Borderlands 2 has a great many skills across six different character classes. There are skills that may not be as effective as others, but they serve a purpose. Then there are the ones that are just outright bad despite having really unique and interesting descriptions.
You may look at that one skill and think, "Wow! That's really badass." Then once you eventually use that skill, you immediately want to respec your character and never think about it again. Luckily, most of the skills in Borderlands 2 are quite useful, but there are others you should avoid like the plague. Here are the 10 worst skills in Borderlands 2.
10 Sustenance - Maya
Considering this is a Tier 4 skill, many players may automatically just assume it’s good. After all, being able to constantly regenerate health sounds excellent. Sadly, the health regeneration you get is pathetic.
You will barely notice your health going up. This becomes even worse once you enter more difficult playthroughs. You are better off using a Moxxi weapon, such as the Grog Nozzle, for your health regeneration with Maya. Even if you get a class mod that increases the number of points, the health is still barely enough to justify spending 5 skill points.
9 I'm Ready Already - Salvador
Like many skills on this list, I’m Ready Already sounds very attractive at first glance. In fact, this skill will be needed within the first 10 levels of your character. Reducing the cooldown rate of your Gunzerking is useful at first, but this skill becomes irrelevant after you unlock the Get Some skill within the same tree.
Get Some has the same effect of shortening the cooldown rate, but it shortens after you shoot an enemy. Considering you’re shooting enemies every second as Salvador, Get Some is far superior and will bring back your action skill much quicker. You’re better off ignoring I’m Ready Already since you’ll need to use 5 skill points.
8 Bloody Revival - Krieg
Many Krieg builds can make him almost un-killable in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode. It’s just a shame that the Bloody Revival skill is not that great, despite its intention. This skill increases your assault rifle damage during Fight For Your Life.
This skill is awful for two reasons. For one, assault rifles are considered by many to be the worst weapon type in Borderlands 2. This isn’t to say that all assault rifles are bad, but the good ones aren’t found as often as other types. The other reason is the Light The Fuse skill, which lets Krieg run around during Fight For Your Life, throwing dynamite around to get a second wind. If you unlock this skill, you literally have no use for Bloody Revival anymore.
7 Duty Calls - Axton
While Axton isn’t the most unique or flashy of the six Vault Hunters, many of his skills can be quite useful. His Duty Calls skill is not one of them though. Duty Calls gives Axton an increase of up to 25% gun damage, but only with non-elemental weapons.
The damage provided from this skill is quite good, but not being able to use elemental weapons makes it very undesirable, especially in harder difficulties. In True and Ultimate Vault Hunter mode, you will most likely prefer elemental guns since they do damage over time. Unless you’ve found a great Jakobs weapon, such as the Maggie, you won’t want to waste 5 skill points on it.
6 Unf0rseen - Zero
While Unf0rseen is a great idea due to the stealth aspect of Zero’s class, it’s definitely his worst skill by far. What this skill does is it causes Zero’s holographic decoy to explode once he becomes visible again.
You do have some control over this skill, but once it’s put into practice, it really shows how terrible it is. Skills in Borderlands 2 that deal shock damage are generally never good, and Unf0rseen is one example. If this skill was just explosive damage, it could potentially be very powerful. Another disadvantage this skill has is that it’s meant for enemies that get close for melee strikes since they always attack the decoy. Most enemies in Borderlands 2 mainly shoot at you, making this skill even less effective.
5 Fuel The Rampage - Krieg
Okay, so Fuel The Rampage is actually quite convenient when playing Krieg solo. However, this skill is just annoying when playing in co-op. This skill recharges Buzz Axe Rampage at a faster rate upon taking damage. Sounds great right? Well, not so much, since you also can now be damaged by your teammates.
Yes, the cooldown of your Buzz Axe Rampage is absolutely amazing, but the risk of being shot by your friends is not worth the bonus. Imagine playing in a team where everyone has Norfleets. Even worse, Krieg is a melee character, which means he has to get up close and personal on the battlefield. When you’re busy axing the bad guys to pieces, your teammates will also be shooting at the same time, making it an even greater risk of dealing damage to you.
4 Backdraft - Maya
Backdraft gives Maya fire damage to her melee attacks, while also letting her have a fiery nova blast once her shields deplete. On one hand, this essentially gives Maya a nova shield throughout the whole game. On the other, however, the melee aspect is awful. Being able to ignite enemies with a melee attack is nice, but the fire damage over time is poor.
Then you realize Maya is not designed for this type of playstyle at all. Maya is a character designed to have a little distance between her and the enemies since she Phaselocks them. Since she’s one of the weaker characters when it comes to defense, this makes getting up close and personal very dangerous. Plus, her melee damage in mediocre in general, making Backdraft pointless.
3 Shock Storm - Gaige
Here’s a great idea: give a critical hit bonus skill to a character the least likely to score critical hits. Shock Storm emits a shock explosion upon killing an enemy with a critical hit. The problem here is that Gaige is most dangerous when she’s not dealing critical hits.
This is because skills like Anarchy and Close Enough give you massive damage bonuses, but you’re not supposed to be accurate. Anarchy decreases your accuracy immensely, and Close Enough is solely based on bullets that ricochet towards enemies. Anarchy is Gaige’s best skill. It’s also a Tier 1 skill that only costs 1 skill point, meaning that most players will most likely put a point in it. This causes Shock Storm to be completely inapplicable and very difficult to use.
2 Hellfire Halitosis - Krieg
Melee override skills aren’t always the greatest in Borderlands 2. The worst of these is Krieg’s Hellfire Halitosis skill. This skill will allow Krieg to breathe fire when you press the melee button, with a cooldown of 15 seconds. You are still able to use Krieg’s ax in the meantime, but the process of breathing fire isn’t as cool as it may sound. The fire damage done to an enemy isn’t worth the skill points. Additionally, the skill becomes pointless once you later unlock Krieg’s Raving Retribution skill.
The only reason you would want to breathe fire on enemies is to ignite them, for which Krieg greatly benefits from. Raving Retribution shoots out fireballs constantly to enemies all around you, making it a far more productive way to ignite enemies. The only reason to get this skill is that it looks impressive and it goes with the absurdity of Krieg’s character. Other than that, you’re not apt to get much use out of it.
1 One Two Boom - Gaige
You would think that having Deathtrap essentially build up a Hadouken orb would be totally badass. For One Two Boom, Deathtrap will conjure up a big blue orb, which he will then hurl towards enemies. You then have to shoot the orb as it’s moving, which will then cause a massive shock explosion.
Yes, this orb only does shock damage, therefore, it automatically sucks. One Two Boom only occurs at random, meaning you have very little control of it. To make matters worse, it sometimes glitches out and your bullets won’t register for it to explode. Even at 1 skill point, this is not worth acquiring. It is, without a doubt, the worst and most worthless skill in Borderlands 2.