Join The Club
Borderlands 4 isn't quite a live service game, but its endgame does heavily revolve around a weekly schedule. This weekly update rotates endgame content, shifts the location of Maurice's Black Market vending machine, and is often when Gearbox reveals and releases key patch notes.
With this in mind, the weekly update is an important date to keep track of, whether you're just entering the endgame or perfecting your builds with a shopping list of gear. Below, I'll go over what's available this week and any major changes so you don't miss out.
May 16, 2025: I've updated this guide with the weekly activities and patch notes for the week of May 14 - May 21.
Borderlands 4 weekly update
Each week in Borderlands 4, the Big Encore boss, Wildcard Mission, and Black Market vending machine activities change. Since these are endgame activities, you'll have to have completed the campaign before you can access them. These changes go live at the weekly reset time, which is every Thursday at 9 am Pacific.
Here's what's active this week from May 14 to May 21:
- Big Encore boss 1: Foundry Freaks, found in the Pitted Stain Ripper Drill Site in the Idolator's Noose area (The Fadefields region). They have the chance of dropping the Chuck legendary assault rifle, Chaumurky legendary grenade, and Bloody Lumberjack legendary asssault rifle.
- Big Encore boss 2: Idolator Sol, found in Fortress Indomita in the Idolator's Noose area (The Fadefields region). Its has the chance of dropping the Onslaught legendary SMG, Goremaster and Golden God legendary shotguns, the Bio-Robot class mods for Gravitar, Dancer class mod for Exo-Soldier, Technomancer class mod for Siren, and Furnace class mod for Forgeknight, and Rounder class mod for Rogue.
- Big Encore boss 3: Splashzone, found in Riptide Grotto in the Coastal Bonescape area (The Fadefields region). It has the chance of dropping the Lead Balloon legendary shotgun, Firewerks legendary shield, and Jelly legendary grenade.
- Big Encore boss 4: Primordial Guardian Inceptus, found in the Arch of Inceptus in the Dissected Plateau area (The Fadefields region). It has the chance of dropping the Lucky Clover legendary pistol, Husky Friend legendary shotgun, Extra Medium legendary shield, Ravenfire legendary heavy weapon, Elementalist class mod for Forgeknight, Filantropo class mod for Exo-Soldier, Avatar class mod for Siren, Reactor class mod for Gravitar, and Ludopath class mod for Rogue.
- Wildcard Mission: Her Flaming Vision with the Healthy, Chain Master, and Deflector modifiers, and a guaranteed drop of the legendary Borstel Ballista sniper rifle, a Jakobs brand weapon.
- Maurice's Black Market vending machine: At the Shammy's Shack POI, on the wooden incline by the river (Coastal Bonescape area, The Fadefield region). Start from The Stockroom silo fast travel point, then simply glide southeast towards the river to find the vending machine on top of the wooden incline.
The Borstel Ballista sniper rifle has the Propagation special effect, meaning once you fire, one bullet spawns up to 30 additional pellets in a spiraling pattern around its trajectory as it travels forward. Each of these additional bullets deal 35% of the main bullet's damage.
Latest Borderlands 4 patch notes
Although it's not a major one, we still got some helpful changes and fixes to some problematic gear. Here are the full Borderlands 4 patch notes for the week of May 14 - May 21:
Change Notes
- Daedalus Assault Rifle Mercredi is now properly scaling with increases to Gun Damage and Assault Rifle damage
- Ripper Grenade Buoy has received a +150% damage increase
- Dev Note: The activation range and proximity check has proven to not be as practical in combat as we were targeting. As a result, we’ve added a dramatic increase to the damage to better fit players using it as a short-range burst of damage.
- Ripper Grenade Jelly damage has increased by +30%
- Daedalus Grenade Buzz Axe damage has increased by +50%
- Maliwan Grenade Destructo Disco base damage has increased by +50% and increased damage from its unique ability, Groove, by +100%
- Jakobs Grenade Spinning Blade damage has increased by +200%
- Dev Note: We acknowledge the skill test required to catch the knife after landing a hit, and have increased the damage dramatically to reward the gameplay loop.
