GUUUNNNZERKKKERRR SMASH! Alright, I’ve provided all you need to know about this class in two words. But seriously, if you’re adventuring Pandora for the sheer purpose of shooting bad guys till even their mothers feel it, the Gunzerker is for you. I mean, come on, he’s a cross breed between a human and a rhino… WHO DOES THAT!?

As far as mechanics go, Salvador the Gunzerker’s skill trees focus more on providing the needed gun skill to survive, or at the very least, kill everything before it kills you. Also, if you like playing as a tank and absorbing all the damage for your group, this class is for you as well since he has the only skill tree that provides abilities that taunt and absorb tons of damage. Despite the class' reckless origin, the gunzerker is pretty unique and more fun than meets the eye.

Note: This isn't really a guide. It's more of an overview just to help you choose your character. After all, the game never tells you what a character is capable of in the character selection. If you haven't checked out our review for Borderlands 2, don't forget to check it out here first.

Review: Borderlands 2

Two Pistols are fine, but two launchers are better

Every class has a unique ability they can activate every now and then that is unique to the specific class.

For El Salvador, the Gunzerker, not the place, that ability is called “Gunzerking” which is where his class name originates from. This ability allows you to hold two weapons in each hand NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE. Whatever two guns are in your #1 and #2 slot or #3 and #4 slot are the weapon combinations you’ll unleash when you gunzerk. Personally, I don’t see a problem with two missile launchers… or two snipers… Impractical much? Who cares… it’s friggin’ Borderlands…

An army in one

Every class has three skill trees, each rather different in concept. You don’t pick a skill tree and have to stick with it. For one, you can re-spec at any safe haven town and on top of that, you can distribute your points in any of the skill trees. So you can focus on the one that gives you the most gun damage for instance, or distribute them evenly between the one that’ll give you more speed and the one that’ll give you more armor.

For Salvador, the available specializations to choose from are Gun Lust, Rampage, and Brawn.

Gun Lust

If you have a lust for guns, I won’t judge you… But should you walk this path, you’ll enhance your killing abilities with firearms by reloading faster, swapping weapons quicker, transferring damage to nearby enemies, and chaining kills to enhance stats. Essentially, if you literally don’t EVER want to stop shooting, just lust for guns. I’m totally cool with it.

Rampage

Your entire class is named after your special ability, so it would only make sense for there to be a specialization that focuses on enhancing it, right? Well, that’s what rampage does. See, I have my masters in Borderlands math, and last I checked, Gunzerking is greater than or equal to Rampaging.

Personally, I hate running out of ammo in any shooter, so if you hate that much like me, go down this road because you’ll never run out of ammo which is nice because you can spend your gold on other things… like health!

If you go all the way down this path, you’ll basically be playing the game in perma-gunzerk mode because as you kill enemies, you’ll begin to extend the time on the ability. Since you’ll be doing a lot of killing, you just won’t stop. Also, while you're gunzerking, all your stats are pretty much on steroids the longer you hold down the trigger. You can increase your fire rate up to 88% with the final skill, “Keep Firing” just by holding down the trigger. Oh, and you toss two grenades for some reason instead of one. Love it!

Brawn

This specialization turns you into the tanking class of the game. Want to be the knight in ghetto armor? Well, here you go. Basically, the more you get shot, the more bonuses you get and the faster you regenerate health. So basically, the game rewards you for trying to die. I think that’s great actually…

The bread and butter of this ability comes from its final levels. Being able to move faster while shot as well as making your melee attack knock things back is great, But none is greater than the all holy ability… “Come at me bro”… Yea, that’s the name. But anyways, what this ability allows you to do is taunt enemies while gunzerking making EVERYTHING attack you. The moment you activate it, you heal to full and take reduced damage. But don’t forget, now that everything is attacking you, you get all those sweet bonuses. Great way to take one for the team! Tank for them, and kill everything. Can’t go wrong, am I right?

Playing as the Gunzerker

Playing as the Gunzerker… Let’s see… Just kill things. Kill everything until even their unborn babies feel it. Pretty much all you need to do. Quite literally, Salvador is the heavy DPS class of the game but also has the option to provide probably the most important job of any RPG, tanking. The choice is yours.