Best Harlowe skills and build

Harlowe is Borderlands 4’s Gravitar Vault Hunter. As an ex-Maliwan scientist, she knows how to work the battlefield in her favour and utilises elemental attacks frequently. Despite technically being a Gravitar, she plays very similarly to a Siren. We’ve put together a build for all three of her skill trees, so no matter what your preferred action skill is, we’ve got the best Harlowe build for you below. Harlowe’s Entanglement trait means that whenever her action skill is triggered, any enemies affected become entangled, receiving damage from weapons and skills with all other entangled enemies.

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Harlowe’s Creative Bursts skill tree

Best Creative Bursts build¶

Creative Burst’s best build focuses on the Chroma Accelerator action skill to deal elemental damage, inflict status effects, frequently activate Harlowe’s action skill, and boost outgoing damage through weapons. That can be done via a combination of buffing elemental damage, increasing rate of fire, or adjusting the actual damage numbers being done. She’s particularly lethal with radiation damage thanks to her elemental affinities. We’ll use a small selection of skills from the Cosmic Brilliance skill tree to increase DPS further.

Here are the best Harlowe Creative Bursts skills and how many skill points to invest in each:

• Fuzzy Math (5/5): Harlowe gains increased status effect chance.
• Neutron Capture (Augment): All damage Harlowe’s unstable energy pocket deals to enemies is stored. Whenever it explodes, a portion of that stored damage is transferred to Harlowe’s gun, causing her to deal bonus radiation damage.
• Elementary (5/5): Harlowe gains increased elemental damage and status effect damage.
• Enriched (3/3): Harlowe gains increased radiation damage.
• Test Subjects (5/5): Whenever Harlowe applies a status effect to an enemy, she gains increased action skill cooldown rate.
• Carry the One (5/5): Whenever Harlowe entangles an enemy, she gains a chance to entangle another nearby enemy.
• Poisoned Sun (5/5): Harlowe gains increased radiation damage and chance.
• Glow Up (5/5): Harlowe gains critical hit chance with guns against irradiated enemies.
• Fissile Launcher (3/3): Whenever Harlowe damages an irradiated enemy or an entangled enemy, shoot a radiation dart at another enemy.
• Demon Core (Capstone): As Harlowe’s unstable energy pocket travels, it shoots radiation darts at enemies. Whenever Harlowe entangles an enemy while her action skill is active, automatically irradiate that enemy.
• Chain Reactor (3/3): Harlowe deals bonus radiation damage to entangled enemies.
• Dirty Bomb (1/1): Whenever Harlowe irradiates an enemy, create a radiation explosion on that enemy.
• Action at a Distance (2/5): Part of the Cosmic Brilliance skill tree. Whenever Harlowe applies a status effect to an enemy, she gains a chance to apply that status effect to each entangled enemy.
• Momentum (3/5): Part of the Cosmic Brilliance skill tree. Whenever Harlowe entangles an enemy, she and her allies deal increased critical hit damage.
• Neutron Decay (4/5): Part of the Cosmic Brilliance skill tree. Whenever Harlowe irradiates an enemy, she gains increased gun damage.

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Harlowe’s Seize the Day skill tree

Best Seize the Day build¶

Harlowe’s Seize the Day build uses her Zero-Point action skill and leans into cryo-based damage. She will entangle enemies to ensure they share received damage anyway, as part of her unique trait, but with this build she can freeze enemies and add more damage. This build is hugely focused on large area of effect attacks, taking down multiple enemies at one time, so might not be the strongest during boss fights. To begin with, Harlowe can only freeze one enemy at a time, but as you gain more skill points to invest in the build she become capable of quickly freezing and entangling entire groups of foes. Once that’s taken care of, we chose to focus on increasing Harlowe’s damage output, so the pool of shared damage between enemies is greater.

Here are the best Harlowe Seize the Day skills and how many skill points to invest in each:

