The Tiny Tina's Wonderlands build system will be pretty familiar to anyone who's played the numbered Borderlands entries in the past. The biggest change this time around is the "multi-class" function, allowing you to mix and match the abilities of one additional Tiny Tina's Wonderlands class with your main one. Note that you will be able to respec and choose a different second class after beating Wonderlands' main quest, but your original is set in stone after character creation.
With that in mind, let's go over some of the best builds in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, followed by some multi-class suggestions.
Spellshot
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Spellshot build
Spellshots have a special focus on Wonderlands' spells (they're essentially grenades) and building up stacks of spellweaving by casting those spells or reloading. Spellweaving stacks can be geared to emphasize different advantages depending on your preferred playstyle.
- Build: Aggressive Caster
- For: Fans of MMO nukers
- Background: Failed Monk
- Attributes: Intelligience, Dexterity
- Skill: Ambi-Hextrous
Failed Monk is a good choice for background. This Spellshot wants high Intelligence to minimize spell cooldowns, as well as high dexterity to improve crit chance on those spells. You can safely ignore attunement, as this build replaces the class skill with a second spell slot.
I'm going for the Ambi-Hextrous skill, which gives a second spell slot with its own cooldown instead of a class skill. An extra spell slot will become more essential as the build develops, as many of its higher-level abilities proc on casting.
Spell Sniper and Magic Bullets on tier 1 will be helpful for our mage. The bonus weapon damage of the former and spell crit damage of the latter beat Prestidigitation's bonus to reload speed. Mage Armor at tier 2 and Glass Cannon at tier 3 synergize perfectly. The latter increases spell damage at the cost of your ward's automatic regeneration, while Mage Armor regenerates your ward on casting a spell. Taken together, this combo encourages an aggressive, chaotic playstyle (aka a fun one for cool people.) This combo forms the core of this build.
Otherwise, opt for lower cooldowns and increased spell damage and spell crit. The Spellshot's ultimate upgrade, Sever the Thread, will offer increased chances of instant cooldowns, meaning more damage and more self-healing.
Graveborn
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Graveborn build
The Graveborn is a necromancer-style class who deals dark damage by casting from hit points, but can also seek empowerment through summoning companions.
- Build: Diablo 2-style Necromancer
- For: Evil-doers, solo players
- Background: Pack Rat
- Attributes: Intelligience, Attunement
- Skill: Dire Sacrifice
This Graveborn benefits most from the Pack Rat background, with a focus on Intelligence and Attunement minimizing our spell and ability cooldowns. Neither Graveborn class skill is particularly essential for this build, but I found Dire Sacrifice to be more generally useful in a pinch.
Fateful Thralls at tier 1 will offer bonuses to you based on how many pets you have summoned. A little less useful at the beginning of the game, but will pay for itself once you can summon Hydras in addition to your demilich. Tier 2's Harvest will directly empower your companions with dark damage whenever we score a kill. Useful enough with our demilich, but very deadly once you unlock…
... Dark Hydra, the backbone of a Graveborn pets build, available at tier 3. Our demilich is nice and all, but having a large chance of summoning a temporary companion on kill will be the source of most of our companion bonuses. We want as many hydras up for as long as possible. Morhaim's Blessing, the Graveborn's final ability, is essential. It will make spell casts proc your kill skills, i.e. Dark Hydra and Harvest, so every spell cast will empower your companions and potentially summon another hydra.
Spore Warden
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Spore Warden build
Spore Warden evokes the classic Ranger class of D&D and LotR fame, and can focus on damage dealing abilities, flat bonuses to gun damage, or empowering their caked up little mushroom friend.
- Build: Mushroom Dance
- For: Solo players, Dunedain princes, Graveborn multis, newbies
- Background: Village Idiot or Raised by Elves
- Attributes: Wisdom, Strength, Diversity
- Skill: Barrage
Our first Spore Warden build also focuses on pets. The Spore Warden mushroom reaches his full strength quicker than Graveborn summons, and gives you much more extra room to focus on weapon/ability damage or your multiclass of choice.
The mushroom itself will benefit from Wisdom to improve its poison cloud. If you aren't pursuing elemental damage like that otherwise, focusing on gun damage will improve mushroom man's general output, leaving Strength and Dexterity safe bets and the Village Idiot or Raised by Elves backgrounds worth taking. Of the skill choices, I prefer Barrage to Blizzard. Neither has an impact on the mushroom man, so it's your preference.
