History GameBreaker / Borderlands1

* The '''Eternal Phasewalker build'''. It focuses on maxing out 5 skills: "Hit and Run"[[note]]maxed out phasewalk time[[/note]], "Inner Glow"[[note]]regenerating health during phasewalk[[/note]], "Phase Strike"[[note]]increased phasewalk melee damage[[/note]], "Blackout"[[note]]cuts six seconds off your cooldown with each kill[[/note]] and "Silent Resolve"[[note]]reduces damage taken immediately after coming out of phasewalk[[/note]]. Even if you are reduced to almost no health, just hit phasewalk, regenerate your health (whilst moving at super speed, while both invisible and invincible), hit someone (which will almost certainly kill them), reappear, and gun down another enemy. At that point, you can Phasewalk again and you won't have even taken any damage yet. It pretty much makes Lilith unkillable enough that she can solo ''[[BonusBoss Crawmerax]]'' with ease.

* In solo play, nothing comes close to a '''[[IncendiaryExponent Hellfire SMG]]'''. Most of these have high rates of fire and decent firepower. '''All''' Hellfires come with a 100% chance to ignite the enemy. The fire from a Hellfire can stack, making sure that even shielded and armored enemies (who resist fire damage, especially the former that cuts fire by 50%) will burn to cinders in no time. A quick burst of sustained fire against a group of enemies can leave them dead in seconds with little ammo consumed. Hellfires are ''extremely'' effective when playing as either Roland or Lilith, who can both regenerate ammunition with the right Class Mod.

* '''Lilith''':
** The '''Eternal Phasewalker build'''. It focuses on maxing out 5 skills: "Hit and Run"[[note]]maxed out phasewalk time[[/note]], "Inner Glow"[[note]]regenerating health during phasewalk[[/note]], "Phase Strike"[[note]]increased phasewalk melee damage[[/note]], "Blackout"[[note]]cuts six seconds off your cooldown with each kill[[/note]] and "Silent Resolve"[[note]]reduces damage taken immediately after coming out of phasewalk[[/note]]. Even if you are reduced to almost no health, just hit phasewalk, regenerate your health (whilst moving at super speed, while both invisible and invincible), hit someone (which will almost certainly kill them), reappear, and gun down another enemy. At that point, you can Phasewalk again and you won't have even taken any damage yet. It pretty much makes Lilith unkillable enough that she can solo ''[[BonusBoss Crawmerax]]'' with ease.
** Her Controller subtree's final skill, '''"Mind Games"''', gives all bullets a 5% chance to inflict Daze. As the skill is upgraded, the chance increases up to 25%. Pair this ability with a Maliwan Hellfire SMG, crank up the fire rate with a Class Mod or Shield, and Lilith basically turns into a [[CycleOfHurting never-ending string of "Hit someone, melt their buddy's face off, phasewalk, repeat."]]
* '''Brick'''[='=]s Blaster subtree's level 2 skill, '''"Revenge"'''[[note]]Increases damages with all weapons by 10% (up to 50%) for a few seconds after killing an enemy.[[/note]], and the subtree's final skill, '''[[Film/MadMax "Master Blaster"]]'''[[note]]Killing an enemy increases your Fire Rate with all weapons by 12% (up to 60%) and causes you to regenerate 2 rockets per minute.[[/note]] are, by far, the biggest DPS-boosting skills in the game, granting him ridiculous damage and fire rate buffs, respectively. Throw in his explosive damage buffs and the Atlas Ogre combat rifle and you've got arguably the highest-damaging combination in the game.
* '''Mordecai''':
** His Sniper subtree's level 3 skill, '''"Carrion Call"''', allows him to reduce Bloodwing's cooldown simply by shooting an enemy with a SniperRifle. It starts at 0.8 seconds and its maximum reduction is 4 seconds. The Skullmasher, a legendary Jakobs sniper rifle, shoots 6 bullets at once. Combine those two (or the Skullmasher's lesser cousins, the Masher revolvers) and you'll never have to worry about cooldown again.
** The Sniper subtree's final skill is '''"Trespass"''', which allows Mordecai's shots to ignore all shields, initially at 20% chance (the full upgrade reaching 100%). It's horrifyingly effective against [[GlassCannon the guardians, who sport little health and extremely large shields]].
** The Rogue subtree's level 3 ability, '''"Aerial Impact"''', makes Bloodwing inflict Daze. Like "Trespass", it starts at 20% and increases up to 100%. She's computer controlled, so she never misses, and the final skill of the tree, "Bird of Prey", lets her increase the amount of enemies it attacks on a single call (up to nine in a row), along with inflicting other status effects. With the right class mod, the cooldown can even be reduced to a mere ''two seconds''. This game also has [=PvP=] combat. Take that as you will.
* '''Roland''' has certain class mods which come with the ability to restore ammo for everybody's active weapon. You will NEVER run out of bullets.
** Roland's Support subtree's final skill, '''"Supply Drop"''', has his turret spitting out homing boxes including 10% of every ammo's max capacity at the same time, as well as 1 or 2 grenades. While it doesn't do much in multiplayer, it does mean that in single player, every time you throw out your turret (which may be often), you get at least 30% of every single ammo type and 3-6 grenades, ''at level one''! Never rely on dirty random ammo drops again!
** The Support subtree also has a level 3 skill, '''"Grenadier"''', which increases his grenade's damage for 3 seconds (up to 15 seconds) and regenerates 2 grenades per minute, so long as he keeps fighting. If you've got a Transfusion mod, [[StoneWall you become very hard to kill]].
** Roland's Medic subtree's level 2 skill, '''"Cauterize"''', gives him the ability to heal teammates by shooting them. Your entire team will NEVER run out of health.
** The final skill of the Medic subtree, '''"Stat"''', grants you a large amount of health regeneration on kill. This means every kill grants you a massive healing over time effect with a decent-sized radius for your friends to benefit from. Considering the countless amounts of small fry in Pandora, you can instantly recover all of your HP within seconds. Coupled with the aforementioned "Cauterize", the effects are ''devastating''.

