Borderlands 4 has brought tons of players into its crazy, loot-packed world.
Now that many are hitting the endgame, everyone wants the best character setups. Whether you want to beat raid bosses in one hit or just get stronger for harder challenges, you need to know how to farm for top gear.
This article will explain how farming works, how you find the best items, and share proven tips to help you get more loot in less time.
Understanding Legendary Drops: World vs. Dedicated
Before you spend hours grinding, it’s important to know how you actually find legendary items. There are two main ways.
World Drops
A “world drop” is a legendary that can come from almost any enemy or chest, but the chance is very, very low. If you’re looking for a specific world drop, there’s no good way to hunt for it. It’s all about luck and just playing the game a lot.
Dedicated Drops
This is the main way you’ll want to farm. Most legendary items have a “dedicated drop,” which means:
- Every dedicated legendary can still drop as a world drop from any source (low chance), but the odds are much higher from a specific target—usually a boss.
- Knowing the dedicated drop source of the item you want is key to efficient farming.
To find out where a specific item drops, just search online for the item’s name plus “dedicated drop.“
Drop Rates in Practice
Community-driven research, such as a Reddit user’s extensive testing (1,000 kills of the “SplashZone” boss on Ultimate Vault Hunter 5 difficulty), gives us some hard figures:
- Dedicated drops: ~5% drop rate for each legendary from its boss.
- Combined dedicated drops: If a boss has three dedicated legendaries, you’re looking at a 15% total chance per kill for a legendary.
- World drop legendaries: ~2% drop rate per kill.
- Overall legendary drop rate: About 17% per kill on bosses like SplashZone.
The Bottom Line: If you want a specific item, always farm the boss it’s linked to. Trying to get it as a random world drop will take much, much longer.
Does Difficulty Affect Legendary Drop Rates?
Borderlands games have a tradition of scaling loot quality with difficulty—or at least, so we’re told. But does the difficulty level really improve your legendary farming odds in Borderlands 4?
What the Tests Show?
We tested this by fighting the same boss about 1,000 times on every difficulty level. The results were clear:
- Legendary drop rates remained almost identical across all difficulties (averaging around 17%).
- If anything, lower difficulties sometimes produced more legendaries, likely just due to normal statistical variance.
So, What Does Change with Difficulty?
If legendary chances don’t go up, what does “better loot quality” mean? From what we can tell, two things seem to happen on higher difficulties:
- More purple (epic) items: Higher difficulties boost the proportion of purple gear versus blue/green, which is important because purples have more modifiers.
- Firmware drops:
It seems like items might come with more powerful attachments or modifiers on higher difficulties, though this isn’t fully confirmed.
The most important thing to know: A legendary item you find on the easiest setting can be just as powerful as one found on the hardest. The difficulty level does not change how strong the legendary itself can be.
Choosing a Farming Strategy
With this info in mind, let’s figure out the best ways to farm gear for any build or need.
Farming for Legendaries
If you just want the legendary item and don’t care about its parts: Play on Easy mode. You’ll kill bosses much faster, and the chance of them dropping a legendary is the same as on harder levels. This means you’ll get more loot in less time.
If you need a legendary with specific parts: Then switch to a higher difficulty, but only if you can still kill things quickly. Higher difficulties give you more purple items, which means more chances to get the exact parts you want on your gear.
Always farm the boss that is known for dropping the item you want. If the item you need can only be found as a random world drop, then the “SplashZone” boss is your best target. It’s a quick fight and the boss has a good chance to drop various legendaries.
Farming for Purple (Epic) Gear
Purple items are important for many builds because they can have very powerful parts. You will find more of them on higher difficulty levels.
Best Method: The “SplashZone” boss is still the most reliable source, especially if you have a trick to beat it fast with friends.
Another Good Method: Try the “Drill Site” areas, especially the one called “Pitted Stain” west of Idolator Sal’s Fortress. These spots can give you as many purple items per minute as fighting a boss, and they also give you a lot of experience points.
A Warning: Drill sites can be trickier to clear quickly than the Splash Zone boss. Unless your character is already very powerful, you might have better luck just sticking with the boss.
Important Reminder
When you’re farming for purple items (or any non-legendary gear), you cannot target a specific type. The game’s randomness is pure luck—no boss is more likely to drop a specific kind of shotgun or purple item than any other enemy.
Tips, Tricks, and Clarifications
Golden Keys and the Golden Chest
Common Advice: People usually say to save your Golden Keys until you reach the max level (Level 50).
The Real Deal: Once you’re at Level 50, you’ll probably be farming specific bosses for the exact legendary items you want. Relying on the random Golden Chest isn’t as effective. So, it’s totally okay to use a few keys while you’re leveling up if your gear is weak. A good weapon from the chest can help you get through a tough spot.
Pro Tip: Save a few keys for any new characters you create later. That way, a new character can start with a quick gear upgrade from the chest.
Class Mods: Drop Myths
Many players feel like they find more class mods for characters they aren’t playing. The game’s director says this shouldn’t happen—the game is supposed to drop mods for all characters equally. It might just be bad luck, but the developers are checking to see if it’s a bug.
Loot RNG and “Quality” Myths
Contrary to myths:
Items found on harder difficulties do not have hidden bonuses or better stats.
How good a weapon is depends entirely on the random parts it’s made from, not the difficulty you were playing on.
Some players think that super-rare weapon parts might be easier to find on higher difficulties, but this hasn’t been proven with solid data yet
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Endgame Farming
Here is a simple plan to get the best gear:
Know what you want. Decide if you’re hunting for one specific legendary, a perfect purple item, or just lots of loot and experience points.
Find the right boss. Look up online which enemy is the best source for the item you want.
Choose the best difficulty.
For legendaries, use the easiest difficulty you can to kill the boss as fast as possible.
For purple items, raise the difficulty, but only if you can still kill enemies quickly.
Farm smart. Choose fast farming spots like the “Splash Zone” boss or big events like the “Pitted Stain Drill Site” to get the most loot per hour.
Check your loot. When looking for a perfect item, you’ll need to check a lot of them before you find “the one.” Trading with friends can help.
Use your keys wisely. Don’t be afraid to use Golden Keys to help your character get stronger. They are meant to be used.
Conclusion
Getting the perfect set of gear in Borderlands 4 takes knowledge, patience, and a little luck. By understanding how loot works, you can farm much more efficiently.
Remember:
Always farm the specific boss for a legendary item you want.
Higher difficulty gives you more purple items, but not better legendary items.
The “Splash Zone” boss is one of the best places to farm.
“Drill sites” are great for finding purple items and earning XP.
Golden Keys are there to help you—use them when you need a power boost.