• Parallel Circuit (5/5): After triggering or retriggering an action skill, Harlowe gains increased gun damage.
• Strange Attractor (Augment): Whenever Harlowe shoots an enemy with a gun, bullets ricochet off that enemy onto all enemies in stasis. If Harlowe critically hits an enemy, that enemy becomes entangled.
• Periodic Table Flip (5/5): Harlowe gains increased elemental damage, status effect application chance, and cryo effectiveness.
• Ripple Effect (1/1): Kill Skill: Whenever Harlowe kills an entangled enemy, automatically entangle another nearby enemy.
• Precision Engineering (3/3): Harlowe gains increased critical hit damage.
• Too Coolant for Schoolant (4/5): Whenever Harlowe deals cryo damage, she gains increased action skill cooldown rate.
• Cryodynamics (3/3): Harlowe gains increased cryo damage.
• Concurrence (5/5): Harlowe gains increased action skill duration for every entangled enemy.
• Control Group (5/5): Kill Skill: Killing an entangled enemy restores a portion of Harlowe’s action skill cooldown and action skill duration.
• Freeze Frame (1/1): Harlowe’s guns deal bonus cryo damage for every enemy she has in stasis.
• Falling Bodies (Capstone): Action Skill: Places an additional enemy in stasis at the cost of action skill duration. When stasis ends, automatically slam all enemies straight down.
• Unstable Ice-otope (5/5): Kill Skill: Harlowe deals bonus cryo damage with all sources.
• Keep Ice On That (1/5): All cryo damage Harlowe deals gains lifesteal. If Harlowe’s health is full, she gains overshield instead.
• Heat Sink (3/5): Whenever Harlowe freezes an enemy, she gains increased action skill cooldown rate.
• Endothermic Reaction (1/5): Whenever Harlowe freezes an enemy, create an endothermic aura that deals constant cryo damage to enemies around it. Harlowe’s endothermic aura deals increased damage based on her overshield. The more full, the greater the bonus.
• Triple Point (1/1): Whenever Harlowe deals non-cryo damage to an entangled enemy, she deals bonus cryo damage to that enemy. If she deals cryo damage to an entangled enemy, she deals increased bonus damage.
• Cyclotron (4/5): Part of the Creative Bursts tree. Harlowe gains increased fire rate.
• Fuzzy Math (2/5): Part of the Creative Bursts tree. Harlowe gains increased status effect chance.

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Harlowe’s Cosmic Brilliance skill tree

Best Cosmic Brilliance build¶

Harlowe’s best Cosmic Brilliance skill tree build is the weakest of the three options, but still holds some viability when playing in multiplayer mode. The Flux Generator is a pretty appealing action skill too, as dropping it on enemies will damage them while buffing Harlowe if she remains inside it. You need to focus on the Creative Overflow and Latent Charge skills to increase Harlowe’s damage output.

Here are the best Harlowe Cosmic Brilliance skills and how many skill points to invest in each:

• Action At A Distance (4/5): Whenever Harlowe applies a status effect to an enemy, she gains a chance to apply that status effect to each entangled enemy.
• Mains Hum (3/5): Harlowe gains increased maximum shield and overshield capacity.
• Neutron Decay (5/5): Whenever Harlowe irradiates an enemy, she gains increased gun damage. This effect stacks.
• Creative Overflow (3/3): Harlowe deals increased gun damage based on her overshield. The more overshield she has, the bigger the bonus.
• Nuclear Winter (Augment): Whenever Harlowe and her allies are inside the Flux Generator, they deal bonus cryo damage. Whenever they are outside the Flux Generator, they instead deal bonus radiation damage for a duration. Whenever Harlowe inflicts cryo or radiation status effects, that enemy becomes entangled.
• Decoherence (5/5): Harlowe deals increased damage with all sources to entangled enemies. Enemies inside of her Flux Generator take further increased damage.
• Latent Charge (5/5): Harlowe deals bonus damage with guns, melee, and action skill while she has overshield. The more overshield she has, the bigger the bonus.
• Runaway Reaction (1/1): Harlowe gains increased status effect chance. Whenever Harlowe applies a status effect to an enemy, it becomes entangled.
• Refraction (4/5): Harlowe and her allies gain ricochet chance against entangled enemies. Critical hits double this chance. Ricochets deal reduced damage.
• Excited State (5/5): Harlowe gains increased critical hit damage. Whenever an enemy is damaged by Harlowe’s action skill, the next shot on that enemy will be an automatic critical hit.
• Distribution Function (1/5): Whenever Harlowe’s action skill damages an enemy, restore a portion of her and all allies’ shield capacity. If their shields are full, gain overshield instead.
• Harlowe’s Certainty Principle (5/5): Harlowe gains increased gun handling, which is further increased with every enemy in her Flux Generator.
• Critical Funding (5/5): Whenever Harlowe critically hits an enemy, she gains a chance to entangle it, and refills a portion of her gun’s magazine.
• Violent Horizon (Capstone): Harlowe’s Flux Generator occasionally shoots radiation projectiles at nearby enemies outside of its radius. If these projectiles irradiate an enemy, the Flux Generator then drags them within its radius. Whenever you re-trigger this ability, the Flux Generator creates a singularity burst that drags in nearby enemies and increases action skill power.
• Meltdown (3/5): Harlowe’s critical hits with guns deal bonus radiation damage.