Borderlands 4 Classes: Your Guide to Harlow, Vex, Aemon & Rafa

By Paradise — your quick guide to Harlow, Vex, Aemon, and Rafa. If you're deciding which Vault Hunter to pick first, this breakdown covers playstyle, core mechanics, signature action skills, and the builds that make each class sing.

Quick snapshot

• Harlow — battlefield control & crowd control specialist (stasis + radiation).
• Vex — elemental siren hybrid with minions and attunement-based builds.
• Aemon (Ammon) — forge knight juggernaut, melee combos and shields.
• Rafa — exo-soldier, high-tech toolkit for ranged and melee rampage.
  
  

Harlow — master of control and crowd-management

If you love shutting down enemy movement and multiplying damage across groups, Harlow is a dream. Her entanglement mechanic links foes so that one status effect or high-damage blast ripples across every target in the web. Harlow can build as a solo nuker or as a support-oriented controller who locks encounters for the team.

Build ideas & highlights

• Creative Bursts — lob chroma accelerator energy pockets then detonate for massive radiation bursts. Great for high single-target punctures and crowd bursts.
• Sees the Day (Stasis) — place stasis bubbles to hold enemies in place. Pair with teammates for massive combo detonations.
• Cosmic Brilliance — squad buffs & debuffs; excellent in co-op to tilt fights in your favor.
  
  

Vex — elemental attunement & spectral minions

Vex is for players who love hybrid play: swap elements on-the-fly and bring a small spectral army. Her passive forces her skills and melee to adopt your current weapon's element, which makes loadout choices meaningful and fun. Playing Vex well means thinking like a commander — manage attunements, time summons, and ferry status effects through your minions.

Build ideas & highlights

• Fourth Seal — summon specters and reapers; they can mirror your weapons or spread debilitating curses.
• Vexalation — lean into life-steal and kinetic explosions for sustained fights.
• Here Comes Trouble — focus on commanding Trouble, turning a single companion into an enormous DPS engine.

Aemon — the Forge Knight (melee juggernaut)

If you love up-in-your-face combat with heavy swings and engineered explosions, Aemon is your pick. He combines shield mechanics, build-up vengeance charges, and explosive melee combos to clear rooms or slug down bosses. Excellent for players who like to trade hits confidently.

Build ideas & highlights

• Calamity — chain slams and rocket punches into big burst windows.
• Vengeance — soak hits with your forge shield, then convert damage into huge retaliations.
• Cybernetics — boomerang axes, drones, and weapon-throw gimmicks for a ranged-melee hybrid.

Rafa — exo-soldier, adaptable and lethal

Rafa's Exo frame gives him flexible kits: a charged arm cannon for piercing shots, shoulder-mounted cannons for sustained suppression, and energy arc blades for melee shredding. He excels at hit-and-run play thanks to Overdrive bonuses after action skills.

Build ideas & highlights

• People Person — tune the Apous Lance for long-range precision or transform it into continuous beams.
• Remote Agent — get sustained turret fire with shoulder cannons or convert them into rocket spam.
• Gimmick / Ark Knives — dive into melee with dash-attack combos and self-sustain on kills.

Which Vault Hunter should you pick?

Here's a fast decision guide:

• Pick Harlow if you enjoy control, CC, and setting up plays for your team.
• Pick Vex if you like minions, adaptable elemental play, and techy hybrid builds.
• Pick Aemon if you want to smash, tank, and clear with glorious melee power.
• Pick Rafa if you want a toolbox: ranged suppression, heavy ordinance, and vicious melee.

Whichever you choose, Borderlands 4 is designed to reward experimentation — try different attunements, action skill augments, and capstones to discover powerful synergies.

Must-see weapon visuals   

Augmented Vivisecting Throwing Knife Lvl 48

3.93USD

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