Takedown at the Guardian Breach is an optional mission in Borderlands 3, added as part of the free Takedown at the Guardian Breach DLC.
Background[]
- "Blast your way across the shattered remnants of Minos Prime and wreak vengeance on the Guardian known as The Martyr."
Walkthrough[]
Objectives[]
- Enter the breach
- Locate guardian signal
- Activate crystals
- Charge crystals before detonation (2)
- Fight toward temple
- Defeat Guardians
- Activate Crystals
- Charge crystals before detonation (3)
- Fight through temple
- Activate Crystals
- Charge crystals before detonation (3)
- Fight toward Guardian signal
- Kill Anathema the Relentless
- Reach Guardian signal
- Kill Scourge the Invincible Martyr
Strategy[]
First Half[]
Much of the design of this Takedown shares similarity with its predecessor. As such, it is worth noting that should the Vault Hunter die at any point before reaching the checkpoint, all of the enemies will respawn. Unlike other locations in the game, all of the mission progress is functionally erased upon defeat and has to start over from the beginning hallway. After pulling one of the two switches to begin the Takedown, the temple door will lower, leading to a drop into the first room. The first room begins with fighting numerous animals typical on Nekrotafeyo. Following their defeat, the Vault Hunter will be told by Tannis about the two crystals near the door. Standing near one will charge the crystal, however if one is left alone, the charge on it will slowly drain. Should a crystal be fully charged, it will not lose any charge and become shielded, however should a crystal be fully drained, the Vault Hunter is immediately defeated (no Crippled timer), and immediately the Takedown will be failed back to the start. The two crystals near the first door are not guarded and are the simplest of the three sets as they function as a tutorial.
The second room starts with a large chasm. The Vault Hunter must use a series of air jets to launch across to small platforms, then use the low gravity on Minos Prime to jump from some floating wreckage to a platform that uses an air jet. Said air jet will drop the Vault Hunter in front of another temple door with three partially charged crystals that are shielded. The Vault Hunter will now face off against the three main types of Guardians from Nekrotafeyo and Promethea in addition to a new type of Guardian called a Schismatic Diadem which cannot take damage anywhere but the glowing orb above its head. If destroyed before it can manually detonate, the Diodem will destroy the nearby Guardians.
Upon defeating the Guardians and activating the crystals, the Vault Hunter must now charge three crystals spread closely nearby. The crystals cannot be charged if Guardians step on the place near them, regardless of if the Vault Hunter is nearby or not, and the Guardians do not stop spawning until all three crystals are fully charged. As the Guardians will repeatedly attack to try and stop the Vault Hunter, effort should be focused on spreading the charge between the three. Neglecting one crystal for too long will result in immediate death as before, and with the Guardians constantly marching towards the Vault Hunter or guarding the charge plates, constant effort must be made to kill the Guardians at all times. Once a crystal is charged, focus can be placed squarely on the remaining crystals. It is important to note that the crystals do not lose more charge because of Guardian's nearby, but cannot be charged until all Guardians are off the charge plate.
Following the completion of this task, all of the Guardians will be immediately defeated and the temple door will open. Several more waves of Guardians will block the Vault Hunter until they reach a large open room with a single structure with an opening. The structure is too large to jump into from below, however until all of the enemies on the upper platform are killed, the Vault Hunter will have no way to reach the hole in the structure from above. Additionally, should the Vault Hunter fall down to the main floor at any time, numerous Guardians will spawn that must be defeated to activate an air jet. Once the Guardians on the upper platform are defeated, the Vault Hunter will be able to use a series of floating platforms which regularly teleport in and out of visibility. Even when invisible, they can still be used, so one must jump across all three as they move, avoiding or surviving hits by the Sera and keeping themselves from falling back to the floor and being forced to try again.
Once done, the Vault Hunter will end up on a slide. Timing a jump to a small platform, the Vault Hunter can use the ammo and health vendors before the next area, otherwise the Vault Hunter must follow the slide down to continue. It will empty out into a large room with a platform in the middle of four smaller elevated platforms, and landing here will start the fight against Anathema the Relentless.
