Borderlands 2: Vault Hunters / Characters

Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 and for Spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

The Vault Hunters of Borderlands 2.

Krieg has his own page.

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In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/borderlands_2_featured_ds1_1340x1340.jpg

^{Click for BL3 appearances}

Famed In-Story: They're regarded with great fame and respect just for surviving Handsome Jack's ambush by the people of Sanctuary and the Crimson Raiders, since every other person that answered his call for Vault Hunters were killed. It only grows from there as the story continues and they begin directly opposing Hyperion by themselves.
The Fellowship Has Ended: As of Borderlands 3, this tight-knit group seems to not be as tight-knit anymore, with many of them away and isolated from one another, most not even joining the conflict with the Calypsos barring Zer0 and Maya. Even then, Zer0 and Maya don't interact. The rest don't get a passing mention by those on Sanctuary either despite their reputation and previously tight bond, even after their friend and former leader, Maya, has been killed. Originally it seemed as if this was the result of the Raiders scattering to rebuilt at the end of Commander Lilith, though Fantastic Fustercluck all but states it happened much more recently then that.
The Friends Who Never Hang: They are largely independent of each other in 3, to the point that even when the race for the vaults spans multiple planets keeps growing, only Zer0 and Maya are available to help. ^note
Out of Focus: Since 2, the Vault Hunters have had no significant role to play in the main plotlines of later games. Even in their own game they never spoke to other characters or commented on current events outside of their own ECHOs and four DLCs. Although Maya and Zer0 appear in 3, their screen time is rather minimal. Not even when Maya dies and Zer0 stays aboard Sanctuary 3 for the rest of the game does he play a further role, nor do the others get involved in the story.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A more glaring example than the other Vault Hunter teams, as this group is an especially diverse lot. In this band, there's an ex-military commando with a Companion Cube level of affection for his sentry gun, a Badass Bookworm telekinetic woman who's just as interested in educating herself as she is in melting enemies alive, an excessively mysterious cyber-ninja who speaks in poetic haiku while blasting heads off, a diminutive Pandoran native with some serious roid rage and an obsessive love for guns, a girly high schooler on the run from the law whose best friend is a giant deadly robot, and a literal Ax-Crazy and split-personality suffering maniac who's only just barely able to direct his rage to acceptable targets while seeking revenge for those responsible for his condition.
Strong and Skilled: Story-wise, they are some of the strongest vault hunters to ever exist, as they overpower two of The Pre-Sequel's vault hunters who were superior to 1's and come out no worse for wear. They are also very capable of coming up with complex plans of their own, as shown in 3's story and DLCs.
Superior Successor: Angel believes that they're this to the original Vault Hunters, fully confident that they would succeed where their predecessors started/failed and defeat Jack. It's not hard to see why: all of them have much more unique and varied skills and abilities compared to the previous team, and have access to a wider variety of equipment to make them stand out from each other by a significant margin. As an example, look at Axton. He's basically Roland 2.0, but whereas Roland had fairly plain skills and turret, Axton has a lot more power to express with how the Sabre can be upgraded to have a second gun, rockets, slag shots, cling to walls and ceilings, a shield, and even let Axton deploy a second turret after the first.
True Companions: Zigzagged. On one hand, the end of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep seems to push this at the end, all gathering together to pay respects to Roland and Bloodwing in a silent moment of unity and the Headhunters DLC have them doing more casual things together such as choosing to go on vacation and celebrate holiday events together. On the other hand, 3 heavily leans towards The Friends Who Never Hang, seeing how Zer0 and Maya don't talk to each other during the time the two are in the story (With only Zer0 mentioning her), and Fantastic Fustercluck focuses more on how Lilith, Mordecai and Brick view Krieg than any of his group barring Maya.
Two Girls to a Team: Maya and Gaige, assuming Zer0 is anything but a woman...
"Wanted!" Poster:
- Axton: War crimes: $5,000,000,000’
- Maya: Siren: $720,000,000,000’
- Salvador: Manslaughter, Theft, Arson, Destruction of Property, Trespassing, Cannibalism, Public Indecency, and Profanity: $99,000,000,000.99’
- Zer0: Political Assassin: $32,000,000,000
- Krieg: Property of Hyperion: $100,000,000,000. Also, one of the DLC heads ("I WANNA BE WANTED") has him use his wanted poster as a facemask.
- Gaige: Creation of Illegal Technology, Murder, and Excessive Adorability: $820,000,000,000

Axton

Axton (AKA The Commando)

Voiced by: Robert McCollum

"Sorry, boys, I've got turret syndrome! Get it? 'Cuz of the turret...? Sorry."

A former commando for the Dahl corporation, Axton was forced out of service due to his Glory Hound ways (which resulted in far too much collateral damage), which also cost him his marriage. He became a bounty hunter until he was lured to Pandora by Handsome Jack with promises of fame, fortune, and glory.

Axton's skill, Sabre Turret, deploys the namesake turret, which provides supporting fire and other benefits. His skill trees are oriented towards buffing his turrets and his fighting ability (Guerrilla), increasing his damage output and enhancing his guns (Gunpowder), and increasing his survival (aptly named Survival).

Action Genre Hero Guy: Axton heavily resembles the traditional shooter protagonist, being a Caucasian man with a short haircut, gruff voice and a military background, but also parodies it. Axton is so much of a glory hungry Blood Knight he was kicked out of the incredibly amoral Dahl military for war crimes and came to Pandora because his current mercenary work wasn't exciting enough.
Ascended Glitch: Axton was initially programmed to occasionally flirt with Maya when reviving her ("Wow. Do you work out, or..."), but the voice clip ended up triggering regardless of which character he was reviving. According to Anthony Burch, after fans expressed disappointment that he wasn't intentionally bisexual, the writers decided to take the glitch and run with it. A new voice line in the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC makes Axton canonically bi.
Tiny Tina: With the Sorcerer's tower in sight, you think of what you're going to spend your reward money on once you rescue the queen.
Axton: Guns and ladies. And sometimes dudes.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Many of Axton's skills let him inflict increased damage or regenerate health and shields by damaging or killing enemies, and therefore rewarding aggressively pressuring the enemy with constant fire.
Badass Normal: Unlike his fellow Vault Hunters, Axton doesn't have mystical powers, isn't a robot, nor an alien, nor an experiment, nor a cyborg, nor a mutant. He's just a plain old human soldier.
Beehive Barrier: "Phalanx Shield" makes his turret generate one, see Deployable Cover.
Blood Knight: Got booted out of the military for being reckless and over-aggressive; rather than face a firing squad, he went to Pandora to ply his trade. This is taken up to incredibly weird levels with Gameplay and Story Integration when he's fighting-very, very rarely, he will moan an erotic "Oh" when he kills something.
Bounty Hunter: In between his desertion and the events of 2, he took up bounty hunting at a local town. And he was pretty successful at it according to the sheriff. That said, the lack of actual challenge from it bored him.
The Bus Came Back: He appears alongside Salvador in 3's "Arms Race" DLC, as an announcer for a reality game show.
The Cameo: He shows up in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, returning from Vault Hunting on Eptah, where he and Gaige found the Vault Hunter Aurelia. They make Athena tell an abridged version of the game's story. In 3, he's apparently gotten into◊ modeling◊ and is popular enough to have body pillows made of him.
Cargo Ship: In-universe, he loves his turret as much or more than his ex-wife, to the point he actually calls her "honey", "darlin'", etc, and sometimes refers to her as his girlfriend, or "the missus".
Challenge Seeker: One ECHO found in Lynchwood has Axton complaining how bandits offer no challenge and he's looking for something more.
Cooldown Manipulation: "Resourceful" will reduce your skill's cooldown by up to 25%.
- He can also personally deactivate his turret early, reducing its cooldown rate for its redeployment.
Corporate Samurai: A former soldier who worked for Dahl.
Crippling Overspecialization: The Gunpowder skill tree focuses only on basic and explosive damage, as it does not boost nor give any other elemental types.
Critical Status Buff:
- The Pressure ability from the Survival tree gives Axton faster reloading and shield recharging the lower his health is.
- Crisis Management increases his melee and gun damage when his shields are down.
- Last Ditch Effort increases his damage and move speed while in Fight For Your Life.
Dangerous Deserter: Because a court-martial would have resulted in him being executed, Axton's wife (who was also his commanding officer) did not suggest he go AWOL to become a mercenary and vault hunter.
Demolitions Expert: How he's most commonly played, especially at endgame. See also Throw Down the Bomblet below.
Deployable Cover: His "Phalanx Shield" skill turns the Sabre turret into this; it's not a standard feature as with Roland's Scorpio turret. It takes the form of a forcefield bubble that you and your allies can shoot and walk through, but enemies can't. It can, however, be destroyed if damaged enough.
Desperation Attack:
- The Gunpowder tree has "Do or Die", which allows you to throw grenades in Fight For Your Life when obviously you normally aren't able to.
- Survival also carries "Grit", a skill that gives you a considerable chance to not only ignore the blow that would have killed you, but also has it restore your health, bringing you back up when your enemies thought you were down.
Determinator: See all of the above in the Critical Status Buff and Desperation Attack entries. Axton is the second-toughest character after a Tank-focused Salvador, but where Salvador is just plain tough and uses his berserker rage to power through enemies, Axton simply refuses to die.
"I don't die so easy!"
Distinction Without a Difference: Axton's not saying you owe him when he revives you, he's implying it.
Dual Wielding:
- The 'Gemini' skill lets Axton dual wield turrets.
- The turrets themselves, thanks to 'Double Up', can also operate two guns simultaneously.
The Engineer: It's even the name of one of his class mods, naturally the one focused on using his turret frequently and boosting its offensive capabilities.
Everything Makes a Mushroom: If you get "Nuke", the Sabre Turret will create a mushroom-cloud explosion wherever it lands at.
Expy: Gameplay-wise Axton is very much Roland 2.0, a Jack of All Stats whose special ability is a deployable support turret. Axton does have less focus on Combat and Support compared to Roland and more focus on general survivability (including getting Regenerating Health much earlier in his skill trees), making him more viable in solo mode by comparison.
Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: In "3", he and Salvador became the hosts of Arms Race in "3" due to money troubles (though they still have a good time with it). It's also why he can't personally fight the Vault Hunters as Sal planned; New-U premiums are getting a bit too pricey for him. It might also explain the modeling gigs as well.
Fanservice Pack: Axton was always pretty popular with the Estrogen Brigade despite not being a truly-obvious example of Mr. Fanservice, but it's telling that his only appearances in 3 are appearing shirtless on Iron Bear in the Moze skin "Funk Off" and on a magazine cover (as can be seen under The Cameo).
Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a neat line of a scar on his chin, and a similar but smaller one going over his left eye and through his eyebrow.
Glory Seeker: His reason for becoming a Vault Hunter is that he wants crowds of people screaming his name. And money.
Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: Judging by his past Relationship Upgrade with Ellie in his ECHOcasts on BL2 Twitter. Axton's about average-sized, but Ellie's... well, she's pretty big.
Informed Attractiveness: When Axton is seemingly "tortured" by bandits as recorded in ECHO Logs found in Lynchwood, a bandit calls him "pretty boy".
I Surrender, Suckers: You can find ECHO logs of him being tortured by bandits he was sent to capture. The bandits reveal that they are aware of their own bounties, and that they believe Axton has been paid upfront for their capture. Perhaps part of his plan all along, Axton "admits" that he has the payment in a small storage deck in his pack, and all the bandits have to do to retrieve it is throw the deck on the ground. It turns out that the storage deck was his Sabre Turret. True to form, he grumps "That was too easy," as the turret mops the floor with the bandits.
Jack of All Stats: The Ranger skill passively boosts seven attributes per level namely; Gun Damage, Accuracy, Critical Hit Damage, Fire Rate, Magazine Size, Reload Speed and Maximum Health. With class mods, these bonuses can go up to 11%.
Jack of All Trades: Axton is equally capable of playing the same roles as any other character, though not as perfectly. He can control the battlefield similarly to Maya with his turret and grenades, distract and tank damage like Salvador, Krieg and Gaige, inflict tremendous damage at short or long like Salvador, Gaige, Krieg and Zer0, debuff and mezz enemy armor/shields like Gaige and Maya, and deploy an additional support weapon like Gaige. He's just not as good at those roles as they are overspecialized in a mechanic of theirs. His primary strength is in his versatility.
Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: Took over the @ECHOcasts Twitter account when Gaige told him about fanfics of the cast, and pretty much had the exact opposite reaction to "Oh Crap". He spends most of his time there searching for fanfics about himself shipped with various characters.
This thing workin'? Gaige told me people were writing fan fiction about me. Asked her to sign me up. Haven't found any yet, though.
echonet search axton + ellie fanfic
Laser Sight: This can be an upgrade for the Sabre Turret, increasing its accuracy.
The Leader: Or as close as it gets to this group; Axton visibly takes the lead in the opening cutscene, and possesses several class mods oriented toward leadership and command. Averted as far as Word of God goes. While Axton does have the skills and typical qualifications for a leader, Maya is the leader of this team of Vault Hunters.
Macross Missile Massacre: The Guerrilla skill tree has an ability called "Scorched Earth" which causes his turret to fire 22 missiles in volleys. When combined with the "Gemini" skill, Axton can deploy two turrets equipped with missiles.
Military Maverick: Said attitude got him kicked out of the military. He now merely works as a gun for hire. That said, he claims to have around ten years of military experience — either his Glory Hound ways are relatively new development or he spent a lot of time whittling away at his superiors' goodwill.
Mirror Character: He has a disturbingly large amount of traits in common with Handsome Jack himself, most notably thinking that he's the hero of the story and treating that as a license to do whatever the hell he pleases. They've also both had the women in their lives leave them because of something they did (Sarah divorced Axton after he killed a dignitary he was supposed to be escorting, while Jack's second wife left him after she found out about Angel), and both of them use turrets, right down to shouting "Stand in front of this!" when deploying them. When he gets Handsome Jack's voice, he even makes exactly the kind of mean-spirited joke Jack likes to make at the Vault Hunters' expense.
""I'm Handsome Jack! Commando, don't kill me! I'm so sorry!" Pow! "Augh, oh no, you're so much cooler than me, Commando...""
More Dakka:
- His Guerrilla tree has a skill called "Sentry" that increases the number of shots his turret fires per burst, and another called Double Up that adds a second gun to the turret and makes both guns fire damage-enhancing slag bullets — the effects of those two skills combined is laughably awe-inspiring. The "Onslaught" ability from the tree increases his gun damage and movement speed after killing an enemy. The "Metal Storm" ability greatly increases his fire rate for a short time after a kill as well.
- Gunpowder includes "Metal Storm" which increases fire-rate and reduces recoil after killing an enemy, and Battlefront increases gun damage caused while his turret is out.
Murder Is the Best Solution:
- Instead of protecting a dignitary like he was assigned to, he used him as a Trojan Horse to kill off a terrorist cell. Needless to say, his superiors didn't approve.
- His third Lynchwood Echo has this when he brings in his latest bounties expecting a bigger award. And it's implied this isn't the first time either.
  Sheriff: Alright, here's your ten-thou'.
  Axton: Theee warrant says twenty thousand?
  Sheriff: The warrant also specified "alive."
  Axton: Fair enough.
Nominal Hero: He wants glory, he wants to get paid, and he wants to fight a worthy opponent. Fighting Hyperion is simply the best way for him to get all three, plus revenge for trying to murder him.
Noodle Incident: According to Tina's invitation to her Bunkers & Badasses game, he got into a very heated argument with her. Axton wants to take back the things he said (or so Tina hopes), and Tina wants to take back the dynamite she threw at him...
Nuke 'em: The player can get a skill that lets Axton set off a Nuke when deploying the Sabre Turret (subject to its own cooldown).
Object Ceiling Cling: Mag-Lock allows you to deploy your Sabre Turret on walls or ceilings.
The Pollyanna: He went from high ranking military officer with a wife to a divorced mercenary on a planet full of convicts. Axton is still the most jovial of the bunch.
Regenerating Health: Axton, Salvador, and Gaige all get Regenerating Health very early in their skill trees compared to the other characters. Axton's version seems to be the closest to the typical regenerating health seen in most other FPS games.
- "Able" gives you health regeneration whenever you damage enemies.
- "Preparation" gives you this when your shields are full.
Rhetorical Question Blunder: Done by himself in one of his idle lines.
"This... this is nice. Who wants to be out killing stuff anyway..? Me. I do."
Semper Fi: Mentions this exact phrase in his origin ECHO, so it can be assumed he was part of a futuristic Marine unit.
Sentry Gun: His Sabre Turret, which can be upgraded to shoot rockets and slag, stick to walls and ceilings, and deploy a force field.
Serial Romeo: Has shown interest in his ex (before and after the breakup), Maya, Zer0, Salvador, Krieg, Ellie, and his own turret.
Schmuck Bait: Uses his turret as this while capturing a bounty before the game starts, stating that it’s a storage deck unit that contains money. His capturers comply by opening it, which gets them killed. Also invoked in-game when using his Action Skill:
"Hey, stand in front of this!"
Sitcom Archnemesis: Implied to be this with Tina, considering the passive-aggressive invitation letter she sent to him for the "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep" DLC.
Tina: Hey girl, I know the last time we were around each other you said some things you'd probably wish you could have taken back, and I threw some dynamite I might have wished to take back but let's bury the hatchet and forget the fact that you hate me, ... I'm pretty sure you're what literary scholars would refer to as a 'scrub' but anywayz, I'm hosting a game of Bunkers & Badasses and I made you this extra-special gift. So come to my party!
Or I'll cut you.
Skill Gate Characters: Axton has an easy-to-use Action Skill in the same vein as Mordecai's, with his turret providing easy damage at range, and his specialty in increasing grenade damage pairs wonderfully with Torgue guns. After Normal difficulty, however, the turret drops off in power and becomes much easier for enemies to destroy, and the importance of elemental damage on higher difficulties makes most Torgue guns useless, while Axton's over-emphasis on the turret and lack of bonuses to his own damage output causes him to fall behind all of the other characters.
Standardized Leader: Axton's character design and gameplay is the closest to "standard FPS generic soldier man" out of the 6 playable characters (and likely the entire series); he's a Jack of All Stats, his special power is very simple and automated, most of his skills are generic buffs that don't require much tactical thought (whereas characters like Zer0, Gaige, and Krieg have to actively focus on a specific playstyle to utilize many of their skills), and his version of Regenerating Health is the closest to the standard sort used in most FPS games.
Take Cover!: While cover is useful for everyone, Axton's skills allow him to make the best use of it, particularly in the "Guerrilla" tree. Coupled with his turret's ability to draw fire and (optionally) create a barrier, Axton is very capable of fighting effectively from cover, emerging to trade fire with the enemy and take hits to his shields, and falling back to fully regenerate them in seconds.
- The "Able" skill dramatically speeds up shield regeneration and recharge delay, allowing him to quickly move in and out of cover.
- The "Preparation" skill from the "Survival" tree regenerates health when he has full shields.
Tattoo as Character Type: The metallic-looking two lines underneath an upside-down V implanted above his left eye◊ was likely intended to serve a purpose like this, resembling a sergeant major's rank insignia, to portray his military background (though the Son of Crawmerax DLC reveals his former rank as Staff Sergeant).
- A post by Axton on the official Twitter mentions that it's just a rank implant that makes his head hurt but there's no one he trusts (least of all Dr. Zed) to get it removed without possibly decapitating him. It also is just ferrous enough to have his turret get stuck to his head once.
  For the folks askin', the chevrons on my head are Dahl implants denoting rank. They hurt lots when it's cold. Or warm. Or when I turn my head.
  I'd remove em, but Zed's the only one with the equipment to do it. He'd probly give me a mild case of decapitation in the process.
  Yes, I (technically) got to 1st base with my turret when it magnetized and attached to the chevrons on my forehead. It was unpleasant. Ish.
Throw Down the Bomblet: The Guerrilla tree's "Grenadier" skill increases the number of grenades he can carry, and Torgue Grenadier Mods boosts that skill (and others), explosive damage, and explosive damage resistance, encouraging frequent grenade use. "Do or Die" also allows him to throw grenade when in Fight For Your Life.
Trojan Horse: Instead of escorting a dignitary like he was ordered, he let him get captured, tracked him down to a terrorist building were he was held captive and blew it up (along with the dignitary).
The Turret Master: Moreso than Roland due to his much more advanced Sabre turret. Customizing his turret is a big part of Axton's skill trees — he can add missile launchers and/or an extra gun to his turret, for instance, or even deploy two turrets at once.
This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Often when he or his turret kills an enemy.
Tragic Keepsake: Although how "tragic" is up for debate; at the end of the ECHO recording of Axton's interrogation, his wife returns the diamond engagement ring he gave her. What does Axton wear around his neck? A diamond ring.
What the Hell, Hero?: Delivered by his ex-wife, Sarah, when recounting Axton's brilliant plan to escort a dignitary... by planting a tracker on him, following it when he got captured, and blowing up the building full of terrorists. With the dignitary still inside. Nonetheless, in the Son of Crawmerax DLC Sarah took out the assassin coming after him as a favor.