* Go to New Haven. Note that there are five gun crates around town. Open them up. Sell anything that isn't a Double Anarchy, X4 elemental gun, or has unlimited ammo. Exit game. Load game from menu. Repeat. ???? Profit. And if you hold off on doing a certain storyline quest, you can claim an additional two chests.
* If you own the ''General Knoxx'' DLC you can, once you're in Fyrestone and long before you've restored the Fast Travel system, Fast Travel to T-Bone Junction. There you can gain several levels just by completing the first step (building the monster truck) due to the fact that the DLC is actually scaled to be played after the first playthrough. Then you can take the truck and run over the assassins, including Vulcana if you catch her while she's on the radio, and level up a few more times.[[note]]Don't bother trying to leave T-Bone Junction, though. Every other enemy you encounter will pretty much instakill you, starting with the Lance Probes. Even taking out Vulcana requires good timing and a bit of luck.[[/note]] With or without the Monster Truck you can farm high-level weapons and items from the lockers and a red chest in T-Bone Junction and sell them for what is, for a low-level character, enormous amounts of cash. Then you can use that to buy ammo deck or Underdome Bank upgrades, or just have cash on hand for anything you find in the vending machines.
** With ''Claptrap's New Robot Revoution'', the last story-related quest allows you to go and raid the Hyperion Corporate Gift shop, which happens to be a basement packed stem to stern with red weapon chests and three vending machines. Best part is you can reload your game and the chests will respawn, allowing you to farm guns as long as you want and get ridiculous amounts of money for selling what guns you don't want. You'll never need to search for decent weapons or want money '''EVER''' again.
** Since game saves are unencrypted, save editors and [[http://blmodding.wikidot.com/gear-calculator gear construction toolkits]] allow some pretty severe game-breaking twinking (such as adjusting your character's skill slots or creating the rarest/best possible version of any given weapon scaled to a particular level of character).

* The '''Orion''' is practically the perfect Shock weapon, thanks to its high Shock damage, guaranteed elemental proc chance, high accuracy, great raw damage, and a really fast fire rate to boot, especially for a sniper rifle. Like other S&S guns, the Orion also carries tons of bullets in its magazine, but that's not the gun's real trick; it's the ricochet effect where shooting at the floor, walls, or ceiling will cause the bullet to split up into 3 more bullets that deal the same damage. ShockAndAwe and MoreDakka indeed.

