BORDERLANDS 4 HARLOWE BUILD
LEVEL 1 TO 50
The Ultimate BUILD Guide
This Borderlands 4 Harlowe build guide aims to guide you get through Harlowe’s progression from level 1 to 50, with detailed skill choices, recommended gear and a straightforward progression route.
For more Builds visit our Borderlands 4 hub page.
Normal Vault Hunter Mode – Level 1 to 31
In your first playthrough, you’ll be going through the main story in Normal Vault Hunter Mode (NVHM). This is the default setting with no modifiers, and the first rank of UVHM (the endgame mode) is unlocked as soon as you officially beat the main questline and complete some tasks for a certain important NPC.
I’ll leave this vague to avoid major spoilers, but it’s worth noting that higher UVHM ranks require you to complete additional challenges and a repeat of specific missions with modifiers in effect. You don’t have to unlock higher UVHM ranks unless you really like the challenge of spongier enemies. For just pure leveling, even normal difficulty is fine in some cases.
Recommended Skills
Action Skill: CHROMA Accelerator
Augment: Neutron Capture
Capstone: Demon Core
Level 2-6: 5 Points on Cyclotron
You gain increased fire rate.
Level 7-11: 5 Points on Elementary
Gain increased elemental damage and status effect damage.
Level 12-14: 3 Points on Enriched
You get increased radiation damage.
Level 15-16: 2 Points on Bleeding Edge
Gain increased reload speed.
Level 17-21: 5 Points on Glow Up
You gain bonus critical hit chance against irradiated targets.
Level 22-24: 3 Points on Chain Reactor
Gain increased radiation damage against enemies that are Entangled.
Level 25-26: 2 Points on Fissile Launcher
Whenever you deal damage to irradiated or Entangled enemies, shoot radiation darts at nearby enemies.
Level 27-31: 5 Points on Momentum
Whenever you apply Entangle on an enemy, gain bonus critical hit damage for a brief moment.
Progression route
Goal: In NVHM, your main focus should be on completing the main questline to gain access to the post-campaign features. When the story officially ends, that’s when the real grind starts, as is tradition. Along the way, you can do side quests whenever you feel like it, though focusing solely on the story should get you to around level 30.
Borderlands 4 feels a lot more different than the previous entries, but in a good way. The most important thing to keep in mind is that, unlike in the previous game, you aren’t going to be flooded with legendary items anymore. Luckily, you don’t need them to grind fast, as generic gear is more viable now.
Level 1 to 30: Going through the story
- This build is centered around doing a lot of damage through both your buffed CHROMA Accelerator and high fire rate weapon choices. As such, it does take quite a bit of time for the build to “go online”, so you might struggle a bit in the earlier levels where the pieces aren’t there yet.
- Once you have Demon Core unlocked, campaign bosses are a complete joke against your damage. The combination of this capstone with Neutron Capture makes it so that your guns now deal a comically large amount of damage. Mobs aren’t even worth talking about at this point.
- The only legendary item worth target farming at this point is the Skeptic class mod, which drops from Callis. This helps you spam your action skill, which is exactly what you need to get this build going. Even if it’s underleveled, you’ll benefit from this for quite some time.
Best gears
Slot 1: Any fast-firing weapon, such as a Vladof rifle
Slot 2: Any backup weapon of a different ammo type
Ordnance: Anything works fine
Repkit: Anything works fine
Shield: Anything with a high capacity
Class Mod: Skeptic
Enhancement: Anything that increases your DPS
Neutron Capture makes it so that a percentage of your action skill’s damage is transferred to your gun for a short period of time. To take full advantage of this, you’ll want a fast weapon that can deal a lot of damage, such as a Vladof rifle. Combined with the Skeptic class mod, you’ll have no trouble keeping this buff active throughout any fight.
Aside from that, your main priority throughout the campaign will just be pumping up your raw damage and staying alive to the best of your abilities. Use a shield with a high capacity and short recharge delay, and if you can, grab a repkit that has multiple charges to keep your health topped up at all times.
Until you can get to the point where your CHROMA Accelerator is spammable, play a little more carefully and make sure that your action skill shots count whenever you use them. The cooldown is pretty long, so you’ll want Neutron Capture to draw from as many enemies as possible.
Tips for NVHM
- If this is your first playthrough, rush through the Down and Outbound quest to unlock the digirunner. You can mount this almost anywhere, and you’ll need it to traverse the game’s wide open world.
- You can re-fight most bosses by paying the Moxxi’s Big Encore machine outside their respective arenas. This makes farming for specific gear a relatively fast process compared to older games, as it eliminates the need to reset the whole level.
- Check vending machines every now and then, as they do occasionally carry decent upgrades. Legendary gear can even show up in them, albeit rarely.
Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode – Level 32 to 50
The first time you finish the story, you can unlock Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM). This mode increases the difficulty of the game in exchange for slightly better EXP and loot drop rates. It has higher ranks with further rate increases, but the enemies will be too spongy that it’ll actually slow you down if your goal is to reach max level.
