Borderlands 4's buff bonanza brings my favorite build up to par with the pack

The first big Borderlands 4 balancing patch has landed, and after spending some time with it I'm already feeling very positive about the overall direction. I'm increasingly satisfied with Gearbox's latest the more I play, which certainly ranks among the best FPS games in recent years and I suspect will keep me coming back with a frequency I haven't seen since BL2. While we're still waiting for more performance optimization on PC, Gearbox has now rolled out a massive set of Borderlands 4 update notes that deliver buffs to its entire cast, and the effects are immediately noticeable.

The new Borderlands 4 patch notes are good news no matter who you're playing. "For today's update, we wanted to focus on creating greater build diversity by adjusting underperforming skills," Gearbox explains. That means Amon, who was falling a little behind the power level of the other Borderlands 4 characters, gets the most love with over 60 buffs. Vex's summons are bolstered, as are Rafa's melee-centric skills, and Harlowe gets a boost to Stasis. My favorite part, however, is the sheer size of the numbers. Often, balance changes in even the best RPGs can be hard to notice; not so here.

This week, I've been playing an Onslaughter Amon build. It's probably been one of the least powerful skill trees (until now), but my goodness is it among the most fun ways to play the game. I'll admit to being a Brick main in the first Borderlands, which skews my opinion slightly, but the combination of rapid regeneration and the ability to dash-punch across the battlefield, even up to enemies in the sky, makes it immensely mobile and satisfying. Now, it hits harder - a whopping 78% harder, in fact, while the accompanying Molten Slam is up 50%.

What I had before was a build that had great sustain but largely relied on its melee attacks as a way to close distance, take advantage of my point-blank damage reduction, and reload my heavy-hitting but slow-to-refill shotgun. Now, all but the toughest badasses are crumbling under my mighty fist. The power fantasy at play is enough to compensate for Amon's relative inability to keep his action skill up at all times, and honestly that works perfectly for how I like to play, letting me periodically retreat to distance and deliver some beautiful sniper headshots.

Not all of the number increases are quite as large as this, but many of them do stretch into beefy, double-digit numbers that you'll certainly feel straight away. Amon might be the big winner, but Gearbox hasn't shied away from giving the likes of Vex some serious upgrades to her lesser trees, even though the Siren is already popular and boasts a couple of the strongest setups in BL4 across the rest of her skill set. I've also been lucky with my Harlowe build, with Zero-Point's stasis bubble dealing 30% more slam damage and 14.7% increased immune damage.

Yes, I have a propensity for picking skill trees that are entertaining to play even if they aren't strong; I'll worry about DPS-maxing when I've got the full cast ranked up to 50 and I'm bashing my head against the higher tiers of UVHM. But the good news is that, based on these patch notes, I might not have to abandon my favorites in the pursuit of progress, and that's fantastic to see.

As a long-time Borderlands, Diablo, and ARPG player, I'm well aware that endless buffs can be dangerous, even in a purely PvE game. While it's fun to blow absolutely everything up in spectacular fashion, those big numbers get old faster than you might think. However, Borderlands 4 is a game that will only continue to scale up as more ranks of Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode are introduced and we get into DLC drops and Story Packs. At its outset, buffing weaker builds to raise everyone to a roughly even playing field is absolutely the right move.

"Balance is a moving target, but this is the first step," lead character designer Nicholas Thurston writes, "Expect more level pulling in the future. We'll get there eventually. Lots of exciting stuff on the horizon." With the reveal of our fifth Vault Hunter, C4SH, who will be arriving alongside the returning, iconic Ellie, I'm already counting down the days until the first expansion. But, on the back of this update, I think I'll probably still be playing Borderlands 4 when it arrives early next year.

This Borderlands 4 update is out now. You can read the full patch notes courtesy of Gearbox for a rundown of all the individual changes.

Has it been a while since you found some decent Borderlands 4 legendary weapons? The fastest way to solve that is with Borderlands 4 Shift codes, and we've updated our list with the latest rewards.

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