Maya

Maya (AKA The Siren)

As of Borderlands 3. ^{Click to see her in Borderlands 2}

Voiced by: Martha Harms

"I'll never forget what the Head Monk told me right before I left the Abbey: "Child, you have so much left to learn" he said. I imagine he would have continued speaking, had I not pulled the trigger."

A Siren who once served as the secret weapon of an order of monks known as the Order of the Impending Storm who ruled over the planet Athenas. After learning of the monks' corruption and their plans to use her as an enforcer to keep the people of Athenas in line, she abandoned the order to seek out answers regarding her Siren lineage on Pandora.

Her skill is Phaselock, letting her trap, damage, or control enemies. Her skill trees are oriented towards enhancing her fighting skills through Phaselock (Motion), making her a better healer (Harmony), and applying and leveraging elemental damage (Cataclysm).

Adventurer Archaeologist: Travelled the galaxy to investigate Siren lore.
Affectionate Nickname: As heard from his "A Meat Bicycle Made for Two" trailer and in an ECHO Log from the third game, Krieg refers to Maya as "pretty lady". She in turn refers to him as "Big Guy".
Animal Motif: Two of her class mods are named Cat and Fox.
Attack Reflector: "Kinetic Reflector" gives you the passive ability to deflect bullets back to the attacker for a short while every time you kill an enemy.
Auto-Revive: The Res skill upgrades her Phaselock to instantly revive teammates in Fight for Your Life state.
Back for the Dead: Maya is introduced fairly early into the story of Borderlands 3, and takes a fairly active role in it. She then dies only a few missions afterwards.
Badass Adorable: Just like her predecessor, Lilith, she's a beautiful, kind and deadly Siren.
Badass Bookworm:
- Her class mods in 2 appear as hardcover books.
- In 3, a book is what was left of Maya after she was Reduced to Dust by Troy.
- In the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep DLC, the characters ponder on what they will spend their riches on. Maya's response:
  "Lots and lots of books... and guns."
Badass Long Robe: In 3, she now wears a set of Jedi-like robes.
Bald Mystic: The head you get for buying the limited edition is this.
Battle Couple: An odd case with Krieg. Borderlands 3 (particularly the Fantastic Fustercluck DLC) shows that she did in-fact care deeply for him in her own way. In effect, they make the absolute best example of Sword and Sorcerer/Guys Smash, Girls Shoot in the entire second game's multiplayer portion. Maya is able to crowd control enemies and allow Krieg to utterly obliterate them in melee, as well as Maya being able to heal Krieg in combat. Their instant-revive skills synergize marvelously, as Krieg can sacrifice himself to get her back up, but Maya can then instantly revive him as well.
Berserk Button: Do not call her a child. Ask Brother Sophis - oh wait, Maya blew a hole in his head. Never mind!
Black Mage: Her "Cataclysm" skill tree is this. While "Motion" enhances her abilities and "Harmony" grants her massive healing powers, "Cataclysm" is largely based on decimating her enemies with elemental effects.
Broken Bird: In the Wedding Day Massacre and Son of Crawmerax DLC, some of her dialog comes off as quite cynical and bitter. Take, for example, when attempting to make a baby cry.
Maya: "Everyone you know will tell you small lies, except the ones you love, who will tell you large ones."
Burn the Witch!: Some enemies have this attitude to Maya, sometimes to the point they drop the line, verbatim. Maya doesn't take too kindly to this...
Celibate Hero: Anthony Burch confirmed on his old ASKfm that Maya is asexual (at least in his head, anyway).
Charm Person: Thoughtlock, the final skill of her Motion skill tree, which makes it so that her phaselock turns enemies against each other rather than simply holding them in place.
Chaste Hero: She admits upfront that she knows nothing about romance in "Mad Moxxi's Wedding Day Massacre" when she has to encourage Ed the JNK loader to save his girlfriend and asks him to pretend she "said something really inspiring about The Power of Love".
Chick Magnet: A female example. Ellie flirts with her by default like the other Vault Hunters, while Moxxi, Tina and Tannis (most likely through a note) have shown attraction to her specifically.
Child Supplants Parent: It's implied that she had something of an Electra Complex towards Brother Sophis in the Wedding Day Massacre DLC. When asked if she had a loved one in her life, she notes that there was an older man once who's dead now. Word of God confirms that the two were physically/romantically involved.
Combat and Support:
- Like Roland before her, she's The Medic and has multiple skills dedicated to healing and supporting allies, but is somewhat less suited for solo play compared to other characters due to her action skill's lack of crowd control or threat evasion.
- Unless you set your skill build up with Converge (pulls nearby enemies in to the phaselocked target), Helios (a fire explosion around a phaselocked target), Cloudkill (a cloud of corrosion left behind when you shoot somene, a phaselock target for example), and Ruin (slags, corrodes, and electrocutes phaselocked targets and anyone pulled in by Converge). In which case she becomes a goddess of crowd control and can eliminate multiple targets in seconds.
The Comically Serious: As the most down-to-earth and least inherently comedic of the second generation of Vault Hunters, she tends to get put into the weirdest situations in publicity trailers to serve as the Straight Man, as in 'A Meat Bicycle Built For Two' and '+5 to Punching: A Bunkers and Badasses Prologue'.
Composite Character: Of Lilith (A Siren, with the accompanying elements of SMG usage and elemental bonuses) and Roland (The Hero, The Straight Man, and The Leader of her team, with supporting abilities including healing with bullets and reviving allies with her action skill).
Cooldown Manipulation: Quicken increases the cooldown rate by up to 30% at max level.
Corrupt Church: The leadership of her homeworld exploited her for their own gain. When she found out... she was ''not'' happy.
Critical Status Buff: "Fleet" greatly improves your movement speed when your shields are depleted.
Cruel and Unusual Death: She's Reduced to Dust by Troy in 3, screaming in pain and terror as she disintegrates.
Deadpan Snarker: While she's not as... eccentric as her comrades (Comparatively speaking), she makes up for it with dry snark.
Defector from Decadence: The Order Of The Impeding Storm planned to use her to scare the population of Athenas into submission. When her handler Brother Sophis ordered her to murder innocent civilians, she killed him and left the planet.
Difficult, but Awesome: Less so than Zer0 or Krieg, but Maya is definitely one of the more "tactical" characters, as her special ability only targets one enemy and thus cannot be used for crowd control (at least by default) or evasion unlike every other special ability. This is particularly pronounced when playing solo. She has particular trouble with either high mobility non-phaselockable bosses or multiple high mobility melee enemies because of this. Unless you set your skill build up with Converge, Helios, Cloudkill, and Ruin. In which case she becomes a goddess of crowd control and can eliminate multiple targets in seconds.
Diminishing Returns for Balance: A mechanic of her Action Skill that is even mentioned in a loading screen tip. It can reduce Phaselock's duration when recast on the same enemy:
Phaselocking the same enemy multiple times results in diminishing returns.
Dissonant Serenity: When scoring critical hits.
"Interesting reaction..."
Elemental Powers: The Cataclysm tree emphasizes on dealing various elemental, Damage Over Time abilities, mostly Fire/Burn damage.
Energy Ball: The capstone of her Harmony tree, "Scorn", fires a ball of slag that damages everything near it.
Evil Laugh: Has several of these, ranging from girly giggling (including a Lisa Simpson-esque snort-laugh), to absolutely cold-blooded chuckling when dispatching Badass-rank enemies. Given what she's like otherwise it's entirely possible she may be laughing more out of stress or relief.
Fashionable Asymmetry: Like the other Sirens, her stylish tattoos only run down her left arm, not her right.
Foil: She plays almost completely the opposite of Lilith, the previous game's Siren. Lilith's phaseshift power allowed her to escape from danger instantly and was great for both increased mobility and dealing with multiple enemies, making her probably the game's best Solo Class. Maya is much more of a co-op focused Combat and Support like Roland was; her phaselock power can lock down a single powerful or difficult-to-hit enemy and heal herself and her teammates, but she lacks crowd control or evasion and can be in big trouble if swarmed by multiple fast melee enemies or a single large enemy that can't be phaselocked (i.e. a Thresher Maw).
Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the opening cinematic of 2, and in cutscenes of 3, Maya's Phaselock is shown to be able to move targets around and chuck them far distances. Ingame, Phaselock can only suspend targets in the air for easy shots.
A God Am I: Was apparently worshipped as a goddess on her homeworld. Ultimately inverted. She has godlike powers as a Siren, but doesn't see herself as a god.
Gone Horribly Right: The church that raised and trained her repeatedly insisted that she was going to be used to fight terrorists and criminals. When she found out they were using her to keep the planet in terror to obey them, she used her Siren powers to kill them.
Good Is Not Soft: While significantly less amoral than her teammates, she's still quite vicious towards her enemies. In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, when she finds out that Sophis' brother was poisoned before she got to him:
"Consider yourself lucky. That poison must have worked quickly. I wouldn't have."
Gravity Master: Phaselock in spades, as it suspends the enemy in mid-air for a duration. With the Converge skill, this gets upgraded to pulling nearby enemies toward the phaselocked target, much like a Singularity grenade does.
Healing Factor: One of her skills outright gives her constant regeneration.
Healing Shiv: Like Roland's Cauterize from the first game, her Restoration ability allows you to heal your allies... by shooting them. Her Rez override also turns her action skill into an insta-revive. As a sidenote, Restoration means your shots will even heal a Krieg who specced into Fuel the Rampage (which enables him to take friendly fire) — the healing seems to actually be painful to him, as he responds as if hurt.
Hero with Bad Publicity: Jack put a bounty of $720 billion on her head, the second-highest of the Vault Hunters (compared to Axton's 5 for war crimes, Zer0's 32 for political assassination, Salvador's 99 for at least eight varied offenses, and Gaige's 820 for her Deathtrap "exploding" her Rich Bitch classmate), simply for being a Siren not under his thumb, unlike Angel.
Hidden Depths: According to Sane!Krieg in an ECHO from "Fantastic Fustercluck", Maya is a supposedly graceful dancer.
Hot Witch: Comes with being a Siren. One of her class mods is even named Witch. The Nomads occasionally call her out as the "hot chick" during fights.
Informed Attribute: Her status as The Leader of her group of vault hunters, as she's never shown to be leading them in any game or trailers.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Her intro in 3 presents her knocking around a Maliwan soldier with her Phaselock, then pulling a blocking an attack from another soldier behind her and taking him out with a spin kick.
Life Drain: Several of her Harmony skills have this effect; Sweet Release partially heals the entire team when a phaselocked enemy is killed, Elation gives the team health regeneration while an enemy is phaselocked, and Life Tap steals a percentage of a killed enemy's HP to heal Maya. The effect of each skill is fairly modest, so you need to stack multiple skills to have a meaningful effect.
Living Emotional Crutch: Borderlands 3 reveals she was one for Krieg, as she was the first to treat him as a friend and not just another psycho, and then treated him as a trusted friend thereafter. Krieg also developed strong feelings for her but could never express them properly due to his state of mind. After her death, Krieg started to have a relapse and began to fear losing his memories of her.
Male Gaze: In A Meat Bicycle Built For Two, the close-up of Maya starts at the curves of her rear and lower back and slowly pans up. Then again, considering Krieg's reaction to her, this makes sense.
The Medic: Has the main healing skill tree of the group in her Harmony skill tree, which includes Life Drain skills Sweet Release and Elation which benefit the entire team, the Restoration Healing Shiv ability to heal allies by shooting them, and the Res ability to instantly revive an ally who's in Fight For Your Life mode by phaselocking them.
Morality Pet: For Krieg, who became a Vault Hunter upon falling for her, and is implied to be the only reason he's even sticking around with the Crimson Raiders after the events of the second game.
Mr. Vice Guy:
- Given her outright refusal to murder civilians on her homeworld, it seems she's basically good, but she's clearly not above partaking in the targeted Comedic Sociopathy the Vault Hunters are offered a chance to participate in from time to time. It's also within her interests to tear up Hyperion, considering Jack's treatment of Sirens.
- In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, she demonstrates a particular fondness for vengeance.
Maya: Someone once said, he who sets out on revenge should dig two graves. That's a stupid-ass quote, revenge is awesome.
Muscles Are Meaningless: According to Axton on the @ECHOcasts Twitter account, she once gave Krieg a piggyback ride, though she wasn't too happy about it. This would make her pretty strong, since Krieg actually weighs a lot more than the other characters as a game mechanic.
Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: Maya's Phaselock usually doesn't deal damage when immobilizing her enemies, unless it can't work on them, in which case it does deal damage. Or if it's upgraded to deal damage.
Pinball Projectile:
- The "Sub-Sequence" skill upgrades Maya's Action Skill with this trope. The Phaselock orb will now seek onto nearby targets when the previous phaselocked target dies, will bounce off walls and ceilings and may get blocked when the supposed target is hiding near an environmental object.
- "Chain Reaction" gives your bullets a chance to ricochet when you have an enemy Phaselocked.
Post-Mortem One-Liner: After Phaselocking and executing Brother Sophis, with bonus Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
Maya: Don't. Call me. CHILD.
Power Gives You Wings: If you place points in the Blight Phoenix skill, Maya will sprout wings of fire every time she kills an enemy.
Power Glows: Her Ethereal skin gives her glowing eyes and highlights in her clothes.
Power High: If she manages to either kill a phaselocked enemy or simply several enemies in rapid succession, she has various boastful one-liners.
"You are nothing!"
"This is the power of a Siren!"
"I love my powers!"
"Fear me, bitches!"
Power Tattoo: Much like Lilith, the left side of her body bears Eridian markings.
Psychic Powers: While Lilith's powers are associated with fire and dimensional travel, and Angel's powers are associated with Technopathy, Maya's abilities resemble classic Psychic Powers. Her phaselock is telekinetic in nature, the ultimate skill of her Motion skill tree lets her mind-control enemies, and Borderlands 3 seems to imply she's developed a degree of precognition as well.
Psychotic Smirk: Apparently loves doing this when she Phaselocks people. However, her smirk is more heroic than most examples.
Redemption Earns Life:
- Some of the church members who were less abusive were also allowed to live and are implied to have aided in her getting to Pandora.
- Her initial response to Krieg is to shoot at him once he starts yelling, since he looks like a Psycho. It's only when he saves her life - once by managing to shout a coherent warning, and once by attacking her attackers - that she saves him in turn, doesn't renew her attack, and rewards him with a smile.
Reduced to Dust: In 3, Troy Calypso drains both her powers and life, causing her body to crumble.
Regenerating Health: Combined with her Life Drain abilities, Maya has by far the most options for restoring her health (though Salvador comes a close second with his various Regenerating Health skills). However, most of her healing skills are relatively late in her Harmony skill tree, while Axton and Gaige have a simpler health regen skill but get it much sooner.
- "Elated" gives Maya and the entire team a health regeneration buff when an enemy is phaselocked.
- "Sustenance" also gives her a passive health regeneration.
Sensual Spandex: Her tight-fitting top prominently shows off her figure.
Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: Maya has a "Thoughtlock" upgrade in her Motion Skill tree which brainwashes the Phaselocked enemy into attacking their friends.
She-Fu: When dismounting a Bandit Technical, she does a handstand before flipping off unlike the others.
Ship Tease: With Krieg.
- Admittedly it seems pretty one-sided, since Krieg communicates exclusively in meat-related nonsense and enormous amounts of violence. In a Loverpalooza letter between Moxxi and Krieg, the latter implies that Maya either turned him down or isn't aware of his feelings for her.
- It is also mentioned by Tiny Tina in her invite to Maya for her Bunkers & Badasses game: If you ain't too busy trying to get Krieg to stop staring at you.
- Borderlands 3, particularly the Fantastic Fustercluck DLC, establishes that Maya may have very well returned his feelings in her own way.
Maya: Thank you. For helping Krieg so much. He means... more to me than I thought anyone could.
Simple, yet Awesome: Phaselock in all but two skills does one thing - render enemies helpless by trapping them in a bubble. As anomalous and mystical as it is, it's not as complicated as upgrading Axton's turret with new equipment, having new buffs applied to yourself when Gunzerking or dashing around while spotting weaknesses with Zer0's Decepti0n, but it almost always the job done with only having extra duration and potential to deal some elemental damage on the side when it comes to enemies. While you could get Thoughtlock to trade levitating enemies in exchange for mind controlling them to fight for you, it's not quite as versatile in going for the kill as regular Phaselock offers.
Sophisticated as Hell: Occasionally, Maya will recite words of wisdom from her time with the monks. And then follow up with what she actually thinks in a snarky and/or profane manner.
Maya: (When left idle) The monks told me to respect silence, to treasure the moments of inaction so that combat could be even more invigorating. Now I truly understand: they didn't know what the HELL they were talking about!
Sore Loser: If one of her quotes after losing a duel is any indicator.
Maya: Well played... bitch.
Strapped to an Operating Table:
- Her profile specifically states that she dislikes when people try to experiment on her.
- In her personal ECHO log, "First Week On Pandora", she mentions that half of the Pandora populous she's met wants to worship her for being a Siren and the other half want to capture her and turn her over to Hyperion.
Support Party Member: Unlike the other Vault Hunters in 2, Maya's Phaselock Action Skill is designed specifically for crowd control, and her skill trees either emphasize on this, make her a Combat Medic, or make her a master of the elements.
This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: One of her Second Wind callouts is "I'm back, bitches!". Also, if she manages to kill a lot of enemies at once, one of her taunts is "Fear me, bitches!".
Token Good Teammate:
- Despite her fondness for a hearty Evil Laugh when dispatching foes, calling opponents 'bitches', and her tendency to tell opponents they should just give up and die, Maya is by far the least psychotic and bloodthirsty of the Vault Hunters.
- She is also the most polite to other characters. She will politely insist the other character to take their time if they are in their menu while trying to travel to the next area, and when she appears in a game, she offers a friendly greeting, tells them what she is, and warns that if they try to capture her she'll incinerate their brains.
- It's also worth noting that the enemies in the game are pretty much all either bandits or Hyperion employees and machines. The exact thing she was raised to fight.
Touched by Vorlons: She's a Siren, like Lilith. Her powers involve "phaselocking", in which she traps an enemy in an energy bubble, temporarily taking it out of the fight.
Troll: She's the reason why Ava was excited to meet Claptrap, having told her stories about her adventures with him in an evidently flattering light on his part. Knowing anything about Claptrap, it's fair to say that Maya was screwing with her apprentice.
Tyke Bomb: According to logs you can find, her church intended her to be this. It didn't work out.
Worf Had the Flu: Her confrontation with the Calypso twins would have probably worked out better if Ava wasn't being used as a hostage or if she knew about Troy's abilities.

Salvador

Salvador (AKA The Gunzerker)

Voiced by: John Swasey

"TIME TO COMPENSATE!!"

A heavily-built but not terribly huge native to Pandora who was lured into becoming a Vault Hunter by a Hyperion raid on his village, which promised him violence and challenge in equal measure.

His skill is Gunzerking; it mainly allows him to dual-wield weapons regardless of type, but can also regenerate health and ammo and become resistant to damage. His skill trees are oriented towards enhancing his guns (Gunlust), enhancing his Gunzerking skill and his ammo capacity (Rampage), and increasing his survivability (Brawn).

