The warrior-poet with a violent temper and a heart of gold is a versatile protagonist in Borderlands 4 who relies heavily on his abilities to dish out heavy damage. Always at home on the battlefield, the Forgeknight can act as both a damage dealer and a tank during co-op while also being more than capable of handling any combat situation during solo play.

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Cryomancer Guardian Overview

The Cryomancer Guardian is a Vengeance leveling build that focuses on AoE damage and survivability while also giving players powerful tools to handle Bosses in the early and mid stages of the game. Thanks to this build, you can turn Amon into a veritable juggernaut that uses Cryo-based abilities and Ordnance damage to wipe out entire groups of enemies at once. In addition, while Amon’s Action Skill is active, he will be almost impossible to take down as long as the player is proactive and keeps attacking.

The Cryomancer Guardian build can carry players throughout the entire campaign and beyond. Although this is primarily meant as a leveling build, players can continue to use it effectively even at level 50 with a few adjustments. That said, there are better builds for handling specific types of endgame enemies and Borderlands 4 players should always be open to experimenting with new builds in order to overcome specific challenges.

Strengths and Weaknesses

  • Very versatile build that relies much more on Skills than Weapons
  • Eternal Winter and Glacial Rapture both provide great AoE damage potential
  • Scourge can be maintained almost indefinitely in many scenarios, providing both excellent sustain and bonus damage
  • Leans heavily into Cryo damage and can struggle a bit against enemies that are resistant or immune to the element, but incorporates Ordnance damage as a failsafe
  • Players using this build may struggle a bit when surrounded since a lot of the damage reduction only triggers when Amon is attacked from the front
  • Spamming Forgewaves is surprisingly effective against Bosses. In some cases, you can take down bosses without firing a single shot, using only Forgewaves

Skills and Weapons

The bread and butter of this build is Scourge in combination with Eternal Winter, an Augment that becomes available at level 16. The Vengeance tree Action Skill is quite powerful even without the Augment, but Eternal Winter enables you to maintain Scourge active almost indefinitely while also giving it a nice damage boost in the process. Longer Scourge duration means significantly more damage reduction as well, however, this still only applies when being hit from the front, as per usual.

The only caveat here is that once you activate Scourge, you’ll need to constantly spam Forgewaves like there’s no tomorrow. As long as you deal damage to enemies with your Forgewaves, you’ll constantly restore a portion of Scourge’s duration and can keep it active for minutes at a time instead of the usual 18 seconds. As an added bonus, doing so will also extend the duration of Firewall, though you should definitely replace the default Forgeskill with a Capstone as soon as you hit level 26.

Forgewaves augmented by Eternal Winter deal a lot of Cryo damage, and this build fully embraces that theme by also incorporating Glacial Rapture into the mix. The Capstone acts as a second source of Cryo damage while providing you with some much-needed crowd control at the same time. In addition to blasting groups of enemies with frost, Glacial Rapture also creates a large hazard zone that slows enemies and deals damage over time.

Aside from Cryo damage, this build relies quite heavily on Ordnance damage from both Ordnance weapons and abilities. Grenades are preferable since they’re faster to deploy and can be quickly used during Eternal Winter without interrupting your Forgewave spamming for more than a second or two. Order and Maliwan are particularly helpful as they tend to find their way to enemies on their own and don’t require careful aiming. Simply throw them in the general direction of your enemies and go back to spamming Forgewaves.

Between levels 6 and 16, players can also use either of the two Vengeance Augments to deal both Cryo and Ordnance damage. We recommend going with Cryonic Thrum over Blastchill since it synergizes better with Scourge and gives you bonus Cryo damage with guns for the duration. The Forgewaves themselves deal Ordnance damage as well, in addition to Cryo.

Speaking of Guns, those that deal Cryo damage are a natural fit, but you should also keep one or two non-Cryo weapons at the ready to deal with enemies that are resistant or immune to the element. Maliwan guns tend to come with two elements you can switch between, so hold onto any you find that deal Cryo damage along with a different type of damage. Tediore guns are another good pick since they can be turned into makeshift grenades upon reloading.

