Borderlands 3 FL4K build guide: Best Beastmaster builds
The top-tier Jabber, Skag, and Spiderant builds
FL4K the Beastmaster has always been one of the most versatile Borderlands 3 characters, with his ability to match his three powerful Action Skills with a unique and loyal companion creature.
In this Borderlands 3 FL4K build guide, we've laid out the top-tier builds that you can use in the base game to get the most out of this powerful Beastmaster: one for Jabber & Fade Away, one for Skag & Gamma Burst, and one for Spiderant & Rakk Attack.
On this page:
- Sniper build, Spiderant & Rakk Attack! build
- Pet build, Skag & Gamma Burst build
- High Damage build, Jabber & Fade Away build
Borderlands 3 FL4K build guide
Creating a FL4K build in Borderlands 3 is, at least in one respect, a more complex undertaking than with most Borderlands 3 builds, because it's not just you that you're upgrading but also your pet. And these pets can grow to become quite fantastically powerful by assigning your skill points into the following skill trees:
- Master is the skill tree to focus on for creating a FL4K build all about your pet strength. The associated pet of the Master tree is the Skag, a powerful beast that gives FL4K bonus damage potential as you upgrade it.
- Hunter focuses on drastically increasing your sharpshooting prowess with lots of powerful critical hit effects. The associated pet of Hunter is the Spiderant, which boosts FL4K's health regeneration and can be ordered to charge at foes.
- Stalker gives your FL4K build a variety of ways to survive every encounter, from the fantastic Fade Away Action Skill to just plain old tankiness. The associated pet of this tree is the Jabber, which comes armed with a gun of its own, and bestows FL4K with extra movement speed.
Like other Borderlands 3 characters, FL4K has an extra skill tree that can be unlocked with the Ultimate Edition. But for the purpose of this guide we're focusing on the best builds you can create utilising the skill trees found in the base game.
FL4K is often considered to be the go-to Vault Hunter for solo play because of their pet, but the truth is that the flexibility of these skill trees and pets means you can build FL4K however you want. You could choose to ignore upgrading the pet entirely if you wish, and focus on your Action Skills or your damage; or vice versa. The below three FL4K builds will focus on a specific skill tree and pet in order to create completely different (and equally powerful) playstyles.
If you need a bit of a primer on the various Borderlands 3 characters and classes, look no further than our Borderlands 3 characters & skill trees guide. If not, let's skip right ahead to the FL4K builds!
Sniper build, Spiderant & Rakk Attack! (Borderlands 3 FL4K build)
- Primary Skill Tree: Hunter
- Build Focus: Long-Range/Sniper Prowess, High Action Skill Damage
- Best Skills for Class Mods: Two F4ng (Highly Recommended), Grim Harvest (Highly Recommended), Interplanetary Stalker, Ambush Predator, Overclocked
For all that FL4K was advertised as a sniper prior to the release of Borderlands 3, that's not the way it goes for most people and most builds, probably just because the highly mobile and high-octane nature of combat means you often have no choice but to get right into the thick of it. If sniping is the way you want to play FL4K though, this build is for you. We're diving deep into the Hunter skill tree, along with a couple of pickups from the other trees as well, in order to create a high-damage build that focuses on maintaining distance from the enemy while constantly critting and sending out powerful Rakk Attacks against anyone who gets too close.
I would first suggest investing in the three right-most skills in the first three tiers of the Stalker tree: Furious Attack and Overclocked will give you some pretty fantastic early damage, and Turn Tail And Run further increases your damage when standing still, while also making you more survivable while on the move - crucial for sharpshooters. After this you should head to the Hunter tree and start investing heavily, beelining from Interplanetary Stalker through Ambush Predator to Two F4ng - one of the best skills available to FL4K which is particularly strong with slow-firing high damage guns such as sniper rifles.
At this point I'd go back and put my three points into Persistence Hunter in the Master skill tree, just for the extra damage boost; and then it's back to Hunter, because we want to work our way up to the capstone skill, Megavore, which gives you a chance to crit on any part of your target. Combined with crit-based skills such as Leave No Trace, Head Count, The Most Dangerous Game, and Galactic Shadow, you're going to be dealing mega-damage with your snipes - especially if you find a good strong (probably Jakobs) sniper rifle to go with this build (perhaps one of the ultra-powerful Borderlands 3 Legendary weapons?).
