Borderlands 4: Vex Overview

Vex is the newest Siren to the Borderlands franchise. While quite pessimistic, Vex is a character filled with empathy, and a bit of dry sarcasm.

Sirens are mystical characters capable of wielding powerful and unearthly magic to defeat their foes! As one of six Sirens who can exist at any one time, Vex joins our team of Vault Hunters to take down the tyrannical Time Keeper.

Note: This guide was written pre-launch, so take everything with a grain of salt.

Phase Covenant - Vex is attuned to the Elemental Type or her current gun, converting all Action Skill and Melee damage into that type.

As worded, if you have a fire gun equipped, your Melee and Action Skills will deal fire damage. If you swap to a shock gun, they will deal shock damage, etc.

Phase Phamiliar - Vex is now accompanied by Trouble, a large catlike Phase creature. And yes, you can pet it! If Trouble falls in combat it will respawn after a cooldown.

Upon activating your action skill, Trouble will teleport to where you're aiming, deal AoE damage in the area, then restore its health and gain increased damage for a short time.

Incarnate - Vex now creates a Phase explosion around herself, fully restoring her health and damaging nearby enemies.

While Incarnate is active, Vex gains movement speed, and the ability to use Eldritch Blast. Using Eldritch Blast launches an explosive Phase projectile at her enemies that deals damage on impact. Dealing Gun Damage while Incarnate is active reduces the cooldown of Eldritch Blast.

Dead Ringer - Vex's final action skill is a charge based one. This means she can store up to three activations and use them all as she sees fit, or in one rapid succession for an all-out assault.

When activating Dead Ringer, Vex can chose one of two types of clones to summon:

1. The Reaper Clone, which taunts enemies to draw aggro and goes for melee attacks.
2. Or Spectre Clones, who stand their ground and shoot rifles that deal gun damage.

Note: These Phase Clones lose an increasing amount of health for every second they've been active.

Here Comes Trouble

This setup is for those who don't want to fight alone. It's filled with Buffs for both her and her minions, not limited to just Trouble, but the Dead Ringers too.

Here Comes Trouble gives players a more grounded playstyle, letting Vex stand back while sending Trouble in to cause, well, trouble!

The tree provides a lot of Damage boosts for any type including Gun, Ordnance, Minion, and Melee, allowing you to be versatile with your approach.

Notable Skills

• Mourning - Increased Kill Skill Effectiveness.
• Elemental Essence - Vex Gains increased Elemental Damage.
• Shocking Attunement - While Attuned to Shock, Vex gains movement speed, and gun damage while moving.
• Deadwire - When Vex deals gun damage, there is a chance to spawn a Spark Remnant that will seek out a nearby enemy and explode, dealing shock minion damage to nearby enemies.
• Overspirited - Kill Skill. Killing an enemy with Ordnance damage or an Action Skill will spawn an Explosive Remnant that deals Cryo Ordnance Damage to nearby enemies.

Augments

Returning from Borderlands 3 we have Augments. Augments are a modifier you can use to shake up your action skill, further directing your own build towards the playstyle you desire. For the Trouble skill tree we have some interesting ones to play with.

Violent Outburst - Lets us sacrifice Trouble (Or a chunk of Trouble's HP if the action skill is active) in return for a kill skill. This is very useful for boss fights or scenarios where you need your skill procs but don't have ads available to use. Right next to this augment there is the skill Grave Command, which lowers Trouble's respawn time. Be sure to combine the two!

If you want something a little more in favor of Trouble, try Beast Mode. Command Trouble to enter a powered up state, gaining damage immunity, attack speed, and movement speed. Additionally, every kill extends the duration further.

Each Skill Tree has five Augments to choose from.

Capstones

New to Borderlands 4 we have Capstones. Each skill tree comes equipped with 3 capstones, placed at the very end of the skill tree, so they need a lot of investment to reach! However, that investment is rewarded with unique and powerful effects.

Double Trouble - Trouble now has a chance to create an illusion near the enemy, allowing Trouble to more easily overwhelm their foes.

Trouble Bubble - A more defensive choice, Trouble gains an overshield whenever he deals damage, and an elemental Aura that deals damage to nearby enemies. Notably, this Aura gains boosts from Ordnance damage, so tie this in with any Ordnance build ideas you may have.

Unsealed - Trouble marks the target, causing them to take increased gun damage from Vex. With some other bonuses this is a great pick for those wanting to keep Vex the primary element, letting Trouble fulfill more of a supporting role.

