BL4 Tediore Legendary Weapons

Legendary SMGs

Weapon	Type	Special Effect	Drop Source	Drop Chance
Needle Gun	SMG	Homing reload drone + DOT needles	Borman Nates (Meridian Outskirts)	10%
Long Musket	SMG	Flamethrower, reload throws incendiary bomb	GenIVIV (Voracious Canopy)	10%
Brightside	SMG	MIRV reload splits into 6 grenades	Power Troopers (Atlas HQ)	10%
Smart Gun XXL	SMG	Brain turret reload, mind-controls enemies	Gigamind (Meridian Metroplex)	10%

Why Pick Tediore

Tediore is the manufacturer for people who think throwing away a perfectly good gun is a valid combat strategy and honestly in the Borderlands universe it totally is, the core gimmick is simple when you reload a Tediore weapon instead of swapping magazines you literally throw the entire gun at the enemy and the thrown gun explodes or turns into a turret or grows legs and walks around shooting or sprouts wings and flies toward enemies, the explosion damage scales with how many bullets were left in the magazine when you threw it so a full magazine equals maximum boom and an empty magazine equals a sad little pop, I've wasted so many chucks on empty mags before I learned this and it hurts every single time ngl

What makes this playstyle genuinely unique is that it turns your ammo pool into a damage resource in a way no other manufacturer does honestly, every bullet in your magazine is potential explosive damage when you reload chuck the gun and this creates this really interesting rhythm where you fire a few shots to soften up enemies then chuck the gun with a mostly full magazine for a massive explosion, the different reload variants keep things fresh too like the MIRV variant splits into multiple smaller guns that all explode separately for huge AOE, also the legs variant walks toward enemies and shoots them which is both hilarious and effective tbh, the wings variant flies and hunts down enemies and the turret variant sits in place and provides sustained fire etc, you never know exactly what you're going to get when you farm a Tediore gun and that variety keeps the playstyle from getting stale imo, I mean I've probably spent 300 hours just testing different Tediore variants and I still find new interactions all the time you get the idea

Best Vault Hunters for Tediore Guns

Moze is the undisputed queen of Tediore chuck builds and it's not even a debate honestly, her entire kit is built around magazine size and ammo management which are the two stats that directly scale Tediore throw damage, Bottomless Mags gives massive magazine size increases and Matched Set gives even more mag size if all your guns are the same manufacturer and Cloud of Lead gives free shots which means your magazine empties slower pretty much all the time, but here's the key interaction Short Fuse triggers on gun damage and a thrown Tediore gun counts as gun damage so your chuck can trigger Short Fuse for a second explosion on top of the chuck explosion, then Mind Sweeper class mod adds micro grenades on crit and those can trigger Short Fuse too, so a fully optimized Moze Tediore chuck build can throw a gun that deals its explosion damage then Short Fuse explodes then micro grenades explode, three layers of boom from one reload and I've hit the damage cap more times than I can count with this setup it's kinda broken not gonna lie

But FL4K is surprisingly good with Tediore too and people sleep on this way too much imo, Leave No Trace returns ammo on crit which means more bullets in the magazine when you chuck, also Megavore gives a chance to crit anywhere which makes Leave No Trace more consistent, and the Smart Gun XXL's brain turret mind controls enemies, while they're fighting each other FL4K can sit in Fade Away landing guaranteed crits from safety honestly it's a more tactical approach to Tediore compared to Moze's all explosion everything style and sometimes I actually prefer it for bossing because you can control the fight more

Zane and Amara don't have much specific Tediore synergy which is kind of a bummer, the chuck damage formula mostly cares about magazine size and gun damage and neither Zane nor Amara have magazine size steroids like Moze, they can still use Tediore guns as normal weapons and the reload throw is still good for AOE clear but the dedicated chuck build is really a Moze thing, though I guess Amara with Ties That Bind could do some funny stuff with grouped up enemies and a MIRV chuck or whatever, who knows maybe I'm wrong and someone's found some insane Zane Tediore build I haven't seen

Hidden Mechanics

The Tediore chuck damage formula is one of the most misunderstood things in Borderlands and I spent way too long figuring this out so here's how it actually works, the explosion damage is based on the gun's listed damage multiplied by the percentage of ammo remaining in the magazine so if your gun does 1000 damage and you have 75% of the magazine left the explosion deals 750 damage, but then it gets multiplied by grenade damage bonuses and splash damage bonuses and area of effect damage bonuses so a Moze with 100% bonus splash damage and 50% bonus grenade damage is multiplying that 750 by 2.5 resulting in 1875 damage, this is why magazine size is so important because a bigger magazine means more bullets left after firing which means a higher percentage when you chuck, and Moze can get magazine sizes over 100 rounds on SMGs which means even after firing 20 shots she's still at 80% ammo remaining basically, the math gets pretty wild at the high end you know

