Weapons

According to Gearbox, there are over 17,750,000 different variations of weapons, as of release. The game uses a procedural process to generate its various guns in certain classes, such as handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and more, but with many variations of firing speed, reload speed, damage type and more.

Thankfully, there is an easy way to determine the basics of a weapon without having to pick it up and open an inventory screen. When you approach a weapon on the ground, a small holographic window appears above it that displays information such as weapon type (shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, etc.), damage type (static, incendiary, caustic, etc.), monetary value, as well as the weapon's rarity using a color coding system.

If a human enemy is carrying a special weapon that they drop upon their death, they will wield it against the player. Otherwise they use a default weapon for their enemy type.

Weapon Type & Proficiency
The different types of weapons are:
 * Alien Rifles.
 * Combat Rifles
 * Pistols
 * Revolvers
 * Rocket Launchers
 * Shotguns
 * Sniper Rifles
 * Sub-Machine Guns

Specific Weapon Proficiencies apply to each and are displayed on your character screen. These boost player skill with the different weapon types and are increased up to a level of 50 whenever a certain number of kills are made with that weapon type, ie. the more you kill with a type of weapon the better you become with it.

Flavor Text
Found in the stat boxes of guns where it says the guns special upgrades (i.e. magazine size +2) are sometimes cryptic or humorous messages in red text. These lines usually indicate a certain effect on the gun. The text itself often gives a hint of what that special ability does, and is also often a reference to a video game, movie, or any number of things. A list of all known Special Weapon Effects is available on that page.

Rarity


Borderlands uses a classification system for gear that follows the standard color-coding system for RPGs. A common gun would be average, an uncommon  would be slightly above average, a rare  would be a premium gun, an epic  would be a very strong gun, and legendary  guns are second only to pearlescent. The rarity of each gun is indicated by color as stated on the page of each gun. (See Category:Weapons)

There are eight confirmed rarity levels. (Do note that weapons listed in the inventory screen might have a darker text color than what is shown in the weapon box when that weapon is selected, so it would help to compare, say, across all your orange rarity weapons to check for differences in color.)


 * Level 1 =, rarity = 0-4.
 * Level 2 =, rarity = 5-10.
 * Level 3 =, rarity = 11-15.
 * Level 4 =, rarity = 16-49.
 * Level 5 = Light Orange, rarity = 50-60. (Not a category)
 * Level 6 =, rarity = 61-65.
 * Level 7 =, rarity = 66-100. (Not a category)
 * Level 8 = Pearlescent, rarity = 101+

Further rarity levels are present in-game, but are not assigned to weapons.


 * Level 9 =, rarity = 170. For Backpack SDUs.
 * Level 10 =, rarity = 171. For health pickups, such as Insta-Health Vials and Healing Kits.
 * Level 11 =, rarity = 180-181. For cash bundles.
 * Level 12 =, rarity = 182-190. For cash bobbleheads.
 * Level 13 = Cyan, rarity = 500. For supply drops in the Underdome coliseums.

Despite the rarity of a weapon generally summing up how powerful it is, it is also possible to find that some guns are exceptions to the color code. This is because the rarity values assigned to a gun's parts do not correspond to how much damage they can do, nor can the weapon generator account for the gun's actual performance or a human player's preferences.

Elemental Effects
The elemental effects include incendiary, shock, explosive, and corrosive. The damage of the elemental effect is a multiplier indicated by the elemental plaque and a "xN" in the weapon description, where N is a number from 1 to 4. The chance an elemental effect will occur depends on the difference between the level of the character and the level of the enemy. On all Maliwan weapons, a weapon description will include text reading "high elemental effect chance", "higher elemental effect chance" or "very high elemental effect chance", which implies that the gun has a greater than normal chance of causing its elemental effect, depending on the material quality of the weapon. Elemental attacks are added to the base damage of the weapon used and can have secondary benefits.

Each element has a specific benefit to use against differing enemies:


 * has a benefit against fleshy enemies and causes the enemy to burn for a length of time.


 * has a benefit against shields. It depletes them more readily but is less effective against flesh and natural armor, such as chitinous plating, than a normal weapon of the same type.


 * weapons have a chance for the round to explode in enemies, dealing much more damage and leading to an incredibly messy death on a critical hit.


