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Borderlands 4

Dead Ringer Vex Boss Farm Build

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Dead Ringer Vex

The Dead Ringer Vex build uses Dark Pact to amplify clones and make farming bosses easy for Vex in Borderlands 4. See the best builds, skills, weapons, and gear to use for Vex, along with the best skill tree abilities and character playstyle.

All Vex Guides
Best Builds Cosmetics Skill Trees and Voice Actor
Leveling Build Boss Farm Build Bleed Build

Dead Ringer Vex Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths Weaknesses
✔︎Very high status effect damage
✔︎Can deal various elemental damages
✔︎Clones can melt down bosses by themselves
✖︎Locked to mostly Elemental Guns
✖︎Requires max skill points to reach max potential
✖︎Clone range and targeting can be inconsistent

Dead Ringer Vex shines in its ability to place down clones with different elements, allowing you to deal different types of elemental damage that can stack and melt down enemies.

Dark Pact also allows you to simply place down clones, activate Dark Pact, and simply just watch your clones melt down bosses in seconds, without you ever having to fire your weapon.

Due to the way Dead Ringer works, one of the build's weaknesses is that it requires you to equip different elemental weapons to maximize the attunement for your clones. Against multiple enemies, the Clones may also target different enemies, making it harder to defeat badasses or bosses before the clones expire.

Dead Ringer Vex Build Best Skills

Best Action Skills

Skill Tree Dead Ringer IconThe Fourth Seal
Action Skill: Dead Ringer

Dead Ringer allows Vex to summon multiple clones based on Vex' current Attunement. These clones deal gun damage based on their attunement, allowing you to place down clones that specifically target an enemy's weakness.

Vex can also choose between Reapers and Specters, giving you more flexibility, depending on the situation.

Vex Best Passive Skills

Best Passive Skills

The Fourth Seal
Vexcalation
Skill Tree Priority Skills
Dead RingerThe Fourth Seal
(Blue Tree)
Cold Iron Icon Portents of Suffering Icon Cursed Blade Icon Prismatic Ichor Icon Keen Suffering Icon Recurrence Icon Haruspex Icon Prismatic Weaponry Icon Ancient Rites Icon
Skill Tree Priority Skills
Incarnate IconVexcalation
(Green Tree)Vexcalation
Leeching Attunement Icon Bloodletter Icon

The best skills for the Critical Clones Vex Build revolve around amplifying her minion damage and Status Effect damage.

From the Vexcalation Skill Tree, take Leeching Attunement to boost Vex' survivability by providing lifesteal upon equipping Kinetic Guns, and Bloodletter to inflict Bleed when attuned to Kinetic.

Recommended Skill Progression

Recommended Skill Progression
Cold Iron Icon Lvl 2 Cold Iron Icon Lvl 3 Cold Iron Icon Lvl 4 Cold Iron Icon Lvl 5
Cold Iron Icon Lvl 6 Cursed Blade Icon Lvl 7 Cursed Blade Icon Lvl 8 Cursed Blade Icon Lvl 9
Cursed Blade Icon Lvl 10 Cursed Blade Icon Lvl 11 Portents of Suffering Icon Lvl 12 Portents of Suffering Icon Lvl 13
Portents of Suffering Icon Lvl 14 Portents of Suffering Icon Lvl 15 Portents of Suffering Icon Lvl 16 Prismatic Weaponry Icon Lvl 17
Prismatic Weaponry Icon Lvl 18 Prismatic Weaponry Icon Lvl 19 Prismatic Weaponry Icon Lvl 20 Prismatic Weaponry Icon Lvl 21
Ancient Rites Icon Lvl 22 Ancient Rites Icon Lvl 23 Ancient Rites Icon Lvl 24 Ancient Rites Icon Lvl 25
Ancient Rites Icon Lvl 26 Recurrence Icon Lvl 27 Recurrence Icon Lvl 28 Recurrence Icon Lvl 29
Haruspex Icon Lvl 30 Recurrence Icon Lvl 31 Recurrence Icon Lvl 32 Leeching Attunement Icon Lvl 33
Prismatic Ichor Icon Lvl 34 Prismatic Ichor Icon Lvl 35 Prismatic Ichor Icon Lvl 36 Prismatic Ichor Icon Lvl 37
Prismatic Ichor Icon Lvl 38 Keen Suffering Icon Lvl 39 Keen Suffering Icon Lvl 40 Keen Suffering Icon Lvl 41
Keen Suffering Icon Lvl 42 Keen Suffering Icon Lvl 43 Leeching Attunement Icon Lvl 44 Leeching Attunement Icon Lvl 45
Leeching Attunement Icon Lvl 46 Leeching Attunement Icon Lvl 47 Bloodletter Icon Lvl 48 Bloodletter Icon Lvl 49
Bloodletter Icon Lvl 50

From Levels 1~30, your goal is to stack points into The Fourth Seal, until you unlock Dark Pact. Once Dark Pact is unlocked, with the skills equipped leading up to it, you should reach a point where you can effectively farm bosses alone.