* While it may not be as famous as the Atlas Ogre, the '''Cobra''' SniperRifle is an excellent alternative, as it packs a lot of punch from longer ranges. The Cobra can even create massive SplashDamage that can turn a couple bandits into LudicrousGibs, or at least leave them nearly dying. The Cobra also has a slightly faster fire rate than other sniper rifles, and thanks to its [[StuffBlowingUp natural explosive damage]], the Cobra can make short-work of most bosses, like [[ThatOneBoss Mothrakk]].

* When it comes to shields, nothing triumphs a '''Tediore Panacea''' and '''Wee Wee's Super Booster''' and their fast health regeenration (plus health boost in the case of Super Booster). With the right class mod and skill and the Transfusion mod for grenades, big health pickups become BetterOffSold!

* When it comes to shields, nothing triumphs a '''Tediore Panacea''' and '''Wee Wee's Super Booster''' and their fast health regeenration (plus health boost in the case of Super Booster). With the right class mod and skill and the Transfusion mod for grenades, big health pickups become VendorTrash!

** The '''Eternal Phasewalker build'''. The build focuses on maxing out 5 skills: "Hit and Run"[[note]]maxed out phasewalk time[[/note]], "Inner Glow"[[note]]regenerating health during phasewalk[[/note]], "Phase Strike"[[note]]increased phasewalk melee damage[[/note]], "Blackout"[[note]]cuts six seconds off your cooldown with each kill[[/note]] and "Silent Resolve"[[note]]reduces damage taken immediately after coming out of phasewalk[[/note]]. Even if you are reduced to almost no health, just hit phasewalk, regenerate your health (whilst moving at super speed, while both invisible and invincible), hit someone (which will almost certainly kill them), reappear, and gun down another enemy. At that point, you can Phasewalk again and you won't have even taken any damage yet. It pretty much makes Lilith unkillable enough that she can solo ''[[BonusBoss Crawmerax]]'' with ease.
** Her Controller subtree's final skill, "Mind Games", gives all bullets a 5% chance to inflict Daze. As the skill is upgraded, the chance increases up to 25%. Pair this ability with a Maliwan Hellfire SMG, crank up the fire rate with a Class Mod or Shield, and Lilith basically turns into a [[CycleOfHurting never-ending string of "Hit someone, melt their buddy's face off, phasewalk, repeat."]]
* '''Brick'''[='=]s Blaster subtree's level 2 skill, "Revenge"[[note]]Increases damages with all weapons by 10% (up to 50%) for a few seconds after killing an enemy.[[/note]], and the subtree's final skill, [[Film/MadMax "Master Blaster"]][[note]]Killing an enemy increases your Fire Rate with all weapons by 12% (up to 60%) and causes you to regenerate 2 rockets per minute.[[/note]] are, by far, the biggest DPS-boosting skills in the game, granting him ridiculous damage and fire rate buffs, respectively. Throw in his explosive damage buffs and the Atlas Ogre combat rifle and you've got arguably the highest-damaging combination in the game.

** His Sniper subtree's level 3 skill, "Carrion Call", allows him to reduce Bloodwing's cooldown simply by shooting an enemy with a SniperRifle. It starts at 0.8 seconds and its maximum reduction is 4 seconds. The Skullmasher, a legendary Jakobs sniper rifle, shoots 6 bullets at once. Combine those two (or the Skullmasher's lesser cousins, the Masher revolvers) and you'll never have to worry about cooldown again.
** The Sniper subtree's final skill is "Trespass", which allows Mordecai's shots to ignore all shields, initially at 20% chance (the full upgrade reaching 100%). It's horrifyingly effective against [[GlassCannon the guardians, who sport little health and extremely large shields]].
** The Rogue subtree's level 3 ability, "Aerial Impact", makes Bloodwing inflict Daze. Like "Trespass", it starts at 20% and increases up to 100%. She's computer controlled, so she never misses, and the final skill of the tree, "Bird of Prey", lets her increase the amount of enemies it attacks on a single call (up to nine in a row), along with inflicting other status effects. With the right class mod, the cooldown can even be reduced to a mere ''two seconds''. This game also has [=PvP=] combat. Take that as you will.
* Roland has certain class mods which come with the ability to restore ammo for everybody's active weapon. You will NEVER run out of bullets.
** Roland's Support subtree's final skill, '''Supply Drop''', has his turret spitting out homing boxes including 10% of every ammo's max capacity at the same time, as well as 1 or 2 grenades. While it doesn't do much in multiplayer, it does mean that in single player, every time you throw out your turret (which may be often), you get at least 30% of every single ammo type and 3-6 grenades, ''at level one''! Never rely on dirty random ammo drops again!
** The Support subtree also has a level 3 skill, '''Grenadier''', which increases his grenade's damage for 3 seconds (up to 15 seconds) and regenerates 2 grenades per minute, so long as he keeps fighting. If you've got a Transfusion mod, [[StoneWall you become very hard to kill]].
** Roland's Medic subtree's level 2 skill, '''Cauterize''', gives him the ability to heal teammates by shooting them. Your entire team will NEVER run out of health.
** The final skill of the Medic subtree, "Stat", grants you a large amount of health regeneration on kill. This means every kill grants you a massive healing over time effect with a decent-sized radius for your friends to benefit from. Considering the countless amounts of small fry in Pandora, you can instantly recover all of your HP within seconds. Coupled with the aforementioned "Cauterize", the effects are ''devastating''.