So the different reload variants have hidden behavior too and the game literally explains none of this, the MIRV variant splits into child grenades that each deal 50% of the base chuck damage so if your chuck would deal 10,000 damage and it splits into 4 MIRV grenades each one deals 5000 for a total of 20,000 which is already double what you'd expect, the legs variant deals less upfront explosion damage but the walking gun lasts for 10 seconds and deals 30% of the gun's base damage per shot so over a full 10 seconds it does way more total damage than a regular chuck, the turret variant has the highest total damage potential but requires enemies to stay in range which is kinda annoying, and the wings variant has the shortest duration but the highest burst damage because it flies directly at enemies and explodes on contact, honestly each variant has its own niche and which one is best really depends on your build and what you're fighting

And the Baby Maker deserves special mention because when chucked it spawns three smaller guns that fly around and shoot enemies and each baby gun deals 25% of the base gun damage per shot and they last for about 8 seconds, but here's the trick if the baby guns are active when you chuck another Baby Maker the old ones don't disappear so you can have six, nine, even twelve baby guns flying around if you keep chucking, with Moze's ammo regen giving you effectively infinite ammo you can spawn an army of baby guns that collectively out DPS most legendary weapons and it's literally one of the most fun builds I've ever played in any game honestly, the frame rate will tank but who cares when you have 12 guns flying around killing everything for you

Early vs Late Game

Early game Tediore is hilarious and surprisingly effective like the base chuck damage is high enough that a thrown green Tediore SMG will one shot most basic enemies through the first half of the story and ammo is abundant early so you can chuck freely without worrying about running dry honestly it's maybe the most fun way to level, the Brightside SMG is available relatively early from the Power Troopers and it splits into 6 MIRV grenades on chuck which clears entire rooms like nothing else at that level, even basic non legendary Tediore guns with the MIRV or turret reload variant are fantastic for leveling because the throw damage scales off the gun's base damage which is level appropriate, I basically chucked my way through the entire first playthrough and it was probably the most fun leveling experience I've had in any Borderlands game tbh, highly recommend if you're starting a new character and just want to have a good time

Then late game Tediore is where the dedicated chuck build becomes one of the strongest playstyles in the game and I'm not exaggerating when I say at Mayhem 10 with full Moze optimization a single Tediore chuck can hit the damage cap, the scaling factors multiply together in a way that creates exponential damage growth with magazine size bonuses and splash damage bonuses and grenade damage bonuses and weapon damage bonuses and elemental bonuses if the gun is elemental all multiplying each other, the downside is that it's very gear dependent and you need specific class mods and artifacts and anointments to reach that level, without the right gear Tediore falls off hard at high Mayhem levels because the base chuck damage doesn't keep up with enemy health scaling so it's a high investment high reward manufacturer for the endgame, worth the farm if you enjoy the playstyle but not something you can casually pick up and expect to dominate with at Mayhem 10, trust me I've tried and it was painful honestly

Pro Tips

First thing never chuck on an empty magazine and I see people do this all the time they fire until the gun is empty and the reload animation starts and the gun gets chucked with zero ammo remaining which does almost no damage honestly it makes me cringe every time I see it, if you're going to chuck chuck early fire 5 to 10 shots to apply some damage then reload chuck with 80% plus ammo remaining because the damage difference between an 80% chuck and a 20% chuck is massive and I've literally died from panic chucking an empty mag on a badass that had 1% HP left, worst feeling in the world tbh

Second the Long Musket SMG is actually a flamethrower and it doesn't work like other Tediore guns at all, the primary fire is a continuous flame stream that deals incendiary damage in a cone and the reload chuck throws the gun as an incendiary bomb, but the flamethrower mode doesn't consume ammo per bullet it drains ammo continuously so the chuck damage calculation is different and it's based on fuel remaining not bullets, a full tank Long Musket chuck deals way more damage than the card numbers suggest and I only figured this out because someone on Reddit mentioned it otherwise I would have vendored this gun immediately, no joke I almost deleted a god roll because I didn't understand the mechanic

Third the Polybius has four rotating barrels and the chuck turns it into a spinning turret but the turret's damage type matches the element of the last barrel that was active before you chucked, you can control which element the turret fires by switching firing modes until the right barrel is up then chucking, it's micro management heavy but worth it for matching elements, also the Bangarang orbits around you after you chuck it shooting at nearby enemies and if you're playing Moze and have a Deathless artifact equipped the Bangarang will orbit while you're in Iron Bear so your mech has a gun drone circling it which isn't game breaking but it's a cool interaction, and finally if you're farming for a specific Tediore legendary with a particular reload variant like MIRV or wings check the gun parts before you commit to farming because the reload type is determined by the grip and stock parts and you can preview what variant it'll be by looking at the weapon model, MIRV variants have multiple barrels and turret variants have a tripod base and legs variants have mechanical legs visible on the gun body and wings variants have wing attachments on the sides, you get the idea and stuff like that