Ax-Crazy: A rare, kinda heroic example.
Badass Boast: Several of his Gunzerking lines are this.
Salvador: I AM EVERYTHING!
Badass Native: Salvador is actually a native of Pandora and was the defender of his village.
Badass Normal: Compared to the other vault hunters, Salvador is this. Axton is an experienced soldier who can deploy a powerful turret; Zer0 is a ninja who uses holographic decoys and may not even be human, judging by his borderline-supernatural abilities. Maya is a siren. Gaige has a badass death robot bodyguard. Krieg is the result of experimentation. Salvador, on the other hand, is just one man with incredible anger management issues, too many steroids, and an insatiable thirst for More Dakka. He kicks as much ass as any of the others.
The Berserker: Gunzerker, to be more specific. When he gets mad he starts using Guns Akimbo, doing boosted gun damage and Regenerating Health all the while. Some of his lines hint that he loves pain and might even have a slight death wish.
The Big Guy: He and Krieg take Brick's place as this for the new crop of Vault Hunters. Amusingly Subverted in terms of physical appearance as he is the shortest of the six Vault Hunters.
Blood Knight:
Judge Hector: Come again? Killing those men was fun?
Salvador: Killing bad guys is always fun!
Boisterous Bruiser: Loudest and most verbal of the bunch. Most likely due to roid-rage.
Bond One-Liner:
- Killing enemies while Gunzerking causes Salvador to spout an action hero one-liner. Some of them, like "GET OFF MY PLANE!" and "IT'S BEEN REVOKED!" are famous one-liners from action movies.
- This trope is also parodied in one of his Gunzerking quotes, which is simply "ONE-LINER!".
The Bus Came Back: He reappears with Axton in 3's "Arms Race" DLC, as an announcer for a reality game show.
The Cameo: In Guns, Love, and Tentacles, he's apparently acquired quite a long tab at the lodge, and is wanted for it.
Chaste Hero: Oddly enough, Anthony Burch actually stated that Salvador isn't interested in the, uh... "usual" hero's reward, being more interested in guns. In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, if asked by Moxxi if he ever had someone who loved him, he has this to say:
Salvador: 'Course not! Have you met me? I look like a fist with hair stapled to it.
Combat Sadomasochist: In his introduction ECHO recording, Salvador is told that before he get anywhere near the vault, he'll be shot, stabbed, burned, and mauled a thousand times over. He loves every part of that sentence. Also, when reviving downed teammates he'll sometimes say that if anyone's going to almost die, it should be him.
Comically Missing the Point: In the second ECHO recording regarding his origins that you can find in Thousand Cuts, he is put on trial for the murder of three bandits. As Salvador tries to explain to the judge that the four bandits tried to kill his "abuela" (grandmother), the judge dismisses it, claiming that he's tried to convince the other villagers of that already, then asks if he had anything else to say.
Salvador: Uh, it was fun?
Compensating for Something: When entering Gunzerk, one of his lines is "Time to compensate!", and while Gunzerking he might also say "Screw you, Freud!" Obviously, he's either compensating for his small stature... or those other things that steroids can make small. And his infamous (but cut) line...
"IT'S LIKE HAVING THREE DICKS!"
Cooldown Manipulation:
- I'm Already Ready speeds up the cooldown rate of your action skill.
- With Get Some, Gunzerking's cooldown is also decreased by shooting enemies, but only procs once every 3 seconds.
Critical Status Buff:
- "Just Got Real" from the Brawn tree increases gun damage the lower your health is.
- Inconceivable will grant you a chance not to consume ammo when firing weapons. This chance increases the lower your health and shields are.
- Out of Bubblegum increases fire rate when shields are depleted.
Damage Reduction:
- "I'm the Juggernaut" gives damage reduction for a short time whenever an enemy is killed.
- "Come At Me Bro" is a Draw Aggro move that also comes with this, while also regenerating full health.
Dashingly Dapper Derby: He can get one as a quest reward, and it comes with a very nice beard, too.
Desperation Attack:
- The "Down, Not Out" skill in the Gun Lust tree allows you to Gunzerk while in Fight For Your Life.
- With Money Shot, the last bullet in a gun's clip gets a massive damage boost. Players can also invoke this trope by deliberately saving the last bullet of a mag, switching to another weapon to soften the enemies, and when in Fight for Your Life state, hit any target with the saved bullet to deal massive damage and revive yourself in a quicker way.
Difficult, but Awesome: The Gun Lust tree. Mechanically, it's a little complicated to take full advantage of, due to the focus on switching weapons.
Draw Aggro: Come At Me Bro is a taunt move that makes every enemy turn their attention to him, while healing him to full health and giving Damage Reduction in the process.
Double Entendre: His "Sexual Tyrannosaurus" skill. The loading screen tip for it even lampshades the possibility of the player just looking at the skill's name.
Dreadlock Warrior: One of his heads gives him a long dreadlock ponytail.
Easily Forgiven: Salvador was about to be hanged when Hyperion attacked his village. When torturing the man who shot the judge for doing that, he's asked why he cares since the judge was going to hang him. Salvador brushes it off as "Nobody's perfect".
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Has the third-highest bounty of all the Vault Hunters, with a list of crimes including manslaughter, arson, and cannibalism... and yet, he still loves his grandma Rosita. In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, upon learning that she hired the resort staff to kill his assassin, he happily declares "I love you, abuela!".
Extreme Omnivore: In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, he complains that the Zaford whiskey lacks the kick of paint thinner, and when collecting machine grease for a sidequest he remarks that it tastes great on sandwiches.
Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: He and Axton became the hosts of Arms Race in "3" primarily because of money troubles.
Fighting for a Homeland: He's fighting back against Hyperion because they've declared all the local residents 'bandits' for not submitting to Hyperion rule. Also, because there's a crapload of guns and money in it for him.
Flipping the Bird: Does this with his Come At Me, Bro skill. Sadly, it's first-person only and no third-person animations exist for it.
Gratuitous Spanish: Not just his name, but some of his taunts as well. Bienvenidos a la fiesta, amigos!
Good Old Fisticuffs: His basic melee attack is a simple left hook, though he does wear knuckles. A skill tree upgrade changes his melee into an uppercut for more damage.
Guns Akimbo: Can actually dual-wield every gun in the game, from pistols to Rocket Launchers. It's even lampshaded in the loading screens, mentioning if you wanna have a rocket launcher in one hand and a sniper rifle in the other, you can!
Gun Nut: Makes sense for the gunzerker to be one (and one of his skill trees is even called Gun Lust), but it's made clear in the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep DLC when the characters ponder on what they will spend their riches on. Salvador's response:
Salvador: Guns! And guns!
The Gunslinger: The Vaporizer with a Rampage build (though with a focus on dual wielding unusual for the archetype); The Woo with a Gun Lust build and a pistol-boosting Renegade mod.
Hero with Bad Publicity:
- Jack's ECHO recordings of Salvador has him about to be hanged for killing four men. According to Salvador, said men were bandits who were trying to kill his grandmother. He already tried to convince his fellow villagers of this, and considering their calls for his death, to no avail.
- The completion screen text for This Just In! outright states that killing off Hyperion propagandist Hunter Hellquist wouldn't help Salvador's reputation.
Salvador: With Hunter Hellquist dead, people aren't at risk of thinking you're a terrible, scary, baby-eating monster. Unless you're the Gunzerker. He still makes people uncomfortable.
Heroic Comedic Sociopath: His defining trait. Fortunately for Pandora, however, its mostly Moral Sociopathy, and there are enough bandits and hostile wildlife on the planet to keep him occupied for a very long time.
Hollywood Action Hero: He runs on tropes common to the Hollywood Action Hero (with the exception of "sense of empathy") and a huge helping of Lampshade Hanging and a bit of Meta-awareness.
Healing Factor: The Brawn skill tree has a number of skills that affect this in various ways, either passively, or while Gunzerking.
Hidden Elf Village: His village was so remote that the people living there didn't know what the hell a "Vault" was, and had never heard of Hyperion. Like, ever.
I'm a Humanitarian: Cannibalism is among the list of charges on his Wanted poster. It's unknown if this is one of Hyperion's exaggerations or some sort of misunderstanding. With Salvador, its entirely possible he ate a guy's liver.
Incoming Ham: The "Come at me, bro!" skill. Pressing the "Action Skill" button while Gunzerking causes Salvador to flip off and scream at enemies, boosting his health and damage but making everyone turn their attention to him.
Salvador: BRING THE PAIN, BITCHES!
Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: His first and final ECHO's feature him breaking the limbs of Hyperion soldiers to get info (and because they were acting being smart while at his mercy).
The Juggernaut:
- The Brawn skill tree is built around making Salvador unkillable. One of the skills in the tree is even called "I'm the Juggernaut".
- A Gunlust/Rampage build with Salvador dual-wielding the ever-popular and Game Breaking Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold and slag Rubi combo will make him literally unkillable due to health gating.
Lampshade Hanging: Salvador's a fan of doing this while starting up Gunzerk. a lot.
"TIME TO COMPENSATE!!!"
"CAN'T STOP SCREAMING!!!"
"SCREW YOU FREUD!!!"
"ONE-LINER!!!"
"SOMETHING CLEVER!!!" (to clarify on the last two, he says these exact words)
Large Ham: The number of lines he speaks in the game that are not enormously loud, top-of-his-lungs battle cries or taunts can probably be counted on one of Zer0's hands.
Lightning Bruiser: The Brawn tree specializes on health regeneration and massive reduction. This also improves some of his physical attributes such as fire rate, movement speed, gun damage and an uppercut that can send enemies flying.
Long List: His "Wanted!" Poster is actually two wanted posters stapled together because the list of charges is so long.
Magikarp Power: Early-game, Salvador's Action Skill isn't particularly impressive as most of the guns you'll come across are glorified Shop Fodder, so you might not even have two decent weapons to wield when using it and the health regen doesn't make him much tougher. However, as you progress through the game, Sal not only gets some excellent skills to pair with his Action Skill but you also get much fancier weapons, allowing for degrees of Exponential Potential that no other character can match and appropriately ludicrous damage output and survivability.
Megaton Punch: "Fistful of Hurt", his melee override that lets him deliver a devastating uppercut to his enemies that can knock them away from him.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: invokedTina made all of the dwarves in her Bunkers & Badasses campaign look like Salvador because of his small size. Lilith takes offense to it, Salvador not so much.
Tina: Yeah I know, Free Lilly. You think it's racist or somethin'? I'll ask Sal downstairs, see if he thinks its racist. HEY SALVADOR! IS IT OKAY IF ALL OF THE DWARVES IN MY CAMPAIGN LOOK LIKE YOU?!
Salvador: That is AWESOME!
Tina: BOOYAH! Not racist.
More Dakka:
- Salvador's entire modus operandi, especially when you take a look at his Gun Lust tree.
- The last skill in the Rampage tree is Keep Firing, which increases the fire rate and reload speed of guns while Gunzerking for as long as the trigger is held down. Try it with guns that have fast fire rates, speedy reloads, and/or huge magazines to begin with — you'll fire hundreds of bullets in the blink of an eye.
The Napoleon: He is a dwarf, caused by a lifetime of steroid abuse. He's also a very angry man.
No Indoor Voice: Pretty much everything he says is screamed at the top of his voice.
Not the Intended Use: Of all people, Salvador actually makes a decent non-Zero sniper, due to No Kill Like Overkill's interaction with critical damage allowing him to float massive amounts of potential damage with high-crit weapons, combined with the massive base damage boost of Money Shot fueling the former.
One-Man Army: We'll let this bit from The Son of Crawmerax DLC speak for itself.
Sparky Flint: The next guy you're looking for is named Blendo, and he wants to kill Salvador in order to avenge, uh... [long pause] ...everyone. You killed his entire bandit clan, Sally. All a hundred and fifty of them.
Salvador: That was a fuuuunn weekend.
Our Dwarves Are Different: He's short and stout. He's a Boisterous Bruiser who prefers raw force to finesse. He's got a huge nose and a beard. Despite being a human, he checks off every box except for mining and drinking. If there was any doubt, Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep made all the dwarves look like him with braided beards.
Out of Focus: So far, Salvador has had the least amount of exposure outside of 2 amongst his team. Only Axton comes close, and even he at least appeared in the Hologram DLC of the Pre-Sequel alongside Gaige along with a handful of references in 3. Salvador at least gets an Easter Egg in 3's Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Too much steroid use has stunted his growth, which basically makes him a Latino Wolverine with no claws. Heck, one of his skills is a Megaton Punch. Because of this, Tina based all the dwarves of her Bunkers & Badasses campaign off of him, something that he thinks is awesome.
Regenerating Health: The Brawn skill tree specializes in this by giving Salvador four ways to regenerate or fully restore health, starting with a skill that slowly but continuously regenerates his health at all times. He gets back half his health when Gunzerking and regenerates further during it. He can get a skill that makes him regen more during Gunzerking, and he can get a skill that makes him regenerate more whenever he takes direct damage. Properly-specced he'll be recovering health six ways from Sunday and be nearly impossible to kill.
Screaming Warrior: While Gunzerking, he's always screaming. Most of the things he says in that state are utter nonsense.
Shouting Shooter: He usually has one gun and shouts invectives and boasts at megaphone-volume in a thick Spanish accent. When Gunzerking, his shouting, gunfire, and general loudness double.
Skull for a Head: His head customization from Captain Scarlett's DLC.
Sociopathic Hero:
- Salvador has, in his own words, "issues". Namely, he really loves to hurt and kill people, with both his bare hands and big, powerful guns. The "Hero" part comes from him only liking (or at least preferring) to kill bad guys.
- Reviving someone as Salvador may be accompanied with him saying "I stopped shooting to help you." or "You made me stop shooting!" in a fairly self-important tone. Other times he will sound frustrated while reviving his teammates, saying "You can't kill anything from down there!"
Spiky Hair: According to him, he once stabbed a guy with it. Like a rhinoceros.
Surplus Damage Bonus: The Gunzerker class has one skill-tree end with the skill "No Kill Like Overkill". After getting a kill the extra damage done is then added to all gun attacks made (though this can't make an individual shot more than five time as powerful otherwise) for a couple of seconds or until you kill another enemy. So if one kills a weakened enemy with something like a rocket launcher then pulls out a machine gun, it can get pretty crazy powerful.
Tattoo as Character Type: He has bands of pistol bullets on both of his biceps. Considering his passion for firearms, they represent the fact that Salvadore's true love is towards his guns and nothing comes between that.
Top-Heavy Guy: Has an absolutely hulking upper body, on top of tiny, comically short legs.
[Trope Name]: A hilarious amount of his quotes are this, part of his near-constant Lampshade Hanging of the Hollywood Action Hero tropes he runs on.
"ONE LINER!"
"SOMETHING CLEVER!"
"BERSERK SCREAMING!"
"RAAAAAAAAAGE!"
"AGGRO!"
Unscrupulous Hero: He's got very good reasons to be fighting Hyperion beyond simply getting paid or finding a worthy opponent to fight, but he's very eager to spill blood and happy to slaughter and torture Hyperion personnel.
Unstoppable Rage: What Gunzerking is. The screen gets a red tint around the edges and you can see the bloodshot veins in Salvador's eyes for the duration. In an interesting twist on the standard form of the trope, the rage of the Gunzerker involves becoming a walking dispenser of danmaku, rather than executing Extreme Mêlée Revenge.