Vexcalation

The Incarnate Tree is all about aggression. Kill the target before they kill you; load up on Lifesteal and damage your way to survival. With a host of kill skills, this is the tree you want in order to maximize your weapon's damage output. Incarnate drops the minions and piles everything into making Vex as strong as possible.

Notable Skills

• Guns and Needles - Kill an enemy to restore a chunk of Repkit cooldown.
• Fiendish Invigoration - Following the above, use a Repkit to gain increased movement speed and fire rate for yourself and your minions.
• Bloodletter - Gun and skill crits have a chance to apply bleed, causing kinetic status effect damage over time for a duration. This unique DoT stacks up to 20 times over, so it has a lot of potential with fast-firing weapons.
• Grave Power - All of Vex's Kill Skills gain up to 3 extra stacks.
• Target Prescience - Vex's Gun Damage gain Critical Hit Chance against any part of enemies.
• Mortal Terror - Chance to trigger Kill Skills when critically hitting enemies.

The last three skills have exciting synergy, and that only scratches the surface of what this skill tree has to offer. There's plenty of Splash damage and Skill damage to support the action skills.

Augments

If you want to build Vex out for gun damage look no further than Witchy Trigger Finger. Dealing damage with Eldritch Blast will reload our current weapon and increase our gun damage!

For those wanting an ability oriented option try Grave Harvest. Killing an enemy will spawn a Soul Orb that deals continuous damage to other targets. Vex can detonate one of these orbs to deal AoE burst damage. It's a great choice for a more ability damage based build.

Capstones

Desecration - Our Incarnate action skill now creates Hazards, areas of damage over time that harm enemies inside of them; great for area denial and crowd control. It also changes the Eldritch Blast projectile to homing, providing ease of use and consistency.

Vibe Check - Eldritch Blast now has three charges to use separately. Using all charges together causes Eldritch Blast to ricochet between enemies. It also doubles the cooldown reduction received when dealing gun damage. It pairs very well with Witchy Trigger Finger.

Heartpiercer - If you want you Eldritch blast to deal LOTS of damage, then look no further. Eldritch Blast no longer has a cooldown but drains Vex's HP instead. However, it also grants the ability to restore health back on hit. The damage is based on a percentage of your health, so prioritize your max HP stat to maximize your damage output.

The Fourth Seal

The Fourth Seal is based around the Dead Ringer Action skill. If you want to create an army to go forth and do your bidding, then this tree is for you. Scoop up as many minion boosts as you can, then send forth Spectres and Reapers to overwhelm your enemies.

Notable Skills

• Sanguine Fiends - Kill skill. Vex and her Minions regenerate health over time.
• Cursed Blade - Vex's Melee attacks apply Cursed to impacted enemies, making them take Kinetic Status damage whenever they take gun damage.
• Blood Sacrifice - Kill skills are triggered whenever a minion dies.
• Ghasterbait - Whenever Vex Dodges, she creates a Spectre nearby and becomes invisible for a short time.
• Haruspex - Melee Override. Vex now throws a Phase Dagger from her offhand that deals Melee damage.
• Diener - Dead Ringer gains an additional Charge.

Augments

Some of Dead Ringer's augments only affect one type of summon, so choose wisely based on which one you want to focus on.

Banshee's Wail - Reapers can now use Banshee's Wail, dealing damage to nearby enemies and granting overshield to nearby allies. This also debuffs the enemies' attacks, making them do less damage.

Ghast Blaster - Spectres gain the ability to use Ghast blast, dealing gun damage to all nearby enemies. This effect occurs on spawn, along with every time they reload.

Not all of the Dead Ringer's augments are specific to just one type, so don't worry if you're looking to mix and max.

Capstones

Heirloom - Provide a copy of Vex's currently equipped weapon for a short duration. Only one Spectre can have a copied gun at a time, and spawning a new Spectre will remove the copied gun from the previous Spectre. Find a great weapon? Share it among your minions for double the fun!

Grim Reaper - Spawn a Grim Reaper that drains the life out of enemies for health restoration. If an enemy dies while being drained this can spawn a new Grim Reaper.

Dark Pact - Vex can now equip two augments, and gain the ability to fully restore health to all active clones. This is the ultimate capstone for Dead Ringer clone uptime.

There are of course many more skills to choose between, so feel free to experiment and discover what works best for you. To see all of Vex's skills, try out our Build Planner!