Mordecai

Mordecai is the game's "Hunter." He relies on damage dealt with precise marksmanship and the use of falconry to defeat enemies and acquire loot.

Background
At the age of 17, Mordecai won an Interplanetary Sharpshooting competition with a pistol. The other competitors, who were using sniper rifles, accused him of cheating and eventually got him banned from the competition for "unsportsmanlike conduct," although many witnesses noted that he didn't display any unsportsmanlike behaviors until after the accusations began. He now travels from planet to planet with his trusty companion Bloodwing, searching for "everything this freaking universe owes me," which Mordecai has defined as a better gun and unlimited cash.

(Information taken from the Borderlands manual)

Gameplay
Mordecai's play style is that of a sharpshooter. He is well suited for ranged combat, being able to have improved accuracy and dealing the most damage with well placed critical hits. Based on how his skill points are distributed he is also able to do high damage with other guns, though most of his skills lead to a preference of sniper rifles and pistols. His melee weapon is a sword, which can also be a tool of great harm. All of these advantages come at the expense of his own durability under fire. Mordecai's active ability calls his bloodwing, a red-eyed alien bird that can be a very helpful companion along your search for the vault.

His three skill trees are Sniper, which increases his skills with sniper rifles as well as group experience bonuses and accuracy; Rogue, which mainly focuses on increasing the potency of his Bloodwing as well as gaining loot; and Gunslinger, which improves his usage of pistols, as well as his melee weapon. Playing Mordecai involves making extra use of shields and evasive maneuvers, more than any of the other classes. Fighting in close quarters and boss battles can be difficult, while many fights in open areas will be much easier.

Active Ability
Mordecai has a Bloodwing as a pet, which is a deadly winged predator that can be unleashed upon enemies to damage or kill them.

The Bloodwing can be commanded to attack enemies and can also be upgraded for increased damage and speed as you progress through the game. If you place your crosshairs over an enemy and the crosshairs turn red, then activate Bloodwing, it will attack the target you had in your sights. If you blind-fire Bloodwing, it will seek out the nearest target in the general direction you're looking in. Bloodwing's attack range is limited however, and more suitable to close combat conditions than for supporting long range sniping.

Bloodwing can also be equipped with artifacts to give him elemental damage bonuses.

Bloodwing bears the unique ability to be called back which allows him to be used again immediately if he hasn't attacked a target. Even a single attack forces you to wait for the full cooldown.

Bird of Prey isn't quite as useful as it could be. It would appear that the Bloodwing AI will never attack the same target twice in a row. It will only rarely attack the same target more than once even when multiple enemies are present. A useful tactic when using the Bird of Prey skill is when there are two enemies remaining, The Bloodwing will constantly attack the two enemies back and forth until it's reached its limit. This is especially useful when fighting Crimson Lance Engineers after they send out their scorpio turret.

Bloodwing Tips

 * 1) You can launch Bloodwing immediately before entering a vehicle and it will continue to follow until the skill timer expires. It will attack enemies you pass as Bird of Prey permits.
 * 2) Bloodwing doesn't handle obstacles such as big rocks very well, so put some thought into which direction you're facing when you launch it.
 * 3) Bloodwing can be recalled by pressing the action skill button while it's deployed, returning it to you before it's duration is over and interrupting it from attacking any additional targets with Bird of Prey. This can be extremely useful if you're running low on health and need the life from the Out For Blood skill.

Skill Tree Calculator
Check out the skill calculator at the official Borderlands site

Class Mods

 * See Article: Class Mods for more info.

Solo

 * Assassin Mods focus on the effectiveness of corrosion; increases corrosive elemental chance and damage as well as increases character resistance to corrosive damage.


 * Gunslinger Mods focus on the effectiveness of pistols; affects pistol fire rate, damage, ammo regeneration and accuracy.


 * Hunter Mods focus on the effectiveness of Bloodwing; affects Bloodwing's damage, cooldown, and number of item drops.


