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The leveling system in Borderlands 4 can feel a bit odd at times. Campaign missions tend to level up your character faster than you do, pushing you to do side quests and explore the open world to stay on track. In the later parts of the game, some enemies are permanently overleveled, making leveling up difficult for some builds.
Luckily, there are ways to quickly raise your level to counteract this aggressive scaling. Today, we’ll share tips on how to level efficiently during the main campaign and the endgame grind for the Ultimate Vault Hunter.
Levels 1-30: Complete Campaign Missions and Drill Sites
When you start the campaign, your best approach is to complete all main story quests, along with any Drill Sites and Strongholds you come across. Drill Sites are excellent sources of XP, even on the hardest difficulty, Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM), after finishing the campaign. They take about a minute to clear and can be farmed repeatedly. Strongholds also give a good chunk of XP, and you should clear them to unlock fast travel points and bounty boards.
By doing this, you’ll stay close to the main story’s level progression. If you find yourself a little behind in levels, doing some side quests in the area can help. While side quests aren’t the fastest way to gain XP, they do offer other rewards like money and cosmetic items. By the time you finish the campaign, aiming for around level 30 and unlocking UVHM is a good goal.
Warning: Near the end of the campaign, you’ll enter a zone with enemies marked with an exclamation point indicating their level. These enemies are always overleveled, and you might want to run past them. Gearbox is aware of this and may fix the issue in a future update.
Levels 31-50: Farm Vile Bounties
Once you hit level 30, you’ve got two main options to level up quickly:
- Continue farming Drill Sites.
- Take on Vile Bounties.
Drill Sites are still a strong way to gain XP, especially in UVHM, so keep farming them if you want. However, if you’ve been doing that throughout the campaign and want some variety, Vile Bounties are a great alternative. These quests appear at Stronghold bounty boards and involve hunting high-value targets marked on the map. They usually take less than a minute to complete and reward about a quarter of a level each time. The best part is that the XP scales with your level, so they’re always worthwhile. Sometimes, they also reward you with legendary gear if luck is on your side.
Co-op Tips
If you’re playing with friends, consider splitting your team among different Drill Sites nearby. XP is shared across players in the same region, so hitting different sites at once benefits everyone’s leveling process. Farming a couple of Drill Sites simultaneously can help your team level up very quickly, as long as your build can handle the enemies’ scaling difficulties in multiplayer.
A popular method involves focusing on the Drill Sites “Pitted Stain” and “Prospects” in the Fadelands. These are close together, and clearing both at the same time can net your team a level every few minutes.
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