Step 1,Pick Your Vault Hunter
Look I'm gonna be real with you, don't stress about tier lists and all that, every single Vault Hunter can clear all the content in this game and I've seen people do crazy things with characters that the meta says are trash, so honestly just pick what feels fun to you, like when I first started I went with a run-and-gun damage build cause I love just melting things and not thinking too hard, but then my friend went pet class and he literally never dies because his pet revives him constantly which is kinda broken tbh, and I've also tried the Siren elemental stuff which is honestly so satisfying when you see everything on screen just burning and corroding at the same time, anyway the point is your playstyle matters way more than whatever some YouTuber says is S-tier this week, imo just read through the options below and pick whichever one makes you go "yeah that sounds like me", you really can't go wrong here and you can always respec later anyway so it's not like you're locked in forever or whatever
So this is basically the "I want everything dead right now" playstyle and honestly I love it, ngl the damage output on these hunters is kinda insane and you just run around melting bosses and mobs alike
Tbh this is probably the most forgiving class for new players cause your AI companion literally tanks for you and revives you when you go down, like I've watched my buddy's pet save him from wipes that would've made me rage quit
I absolutely love watching DoT ticks just eat through enemy health bars, it's so satisfying honestly, and the crowd control you get from spreading status effects around is pretty much unmatched for mobbing situations
If you've got friends to play with this is honestly a blast, you basically keep everyone alive and buff their damage and your group will love you, ngl playing support in co-op feels completely different from solo and it's worth trying at least once imo
Step 2,Understand the Gear System
I'm gonna give you three rules that honestly changed the whole early game for me and I wish I knew them before I spent like 15 hours hoarding garbage guns that were basically useless. So pay attention here cause these are the kinds of things that you kinda learn the hard way unless someone tells you. And trust me I learned them the hard way so you don't have to. Because the gear system in BL4 is honestly the one thing that separates people who breeze through the campaign from people who struggle on every single boss fight, and stuff like element matching and level scaling is way more important than most new players realize. Anyway here's the deal with gear and tbh once you get these rules down the whole game just clicks in a way that's really satisfying
Tbh this is the number one mistake I see new players make and I made it too, a green gun that's 3 levels above you will literally out-damage a legendary that's 10 levels below, weapon level is honestly the single most important stat early on and I don't care what color the gun is, if it's higher level just use it, you'll find better legendaries later anyway, ngl I used a green shotgun for like 8 levels once because it just kept out-performing everything else that dropped
This is another thing I didn't take seriously at first and then I was wondering why everything took forever to kill, basically fire wrecks flesh enemies with the red health bar, shock melts blue shield bars, and corrosive tears through yellow armor bars, and if you use the wrong element you're literally doing way less damage than you should be, like I once tried fighting an armored badass with a fire weapon and it took me maybe 5 minutes when it should've taken 30 seconds, so yeah match your elements and carry at least two different ones at all times, and you know stuff like that
I'm so guilty of this honestly, I kept every single legendary I found even when they were 15 levels below me and my bank was completely full, but here's the thing weapons out-level so fast in this game that hoarding is basically just wasting time, sell or drop stuff you're not actively using cause bank space is limited and early game hoarding will just slow you down, and anyway most of those early legendaries won't matter once you hit level cap, like I literally never touched 90% of the stuff I saved, so just let it go you know
Step 3,Leveling Roadmap (Lv1-30)
Here's the rough plan I follow now after leveling like 4 characters through the early game. And honestly this is way more efficient than what I did on my first run where I basically just wandered around doing random stuff and ended up under-leveled for the main story missions which was a huge pain. So anyway here's how I break it down into phases that actually make sense, and tbh once you get into a rhythm the leveling just flows naturally and you'll hit 30 before you even realize it, plus you'll have a decent collection of legendaries and class mods and all that good stuff
Just follow the main story pretty much and try every weapon type you find cause you honestly won't know what you like until you test stuff, I thought I'd hate Jakobs shotguns but turns out they're amazing for my playstyle, also pick up every side quest you see for the bonus XP, and tbh don't worry about builds or optimization at all here just have fun and figure out what weapons feel good to you, like literally just experiment with everything and see what clicks
Now you wanna start investing points into one skill tree instead of spreading them all over the place, I made the mistake of putting points everywhere on my first character and it was honestly terrible, also start actually matching elements to enemy types cause by now enemies are tanky enough that the wrong element really hurts your kill speed, and always always carry a shock weapon for stripping shields, like I cannot stress this enough, shock for shields is basically mandatory and you'll suffer without it trust me
This is when you can respec into a focused build at any Quick-Change station and it's honestly a game changer, ngl I respec like 3 times in this level range just to test different setups, also start farming the first Vault boss for early legendaries cause the save-quit repeat method is literally one of the best things in this game, you kill the boss, grab the loot, quit to menu, reload and the boss is back, it's kind of cheesy but honestly who cares it works and you'll have a full legendary loadout pretty quick, and that's basically how I gear up every character now
Step 4,Start Farming Legendaries
So this is where the game really opens up imo and honestly the legendary grind is what keeps me coming back. Like there's something super satisfying about finally getting that perfect drop after farming a boss for an hour, and the dopamine hit when you see that orange beam of light shoot up from a dead boss is honestly unmatched. Anyway here's what I've learned about starting your legendary collection without wasting too much time on stuff that doesn't matter, and trust me I wasted a LOT of time farming the wrong things before I figured out the priorities and stuff
Your first real legendary farm is gonna be the main story Vault bosses, they drop like 1-3 legendaries per kill and honestly the respawn-on-reload trick is the most important farming mechanic in the game, you just kill, loot, quit to menu, load back in and the boss is there again waiting for you, I've done this literally hundreds of times and it never gets old somehow, just put on some music or a podcast and farm away, you'll have a full inventory of legendaries before you know it
Tbh most new players go straight for legendary weapons but here's the thing that I learned pretty late, a legendary class mod and shield will do way more for your build than a legendary gun, because class mods give you skill boosts that literally enable entire builds and shields have effects that weapons just can't match early on, so farm for those first and the weapons will come naturally, I know it's tempting to chase that shiny legendary shotgun but trust me on this one, class mod first and everything else after
If you're not following Gearbox socials for Golden Key codes you're honestly missing out on free loot, the Golden Chest gives guaranteed purple or better drops and it's basically free gear for doing nothing, I save my keys for when I hit level cap but ngl sometimes I burn a few early if my gear is really falling behind, just follow their Twitter or whatever and grab the codes when they drop, it's literally free stuff so why wouldn't you you know
Beginner FAQ
Stuff I get asked all the time by newer players, and tbh these were also things I was confused about when I started so hopefully this helps