wall that can quickly pull enemy aggro off teammates.

None of this is to say that Moze isn’t as capable outside the mech. In fact, she’s just as deadly on-foot. Her skill tree has plenty of bonuses that amplify her capabilities, such as improved reload speed, bonus incendiary damage, and enhanced shield strength. Many of Moze’s skills optimize her ability to inflict damage as aggressively as possible while occasionally buffing teammates and even letting them hop aboard the Iron Bear’s manned turret.

As Moze, you are regularly switching between wiping out enemies on-foot and devastating them with the Iron Bear. She’s a scrappy, agile, and adaptable character whose most significant strength is stacking up a plethora of damage in a short time and taking the heat off friends.

In many ways, Moze is essentially a Titanfall pilot without the wall-running. So if that doesn’t make you want to play as her, then we don’t know what does.

FL4K (The Long-Range Beast Tamer)

Every Vault Hunter is perfectly viable to play with solo, but FL4K is designed around working by themselves. Instead of real friends, you can make up the difference with one of FL4K’s three pets. Not only do their kills count for getting a second chance if you’re downed, but you can eventually invest in a passive skill that lets them revive you. Each pet behaves differently and can be swapped around at any time, allowing for a lot of experimentation.

The Master tree is all about boasting the pets, but even if you don’t spec in this tree, it’s essential to understand that FL4K’s pets are a crucial part of their playstyle and if you aren’t using them all the time then you aren’t taking full advantage of what FL4K can do.

There are a lot of aspects from previous Vault Hunters Mordecai and Zero present in FL4K’s other skill trees. “Fade Away” lets you turn invisible for a short period and “Rakk Attack!” throws out a group of Rakk’s to assault enemies. So yeah, if you liked those characters, FL4K will be familiar to you. And also like those characters, FL4K is best suited for long-range sniping. Their Hunter Skill tree is all about increasing crit damage. So if you like playing from a distance, using sniper rifles, and getting headshots, then FL4K is for you! Jakobs guns, which are all about bolt action precision damage, are going to be your best friends.

FL4K is going to work best for players that manage their pets, along with their skills, to team up on enemies and take them out together. They may not be as visually flashy as the other Vault Hunters but make no mistake, in the hands of a skilled player FL4K, can dish out some severe damage.

Our one warning for picking FL4K is that their pets tend to walk in front of you during important emotional moments with characters, which can be annoying.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-3-character-guide-tips-for-choosing-th/1100-6469790/

Borderlands 3’s campaign takes a little over 30 hours to complete, putting its runtime just over that of Borderlands 2’s story. However, there’s still stuff to do once the campaign is complete as Borderlands 3 does have an endgame. Below, you’ll find a general overview of all the content you’ll unlock at the end of Borderlands 3.

Borderlands 3 launches for Xbox One, PS4, and PC via the Epic Games Store on September 13. The game is scheduled to release on Google Stadia later this year and on additional PC storefronts in 2020. If you’re still trying to figure out whether or not you want to buy it, read GameSpot’s Borderlands 3 review.

Circle Of Slaughter

Long-time fans will recognize Torgue’s Circle of Slaughter arenas as the franchise’s traditional horde mode, which is renamed with a different title in every game. In Circle of Slaughter, you face off against waves of enemies, each of which are divided into phases. Each phase also has optional tasks you can complete to earn even greater rewards once you’ve completed every wave.

If you die, you’ll have to start over from the first phase on the first wave so Circle of Slaughter is much more feasible to complete as a team as opposed to by yourself. As you fight, your exploits will be praised or condemned–depending on your performance–by Mr. Torgue himself. The man loves when people use his guns or kill enemies with grenades, so if you want to make him happy, be sure to bring along all your explosive Torgue weapons.

True Vault Hunter Mode

If you immediately want to jump back into Borderlands 3’s campaign and replay it from the very beginning, you can do it without losing all your progress. Obviously you can just start over with a brand-new Vault Hunter if you prefer, but Borderlands 3 also has a new game plus called True Vault Hunter Mode.

In True Vault Hunter Mode, you retain all of your skill points, weapons, grenades, and cosmetic unlocks. The enemies you fight will drop significantly better loot and grant you larger chunks of experience so you can level up faster. However, all enemies will have additional health and you’ll encounter badass variants in greater frequency. In Borderlands 2, True Vault Hunter Mode actually changed some enemies, giving them brand-new identities, weapons, and combat strategies. Borderlands 3 probably does the same, but we haven’t tested True Vault Hunter Mode yet as we want to try the game’s other endgame content first.

