To rip the Band‑Aid off quickly: the infamous crit knife has been nerfed. Gearbox admits it “had to happen” in the dev notes. The throwing knife — previously dominating the meta with a 100% critical hit rate — now has its crit rate reduced to 30%. It remains powerful, but it’s no longer game-breaking.
Other weapon adjustments include fixes to infinite stacking on the San Saba Songbird pistol when weapon-swapping, and a correction where using a Jakobs shotgun with torque sticky projectiles and the knife‑launcher underbarrel no longer causes knife damage to persist after swapping fire modes.
Meanwhile, the Vladof flamethrower underbarrel no longer deals effectively infinite damage or bypasses bio‑armor, and gadgets will no longer reset to maximum uses after triggering a second wind.
Assault rifles received several notable buffs: Star Helix gets a 33% fire rate increase, Bonnie and Clyde gain 40% more base damage, Bugbear’s base damage rises by 40%, and Rowan’s Charge doubles its base fire rate (100% increase).
In heavy weapons, the Gamma Void saw a massive base damage buff of 450%, though that’s balanced by a shorter singularity duration (down from 10s to 6s) and a 100% increase to its cooldown.
Class mods received broad improvements to make them more attractive choices. Level 50 class mods now grant higher melee and action-skill damage (60%) and increased skill damage (45%). Specific boosts were also applied to Siren, Forgeknight, and Gravitar class mods as detailed in the patch notes.
Every vault hunter saw targeted tweaks. Harlowe the Gravitar received several bug fixes: Neutron Capture now converts only gun shots to radiation damage (rather than all instances of gun damage), ensuring the effect scales predictably. Gearbox says this keeps Neutron Capture among the strongest damage multipliers while bringing it in line with expected power levels.
Amon the Forgeknight’s Seeing Red passive no longer scales duration per invested point and is now fixed at 4 seconds regardless of rank — a change intended to preserve high damage potential while making the effect harder to maintain. Amon’s Blackout passive was reduced from 21% per point to 15% per point after overperforming in tests.
Vex the Siren had an exploit patched: Bloodletter’s bleed can no longer be used to create recursive damage loops. Otherwise, the Siren received a handful of buffs — Double Trouble’s illusion damage in multiplayer rose from 50% to 75% and its duration extended from 5s to 8s, while Apex Beast damage increased from 10% to 15%.
Rafa the Exo‑Soldier saw only minor adjustments: the free grenade from the Filantropo class mod now deals appropriate damage even when no grenade is equipped, and Rafa’s APOPHIS lance now penalizes Gun Accuracy instead of Gun Handling — preserving projectile speed while changing how penalties are applied. The lance will also benefit from cooldown-reduction effects going forward.
These changes are accompanied by numerous bug fixes and small polish updates for each vault hunter, improving stability and balance. With Borderlands 4 already setting multiple U.S. sales records for Gearbox, expect the studio to keep iterating with broad balance and performance patches as player feedback rolls in.
Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford is pretty happy with Borderlands 4 story feedback: “Isn’t it weird to ship a game where the biggest complaint isn’t how we f***ed up the story?”
Source: gamesradar.com
