Once you are a few missions into Borderlands 4 and the game starts spitting loot at you non‑stop, your backpack turns into a mess real fast, no matter how much Borderlands 4 Cash you have to burn. You are staring at a handful of guns with green arrows and red arrows and it all looks important, but half of it is noise. What actually matters is who built the gun. The manufacturer quirks change how you fight way more than a couple of extra points of damage, and if you do not lean into those quirks, you end up swapping guns every few minutes and never really feeling comfortable with any of them.

Jakobs: High Risk, Huge Payoff

Jakobs guns are the ones that make you feel like a legend when things go right and completely useless when they do not. They hit like a truck, and once you start chaining crits, the ricochet rounds bounce into nearby enemies and clean up whole packs before they even reach you. Thing is, you pay for that power. Fire rate is basically as fast as you can click, so when the pressure kicks in and you start missing, you just chew through time, not ammo, and the target is still running at you. If you are not comfortable going for headshots or crit spots, a Jakobs pistol or rifle feels clunky, almost stubborn, but if you like playing a bit slower and lining up shots, they are hard to beat.

Maliwan And Elements On Demand

Maliwan is the brand you grab when you are tired of watching enemy shields laugh at your bullets. The charge‑up that annoyed everyone in older games is quicker now, so you tap or hold and it is ready to fire before it feels annoying. Being able to flip between elements mid‑fight is the real trick: you see armor, you switch; you see a shield, you switch again. It eats through ammo a bit faster than you expect, especially on SMGs, but it saves fights where you would otherwise be plinking the wrong damage type for half a clip. A lot of players treat Maliwan as a “tool” gun: not always their main weapon, but the one they swap to when a stubborn target shows up.

Vladof Spray And Dahl Control

Vladof guns are for those moments when aim goes out the window and you just need bullets everywhere. They spin up fast, dump mags in seconds, and the under‑barrel toys – grenade launchers, shotguns, weird little cannons – give you a panic button without changing weapons. You will run dry often, so it is not great if you hate looting ammo, but it feels brilliant when a pack of mobs rushes you and you just hold the trigger. On the other side, Dahl sits in that “calm and tidy” space. Burst‑fire while aiming down sights feels incredibly stable in Borderlands 4, almost like you are using a laser pointer rather than an assault rifle. DPS on paper is not top tier, but if you like keeping your distance and tapping targets in order, Dahl rifles let you play almost like a tactical shooter inside this chaotic game.

Tediore Throws And Building A Loadout

Then there is Tediore, which still sounds like a joke until you actually build around it. Throwing your gun to reload looks silly the first time, then you realise the thrown guns explode hard enough to finish off low‑health enemies or chunk mini‑bosses. It is basically a backup grenade every time you reload, and that changes how you think about magazines. Instead of hoarding bullets, you start asking, “Is it worth tossing this now?” A lot of players end up with a mixed loadout: maybe a Jakobs for crit kills, a Maliwan SMG for shield‑heavy areas, a Vladof or Dahl rifle depending on whether they prefer chaos or control, and a chunky Tediore shotgun for close‑range panic moments. That mix also spreads out your ammo types so you are not stuck dry on one pool during longer fights, which matters a lot more than the item score number or how expensive it was to buy Borderlands 4 Items in the first place.