For this guide, I highly recommend turning on tier 1 of UVHM and ignoring the rest for now. Vile Bounties can only show up in this game mode, and keeping it at the first tier will make it so that enemies are still reasonably easy to kill.
Recommended Skills
Level 32-36: 5 Points on Neutron Decay
Whenever you irradiate an enemy, you gain bonus gun damage. This can stack up to 5 times.
Level 37-39: 3 Points on Resonance Cascade
Dealing radiation damage to enemies will increase your action skill damage. This can stack up to 5 times.
Level 40-41: 2 Points on Confirmative Reality
Whenever you shoot Entangled enemies, you and any allies you have will restore some of your action skill cooldown.
Level 42-46: 5 Points on Decoherence
You deal bonus damage to all Entangled enemies.
Level 47-50: 4 Points on Make Extraordinary
You get bonus critical hit chance with your skills, with a higher chance every time an enemy is Entangled. This bonus can stack up to 10 times.
Progression route
Goal: If you’ve only been focusing on the main questline, you should be around the level 30 range by the time you complete the story. As you level up and unlock more skills, you should now have better synergies with Neutron Capture, and your damage output will have shot up to greater heights.
With the story completed, here are the open world activities you can grind for EXP:
- Vile Bounties (the purple ones) offer the highest EXP rates when done efficiently. They can only show up on bounty boards while UVHM is on, so make sure to check every safehouse after loading into the game. The downside to this method is that you have to reset the lobby to refresh boards.
- Drill sites are a decent option, especially the Pitted Stain. Your speed in clearing these will depend on how fast you can clear the mobs and the boss. With appropriately leveled gear, they should go by fast. You can repeat these by activating the Moxxi’s Big Encore machine at the entrance.
- Boss farming is another quick way to gain a lot of EXP. Splashzone is the easiest because he’s very close to the Moxxi’s Big Encore machine. This build’s specialty is trivializing boss fights, so you’re free to choose almost anything else if you’re going down this path.
For this build specifically, boss farming and Vile Bounties should be your go-to farming activity. Personally, I would go for bosses to target certain drops instead, and the predictability of each one’s arena makes it easy to land your action skill. If you are fine with chasing down targets all around the map and restarting the game for more contracts, Vile Bounties are the best choice.
Drill sites can still be decent, but you’ll need to find other sources of status effects if you can’t apply any via your action skill. Mobs melt too fast that you can’t always take advantage of Skeptic for faster cooldowns.
While still leveling up, or immediately after reaching 50, go for the bosses that drop the best gear for your build. On that note…
Best gears
Slot 1: Any Vladof rifle or SMG with a high magazine size
Slot 2: Wombo Combo
Slot 3: Oscar Mike
Slot 4: Any backup gun of your choice
Ordnance: Anything works here
Repkit: Kill Spring
Shield: Anything with Siphon or just a high capacity shield in general
Class Mod: Skeptic
Enhancement: A Vladof enhancement with Box Magazine and/or Bullet Hose
With how this build works at max level, you can rip through tough targets like bosses and Vile Bounties, as long as you land your CHROMA Accelerator. Due to your Entanglement passive, Confirmative Reality and Skeptic work together to quickly refresh your CHROMA Accelerator, allowing you to keep your Neutron Capture buff active indefinitely.
The fast fire rate of your Vladof weapons (including the Wombo Combo) should be enough to melt pretty much anything in UVHM 1. If you ever have to farm certain bosses that are more resistant to particular damage types, bring elemental weapons with fast fire rates as well. In general, the Wombo Combo should be enough to deal with most things if you don’t want to farm specific elements.
Something to note is that, unlike most builds that focus on Deadeye, this build benefits a lot more from the Bullets to Spare firmware. With a full 3/3 set, you’ll have insanely high fire rate on all weapons, which makes Vladof guns disgustingly faster than they already are. In addition to that, you also get bonus magazine size, which is great for Wombo Combo’s effect.
Tips for UVHM
- You can unlock higher levels of UVHM by completing challenges, but you don’t need to do this if your goal is just to level up. At most, you should try to unlock UVHM 2 so you can refresh Vile Bounties by swapping the lobby’s difficulty between UVHM 1 and 2 instead of having to reset every time.
- If you have friends that can help you out, grouping up speeds up both Vile Bounties and drill site farming. The latter becomes a more appealing option if you have somebody to help you with stragglers.
- If you don’t plan on doing Vile Bounties, grinding EXP on NVHM is completely viable. Only do this if you have suboptimal gear and are greatly struggling with UVHM mobs, as this build is tailored towards obliterating tough single targets.
Other Borderlands 4 Character Builds
If you enjoy trying different characters, check out these other Borderlands 4 builds:
Rafa Build
A cybernetic soldier who boosts his combat abilities with advanced tech and powerful weapons.
Vex Build
A dark Siren who uses supernatural powers to summon minions and overwhelm enemies.
Amon Build
A battle-hardened fighter focused on brutal melee combat and strong elemental attacks.