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.

Weapon Type & Proficiency
The different types of weapons are:
 * Pistols (comprising both Repeater pistols and Revolvers)
 * Submachine guns
 * Shotguns
 * Combat rifles
 * Sniper rifles
 * Rocket launchers
 * Eridian guns

Specific Weapon Proficiencies apply to each weapon type and are displayed on the character screen. They boost a character's skill with the individual weapon types and can increase to a maximum level of 50 for each weapon type. Gains to the proficiency of the equipped weapon are made when experience is gained from killing enemies, and such gains happen regardless of whether the kill was made by the shooter, or an alternative source.

Item Card
Inspecting a weapon on the ground or in inventory evokes the weapon's item card. The item card displays the name of the weapon, color coded by its rarity; its damage, accuracy, and rate of fire attributes; the maximum capacity of its magazine; the level of elemental tech, if any; the monetary value of the weapon, if resold at a vending machine; and up to five lines of additional information, including elemental effects, stat modifiers significant to the weapon, and weapon zoom.

Note that any weapon statistics displayed on an item card already take into account any bonuses listed on that card. A weapon with an item card that shows Damage 751 and +53% Damage has a damage stat of 751, not 1149.

Flavor Text
Flavor text is red text found on unique or legendary weapons' item cards, just above any stat modifiers. Usually cryptic or humorous, these lines usually give a hint of what a weapon's special ability does, and are often a reference to a video game, movie, or any number of non-game things.

See Special Weapon Effects for a comprehensive list of weapon effects.

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. The rarity of each gun is indicated by color as stated on the page of each gun.

There are eight confirmed rarity levels. 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 =, rarity = 50-60. (Not a category)
 * Level 6 =, rarity = 61-65.
 * Level 7 =, rarity = 66-100. (Not a category)
 * Level 8 =, 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 =, rarity = 191-200. For elemental artifacts.
 * Level 14 = 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, synergy between parts (e.g. Carnage Shotguns with elemental effects can be much deadlier than either mod alone on a shotgun) 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 "chance to cause elemental effect," "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, such as a splash damage effect on multiple enemies.

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


 * is effective against enemies with direct flesh (no shields) and will cause an enemy to burn for a length of time. There is a chance the fire will spread to nearby opponents.


 * is effective against shields. It will deplete them more readily but is less effective against flesh and natural armor, such as chitinous plating, than a normal weapon of the same type. It also has a chance of briefly stunning a enemy.


 * 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.


 * is effective against armored enemies, slowly draining health and making them weaker to other attacks as the ongoing damage progresses. There is a chance that the acid will spread to nearby opponents.

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 lightning 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 liquefies 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.


 * Atlas - Above-average balanced attributes.
 * Dahl - High recoil reduction.
 * Eridians - Energy-based alien weapons, with no reload, only a recharge time (giving them infinite ammo).
 * Hyperion - Highest accuracy, good recoil reduction, marginally increased damage.
 * Jakobs - Highest damage, lowest rate of fire, heavy recoil, non-elemental.
 * Maliwan - Elemental weapons only, highest tech.
 * S&S Munitions - Highest magazine capacity, high tech.
 * Tediore - Fastest reload speed, mediocre overall stats, ammo regeneration.
 * Torgue - High damage, decreased accuracy and heavy recoil.
 * Vladof - Highest rate of fire.
 * Gearbox - Balanced attributes, acquirable only through certain missions.

The various manufacturers offer weapons in different Material Grades. These change the appearance of the weapon, as well as further modifying the weapon's attributes, with higher grades offering stronger attribute augmentation. They also affect each manufacturer's weapon naming scheme.

Weapon Components


This illustration of a hypothetical combat rifle identifies the different components that go into assembling a single weapon.


 * Stock: Provides stability and accuracy. Smaller stocks and stockless weapons achieve faster reloads and equip speed in exchange for less stability.
 * Body: Affects the weapon's firing rate and damage rating.
 * Barrel: Affects the weapon damage ratings and accuracy.
 * Magazine: Affects ammunition capacity, reload speed, and equip speed. The smallest magazines increase damage.
 * Scope: Affects field of view when zoomed, with the degree dependent on the quality of the scope.
 * Accessory: Provides a diverse range of benefits including elemental effects, damage modifiers, and stability bonuses.
 * Grip: Represents the Manufacturer, with no further effects on the weapon. (As a notable exception, the Atlas Patton derives its increased damage from its proprietary grip.)

Weapon 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 List
Due to the number of possible different weapons that the game can generate, this Wiki does not contain a page for every variant. It instead lists groups of similar weapons by their Title.

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

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 killed 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.

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.

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.