Gearbox Software added the ability to disable Guardian Rank in Borderlands 3 with their February 2020 Patch Update. You can now turn off individual perks when they don’t synergize with your build or disable the whole system if you want a vanilla experience (Often a requirement during the Borderlands Community Hunt Events). Follow the guide below to see how you can disable Guardian Rank.
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How to Disable Guardian Rank?
You can turn off Guardian Rank in the EchoMenu. Go to the Guardian Rank tab and press the ‘disable guardian rank’ toggle button listed in the lower right corner.
- PC (keyboard): Press [Q]
- PlayStation: Press (▢)
- Xbox: Press (X)
How to Turn off Specific Perks?
You can also disable specific perks from the Guardian Rank. Go to the Guardian Rank tab and select the perk that you want to disable. Press the ‘disable perk’ toggle button listed in the lower right corner.
- PC (keyboard): Press [R]
- PlayStation: Press (△)
- Xbox: Press (Y)
Why Disable Guardian Rank?
Having the ability to disable your Guardian Rank has multiple benefits for the Borderlands 3 community at large.
Guardian Rank is an ongoing progression system that allows you to keep leveling up your Vault Hunters and part of the Borderlands 3 end-game content. You can increase your Guardian Rank by gaining Experience Points (XP). This earns you Guardian Tokens which can be spent on improving your character’s stats.
Turning off Guardian Rank allows the Borderlands Community to create fun challenges and events where everyone is on an equal playing field. Folks with a higher Guardian Rank don’t have an unfair advantage because they played the game more.
Another benefit of disabling Guardian Rank is that “The Number Crunchers” of the community can dive into each individual Guardian Rank perk and calculate the impact of the boost. This is one of those things that only a select few people do but it’s the 1% that influences the other 99%. Figuring out the interactions and the damage formulas results in guides with the best weapons and character builds.
Which Guardian Perk to Disable?
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.
| Perk | Tree | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Shield Reboot | Survivor | This skill triggers your shield regeneration whenever you kill an enemy. You want to disable this perk if you are using a shield that benefits from its downtime. For example when you are using a Roid shield. |
| Hollow Point | Enforcer | This skill causes an explosion when killing an enemy with a Critical Hit. The explosion originally dealt damage to you and your allies but has been fixed, therefore, you don’t need to disable this skill anymore. |