Anathema the Relentless[]
Anathema the Relentless has movements somewhat similar to a Spectre. He will frequently charge the player, attack with melee swipes, and violently charge forward. In addition to the this, his most dangerous move which can knock the Vault Hunter off the stage is where he raises his hands and causes numerous explosions on the floor that shoot up into flaming pillars. The Vault Hunter can use the four air jets to launch to any of the four platforms, and can use the three jets on any platform to either return to the center platform, or jump to a new adjacent platform. Be aware that Anathema can teleport, chasing the Vault Hunter to the platforms, so using them as vantage points is only effective if the Vault Hunter is certain Anathema will be knocked down almost immediately.
Anathema has three health bars, two armored and one shield, making him weak to Corrosive damage for the first two bars and Shock damage for the final one. Additionally, he has three phases marked by these shields. While his attacks within the phases do not change, the use of the Radiation Explosions do become more dangerous per phase. Whenever he loses 1/4 of a health bar, he will become immune to damage and begin charging a large sphere that will grow significantly in size. While the Vault Hunter is inside, they will take continuous radiation damage, however once the sphere glows, the Vault Hunter must be outside the sphere or else the resulting explosion will immediately cripple them. The best way to do this is to knock out 1/4 of a health bar, then immediately use the air jet nearby to leap to a new platform.
During phase 2, Anathema will switch things up, changing his strategy to using two of these explosions. One will be typically where he dropped, while the second will often be towards the platform that the Vault Hunter is closest to. It is fairly easy to be accidentally caught in the sphere by panicking, but the best strategy is to stand near an air jet, then immediately rush to the next closest air jet and leap to safety. If this doesn't seem to be an option, the Vault Hunter must carefully time their jump towards the center platform to avoid the explosion both in front of and behind them, leaping into one moments after it explodes and before the other does. This becomes much harder during the final phase, where Anathema will be charging up to four of these explosions, often leaving only one platform safe. The platform that is safe will often be too far to reach if it wasn't the initial landing point, so the timing method is the safest option for any other outcome. The central explosion often will go off several seconds before any of the ancillary platforms explosions, so care must be taken to time it properly and not panic. Jumping into an explosion midway can result in falling off the platform due to lack of momentum as well, which results in an immediate defeat. Anathema will only do this for 3/4 of his final shield bar. The final 1/4 will not have him do another as he dies as soon as it empties.
Second Half[]
Using the nearby portal, the Vault Hunter will arrive to their first checkpoint and some more ammo and health vendors. Stepping through the next door, the Vault Hunter must fight more Nekrotafeyo creatures. As the Vault Hunter reaches a dead end and defeats the final wave of creatures, some more of the disappearing platforms will appear, albeit stationary this time. Jumping across them to another air jet will have the Vault Hunter reach a new set of three crystals. The rules of these crystals are the same although thankfully a defeat by a failed charge on a crystal this time will just result in going back to the checkpoint. This time, the crystals are on three separate platforms that can be reached only by air jets between them. Each crystal therefore has its own dedicated set of Guardians that will constantly spawn, and the Vault Hunter must take into account travel time between air jets and running while watching their charges from afar.
Finishing these crystals will allow the Vault Hunter to enter the next temple, and fight more waves of Guardians. Defeating them reveals more platforms, however every fight inside of the temple is atop broken walkways with huge holes in them, so extreme care must be taken both to watching Guardian attacks as to not be blown off the platforms and die, and to not accidentally walk off the platforms due to inattention. Once the final sets of platforms are crossed, the Vault Hunter comes face-to-face with Scourge the Invincible Martyr.
Scourge the Invincible Martyr[]
Scourge has a similar phase setup to Anathema, in that his attacks do not evolve during the fight, but rather he causes a series of explosions during the battle at 1/4 health lost. Similarly, like Anathema, he has two armored health bars and one shock bar, making the same effective weapon setup for Anathema work against Scourge as well. Unlike Anathema, Scourge's battle arena does not contain any open pits, however it still does have destructible terrain that can be used for shelter between explosions.
Scourge is incredibly large, and highly mobile. He will be constantly chasing the Vault Hunter, only stopping to launch attacks. In addition to standard melee attacks, Scourge also uses a whip to try and hit the player with three possible attacks.
