While grinding for gear is obviously the core of what Borderlands 4 is about, Gearbox’s effort to make legendaries rare may be a bit much, even for the game’s most dedicated players.
New data from big Borderlands creator Killer Six (I’m currently using his Amon build) shows just how low these rates are for dedicated drops, gear that is supposed to have a better chance of dropping from specific bosses. The data is…less than promising.
K6 did 400 runs of a single box, Axemaul. That resulted in:
- 56 dedicated drops, a 14% rate
- 9 World Drops (any legendary), a 2.25% rate
Sure, fine, a 16% legendary drop rate is fine, right? That’s not the problem; the problem is when you dive into what those drops actually gave you, as they are weighted toward specific gear and away from others. In this case, in terms of the dedicated drops, we have:
- 33 Buzz Axe (Ordnance) – 8.25%
- 13 Bod (Shotgun) – 3.25%
- 10 Kill Spring (Repkit) – 2.5% chance
There’s more on top of that, because the way Borderlands 4 does its “parts combining,” each of those can roll with specific traits that make them better than worse, and some that you will be seeking specifically for a build. So if that’s Kill Spring, even with 400(!) kills of a single boss, the odds are still not in your favor.
There is grinding, and there is grinding. Over the course of the campaign and the post-game, I do think the idea of making legendaries more rare than Borderlands 3 was a good idea, but this is…probably pushing it.
Not every boss has this exact split problem, but certain ones definitely do. And this isn’t a “oh so you just want everything handed to you?” situation, this is just respecting players’ time and not demanding hundreds and hundreds of kills for a single legendary, often with just a single trait you want.
I know some people like this level of luck. It feels like you hit the lottery when you finally land the thing you’re after. But if even the biggest creators in the game who play it as a literal job are saying “whoa, wait a minute, this is awful,” it may be time to examine things.
For me, I have had to settle into a “good enough” phase. If I get a 2% drop of a legendary I fundamentally need, I’m putting it on and moving on. I do not have 800 kills in me to maybe get the more granular roll I need. I would imagine most people are the same, though others may not even want 50 kills on a boss to get a single drop either. That’s more debatable, but I think there is some work to be done here.
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