Borderlands 4 Level 70 Guide: Best Builds After Update 1.10

Borderlands 4's Version 1.10 update landed on September 10, and it's the biggest systems shake-up the game has had since launch. The headline change is a ten-level cap increase, but Gearbox paired it with a full balance pass across every launch Vault Hunter, so the "best build" advice you followed at level 60 doesn't automatically carry over. Here's what actually changed, which trees got meaningfully stronger, and how to spend your new skill points once you hit the new cap.

01What Update 1.10 Changes for Your Build

Per the official Version 1.10 patch notes, the level cap rose by ten levels for every player, free of charge, regardless of which DLC you own. That's on top of buffs to Amon the Forgeknight, Harlowe the Gravitar, Rafa the Exo-Soldier and Vex the Siren, plus a new paid Vault Hunter, Loveless the Hacker, and two new story chapters: Story Pack 2: FL4K and the Last Resort, and Bounty Pack 5: Amara and the Vile Shadows.

The free content applies to every save regardless of ownership, which is the part that matters for this guide. Even if you never buy the new story content, the level cap increase and every skill buff below are already live in your game. Splitscreen also got a pass in the same update — settings now persist after closing the game, and ECHO Log text and news article sizing were both cleaned up for co-op play, so none of this requires a solo save to take advantage of.

02Why Ten More Levels Matters More Than It Sounds

Ten extra character levels means ten extra skill points. If you were previously one or two points short of a capstone you skipped, or splitting investment across two trees because neither felt complete, that math changes completely at level 70. A build that used to require compromise can now run a full primary tree plus a genuinely supported secondary tree instead of a half-finished one.

That's also why the balance changes below matter more than a normal patch's buff list. Several of them target skills deep in each tree, which only mattered to players who could already afford to invest that far. With ten more points on the table, those skills are suddenly worth building around instead of skipping. This isn't the first time Gearbox has done this, either — the previous cap increase also added ten levels, taking the ceiling from 50 to 60, so a jump of this size has already reshaped the game's build meta once before.

03Loveless the Hacker: What the Paid Side Adds

Version 1.10's free changes are the focus of this guide, but it's worth knowing what's behind the paywall too. Loveless the Hacker is described by 2K as "an all-new Vault Hunter" — a former Anshin hacker turned assassin who shares her mind with Wyrm, a digital virus of her own creation that can take physical form in combat. She arrived alongside Story Pack 2: FL4K and the Last Resort, which sends the returning Beastmaster to the tropical island of Providence to fight off a Tediore invasion, and Bounty Pack 5: Amara and the Vile Shadows, which adds a new boss, two mini-bosses, a Pearlescent weapon and six Legendary drops. None of it is required to use the free balance changes or the extra ten levels covered below.

04Vault Hunter Balance Changes, Character by Character

All four numbers below come straight from Gearbox's own patch notes, not third-party estimates. If a skill you use isn't listed, it wasn't touched in this pass.

Rafa also picked up passive buffs across the This Year's Gimmick tree — Handshake Deal, To the Last, El Paragus, Collaborative Ignition and Sinergia all scale higher per point than before, and Sinergia's duration grew from 12 to 14 seconds. If you'd written off a Rafa support build as too slow to pay off, it's worth another look at level 70.

05How to Plan Your Level 70 Skill Points

Don't just dump points into whatever tree you were already running. Work through it in order, and use the Respec Machine if the plan changes partway through — it resets every skill point and augment slot at once, so testing a different capstone costs you nothing but the trip back.

How to Plan Your Level 70 Skill Points

1. 1Open your character sheet after hitting level 70 and check total skill points spent versus available — Version 1.10 gives everyone 10 more than the old level 60 cap allowed.1 minute
2. 2Decide which tree's capstone you're building around (Amon's Vengeance, Harlowe's Seize the Day, Rafa's People Person, or Vex's Incarnate line) before spending anything — the capstone should drive every other choice.5 minutes
3. 3Spend points in your chosen tree in order rather than skipping around, prioritizing the action skill and passive buffs listed in the balance table above first.5 minutes
4. 4Don't divert points into a second tree until your capstone is actually unlocked — with only 10 extra points, half-finishing two trees is still the weakest option.2 minutes
5. 5Once the capstone is live, put leftover points into whichever secondary tree covers your build's weak spot, such as survivability or crowd control.5 minutes
6. 6Run a story mission or easy Mayhem level to feel out the new cooldown and damage numbers before spending time farming gear around the build.10 minutes
7. 7Visit a Respec Machine to reset every skill point and augment slot at once if the build underperforms — there's no need to manually undo individual points.2 minutes

06Best Build Directions for Each Vault Hunter

With the balance changes above baked in, here's the direction worth building toward for each launch Vault Hunter at level 70:

• Amon: the Vengeance tree is the clear winner this patch — shorter Scourge cooldowns plus longer, bigger Rage stacks turn Amon into a near-permanent damage buff engine, with Forgeaxes doing double duty as your weapon of choice thanks to the flat +100% melee buff.
• Harlowe: Seize the Day was already Harlowe's signature tree, and the Cold Plunge buff makes it hit as hard as some capstones. Prioritize Zero-Point's shorter cooldown first, then Cold Plunge, then spend remaining points on crowd-control support skills.
• Rafa: the People Person capstones are the headline change — Project: Basilisk in particular jumped in both direct and hazard damage, so if you've been running Rafa as a generalist, this patch rewards committing all the way to whichever capstone matches your weapon type.
• Vex: the Incarnate action skill buffs stack with the Vexcalate augment changes, so a build centered on chaining Blink Strike into Hexus Nexus gets noticeably faster at clearing add waves than it did before 1.10.

None of these builds require the paid DLC — they're built entirely around the free balance pass and the ten new skill points every player already has.

07Other Changes Worth Knowing Before You Respec

A few smaller changes affect how you'll level toward 70 in the first place. Side quests now have a better chance of rewarding higher-rarity gear, and early-game mission rewards were rebalanced to leave you better equipped heading into the game's tougher fights and bosses — useful if you're leveling a second Vault Hunter from scratch to test one of the builds above rather than respeccing your main. Gearbox also fixed several missing or invisible collision spots across the base game and earlier DLC, corrected a handful of animation issues, and made the Respec Machine reset every augment slot at the same time as your skill points, so a full rebuild only takes one trip instead of several.

If you're playing in splitscreen, Update 1.10 is worth grabbing for that alone: settings now persist after you close the game instead of resetting every session, and travel countdown notifications show consistently for every player at the screen instead of only the host.

Gearbox's own DevCast walked through the update ahead of launch, including a first look at Loveless the Hacker's kit if you're curious what the paid side of 1.10 adds on top of the free changes above.

Gearbox's official DevCast reveal of Loveless the Hacker, streamed September 3, 2026, ahead of the Version 1.10 launch.

Whichever direction you build, the free level cap increase and balance changes are already active — you don't need Story Pack 2 or the Loveless DLC to put any of the builds above into practice.