 * has a benefit against armored enemies, slowly draining health and making them weaker to other attacks as the ongoing damage progresses.

Each element also has its own specific death animation, most of which leave no trace of the target behind:


 * slowly incinerates the enemy. Human victims will scream whilst being incinerated.


 * makes lighting arc up and down a target's body, eventually leading to their head exploding.


 * yields a loud bang and reduces the victim to giblets.


 * rapidly liquifies a target and the victim will scream throughout the process.

Manufacturer
There are eleven official weapons manufacturers in Borderlands, each of which will usually produce weapons that incorporate specific attributes associated with their respective brands. An in-game means of learning these different attributes is to listen to Marcus Kincaid's vending machine sales pitches. These offer a comprehensive commentary on the manufacturers and their attributes.

List of Weapon Manufacturers:


 * Atlas - Above-average balanced attributes
 * Dahl - High recoil reduction
 * Eridians - Energy-based alien weapons
 * Hyperion - Highest accuracy, good recoil reduction, marginally increased damage
 * Jakobs - Highest damage, low rate of fire, heavy recoil, non-elemental
 * Maliwan - Elemental weapons, lower base damage,
 * S&S Munitions - Largest magazine capacity, slower reload speeds
 * Tediore - Fastest reload speed, mediocre stats, regeneration
 * Torgue - Balanced attributes, good damage, decreased accuracy and heavy recoil
 * Vladof - Highest rates of fire, lower accuracy
 * Gearbox - Special, most rare by far


 * See Material Grade for details on the naming schemes of manufacturers

Guaranteed Weapons
These weapons and modifications have a 100% chance to be dropped by a specific enemy, or be contained in a specific location.

Weaponry List
Please see the Weapons category page to see all weapons added to the wiki thus far.


 * Note that due to the sheer amount of guns (Around 17.5 million) it is EXTREMELY unlikely that this Wiki will ever contain pages on every single firearm/firearm variant in the game. Indeed, it's probable that there may even be weapons that nobody in the entire world will ever find. Instead this Wiki lists groups of similar guns by their Title, the last word(s) in the weapon name.

Weaponry Names
Following the game's random weapon generation AI, a system formulates each weapon's model number and name according to its type, manufacturer and capabilities.

Weapon Components


This illustration of a combat rifle identifies the different components that go into assembling a single weapon. Each manufacturer has a number of proprietary options for its components (Excluding "Shoulder" and "Trigger").


 * Stock: Higher quality stocks provide more stability and accuracy. Smaller stocks and stockless weapons achieve faster reloads and equip speed.


 * Body: Affects the weapon's firing rate and damage rating.


 * Barrel: The type of Barrel used affects the weapon damage ratings and accuracy.


 * Magazine: Better magazines yield increases in magazine size, reload speed, and equip speed. The smallest magazines increase damage.


 * Scope: A scoped weapon offers various degrees of zoom, dependent on the quality of the scope.


 * Materials: Higher quality materials yield different looks and stronger manufacturer bonuses.
 * Accessory: Provide a range of benefits from Elemental Effects (acid, fire, electrical) to damage and stability bonuses, and much, much more.
 * Grip:  Unlike the other components of a weapon, the Grip does not provide any changes to weapon stats, value, or rarity, the Grip is a visual representation of the Manufacturer that produces the weapon class – they do not use more than one Grip type on the same class of weapon. The one notable exception is the Atlas Patton which derives it's increased damage from the Atlas Patton grip.

Mechanic's Notes

 * The illustration showing the components is that of a Torgue Machine Gun, based on the fact that each component is the fourth type of the five variations of weapon components. The Machine Guns built by Torgue use Grip4, as an Assault Rifle, this weapon would be built by Dahl.
 * This combination of [Component]4 would produce a higher-level Machine Gun in-game, offering a balance of high firepower, accuracy, and zoom, with a moderately sized magazine and Rate of Fire.


 * Machine Guns do not have Sight3, 4, or 5, despite the illustration showing this weapon with Sight4.

