Best Borderlands 4 Vex builds

Looking for the best Borderlands 4 Vex builds? Vex is the latest Siren poster child in Borderlands, and aside from being a cool Goth witch with plenty of sass, she boasts a tonne of versatility with her playstyle. Want to summon minions, rip apart mobs with a spectral cat, or focus purely on elemental damage that can incinerate all opponents? Vex is your girl.

In this guide, we'll delve into three of the best Borderlands 4 Vex builds in the game's current meta, telling you everything you need to know to decimate bosses with Vex's Siren power.

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Best Vex builds in Borderlands 4

The following three builds are our favourites for Vex, and each one emphasises one of her three different skill trees - Phase Phamiliar, Incarnate, or Dead Ringer.

• Phase Phamiliar Trouble build
• Incarnate Blood Shot build
• Dead Ringer Minion build

We'll delve into the details behind each build below, listing equipment recommendations, essential skills to prioritise, and Specializations. Keep in mind that there's room to be flexible with the rest of your kit, especially with regards to adding on Firmware to amplify factors like fire rate.

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Phase Phamiliar Trouble build

Vex's big cat companion, Trouble, really fulfills the role of a loyal pet, and maximising this glowing feline's potential is what our Phase Phamiliar build is intent on. With the loadout described below, you can sit back and watch Trouble draw aggro and serve as a reliable tank - though you will need to command your furry ally from afar, which can be chaotic in certain boss fights or during large encounters against multiple enemies. If Trouble ever wanders too far away, the situation can also grow hairy.

Nevertheless, this build works great for leveling up. If the grind of gunning for bigger and better loot ever gets tedious, might as well get Trouble to do most of the heavy lifting for you!

Equipment

Equip any weapon that deals Shock damage to make the most of this build, and be sure to give yourself as many layers of protection as you can. Since you'll be so reliant on Trouble, it's helpful to have an insurance policy in place when you find yourself taking fire - for instance, the Onion for your Shield, which has the Shallow Shell legendary effect, giving you temporary immunity to damage upon breaking. The Risky Boots Firmware, which reduces damage by 30% when your health is less than 35%, is another solid pick.

Skills

• Grave Sustenance: You want to keep Trouble on the field as much as possible, so pour points into Grave Sustenance, which lets you restore a percentage of your remaining Action Skill duration.
• Grave Command: A good Kill Skill that restores Trouble's Command Skill and Respawn cooldowns, Grave Command's another handy pick to keep your furry friend on the battlefield.
• Yowl and Bay: Trouble gets an increased health capacity of up to 40% with a maxed-out Yowl and Bay, and Vex's gun damage also increases after she issues Trouble a command.
• Vorpal Fiends: Useful for giving both Vex and Trouble increased critical hit damage.
• Shocking Attunement: We've gone with Shock Attunement to provide Vex with additional movement speed and gun damage while moving, as she'll need it to keep up with Trouble.
• Infusion: A nice perk to go alongside Shocking Attunement when Vex uses a Repkit - she and Trouble will both gain bonus Shock damage.
• Guns and Needles: Take Guns and Needles to ensure survivability, as you don't want to be waiting to use a Repkit if Trouble's ever far from you.
• Grave Sights: Why not give Vex Lifesteal while we're at it? Once again, it's all about survivability.
• Fiendish Invigoration: Whenever Vex uses a Repkit, she and Trouble will get a nice boost of movement speed and fire rate.
• Channeling: Once again, it's all about keeping Trouble around and alive for as long as possible, and we might as well bump up that Shock Attunement while we're at it. Max out Channeling to increase both Action Skill and Attunement duration.
• Target Prescience: This one's nice to take for a general boost to Vex's gun damage, so she can pick off mobs while Trouble's digging into them up close.

Your best Augment picks in the early game are Blink Strike and Hexus Nexus, which will help Trouble's ability to kill low health enemies and general tankiness. Eventually, you should switch to either Beast Mode to give Trouble temporary immunity, or Unsealed to allow Trouble to mark enemies for Vex to finish off with amplified gun damage from afar.

Specializations

Bullet Train under the Runner category is a handy Specialization to grab, as it'll allow Vex to keep pace with Trouble and gain even more gun damage. For additional DPS, try taking Riddle You This.

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Incarnate Blood Shot build

The Blood Shot build focuses on the Skill of the same name, which normally only kicks in when a Repkit is used, and converts any damage on Vex's next shot into Kinetic Damage and also deals bonus damage based on her current health. Thanks to a few key pieces of gear, we can remove this Repkit requirement, creating a build that constantly procs Blood Shot and unleashes a stream of pain without you having to do very much at all.

This build is for players who aren't too keen on Vex's minions and instead prefer an aggressive playstyle, with a focus on getting critical hits and stacking your health before a fight, since more HP equals greater damage via Blood Shot.

Equipment

Equipment plays a vital role in this build, starting with the Bod shotgun, which is a drop after defeating Axemaul, an oversized Mangler in The Toil of Spoiling Vis. The Bod is extremely potent, and it's the only gun in Borderlands 4 that deals all types of damage. In this case, we want it to deal Sniper damage.

Why Sniper? Well, the Undead Eye Class Mod is the other most important piece for this build, as it makes killing an enemy with a Sniper Rifle trigger Blood Shot. Critical hits with a Sniper Rifle also have a 33% chance to activate Blood Shot. You can get the Undead Eye after defeating Vile Lictor, the final boss of the "His Vile Sanctum" main mission.