From Level 31 onwards, take skills that will improve your runs significantly, such as Haruspex, in order to inflict Curse from a distance, and Prismatic Ichor which will inflict additional Status Effects when dealing damage.

Vex Best Augment

Wither Icon Wither Coven Icon Coven

With the Dark Pact Capstone, choose Wither and Coven as your Augments.

Wither increases your overall damage against an enemy, while Coven provides Critical Chance and HP Regen to you and your summons when spawning a Reaper.

Vex Best Capstone

Dark Pact Icon Dark Pact
Tree The Fourth Seal
(Branch 3)
Effect
Vex can now equip two Augments, and gains the ability to use Dark Pact. Dark Pact: Press and hold ability while a Minion is active to fully restore Health of all Phase Clones, as well as granting increased Movement Speed and Minion Attack Speed for a Duration. Phase Clones do not lose Health over time while Dark Pact is active, and Health loss is reset when Dark Pack ends.

Dark Pact, besides allowing you to equip two Augments, also has an active effect where it massively buffs summons for a few seconds.

This makes your clones excel against bosses, being able to reduce a Boss to nothing within seconds when used correctly.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Equipment

Jump to a Section!
Weapons Repkit Ordnance
Class Mod Shield Enhancement
Firmware

Dead Ringer Vex Best Weapons

Best Manufacturer for Vex: Maliwan

Maliwan weapons and licensed parts pair great with the Critical Clones Build for Vex, since clones base their element on your current attunement.

Using Maliwan weapons with two different elements allow you to place clones with different elements, allowing you to capitalize on the Boss' weakness, regardless of what element is needed.

Best Weapon Type for Vex: Any

For this build, you can use virtually any weapon, as long as you have Elemental Weapons on hand to change your attunement before placing clones.

Because of the nature of this build, being familiar with Elemental Weaknesses is recommended, to allow you to clear bosses faster and more efficiently.

Elemental Weakness Chart and Damage Guide

Dead Ringer Vex Best Repkit

Repkit Unique Trait
Shiny War Paint
Shiny War Paint
Chrome: On use, grants +30% Fire Rate and +30% Movement Speed for 15s, and reduces Repkit Cooldown by 2s each time Damage is taken.

The Shiny War Paint is the best Repkit that Vex can use thanks to its increased Fire Rate and Movement Speed.

The increased Fire Rate allows you to shoot and stack buffs faster, while the Movement Speed boost allows you to reposition faster, especially during instances where your clones are on cooldown.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Ordnance

Destructo Disco

Ordnance Type and Overview
DiscoDestructo Disco
Grenade Ordnance

Groove: Deals elemental status damage in an area.

The Destructo Disco is a unique Grenade Ordnance that deals continous status damage.

You can simply throw it towards a boss, or a group of mobs to continously deal status damage, which benefit from the Dead Ringer build's passive skill investment.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Class Mods

Illusionist

Class Mod Effects
Illusionist Recommended Skills:
Portents of Suffering Icon Prismatic Ichor Icon Keen Suffering Icon
Legendary Bonus
Specters and Reapers have a chance to be Badasses, gaining increased Maximum Health and Damage Dealt. This chance increases the longer it hasn't occurred and will at least occur once every 90 seconds.

Illusionist amplifies the damage your Clones do, as well as increasing their Max Health, significantly increasing their time summoned.

This also massively boosts Vex' DPS, since the clones will take even longer to expire, especially when combined with Dark Pact.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Shield

Watts 4 Dinner

Shield Type and Overview
Watts 4 DinerWatts 4 Dinner
Energy Shield

Overshield Eater: When Energy Shield is active, enemies have a 12% chance to drop an Overshield when hit. When Overshield is also active, grants +25% Shock Damage

Watts 4 Dinner provides additional Shock Damage on all sources, allowing your clones to also deal Shock Damage, regardless of their type affinity.

This provides a significant damage boost, since the Dead Ringer build is focused on elemental damage, allowing you to stack even more status damage, even without having to equip a Shock Weapon.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Enhancement Mods

Enhancement Effects
Maliwan Enhancement Synthesizer - Guns with Maliwan-licensed parts have +25% Status Effect Damage
Transfuser - On kill, Guns with Maliwan-licensed parts spread their active Status Effect to up to 3 nearby targets.

Equipping a Maliwan Enhancement with either Synthesizer or Transfuser would be best for this build, but obtaining a Legendary Enhancement with both will provide more DPS.