Ammunition
Most weapons in the game require ammunition (or ammo for short). The exceptions are Eridian weapons, which rely on an alien power source which will slowly recharge, and certain rare exceptions such as The Dove, and some other Dark-Orange rarity-leveled weapons. Ammunition can be acquired in several ways throughout the game; ammo can be purchased from Ammo Vendors, dropped by skilled enemies, concealed in lootable objects, or it may be regenerated by a class mod, skill, or special weapon effect.

Types of ammunition:
 * Combat Rifle Ammo
 * Repeater Pistol Ammo
 * Revolver Ammo
 * Launcher Ammo
 * Shotgun Shells
 * SMG Ammo
 * Sniper Rifle Ammo

A character is able to carry a specific amount of each type of ammunition. At the start of the game, a character is only able to pick up ammunition of a particular type after they have acquired a weapon of that class. As the game progresses, and characters increase in level, they will be able to purchase ammunition Ammunition SDUs from the Ammunition Vending Machines.

Damage Per Second (DPS)
Damage Per Second, or DPS, is a commonly used way to compare the effectiveness between skills, weapons, or other damage-dealing methods in various games. It is also used to refer to how much DPS may be taken constantly without eventual death (mostly non-applicable to Borderlands). Although reload times are not visible to the player, an estimate can be made on the effective DPS provided by weaponry of the same type.

To find the approximate DPS a weapon provides, or at the least a relative scale of effectiveness, the Damage value of a weapon should be multiplied by the Rate of Fire (Damage x Rate of Fire). This gives a basis for comparison, but elemental effects complicate the equation.

For the sake of simplicity, we will assume that all elemental effects deal the same damage, and scale according to the 'x' number given (note: this is likely to be highly inaccurate):
 * x1 modifier - 1.25 damage multiplier
 * x2 modifier - 1.50 damage multiplier
 * x3 modifier - 1.75 damage multiplier
 * x4 modifier - 2.00 damage multiplier

Let's look at an example.

In the image on the right we have an Assault Rifle that deals 56 Damage with a 8.8 Rate of Fire, plus a x4 Incendiary elemental effect.

Using the method above; 56 x 8.8 = 492.8 DPS.

Add in the elemental effect; 492.8 x 2.00 = 985.6 DPS.

Although likely inaccurate, we now have an idea of the relative effectiveness of the weapon, which can be used to compare it to other weaponry more easily.

Another formula could be expressed as:


 * ((Damage)*(Accuracy/100))+(((Damage*(Magazine-1))/(((Magazine-1)/Fire Rate)+Reload)*((Accuracy-Recoil)/100)))

Reload is 2 unless altered in the stat block by a percentage.

Recoil is 10 unless altered in the stat block by a percentage (which the weapon on the right is).

The weapon seen on the right would look like this:


 * ((56)*(93.9/100))+(((56*(124-1))/(((124-1)/8.8)+2)*((93.9-6.9)/100)))

The answer is DPS=414+(x4 Incendiary)

This formula does not take elements into account and is only meant to compare one weapon to another.

Weapon Damage Multipliers
The base damage of a weapon is the amount of damage the target should take on each successful hit. Some weapons' item card Damage stat will show the base damage and a multiplier, represented by flashing yellow multiplier text (such as "x7") alternating with the damage number. If a multiplier is present, the weapon will fire the number of projectiles given by the modifier for each trigger squeeze. Take note that in some cases, certain features of the weapon will lead to the consumption of more than one unit of ammunition expended per shot fired.

The most common type of weapon to show damage multiplier stats are Shotguns, firing several pellets per shot (the number of pellets varies according to Shotgun type). Other weapon types can have a damage modifier, but in such cases these are special features rather than a typical feature of the weapon.

Comparing a single-shot Rocket Launcher to a Helix Rocket Launcher:
 * A normal Rocket Launcher with 500 damage and a 3 round magazine. With every pull of the trigger, 1 rocket is fired and will do 500 damage to its target and 1 round of Launcher ammo will be used, its potential damage per magazine adds up to 1,500.
 * A Helix Rocket Launcher with 200 damage with a x3 modifier, and a 3 round magazine. With every pull of the trigger, 3 micro-rockets will fire at the target in a spiraling pattern doing 200 damage per micro-rocket if the target is hit and 1 round of Launcher ammo will be used, its potential damage per magazine adds up to 1,800.