Mayhem Mode

Mayhem Mode allows you to add interesting additional effects to combat while you’re mopping up any remaining side quests. By default, turning on Mayhem Mode increases loot quality by 200%, which decreases the likelihood of finding common and uncommon loot and increases the probability that you’ll get rare, very rare, and legendary. The amount of experience, eridum, and cash that drops from enemies and that’s found in chests increases by 200% as well. However, enemy health increases by 15% and shields and armor both increase by 25%.

With Mayhem Mode turned on, potential gameplay mods are activated as well. Some enemies may become moderately bullet-proof, for instance, or you’ll become a wizard that deals less damage with normal bullets and far more with elemental attacks. You can unlock two more additional levels of mayhem in Mayhem Mode, with each evolution increasing the possibility of gaining good loot but also making the potential gameplay mods significantly more drastic.

Guardian Ranks

Borderlands 3 does away with the traditional Badass Ranks for Guardian Ranks, and you’ll unlock this second level of progression once you’ve completed the campaign. In previous games, your Badass Rank was increased by spending tokens you unlocked through completing challenges. In Borderlands 3, you also increase your Guardian Rank with tokens but they’re earned through experience that’s tied to a progression bar that’s separate from the one for your level.

Once you’ve unlocked your Guardian Rank, you can evolve it in different ways by investing tokens into three different classes: Enforcer, Survivor, and Hunter. Putting points into Enforcer increases your overall damage and fire rate, while Survivor is geared towards health and shields, and Hunter focuses on your active skills and luck (luck being the stat that determines how often you get rare, very rare, and legendary loot drops). Investing in each class also unlocks certain weapon skins and other cosmetics.

Once you’ve invested a token, you can’t get it back but you can put points towards any class you want and you’re not locked out of the other two if you heavily invest in one. The full list of stat boosts that come with each class are listed below.

Enforcer

• Critical Damage
• Grenade Damage
• Gun Damage
• Gun Fire Rate
• Melee Damage
• Vehicle Damage

Survivor

• Fight for Your Life Duration
• Fight for Your Life Movement Speed
• Max Health
• Shield Capacity
• Shield Recharge Delay
• Shield Recharge Rate

Hunter

• Accuracy
• Action Skill Cooldown
• Luck (Rarity Rate)
• Recoil Reduction
• Reload Speed

Proving Grounds

The Proving Grounds are designed as cooperative-focused missions, but you can take them on solo if you prefer. You unlock several Proving Grounds upon finishing Borderlands 3’s campaign and though each one is different, they all follow the same time-based challenge format.

In Proving Grounds, you’re tasked with beating three waves of enemies. Completing all the waves sees you go up against a boss, and defeating said boss rewards you with some excellent loot. The loot’s rarity and power is dependent on both how quickly you beat the entire mission and how many times you died throughout. It’s strongly advised you take on the Proving Grounds as a team instead of on your own. Though you’ll be able to take on the Proving Grounds alone and most likely beat them without dying (provided you’re at the recommended level), it can take a while to defeat the bosses by yourself, and that can make it more difficult to win within the optional time restrictions.

Post-Release Content

The Fall/Winter 2019 post-release content roadmap for Borderlands 3 has already been revealed. You can expect two free pieces of content first, Bloody Harvest (which sounds Halloween-themed) and Maliwan Takedown. Bloody Harvest is an event that will add new side quests and thematic awards and Maliwan Takedown adds a brand-new map, enemies, a boss, and rewards. Borderlands 3’s first piece of paid DLC arrives at the end of 2019, adding new campaign story missions. All four pieces of major DLC are included in Borderlands 3’s season pass.

Though exact details haven’t been revealed, Borderlands 3 is scheduled to get raids down the line as well, which may be what makes doing most of the aforementioned endgame content worthwhile. “We’ll have special events as well as raids,” Borderlands 3 lead boss designer Matt Cox said in an interview with VG247. “The details on how that shakes out will be announced later, but there’s plenty of endgame.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-3-endgame-explainer-what-can-you-do-af/1100-6469786/

The Nintendo Switch is technically a portable console. It can be pulled out of the dock, taken with you to the bathroom–or anywhere else–and played in handheld mode. But it’s not the most comfortable portable experience. Even Nintendo seems to agree, with a smaller, handheld-only version of the Switch releasing on September 20. Considering how often my hands cramp or fall asleep while holding my launch Switch, this is a godsend, as I’ve grown tired of shaking the feeling back into them.

However, there is a solution to that tingling hands problem that makes the original Switch model more comfortable to play in handheld mode: a grip case. These work much in the same way as protective cases do, except they add a little something to grab on to, turning them into something that feels a lot more like a controller. Handheld mode is my preferred method of playing the Switch, and after using a grip case I knew I could never go back to playing without one.

Now, while there are a couple of grips we absolutely love, not all of the ones we tested were winners. RDS Industries’ Goplay Grip put my hands in an awkward position for most games, while the Orzly Comfort Grip didn’t provide enough of a handle to hold comfortably. Most grips fell somewhere between these two.

