How does Guardian Rank work in Borderlands 3?

What is Guardian Rank?

Guardian Rank is an additional progression system in Borderlands 3 that allows you to increase passive stats and unlock unique perks. Guardian Rank is unlocked once you completed the main story campaign and helps you conquer Mayhem Mode.

Veteran Borderlands players that are familiar with the old Badass Rank from Borderlands 2 and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel can see similarities between Guardian Rank and Badass Rank but also notice the additional perks.

How does Guardian Rank actually work?

A new progress bar will appear above your character’s level progression bar once Guardian Rank is unlocked. You can fill up the Guardian Rank Progression bar by simply earning Experience Points (XP). Once the bar is full, you level up and earn a Guardian Token which you can spend in the Guardian Rank Menu.

Redeeming a Guardian Token in the Guardian Rank Tab of the menu will provide you with the choice of 6 random stats bonuses. There are always 2 passive stat bonuses from each of the 3 Guardian Rank trees to choose from.

Each Guardian Rank Tree focuses on a specific set of passive buffs and while these are small increases they can really stack up because Guardian Rank is an infinite progression system.

There is the Enforcer tree that provides you with damage and fire rate buffs. The Survivor tree boosts your health and shield but also makes ‘second wins’ easier. The Hunter tree buffs have an impact on your weapon handling, action skill, and the one that I find interesting Luck.

Guardian Rank Bonus Stats

Enforcer Bonus Stats

The Enforcer Tree is all about dealing more damage and boosting your DPS.

• Critical Damage
• Grenade Damage
• Gun Damage
• Gun Fire Rate
• Melee Damage
• Vehicle Damage

Survivor Bonus Stats

The Survivor Tree is all about staying alive and in the fight.

• Fight for Your Life Duration
• Fight for Your Life Movement Speed
• Max Health
• Shield Capacity
• Shield Recharge Delay
• Shield Recharge Rate

Hunter Bonus Stats

The Hunter Tree is all about efficiency. Getting good at what you do and how you do it.

• Accuracy
• Action Skill Cooldown
• Luck (Rarity Rate)
• Recoil Reduction
• Reload Speed

Earn Guardian Rewards By Spending Tokens

When you spend your Guardian tokens and you will be given a choice out of 6 boosts, 2 from each tree. By picking a boost 1 point will go into the corresponding Enforcer, Survivor, or Hunter tree on the right. By stacking enough points in each of the trees you will unlock the rewards. 

You will earn Guardian Rewards by spending a total of 10, 15, 25, 35, 50, 75, 100, and 125 tokens into a certain tree. These rewards can be new weapon skins, character skins, or additional skills for your Vault Hunter.

All Guardian Rank Rewards

By stacking enough points into each of the trees you can unlock the following Guardian Rank rewards.

Enforcer Tree Guardian Rewards

Survivor Tree Guardian Rewards

Hunter Tree Guardian Rewards

Notes

• The minimum required Guardian Rank to unlock all rewards is 375.
• Shield Reboot: Certain shields, such as Roid shields, grant bonuses only when depleted, so this perk can make builds around those shields difficult if not impossible to use. It is highly recommended to disable this perk if using such a shield.
• Dead Man’s Hand: This skill will remove “aim penalties” to the Accuracy stat of a weapon, but does not remove the significant aim sway associated with being in Fight For Your Life.
• Topped Off: This skill increases action skill cooldown rate by about 200% when shields are full, letting action skills recharge in a third of the listed time.
  • This skill is additive with other cooldown rate increases, potentially limiting the effectiveness of skills such as Adrenaline.

• Borderlands 2’s Badass Rank system was based on completing challenges, so it encouraged creating new characters because a veteran character would have few challenges left. The Guardian Rank system is the opposite: since Guardian Ranks are earned with a fixed amount of XP, low-level characters will increase them very slowly, so it encourages playing high-level characters.
• Hotfix April 1, 2021
  • Lowered the damage bonus on the Guardian Perk Groundbreaker from 25% to 10%

Guardian Rank FAQ