Anarchy (Gaige)

This article is about the Anarchy skill in Borderlands 2. For other uses, see Anarchy.

Anarchy
Character	Gaige
Type	Gamechanger (Stacking Boost)
Tier	1
Maximum Points	1
Skill Tree	Ordered Chaos
Minimum Level	6
Effect	Killing an enemy or fully emptying your gun's Magazine while in combat grants you a stack of 'Anarchy'. For every stack of Anarchy you have, you gain bonus Gun Damage, but your Accuracy is decreased. Prematurely reloading your gun removes all stacks of Anarchy. Anarchy stacks are quickly lost while in "Fight For Your Life".
Game	Borderlands 2

Anarchy is a tier 1 skill in Gaige's Ordered Chaos skill tree. With it, Gaige improves her damage but lowers her accuracy each time she kills an opponent or completely empties and reloads a magazine with her weapon.

Effects

Anarchy only has one skill point; with it, Gaige gains an Anarchy stack whenever she kills an enemy or fires every bullet from a weapon's magazine. Each Anarchy stack adds 1.75% to her gun damage but lowers her accuracy by 1.75% in exchange. Anarchy does not wear off by itself and continues to add stacks with each subsequent kill or emptied magazine. Deathtrap kills do not grant Anarchy stacks. Rational Anarchist and Typecast Iconoclast may cause more than one stack to be gained at once.

If Gaige reloads before the magazine is completely empty, she will either trigger Discord if she has it or lose all of her Anarchy stacks. She will also begin to lose Anarchy at a rate of roughly five stacks per second while Crippled, but getting a Second Wind will stop the loss of Anarchy stacks. Dying (in most cases), exiting the game or resetting skill points will remove all Anarchy stacks. Anarchy stacks are also consumed by Death From Above and With Claws.

Anarchy stacks have a default maximum of 150, giving her a maximum potential benefit of +262.5% gun damage at a cost of -262.5% accuracy. Fully investing in Preshrunk Cyberpunk extends the limit to 400 stacks, increasing the benefit of up to +700% gun damage and -700% accuracy. Using the Slayer of Terramorphous class mod allows for up to 600 stacks with +1050% gun damage and -1050% accuracy.

Strategy

The success of an Anarchy build is greatly determined by the weapons used with it to maximize the gain of Anarchy stacks from reloading. When choosing gear, weapons with high fire-rate, fast reload speed and small magazine sizes should be prioritized. Weapons with a high fire rate but medium-large magazines like Vladof assault rifles or most SMGs are bad choices to gain Anarchy stacks as the unmanageable ammo consumption they require to gain Anarchy stacks and time to empty the magazine, but can be used efficiently once the stack cap has been reached.

Weapons that work well with Anarchy include:

• A Jakobs shotgun with only one shot per reload can gain stacks quickly while dealing moderate damage.
• The homing projectiles of the Seeker, Wanderlust and Darts can mitigate the accuracy penalty.
• The Hot Mama does not suffer from the accuracy penalty when zoomed in.

The other pillar of Anarchy builds are the skills used in conjunction with it. Close Enough should be fully invested in as the bullets reflected by it will have perfect accuracy while Anarchy compensates for the damage reduction of a ricochet. Smaller, Lighter, Faster and Typecast Iconoclast provide a faster accumulation of stacks while Rational Anarchist jumpstarts the accumulation of stacks.

Tactical use of Deathtrap is more important with many Anarchy stacks as it can be used to distract distant enemies and allow more time to reach an effective range.

To prevent the loss of stacks to premature reloading, bringing up the character menu, performing a melee attack or swapping weapons will interrupt the reload. To reload the weapon without losing Anarchy stacks, either unequip and re-equip the weapon via the inventory screen, simply empty the magazine, or drop and pick up the weapon. Discord also replaces the reload penalty with a buff that can be deactivated with another premature reload.

Notes

• Anarchy only affects gun damage; bonuses from Amp Shields are not multiplied.
• The Torgue bonus explosive damage is affected by bonuses to gun damage, including Anarchy. Bonus explosive damage is, however, not reduced when ricocheted with Close Enough.
• Prematurely reloading a Tediore weapon makes Gaige lose her stacks/toggles Discord, even though the ammo is expended in the process.
• With a high number of Anarchy stacks, accuracy will be close to non-existent, and the spread of the weapon will spray far outside the limits of the crosshairs. With a very large number of stacks (around 550 or more) and a low-accuracy weapon, the weapon crosshair becomes extremely small. However, weapon accuracy does not improve.
• In co-operative play, having a Gunzerker with an ammo-regenerating class mod is an asset as Anarchy tends to cause high ammo consumption.
• In order for a reload to count towards a stack, damage must have been dealt. This includes grenades, melee, and elemental effects to an enemy or object a few seconds before the reload. Objects include anything that can be destroyed, such as explosive barrels, skag piles, or necrophages.
  • Anarchy stacks can be 'farmed' by reloading the weapon while attacking the practice target found in the Marcus Munitions gun range. Stacks can also be gained by emptying weapon magazines on destructible objects. However, both are of questionable benefit as stacks may be gained faster by killing enemies in combat.
  • The destructible dirt in the Minecraft easter egg section of the Caustic Caverns can also be used to farm Anarchy stacks, as the game sees shooting them as dealing damage, even though the dirt blocks are not destroyed in the process.
• If Gaige falls off the map and the camera switches to a third-person view, the stacks will be reset. The stacks will be retained if Gaige does not ragdoll and the game only shows the New-U transition (for instance, being crushed by a vehicle).
• Weapons with a slow reload speed may not give a stack of Anarchy when reloaded, even if the last shot fired hits an enemy or destructible object. Conversely, weapons with a fast reload speed and small magazine size can generate stacks several times before damage needs to be dealt again (up to 5 times with a single-shot shotgun).
• In Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, dying from failed puzzles and traps does not typically result in the loss of Anarchy stacks.

Trivia

• Gaige has a set of dialogue for when she gets a stack of Anarchy. Each stack gain has a chance to play a line, but it seems to happen more often when gaining a stack from reloading. All of the known voice lines can be found here.
• The more stacks Gaige has, the more insane and louder she gets. This is evident by her dialogue, going from "normal" to "excited" to "god-complex". Some dialogue lines can only be heard with an extremely large number of stacks.
• Taking this skill adds two large curved blades that protrude from either side of Deathtrap's neck.