 * Sniper Mods focus on the effectiveness of sniper rifles, affects critical hit damage, sniper rifle damage, Bloodwing's cooldown via sniper shots, sniper accuracy and sniper ammo regeneration.


 * Truxican Wrestler Mods focus on the effectiveness of Melee Combat, affects Melee Damage and Maximum Health. It is a copy of the Berserker Mod of the Berserker. Introduced in the 3rd DLC.

Team

 * Ranger Mods focus on the effectiveness of Bloodwing and Accuracy. It does so by affecting accuracy, critical hit damage, and bloodwing's stats.


 * Scavenger Mods focus on the effectiveness of looting. It does so by affecting the amount of items you find, their rarity and your health return. It can also affect health regen.
 * Note: To explore the discussion of whether Scavenger +2 Team Find Rare Items affects chests visit +2 Team Find Rare Items Experiment


 * Survivor Mods focus on the effectiveness of team and personal survivability. It does so by affecting team health regeneration, items dropped by enemies and reload speeds. It can also affect team damage.

Quotes
When opening a chest:
 * "So, you want me to share huh?"
 * "I'll just take a gander here"
 * "Lady Luck, be kind."
 * "Satisfaction abounds."

When scoring a critical hit:
 * "Boom! Hehehehehehe..."
 * "What? You didn't like that?"
 * "Did that hurt?"
 * "Feel it!"

When scoring a kill on a Badass enemy:
 * "So big, so angry, so dead."
 * "Nothing like a challenging kill."
 * "I don't think he liked me."

Action skill kill:
 * "Good boy!"
 * "Someone's getting a treat."
 * "Get 'em Blood!"
 * "You like my pet, eh?"
 * "Give 'em hell, Bloodwing!"

When requesting a duel:
 * "You looking at Bloodwing? They lookin' at you, Blood?"
 * "C'mon, little girl. Make me laugh."

When leveling up:
 * "Another notch on my rifle."
 * "Can it be? I'm getting even BETTER at this!"

When spawning a vehicle:
 * "Let's get our feet out of the dust"
 * "We're going too slow."
 * "Time for a nice, relaxing drive"

Idle:
 * "Sure is great, standing here. I LOVE IT!"
 * "Now that you mention it, I DO love standing here doing NOTHING!!!"
 * "How long you gonna admire that dirt?"

When crippled:
 * "Augh! Why? WWHHHYYYYYYYYYYYY!? Erugh..."
 * "I NEVER DIE!"

Trivia
"troops will deploy today if all goes to plan. just met a man named mord-ee-kai. dude, eat something."
 * The name Mordecai may be a reference to a pet falcon named Mordecai (seeing as Mordecai has a bloodwing which is similar to a pet falcon) in the movie "The Royal Tenenbaums" By Wes Anderson.
 * A bug existed in the initial release of Borderlands that enabled the Hunter to spawn multiple Bloodwings at once. The glitch in action can be viewed here.
 * In the Secret Armory of General Knoxx, his wanted poster states his bounty is $1,000,000.00 for "Poaching and possesion of an endangered species", and in red text at the bottom, "and another million for that annoying bird"
 * Mordecai's name may also be a reference to Major Alfred Mordecai of the U.S. Ordnance Department dating from just before the Civil War. Major Mordecai's procurement research and decisions were a major contributing factor to US military philosophy emphasizing superior marksmanship instead of overwhelming firepower.
 * Mordecai is compared to a Truxican Wrestler at the start of the game when Marcus says, "You in the leather! What's your story? You look like a Truxican Wrestler moon-lighting as a dominatrix!" "Truxican Wrestler" appears to be be a play on the words, "Mexican wrestler," as Mexican wrestlers wear matching masks and suits, not too dissimilar to Mordecai's. The name also appears on a melee orientated class mod.
 * General Knoxx makes a comment on Mordecai on his twitter account.