Borderlands 4 Rafa Build: I Tried Every Spec So You Don’t Have To

Last updated on November 18th, 2025 at 11:38 am

I played around with every Borderlands 4 Rafa skill build for three full weekends. Why? Since, on launch day, I chose this character and then got hopelessly lost in his skill trees and rage-quit twice before discovering what actually seems like is effective.

If you are completely new to Borderlands and would prefer a guide for what buttons do what, without reading along on a 40 page wiki explanation of everything: this is it.

What Makes Rafa Different (The Easy Explanation)

You get one action skill from the majority of Borderlands characters. Rafa provides you three but only one at a time. Consider it akin to selecting your combat style each time you respawn.

The real secret sauce? Something called Overdrive. Each time you use an ability, your movement speed quickens and gun damage heightens. That subsequent bonus remains in effect until your skill wears off. So the challenge isn’t just picking the right skill. it’s keeping them as active as you can.

I didn’t get this at first. I’d pop a skill, it would run out and I spent 30 seconds simply shooting. Huge mistake. When I realised that you could chain skills together my damage output quite literally doubled.

The Three Skills (And How I Have Actually Used Them)

After giving everything a try, here’s what I honestly thought:

You’d rather stick to the Peacebreaker Cannons. You engage them, and shoulder-mounted guns auto-target bad guys while you concentrate on shooting your usual weapons. Great for newbies as they take 0 skill to use effectively.

I wore these through my entire first run of the game. Just park them and ignore them while getting familiar with the game’s inner workings. Per Sportskeeda’s breakdown, you can always spec into shock damage or beam variants later, but honestly? The base one took me through regular mode without needing a tune.

Arc Knives are for those times when you feel like a space ninja. You receive two shock-damage-dealing energy blades in return. They also “mark” villains, letting you pull off some insane augment combos in future.

This is what happened when I attempted some: I failed. A lot. Then I came across the Dead Man Walking augment (on Fextralife’s Rafa page if you’re interested) which makes the knives stay indefinitely by draining your health instead: but, you get overshields and heal when hitting things. Game changer. All of a sudden I was an unkillable melee tank.

APOPHIS Lance The lance shoots piercing shock blasts with low charges. “Uninflated” charges accelerate your cooldown, which sounds cool but I found actually felt pretty clunky.

I wanted to love this one. It’s a sick concept these sort of massive, explosive shots that punch through enemies. But controlling inmates while under fire? Too much cognitive overhead for a beginner. For veterans, maybe it’s an improvement, but I kept muttering about cannons.

The Only Build That Ever Worked for Me

I tested everything, and here’s the setup that took me from getting wrecked to punching above my weight.

Begin Peacebreaker Cannons and grab 20 points from the Remote Agent tree. Prioritize Concentrated Build-Up for more shock damage and Beam Team if you need to destroy some armored enemies.

Next, swing down Barrage in the overdrive passives it increases splash damage while you’re at Overdrive, which you should be as long as you’re playing right.

The secret I learned from LootLemon’s skill calculator? Don’t spread points evenly. Use one tree and go deep before you branch out. My first respec was a complete waste, as I wanted to be good at everything.

The New Things That Change Everything

Here’s something a lot of guides don’t mention yet, because it’s new: you can also now use your status effect shots to ricochet around to nearby enemies thanks to Pain Reaction. I stumbled upon this accidentally working on a tight passage, now I can clear whole groups without ever aiming.

Also some of the buffs are infinite stacking instead of capping. So the only way to get stronger is by staying in combat longer. This completely shifted my gameplan for boss fights. I don’t burst at all now, I strictly sustain and ramp.

My Honest Recommendation

If you’re starting from scratch, just go Peacebreaker Cannons. Don’t overthink it. They’re fire-and-forget, requiring minimal micromanagement exactly what you need to be focusing on as you learn the patterns of enemies and loot systems.

At level 20, when you learn how to play the game, spec into Arc Daggers (with Dead Man Walking if possible). It is then that Rafa becomes deliriously good fun.

I went through and tested all the combinations so you don’t have to waste your skill points like I did. A building doesn’t need to be perfect, believe me especially your first one. Select a cannon, shoot stuff and enjoy the ride.

Read:

Borderlands 4 Character Builds Guide: The Meta Builds That Actually Matter