Best Borderlands 4 Rafa build to become a one-man army

The best Rafa build in Borderlands 4 uses the exo-soldier's Peacebreaker Cannons for some immense close-range firepower that will tear up almost any foe. These shoulder-mounted cannons automatically fire at enemies in the direction you're facing, and you can still use your regular guns for a huge boost to your overall damage. Combine it all with Rafa's impressive critical hit output, and you've got a build that will have enemies in Borderlands 4 (especially armored ones) begging for mercy.

You'll also need to dip into Rafa's APOPHIS Lance skill tree for a few vital skills that grant massively increased damage and other bonuses to using guns with small magazines. Find yourself a shotgun with a low ammo count, and you're going to be even better placed to combat any threat you come across on Kairos. If this sounds good to you, I've laid out the most important parts of this Borderlands 4 Rafa build below.

Borderlands 4 best Rafa build and skills you should take

This build guide owes an inspiration to RestAssured's One Shot Infinite Kills build, which helped me make Rafa an absolute joy to play in both solo and multiplayer modes. The linchpin of this whole build is Rafa's Peacemaker Cannons. Sure, there are fun builds to be had with the Arc-Knives, but the Peacemaker Cannons are impossible to beat and make Rafa one of the best Borderlands 4 characters.

I've had the Peacemakers give me a second wind multiple times, too, which makes it helpful for solo play. The peacemakers do kinetic damage to begin with, which, as you'll know from our Borderlands 4 elemental damage guide, is a great all-rounder. Let's take a closer look at the skills you'll need to pick up to match our best Exo-Soldier build:

• Sitiar x5: This skill gives Rafa's build a flat increase in gun damage, 25% increased damage when fully-levelled.
• Juerga x5: Giving +15% skill duration restore per critical hit when maxed out, Juerga helps you keep up the fire for as long as possible.
• Instinto: This augment increases critical hit chance for your Peacemaker Cannons, pairing superbly with Juerga. It also grants a Kill Skill, giving you increased Action Skill duration but also making it drain faster.
• Resiliencia x5: For a brief change of pace, this skill decreases the damage you take, rather than increasing the damage you dole out. When in overdrive and with the skill maxed out, you can reduce damage taken by 34.05%.

Now it's time for you to take the best Borderlands 4 Rafa build to another level. Switch into the blue skill tree, labelled APOPHIS Lance. We're not going to equip the lance, but there are some amazing skills on offer, though you might need to find a Borderlands 4 respec machine if you need to allocate your skill points a bit more efficiently.

• Rinse x5: This skill grants you increased reload speed, and to quite some degree. If maxed out, your reloads will be 20% quicker. This is solid on its own, but with the following skills, it gets fantastically OP.
• Preparado x5: This skill, when maxed out, grants you 15% faster Action Skill cooldown rate when you reload, stacking up to three times. Pair this with a gun that can only fire once before reloading, and you'll be able to keep your Peacemaker Cannons blasting much more frequently.
• First Impression x5: Another fantastic skill, First Impression gives you up to 50% increased damage to the first shot from a fully-loaded magazine.

This combination of skills boosts your Peacemaker Cannons' damage output precipitously while also giving any guns with small magazines an absolutely apocalyptic damage boost. It's just an absolute joy to tear your way around with this, making it, in our view, the best Rafa build in Borderlands 4 by far.

After this, you can diverge as you wish. We would recommend maxing out Vitriol from the Peacemaker Cannons tree, as this gives the first round from a fully-loaded magazine up to 55% bonus corrosive damage, helping you cut through even the most well-armored enemies. The other augments after this point change your Peacemaker Cannons in a fundamental sense. You could choose to grab Double-Aught Autoshot, an augment that replaces your Peacemaker Cannons with shotguns that have increased pellet count and ricochet chance.

If that doesn't work for you, however, you could grab Beam Team, which replaces the cannons with two beams, with one doing corrosive damage and the other shock damage. This can easily destroy both shields and armor. It also increases Action Skill damage when you apply a status effect, which pairs fantastically well with Vitriol.

Finally, you could also grab Explosive Hollowpoints, which gives you rockets instead of cannons. These deal splash damage, and, if paired with five levels of Barrage, this splash damage is massively increased, turning you into a walking Katyusha artillery piece.

Our recommendation would be to pick Beam Team and three levels of Inspirado and El Alacran. The Inspirado skill grants you increased Action Skill cooldown rate and increased Action Skill duration rate when you inflict a status effect. Maxed out, this decreases cooldown by 9% and increases Action Skill duration by 9%, and can be stacked five times. In addition to this, El Alacran gives increased chance to inflict status effects to enemies hit by your Peacemaker Cannons (or beams, in this case). The chance is increased by 35% for eight seconds, playing extremely well with Vitriol and Inspirado.

Using this build will grant you massive boosts to corrosive damage, while also giving you a huge boost to damage on your guns. We'd recommend pairing your Peacemaker Cannons with a set of weapons with a small magazine count to really make the most of Rinse, Preparado, and First Impression. Think of this build as being for an up-close bruiser, and grab yourself a single-shot shotgun or a similar weapon for the highest possible return on your skill investment. This build will work equally well whether you're playing solo or with a group.

Don't forget to check Borderlands 4 Shift Codes regularly as well to get more loot and weapons to help your build sing with bullets. If you get any gear for other characters, it's a good idea to chuck it in a Borderlands 4 bank.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.