Now You’re Playing with Power

Unlike the first game in the series, Borderlands, its sequel, Borderlands 2, expanded the roster of characters that you could play as in the game. It actually did this right from the start with a preorder bonus character, Gaige the Mechromancer, and then later with a second DLC character, Krieg the Psycho, as part of the Psycho Pack. This brought the total number of official, playable characters for Borderlands 2 up to six (which has, up until this point, remained the maximum number of characters for any game in the series).

The two characters each added their own twists to the original roster, making for different, but no less fun, playing experiences. With new powers, new abilities, and new options for how to play the game, Gaige and Krieg became iconic parts of the Borderlands 2 experience. But, how do they measure against the original characters from the game? That’s what we’re here to evaluate:

Gaige the Mechromancer

Gaige, as her title states, is a “Mechromancer”. In the game’s story she built her own flying robot as a science experiment, and has since begun traveling with it as her ever present companion. The robot, Deathtrap, is released as her special power, and the robot then goes around, fighting everything on screen, until its timer runs out. In terms of Borderlands and Borderlands 2, Deathtrap is functionally in the same category as Roland’s scorpio turret or Axton’s Saber Turret(s) in so far as it’s something you put on the field and it kills things. But Deathtrap is really the first of what we can consider “companions” or “pets” that the Vault Hunters in future games would summon to aid them in the field of combat.

Because Deathtrap is a huge part of Gaige’s gameplay experience, naturally it also gets a lot of skills dedicated to it in the Skill Tree. Notably two branches of the tree are dedicated to buffing Gaige and Deathtrap in normal ways. But one side, Ordered Chaos, is focused more heavily on a stacking system called Anarchy, and this is the section that can make Gaige really powerful… but only for strong, experienced characters. In a way it’s like there are two different versions of Gaige and, depending on how you want to play, you could have two very different experiences with the character.

The first two branches, Best Friends Forever and Little Big Trouble, are what I would consider the more “standard” skill tree branches you would normally see on a Borderlands character. They have skills like Close Enough, which gives missed shots that bounce off walls or floors a chance to ricochet and deal extra damage. There’s Buck Up, which lets Deathtrap restore an allies shields, and Explosive Clap which gives Deathtrap, yes, an explosive clap that it can deal for massive damage. There’s Potent as a Pony which increases health for you and Deathtrap and Made of Sterner Stuff which grants you and Deathtrap damage reduction while also increasing Deathtrap’s melee damage.

And then you could also boost Gaige and Deathtrap’s shock damage. More Pep adds elemental damage chance, especially for electrocution damage. Shock Storm causes an electrical storm to nearby enemies when you kill an enemy with a critical hit. Electrical Burn adds burn damage to any electrocution damage you cause. Shock and AAAGGGGHHH! causes an electrical explosion every time you reload your gun. Evil Entrantress increases your elemental damage when you kill enemies, while Wires Don’t Talk further increases your shock damage. And then One Two Boom lets Deathtrap throw out a shock orb, and if you shoot that orb and deals massive shock damage to nearby enemies.

But by far the most interesting skill combo comes from the capstone skills from these two trees, but only because the interaction is bugged. Sharing is Caring grants Deathtrap a copy of whatever shield you are wearing, while Make it Sparkle allows you to shoot Deathtrap with an elemental weapon and apply that element to Deathtrap’s melee attacks. On their own these don’t seem all that relevant together, but they unite perfectly once you have a Roid Shield. These shields grant the wearer increased melee damage when their shield is down, and that can apply to Deathtrap as well. The Roid damage bonus multiplies with the Make it Sparkle elemental bonus in a weird way, and Deathtrap’s damage goes absolutely off the charts. For late game areas, this one-two combo is basically required for Deathtrap.

And then there’s Anarchy. This is the side of the skill tree that can grant Gaige and Deathtrap incredible damage, but it comes with some pretty major caveats. You get one stack of Anarchy for every enemy you kill and any time you fully empty your gun. Reloading your gun wipes out all anarchy, and falling into Fight for Your Life will quickly drain your Anarchy. For every stack of Anarchy you have you gain increased gun damage but reduced accuracy. This doesn’t seem like a great tradeoff, but it can be cheesed in certain ways, like pairing Anarchy with the CLose Enough skill so that even when you miss your ricochets still hit.