- If he swings the whip at the ground, he'll send 1-3 shock-waves that home into the Vault Hunter. Jumping over them can dodge them.
- If he swings his whip horizontally, he will launch numerous crystal-like projectiles in a large fan arc. Dodging between them or being above or below them is the only way to guarantee safety.
- If he swings his whip at the Vault Hunter, he'll grapple the Vault Hunter much like how a Spiderant King does, pulling the Vault Hunter straight to him. If the Vault Hunter immediately starts running behind him, he will often miss whatever follow-up attack he was aiming for.
Scourge's attack pool is somewhat shallow, but he makes up for it with ever re-spawning mobs that will hound the Vault Hunter. Additionally, he can hold up a large shield, reflecting any projectiles fired at him back (he is only vulnerable in his lower-legs and feet).
Whenever Scourge loses 1/4 of his HP bar, he will enter an invincibility phase and charge up a large explosion in his hands. The orb will charge for roughly twenty seconds, and in that time the Vault Hunter must take cover behind one of the pillars, or detonate a Schismatic Diadem near Scourge which will disrupt the charge up phase and continue the fight as normal, otherwise the Vault Hunter will be immediately crippled by the explosion, the explosion is indiscriminate and destroys all the enemies caught within the blast as well, making it difficult to gain a Second Wind. The Guardians around the arena will not make it easy, attacking the Vault Hunter while they hide. The Guardians are also immune to the explosion themselves.
Once a health bar is fully depleted, Scourge will open a portal and throw the Vault Hunter into an open-air arena. Scourge is not in the arena, nor is he visible and able to be shot. Instead, the Vault Hunter must defeat all of the spawning enemies around him/her until a new portal appears. Once the portal appears, the Vault Hunter must rush inside, being teleported back to the boss arena with Scourge waiting. During this entire process, Scourge will be slowly healing. Regardless of health recovered, he will not do any explosions for the recovered health bar like normally would. To stop Scourge and have the fight continue, the Vault Hunter must use the air jet near him, mantle up to the crystal healing him, and then use the Eridian Resonator to smash the crystal. Once done, jumping back to the center of the arena will continue the fight proper. Scourge will do this one more time once his second health bar empties, this time the arena will be a set of floating platforms from which the first arena is visible. The enemies this time will mostly be Guardians, but care must be taken to not fall or be knocked off to an instant death. Once again, once they are defeated, a portal will appear on the platforms, and the Vault Hunter will have to smash the other crystal.
Once Scourge is defeated, the remaining enemies will immediately be destroyed, a new portal will appear that links the one-way Fast Travel station to the main arena (for anyone who got knocked out during/before the fight), and the Takedown will be over.
Completion[]
Notes[]
- If the mission is completed, simply fast traveling to another location and back to Minos Prime will reset the mission for another playthrough.
- Only two checkpoints exist in the entire area; one is located at the start at the Answered Summons, while the other is available midway after Coward's Binding after defeating Anathema the Relentless.
- Should the Vault Hunter be killed while other Vault Hunters are still alive during the mission, they will be forced to spectate until the team reaches a checkpoint. Alternatively, if all of the Vault Hunters in the game are killed, they will be forced back to the last checkpoint.
- If a Vault Hunter is spectating while fighting Scourge the Invincible Martyr, they will respawn next to the one-way fast travel station at the Court of Offering. Should Scourge be successfully eliminated, Vault Hunter's can use the nearby teleport to reach the main room and grab the loot.
- With the crystals, the enemy portals that spawn Guardians do not all open right away, instead they systematically open whenever a crystal's charge-plate is touched.
- If Anathema causes a radiation explosion while Moze is in Iron Bear, Iron Bear will be destroyed and Moze will be crippled, however for some unknown reason she will suffer absolutely no penalties to movement or aiming regardless of Guardian Rank and subsequent perks or equipment.
- There exist skips that allow players to skip the crystal sections entirely by abusing the geometry of the stage. If done, however, the bosses will not spawn. Since the Vault Hunter will typically end up on the other side of a door with no way to get back; death, fast travel, or quitting and saving are the only options available to retry the Takedown and do it correctly.