From the first moment Borderlands was released, Salvador became a fan favorite. The sickly Gunzerker is one of the most chaotic characters in the game, as he is not very focused on strategizing or managing your resources but rather on shooting anything that has a shadow, which pretty much sums up the essence of playing Borderlands.
But not everything is to shoot and make holes in the enemies; you also have to know what kind of holes you want in them, and in this guide, we will explain how to build Salvador in the best way.
If you’re not sure whether or not you’ll like the Gunzerker, I highly recommend you check out the video below. It summarizes quite nicely just how strong Salvador is.
The Gun Monger Build
The Gun Monger build is one of the best mid-game builds for Salvador. It mainly focuses on dealing heavy damage to the enemies and getting as much out of the weapons as possible. This means that the build has increased fire rate, fire damage, critical damage, and other heavy advantages for Gunzerking to get as many bullets out as possible and make it last longer with less cooldown time.
This Salvador build straightforward and works the same in both solo and coop. In both modes, the build will help you fire as many bullets as possible while dealing heavy damage. The bonus, or rather the main selling point for the build, is that it makes the already overpowered Gunzerking skill even more powerful.
For this build, we will focus on the Gun Lust Tree.
This category improves the exchange between weapons and the reloading speed. One of its most interesting abilities is the autoload, by means of which, after killing an enemy, all the weapons we have equipped but are not using are automatically reloaded. There is also an ability that allows all the excess damage caused to an enemy after death to be transferred to the next one we shoot.
List of Skills for this Salvador Build
These are some of the skills you will need to make this Salvador build work. Check out the image below to see a more visual look at everything.
Locked And Loaded:
- Reloading your gun gives you +25% Fire Rate for a short time.
Quick Draw:
- +35% Weapon Swap Speed and +10% Critical Hit Damage.
Divergent Likeness:
- +30% Damage when Gunzerking with two of the same type of guns. +30% Accuracy when Gunzerking with two different types of guns.
Auto-Loader:
- Killing an enemy Instantly Reloads all of the guns that you have equipped that are not currently in your hands. Swapping guns after Auto-Loader has reloaded a gun triggers Locked & Loaded.
Money Shot:
- The last bullet fired from any gun does +40% damage per magazine size, up to +400% damage.
Lay Waste:
- Kill Skill. Killing an enemy gives +40% Fire Rate and +25% Critical Hit Damage with Guns for a short time.
No Kill Like Overkill:
- Any excess damage dealt to an enemy that kills them is transferred to the next enemy fired at.
Filled to the Brim:
- +25% Magazine Capacity and +15% Ammunition Capacity for all weapon types.
Last Longer:
- +15 seconds Gunzerking duration.
Steady as She Goes:
- +80% Recoil Reduction and 30% chance to improve Accuracy on hit when Gunzerking.
5 Shots or 6:
- Grants a 20% chance to add an extra round of ammunition when firing instead of expending ammunition.
Yippie Ki Yay:
- Increases the duration of Gunzerking by +1.2 seconds every time an enemy is killed while Gunzerking.
Double Your Fun:
- Throwing a grenade while Gunzerking throws two grenades instead of one. The second grenade doesn’t cost ammo.
Equipment
Weapons
Like many other characters that are a sponge of damage and vitality, Salvador benefits much more from shotguns than the rest of the characters.
The best non-legendary weapon for the Gunzerker is undoubtedly Ravager. This weapon, in exchange for a low rate of fire and high bullet consumption, is one of the most destructive weapons in the game due to its high amount of damage and the explosion effect it has on enemies. Using Ravager is a double-edged sword, but with the points that we assign in the skill tree, the weapon loses many of its shortcomings while making more years than ever.
Given the Ravager’s damage, a natural second choice is Grog Nozzle. This Maliwan gun may not do as much damage as the shotgun, but the slag is more powerful than the previous weapon, and its huge amount of critical damage and special effects will combine with the ones Salvador already has, and you will be able to do great damage even without re-equipping Ravager to damage slagged enemies.
Also, note, the Infinity Pistol does not work with Money Shot. So avoid using the Infinity Pistol with Salvador.
MOD: Chaotic Good Monk (with reload speed and fire rate)
Not much to say about this; considering how dependent Salvador is on his weapons, you need any upgrade you can to reload speed and fire rate.
Grenade: Purple Magic Missile
Always slag. Grenades slowly regenerate over time. Two (blue rarity) or four (purple rarity) child grenades home in on targets and explode instantly at the cost of one grenade.
As with Grog Nozzle, you not only need these grenades for the damage but for the benefit Salvador gets from slagging enemies. Normally you will want to start fights by throwing these grenades and then shooting everything in sight that has the slightest purple stain on it.
Relic: Deputy’s Badge
Increased shotgun damage and reload speed. +10% more time in Fight for Your Life for every equipped Deputy’s Badge in the party.
Whether for a single build or for playing with friends, this relic is very useful in The Gunzerker. As mentioned above, Salvador can be very dangerous with a shotgun in his hand. This added to the Fight for Your Life bonus (since he also exposes himself to a lot of damage), making this the ultimate relic for him
Shield: The Bee
Everyone universally agrees that The Bee is the best shield in the game, and that’s why it’s also very useful for Salvador. A character that depends on the damage of his weapons benefits greatly from this shield because even though it is inconsistent and can lose it when receiving damage, all the damage he can do in almost two seconds of using it is massive.
Alternative solo build for Salvador: The Umpire Sal
This build is one of the most fun of Salvador since it is based on destroying with explosions everything you have in your way using shotguns and rocket launchers. For this build, the most important thing is that you use The Ravager, the weapon we recommended before. Once you have it, arm this Skill Tree focused on Money Shot and get ready for destruction.
This is the guide on how to Build Salvador in Borderlands 2! Have you ever tried this build? Tell us in the comments!