We recommend Synthesizer for optimizing your Status Effect Damage, including the Damage from Curse, while Transfuser is excellent for clearing mobs, which can be very useful when farming bosses in Drill Sites.

Dead Ringer Vex Best Firmware Sets

Set Bonus Effects
Deadeye
3/3
・Gun Accuracy is increased by 30%
・Gun Critical Hit Damage is increased by 25%
・Every Critical Hit grants 15% Critical Damage per Stack (5 max stacks) for 10s
High Caliber
2/3
・Projectile Speed is increased by 25%
・Gun Damage is increased by 10%

List of All Firmware Sets

Dead Ringer Vex Best Specializations

Specialization Tree and Effect
The Best Defense Icon The Best Defense
Survivor Icon Survivor Tree

The Vault Hunter gains increased Damage Dealt based on the fullness of their Shield or Health, whichever has higher Maximum Capacity.

Damage Dealt: +30% when Full
Riddle You This Icon Riddle You This
Brute Icon Brute Tree

Whenever the Vault Hunter deals Gun Damage, gain a Stack of Riddle You This, increasing Gun Damage.
Stacks are lost if a new Stack has not been gained for a Duration.

Gun Damage: +1% per Stack
Maximum Stacks: 50
Duration: 6 seconds
Contamination Icon Contamination
Killer Icon Killer Tree

Critical Hits grant increased Status Effect Application Chance.

Status Effect Application Chance: +10% per Stack
Stack Duration: 10 seconds
Maximum Stacks: 10
Compounding Afflictions Icon Compounding Afflictions
Killer Icon Killer Tree

Enemies take increased Damage for each Status Effect applied to them.

Damage Taken: +1%

We recommend taking the following Specializations, with priority on unlocking Contamination, since it increases Status Effect Application Chance.

Both Riddle You This and Contamination synergize extremely well with your Clones, allowing you to deal more gun and status damage, quickly melting any type of enemy you come across.

List of All Specializations

Dead Ringer Vex Boss Farming Guide

Place Clones Based on Boss Weakness

When starting boss fights, place down your clones depending on the Weakness of the boss. This can be done by changing Vex' elemental attunement, done by simply changing your equipped weapon.

If a boss has multiple HP bars, you can place down different elemental clones If you can quickly burst down the boss.

When to Place Reaper vs Specter

Stationary Bosses Aggressive Bosses
3 Specters 2 Specters 1 Reaper

When deciding what to place during boss runs, it is best to decide based on the boss' behavior and attack patterns.

If a Boss is Stationary, like Idolator Sol and Core Observer, placing 3 Specters should be enough to quickly burst down the boss.

Aggressive Bosses, like Mimicron, and Drill Site Bosses, should be distracted by drawing aggro, so spawn 1 Reaper and 2 Specters instead, to ensure that the boss does not rush you or your specters.

List of Bosses

Use Dark Pact for DPS Boost

After placing your clones, use Dark Pact to buff your summons, providing you with a significant DPS increase, which allows you to clear Bosses faster.

Keep in mind that certain bosses, such as Vault Guardians have significantly more HP, and is unlikely to be bursted completely during the duration of Dark Pact.

Melee Bosses When Possible

With the Skill investment for this build, Vex' and her Reapers inflict a Curse on enemies, which is detonated by gun damage.

When challenging bosses with a 3 Specter setup, use Vex to melee the boss to ensure that Curse is applied. If you have a Reaper on the field, you can attack from a distance instead, since the Reaper's attacks will also apply Curse that can be detonated by your Specters.

Best Dead Ringer Vex Build Playstyle

Optimized for Boss Farming

Borderlands 4 - Moxxi

This Vex build is specifically designed for Boss Farming, putting heavy investment in Vex' and her minions' damage.

Through our testing, Normal Bosses in Hard difficulty can be cleared in less than 1 minute under optimized conditions, and approximately 1:45 for tankier bosses such as Vault Guardians, and Auger Mine Bosses.

How to Farm Bosses

Viable for Mob Clearing and Leveling

While this build is specializes in burst DPS, this build can still be used for leveling and clearing the story.

If you are facing difficulties in using this build for leveling, you can try investing more skill points into defense and lifesteal, or use our designated Vex Best Build for Leveling!

Best Vex (Siren) Build and Leveling Guide

Borderlands 4 Related Guides

Borderlands 4 - Builds

Best Builds for Each Vault Hunter

All Character Builds

Character Build
Vex the Siren IconVex
Dead RingerCritical Clones Boss Farm
Rafa the Exo-Soldier IconRafa
Amon the Forgeknight IconAmon
Harlowe the Gravitar IconHarlowe

Comment

2 Anonymous Anonymous about 2 months

What specializations?

1 Anonymous Anonymous 2 months

What shield?

Author

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