Attackers
These heroes are designed to be on the offensive. All attackers will do 15% bonus damage against non-Battleborn enemies. This will make them more efficient in clearing enemy AI in matches.
Defenders
These heroes are designed to be on the defensive. All defenders will get 15% bonus damage reduction against non-Battleborn enemies. This will make them more efficient in keeping their ground waves in matches.
Support
These heroes are designed to keep the team alive. Support characters don’t get any special bonuses like attackers and defenders do.
CLASSIFICATIONS
Like I mentioned above the heroes can be divided into 3 big archetypes. However, each Battleborn has a different take on that role. This is where the character’s classifications come in. These will tell you where the hero excels in. As one hero might be better in attacking and pushing the team forward. Another hero could be very good at defending and keeping its ground and therefore is very territorial. There are a lot of classifications like; Healers, Shielders, Snipers, Disruptors, etc. These describe their play-style.
Because of such a big character roster Gearbox could create a wide range of heroes to play with. They didn’t have to limit themselves to making just 1 melee character that everyone needed to like and enjoy playing with. So instead of having those ‘in the middle’ characters, Gearbox could make heroes that are more left or right on the spectrum. This means that some characters are not designed for you specifically. It is also possible that you are good with a hero in the story campaign but you fail hard in contributing in multiplayer with that specific character.
- Adorable: Because Toby is an adorable penguin.
- Agile: The character is fast and/or highly mobile. Often includes skills or helix augmentations that increase mobility. Focuses mainly on vertical movement.
- Assassin: The character is specialized in taking down a single target fast.
- Brawler: The character is adept at getting into and staying in fights.
- Combat: The character is exceptionally useful in the middle of a fight.
- Controller: The character has a lot of crowd control (CC) abilities that setup or assist the team.
- Disruptor: The character has quite a few crowd control (CC) abilities that stop or interrupt the enemy.
- Healer: The character specializes in restoring allies’ health.
- Initiator: The character is especially adept at starting fights. Usually involves a combination of movement abilities and crowd control.
- Mobile: The character is fast and/or highly mobile. Often includes skills or helix augmentations that increase mobility. Focuses mainly on horizontal movement.
- Pusher: The character has a good Area of Effect damage and/or fast minion clear.
- Rescuer: The character is especially adept at last second saves that mean the difference between life or death.
- Shielder: The character specializes in restoring allies’ shields.
- Skirmisher: The character is specialized in hit and run or guerrilla tactics.
- Sniper: The character can accurately hit targets at long range. Does NOT mean the character needs to stay far back.
- Stealth: The character can cloak and disappear from sight. The only indication is a slight shimmering effect.
- Tank: The character is a beefcake. Lots of health and often has a shield that blocks damage
- Territorial: The character specializes in controlling a specific area.
- Versatile: The character is flexible and can fill or specialize in multiple roles.