Borderlands 2 – Challenges [Guide]

Borderlands 2 Challenges Guide for all those Borderlands 2 players that need extra help conquering the game’s many, many Challenges. From finding all of the Vault Symbols to completing all the other level-specific challenges, this guide is the one-stop place for earning 100% in Borderlands 2.

CHALLENGES

• Badass Rank
• Non-level specific Challenges
• Miscellaneous
• Windshear Waste
• Southern Shelf
• Three Horns – Divide
• Sanctuary
• Three Horns – Valley
• Southpaw Steam & Power
• Southern Shelf – Bay
• Frostburn Canyon
• The Dust

BADASS RANK
So, you want to be a Badass. In Borderlands 2, there is a ranking system unique from the typical leveling system in the game. This is called Badass Rank. To improve your Badass Rank, you have to complete Challenges. Completing Challenges increases your overall Badass Rank, and also gives you Tokens.

Tokens can be spent to improve a character’s overall statistics. For example, you can choose to improve your overall health, shield capacity, gun accuracy, and more. This new system can be completely ignored by veteran Borderlands players that want an experience more akin to the original game, however, simply by choosing to disable them in the menus.

Your Badass Rank is universal across all of your characters, so you don’t have to repeat Challenges with your other characters on separate playthroughs, and the bonus statistics are also universal across all the characters.

!WARNING!
There has recently been news of a bug that causes your Badass Rank to reset to zero, and you also lose all of your Tokens in the process. It is not known what causes this bug yet, but Gearbox is working on a solution.

If this happens, unfortunately, it is impossible to even redo the challenges, meaning that your Badass Rank is permanently glitched.
!WARNING!

NON-LEVEL SPECIFIC CHALLENGES
Besides the Challenges that are specific to each different area of the game, there are many different Challenges that are completed simply by playing the game. These include Challenges such as completing X number of side quests, completing X number of optional objectives, killing a certain number of each enemy, killing a certain amount of enemies with each different weapon category, and so on and so forth.

For obvious reasons, not all of the non-level specific Challenges will be covered in this guide. They can be gained through obvious ways. However, the Challenges that, while not necessarily specific to any level but require a bit more thinking power than kill X amount of enemies, will indeed be covered in this guide.

To Top

MISCELLANEOUS

Sidejacked
This set of challenges has five levels. It requires you to complete side missions in the game. When looking at the quest list, side missions are marked by a symbol of gears, and not by the “Vault” Borderlands symbol, which signifies main quests.

There are side missions that must be discovered by stumbling upon them in the environment, but the game will let you know when these types of quests are available as well.

Keep an eye on the mini-map for each area. Yellow exclamation marks represent NPCs that are ready to give out side missions. Remember to turn in all of your side missions in order for them to count as being completed.

Haters Gonna Hate
In Borderlands 2, players can do battle with one another in sequences called “Duels”. This five-level set of challenges requires players to win multiple duels against other players in the game. These duels can occur in split-screen or with players that you are playing with online in co-op.

To initiate a duel, walk over to a play and attack them repeatedly with melee attacks. They can then accept the duel by responding with melee attacks of their own. A blue battlefield hologram will appear, and the players have to stay within that battlefield in order to continue the duel. Players lose when they are downed by the person they are facing, or if they spend too much time outside of the battlefield area.

Another way to initiate duels is through the trading system. Hold B next to a player. They can then respond and go to a trading screen. From here, players can also challenge each other to duels while trading items.

Compl33tionist
Optional mission objectives appear on most of the missions in the game. These optional mission objectives have a + next to their check box when completing the mission, with blue font, and highlighted in blue as well.

Many of these optional mission objectives just require players to kill X amount of enemies, kill enemies with a certain weapon, or whatever. They are mostly easily to complete and require little to no extra effort on the part of the player, for the most part, making this one of the easiest Challenges to complete.

Yo Dawg I Herd You Like Challenges
Completing Challenges earns you this. Simple as that.

JEEEEEENKINSSSSSS!!!

To Top

WINDSHEAR WASTE

Cult of the Vault #1
Every major area of the game features hidden Vault Symbols that players can find, sort of like hunting down Intel in Call of Duty games. These are hidden throughout the world of Pandora, and this guide will help you find every single Vault Symbol in the entire game.

The very first Vault Symbol is found in Claptrap’s house at the beginning of the game in Windshear Waste. Before following Claptrap into the snow to retrieve his eye from Knuckle Dragger, explore his house. There will be a wooden door with a men’s restroom sign hanging on the wall to the left of it. Approach the door, and open it. Loot the place, and note the Vault Symbol on the back wall. “Discover” it by simply clicking on it.

To Top

SOUTHERN SHELF

Cult of the Vault #2

Cult of the Vault #3

Make Boom Go Boom
Boom and Bewm are a pair of bosses that are explosives experts. One will run on the ground to challenge the players, and the other will be in Big Bertha, a large turret/tank combination that fires explosives. The goal of this Challenge is to defeat the bosses with NO ONE on the team receiving damage from Big Bertha.

Obviously, this is easiest done with one player, but it’s possible with four, certainly. Get very close to Big Bertha, and then start running around it until you are behind the guns. From here, you can just lay into Big Bertha, and Boom will not be able to turn it around fast enough to catch up. Of course, Bewm may be a problem, so be sure to have high shield capacity before attempting this.