Zer0

Zer0 (AKA The Assassin)

As a number; A bigger number than you; Ironically does a lot of dividing

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maxresdefault_1_024.jpg

As of Borderlands 3. Click to see him in: ^{Borderlands 2} - ^{Tales from the Borderlands}

Voiced by: Mike Turner, Ashly Burch

"Your eyes deceive you./ An illusion fools you all./ I move for the kill."

An extremely mysterious assassin who came to Pandora to find a challenge worthy of his skills. Beyond that, we... really don't know much else. It's up in the air as to whether he's even human.

His skill is Decepti0n, which creates a holographic decoy while he turns invisible, allowing him to strike suddenly for massive damage. His skill trees are oriented towards making sniper rifles and long range guns more useful (Sniping), taking better advantage of his Deception skill (Cunning), and buffing his melee attacks (Bloodshed).

Ambiguous Gender: Zer0 is assumed to be male, but his true gender is officially unknown. The "Pandoran Gazette" and an invitation from Tiny Tina point to his gender ambiguity. At PAX 2014, Randy Pitchford referred to Zer0's gender as "ambiguous". Anthony Burch stated on his old ASKFM that Zer0 is agender/nonbinary/genderless and (ideally) should be referred to with they/them pronouns, although he also says in a different answer about Zer0 (and Maya) being asexual that 'what's in [his] head is no longer canon'. Zer0 is the only Vault Hunter in BL2 to have a male and female voice actor. Mike Turner voices him in BL2 and BL3, and is credited as voicing him in "Tales" despite having a consistently higher-pitched voice throughout, but Ashly Burch voices him in Tales From the Borderlands, episode 5, and the "Wimoweh" trailer.
Ambiguously Human: Even In-Universe, nobody really knows if he is or isn't human. One of the Headhunter Downloadable missions lampshades this; everyone gets an alternate head where their heads are reduced to bleached skulls with eyes still in their sockets, with Zer0's being a large robotic eye sticking out of his now-visorless helmet named "N0t C4n0n".
Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Most of his lines delivered for kills are poetic ways of describing how awesome he is.
Back for the Finale: He can be recruited for the finale of Tales from the Borderlands if either A) Fiona told Mordecai she was a Vault Hunter, or B) The only other two available are Athena and August.
Back Stab:
- "Ambush" increases damage dealt against enemies with their backs turned or are attacking someone other than Zer0.
- A Bloodshed skill also called "Backstab" is a more direct example of this, as it increases melee damage when hitting enemies in the back.
Badass Boast: Can give a particularly awesome one when killing an enemy during "Fight For Your Life Mode!", which like most of his second wind lines is one of the only times he sounds pissed.
"I won't die today / Not while I still have ammo / I am a badass!"
- Another good one if you kill a tough enemy with a headshot or critical hit:
  "Critical killing / Is an art unto itself / And I am Rembrandt."
- Another of his Second Wind quotes:
  "I am eternal / Death will never capture me / My skills exceed his."
Berserk Button: He developed a sincere hatred for traitors by the time of 3, with one assassination contract that can be done for him having the player hunt down Atlas turncoats. He spares them no kind words or mercy when they're found.
Filthy betrayer. / Fitting end for a turncoat. / Rot in hell, coward.
Blade Below the Shoulder: His class mods are elbow blades.
Blood Knight:
- When hunting down a poor schmuck, he insists that the target fight back and stop retreating so he can work for it.
- Near the end of the Tiny Tina DLC, when the characters are pondering what he'll use his loot for:
  "I care not for money / Only for the true combat / That said, I'll buy guns."
Boom, Headshot!: His Headsh0t ability (which even has an icon for a cracked skull) boosts critical hit damage, most of which are done by performing headshots against humanoid enemies.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: While some characters are content with lamenting on how bored they are just standing around or will recall a personal story to pass the time, Zer0 can directly address the player.
What is the hold up? / Is someone in the bathroom? / Are you on the phone?
Calling Card: Named Zer0 because of the trademark red, digital-format zero that his mask displays when he score a kill.
Cannot Convey Sarcasm: "Sorry, did that hurt? / That "sorry" was sarcasm / I am not sorry."
Celibate Hero: In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, when Moxxi asked him if he ever had someone he loved, his reply is that he's in love with combat and the battlefield and doesn't need anyone. Anthony Burch also confirmed on his old ASKfm that Zer0 is asexual (at least in his head, anyway). By BL3 he seems to have developed an actual crush on Lor even messing up a haiku while talking to him (which at least suggests aesthetic attraction)! Quite possibly because Lor was violently wiping the floor with Maliwan troops and enjoying every second of it beforehand.
No, I wasn't. uh... / I'm Zer0. I'll go tell Rhys. / It was nice meeting... you. Damn it.
Challenge Seeker: His primary motivation above all else is to seek a challenge for his skills. In the finale of Tales from the Borderlands, he’s the only Vault Hunter that doesn't need to be hired, provided that he learns of Fiona's reputation.
Character Development: In 2 he's mostly stoic, professional, mysterious and very no-nonsense. In Tales he shows a wider range of emotions like enjoying Rhys' compliment (if he says Zer0 is really cool) and some annoyance with Moxxi's obvious Double Entendre. By 3 he's casually cracking jokes, is more open when someone wrongs him and calls Katagawa Jr. a douchebag, he tells some of his old stories, like a time he beheaded a guy with a crab fork, and there's also his implied crush on Lor.
Cold Ham: The one vault hunter on his team who doesn't yell at the top of his lungs in gunfights to some degree. Instead he's excessively mysterious and speaks mostly in Haiku.
Cold Sniper: Zer0 has a dedicated sniping skill tree. He does not, however, seem to have much in the way of emotion.
Combo: "Be Like Water" increases his gun and melee damage when he uses one after the other. The capstone of his Bloodshed Tree, "Many Must Fall" will deploy another hologram and extend the duration of his Decepti0n whenever he kills an enemy with a melee attack.
Competitive Balance: While the Sniping and Bloodshed trees overspecialize boosting ranged and melee attacks respectively, the Cunning tree is more of a balanced specialization that benefits both ranged and melee combat.
Cool Sword: His melee weapon is a black katana with a glowing blue edge.
Cooldown Manipulation: The Grim skill hastens the cooldown of Deception every time you kill enemies.
Corporate Samurai: As of 3, Zer0 is now working as an Atlas operative under its new CEO Rhys.
Counter-Attack: His aptly named C0unter Strike skill increases his melee attack damage when he gets hit.
Coup de Grâce: Invoked in his Killing Bl0w skill, which massively increases melee damage against enemies with low health.
Crippling Overspecialization: Zer0's Sniping tree focuses mainly on guns (especially sniper rifles) and critical hits. While Zoom, Accuracy, Critical Hit Damage and other basic gun parameters apply to all gun types, the last two skills of this tree benefit only snipers. This skill tree doesn't even have any elemental boosts, Cooldown Manipulation, Regenerating Health, Shield recovery and any other survival skills that Cunning and Bloodshed provide.
Critical Hit Class: Zer0's gameplay is built around burst damage and hit chains; in particular, his Critical Ascension skill adds bonus damage for every critical hit scored within a few seconds, stacking up to 999 times but decaying over time.
Critical Status Buff – The Fearless skill gives him a boost to Gun Damage and Fire Rate when his shields are depleted.
The Comically Serious:
- His Creepy Monotone drastically clashes with his smiley Emoticons, and the times he’s Sophisticated as Hell. Perhaps the best example is a quote when he score a critical kill: he responds with a monotone "tee hee hee".
- Also, his reaction to his "savior" in the Son of Crawmerax DLC, who manages to be even more mysterious than Zer0 himself:
  Zer0: "To Zer0: 0ne." (Beat) Well. That's irritatingly cryptic.
Cyber Ninja: Certainly fits the aesthetic, since he wears a mechanical suit and his melee abilities invoke classic ninja skills. Of course, his background is so enigmatic that we can't be sure whether he is actually are a cyborg or robot.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: "Death Mark" lets him apply a debuff to enemies (signified by a red 0 above him) whenever he hits someone in melee or with kunai.
Dash Attack: His "Execute" skill allows him to lunge at his enemies during Decepti0n mode. With the end-tier skill of his Bloodshed tree, "Many Must Fall", he can chain these indefinitely as Deception will remain active and the timer will be reset as long as he manages to kill his target.
Difficult, but Awesome: Zer0 is probably the most difficult of the characters to pick up and play as, because the majority of his abilities are focused on doing damage on stealth or from afar with snipers, with very few buffing his survivability. His playstyle focuses on evasion, agility, and inflicting titanic amounts of damage to take down enemies before they can do much in turn, which is challenging for newer players of First-Person Shooter games.
Disney Death: In Tales from the Borderlands, he seems to get crushed by the death race announcer's box with Bossanova, but then reappears, revealing that he was using a hologram.
Disposable Decoy Doppelgänger: Zer0's main ability is "Decepti0n", which has him send out a holographic clone of himself for enemies to target while he himself becomes invisible, able to emerge and pounce on enemies with a deadly sneak attack. The decoy can be buffed with a few different skill tree options: "Unf0rseen" makes the clone explode with electricity once the real Zer0 becomes visible, while "Many Must Fall" rewards melee kills during "Decepti0n" by creating additional decoys while resetting the ability's cooldown.
Dissonant Serenity: Pandora could be exploding around him (which, you know, isn't quite as hypothetical as it sounds), and Zer0 will still be talking in his calm, focused, sinister monotone.
Emoticon: Zer0 doesn't have facial expressions, so his helmet faceplate lights up to show his emotions, such as :) when he kills or <3 when he's picking someone up. When he loses a duel, "FML" (Fuck My Life) shows up on his face. Climbing or teleporting behind the wheel of a vehicle nets a ":D", which is about as emotional as he gets. As an NPC in 3, he will occasionally display a ":->" when watching the player murder the absolute hell out of Maliwan troops regardless of whichever character is being played, suggesting he really likes watching an extremely capable killer doing their work.
Enemy Scan: As a secondary feature, Decepti0n can reveal invisible enemies and make others easier to see. When augmented with B0re, it can even highlight critical points.
Everyone Has Standards: Even he has a limit to how mysterious one can be (no pun intended). He gets peeved when a (probably) fellow assassin aids him in Son of Crawmerax but leaves only a cryptic message: "To Zer0: 0ne."
Expy:
- Of Snake Eyes. Early concept art even had him wearing a similar grilled visor (Mentioning Snake Eyes as the inspiration). One of his alternate heads is very similar to him, and one of his costumes is even called "Eyes Of the Snake", as a blatant reference.
