When it comes to the endgame part in Borderlands 3, your Guardian Rank plays a huge role as it affects your character later on, especially when playing endgame content as well as when Mayhem Mode is activated.
Your Guardian Rank allows you to add bonus stats to your characters as well as unlock other passives that will benefit them later on once you have added enough points into a certain tree.
Aside from stats and passive skills being active, player and weapons skins may also be unlocked when a tree has enough points in them.
How To Unlock Guardian Rank?
Guardian Rank will be unlocked once you have finished the Borderlands 3 story mode with at least one character.
Once you have finished the story mode, all of your characters will benefit from the Guardian Rank bonuses as well as can gain experience to increase it.
This makes it more practical to finish the story with at least one character before starting on with the other characters.
Guardian Rank Basics
Once your Guardian Rank has been unlocked after completing the main story in Borderlands 3, a purplish pinkish bar will begin to increase whenever you gain experience.
If you are playing with another character, the Guardian Rank bar will be shown above your characters experience bar.
Gaining experience when you have unlocked your Guardian Rank will fill the bar up with the experience that you gain until it is full.
Once the Guardian Rank bar has been filled, it will reset and you will have earned a Guardian Token which is use to pick a bonus stat from the list of stats in the Guardian Rank menu.
Each time the bar is filled, one Guardian Token will be rewarded and so on continuously as long as you gain experience.
Guardian Rank Bonus Stats
Guardian Tokens are used to purchase bonus stats that further improve you character and may be chosen from 2 random selection per tree.
A Guardian Token may be used to increase one of the stats and will add to each tree which will later on also provide more bonuses.
Here are the following stats for each tree that may be increased when using a Guardian Token:
Enforcer
- Critical Damage – Increases the damage dealt when a critical hit is scored
- Grenade Damage – Increases the damage dealt by grenades
- Gun Damage – Increases the damage done when using guns
- Gun Fire Rate – Increases the speed of which guns may be fired
- Melee Damage – Increases the damage dealt with melee attacks
- Vehicle Damage 0 Increases the damage of weapons attached to vehicles
Survivor
- Max Health – Increases the maximum health points that a character has
- Shield Capacity – Increases the amount of Shield Points that a character has
- Shield Recharge Delay – Reduces the amount of time it takes before shields begin to recharge when no damage is taken
- Shield Recharge Rate – Increases the speed at which shields begin to refill when no damage is taken
- FFYL Duration – Increases the time you have to get a second wind or wait for a revive when you are downed
- FFYL Movement Speed – Increases your movement speed when you are downed and in Fight For Your Life
Hunter
- Accuracy – Improves the aim your weapon has and allows you to hit targets at a further distance more accurately
- Action Skill Cooldown – Reduces the time it takes for you to wait until your action skills are ready to be used again
- Luck (Rare Drop Rate) – Improves the chances of getting items of higher rarity
- Reload Speed – Increases the speed at which you may reload your weapons
- Recoil Reduction – Improves the handling of your guns when firing, allowing you to be more stable while shooting
Guardian Rank Rewards
Depending on how many tokens you have placed in one of the trees, you will gain bonus awards based on how many points have been accumulated for each of them, granting more benefits.
Enforcer Guardian Rewards
- Red Sands weapon skin – Unlocks the Red Sands weapon skin (10 Tokens)
- Inner Fury – Add 10% Gun Damage to your shots when firing your guns during Fight For Your Life (15 Tokens)
- Overkill – Excess damage from kills will be added to the next shots that you fire (25 Tokens)
- Urban Blamo player skin – Unlocks the Urban Blammo player skin for your character (35 Tokens)
- C-C-Combo – Increases gun damage by 2% for 1 second every time a shot is fired (50 Tokens)
- Hallow Point – When an enemy is killed by a critical hit, an explosion will occur around them (75 Tokens)
Survivor Guardian Rewards
- Leather And Regret weapon skin – Unlocks the Leather And Regret weapon skin (10 Tokens)
- Resilient – When you revive from Fight For Your Life, you get up with full health and shields (15 points)
- Dead Man’s Hand – Allows you to aim down the sight when you are in Fight For Your Life
- Hex Bolts player skin – Unlocks the Hex Bolts player skin for your character (35 Tokens)
- Shield Reboot – Whenever you kill an enemy, your shields will start to regenerate (50 Tokens)
- Emergency Response – Shield Recharge Delay and Shield Recharge Rate improves based on missing health (75 Tokens)
Hunter Guardian Rewards
- Dead Set weapon skin – Unlocks the Dead Set weapon skin (10 Tokens)
- Bullet Collector – Gain 15% extra ammunition upon picking up an ammo pickup (15)
- Tag And Frag – Every 10 enemies you kill will regenerate a grenade (25 Tokens)
- Burning Bright – Unlocks the burning bright player skin for your character (35 Tokens)
- Topped Off – Reduces the cooldown of your action skills when you are at full shields (50 Tokens)
Treasure Hunter – Luck becomes increased for 10 seconds after each kill (75 Tokens)
Max Guardian Rank Level
Borderlands 3 has been patched to cap the maximum Guardian Rank to reach 850 which has barely been reach by most players that play in a legit manner but by the time this cap has been reached, most of the stats will not be gaining much.
It is practical to have at least 15% in most of the stats to get a good benefit from your Guardian Rank aside from the passive abilities and bonus weapon and player skins.
Guardian Rank Farm Techniques
There are many ways to gain experience but some are more efficient and can save you a lot of time in order to raise your Guardian Rank quickly so you can take on stronger enemies.
Some efficient ways to gather experience and increase your Guardian Rank are the following:
- Farming Bosses
- Farming Enemies In Mayhem Mode
- Doing Circle Of Slaughter missions
- Doing The Proving Grounds missions