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Pictured about are the core Skills and Passives needed for this build, all of which can be unlocked before level 30. Beyond that, players should continue to focus on investing points into Passives that enhance their Action Skill, Cryo Status Effect proc chance, Ordnance damage, and survivability. A few other noteworthy Passives from the Vengeance tree that work well with Cryomancer Guardian include Age of Ice, Scorched Kairos, Eternal, and Bullet Hail.

Players can also incorporate Passives from the other two skill trees. Wield the Storm, Gut Punch, and Metal Urge are good candidates from the Calamity Tree. Passives from the Cybernetics tree don't synergize particularly well with this build, but Gathering Storm is one of the few worth considering and you can start investing into it early on. Meanwhile, Permafrost is a fantastic Passive to have if you're willing to commit 15 points into Cybernetics just to unlock it.

  • Maliwan – Good for reliably applying Cryo damage
  • Tediore – Gun throwing provides an additional source of AoE damage
  • Jakobs – Projectile ricochets can quickly spread Cryo (or any other) Status Effect to nearby enemies

Note: Stats on most items are randomized and can also vary wildly depending on the item's level. We used 'X', 'Y', 'Z' to represent that, but everything has a numerical value in-game.

Repkit

  • Accelerator – On use, grants increased Action Skill Cooldown Rate by X% for Y seconds
  • Go Go Gadget – On use, grants increased Ordnance Cooldown Rate by X% for Y seconds
  • Elemental Affinity – On use, grants increased Elemental Damage Dealt by X% for Y seconds
  • Nova – On use, releases a Cryo Nova
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Ordnance (Grenades)

  • Order – Grenades home in on nearby enemies. The Maglock Augment effect does the same thing and can be found on Grenades from other manufactures
  • Maliwan – Grenades stick to enemies and any that land on the ground will propel themselves at the nearest incoming enemy
  • Singularity Payload – Spawns a Singularity that pulls in nearby enemies. Great for grouping enemies before hitting them to Forgewaves or Glacial Rapture
  • MIRV Payload – Spawns X MIRV Grenades on exploding
  • Artillery Payload – Fires bullets around the grenade, dealing X damage/second
  • Hazardous – Grenade Status Effect Chance is increased by X% and Grenade Status Effect Damage is increased by Y%. Works particularly well with Cryo grenades for this build
  • Express – Grenade Cooldown is reduced by X%
  • Nuke – Grenade Damage is increased by X%, Grenade Damage Radius is increased by Y%, and Grenade Cooldown Duration is increased by Z%
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Forgeknight Class Mod

  • +X% Action Skill Damage
  • +X% Action Skill Cooldown Rate
  • +X% Skill Critical Hit Chance
  • +X% Ordnance Damage
  • +X% Ordnance Critical Hit Chance
  • +X Health Regen per second
  • +X% Damage Reduction
  • +X Maximum Health Capacity
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Energy/Armor Shield

  • Nova (Energy Shield) – When Energy Shield breaks, triggers a Nova that deals X damage. Armor Shields have a similar effect called Knockback
  • Sturdy (Energy Shield) - When damaging enemies, X% chance to grant Y% damage reduction for Z seconds
  • Adaptive (Energy Shield) – When equipped, grants +X% Maximum Health. When Shield is active, grants +Y% Resistance to the last Damage type received for Z% seconds
  • Absorb (Armor Shield) – When equipped, grants X% chance to absorb bullets, adding them to your Ammo count instead
  • Spunky (Armor Shield) – Grants up to +X% Damage Dealt, scaling with broken Armor Segments
  • Reflect (Both Shield types) – When Shield is active, X% chance to reflect Projectiles
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Enhancement

  • Maliwan or Tediore Enhancement depending on your kit. Maliwan is usually better since their Enhancements tend to focus on Status Effect application while Tediore ones can be a bit all over the place
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GOOJFC

  • 1/3 – Action Skill Cooldown Rate is increased by +10%
  • 2/3 – Action Skill Damage is increased by +15%
  • 3/3 – Action Skill Cooldown Rate is increased by an additional 20%

Gadget Ahoy

  • 1/3 – Ordnance Cooldown Rate is reduced by +15%
  • 2/3 – Ordnance Damage is increased by +20%
  • 3/3 – Ordnance kills grant +20% Damage for 15s
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