- Also of Gray Fox. The character designer even admitted to being a big MGS fan, and partially modeled Zer0 after the famous cyborg ninja. It's really apparent when he speaks, using a processed monotone with oddly poetic word choice and syntax; Gray Fox did the same.
The Faceless: Zer0's face is always concealed by a helmet, often with no facial features aside from the occasional emoticon.
Flechette Storm: "Death Bl0ss0m" lets him throw explosive kunai with elemental effects during Decepti0n mode that are also capable of applying the Death Mark debuff.
Four-Fingered Hands: Zer0 only has three fingers and a thumb on each hand, to make him even more Ambiguously Human. If he drops the Crit (An SMG with a chance of slipping out of your hands when reloading), he may lament that if only he had five fingers then he might be able to hold onto it better. He doesn't see his lack of pinky fingers as much of a big deal, saying they're pointless.
Fragile Speedster: Zer0 doesn't have many skills for replenishing health compared to his teammates, having none in his Sniper tree and regenerative health coming later in his Cunning tree. But with the right skills, Zer0 can pick up speed while using his action skill and gain even more after killing an enemy, letting him dash right through the battlefield during the duration. With the Execute skill taken, he'll be able to dash at an enemy's direction with his melee attack, so even if you don't plan on using a melee build on Zer0 you can still use it to move around even faster between targets while in stealth.
Gathering Steam:
- Kill C0nfirmed boosts your Critical Damage the longer you aim down the gun's sights.
- With a point in the Critical Ascensi0n skill, your sniper rifles gain increased gun damage and critical hit damage the more you score kills with snipers, and this can stack up to 999 times. However, these will slowly decay if you haven't scored any critical hits for awhile.
- Rising Sh0t grants a stacking bonus for each successful melee or ranged attack.
Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Pretty much anything he says beyond short, curt sentences is in the form of a 5/7/5 syllabic haiku. Not even Angel is sure why he does so.
Genius Bruiser: He use a melee weapon, and also happens to be very intelligent, by the way he can quickly come up with haikus on the spot.
Glass Cannon: Zer0 focuses almost entirely on powerful one-shot kills, either with a sniper rifle or with a massively damaging melee strike. However, this offensive capability comes at the expense of defensive options. Only one of his skill helps to recover shields, and he has only two skills that allow for health regeneration (both of which are obtained relatively late in his skill trees). Of the three "defensive" skills he has, two of them can only be activated by killing an enemy. He has a hard time staying alive as a result.
Gotta Kill 'Em All: In 3, his Crew Missions involve assassination contracts on various unique minibosses.
Hero of Another Story: In Tales from the Borderlands, Zer0 crosses paths with Rhys and Fiona during his own search for the Gortys Project, but otherwise doesn't really have much else to do with them.
Highly-Visible Ninja: His default look averts this, though he has a lot of more colorful looks going for him.
Inexplicably Awesome: The designers have stated outright that they wanted Zer0 to have as confusing, muddled, and mysterious a background as possible.
- The ECHO surveillance logs involving Zer0 that Jack has his subordinates pull up leave even him stumped. Hell, Jack himself balks that all anyone can say about Zer0 being on Pandora or whether he's human or not is "I'unno".
- In the side-quest for "Son of Crawmerax", everyone has their background history revisited including Zer0, except his part of the side-mission is muddled with weirdness and confusion such as the person who was sent to kill Zer0 being unclear with his motives, the person dying in the most peculiar way that no one but Zer0 understands, and in the letter given to Zer0 (which revealed a character involved in everyone else's past) Zer0's is left deliberately cryptic. So cryptic that the Assassin himself thought it was infuriating.
- In 3, precisely how Katagawa Jr. got weapons and equipment to match Zer0's abilities is not specified, but it does seem to perturb him. In a random line after the boss fight, he'll make a cryptic reference to a female who may have been the source of the armor and sword and holographic technology, but Zer0 will cut himself off before explaining any further.
In the Back: "Backstab" and "Ambush" increases Zer0's damage whenever he strikes an enemy in the back.
Invisibility: His class skill sends out a decoy while he turns invisible, Predator-style.
Irony: Invoked in his title card/subtitle for the third game:
"Ironically does a lot of dividing"
Lampshade Hanging: If you bring him and Athena to fight the Traveler in the fifth episode of Tales, she'll ask him if he always speaks in haiku. He admits that it's "inconsistent."
Leet Lingo: All of the letter o's in Zer0's name, skill trees, heads and skins are replaced with number 0's. The names of some of his alternate heads follow suit, and also includes 3 for E, 1 for I (i), and 4 for A sometimes.
Life Drain: "Resurgence" restores your health when you kill enemies with a melee attack. The lower your health, the more is restored.
My Hero, Zero: Or more specifically, Zer0.
Mundane Utility: His action skill offers great opportunities for damage and escaping out of a jam, but turning invisible for a while also lets him be a pretty reliable reviver if your co-op partner goes down, since nothing short of stray bullets will go for him. He's only outdone by Maya using the Res skill, who can skip the process and just bring a friend back to their feet.
The Musketeer: He’s equally deadly as a marksman and as a swordsman. Most notably, he uses a sword, and most of his builds are built around fighting with pistols or sniper rifles, which is common with characters of that trope.
Mysterious Past: To the point almost being a parody. Nobody, no one knows where he is from, how he became who he is, what race is, or anything at all about Zer0. Even Angel with full access to all sorts of information has no idea of who or what Zer0 is being able to "explain" him with a confused "I'unno".
Ninja: Clear design influence, and the name of one of his class mods. The ultimate skill in the Decepti0n-focused Cunning tree even gives him the ability to throw kunai.
Nominal Hero: His motives are, like everything else about him, shrouded in mystery. But he seems to mostly be in it for the pleasure of the fight.
No Name Given: Other than "Zer0", which is almost certainly a pseudonym.
No Social Skills: Upon being told that it is impossible to shut a rude person up, Zer0 "accepts" the challenge and decapitates the guy in front of his friend. Although it's justified that Pandora's people have been doing this all day.
Not So Above It All:
- In the final chapter of Tales from the Borderlands, after being reunited with Sasha, Rhys opens his arms expecting her to run up and hug him, only for her to run past to hug Vaughn instead. If you recruited Zer0 to help you out, he will call out Rhys on such an embarrassing display.
Zer0: Oh yes. I saw that.
- Whenever he drops his poetic warrior attitude to fill his haiku poems with profanity and bragging, usually at his target's expense. A good example is when he challenges a teammate to a duel (See Sophisticated as Hell below).
Professional Killer: Part of being an assassin. He’s wanted by Hyperion for a political assassination.
One-Hit Kill: Zer0 excels at dealing high burst damage with his "Decepti0n" and certain skillsets, often resulting in this happening to all but the toughest of enemies.
One-Hit Polykill: The B0re skill, which lets bullets penetrate enemies as well as highlighting weak points while in Decepti0n.
Outside-Context Problem: As revealed in the ECHO Logs that you can find in Sawtooth Cauldron, Jack is irritated when nobody, not even Angel (who was able to profile the other new Vault Hunters), can come up with anything better than "I'unno", when attempting to describe Zer0's species, origins or background.
Outside-the-Box Tactic: Most of the skills in the sniper tree are great for more than just sniping: he makes shotguns and pistols really awesome too. (Better aim, better crits, faster reloads, overpenetration...)
Regenerating Health: "Innervate" grants Zer0 this during Deception.
Samurai Cowboy: The 2013 Community Day Event gave him a cowboy-themed skin, based off Wyatt Earp's outfit in Tombstone. He also has Class Mods built around improving his skills with pistols.
Shock and Awe: "Unf0rseen" causes Zer0's hologram to explode and shock nearby enemies upon deactivating.
Skull for a Head:
- His head customization from Tiny Tina's DLC is the same as the head of the four Skeleton King bosses. Averted with his head from Captain Scarlett's DLC, which is just a skull painted over the front of his default helmet (and he also wears a do-rag).
- Played With when you wear the head from Wedding Day Massacre, in which he's the only one who doesn't get an organic and exposed skull for a head. He instead gets his helmet removed and a robotic eye in its place, with it named ['N0t C4n0n'] so as not to solve the mystery of his ambiguous species.
Sophisticated as Hell: Occasionally peppers his haikus with profanity.
Zer0: [issuing a duel challenge] Oh, what?! Yeah, what, bitch?! / Yeah, I just slapped you and stuff. / What you gonna do?
- It gets taken up a notch in 3 where he's much more relaxed and resorts to slang and casual speech in haiku, while still having a sophisticated edge to his vocabulary.
We made them angry. / Prepare for counter-attack. / Maliwan dickheads.
[After the player has killed Katagawa] Katagawa is dead./ That kill was long overdue. / What a goddamn douche.
The Spook: Robot? Cyborg? Alien? Human? Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot? Nobody has any clue what he is or where he’s from. And according to the devs, nobody ever will.
Spread Shot: His Death Bl0ss0m skill's kunai spreads farther away when thrown from long distances.
Strange-Syntax Speaker: He tends to speak in haiku. This is actually a stealthy reference to his sword-based fighting style, since haiku generally consist of two juxtaposed ideas or images with a "cutting word" (kireji) separating them.
Stealth Expert: Excels at sneaking, sniping, and backstabbing. He can even deal bonus damage to unaware enemies.
Sword and Gun: Has a skill called "Be Like Water" that advocates using both his sword and guns in tandem, giving a damage boost for using one after the other.
Sword Lines: A blue trail appears whenever he swings his katana.
The Stoic: He sounds very emotionally reserved, even when saying things that are clearly meant to convey things like contempt or bravado.
- Not So Stoic: In 3, he expresses genuine grief and mourns Maya after she is killed off by Troy.
Undying Loyalty: In 3, Zer0 is deeply loyal to Rhys and the Atlas corporation. Not only is the contract on a group of Lancer deserters something he considers personal, after dealing with a Katagawa disguised as Zer0 he bluntly states that he would never betray "his bro".
The Voiceless: Oddly averted for his archetype. Since most of his lines are in Haiku, which are always seventeen syllables long, he is considerably more wordy than the other Vault Hunters.
Warrior Poet: A lot of his statements are in Haiku. In 3 he considers using Iambic Pentameter instead, but thinks it's too pretentious.
Worthy Opponent: What he hopes to find in searching for the Vault. Although he takes contracts and payment without much discretion, he’s essentially looking for a challenge.