Last week's Borderlands 4 patch notes
It wasn't huge update, but there were still a lot of changes to gear last week, with the promise of more "in the weeks to come" before the second raid encounter releases. Here are the full patch notes for Borderlands 4's update last week (May 7 - May 14):
Gear Updates
Dev Note: In the weeks to come before our second raid encounter, we’re going to be introducing some gear tuning and also some gear changes. The changes we can include with Weekly Updates will contain the numerical tuning passes, while the larger updates (such as the QOL update and the Raid Boss 2 update) can contain code changes for our gear systems. Starting off this week is a tuning pass to some of our DLC gear, our Pistols and SMGs, and the Order Manufacturer.
While rapid-fire weapons have benefitted greatly from synergistic Vault Hunter passives, we wanted to make sure our hard-hitting weapons also got some love. We’re starting with a few of the Legendaries that exist in the mid-fire-rate range, then moving to other archetypes like DoTs and Splash Damage.
A note for the future: We have a change coming in the Version 1.7 Update that will cap the damage increase on Torgue Stickies to 200% bonus. Builds that infinitely regenerate ammo could stack the Torgue sticky bonus way beyond the intended means.
A note on percentages: we’ve used percentages below when the adjusted numbers don’t match up with what you see on item cards due to scaling. For example, a Shield might have had its capacity changed from 0.9 to 1.1, resulting in a ~22% increase. This “1.1” value is not shared on the item card, but we want to share what you can expect to see on changed gear (a ~22% difference to the number).
Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned
- Torgue Shotgun Unstable Kor:
- Increased damage by ~45%
- Increased Fire Rate by 50%
- Ripper SMG Falke: Increased damage by 12.5%
- Maliwan Shotgun Reminisce: Increased damage by ~40%
- Vladof Assault Rifle Laser Cutter: Increased damage by ~15%
Legend of the Stone Demon
- Order Pistol Roulette:
- Reduced Damage by ~15% and Base Fire Rate by 37.5%
- Buffs for Fire Rate have had the bonus reduced by 75%
- Dev Note: The Roulette's Lord Luck roll bonus was initially balanced to have different chances to acquire bonuses like Fire Rate. However, we removed the random probability and didn't reduce the matching weighted stat bonus. We're equalizing all the bonuses to make each reload of Roulette still feel impactful but without overpowering the character and gear build.
- Daedalus Assault Rifle Mercredi:
- Increased damage by 50%
- Increased Fire Rate by 5%
Base Game Weapons
- Jakobs Shotgun Hellwalker: Increased damage by ~22%
- Ripper Shotgun Goremaster:
- Chief Executive Officer damage bonus has been increased to 66% for enemies below 40% Health
- Jakobs Assault Rifle Bonnie and Clyde: Increased Damage of Shotgun underbarrel alt-fire by ~22%
- Daedalus Assault Rifle Bloody Lumberjack: Increased damage by ~24%
- Jakobs Pistol King’s Gambit:
- Increased base damage by ~14%
- Order Pistol Bully:
- Defense Protocol drone cooldown has been reduced from 14 to 7 seconds. Drone damage as also increased ~66%
- Ripper Sniper Vamoose: Increased damage 20%
- Tediore Pistol Budget Deity:
- Increased Fire Rate ~66%
- Order Weapons recharge at a faster rate, with a base charge times lowered by ~33%
- Daedalus SMGs: Increased damage by 17%
- Maliwan SMGs: Increased damage by 15%
- Tediore Pistols: Increased damage by 20%
Shields
Dev Note: Energy Shield Legendary Behaviors got a tuning pass to provide more options for players without sacrificing damage output. In addition, we felt some Legendary Energy Shields could use a capacity increase to match the damage reduction gained from Legendary Armor Shields.
- Ripper Firebreak: Elemental Nova damage increased by 266% and shield capacity increased by 33%
- Daedalus Angel: Shield capacity increased by ~86%
- Ripper Sparky Shield: Shock damage increased by 400% and shield capacity increased by 20%
- Maliwan Pandoran Memento: Elemental Resistance increased to +25% and shield capacity increased by 30%
- Maliwan Extra Medium: Nova Elemental Splash Damage increased by 100% and shield capacity increased by 30%
- Order Cindershelly: Increased the amount of damage per stack of Resolve by 25%
- Ripper Watts 4 Dinner: Decreased the Overshield drop chance to 8% and increased the shield capacity by ~22%
- Order Protean Cell: Shield capacity has increased by 33% and the regeneration scaling has increased by 33%
