From the Diary of Sir Hammerlock, Day 213: I’ve met many a fair share of colourful characters during my journey through the plains of Pandora, from a mad scientist by the name of Patricia Tannis, through to a midget suicide bomber who had doubts as to whether or not he would receive 67 virtuous Skags to do with as he pleases in Marauder heaven. And then I met Axton, a soldier with no army behind him, but a turret that could be deployed to kill anything with a pulse, and concoct quite a tasty cappuccino as well.
The battlefield commando, Axton is a man who lives for war, as he heads off to the planet of Pandora to go put his skills to the ultimate test, alongside his trusty turret. A deployable piece of Dahl engineering, Axton’s turret can bring the thunder down, or act as a decoy and draw fire away from him.
“We wanted to do a class that was similar to the Soldier but we felt like we wanted to level him up and make him even more badass than the original Soldier, so we created the Commando,” said Jeramy Cooke, art director on Borderlands 2, to IGN.
He’s our special forces type of character. He actually has a little bit of story. I don’t want to kind of get into too many of the details, maybe one interesting thing is he wears the dog tag from his wife who was also in the military and she’s now dead.
But as for dat turret, don’t expect a rehashed version of the one wielded by Roland in the first game:
We brought back a type of turret but this is sort of the next generation. It’s created by the Dahl Corporation which has grown and gotten more advanced as time has passed and so they’ve built a lot of new features into the new turret. We’re not going to get into all the fine details of it but it can do a lot of really unique things. If you’re familiar with longbow grenades from the first game, you can throw a grenade and it would instantly teleport like a real gunshot all the way to where you’re pointing.
You can now actually have longbow turret so instead of just dropping the turret at your feet you can fire it out at long range, use it to pull enemies or to begin combat. Each [skill] tree has its own kind of big change to the turret and many of the skills modify, upgrade, and visually change the way it looks.
So again, when you see somebody throw out a turret you’re going to really understand kind of what their build is if you’re familiar with the class.
Here’s a look at the skills that Axton brings to the game.
Guerrilla
Focusing on bringing the fight to an enemy, Guerrilla amps up weapon damage while significantly upgrading the turret to act as a suppression device, dealing high amounts of death and destruction. The skills in Guerrilla are:
- Sentry – +1 shot per burst and +2s duration for Sabre Turret per level.
- Ready – +8% Reload Speed per level.
- Laser Sight – +10% Turret Accuracy per level.
- Willing – +15% Shield Recharge Rate and -12% Shield Recharge Delay per level.
- Onslaught – Kill Skill. killing an enemy gives you +6% Gun Damage and +12% Movement Speed per level for a short time.
- Able – Damaging an enemy regenerates 0.4% of your Maximum Health per second per level for 3 seconds.
- Scorched Earth – Adds Multi-Rocket Pods to your Sabre Turret. 22 Rockets per Volley.
- Grenadier – +1 Grenade Capacity per level.
- Crisis Management – +7% Gun Damage and +6% Melee Damage per level when shields are depleted.
- Double Up – Adds a second gun to the Sabre Turret and both guns fire Slag bullets.
Gunpowder
Axton gains medium-range weapon bonuses from this skill tree, as well more useful grenade perks, while his turret serves better as a tactical decoy on the battlefield. The upgradeable skills include:
- Impact – +4% Gun Damage and +3% Melee Damage per level.
- Expertise – +14% weapon swap and aim speed per level; +7% movement speed when aiming per level.
- Overload – +10% Magazine Size for Assault Rifles.
- Metal Storm – Kill Skill. Killing an enemy gives +12% Fire Rate and +15% Recoil Reduction per level for a short time.
- Steady – +8% Recoil Reduction, +5% Grenade Damage, and +4% Rocket Launcher damage per level.
- Battlefront – +6% Gun, Melee, and Grenade damage per level while turret is deployed.
- Longbow Turret – +10000% Turret Deploy Range, +110% Turret Health.
- Duty Calls – +5% Gun Damage and +3% Fire Rate with non-elemental guns.
- Do or Die – Allows you to throw grenades while in Fight for Your Life. +10% Grenade and Rocket Launcher damage.
- Ranger – +1% Gun Damage, Accuracy, Critical Hit Damage, Fire Rate, Magazine Size, Reload Speed, and Maximum Health per level.
- Nuke – Deploying your Sabre Turret sets off a small Nuclear Blast.
Survival
Live to fight another day, at any cost! Survival is based all on defense, building up those resistance stats and giving Axton better opportunities to catch a second chance when players are near the brink of defeat.
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Healthy – +6% Maximum Health per level.
- Preparation – +3% shield capacity per level; regenerate 0.4% health per second per level when shields are full.
- Last Ditch Effort – +8% Gun Damage and +14% Movement Speed per level during Fight For Your Life.
- Pressure – Up to +14% Reload Speed and -12% Shield Recharge Delay per level depending on how low your health is.
- Forbearance – -8% Status Effect duration on you and +1% Maximum Health per level.
- Quick Charge – Kill Skill. Killing an enemy regenerates 1% of your shield per second per level for a short time.
- Phalanx Shield – Your Sabre Turret projects a shield that attempts to block enemy ranged fire but lets friendly ranged attacks pass through.
- Resourceful – +5% Action Skill Cooldown Rate per level.
- Mag-Lock – Your Sabre Turret can be deployed on walls and ceilings.
- Grit – You have a 4% chance per level to ignore damage that would otherwise kill you. In addition to not taking damage from the attack, you will also regain half your Maximum health.
- Gemini – Allows you to deploy two Sabre Turrets.
Other interesting facts about Axton include the fact that he is wanted for war crimes, hence the $5 000 000 bounty on his head, he wields a tomahawk as his melee weapon and his dog tags belonged to his deceased wife, who also happened to be his commanding officer.
Last Updated: September 12, 2012