Gaige

Gaige (AKA The Mechromancer)

As of Borderlands 3. ^{Click here to see her in Borderlands 2}

Voiced by: Cherami Leigh (BL2/3) and Luci Christian (BL2 only)

"I'm getting a god complex and I LIKE IT!"

A high-school engineering genius who was forced to flee to Pandora after an "incident" in her school's science fair resulted in her rival "exploding." Currently working as a wedding planner. Travels with her personal Robot Buddy, D374-TP, or "Deathtrap", which she digistructs using her specific skill. Her secondary mechanic is Anarchy: every time she kills an enemy or reloads an empty weapon, she's awarded Anarchy stacks, which increase her gun damage and decrease her gun accuracy; if she dies or reloads a non-empty gun, the stacks decrease. Her skill trees are oriented towards increasing her and Deathtrap's survivability (Best Friends Forever), increasing her damage output and taking advantage of Shock elemental damage (Little Big Trouble), and using Anarchy stacks to becoming more powerful (Ordered Chaos).

Accidental Murder: When Marcie got first place the science fair by having her father buy off all the judges, she started gloating and shoved Gaige. Deathtrap's IFF protocols registered her as an enemy, so he attacked, there was some sort of error, and Marcie... exploded. Also, the stray cat that walked into the line of fire during Deathtrap's testing of its claws.
A God Am I: If you build up enough anarchy stacks her "got a stack" quotes start drifting this way.
"I'm getting a god complex and I LIKE IT!"
"I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA!"
"I AM THE INFINITE!"
"I AM THE GOD OF DAMAGE!"
The Alcoholic: She had acquired a taste for margaritas in "Guns, Love, and Tentacles", to the point where she built a dispenser in Deathtrap and frequently asks for one over the Echo. She's very, clearly drunk off her ass by the end of the campaign.
Almighty Janitor: In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles", Wainwright and Hammerlock have hired her to be their wedding planner. She considers it her duty to make sure the wedding goes perfectly, so when a crazy cult starts interfering she doesn't find anything odd about picking up a gun and fighting back. She coordinates much of the DLC, and makes it clear several times that she just sees it as a normal and expected part of her job.
Gaige: Never mess with a wedding planner.
Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Her father walks in during her ECHO casting bringing her hot cocoa to drink, leading to this:
Gaige: I don't need cocoa, dad! I am a woman of science and asskickery, not children's beverages!
Gaige's Dad: Heh heh, whatever you say, sweetheart, I'll just leave it here.
(Gaige's dad walks out, followed by a moment of silence)
Gaige: ...(slurp) Dammit, that's really good.
Ambiguously Jewish: One of Gaige's lines when opening a chest is "It's like Hanukkah!".
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Wanted for "Creation of unauthorized technology, murder, and excessive adorability" according to her profile card.
A-Team Firing: The "Anarchy" skill increases her damage while decreasing her accuracy every time she kills an enemy or she empties her clip. This can be circumvented to a degree by using Hyperion weapons and the Close Enough skill in the BFF tree. The frustration of not hitting things is also circumvented by increasingly hilarious dialogue:
"Eh, accuracy's overrated anyway."
"I probably won't hit anything, but whatever!"
"Why am I still doing this?!"
"I don't even remember what accuracy MEANS!"
"God help you all if I actually hit something!!"
"Player! WHAT! ARE! YOU! DOING?!"
Artificial Limbs: Well, Limb, singular. She accidentally sliced her left arm - she says it's "not a big cut, it barely goes like, halfway to the bone" - which gave her a great idea. Instead of using an Insta-Health injection to fix the wound, she proceeds to finish lopping it off with a particle saw and builds a new one, which contains all of Deathtrap's digistruct data so she can quick-summon him wherever she is and whenever she wants. It can also punch through concrete, though doing so breaks its fingers off, which explains why she opts to use a hammer as a quick melee weapon instead of punching through enemies.
Ascended Fangirl: Her second ECHO has her gushing about Pandora and the Vaults. After her Accidental Murder of Marcie, she leaves her homeworld of Eden-5 for Pandora.
Badass Adorable: Kicks hundreds of bandits' and soldiers' asses, even while being adorable.
Badass Boast: In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, upon seeing that Marcie's uncle is dead:
"Ha! SUCK IT, Holloway family! Even if your hitman hadn't fallen outta the sky for some weird-ass reason, I woulda taken him out anyway. I killed Handsome friggin' JACK! You think one little assassin can take me down? BOOYAH. Also, sorry I killed your daughter."
Badass Bookworm: Built Deathtrap. Can mow down enemies like there's no tomorrow. Short and skinny.
The Beastmaster: All her trees buff Deathtrap, but Best Friends Forever focuses on this the most.
The Berserker: Ordered Chaos turns her into one. While she can do somewhat significant damage from down range with some luck, charging in is much more effective.
Beware the Nice Ones: Next to Maya she is probably the nicest of the playable characters in the second game. This doesn't mean she's any less violent or dangerous.
Big "NO!": Whenever her Anarchy stacks expire. Hilariously, the "NO!" gets longer the more stacks you had before they expired.
Blood Knight: Gets this with Anarchy.
"BLOOOD!!!"
Body Horror: Starting off with how she got her robotic arm, there are also several skins for her head that drift into this territory. Digitized Death, Mecka Wrecka, and Metal Blood all replace her head with robotic ones, Speak No Evil has her Mouth Stitched Shut and her eye inhumanly distorted, and Lovely Corpse has the skin ripped right off her face.
Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: She has shades of this, having a skill called "Anarchy" and shouting "Smash the system!" all while racking up a body count expected of a Vault Hunter. Ironically, though, she only has a small handful of actual bomb-related skills.
Brains and Bondage: Finds Hammerlock's admission of liking being tied up hot, and wears half a pair of handcuffs on her wrist.
Bratty Half-Pint: Can show tendencies of this, especially against enemies.
After a Second Wind: Nice try, suckas!
After a critical kill: NOOB!
Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Completely makes the fourth wall her bitch in regards to Anarchy. Does it no less than five times in relation to gaining Anarchy stacks. When Anarchy gets REAL high, she actually starts wondering aloud what the player is doing.
  "Don't accidentally reload. Don't accidentally reload."
  (later with more stacks) "I think my reload button's broken."
  "Player! WHAT! ARE! YOU! DOING?!"
  "invokedYou're breaking the game, dude!!!"
  "ALLEN WRITE SOME DIALOGUE HERE!!!"
- Does it when you accidentally reload without Discord:
  "Aw man, learn the controller!"
Brief Accent Imitation: In Borderlands 3, Gaige will read out letters from various characters while doing impressions of their voices, one of which is Marcus, a deep-voiced Russian.
Brought Down to Normal: Lampshades it when losing Anarchy.
"I feel normal now."
Bully Hunter: The reason why she initially built Deathtrap. It worked a little too well, suffice to say.
The Bus Came Back: She returns in 3 in the "Guns, Love and Tentacles" DLC as Hammerlock and Wainwright's wedding planner.
The Cameo: She shows up in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, returning from Vault Hunting on Eptah, where she and Axton found the Vault Hunter Aurelia. They make Athena tell an abridged version of the game's story.
Catchphrase:
- "This is gonna be off the chain!"
- "Smash the system."
Cast from Hit Points: Blood Soaked Shields restores her shields on a kill at the cost of some of her health. This pairs up incredibly well with Amp or Turtle Shields, allowing you to keep the amplified damage so long as you keep killing or to simply maximize the Health to Shield rate.
Casual Kink: Her response to Sir Hammerlock mentioning that the way he was bound was not all that unenjoyable during The Son of Crawmerax DLC?
"HOT!"
Chained by Fashion: She wears a padlock on her right wrist. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be one-half of a pair of handcuffs. She did mention being arrested (and expelled), and it'd be just like her to keep the handcuffs after escaping because they looked cool. And other stuff.
Character Blog: She was the first user of the ECHO casts twitter account (before it was taken over by other characters) and her own ECHO Video Log. The latter makes up for her lack of in-game ECHO logs like what the original four Vault Hunters have.
Chekhov's Gun: In her Echo logs, Gaige states that Marcy's father "has more money than God". Gaige, by a significant margin, has the biggest bounty of the Vault Hunters at a jaw dropping 820,000,000,000. This is 100 billion higher than even Maya, a Siren whom Handsome Jack with all of Hyperion's resources at his disposal is after.
Companion Cube:
- Has this relationship with Deathtrap, boasting proudly "I love that little bot," and "I need to build you an extra arm just for high-fives!" More generally, she sometimes gets like this when she finds a nice new weapon, cooing at them and saying things like "Shush, don't worry baby, I'll take good care of you," when picking them up.
- In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, she claims that Deathtrap wants to hear about how his "ancestors" (the loaders) were built, and promises to never ever ever erase his personality. It's still unclear how much personality he actually has, and how much is the Companion Cube trope.
- In Guns, Love, and Tentacles, Deathtrap doesn't display any extra personality, but Gaige is clearly very dependent on him emotionally. She says more than once that he's been her only companion for the seven years she's been on the run. When he seemingly dies, she has a breakdown, even though there's no reason she couldn't just build a new one. Thankfully, he Came Back Strong.
Cooldown Manipulation: The 20% Cooler skill increases your action skill's cooldown rate.
Critical Status Buff: Fancy Mathematics improves her shield recharge rate and delay based on her remaining health. The lower her health is, the faster her shields recharge.
Crutch Character: Deathtrap is extremely powerful in the early-game, able to dispatch lesser enemies in a single swipe and clear groups of them by himself. However, his poor AI become evident as early as the mid-game of Normal mode, where he serves more as a supportive damage dealer than anything else, without the last upgrades in the middle or last trees, he'll readily fall off in functionality. However, even if the player does go down these paths, he stops leveling up once the player does, and therefore sees very little use in Overlevel playthroughs, as he no longer has the damage or health to compensate.
Daddy's Girl: Despite acting like your typical rebellious teenager, she's still very close to her father; to the point he helps her flee to Pandora after the Accidental Murder. He also rigs the shuttle of the assassin that Marcie's dad sent to kill Gaige during the "Son of Crawmerax" Headhunter DLC.
Damage Reduction: There is a skilled named Made for Sterner Stuff that gives Gaige and Deathtrap damage reduction against all sources.
Death from Above: Her skill also named "Death From Above" which makes you unleash a Digi-splosion whenever you shoot enemies while in mid-air.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Normally played straight like with the other characters, but averted if you decide to spec into Ordered Chaos. If you die you lose all your Anarchy stacks. Have fun getting them back if you had the max you could get. If Gaige is downed while she as a lot of Anarchy stacks, she'll freak out.
"If I go down now, I'm screwed!"
Difficult, but Awesome: Her Ordered Chaos tree. The tree relies on the (mandatory for that tree) Anarchy skill, which gives a stackable damage buff and accuracy debuff every time you make a kill or reload a gun with an empty clip. These buffs do not degrade (outside of Fight for Your Life), but do disappear if you prematurely reload. Needless to say, hitting anything becomes difficult when you have a lot of Anarchy stacks going, but when you do hit them, they will feel it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Disney Death: Deathtrap suffers one of these in the Guns, Love, and Tentacles story, having installed an eltrich crystal into itself and being overloaded with its power. It's knocked out for a while, but unlike Bloodwing, it comes back strong with a new deadly laser attack.
Disproportionate Retribution: Gaige's bounty is the highest of all the Vault Hunters at 820 billion for accidentally killing her classmate and going on the run. This seems excessive when compared to the other Vault Hunters until you realize that Marcie's father was extremely rich and could afford to put out such a massive bounty.
Dude, Where's My Respect?:
- One of her quotes, when Deathtrap is killing, points out that he only placed 3rd in the science fair.
- She complains more about getting 3rd place as one of her rants when you idle too long.
- Hyperion Engineers will make fun of Deathtrap when it's released.
Elemental Powers: The Little Big Trouble skill tree focuses on elemental effects namely, Burn, Slag and Shock, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. The "Make it Sparkle" skill also allows Gaige to buff Deathtrap's melee attack with any element if shot using an elemental weapon.
Energy Weapon: Deathtrap can be upgraded with one.
Equivalent Exchange: Anarchy gains damage and loses accuracy in equal percentage points.
Evil Laugh: While insane she may do this. Or just say it via Lampshade Hanging this trope.
"EVIL MANIACAL LAUGHTER!"
Evolving Weapon: Deathtrap's appearance changes depending on Gaige's skillset. Having points in the BFF tree gives it additional armor plating, having points in Little Big Trouble gives it bladed wings, and points in Ordered Chaos gives it bandit-style spikes. It's possible for it to have a combination of the three. The final talent in each tree also cause Deathtrap to glow.
Eye Beam: Deathtrap has a shock-element energy beam in his eye that he uses for long-range targets, and The Stare also gives him the ability to fire a burning beam that can ignite enemies. After his eye gets upgraded with a piece of Gythian's heart, Deathtrap's laser becomes powerful enough to make enemies outright explode when shot.
Flirting Under Fire: When reviving her, she will flirt with the character regardless of gender.
(Tiger growl) I'll be thanking you later.
Thanks, sexy.
Well, you are just hot as hell.
Remind me to pay you back for that.
Gadgeteer Genius: Again: Built a robot for the science fair.
Gameplay and Story Integration:
- She damages her robotic hand by using it to smash concrete, by the time she's on Pandora she's using that strength but using a hammer or digistructed claws to deliver the blow.
- During her ECHO logs, she mentions a few of her skills as various upgrades. For example, she thinks the reason Deathtrap dealt explosive damage to Marcie was because of a glitch in the recently-installed Discord circuits.
- Deathtrap turned Gaige into public enemy number one on her home planet by stupidly murdering the daughter of a multibillionaire. With explosions. Into red mist. In the middle of a science fair for applications of public safety. Appropriately, Deathtrap in-game is extremely overpowered but excessively stupid; he'll attack the nearest enemy regardless of health or danger, form immediate grudges with rampaging Goliaths that you're trying to level up into lootshields, and will restore your shields while you're in Fight For Your Life mode even though he could be busy spending those few precious seconds killing a weak enemy (attack nearest-enemy A.I. comes into play here).
Gamer Chick: Gaige sometimes quotes Unreal Tournament's announcer when scoring critical hits.
Gathering Steam:
- Upshot Robot grants both you and Deathtrap a stackable melee damage bonus every time Deathtrap kills an enemy.
- And of course, there's the Anarchy skill, which grants Gaige stacking damage bonuses everytime she empties her magazines or kills enemies. The buffs can stay permanent for that session for as long as the player can keep them up, and they decay when the player prematurely reloads or is sent into Fight for Your Life mode. The Ordered Chaos tree is specifically centered around this mechanic, with other skills giving more Anarchy stacks and stack rates or increasing the maximum number of stacks.
- From the Little Big Trouble skill tree - Not shooting an enemy for a while gives you stacks of Interspered Outburst. The longer you wait before shooting, the higher the outburst damage becomes, as well as having a higher Slag chance against enemies.
Genki Girl: Is an extremely hyper young woman... in more ways than one.
Girlish Pigtails: Her default skin has her hair done up in pigtails. She still has said pigtails as of 3 despite being roughly 25.
Glass Cannon: Of a sort when using Ordered Chaos. She has the same base HP as each other Vault Hunters, but because of the accuracy reduction from Anarchy she has to get closer to the enemies than the others. Blood Soaked Shields can help mitigate it, but the Cast from Hit Points factor can result in death even quicker when her shields do go down.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Her Necrosis skin and Chaos Reigns color scheme do this to her. Necrosis provides a teal glow, Chaos Reigns an orange glow, and the two together a yellow glow.
Goggles Do Nothing: She has a pair of goggles on her head that she never seems to use for anything in the game proper.
Gratuitous Japanese: Domo arigato, suckas!
Hero of Another Story: In "Guns, Love and Tentacles" she claims that she's been on various adventures offscreen that she won't be telling you about.