You have more freedom with the rest of your gear, but I recommend Timekeeper's New Shield, a possible drop after defeating the Timekeeper during "The Timekeeper's Order", the second to last of the campaign's main missions. When equipped, it increases maximum health, health regeneration, and damage reduction. Since Blood Shot deals a flat bonus based on Vex's current health, Timekeeper's New Shield is great for keeping her HP nice and high.

Skills

• Leeching Attunement: This Skill gives Vex Lifesteal and increased Reload Speed whenever she's attuned to Kinetic damage. A must-have, since this build relies so heavily on a Skill that deals Kinetic Damage.
• Grave Implements: A stackable Kill Skill that gives Vex and all of her minions increased Gun Damage for a brief duration, this temporary boost can make all the difference when it comes to shredding a boss in half.
• Grave Power: This one goes hand-in-hand with Grave Implements, ensuring that Vex's Kill Skills gain increased stacks.
• Drink Full: Whenever Vex deals gun Damage, she'll get a stack of Drink Full, which ups her fire rate and is a very nice addition to this build's arsenal.
• Mortal Terror: This gives Vex a chance to activate her Kill Skills whenever she critically hits enemies. Perfect synergy with Grave Implements and Grave Power!
• Blood Shot: Obvious choice - after all, we've named the build after this.
• Ars Arcana: It's either this or Grave Vitality. However, as Vex gains increased Skill Damage with this Skill, and Blood Shot actually scales off of Skill Damage, Ars Arcana is the better choice to maximise damage output. Besides, with the Timekeeper's New Shield equipped, Vex will have all the HP she needs.
• Essence Leech: Why not give Vex Lifesteal while we're at it? This effect will be doubled whenever an Action Skill is active.
• Blood Is Power: An excellent complement to Essence Leech, Blood Is Power gives Vex bonus Kinetic Damage based on her current Lifesteal whenever her HP is full.

Take the Witchy Trigger Finger Augment to complement all of the skills above - this lets Vex reload and gain a stack whenever she deals damage with Eldritch Blast or Phase Explosion. Each stack increases her gun damage for 15 seconds.

Specializations

When it comes to Specializations, put the majority of your points into Survivor and Sharpshooter for max HP and shield increases. The most vital Specializations to take are The Best Defense, Riddle You This, In The Zone, and One Shot, One Kill.

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Dead Ringer Minion build

This Dead Ringer build is geared around Vex's Reaper and Specter minions, buffing them as much as possible to supplement Vex's firepower. Our goal here is to flood the battlefield with a huge array of helpers that can deal tonnes of damage and apply a mass array of status effects while we focus on bosses and more vital foes, laying on heavy gun and crit damage.

If you're just beginning to experiment with Vex, this Dead Ringer build is a fairly easy-to-learn choice suitable for newbies - not to mention all others who like to sit back and watch a small army of clones do the dirty wetwork!

Equipment

This is a flexible build that can utilise many different pieces of gear, though something like the Vladof AR or Vladof SMG will serve nicely as your primary firearm, especially when combined with the Vladof Underdog enhancement, which grants +50% underbarrel damage. Get the Burning Attunement for proper synergy with the skills we've outlined below.

For your Firmware, it's in your best interests to max out critical damage, so equipping as many Deadeye pieces as possible is best. Trickshot, which increases both gun reload speed and critical hit damage, is also beneficial.

Skills

• Sanguine Fiends: A great Kill Skill that lets Vex and her minions restore +20% of their health, this is a no-brainer.
• Portents of Suffering: This one gives Vex and her minions increased status effect damage. Max this one out for ultimate damage output.
• Blood Sacrifice: This activates Kill Skills whenever Vex's minions die. The goal here is to use Blood Sacrifice to ensure that Grave Quickening's always working and Sanguine Fiends always heals any remaining minions on the field, even when some of them are taken out by mobs.
• Grave Quickening: Another Kill Skill that gives Vex an increased Action Skill cooldown rate. This stacks up to three times and once again ensures that whenever Vex's minions are dying, she's only getting faster - and can spawn even more minions.
• Prismatic Ichor: This lets you stack status effects over and over again, and works well with Burning Attunement below.
• Burning Attunement: An Attune Skill - when Vex is attuned to Incendiary, she and her minions gain increased critical hit damage and the chance to apply more status effects.
• Prismatic Weaponry: Necessary to give Vex and her Specters bonus damage with gun critical hits.
• Obedient Fiends: Vex and her minions all get increased damage. What's the point of having fiends if they can't be obedient, after all?
• Bloodletter: Max out this green skill to ensure that your crits apply Bleed.
• Guns and Needles: A good passive that ensures that Vex's Repkit cooldown goes down. Pour more points into this to reach a max cooldown of +21%.

Take Ghast Blaster, Coven, Wither, Hellish Harvest and Dark Pact as your Augments. Each of these Augments affects the health and skillset of minions, granting everything from health regeneration to better melee damage.

Specializations

Prioritise getting points into Brute and Sharpshooter; any extra points can go into Runner. Your goal here should be to get Contamination, which grants an increase in the likelihood for status effects to be applied with every critical hit. Riddle You This, I Am A Gun, and Now With Caffeine are also excellent picks.

And now you know all of our picks for the best Vex builds in Borderlands 4. For more valuable info on building the best possible build to slaughter bosses and nab good gear, check out our Legendary Weapons list. We've also got guides on how to find all Vault Key Fragments and how to unlock all Primordial Vaults.