Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox has given fans a seven day warning: those boss-melting builds based on “unintended interactions” will be nerfed next week.
Borderlands 4 is rife with overpowered builds that use what developer Gearbox has described as “unintended interactions” to cause massive damage, even to the game’s toughest bosses on the hardest difficulties. The most infamous of these is ‘the crit knife,’ which Gearbox has said it’s aware of. But there are many others.
Gearbox has spent the first few weeks of Borderlands 4’s life improving performance and buffing underperforming gear, rather than nerfing things or stamping out these broken builds. But the time has now come for change.
Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins took to Twitter to say “there will be some changes next week to specific gear and those unintended interactions, this is your 7 Days Notice ;)”
Next week’s update will also include “a host of improvements to stability, performance, and some highly requested quality-of-life changes!” Gearbox added over on the official account.
“Looking forward to next week, we are planning another round of adjustments that will focus on Class Mods, Repkits, Shields, and Firmware being tuned to provide greater viability for melee builds, and account for deficiencies in other specific Vault Hunter builds,” Gearbox said. “We will also address unintended interactions in certain Vault Hunter skills, and make adjustments to overperforming gear. Importantly, next week’s update will include a host of improvements to stability, performance, and some highly requested quality-of-life changes!”
Today, October 9, there’s a small update focused on minor gear adjustments. The patch notes, from the Borderlands 4 website, are below.
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Skill Trees Ranked
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Skill Trees Ranked
Last week, a Borderlands 4 dataminer unearthed evidence to suggest that one of the most hated characters from Borderlands 3 was cut and replaced relatively late in development. 2K Games and Gearbox declined to comment when contacted by IGN.
If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don’t go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).
Borderlands 4 October 9, 2025 update patch notes:
Weekly Activities:
- Weekly Big Encore Boss switched to a tougher variant of a different existing boss with an even more rewarding loot pool for those who take it on.
- The Weekly Wildcard Mission changed. These missions feature a guaranteed Legendary drop you can earn repeatedly to get your ideal roll.
- Maurice’s Black Market Vending Machine moved to another location and changed its offerings.
Gear Balance Adjustments:
- Ruby’s Grasp damage increased by 50%
- Ruby’s Grasp fire rate increased by 25%
- Bully drone damage increased by 50%
- Bully base damage increased by 50%
- Rangefinder base damage increase by 30%
- Queen’s Rest spawn chance increased from 30% to 50%
- Queen’s Rest fire rate increased by 50%
- Seventh Sense orb damage increased by 250%
- Hellwalker base damage increase 30%
- Convergence base damage increase by 25%
Additional Changes:
- Legendary Tediore Shotgun Anarchy was adjusted to properly award Stacks of Mutualism when auto-reloading or killing enemies
- All Pets from all classes (such as Trouble, Specters, Reapers, and Forgeweapons) now properly gain Critical Hit Chance from Passives and Gear
- Adjustment made to Vex the Siren’s Bleed to count as Status Effect Damage
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
