Honestly Takedowns in Borderlands 4 are what the endgame is all about and they separate the casual players from the tryhards who spend hours optimizing their builds for maximum DPS and survivability, these are the hardest non-boss encounters in the game designed for 4-player parties at max level on Mayhem 11, and they reward you with some of the best exclusive gear in the game that you literally cannot get anywhere else, I've completed both Takedowns dozens of times on all four Vault Hunters and I'm going to break down exactly how to approach each one with recommended builds and strategies

What Are Takedowns?

Takedowns are endgame raid-style encounters that were first introduced in Borderlands 3 as free DLC and they're back in BL4 with significant improvements, each Takedown is a multi-stage gauntlet that takes about 20-40 minutes to complete with waves of increasingly difficult enemies leading up to a final boss encounter, the mob density is significantly higher than anything in the campaign and enemy modifiers are stacked to the max

There are two Takedowns in Borderlands 4 at launch: the Maliwan Blacksite Takedown on Nekrotafeyo and the Guardian Takedown on Xylourgos, each has exclusive legendary drops that are best-in-slot for several builds and a special cosmetic set for clearing it on Mayhem 10/11 without going down, tbh the cosmetics are the real trophy because they prove you've mastered the hardest content in the game

Maliwan Blacksite Takedown

The Maliwan Blacksite is the easier of the two Takedowns and the one you should tackle first, it takes place in a massive Maliwan facility on Nekrotafeyo and you fight through waves of Maliwan soldiers Heavy Infantry mechs and eventually two bosses — the Valkyrie Squad (four flying Maliwan soldiers with synchronized attacks) and finally Wotan the Invincible a massive Maliwan mech that splits into two separate health bars when you "kill" it the first time

Maliwan Blacksite Recommended Build

Moze Splash Build: Iron Bear with dual grenade launchers for the mob phases, switch to a corrosive Flipper SMG for Wotan's armor phase. The Valkyrie Squad is weak to shock damage so bring a shock Cutsmann shotgun if you have one. FL4K Crit Build: Fade Away + Monarch for boss melting, your pet draws aggro from the Valkyries making their synchronized attacks miss more often. Must-have gear: Transformer shield (absorbs shock damage as shields — the entire Blacksite is filled with shock damage), corrosive weapon for Wotan, shock weapon for Valkyries.

The Valkyrie Squad fight is the first major skill check in this Takedown, the four Valkyries attack in coordinated patterns and they can revive each other if you don't kill them all within a short window, the strategy is to focus them down one at a time while avoiding their synchronized missile barrage, the missiles do massive shock damage so a Transformer shield is almost mandatory here, after all four are down you proceed to the final area where Wotan awaits

Wotan the Invincible has two phases: in phase one he's a massive mech with a blue armor health bar and a glowing crit spot on his chest, focus fire on the crit spot with corrosive damage and dodge his laser sweep and missile barrage, in phase two Wotan splits into two separate enemies — the upper half which flies and has a shield health bar and the lower half which crawls on the ground and has armor, you need to kill both within a short window of each other or the surviving half revives the dead one, the best strategy is to get both halves low on health then finish them together with a single action skill activation or grenade

Guardian Takedown

The Guardian Takedown is significantly harder than the Maliwan one and honestly I wouldn't recommend attempting it until you have a fully optimized build with god-roll gear and perfect anointments, the Guardian Takedown takes place in a massive Eridian structure on Xylourgos and features Guardians Eridian constructs and the most frustrating platforming sections in any Borderlands game

Guardian Takedown Recommended Build

Amara Elemental Build (Recommended for this Takedown): Phasegrasp with Ties That Bind is incredibly valuable here because the Guardian enemies have high health pools and the damage sharing lets you kill them faster than any other character. Use a Free Radical pistol (shock) to strip Guardian shields and a corrosive Flipper for their armor. Key survivability: Guardian enemies deal heavy elemental damage and have status effect immunity in later phases, so you need high shield capacity and shield recharge. Use a Recharger or Stop-Gap shield.

The biggest challenge in the Guardian Takedown is the arena layout which has multiple platforming sections where you can fall into the abyss and instantly die, the platforms are narrow the collision detection is fiddly and fighting enemies while jumping between floating platforms is genuinely frustrating even with a perfect build, the strategy is to clear each platform of enemies before attempting the next jump so you don't get shot out of the air mid-jump

The final boss of the Guardian Takedown is a massive Eridian construct called the Scourge of the Eridians which has three phases: shield phase where you need to destroy crystal nodes around the arena to bring down his invulnerability, DPS phase where you burn his health bar while he's vulnerable, and an enrage phase where the entire arena floor becomes lava and you have to finish him while jumping between floating platforms, it's a long fight and one mistake can wipe your entire party

True Takedown Mode

Once you've beaten both Takedowns you unlock True Takedown Mode which makes the enemies significantly harder but increases the drop quality and adds exclusive cosmetics, in True Takedown Mode enemies have about 50% more health and damage and the final bosses get new attack patterns, the exclusive cosmetics include weapon trinkets that glow with a special effect and character skins that are animated with particle effects

True Takedown Mode also changes the reward structure — instead of getting random world drops from chests the exclusive Takedown legendaries have a 100% drop chance from the final boss (up from about 15% in normal mode), making True Mode the fastest way to farm specific Takedown items like the Yellowcake rocket launcher or the Komodo Joe shotgun

General Takedown Tips

Always bring a Transformer shield to the Maliwan Blacksite, the entire facility is filled with shock damage from Maliwan weapons and the Transformer converts that damage into shield recharge, it's the single best piece of gear for this specific Takedown and trying to do it without one is masochistic

For the Guardian Takedown mobility is more important than raw DPS, if you can't dodge the platforming sections and the Guardian leap attacks you will die regardless of your damage output, use a movement speed artifact and consider speccing into any movement speed skills in your trees even if they don't directly increase your damage

Both Takedowns can be done solo but it's significantly harder and requires a build specifically optimized for solo play with good sustain and survivability, the scaling for solo play reduces enemy health and damage but not by enough to make it easy, if you're attempting solo bring a shield with a recharge delay reduction and a weapon with life steal if possible

Honestly Takedowns are the best content in Borderlands 4 and they're worth gearing up for even if the early attempts end in failure, the first time you clear the Maliwan Blacksite on Mayhem 11 without going down is one of the most satisfying moments in the game, grab a group from the BL4 Discord communicate your build choices and don't be discouraged if you wipe on Wotan a few times — everyone does