Selecting the right Vault Hunter in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel fundamentally shapes your journey across Elpis and its low-gravity environments. Each character brings a distinct active action skill alongside unique skill trees that cater to specific playstyles. Understanding how these classes function helps players choose the best archetype for solo survival or cooperative team compositions.
Understanding the Base Vault Hunter Roster
The core roster features four diverse mercenaries, each fulfilling a specialized tactical role on the battlefield. Athena the Gladiator excels at frontline tanking and melee damage thanks to her Kinetic Aspis shield absorbing incoming fire. Meanwhile, Wilhelm the Enforcer relies on automated combat drones to provide continuous fire support and healing during long encounters.
Nisha the Lawbringer delivers extreme single-target damage through auto-aim capabilities, making her ideal for aggressive gunplay fans. Claptrap the Fragtrap introduces unpredictable action skills that grant random team-wide buffs, adding chaos and utility to group sessions. Evaluating these foundational abilities ensures you pick a character aligned with your combat preferences.
Evaluating DLC Expansion Characters
Players with access to add-on content can choose from two additional highly specialized Vault Hunters. Jack the Doppelganger summons digital clones that distract enemies and trigger powerful passive abilities upon expiring. Lady Aurelia the Baroness dominates long-range engagements using cryo elemental damage and ice-based battlefield control skills.
These expansion characters often feature intricate skill synergies that reward advanced build planning and precise execution. Aurelia offers exceptional support in co-op through her aristocratic contract mechanics that boost partner statistics. Jack stands out as one of the most versatile solo classes due to his self-sustaining clone mechanics.
Top Character Choices for Solo Players
For gamers diving into the campaign without a team, survivability and self-sufficiency remain top priorities. Jack the Doppelganger consistently ranks as a premier choice for solo runs because his digital Digi-Jacks draw aggression away from the player. His skill trees also grant substantial defensive boosts and automatic health regeneration whenever clones vanish.
Athena is another outstanding solo candidate due to her Kinetic Aspis, which blocks all front-facing damage while charging a devastating thrown attack. This defensive barrier allows solo players to navigate tight situations without getting overwhelmed by heavy enemy fire. Both choices offer a forgiving learning curve while maintaining immense late-game power potential.
Best Character Picks for Co-Op Teams
When assembling a squad for multiplayer sessions, complementary skills dramatically improve overall combat effectiveness. Claptrap shines in team environments because his VaultHunter.EXE action skill analyzes party health and status to deploy supportive subroutines. Furthermore, his skill trees provide team ammo regeneration and shared explosive damage boosts that empower allies.
Aurelia and Athena also create strong cooperative synergies by combining long-range crowd control with aggressive frontline distraction. While Aurelia freezes high-threat targets from afar, Athena absorbs primary boss attacks on the front lines. Coordinating these complementary roles turns tough boss encounters and mob encounters into smooth victories.
