Borderlands 3 really upped the ante with their character classes. No matter who you choose out of Amara, Zane, FL4K, or Moze, you really can’t go wrong. Each class is truly unique in its own way and each offers its own different playstyles. Due to this, there are some truly amazing and powerful skills that you can unlock within the game. That being said, not every skill is worth the points. They're either just now powerful enough compared to the rest, or they don’t have enough practicality.
One major difference compared to the rest of the games is how on top of skills, Borderlands 3 also has different Action Skills and Action Skill Augments that you can constantly swap between. Due to this, this list won’t include each character’s initial three Action Skills they start with. It will be including, however, some Action Skills you can unlock later down the tree. Here are the five best skills in Borderlands 3, as well as the five worst.
10 10. Best: Torque Cross-Promotion (Passive Ability) - Moze
In Moze’s Demolition Woman skill tree, explosions are her best friend. With Torque Cross-Promotion, all splash damage that Moze deals have a chance to double. At 5 skill points, this gives her a 15% chance. Now 15% may not seem like a whole lot, but with a Torque assault rifle, it is absolutely awesome. The best way to use Torque weapons is by switching to sticky ammo, which all detonate after reloading. If you can stick most of your magazine onto a tough enemy, the results are quite great. You’ll have at least a good portion of those do double damage.
9 9. Worst: Fracture (Action Skill) - Amara
Amara loves to summon giant mystical fists with her Brawl skill tree that demolishes her enemies. For the most part, they tend to get the job done. This is not the case with her Fracture Action Skill, however. This Action Skill allows Amara to summon a line of fists from the ground that charge towards an enemy. Unfortunately, it isn’t very practical compared to her other Action Skills. Most of her other abilities have a huge radius that can damage a good amount of enemies. With Fracture, you need to have an enemy directly lined up with you to get the full effect. You can very well miss an enemy completely.
8 8. Best: Synchronicity (Passive Ability) - Zane
The most effective way to play Zane is to always have your Action Skills active. This is why he has the option to equip two of them at the cost of his grenade slot. Synchronicity increases his gun damage by up to 20% for each Action Skill active.
Zane can easily spec to himself to almost always have an Action Skill active, which means you can easily have a 20% damage bonus or even 40% at all times. Zane is an extremely versatile character, which requires a lot of strategies. This extra damage boost makes him even more powerful.
7 7. Worst: Deterrence Field (Action Skill Augment) - Zane
Overall, Zane’s Barrier is quite useful both defensively and offensively. One way you can augment the Barrier is with Deterrence Field, which does shock damage and staggers an enemy who runs into it. The issue is with this is how most of the enemies in Borderlands 3 typically prefer to shoot you from a distance. You’ll only have a few enemies that actually charge you, but not enough to warrant putting your Augment into it. When it does work, it is quite nice. It just doesn’t happen often enough to use.
6 6. Best: Guardian Angel (Passive Ability) - Amara
Guardian Angel is an ability that stays true to its namesake. It’s basically an instant revive for Amara when she goes into Fight For Your Life. The added bonus is that it can make enemies nearby go flying once you revive. Obviously, this can’t be used every time, or else Amara would be invincible. It has a cooldown of two minutes, which may seem like a lot, but it’s only fair since it keeps you from dying. As a solo player, equipping Guardian Angel is a no-brainer since you don’t have any friends to help you out. Almost every character has an ability that allows them to self-revive one way or another, but Amara’s is definitely the best.
5 5. Worst: Experimental Munitions (Passive Ability) - Moze
If there’s one character that’s not known for their elemental and status effects, it’s Moze. Moze is more about dealing a ton of DPS, specifically explosive. Therefore, her Experimental Munitions ability isn’t all that useful. This ability gives incendiary damage to every critical hit she dishes out. Early on in the game, this can be quite useful. Unfortunately, in the late game, as well as True Vault Hunter Mode, this skill won’t be as useful. It only converts 10% of the damage to fire, but many enemies already have shields that won’t take too much damage from incendiary.
4 4. Best: Seein Red (Passive Ability) - Zane
Out of all four Vault Hunters, Zane probably has the best kill skills. His kill skills can improve things such as fire rate, reload speed, movement speed. They can also give him life steal. Therefore, having these kill skills active is the most surefire way to be the best Zane you can possibly be. Seein Red is Zane’s capstone skill in the Hitman tree. This allows all of his kill skills to be active as soon as he uses an Action Skill. Considering Zane is built around always using an Action Skill, this skill is a great way to Zane’s full potential as a character.
3 3. Worst: Salamander (Action Skill) - Moze
Salamander is an Action Skill that Moze can equip for Iron Bear. At first, using the Salamander on Iron Bear is an excellent way to mow down enemies early on in the game. However, as you progress later in the game, the flamethrower will soon lose its flare (pun intended). Moze just isn’t a character with high-status effect skills, which means the flamethrower is less likely to melt enemies. On top of that, many enemies will soon have shields, which will make Salamander even less effective.
2 2. Best: Megavore (Passive Ability) - FL4K
Megavore is FL4K’s capstone skill in their Hunter tree. FL4K’s Hunter tree is all about dealing critical hits as much as possible. Megavore gives FL4K a 20% chance to do a critical on any part of the body. With a sniper rifle, or any gun with a low fire rate, this may not be that exciting. Instead, using a high caliber assault rifle, such as Vladof, the results from Megavore are ridiculous. This ability is especially useful with bosses that have small crit spots, which are essentially required to hit in order to any significant damage.
1 1. Worst: Downfall (Action Skill) - Amara
As amazing as Amara can be power-wise, she does have some awful Action Skills. Downfall is another bad Action Skill from the Brawler tree. The sad part about Downfall is that it just looks so cool, but yet isn’t very functional when you try to use it. Downfall is the same as her Phaseslam, except before she hits the ground, she shoots down a beam of elemental damage. This sounds incredible, but it’s very irritating to use. Not only is it hard to aim at the exact enemy you want, but it leaves you completely vulnerable to all attacks, especially in the late game.