** The Eternal Phasewalker build. By investing in maxed out phasewalk time, regenerating health during phasewalk, increased phasewalk melee damage and perks that cut six seconds off your cooldown with each kill and reduce damage taken immediately after coming out of phasewalk. Even if you are reduced to almost no health, just hit phasewalk, regenerate your health (whilst moving at super speed, while both invisible and invincible), hit someone (which will almost certainly kill them), reappear, and gun down another enemy. At that point, you can Phasewalk again and you won't have even taken any damage yet. It pretty much makes Lilith unkillable enough that she can solo ''Crawmerax'' with ease.

* '''Brick'''[='=]s kill skills "Revenge"[[note]][[/note]] and "Master Blaster"[[note]][[/note]] are by far the biggest DPS-boosting skills in the game, granting him ridiculous damage and fire rate buffs, respectively. Throw in his explosive damage buffs and the Atlas Ogre combat rifle and you've got arguably the highest-damaging combination in the game.

Playing the game is like being a bull in a china shop. No matter what, you're probably going to break something.

* The status effect Daze. Daze critically slows the enemy's movement speed and lowers their ability to aim by a huge amount. It also, inexplicably, cuts projectile velocity, [[PainfullySlowProjectile so their bullets travel slower]]. Lilith has a skill that can give a 25% chance to inflict Daze on each bullet she hits with. Her main weapon is a [[MoreDakka submachine gun]].
* In solo play, nothing comes close to a [[IncendiaryExponent Hellfire SMG]]. Most of these have high rates of fire and decent firepower. '''All''' Hellfires come with a 100% chance to ignite the enemy. The fire from a Hellfire can stack, making sure that even shielded and armored enemies (who resist fire damage, especially the former that cuts fire by 50%) will burn to cinders in no time. A quick burst of sustained fire against a group of enemies can leave them dead in seconds with little ammo consumed. Hellfires are ''extremely'' effective when playing as either Roland or Lilith, who can both regenerate ammunition with the right Class Mod.
* It may not be as ridiculous as the Hellfire, but the Defiler revolver is definitely the closest thing to a corrosive equivalent. It has a 100% chance to corrode enemies, and on top of that, corroding enemies take more damage from all sources. Any character can use it effectively, but Mordecai deserves a special mention, since he can boost its already preposterous damage output with an Assassin Class Mod (not to be confused with Mordecai's ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' equivalent [=Zer0=], whose class name is Assassin), which increases his corrosive damage by at most 60%, and all of his pistol and critical hit-buffing skills, and you can wreck badass Crimson Lance within mere seconds.
* Pearl Shotguns if you like to use boomsticks. A sniper-esque shotgun in essence.
* ''The Dove.'' Despite not consuming ammo and no need to reload, it seems fairly weaksauce compared to other pistols. However, with the right combination of skills and perks--most notably Mordecai's Gunslinger skill--the thing becomes a freaking machine pistol that never needs reloading, meaning you'll never need another gun if you play your cards right. To put this in perspective, players have beat the ''Rakk Hive'' with nothing but the Dove and a few health power-ups.
* The [[InfinityPlusOneSword "Ajax Ogre"]] which is a Ajax's Spear that spawned as an Ogre. This combination becomes a monstrously powerful death-dealer: it boasts great accuracy and a high rate of fire while the Ogre grants it arguably the single best explosive splash effect in the game. It's a cumulation of the Atlas MasterOfAll characteristics in one ''stupidly'' strong gun.
* The Vengeance pistol. It's basically Morcdecai's [[ArmorPiercingAttack Trespasser]] skill applied as a weapon, but it has the added effect of applying its effects to ''all of the player's weapons'' in the inventory. In other words, a free Trespasser for anyone who isn't Mordecai with the Trespasser skill.
* Mashers, revolvers that fire multiple bullets per shot and do MASSIVE damage as a result. Curiously, they're actually beloved for their game-breaking power, enough that not only were they among the chosen few that were moved into ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', they also would make a return in ''VideoGame/Borderlands3''.
* The Clipper is one of the very first "reward" guns you'll find. It has a large clip, a high rate of fire, extra melee damage, and a chance to do [[KillItWithFire fire damage]]. [[DiscOneNuke Even half a game later, it's surprisingly devastating against most enemies.]]
* While it may not be as famous as the Atlas Ogre, the Torgue Cobra is an excellent alternative, as the SniperRifle carries a pack of a punch from longer ranges. The Cobra can even create massive SplashDamage that can turn a couple bandits into LudicrousGibs, or at least leave them nearly dying. The Cobra also has a slightly faster fire rate than other sniper rifles, and thanks to its [[StuffBlowingUp natural explosive damage]], the Cobra can make short-work of most bosses, like [[ThatOneBoss Mothrakk]].
* The S&S Orion is practically the perfect Shock weapon, thanks to its high Shock damage, guaranteed elemental proc chance, high accuracy, great raw damage, and a really fast fire rate to boot, especially for a sniper rifle. Like other S&S guns, the Orion also carries tons of bullets in its magazine, but that's not the gun's real trick; it's the ricochet effect where shooting at the floor, walls, or ceiling will cause the bullet to split up into 3 more bullets that deal the same damage. ShockAndAwe and MoreDakka indeed.

