Salutations! This document contains important and reliable information about skill trees, general builds, and useful information for Zer0. This list was compiled and put together by the members of the BL2 chat in the Borderlands community discord. While not all of the builds listed will tackle all of the content in the game (looking at you, Voracious), they will work for general play and be useful throughout all levels of the game. All of the gear and general information listed in this guide is up-to-date with the Fight For Sanctuary DLC, and is fine-tuned to show the best gear and data for Zer0.
BASIC INFORMATION
Zer0 is the Assassin class of Borderlands 2. He is a high-risk-high reward glass cannon. Zer0 can use a multitude of weapons due to his high damage output but at the cost of fairly poor survivability. His action skill is Deception, which deploys a decoy hologram and lets Zer0 close the gap, or evade. He is not very beginner friendly and takes precision and patience to play. He excels incredibly with sniper rifles, and works well with Jakobs guns. He also sports a good melee kit with his right tree.
Decepti0n: For his action skill, Zer0 throws a holographic decoy that draws enemies attention, and he himself turns invisible. Decepti0n lasts for 5 seconds, and has a cooldown of 13 seconds but can be cut short for some time back. During Decepti0n, Zer0 gains up to 200% Gun Damage and 650% Melee damage (it also lists an increase to critical damage, but it does not work), depending on how much time is left on the timer for Decepti0n. Decepti0n is handy for either making a quick escape to relieve aggro, or to set up a deadly blow to an enemy.
Sniping:
This tree focuses mostly on increasing Zer0’s DPS with critical damage and guns, and as the name suggests, is leaned towards snipers. It houses a wide majority of strong skills and is key for gun-based builds.
Headsh0t: Headsh0t is a simple, passive tier one skill that boosts critical damage. It is always worth taking with gun builds since it’s free damage.
0ptics: Grants increased zoom for your guns and reduces flinch when taking damage while aiming. The effects are generally seen as very lackluster when compared to everything else in the tree so it is not recommended to take this skill.
Killer: Killer is a very strong tier two Kill Skill. It grants greatly increased reload speed and critical damage for a few seconds after killing an enemy. Very important for many builds to use, and turns Zer0 into a powerhouse.
Precisi0n: Precisi0n is a passive Tier Two accuracy boost. It is not particularly important and is more of a filler to move down the tree. But it synergizes well with shotguns and other guns to help land more shots on crit.
0ne Sh0t 0ne Kill: 0ne Sh0t 0ne Kill is a powerful Tier Three skill. It gives a damage boost to the first shot of a magazine. It synergizes well with guns that have powerful single shots and smaller magazines, and also with skills like Ambush as well as Decepti0n itself. It highlights Zer0’s strength of “burst damage” and is one of the reasons he sets up shots with Decepti0n.
B0re: B0re is a single point Tier Three skill that has some nice Quality of Life changes, but also some strong niche uses. It adds 100% damage by making bullets “pass through enemies” each time, and also highlights enemy crit spots. This can counter enemy bullet deflection. The way B0re works is not actually by passing through enemies, but by spawning a new pellet with double the damage of the one before, which still acts the same as if the pellet was just shot out of the gun (unlisted pellets will shoot out again). Each frame the bullet is contacting a hitbox makes B0re proc again. This is why B0re tends to do massive damage against some notable enemies, or other overlapping hitboxes (Notable examples include BNK-3R, Hyperius the Invincible, Badass Constructors, Digistruct Peak Tanks). This is also why B0re tends to be so strong with guns that split, like the Conference Call or Pimpernel to name a few.
Vel0city: Vel0city is a passive Tier Three skill that boosts Gun Damage, Critical Damage, and Bullet Velocity. It is a nice damage boost for being passive, and also helps bullets get to their destination faster like with slower bullet speed. However the issue lies with guns with bullet splits. This skill often ends up hurting some of Zer0’s best guns due to extending the distance the bullets split. Examples include the Conference Call, Interfacer, Lyuda, Pimpernel, Bekah, and to an extent, Sawbar. Outside of those guns, this skill can come in handy.
Kill C0nfirmed: Kill C0nfirmed is a Tier Four skill that adds stacks of Critical Hit damage (maximum of 5) over time while aiming down sights. The skill is nice to move down the tree with, but is not particularly important or required. You do not lose much from not taking it, but it is nice to have.