I'd also highly suggest you get a good Class Mod that overcharges your Grim Harvest skill, because it'll both increase your gun damage and give your Rakk Attacks a much-needed boost in damage potential. And the duo augments of Flock 'N Load and Rakkcelerate will ensure that any enemies not obliterated immediately by your sniping will last no time at all against the bombardment of your Rakks.
Pet build, Skag & Gamma Burst (Borderlands 3 FL4K build)
- Primary Skill Tree(s): Master & Stalker
- Build Focus: Strong Solo Play, High Pet Damage & Survivability
- Best Skills for Class Mods: Ferocity, Frenzy, Pack Tactics, Eager To Impress, Hidden Machine
There's more than one way to build a strong solo FL4K, but one of the most fun is to elevate your pet of choice to god-tier levels of damage and survivability. This you can do thanks to a very balanced combination of the Master and Stalker skill trees. Here we're going to be using the Skag in tandem with a Gamma Burst that delivers extreme damage and benefits to both your pet and yourself whenever you use it (which will be constantly).
Persistence Hunter and Ferocity are the first skills you should look to upgrade, as they'll give you a great early game by increasing both your damage and your pet's damage quite considerably. Frenzy should definitely be your next pickup (more damage, yay!), followed by several points in Who Rescued Who?, which is - for the time being - your best bet to avoid your pet dying early on.
At this point we're going to swap over to the Stalker skill tree, and go through Self-Repairing System (a larger health pool is always good) so that we can max out the essential Eager To Impress skill, which will allow us to basically spam our Gamma Burst at every opportunity. All My BFF's and Turn Tail And Run are great additional pickups for survivability after this, and they'll allow us to reach Hidden Machine, which increases your damage against enemies not targeting you. The idea is that most of them should be targeting your now very tanky and dangerous Skag, leaving you in the clear.
4 points into Rage and Recover will drastically increase both FL4K's and Skag's tankiness, and will allow you to reach the Stalker Capstone, The Power Inside, which will massively increase your damage potential every time you use Gamma Burst. This is compounded by our Action Skill Augments: Empathic Rage, which increases your damage while Gamma Burst is active; and Endurance, which increases your pet damage and your Gamma Burst duration for every kill that your Skag makes while Gamma Burst is in effect. It's a fantastic synergy, and it means every time you use Gamma Burst, you can basically just sit back and keep firing from the sidelines while your Skag obliterates everyone in the vicinity. This is a seriously fun build that makes you feel like a true Beastmaster.
High Damage build, Jabber & Fade Away (Borderlands 3 FL4K build)
- Primary Skill Tree(s): Hunter & Stalker
- Build Focus: Extreme Gun Damage & Crit Damage
- Best Skills for Class Mods: Persistence Hunter (Highly Recommended), Head Count (Highly Recommended), Two F4ng, Big Game, Furious Attack, Overclocked
I'm not going to talk too much about this build, because it's not actually mine. This build was designed by YouTuber NickTew, who has released a full 20-minute video (see below) explaining why this FL4K build is so goddamn fantastic. In a nutshell, the build focuses heavily on Gun and Crit damage at almost every conceivable turn, even foregoing the traditional method of investing enough points in a tree to unlock the powerful Capstone skill at the end.
I thought for quite a while about whether I could improve upon this build in any way, but honestly if extreme gun damage is what you're after, it really doesn't get much better than this. The combination of the Unblinking Eye and Guerillas In The Mist augments to give you the maximum possible benefit from Fade Away's guaranteed crits, the points invested in skills such as Head Count, Two F4ng, Grim Harvest, Persistence Hunter, Overclocked, and The Fast and the Furryous to give you the most bonkers damage with pretty much any weapon you like. If you're just after raw DPS potential, here it is.
Take a look at NickTew's build video below.
And with that, I think I'll end this Borderlands 3 FL4K build guide for the time being. But be sure to bookmark this page and check back every so often in case some fantastic new build has been discovered that ensures you get the maximum possible benefit from this deadly Beastmaster.
If you need more help with Borderlands 3 we've got other guides you can turn to. Check out our Borderlands 3 Shift Codes page to get free Golden Keys, or head to our primers on the Borderlands 3 weapons and Legendary weapons to bring yourself up to speed. We've also got other build guides for Amara, Moze and Zane.