Fireproof
Before you can take the ship to Sanctuary with Claptrap, you have to fight off Flynt, a boss near the “iron dragon” that spews fire and has a few other enemy types helping him out in the battles. Defeating Flynt is actually not that difficult to accomplish, but there is a Challenge that requires you to defeat Flynt WITHOUT receiving fire damage from him.

This is actually simple. An easy way to do this is to keep a wide distance from him at all times, and just pelt him with a sniper rifle until he dies. If he starts getting close, go to the opposite end of the ship and continue the process until he eventually dies.

To Top

THREE HORNS – DIVIDE

Cult of the Vault #4

Cult of the Vault #5

Cult of the Vault #6

Man’s Best Friends

To Top

SANCTUARY

Cult of the Vault #7

Jackpot!
In Sanctuary, you can visit Mad Moxxi’s strip club, and in the corner of the club are two slot machines. For a little over $100, you can enjoy these slot machines, and just keep playing them to your heart’s content.

The “jackpot” for these machines occur when you either get three Vault Symbols or three Eridium Bars in a row. Besides that, you’ll mostly just win cash or nothing. If you get three Bandit heads in a row, a grenade will pop out of the slot machine, so be sure to steer clear of that possible danger.

Just keep playing the slot machines until that triple Vault Symbol or triple Eridium Bar pops up.

Rise of the Crimson Raiders
Roland from the original Borderlands has put together a group called the Crimson Raiders to act as rebels against Handsome Jack’s economical empire on Pandora. Hidden around Sanctuary are four different recordings that tell the story of the Crimson Raiders. Finding these four will complete this challenge and give you a little more insight on how Pandora has changed since the first game.

To Top

THREE HORNS – VALLEY

This Ain’t My First Rodeo
This Challenge is easily completed. At the Happy Pig Motel, there is a large sign that has a big pig on top. While your first instinct may be to jump off the steamer and try to land on the pig, there is a much easier way to get on the pig.

Take notice of the geysers shooting out of the ground. There is one just across the road of the sign that can be used to easily launch yourself on top of the pig. If you are using the Gunzerker, his short stature makes it a bit harder to get on the sign, so time a sprint with the geyser to launch the Gunzerker forward, which will hopefully make him land on the sign easier.

Cult of the Vault #8

Cult of the Vault #9

Cult of the Vault #10

To Top

SOUTHPAW STEAM & POWER

Boss Run
To complete this challenge, you have to beat the four assassins in ten minutes, while also moving through the whole building and dealing with all of the different bandit raiders that help the assassins as well.

The first assassin is strong against all weapons and attacks except for pistols. The second assassin can be defeated easily with sniper rifles. And the third assassin is defeated with melee damage. The fourth and final assassin will require shotgun blasts.

It’s best to tackle this way after the quest to go to Southpaw Steam & Power is completed. That way you can return to the area once you are a much higher level than the assassins, and when you have much more powerful guns to take them out with.

Cult of the Vault #11

Cult of the Vault #12

Cult of the Vault #13

To Top

SOUTHERN SHELF – BAY

Cult of the Vault #14

Cult of the Vault #15

Vault Hunter on Wire

Midge-Mong Has No Friends
There is a side mission where the player is tasked with hunting down and defeating a boss named Midgemong. Midgemong is a midget that rides on a Bullymong. He is very fast and bounces around all over the place, making it difficult to keep him in your lie of sight.

Midgemong can be frustrating to beat, but with a four-player team, it’s not that difficult to corner him and let loose. To complete this Challenge, you have to defeat him before he is able to call back-up in the form of bandits, so use your most powerful weapons and abuse your special abilities to defeat him quickest.

I Can See Your Corpse from Here!
As you’ve probably seen, there are various telescopes all over the place in Pandora. In the bay of the Southern Shelf, there is a Challenge for finding the four different telescopes and looking through each of them. It costs around $5 to use teach telescope.

To Top

FROSTBURN CANYON

Praise Be to Scorch
This Challenge requires you to defeat the boss Scorch without harming any of his minions.

Totems of Fire
Throughout Frostburn Canyon are creepy totems. These totems can be set on fire if shot with a weapon that deals fire damage. There are 10 total in Frostburn Canyon, so be sure to burn them all to complete this Challenge and earn 5 Badass Rank.

Burning Sensation

Cult of the Vault #16

Cult of the Vault #17
While exploring the Canyon, you will come across six different areas where a bandit is pinned to something in a grotesque, gory manner. There are seven of these. At the sixth one, there is a large skeleton serving as the doorway into the next area, but there is also a path to the right.

Go to the right instead of continuing down the path. You’ll find a ledge that leads into an ice cavern. Jump off the ledge and you’ll see the Vault Symbol, large, on the wall. Approach it and press X to discover it.

To Top

THE DUST

I’ve Got A Crush On You
At Scooter’s sister’s place, there is a car crusher. Go into the car crusher and have a co-op partner activate it to crush you. This Challenge requires you play in co-op.

If You’re Not First, You’re Last

Dust to Dust

Cult of the Vault #18

Cult of the Vault #19

Cult of the Vault #20

The Van is Damned

To Top