* Practically any given skill set is game breaking with enough points.
* The eternal phasewalker Lilith build. By investing in maxed out phasewalk time, regenerating health during phasewalk, increased phasewalk melee damage and perks that cut six seconds off your cooldown with each kill and reduce damage taken immediately after coming out of phasewalk. Even if you are reduced to almost no health, just hit phasewalk, regenerate your health (whilst moving at super speed, while both invisible and invincible), hit someone (which will almost certainly kill them), reappear, and gun down another enemy. At that point, you can Phasewalk again and you won't have even taken any damage yet. It pretty much makes Lilith unkillable enough that she can solo ''Crawmerax'' with ease.
** Lilith also has an ability that gives all bullets a 25% chance to proc daze. Pair this ability with a Hellfire, crank up the fire rate, and Lilith basically turns into a [[CycleOfHurting never-ending string of "Hit someone, melt their buddy's face off, phasewalk, repeat."]]
* Brick's kill skills Revenge and Master Blaster are by far the biggest DPS-boosting skills in the game, granting him ridiculous damage and fire rate buffs, respectively. Throw in his explosive damage buffs and the Atlas Ogre combat rifle and you've got arguably the highest-damaging combination in the game.
* Mordecai's skill Carrion Call allows him to reduce Bloodwing's cooldown simply by shooting an enemy with a sniper rifle. The Skullmasher, the legendary Jakobs sniper rifle, shoots 6 bullets at once. Combine those two (or a masher, Skullmasher's more common revolver cousin) and you'll never have to worry about cooldown again.
** In the same tree as Carrion Call is Tresspasser, which allows Mordecai's shots to ignore all shields. It's horrifyingly effective against the guardians, who sport little health and extremely large shields.
** Aerial Impact makes Bloodwing inflict Daze 100% of the time. She's computer controlled, so she never misses, and the Bird of Prey skill lets her attack up to nine different enemies in a row, along with inflicting other status effects. With the right class mod, the cooldown can even be reduced to a mere ''two seconds''. This game also has [=PvP=] combat. Take that as you will.
* Roland has certain class mods that have an ability that restores ammo for everybody's active weapon. You will NEVER run out of bullets.
** Roland's final support tier skill, '''Supply Drop''', has his turret spitting out homing boxes including 10% of every ammo's max capacity at the same time, as well as 1 or 2 grenades. While it doesn't do much in multiplayer, it does mean that in single player, every time you throw out your turret (which may be often), you get at least 30% of every single ammo type and 3-6 grenades, ''at level one''! Never rely on dirty random ammo drops again!
** '''Grenadier''' gives him infinite grenades so long as he keeps fighting. If you've got a transfusion mod, you become ''very'' hard to kill.
** '''Cauterize''' gives him the ability to heal teammates by shooting them. Your entire team will NEVER run out of health, especially if you've gotten the Stat skill [[note]] Stat grants your a large amount of health regen on kill [[/note]].
** If you already have the afformentioned Stat (especially if you're playing solo), every kill grants you a massive healing over time effect with a decent-sized radius for your friends to benefit from. Considering the countless amounts of small fry in Pandora, you can instantly recover all of your HP within seconds.

