The Maliwan Takedown is one of the most beloved End Game content that Gearbox Software made for Borderlands 3, however, conquering the Maliwan Blacksite isn’t an easy task as Gearbox Software designed this Takedown to be one of the most challenging pieces of content that Borderlands 3 has to offer. In this Borderlands 3 Guide, I will tell you how you can beat the Maliwan Takedown as I’ll take you through each area and tell you which weapons you should bring along.
Table of contents
Maliwan Takedown Difficulty
The Borderlands 3 Maliwan Takedown was originally designed as a 4-player raid that would always scale towards that, however, after community feedback the difficulty was adjusted to scale to the number of players. This is why you can now find a Normal and True Takedown switch at the start.
- Normal: Scale to the number of players
- True Takedown: Force 4 player difficulty scaling
The Maliwan Takedown was released alongside a new Mayhem Difficulty level that not only offered a more challenging experience it also introduced Mayhem 4 Gear. Mayhem Mode has been reworked since then and provides additional difficulty levels. You can still obtain these extra weapons if you play the Maliwan Takedown on Mayhem Level 4 or higher.
Maliwan Takedown Walkthrough
The Maliwan Blacksite in the Midnight’s Cairn contains several dense mobbing areas and 2 Raid Boss encounters. You need to bring your A-game to beat the Maliwan Takedown.
Key Takeaways
- You need a solid character build to conquer the Maliwan Blacksite.
- You don’t want to run out of ammo so stock up at the start. You will find more vendors along the way but there are also ways to regenerate ammo.
- Use high-performing weapons that complement your build.
Area 1: Outside the Gate
The first enemies that you will encounter during the Maliwan Takedown are Ratches. These enemies are weak against Incendiary weapons, however, you can easily avoid these enemies. The main goal of this first area is to take down the 3 turrets on the outer gate. So run past the Wretches and focus on those 4 targets, once those are taken care of, the forcefield will lower and you can move on to the next section.
Area 2: Courtyard
The second area introduces the main enemies that you will encounter throughout the Maliwan Blacksite. The courtyard is mainly filled with Maliwan Troopers that you have encountered throughout the main game, however, a new Riod Shield Trooper is introduced and multiple attack dogs will add pressure to the incursion.
You will need to defeat a bunch of Maliwan Troopers before the next gate opens and when that happens an armored battle droid known as ‘Kraken’ will emerge from the facility. You can rush toward the entrance gate but you will surround yourself with mobs.
Area 3: Valkyrie Squad
Stack up on ammo before you go down the elevator as you will encounter the first Raid Boss downstairs. The Valkyrie Squad is a group of 3 Armored Mech Suits that each take their turn fighting you while Maliwan reinforcements arrive between each Mech encounter.
- Deal Damage to Valkyrie Squad
- Clear Maliwan Troops
- Repeat
Area 4: Bridge
You can restock ammo and trigger a checkpoint after the Valkyrie Squad. More Maliwan Troops, Heavies, and drones will throw themselves at you during this segment. It’s important that you take it easy and clear all the enemies before moving on.
You need to pull a lever to lower the forcefield before you can progress. As you make your way forward, you see the bridge retracting and find yourself at a dead end. Enemies will jump from the building and once you defeat them the next forcefield will deactivate. You can shoot the generator in this area and weaken enemies who stand near it. Don’t rush into the next area as soon as the barrier deactivates as you will find yourself in a small corridor with multiple heavies and Maliwan Troops.
You can rush a bit toward the next barrier and take out the enemies there but you will surround yourself with massive enemy forces jeopardizing your survivability. When the barrier opens 2 more heavies will emerge from the sidedoors.
- Heavies: Aim for the big sphere/coil that sticks out over their shoulder as this is their crit spot. Beware, they explode.
- Attack Dogs: These will constantly attack you at close range. Prioritize them by taking them out first as this will lower the pressure of the attack wave.
- Drone Spheres: These will fly over dealing large area attacks.
Area 5: Wotan
You have one final time to restock on ammo before you have to jump into the boss arena.
Wotan the Invincible is the final boss of the Maliwan Takedown. Defeating this giant mech is a guide on its own as there are a lot of stages and mechanics at play. So if you need more help on that then check out my Borderlands 3 Guide on how to defeat Wotan the Invincible.
- Bypass Shields to deal damage
- Use Towers to get advantage point
- Keep moving
Weapon Recommendations
You will encounter a lot of shielded enemies, therefore, a lot of folks initially used the Brainstormer Shotgun and/or the Electric Banjo Artifact as it easily let them deal with the dense mobbing sections.
However, the meta has changed due to balance adjustments and new gear from other Borderlands 3 DLCs. The Brainstormer can be replaced with the Reflux or the Face-puncher in combination with a Stone Artifact.
The Recursion was a recommended weapon when the Maliwan Takedown was released as you could stack multiple projectiles by adding different elemental damage types to your build. That doesn’t work anymore but you can achieve something similar with Zane’s Eraser Skill and Hustler Class Mod when you use the Boresplosion build.
Solid weapons that always perform would be the Light Show, the Flipper, or the O.P.Q. System.
My Shield recommendations are the Revolter for Damage and the Stop Gap for Survivability.
Additional Weapon Resources
- Best Legendary Assault Rifles in Borderlands 3
- Best Legendary Grenade Mods in Borderlands 3
- Best Legendary Pistols in Borderlands 3
- Best Legendary Rocket Launchers in Borderlands 3
- Best Borderlands 3 Legendary Shields
- Best Legendary Shotguns in Borderlands 3
- Best Legendary SMGs in Borderlands 3
- Best Legendary Snipers in Borderlands 3
