Table of contents
The Story
Claptrap is the fourth playable character in Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, in the previous games claptrap was an NPC and a quest giver, now he is a Vault Hunter.
When this newest installment of the Borderlands franchise was in development Mister Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, simply wanted to play as Claptrap in his new game. At first, the rest of the team didn’t find it that good of an idea, but some good ideas come up and now he is a playable vault hunter.
The story behind Claptrap is that he didn’t have a choice but to join the battle like the other Vault Hunters, he was simply programmed to help out. Yes (Handsome) Jack, who still is a little code monkey in The Pre-Sequel, inserted some new subroutines into this Hyperion robot.
Claptrap’s Action skill
Claptrap’s action skill is “vaulthunter.exe” it’s malware inserted into the little robot’s programming. Vaulthunter.exe lets him activate an action package that analyzes the battlefield and then determines the best possible solution… okay not really, hey it’s Claptrap after all.
You get a random action pack and these can be action skills from other vault hunters across the whole series. But he also has some new and crazy packs you can insert by picking them up in his skill tree.
Claptrap’s Skill Tree
The 3 skill trees for claptrap are ‘Boomtrap’, ‘I Love You Guys’ & ‘Fragmented Fragtrap’.
Boomtrap
This is Claptrap’s explosive skill tree where you can focus on explosive damage instead of the other elemental types.
Action packages ‘Torgue Fiesta’ & ‘Pirate ship Mode’ can be unlocked in this tree. The first one will be free grenades for everyone where claptrap can’t stop throwing frags. The second action package will turn Claptrap into a pirate ship and shoot with huge cannons.
I Love You Guys
This is claptrap’s co-op skilltree, with as capstone ‘High Fives Guys’. If you activate this, Claptrap will stick out his hand and ask for a high five, when he gets it, claptrap and the other player will get multiple buffs. When no one gives claptrap a high five, he keeps the buffs for himself.
Action packages ‘Clap in the Box’ & ‘Gun Wizard’ can be unlocked in this skill tree. The first action package will give claptrap a bomb in his hands and he needs to blow up something or else only he goes down. The Gun wizard action package will give everyone an increased fire rate and reload speed.
Fragmented Fragtrap
Forces you to change your weapons as Claptrap will choose a random weapon type and that one will get high damage buffs, while other weapons won’t be doing that good.
Action packages “one shot wonder” & “Laser Inferno” can be unlocked in this tree. The first one is a one-shot one-kill action skill and the second one is a disco ball that shoots lasers.
Are you excited to play as the Fragtrap, try out Claptrap’s skilltree calculator.
Claptrap Gameplay Demonstrations
Here are some gameplay sessions of Claptrap in action.
Claptrap Demo at Gamescom
Claptrap Gameplay at Pax Prime
4 Player Claptrap Co-op