* If you own the General Knoxx DLC you can, once you're in Fyrestone and long before you've restored the Fast Travel system, Fast Travel to T-Bone Junction. There you can gain several levels just by completing the first step (building the monster truck) due to the fact that the DLC is actually scaled to be played after the first playthrough. Then you can take the truck and run over the assassins, including Vulcana if you catch her while she's on the radio, and level up a few more times.[[note]]Don't bother trying to leave T-Bone Junction, though. Every other enemy you encounter will pretty much instakill you, starting with the Lance Probes. Even taking out Vulcana requires good timing and a bit of luck.[[/note]] With or without the Monster Truck you can farm high-level weapons and items from the lockers and a red chest in T-Bone Junction and sell them for what is, for a low-level character, enormous amounts of cash. Then you can use that to buy ammo deck or Underdome Bank upgrades, or just have cash on hand for anything you find in the vending machines.
** With the fourth DLC, the last story-related quest allows you to go and raid the Hyperion Corporate Gift shop, which happens to be a basement packed stem to stern with red weapon chests and three vending machines. Best part is you can reload your game and the chests will respawn, allowing you to farm guns as long as you want and get ridiculous amounts of money for selling what guns you don't want. You'll never need to search for decent weapons or want money '''EVER''' again.

[[folder:Weapons and Effects]]

** In fact, Roland's final support tier skill, '''Supply Drop''', in which his turret spits out homing boxes including 10% of every ammo's max capacity at the same time, as well as 1 or 2 grenades. While it doesn't do much in multiplayer, it does mean that in single player, every time you throw out your turret (which may be often), you get at least 30% of every single ammo type and 3-6 grenades, ''at level one''! Never rely on dirty random ammo drops again!
** Even better is Grenadier, which pretty much gives him infinite grenades so long as he keeps fighting. If you've got a transfusion mod, you become ''very'' hard to kill.
** Don't forget Cauterize, which gives him the ability to heal teammates by shooting them. Your entire team will NEVER run out of health, especially if you've gotten the Stat skill [[note]] Stat grants your a large amount of health regen on kill [[/note]].
** Actually, ignore Cauterize if you already have the afformentioned Stat (especially if you're playing solo), as every kill grants you a massive healing over time effect with a decent-sized radius for your friends to benefit from. Considering the countless amounts of small fry in Pandora, you can instantly recover all of your HP within seconds.

[[folder: Weapons and Effects]]

[[folder: Characters]]

[[folder: Exploits]]

[[folder: exploits]]

** Aerial Impact makes Bloodwing inflict Daze 100% of the time. She's computer controlled, so she never misses, and the Bird of Prey skill lets her attack up to nine different enemies in a row, along with inflicting other status effects. With the right class mod, the cooldown can even be reduced to a mere ''two seconds''. This game also has PvP combat. Take that as you will.

* Mashers, revolvers that fire multiple bullets per shot and do MASSIVE damage as a result. Curiously, they're actually beloved for their game-breaking power, enough that they were among the chosen few that were moved into Borderlands 2.
** The Clipper is one of the very first "reward" guns you'll find. It has a large clip, a high rate of fire, extra melee damage, and a chance to do [[KillItWithFire fire damage]]. [[DiscOneNuke Even half a game later, it's surprisingly devastating against most enemies.]]