But there are a few standouts, and you can read on for an overview of the best Switch grip cases we’ve tried and can vouch for. Note that all pricing indicated below is subject to change–Amazon slashes prices all the time, so you may see a discount when clicking through. Of course, we’ll keep this article updated if we try out any new Switch grips worth buying.

Skull & Co Grip Case

$19 | $40 with carrying case

The Good:

• Extremely comfortable, ergonomic design
• Interchangeable grips to help you find the best fit for your hands
• Easily removable

The Bad:

• Not very dock friendly
• Right-stick positioning feels a little awkward

The Skull & Co grip case is exactly what I was looking for for my Switch. It’s a slip-on case just like the one you’d put on your phone, except it also turns your Switch into something that feels a bit more like a proper controller–a much more ergonomic handheld device. The case comes with three pairs of interchangeable grips so you can decide which shape best fits your hands. The Snap Grip is the smallest of the three options, equipped with rounded edges. The Plus Grip is a bigger version of the Snap Grip that protrudes much further out. Lastly, we have the Trigger Grip, which is my personal favourite as it feels the most like a normal controller and fits my hands perfectly. It also has a little hooked peak for your middle finger to rest in, which makes your Switch very easy to hold onto, even with one hand. The Skull & Co grip case is a huge improvement over the flat and gripless Switch, especially for Super Mario Maker 2, which previously gave me constant cramps while making levels.

In addition to the handles, the Skull & Co grip case covers everything but the front of the Switch. This means the shoulder buttons are covered as well, requiring you to press on the case’s button covers to press the L, R, ZL, and ZR buttons. However, the distance between the button cover and the button itself is so small that it doesn’t feel much different from just pulling the trigger.

I don’t want to play my Switch in handheld mode without this grip case. However, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. I found the shape made it slightly more difficult to position my thumb and use the right analog stick. It’s not an insurmountable issue, but I did feel a little soreness in my joint while playing certain games that rely on the right stick a lot.

Skull & Co claims this grip case is “dock friendly” and doesn’t need to be removed for TV mode. However, there tends to be a slight bend in some people’s docks, causing it to have a slightly smaller opening. The slight difference is enough to keep this case from being completely dock-friendly. While I was able to force my Switch into the dock and get it to output to the TV, it took a considerable amount of time and the Switch would sometimes undock itself. I can’t recommend this grip case enough when it comes to playing in handheld, but if you want to output to your TV, be sure to take it off before sliding it into your dock. | Mat Paget

$19 at Amazon $40 with carrying case

Satisfye Grip

$26 | $48 with carrying case

The Good:

• Comfortable, ergonomic design prevents cramping
• Doubles as a sturdy stand with room for charging cable
• Bonus thumb tabs for extra grip and customization

The Bad:

• Doesn’t fit in many carrying cases

For a long time, I shied away from taking my Switch out of its dock, and that’s largely because I’ve always found playing Switch handheld to be incredibly uncomfortable. The long, slender tablet forces your wrists into a cramped, unnatural position, and it weighs just enough that I always find myself gripping it too hard to keep from dropping it. I’ve spent a few months with the Satisfye grip, and I can honestly say I’ll never go back to playing the Switch without it.

First of all, the Satisfye grip is extremely lightweight–it doesn’t make the console feel any heavier when I hold it (in fact, because it makes holding the Switch so much easier, it almost feels lighter). The Switch slides into the grip easily but firmly, and it hasn’t left any scuff marks on my Joy-Cons, as some Amazon reviewers have mentioned. The bottom of the grip has two hooks for additional console support, and they also allow the Switch to stand securely upright on its own with enough room for the charging cable to run underneath.

While the change in hand positioning takes some getting used to, the grip features a more ergonomic design that fills your palms and keeps your thumbs in their natural resting positions. There’s a nice little spot on top of both handles for your index fingers to rest when you’re not using the triggers. The handles are also rubberized on the back, which helps you grip them even better. Plus, it’s way easier to use the buttons, as your thumbs have more space and support to move around. Additionally, the Satisfye grip comes with four bonus thumb tabs. I don’t personally use them, but they’re intended to add extra grip to the analog sticks.

At this point, I’ve traveled cross-country multiple times with the Satisfye grip, and even though I store my Switch in a protective case when I travel, the grip was easily transported in my backpack without any damage. (Note: Satisfye also offers a bundle with the grip, protective case, and USB charging cable for $48.) Now, it feels weird when I play without the Satisfye grip, and I’d recommend it to anyone who currently finds handheld play a bit uncomfortable. | Jenae Sitzes

$26 at Amazon $48 with carrying case

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/these-nintendo-switch-grips-make-handheld-play-a-m/1100-6469777/