At 0ne with the Gun: At 0ne with the Gun is a Tier 5 skill that boosts Sniper Rifles. It improves the Hip Fire accuracy, reload speed, and Mag Size. It comes very handy with Sniper Rifles and synergizes well with the capstone Critical Ascensi0n. It is a key part of Sniper builds.
Critical Ascensi0n: Critical Ascensi0n (CA) is the capstone of the Sniping tree, and it is an incredibly powerful game changer for sniper builds. Every time you hit a crit with a sniper, you gain a stack of CA. Stacks decay after a few seconds of not hitting a crit. Each CA stack adds 5% Gun damage and 6% Critical damage with snipers. These two boosts result in a massive damage boost that increases the damage of snipers more and more, to ridiculous levels.
Cunning:
Zer0’s middle tree, this skill tree is focused on general boosts and is like the “glue” that keeps builds together, and links the polar opposites of Sniper and Bloodshed tree. Every Zer0 build puts points into it to get the key skills for their build.
Fast Hands: Fast Hands is a passive Tier One skill that boosts swap speed and reload speed. It is always a good choice to take for its simple and easy boost for nice DPS and utility.
C0unter Strike: C0unter Strike is a fairly niche Tier One skill. It gives Zer0 a chance for a big melee damage boost after getting hit. The skill is only really useful for melee builds while outside of Decepti0n and holding a Moxxi gun.
Fearless: Fearless is a Tier Two skill that gives Zer0 extra fire rate and gun damage while his shields are down. This skill is not particularly good, and is mostly only used to move down the tree.
Ambush: Ambush is a very important Tier Two skill that gives Zer0 a multiplicative damage boost for all sources if damaging an enemy from behind, while they are not targeting him, or any time he is in Decepti0n. It is incredibly useful for high burst damage, and synergizes extremely well with 0S0K, and his Cunning tree. This is one of Zer0’s key skills.
Rising Sh0t: Rising Sh0t is a very nice Tier Three skill that gives up to 5 stacks of Gun Damage and Melee Damage. The faster the fire rate of the weapon, the faster the stacks decay, and vice versa for slow fire rate weapons. It is a very nice addition to Zer0’s builds and a great skill to take for Zer0’s builds
Death Mark: Death Mark is a single point Tier Three gamechanger mainly when combined with Death Bl0ss0m. Death Mark itself gives an 80% multiplicative damage boost to a marked enemy for 8 seconds. This greatly increases Zer0’s power. And when combined with Death Bl0ss0m (capstone), Zer0 can apply Deathmark rapidly at range to multiple enemies. This skill is vital and one of the roots of ALL Zer0 builds.
Unf0rseen: Unf0rseen is a Tier Three skill that gives deception a shock explosion when it ends. It is a fairly decent skill that is useful for niche builds, but is mainly used for leftover points or for moving higher in the tree.
Innervate: Innervate gives gun damage, movement speed, and health regen while in deception. This skill is always taken for all Zer0 builds, as it allows for faster movement for melee, good ways to escape danger with health regeneration, and more damage for going into decepti0n.
Tw0 Fang: Tw0 fang is a Tier Five skill that enables Zer0’s weapons to have a chance to fire twice (still consumes ammo) in rapid succession. Due to the way this skill works, it is personal preference on the use of it- while some prefer it, others do not like the delay in between shots. However, this skill is not recommended for sniper zer0 builds- as it ruins the precision and accuracy for long range sniping.
Death Bl0ss0m: Death Bl0ss0m is the capstone of Cunning, and it allows Zer0 to throw up to 5 sets of Kunais in Decepti0n (if you mash the 5th kunai, you can get 6 in one decepti0n.) When combined with Death Mark, this combo of skills becomes a game changer that is used in every Zer0 build.
Bloodshed:
Zer0’s right tree, this tree mainly focuses on a melee playstyle and as such, has numerous boosts and effects dedicated to melee. This skill tree is the polar opposite of left tree, but still synergizes greatly with his middle tree.
Killing Bl0w: Killing Bl0w is a great Tier One skill that massively increases melee damage against an enemy with low health. It grants a massive multiplicative damage increase to enemies at 25% or less health, which is great for bosses or enemies with high health. A go to pick to work down the tree with, and also for melee builds.
Ir0n Hand: Ir0n Hand is a passive Tier One skill that slightly increases max health and melee damage. It is not very important most of the time since the boost is small, but is good for working down the tree in melee builds
Grim: Grim is a Tier Two kill skill that gives Zer0 some shield regeneration per second, and action skill cooldown while active. It is a very nice skill for other builds since it grants some much needed survival, but damages melee builds that rely on empty roid shields. Worth taking for any other build.