I Know Mortal Kombat: The way she quotes her enemies' quite swift deaths just really spills her strong love to video games, ranging from pistols, shotguns to rocket launchers and sniper rifles, while reloading much faster than most of her teammates.
Incompatible Orientation: She expresses a crush on Sir Hammerlock in the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, noting that she'll be all over him if he ever becomes straight. This crush is mentioned again a couple times during the Son of Crawmerax DLC, turning into Perverse Sexual Lust judging by how aggressively she comments about it. She seems to have gotten over it by the time she returns in 3, as it has been seven years and she has grown up. She's even the wedding planner for Hammerlock and Jakobs, being completely supportive of their relationship.
Gaige: Let's hurry it up, Varkid Dude. My man's waiting on me.
In the Hood: Her Necrosis skin has this, along with Glowing Eyes of Doom. Curiously though, the hood on her shirt that's always down is still there so she has two hoods.
Instant Web Hit: In her first ECHO, she had twelve (er, eleven) subscribers. Then five in her second, then two in her third. After accidentally killing her Rich Bitch classmate and going on the run, she suddenly has over twenty thousand.
Irony: Despite her interests in being a punk herself, Gaige is quite the opposite when it comes to her education, deliberately speaking that she was 'never' sent to the principal's office, implying that she never had broken any rules at all.
Large Ham: Again, fluctuates with her Anarchy stacks. The more stacks, the more hammy she gets. It varies between boasting over how much damage she's doing and bitching about how her accuracy blows.
Life Drain: The attack performed using the With Claws skill heals Gaige for the damage dealt.
Like a Duck Takes to Water: She takes to Pandora very well considering she has no prior experience with guns, despite this, she does as well if not better than her fellow vault hunters.
Likes Older Men: While the Borderlands series has a dearth of males of high-school-age for comparison anyway, Gaige give a flirty compliment to the late twenties Axton in the Holodome DLC of The Pre-Sequel!, considered the idea of speaking with the voice of an older man being hot if it wasn't Handsome Jack, seems to especially have a thing for the graying Sir Hammerlock, and in Guns, Love, and Tentacles asks the Vault Hunter to put in a good word for her to Eista who appears to be in his thirties.
Lovable Sex Maniac:
- The most flirty out of all the characters, especially illustrated by one of her idle quotes. However, it seems that she only has eyes for Hammerlock. Though in the Holodrome DLC for The Pre-Sequel! she calls Axton an "unparallelled stud". Whether or not this is genuine attraction on her part or Gaige just being nice isn't elaborated on.
Gaige: If I don't shoot, repair, or screw something in the next few minutes, we're going to have a problem.
- The heavy flirting could be bluster or overcompensation on her part, as noted below none of the boys at school would go anywhere near her because she's a nerd. Understandably, this isn't elaborated on too much.
Major Injury Underreaction: Zigzagged. When she cuts her arm "halfway to the bone", she didn't freak out at all. Hell, her first thoughts were to instantly and completely heal it. However, her second thought was to chop her arm off completely and build a new one.
May–December Romance: Tries to invoke Sir Hammerlock on this. Almost to Handsome Jack.
Gaige: Man, this whole "Speaking with the voice of an older man" thing is nowhere near as hot as I thought it would be.
Misfit Lab Rat: She seems to have a bit of a punk/anarchist streak, and prior to taking up Vault Hunting she spent a lot of time in her dad's garage building robots for science fairs. Admittedly, she's from a picturesque suburban upbringing with loving parents and seems to be a fan of My Little Pony, but the intention is there.
Mundane Utility: In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles," she installed a margarita machine on Deathtrap, and he can also make omelettes.
Nerds Are Virgins: In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, she mentions that she never dated because the boys at at school all thought she was too nerdy.
Noodle Incident: Prior to Wainwright and Hammerlock's wedding, Gaige had to plan a wedding for Dr. Zed. She doesn't go into details, but it's implied that everybody died horribly (except Zed, who simply didn't show up for it).
Obvious Rule Patch: The magazine reduction disadvantage of the "Smaller, Lighter, Faster" skill renders the Infinity pistol unusable since it has a base magazine size of 1 that will be reduced to 0. However, there are "Neutral" Necromancer class mods introduced in the Tiny Tina DLC that can boost the magazine size by a minimum of 13%, making the Infinity pistol usable even when this skill is active.
Only a Flesh Wound: Her reaction to slicing her arm halfway to the bone.
Open-Minded Parent: Gaige's dad is alright with anything save for amputation:
- When she tells him that her rival stole her design, gave it to the mind-bogglingly corrupt local police force and is trying to win the science fair that they are competing in with Gaige's idea, Gaige gets this reaction from her dad:
  Gaige's Dad: You're gonna take that bitch down, right?
- When Deathtrap gibbed Marcie at the Science Fair, Gaige's dad actually helped her escape the police and flee to Pandora (using explosives), you can probably chalk him up as "Best Dad Ever".
- He once again assists her in the Son of Crawmerax DLC. He was the one who sabotaged the ship Marcie's uncle used to try getting to Pandora, killing him.
  Gaige: ...You are the BEST DAD EVER!
The Other Darrin:
- Invoked and paired with The Other Marty. Was originally supposed to be voiced by Luci Christian, and is even listed in the credits as such, but switched to Cherami Leigh in the middle of production. A lot of (possibly most of) Gaige's lines are still recognizably Luci; if you don't spec into Anarchy or Close Enough, you'll pretty much never hear Cherami at all.
- Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep lists both actresses as Gaige in the credits. She's specifically listed twice, first as Cherami, then as Luci a little bit later on the cast list.
- Cherami herself clarified on this issue. The developers thought that Luci's voice wasn't edgy enough to properly fit a rebellious punk teenager, so they brought in Cherami. She recorded all the lines that Luci had already laid down, but when the character was released, the developers made an honest mistake of keeping Luci's lines in. Just an honest oversight that they forget to cover in the last moments before releasing her character into the game. She agrees that it makes sense to have two different voices for a girl who steadily goes crazy with power.
Pinball Projectile: The "Close Enough" skill, which gives bullets that miss a chance to ricochet back at enemies but only hit for 50% damage^note, and the "Nth Degree" skill, which causes every nth successful hit to ricochet at full damage.
Playing with Fire: The "Little Big Trouble" skills "The Stare" and "Electrical Burn" give her (and Deathtrap) some ability to do fire damage, though in the latter case it's a side-effect of shock damage.
The Pollyanna: Adapts to her new environment rather quickly but maintains her disposition.
Pointless Bandaid: Worn on her right cheek.
Powerful, but Inaccurate: Gaige's Anarchy skill grants a boost to damage as she gains Anarchy stacks (obtained by reloading empty magazines during combat), but it also tanks her gun accuracy. Some of her other skills can help offset the penalties to a degree, but not enough to allow remotely precise shots with large stacks.
Powers as Programs: In her ECHO casts she name-drops a bunch of her abilities as possible upgrade applications for Deathtrap or for her own arm. Whether this is true for other characters is ambiguous, but in her case, her powers ARE programs.
Power at a Price: "Smaller, Lighter, Faster" increases reload speed at the cost of decreasing magazine size.
Power Fist: Her cybernetic arm can smash concrete (albeit at the cost of breaking its fingers). Which helps explain why a tiny teenage girl can swing a hammer as hard as a full-grown male soldier.
Power High: After building up enough anarchy stacks. Evidenced not only by her quotes showing more and more of a god complex, but the way she yells "Anarchy!" At lower amounts, it's a straight yell of it. Higher amounts? It sounds more or less like she's being aroused by the power.
Pragmatic Hero: She's basically decent, but she considers poundings delivered by a giant attack robot a suitable response to bullying. Borders on Nominal Hero if you use Anarchy and she starts going insane, but it's entirely possible to never deposit a skill point into the tree, leaving where she falls up to the player.
Proper Tights with a Skirt: Usually stripy, but the colors change with her different skins.
Rebellious Spirit: And how! One of her class mods is called Punk even.
"PUNK NEVER DIES!"
Regenerating Health:
- Has this when her gun's magazine is full, under the Cooking Up Trouble skill.
- Discord grants you this at the cost of Anarchy stacks, but this can be manually disabled by prematurely reloading. This also has the benefit of not costing you all of your Anarchy stacks by accidentally reloading.
Retired Badass: Technically, in that as of 3 she states that she's retired from Vault Hunting and has been working as a wedding planner for quite a while. Granted, she still gets into various misadventures.
Robo Sexual:
- One of her class mods have her referred to as a Technophile, while she mostly treats Deathtrap like a pet there are times she'll refer to it in more personal terms, and will often refer to guns as if they were alive (some actually are), calling them sexy.
- Notably the only person she ever outright declares an interest in is Sir Hammerlock, who has multiple limbs and and an eye replaced with machines.
Robot Master: Commands an "undead" robot known as a D374-TP (aka Deathtrap).
Science Fair: A major part of her and Deathtrap's Origin Story. Essentially Deathtrap, then called as "DT", was a science fair project designed as an "anti-bullying" robot. DT fulfilled his functions well... too well.
Shock and Awe: Her Little Big Trouble tree is all about dealing large amounts of electrical damage.
- One of her skills in this tree - Shock and "AAAGGGGHHH!" - is a bit of wordplay on this trope.
Shockwave Clap: Deathtrap can do this if the player specs into the Explosive Clap skill.
Shoddy Knockoff Product: Marcie stole Gaige's Deathtrap designs and entered it into the science fair as her own creation, the Crime-Buster Bot, which despite breaking down won first prize after her father paid off the judges. Gaige is understandably aggravated by this.
- In Borderlands 3, robots based on Deathtrap's design appear throughout the game in various enemy and NPC roles. A hidden ECHO on Promethea explains that Mr. Holloway has taken Marcie's knockoff "Crime-Buster Bot" and expanded it to create a giant robotics company. His desire to have vengeance on Gaige for Marcie's death has not faded.
Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: If you look closely, the mesh in her eyes, in her default skin, are actually green.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Her classmate, Rich Bitch and Spoiled Brat Marcie Holloway. It gets personal after Gaige finds out that Marcie plagiarized her work, renamed it, and sold it to "the galaxy's most corrupt police force". By the Son of Crawmerax DLC, this has extended to the entire Holloway family and them hunting her down for accidentally killing Marcie is the reason why she doesn't show up in the main story of 3.
The Sixth Ranger: Unlike the rest of the five other Vault Hunters, who apparently meet up with each other before going in the Hyperion Train from the beginning, it appears she simply sneaks right in, according to the trailers, while being generally more damage-dependent than her teammates. Even Krieg was given a reason as to why he tagged along (he hitched a ride on the outside of the train).
Skill Gate Characters: In general, Gaige is designed as the beginner-friendly character among the six Vault Hunters, particularly for those who casually play a First-Person Shooter in single-player:
- With Deathtrap, the player has an A.I.-controlled ally that automatically targets the nearest enemy, and upgrading him through specific skills also gives him more utility and effects in a gunfight. Enemies are more likely to attack him, which gives Gaige players a way to distract enemy fire from themselves. Deathtrap can also automatically save the player from Fight for Your Life Mode if he nets any kill.
- Gaige has a versatility in all Elemental Damage except for Corrosive and Explosion with her middle skill tree, and she can shoot Deathtrap to apply specific elements to him.
- Her "Insterspersed Outburst" is a skill that can automatically Slag the target as well as deal bonus damage. Putting the skill's weird interaction with weapon-specific Badass Challenges aside, a free slagging ability is already a win situation when playing in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, since slagged enemies take even more damage from that difficulty.
- Her Ordered Chaos tree benefits greatly from the Anarchy mechanic - stacking status effects that give increased damage at the cost of accuracy. But the accuracy penalty can actually be resolved by combining Anarchy with "Close Enough" and "The Nth Degree". These skills guarantee that your bullets will at least ricochet to the field or towards the enemies even if you miss your initial shot. Anarchy Gaige players can easily scatter bullets from all sorts of directions and still expect targets to be damaged from all the ricochet and bouncing of projectiles.
- Her Best Friends Forever tree is designed to be less powerful than her other trees, but much more user-friendly with a lot of survivability options such as regenerating health when the magazine is full, letting missed bullets ricochet off walls and reducing Deathtrap's summon cooldown, making the skill tree good for new players who simply want to rush in a gunfight with less risk.
Small Girl, Big Gun: She's the shortest Vault Hunter in the game (and much thinner than Salvador), and yet can still use rocket launchers, shotguns and sniper rifles. Some sniper rifles are actually as long as she is tall.
Smart People Build Robots: Deathtrap is a bronze medal science fair project. (Come to think of it, even if Marcie bribed the judges to get the gold, what won the silver?)
Spectacular Spinning: Robotic Rampage gives Deathtrap the ability to lash out with a flurry of attacks – by spinning near an enemy with his claws outstretched.
Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Digistructed Claws and Deathtrap.
Squick: When scoring a crit kill, she may yell out, an in-universe example is when she gets slagged. She complains that she got some in her mouth and informs everyone that it smells like a mix of piss and nachos, but apparently subverted with this quote:
Gaige: "Egh. I got brains on my shoes. (sniff) I like it."
Take That!: During "Mad Moxxi's Wedding Day Massacre", Gaige's method of making a baby cry is to mention that Country Music exists.
Teen Genius: Eighteen years old and she initially designed Deathtrap as a science fair project.
Three Laws-Compliant: Deathtrap isn't. Dialogue exists reflecting it:
"To hell with the first law!"
Took a Level in Badass: Goes from bullied, not very popular nerd to Vault Hunter.
Unusual Euphemism: Has a bunch.
[On a Deathtrap kill] "Ooooh, right in the wingnut!"
What the Hell, Player?: Called out by Gaige herself upon enough Anarchy stacks.
Gaige: PLAYER! WHAT! ARE. YOU! DOING!?
Whatever Mancy:
- She is known as the "Mechromancer" for her ability to "summon" her robot Deathtrap from out of nowhere with only a wave of her cybernetic hands like magic. Her cybernetic arm is actually some sort of portable digistructing device that she uses to conveniently digistruct Deathtrap wherever she goes.
- Her class mods from Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragons Keep are called Necromancer.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Once again, based on her Anarchy stacks. From zero to roughly 100 stacks, she seems normal. From there to 150, she's clearly feeling the effects mentally and wants more, but nowhere near as bad as once she passes the 150 mark. By the time she hits 400 she's clearly gone off the deep end. She even lampshades it by yelling "I'm going mildly insane!!"
Wrench Wench: Her designs have elements of it.
Wolverine Claws:
- Her tier 6 Ordered Chaos skill, With Claws, overrides her default melee attack with digistructed claws while you have Anarchy stacked.
- Deathtrap's melee attacks also involve swiping and slashing with his sets of claws.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Some of her Second Wind quotes come off as being legitimately surprised that she pulled it off and didn't die as opposed to her usual handling of the situation.
You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Her reaction to finding out that Marcie stole her DT design, gave it to police, and gave it the stupid name of Crime Buster Bot.
Gaige: Bitch, are you kidding me?!

Characters / Borderlands 2: Vault Hunters

Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 and for Spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

Axton (AKA The Commando)

Maya (AKA The Siren)

Salvador (AKA The Gunzerker)

Zer0 (AKA The Assassin)

As a number; A bigger number than you; Ironically does a lot of dividing

Gaige (AKA The Mechromancer)

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Characters / Borderlands 2: Vault Hunters

Edit Locked

Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 and for Spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

Axton (AKA The Commando)

Maya (AKA The Siren)

Salvador (AKA The Gunzerker)

Zer0 (AKA The Assassin)

As a number; A bigger number than you; Ironically does a lot of dividing

Gaige (AKA The Mechromancer)

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