Part of the fun of Borderlands 3 is getting to the endgame content where the real challenges and the best loot lies. These challenges and increased difficulties are tough and anyone expecting to waltz into the endgame without a level 50 character is going to be in for a rough time.
While the grind never ends as guardian ranks are infinitely leveled and there’s always a better gun to be found, here are some ways to cut down on the grind it takes to get to the current level cap.
10 Finish The Story
The first best thing you can do on your path to level 50 is to finish the story. In addition to the plethora of weapons, money, Eridium, and levels you can obtain organically this will also provide you with essential weapon slots and access to features and items that you need to progress quickly.
Before anything else, strive to complete the campaign as quickly and efficiently as possible, don’t worry about your level at this point just get through the main missions.
9 Early Game Blitz
To improve how quickly you get through the campaign you need to focus on your character build. You want a character with just enough health to survive any attacks and pump everything else into improving your DPS and if possible, your movement speed.
The faster you can run the faster you complete missions and the higher your DPS the faster your enemies will fall. Pull up some guides for power leveled builds and start planning your character. You’ll be a bit of a glass cannon with most builds as they typically favor running and gunning so be prepared for some intense and aggressive gameplay.
8 Collectible Hunting On The Fly
While you’re blitzing through the main stories don’t be afraid to wander slightly off the fastest route now and then. In addition to finding containers for money, ammo, and loot you’ll also find collectibles. Collectibles might seem like a waste of your time, but each one nets a decent chunk of experience and are well worth the effort to find.
That being said don’t sweep each level looking for them, just feel free to take a peek in a side room or hop onto a roof now and then.
7 Save Sidequests For Later
There are a number of side quests in the game with rewards that scale with the character, meaning the weapons will be stronger if the player is stronger. The enemies accompanying these quests will also match the player’s level.
Because of this game mechanic, it’s important to save the majority if not all of the side quests for when your character reaches at least level 40. It’s the most efficient level for getting the best chance of pulling legendaries and encounter the toughest enemies on these side quests. So stay focused on the main story and save the side activities for later.
6 Experience Boost Items
There are two types of items that can increase the amount of experience you gain from kills, artifacts and class mods. These items will randomly drop from enemies or be found in chests and having the experience bonus modifier is rather rare, but if you find one equip it immediately.
Even a low leveled boost like +1% will save you a fair amount of grinding in the long run and finding an item with a 5% bonus is an absolute godsend that will shave off many, many hours of farming. These modifiers take precedence over everything else so make sure you have a build that isn’t too picky about artifacts and class mods.
5 Be The Weakest In The Room
The game will adjust the difficulty based on the number of players and the highest leveled player in a party. So by having a friend with a higher leveled character join you in a co-op will cause the game to adjust accordingly and give better enemies with better experience drops.
It may take some pride swallowing and depending on the gap between levels you can find yourself dying a lot. But it dramatically increases your level gain and can be a fun way to get some boring grinding done.
4 Late Game Grind
Once you reach about level 40 or so you need to go to the Quick-Change machine and entirely redo your character build. Before you wanted something fast and capable of high damage, but as you start creeping into the endgame and tackle stronger difficulties you’ll want a character that has a lot more survivability.
Once again look up some endgame builds for your class and make the necessary adjustments. It might take longer to kill certain enemies compared to your old build, but you’ll be able to handle content your previous build could never hope to survive so it’s worth the switch.
3 Mayhem Mode
Once you’ve breezed through the campaign on normal you unlock Mayhem Mode. This dramatically increases the difficulty of the game, making enemies tougher and more deadly, but also improving the amount of experience they drop.
Once you beat the game on Mayhem you can increase the difficulty to level two and finally level three Mayhem Mode. This is the maximum difficulty and is where you want to be grinding out levels, assuming you haven’t hit level 50 by now.
2 True Vault Hunter Mode
If you really want to be cooking with gas than you need to have your character leveling up in True Vault Hunter Mode, it’s essentially Borderlands 3’s versions of New Game + which means you keep the same character, the same gear, and the same upgrades.
This is much more efficient than Mayhem, assuming your character is strong enough to survive it. Feel free to grind the last bosses of the game a bit before switching over to this mode, but it’s by far the fastest way to level up those last stubborn levels before 50.
1 Grind Endgame Challenges
Whether you switched over to True Vault Hunter Mode or Mayhem Mode the majority of your time once you’ve beaten the main campaign, assuming you still need the levels, will be in the endgame trials.
The Proving Grounds is three waves of enemies with a boss that needs to be killed as quickly as possible for the best rewards. The Circle of Slaughter is similar but has more waves, tougher enemies, and has additional tasks for you to do while you’re gunning down enemies, this is where you want to be for the experience gain.