Be Like Water: Grants an increase to your melee damage when you shoot an enemy, and a Bullet Damage boost when you melee an enemy. This bonus only applies to the next instance of damage you do of each type as it replaces it with the other bonus.
This skill is generally odd to utilize to its fullest, so it ends up being skipped. As the skill is Bullet Damage instead of Gun Damage (even though it is listed as gun damage), the damage bonus is multiplicative so it can have a sizable boost, but the skill disabling after 1 damage instance means that shotguns only benefit from it for a single pellet in their entire spread.
F0ll0wthr0ugh: F0ll0wthr0ugh is a fantastic Tier Three kill skill. It boosts movement speed, gun damage, and melee damage. It is useful for every build, and lets Zer0 quickly maneuver around combat, and dish out damage. It is very much worth it to take on any Zer0 build.
Execute: Execute is a single point Tier Three gamechanger for melee builds, and a useful utility for others. During Decepti0n while aiming at an enemy and pressing melee, Zer0 dashes forward with great speed, and can strike an enemy for flat double melee damage. It is incredibly important for melee builds, and the mobility it gives even extends to other builds. Zer0 can effectively fly to an enemy for the duration of Decepti0n, increasing his mobility more than he already has.
Backstab: Backstab is a Tier Three gamechanger for melee builds. It is similar to Ambush, which it heavily synergizes with, where meleeing an enemy from behind grants a multiplicative damage boost. When combined with Ambush, these two skills massively multiply Zer0’s melee damage, especially while Decepti0n is active where it becomes easy to set up. It is vital for such builds.
Resurgence: Resurgence is a Tier Four melee oriented skill that gives Zer0 a percentage of his health back upon getting a melee kill (healing varies on amount of health left. The less health, the greater the healing.) It is fairly useful in Decepti0n while wielding the Rapier to get a degree of healing, but not as useful outside of that.
Like The Wind: Grants a small bonus to gun damage and melee damage while you are moving. The values are so small that it generally doesn’t justify spending points in the skill other than just because you have extra points to spend (and you will at level 80), especially for a tier 5 skill.
Many Must Fall: Many Must Fall is the Bloodshed Capstone, and it is a game changer for melee builds. A melee kill in Decepti0n returns time to the counter instead of ending Decepti0n, and then redeploys a new hologram. This skill gives Zer0 an incredible pace with melee, where he can very quickly work through enemies. Extra time earned during Decepti0n also resets the base melee bonus to a degree, but also gives Decepti0n some extra cooldown. It synergizes to a degree with Unf0rseen, as it can make multiple shock novas occur.
When it comes to weapons, Zer0 can reliably use a plethora of guns so long as they can hit critical hits. Zer0 excels with guns like Jakobs, Sniper Rifles, and Hyperion guns since they are focused on hitting critical hits. But even outside of those guns, he is very flexible with others simply due to his raw damage output. However, he starts to struggle with guns that are inaccurate or that cannot crit.
Note: Due to Zer0’s poor survivability, Moxxi weapons become highly recommended late game.
The highlighted colors match the rarities of the items in-game. Effervescent/rainbow rarity is highlighted with this color, and non-uniques with this color.
