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Borderlands 4 Build

Dagger Dancing

Vex

Dead Ringer

End Game

Trending

By RestAssured

Updated on Oct 27, 2025

Oct 27, 2025

Build Overview

The goal of this build is to do so much melee damage that you will never have to use a weapon. In doing so, you will also have your Dead Ringer reapers doing crazy damage.

Strengths And Weaknesses

Doesn't Need Weapons
Easy To Set Up
One Hit Enemies

Flying Bosses Can Be Annoying

Skill Tree

Points Spent 0 / 49

LMB Allocate

RMB Unallocate

5/5

1/1

This setup is going to be heavily focused on your Haruspex and Pincushion skills. With these, you can throw melee damage daggers that you can get back every three kills.

The other part will be our action skill Dead Ringer, so we can spawn reapers to also greatly increase our melee damage. Pairing this with the augment Hellish Harvest, they will almost never die, and you can even spawn a stronger reaper with the capstone Grim Reaper. You want to have these up at all times to help you out in the fight, but also buff your own melee damage.

To buff us and our minions, there are a lot of skills we can take. For damage, one of our main ones is Reverburnations so we can get extra incendiary damage with our melees. On top of that, we can also take Recurrence to grant stacking melee damage. Finally, skills like Fell Inscriptions and Claw and Bang will further grant even more melee damage. Once again all of that will work for Vex and her Dead Ringer reapers. (Grave Fiends also will buff you and your reapers melee damage as well).

For the rest of the skills, you have things like Sanguine Fiends to keep you and your reapers up, Hasty Fiends to make you and your reapers faster and tankier, and Blood Is Magic to increase your reapers damage even more. I also just use two points in Overprotective just to progress the skill tree, but the overshields you get are also nice.

The final skill to play around is Guns and Needles. This will let you spam your Order Repkit all the time, granting even more bonuses, which you can find below.

Equipment

Weapons

Repkit & Ordnance

Utilities

One of the main things you are going to need with this build is the Heavyweight shield. This is going to grant you more melee damage just for simply using your melee. The other thing that helps out a lot is the Slippy. This gives you the ability to use your melee damage at a range or against flying enemies.

For your class mod, be on the lookout for anything that adds points to Haruspex. If you can't find one, anything that would also increase melee damage in other ways would work too. Things like Claw and Bang, Fell Inscriptions, Recurrence, and Reverburnations come to mind. Also, be on the lookout for melee damage stat increases as well on these class mods.

Your Order Repkit will actually play a big part in this build. Not only will it be a great way to increase your survivability, but it will also is going to grant more damage. Be on the lookout for the hard hitter perk to increase your melee damage. I also like to run the perk tank on mine to grant damage reduction.

If you can get a Triple Bypass with hard hitter, that would probably be your god roll. However, if you can't, I would definitely try to get an Order Repkit since they can have two charges. Again, with the skill Guns and Needles you will still get it back very quickly.

For your enhancement, the only thing that really matters is that you can roll one with a gun damage increase. This increase will apply to our Bear Arms and I Am A Gun specializations.

Firmware

Repkit & Ordnance

Repkit FirmwareReel Big Fist

Ordnance FirmwareReel Big Fist

Utilities

Class Mod FirmwareAction Fist

Shield FirmwareAction Fist

Enhancement FirmwareAction Fist

When it comes to your firmware, you are looking for melee damage increases. Because of that Reel Big Fist and Action Fist are going to be your go-tos. In all honesty, you can get a three-piece set of either of these, and the build won't change much. The one and two-piece bonuses granting extra damage are what you really want.

However, if I had to choose, I would probably try to shoot for the three-piece in Action Fist for the extra increase to Dead Ringer damage. The explosion from Reel Big Fist is nice, but not something you really need to play around.

Specialization

Specialization 1Groundbreaker

Specialization 2Bear Arms

Specialization 3I Am A Gun

Specialization 4A Honed Mind

Groundbreaker is going to be your best friend with this build. Essentially, every bit of non-melee or slam damage will be stored, and you can expend it on your next melee. This takes into account everything, including your Dead Ringer damage. So while your reapers are slicing away at enemies, you are stacking melee damage in the background.

Bear Arms and I Am A Gun are great as well because they will turn a portion of your gun damage into melee damage and Dead Ringer damage. With Recurrence you are going to stack this up very quickly.

A Honed Mind is nice so your Dead Ringer can crit. However, this wasn't isn't needed too much, so if you would like to swap it for something else, feel free.