Do you want to play Harlowe in Borderlands 4? Here is an interesting build to get into the game with a lot of damage.
Harlowe is the “Gravitar”. She is a technician with a Maliwan background, and that makes her enemies feel it too.
With her various gadgets, Harlowe is quite versatile when it comes to dealing damage. Like the other Vault Hunters, she also has three skill trees and action skills that you can upgrade.
However, it can be quite overwhelming at the beginning. In which direction should you skill Harlowe? YouTuber Moxsy has an answer: The content creator was able to invest 150 hours in Borderlands 4 before the game’s release and tried out various builds.
In doing so, he also found one for Harlowe that is well suited for the start of the game. We will briefly summarize it for you here.
Harlowe build with high damage to quickly eliminate many enemies
Moxsy focuses on the CHROMA accelerator from the “Creative Boosts” skill tree. This ability fires an “unstable energy orb” that distributes cryo damage to nearby enemies. Upon pressing a button, the orb then explodes and deals heavy radiation damage.
This ability is what the content creator relies on and also structures his skill tree to deal a lot of radiation and cryo damage with the Chroma accelerator. Additionally, the build leverages Harlowe’s “Entanglement” ability. If she hits enemies with the action skill, they become “entangled” and share damage with other entangled enemies. This way, you can quickly take down many foes.
You can watch Moxsy’s video here. We summarize the skill distribution for you below. In the video, you will also see weapons, specializations, and gear that match the build.
The build aims to deal a lot of damage. The first 27 levels look as follows:
- The first 5 points go into the passive skill “Operational Prototype.” This increases action skill damage.
- The upgrade “Neutron Catch” is chosen next. This upgrade stores part of the damage caused by the energy orb and transfers it as bonus radiation damage to Harlowe’s weapon. According to Moxsy, this is one of the key points of the build.
- The next five points go into “Elemental.” This passive skill increases Harlowe’s elemental and status effect damage.
- Then 5 points into “Test Subjects.” Here the action skill cooldown is decreased when you inflict status effects on enemies.
- 5 points into Poisoned Sun: Increased radiation damage and radiation chance.
- 3 points into Chain Reactor to distribute additional radiation damage.
- 3 points into Splitter to fire additional radiation arrows when you damage irradiated or entangled enemies.
- Final point: Demon Core. This skill adds radiation arrows to the unstable energy orb. When Harlowe “entangles” enemies with her ability, they will suffer radiation damage as long as the action skill is active.
- Dirty Bomb: Enemies suffer a radiation explosion when irradiated.
At level 27, the build looks as follows:
- The next 5 points go into “Make Extraordinary” from the skill tree “Make the Most of Every Day.” This way, you increase your skills’ crit chance.
- Back to the Creative Boosts tree. 5 points into “One in Mind” – this may entangle more enemies.
- 1 point into “Breaking the Ice” – every damage from your Chroma Accelerator becomes cryo damage. This way, you convert some of your radiation damage to the Cryo element to damage more shields.
- 5 points into Mechanical Brilliance. This stacks your skill damage.
- 5 points into “Radiant Future” from the “Make the Most of Every Day” tree. This provides increased fire rate when activating the action skill.
- 1 point into “Wave Effect”: every entangled enemy that dies through Harlowe entangles another enemy.
With these skills, you build a setup that is well-suited for both mobs and bosses.
Harlowe is a powerful Vault Hunter who is very well suited for starting the game. However, our MeinMMO editor Dariusz Müller chose a different character: He started his Borderlands journey with the Forge Knight Amon. We have his build here for you: With this build for Amon, I played through Borderlands 4 solo.