Guns:
Assault Rifles: Bekah, Thumpson, Jakobs Gatling Gun, Kitten, Rapier(Melee)
Honorable Mentions: Hail, Dahl Minigun, Hammer Buster, Sawbar (Note that the Thumpson is just a better Hammer Buster)
SMGs: Sandhawk, Bitch, Slagga, Tattler
Honorable Mentions: Hyperion Plasma Casters, Bandit Smig, Hyperion SMGs
Shotguns: Conference Call, Interfacer, Jakobs Quad, Twister, Heartbreaker, Jolly Roger, Butcher, Omen
Honorable Mentions: Jakobs Shotguns, Striker, Hydra, Triquetra
Pistols: Lady Fist, Unkempt Harold, Maggie, Vladof Anarchist/Stinger, Stalker, (Bladed) Rubi, (Bladed) Grog Nozzle,
Honorable Mentions: Jakobs Iron, Hyperion Synergy, Law, Greed, Little Evie, Infinity
Sniper RIfles: Pimpernel, Lyuda, Amigo Sincero
Honorable Mentions: Jakobs Diaub/Muckamuck, Maliwan Snider(maliwan barrel)/Rakehell, Sloth, Vladof Droog, Pitchfork, Longbow, Skullmasher
Rocket Launchers: Topneaa, Norfleet, Badaboom, Creamer
Honorable Mentions: Mongol, Vladof/Bandit/Torgue Launchers
Items:
Grenades: Transfusions, Chain Lightning, Fastball
Honorable Mentions: Quasar, Storm Front, Magic Missile
Shields: Blockade, Antagonist, Hide of Terramorphous, Love Thumper
Honorable Mentions: The Bee, Turtle Shields, Roid Shields, Punchee, Adaptive Shields
Class Mods: Legendary Killer, Legendary Ninja, Legendary Sniper, Legendary Hunter, Chaotic Neutral Rogue, Shadow Stalker
Honorable Mentions: Spy, Ninja, Survivor, Killer
Relics: Bone of the Ancients, Stockpile Relic, Cooldown Relic
Honorable Mentions: Sheriff’s Badge, Shadow of the Seraphs, Proficiency Relic, Elemental Relic
Playstyle: Being the weakest character in terms of survivability, Zer0’s playstyle is one of staying back, and taking enemies out one at a time from relatively safe positions. Utilizing his sniping tree, he can sit back 50 meters from an enemy and snipe, with no fear of getting healthgated. With his melee or gun playstyle, he is a little more up close and personal with enemies, but through utilization of deception strafing, he can survive close and personal encounters very well. It is for this reason that Zer0 prefers very tanky shields.
Action Skill: Zer0’s action skill is Decepti0n, and is based around going invisible for 5 seconds (can be increased with Many Must Fall, as mentioned in the skill section) and is very useful for utility and escaping dangerous situations. While in deception, not only does Zer0 get more gun and melee damage, he can throw his Kunai (from Death Bl0ss0m) to apply Death Mark, which is 80% multiplicative damage. With this, Decepti0n is used before any combat encounter, and as regularly as possible, to have increased damage, survivability, and more.
Basic Mobbing: A general rule of thumb with mobbing on Zer0 is to always have a back up plan, and to always use Decepti0n as often as possible- to increase survivability. Slag can be applied through Kunai, but with the swap speed at his disposal (thanks to Fast Hands) it is easier to swap to a Slagga to slag. With his different builds, he can make much use of many different weapon types (such as snipers, shotguns, pistols, etc) and utility to dominate the combat field. However, for certain synergies between items, that is up to the player to find out, and takes in game hours to learn.
Raiding: Zer0’s raiding is based mostly on Critical Ascensi0n (Important to note: Hyperius can be killed effectively and very fast with B0re, see skill description above for more info). It is recommended before most raids to stack Critical Ascensi0n with a low level Sniper (Preferably a Droog) for the best raiding experience. Gear you will usually want to bring consists of a Bee shield for damage, a Bone of the Ancients, and powerful Snipers. (Lyuda, Pimpernel, etc.) Melee is usually not recommended for Raiding, but is still possible.
Melee builds: Melee zer0, depending on your gear, can require a fair amount of precision. The build revolves around breaking your own Roid shields with a shock grenade of some kind, like a Storm Front or Chain Lightning, to gain much higher melee damage. After which you use Execute to gain a large amount of melee damage and hope that you kill an enemy in one shot, or at least get them low enough where Killing Bl0w starts taking effect. If you do kill them, you get to continue the chain through Many Must Fall, possibly getting multiple kills during a single Decepti0n. Both a Love Thumper or a Hide of Terramorphous can work for this build. The Love Thumper is generally a lot more manageable with its ridiculously long recharge delay, while Hide of Terramorphous results in higher damage, but takes a lot more precision in timing due to having a very short period where the Roid melee damage takes effect. Due to the nature of requiring kills, melee builds are more suited for mobbing rather than bosses and especially raids.
Simple Leveling Info: For leveling, Zer0 is very dependent, and almost requires the use of his middle tree in order to grab a lot of damage. His early game is mediocre, with fast swap speed- but almost no survivability until Innervate. With this, it is heavily suggested to start off zer0 with the middle tree (although respeccing B0re for bunker is also recommended), and throughout TVHM, you can start to dabble in the other trees.
(Note: Once Level 31 has been reached, Respeccing for Melee tree is now also a viable option with proper gear setup)
Heavily Recommended Middle Tree Start: Lvl 5-31
This tree is very work in progress for a melee zer0, and while you have Many Must Fall, your main priority from here on out is to get Kunai. With Kunai, you will see your damage increase immensely. This tree is more for the tail end of TVHM, when you can get more skills into a middle tree.
