Banana Scoop

Welcome to the fourth installment of the Borderlands 2 In-depth Character Guides. For those of you who have read through the others, you know the drill, for those newcomers, allow me to cover a little step-by-step. Essentially these guides are made to help those new to the game adjust to their characters and learn fun ways to build them accordingly (as well as what weapons I prefer to use with them, but seeing as they’re mostly legendary, they’re a moot point until late/end-game). Anyway, this week’s guide focuses on one of the most fun characters to play in Borderlands 2, Salvadore, the Gunzerker. While a little psychotic and rather odd, this tanky character allows the player to dual wield guns at will, allowing him to increase is damage output and granting him some really awesome passive abilities. Without further ado, let’s jump right into the fourth guide in this set. If you’re new to the format, I’ll cover some secret information about the character’s history that are embedded into the game, followed by a set of builds to use for your character, and ending with a set of weapons that I deem appropriate for your character in particular (the character in question being reviewed). 

History

Salvadore’s history bugged me slightly, just because I couldn’t really get a firm grasp on what they were talking about. I understood most of it, retaining small details of his backstory that interested me. Essentially what I pulled from Salvador’s echo recorders is that he’s a very wanted individual with a rather sour disposition. We find the man being sentenced in a ‘court’ of law before Hyperion comes and invades his town. Salvador gets free, saves the town, and beats the ever-living tar out of the Hyperion brigade that shows up before getting information on the vault and deciding that it is well worth his time to go venture after it. While it’s not the most ingenious of plots, I didn’t really seem to mind it all that much. It was just enough for us to get a glimpse into Salvador’s demeanor as a character, and not someone we personify ourselves as. I enjoyed his backstory a little less than I did the other characters, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Builds

Sadly I haven’t experimented much with building my Gunzerker, but that’s due to the amount of fun and utility the build I already have has given me, so I’ll just briefly outline what I do with Salvador in order to give you guys a better look at how I play. I spec all the way down the Rampage tree, taking pretty much everything that looks appealing (I know, not very descriptive, but you can check my build below to see what I mean). The main reason I use this tree is the increase in both fire rate and reload speed the longer you hold the trigger (while this doesn’t work for single-shot weapons, it’s definitely fun). Of particular importance in this tree is the ability to increase magazine size with any weapon you carry, meaning Tediore reloads just got a whole lot deadlier. Overall I believe this to be an incredibly ability for those who just absolutely love their babymaker/plasma caster spam. Additionally, I spec into the gunlust tree in order for me to get a little more survivability. In this situation, however, survivability doesn’t relate to a lack of dying, as you will get downed a lot regardless, but it refers to the ability for you to get Second Wind much more so than normally as Gunzerking while in the fight for your life mode will generally guarantee your safety. Double grenade toss while gunzerking is amazing as well, increasing your insane amounts of DPS by giving you double MIRVS (which are by far my favorite type of grenade aside from the Fire Bee).

Created using Borderlands 2 Skill Tree Builder

Weapons

Normally I’d go into some awesome tangent about how there’s a lot of guns that are usable by the class at hand, but I honestly can’t do that when it comes to Salvador. The gunzerker can literally use ANY weapon in the game to its fullest potential, and isn’t really hindered by a specific weapon with the exemption of Snipers, cause let’s face it, they’re kinda garbage in comparison to everything else you can use. There are a couple of weapon glitches known as well, such as the Maliwan pistol/grenade launcher gunzerk glitch, which adds the damage of your rocket launcher to the damage of each shot you fire with a maliwan pistol. I’m not sure if this has been patched yet, but I’m fairly certain it will be as the damage is ridiculous to see, and definitely somewhat gamebreaking with a 300k damage revolver. Literally use any weapon that fits your fancy. There is no other way to play this class besides having fun with it, which is an awesome perk in and of itself aside from the ability to dual wield any gun in the game.

Afterword

I’ll be taking a break next week, as it’s Thanksgiving, and as much as I would love to give you guys the final installment of my Character Guides, there is just too much to be done in between then and now. I apologize for the inconveniences, and will definitely make it up to you guys later on. Hopefully you guys have been enjoying these so far, and will continue to support them as well as my next super-secret-awesome series. Good luck, and hopefully I’ll see a few of you in the Borderlands!