Additional skills then buff the Anarchy. Preshrunk Cyberpunk increases the number of Anarchy stacks you can have. Typecast Iconoclast grants a chance to gain extra Anarchy every time you kill an enemy. Rational Anarchist grants you 25 Anarchy if you have 0 at the time. Then you can spend that Anarchy with skills like Discord, which drains Anarchy to restore health, Death from Above, which drains stacks when you kill an enemy in the air, causing explosions, and With Claws, that drains Anarchy via melee attacks, but buffs those attacks and grants health restoration.

In short, an Anarchy build is one that treads back and forth along the stacks, giving you increased damage at the cost of other stats, but then you can burn those stacks to grant you favors. A standard Deathtrap build is safe and effective, but for those wanting to live on the edge, Anarchy Gaige can be a very interesting ride. She’s just not for the faint of heart.

Krieg the Psycho

In comparison to Gaige, Krieg is much more straightforward. Where Gaige has a helper, and she can buff herself, her helper, and her Anarchy, Krieg is all about being a psycho all the live long day. Have buzzaxe, will travel, in effect, but he’s very good at what he does. Krieg is the kind of character that lives in carnage, who relishes being in the heat of battle and taking on hordes of enemies with his face. He’s not necessarily easy to play, as you have to be willing to throw yourself right into the middle of danger, but if that’s the kind of way you like to play Borderlands 2 then Krieg might just be the character for you.

Krieg’s easiest and most direct skill path is the Mania branch. This is all about melee damage and explosive, especially during his Buzzaxe Rampage power. Empty the Rage adds melee damage early in the tree, and then Silence the Voices adds way more late in the tree, although there’s a chance you hit yourself instead of the enemies (we’re sure this is fine). Pull the pin drops a grenade when you die, and if it kills someone you get a revive, while Light the Fuse replaces Fight for Your Life, letting you throw dynamite at enemies to try and kill them with even more explosive damage. You can then buff your explosive damage even further with Strip the Flesh, which increases that damage even further while in Fight for Your Life (and Light the Fuse). And then, finally, there’s Release the Beast, which changes your Buzzaxe Ramage if you’re below 33% health, changing you into a Badass Psycho Mutant with bonus melee damage and damage reduction, while also giving you a health refill. It’s a solid skill path all around.

The second branch is the Hellborn path, which effectively helps turn Krieg into a burning psycho. Most of the skills in the tree either grant fire damage and/or increase fire damage even further when Krieg is on fire. Naturally Burn Baby Burn, at the top of the tree, gives Krieg bonus fire damage while also granting him a chance to set himself on fire while dealing fire damage. You want to be on fire, not only because it decreases the fire damage you take from external sources but also because it buffs all the other skills in the tree. Pain is Power grants melee damage while on fire, Numbed Nerves increase damage resistance while on fire, Fire Fiend causes you to ignite enemies with melee attacks and increases accuracy and reload speed while on fire. You see the trend. And it all caps with Raving Retribution, which activates while you’re on fire and spits out fireballs at enemies when you take damage. Fire is fun when you’re Krieg.

The final branch is Bloodlust, and this is where Krieg is most similar to Gaige. Every time Krieg kills and enemy, after he picks up Blood Twitch and/or Blood Filled Guns (both of which grant stacks of Bloodlust when you deal damage to enemies), Krieg picks up stacks of Bloodlust. These will slowly drain over time if you aren’t dealing damage to enemies, but there are a number of skills that increase your damage while you have stacks of Bloodlust. Blood Overdrive gives melee damage and reduced grenade fuse time per stack, Blood Revival gives assault rifle damage per stack, Bloodbath adds weapon damage for grenade and explosive damages (with damage added per stack), and Blood Trance increases Buzzaxe Rampage time per stack. And all of this leads to the capstone skill, Bloodsplosion, which grants an elemental nova to kills, with damage calculated based on the number of Bloodlust stacks, plus any overkill damage as well.

All in all, Krieg is a little walking death machine. Your job is to do damage, to kill, and to never stop. The more enemies around you, and the more carnage you can cause, the more you’ll fuel your death rampage and continue killing. In fact, Krieg is in a unique position among all the characters in that when you’re playing with more than the usual amount of enemies (like, say, with a 25-times enemy mod) the game actually gets easier for him, not harder, because of how much overkill damage he can do. Krieg is a lot of fun, but you have to balance him just right.

Final Thoughts

I wouldn’t really rate one character higher than the other here as both Gaige and Krieg have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither of them are as overpowered as Maya, but both are far more interesting to play than the pretty mild (although still very broken) Salvador. All you have to do is decide what kind of play style you want, and each of these DLC characters could prove totally viable for you.