Builds
Note: There is no true single best build, every build has its strengths, weaknesses and role. Builds are fairly subjective and boil down to how you want to play. That being said, these are some Zer0 builds to try out. Feel free to change these builds around to your liking. (All of these builds are level 80, but most have leftover skills).
General Gun Build (With Tw0 Fang): This build works with virtually any gun type, except snipers because of how Tw0 Fang works. If needed, you can spec out of Tw0 Fang into a different skill. Note: Build is level 74 because of leftover points.
Sniper Build: This build revolves around sniping tree, but also works fine as a general gun build without Tw0 Fang. Overall the best build to use for sheer versatility.
Melee Build: Details about this build and how it functions is listed within the Gameplay Guide.
Meme-y tank sniper build:
This build uses the same skill tree setup as the other sniper build, so refer back to that one.
Added note: This is definitely not the “best” Zer0 build ever, it’s just a fun idea you can try out. Like the name implies, this build is and should be considered a meme
This build revolves around using the Chère-amie sniper rifle and stacking health bonuses for an actually tanky zer0 build that doesn’t involve health-gating. The main items you would want on this build would be a Rough Rider, Blood of the Ancients with increased sniper max ammo, Chaotic Neutral Rogue class mod, and some sort of low-level Vladof sniper rifle meant for stacking CA.
The main reason this build even works is because of how ridiculous Critical Ascensi0n’s damage boosts are (it is highly recommended / required to get a good 60-80+ stacks before this build starts shining), which then also boosts the healing of the Chère-amie, and the fire rate boosts from the Chaotic Rogue class mod and Fearless combined make that healing fairly consistent. Even with the massive HP pool that you get with Rough Rider and Blood of the Ancients combined, you can consistently keep yourself above health-gate and at max HP, while having a buffer that you normally wouldn’t get on other Zer0 builds
Additional added note: with the fire rate buffs that you get, a stacking sniper with full fire rate parts can end up making it so you shoot faster than the rate that CA can reset, meaning you end up wasting ammo. Consider getting one with slightly less fire rate.
Note: There is no true single best build, every build has its strengths, weaknesses and role. Builds are fairly subjective and boil down to how you want to play. That being said, these are some Zer0 builds to try out. Feel free to change these builds around to your liking. (All of these builds are level 80, but most have leftover skills).
General Gun Build (With Tw0 Fang)
This build works with virtually any gun type, except snipers because of how Tw0 Fang works. If needed, you can spec out of Tw0 Fang into a different skill. Note: Build is level 74 because of leftover points.
https://www.lootlemon.com/class/zer0#_5055510500_5005510551_5050510000
Sniper Build
This build revolves around sniping tree, but also works fine as a general gun build without Tw0 Fang. Overall the best build to use for sheer versatility.
https://www.lootlemon.com/class/zer0#_5055510551_5055510501_5050510000
Melee Build
Details about this build and how it functions is listed within the Gameplay Guide.
https://www.lootlemon.com/class/zer0#_5050510000_5555510501_5500515501
Meme-y tank sniper build
This build uses the same skill tree setup as the other sniper build, so refer back to that one.
Added note: This is definitely not the “best” Zer0 build ever, it’s just a fun idea you can try out. Like the name implies, this build is and should be considered a meme
This build revolves around using the Chère-amie sniper rifle and stacking health bonuses for an actually tanky zer0 build that doesn’t involve health-gating. The main items you would want on this build would be a Rough Rider, Blood of the Ancients with increased sniper max ammo, Chaotic Neutral Rogue class mod, and some sort of low-level Vladof sniper rifle meant for stacking CA.
The main reason this build even works is because of how ridiculous Critical Ascensi0n’s damage boosts are (it is highly recommended / required to get a good 60-80+ stacks before this build starts shining), which then also boosts the healing of the Chère-amie, and the fire rate boosts from the Chaotic Rogue class mod and Fearless combined make that healing fairly consistent. Even with the massive HP pool that you get with Rough Rider and Blood of the Ancients combined, you can consistently keep yourself above health-gate and at max HP, while having a buffer that you normally wouldn’t get on other Zer0 builds
Additional added note: with the fire rate buffs that you get, a stacking sniper with full fire rate parts can end up making it so you shoot faster than the rate that CA can reset, meaning you end up wasting ammo. Consider getting one with slightly less fire rate.
Any questions or concerns related to the information showcased in this document can be answered by the Discord member(s) listed below.
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