If you like the touches of sci-fi that season the irrational world of Borderlands 4, then you will have a blast playing any of the best Harlowe builds.
Harlowe has three distinctive skill trees and, unlike the other characters in the game, it might not be clear from the start how her skills and Action skills can synergize to reach high numbers of damage. Thankfully, the Borderlands community loves to think, create, and share their builds so we can learn from them how to take the most out of each character.
We have aggregated the best Harlow builds in Borderlands 4 and created this list so you can discover all the potential each of her skill trees and their respective gadgets have.
Harlowe’s skill tree and playstyle, explained
Harlowe is the tech mind among the Vault hunters we can play in Borderlands 4, and each of her skill trees benefits from a special gadget. Her “Chroma Accelerator” from the red skill tree basically launches an energy bomb. The “Flux Generator” projects an energy field that damages enemies and protects allies if you’re using her green skill tree. Harlowe’s blue skill tree utilizes her “Halo Accelerator” to place enemies in stasis and play ping-pong with them.
With such a different kit, it’s only a matter of time for the community to come up with fun builds to explore it. Termx shows us that Harlowe’s green skill tree can give you infinite rockets to shoot and explore enemies. He also came up with a cryo slam build, which shows how the blue skill tree, while not the strongest, is a great option when dealing with large groups of enemies. At the same time, NickTew put together a simple build that can destroy endgame bosses with the red skill tree’s “Chroma Accelerator.”
Infinite rocket build
Regardless of how strong your guns are, they need bullets. But what if you could shoot as many times as you want and bury enemies with thousands of projectiles? This is exactly what the infinite rocket build does for Harlowe. While using the character’s green tree, you must run the “Nuclear Winter” augment and always fight while inside its area to proc “Excited State,” a passive that guarantees a critical hit after causing Action skill damage. Since every shot from inside the “Nuclear Winter” area is Action skill damage, you have infinite critical hits.
By ensuring all your shots are critical hits, you can make the “Critical Funding” passive work, which has a chance of refilling your gun’s magazine when you land a critical hit. But shooting infinite rockets is not enough to melt a boss’ health bar. That’s why this build uses passives like the “Gamma Ray Burst,” a skill that buffs Harlowe’s next shot after re-triggering her Action skill by draining her shield.
If an infinite rocket build sounds fun for you, you can learn all the details and itemization from Termx’s original video:
Cryo slam build
Harlowe’s blue skill tree might look more defensive than offensive because of its Action skill “Zero-Point,” which places an enemy in stasis. However, in Termx’s build, the idea is to capitalize on the stasis bubble cryo damage and clear groups of enemies fast with it. To do so, you want to always keep “Zero-Point” up using tools like the “Inertia” augment, which places another enemy in stasis when the previous dies while resetting the Action skill duration.
By always having an enemy in stasis, you can constantly perform a slam attack with the bubble created by “Zero-Point.” To make the slam hit harder, you use the “Cold Plunge” capstone. It creates a singularity, which drags enemies to it, and follows it with a cryo explosion. These skills have immense potential to handle mobs quickly, but this won’t be as effective against single targets, like in boss fights.
Below, you learn how to prepare for boss fights and all the minor details about this build from Termx’s original video:
Radiation Chroma Accelerator build
Harlowe nukes enemies with her “Chroma Accelerator” Action skill from the red skill tree and the radiation Chroma Accelerator build takes the damage this nuke would cause and buffs your weapons. Simple and elegant. At the core of this build is “Neutron Capture,” one of the augments you can use. It basically transfers part of the damage caused by the Action skill to Harlowe’s gun as bonus radiation damage.
By increasing the damage you can cause with the “Chroma Accelerator,” which you do by running passive skills such as “Field-Ready Prototype,” “Elementary,” and “Enriched,” you can beat all kinds of enemies without a complex opener. This build also doesn’t require specific gear to work, but it benefits from certain guns, like “Cyclotron Anaretic Katagawa’s Revenge.”
You can check NickTew’s original video below and watch this build in action:
Do you need more help with Borderlands 4? For those who are new to Kairos, check out our beginner’s guide before you get started and our best classes guide to find the right one for your playstyle.
If you want to have fun with your weapons, be sure to read our guide on how to get more SDU tokens. We know that traversing the immense map of Kairos is a challenge in itself, so you should prioritize unlocking a vehicle, as well as fast travel points. And if you’re already enjoying the endgame of Borderlands 4, don’t forget to check the weekly reset time for all current challenges.
We also have build guides for the other characters: Vex, Rafa, and Amon.