Your main three Mushroom Companion upgrades will be Kindred Heart at tier 1, tier 2's Spore Cloud, and Medicinal Mushroom at tier 3. This leaves you with a tanky, poison-gas-spewing fungus who can revive you when you're at death's door. What's more, mushroom man tops out fairly early in the skill tree, leaving the rest of the Spore Warden's development up to you, but the class' damage-maximizing upgrades like Eagle Eye are worth a look. Maxing out your mushroom early leaves you strong in the early campaign, and well-positioned to adjust your focus as the game progresses.
Brr-zerker
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Brr-zerker build
Driving the enemies, lamentations of the women, you know the drill: it's barbarian time. The Brr-zerker's class abilities activate a temporary rage state with a frost damage buff and many of the Brr-zerker's upgrades focus on enhancing or altering that state.
- Build: Ice Guy
- For: Elemental damage dealers
- Background: Inventory Hoarder
- Attributes: Attunement, Wisdom
- Skill: Feral Surge
This particular Brr-zerker build will actually benefit from Attunement and Wisdom to minimize ability cooldowns and improve elemental damage. To that end, the Inventory Hoarder background is a good fit. Feral Surge is the only one of the two that directly deals frost damage, and we're looking to maximize every opportunity for elemental damage.
You'll be opting for any and all of the Brr-zerker's upgrades that add or improve frost damage, with Ancestral Frost, Ice Breaker, and Cold Snap being early essentials, straight down the left side of the skill tree. Activating enrage via Feral Surge further improves frost damage, so abilities that prolong the rage state like Blood of the Fallen also come recommended. The attunement and elemental focus also lends this Brr-zerker to multi-classing with Clawbringer.
Stabbomancer
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Stabbomancer build
Stabbomancer evokes that classic ninja-wannabe DPS class who manages to show up in every MMO, forever "looking for group" with those serrated dual daggers sadly going to waste. Stabbomancer will let you embody that fantasy in a far less class-restrictive environment. No one will ever make you play a healer again.
- Build: Run and Gun
- For: DPS mains, Mass Effect Vanguards
- Background: Raised by Elves or Village Idiot
- Attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Attunement
- Skill: From the Shadows
Gun and melee damage are the name of the game here, so go for the Strength, Dexterity, and the Raised by Elves or Village Idiot backgrounds. Attunement is also worth the investment so you can lower the cooldown on Stabbomancer's powerful class abilities. Both are quite powerful, but as the build comes into its own From the Shadows will prove the optimal choice. It'll help you get close to enemies, and also guarantee critical hits, proccing abilities like Executioner's Blade.
This build comes into its own with the tier 4 upgrade, Elusive, which lets you sprint and shoot at the same time. Elusive synergizes perfectly with Haste at tier 1, which boosts movement and melee attack speed, as well as tier 2's Swift Death, which increases your gun damage based on your current movement speed. Definitely forgo pistols and sniper rifles for submachine guns and shotguns with this ability spread.
Otherwise, Stabbomancer abilities offering general increases to melee or gun damage are always welcome. Tier 1's Arsenal has virtually no downsides, and is worth kicking points into whenever you have some to spare. The Stabbomancer's final upgrade, Executioner's Blade, will only increase your substantial DPS further.
Clawbringer
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Clawbringer build
This draconic knight class shares a similar focus on close-range elemental damage to the Brr-zerker, and also has its own pet in the form of a companion wyvern. Two main paths presented to the Clawbringer are focusing on guns and fire elemental damage, or melee and lightning damage.
- Build: Shock and Awe
- For: Recovering Destiny Titans, elemental damage-dealers
- Background: Inventory Hoarder
- Attributes: Attunement, Wisdom
- Skill: Storm Dragon's Judgement
Similar to the first Brr-zerker build, this Dragon Knight focuses on elemental damage, and thus benefits from Attunement, Wisdom, and the Inventory Hoarder background.
The second ability you'll unlock, Storm Dragon's Judgment (the lightning-focused one), is the choice for this build. This class ability offers a bit of range, giving some flexibility to the lightning Clawbringer's melee focus, and also offers area denial utility with its persistent damage.
Oath of Thunder at the first upgrade tier empowers your melee attacks and companion wyvern with lightning damage, and Blasthamut's Favor at tier 3 is a must as well, further enhancing this clawbringer's melee/lightning focus. Keep an eye out as well for abilities that enhance the Clawbringer's survivability for wading into melee combat, some of which can be found on the lightning upgrade path. Storm Smite, the Clawbringer's final upgrade, will further enhance your class ability, making it another essential lightning dragon pick.
Multi-class
Multi-class suggestions
The following quick builds are a work in progress, but here's what jumped out to me:
Spore Warden/Graveborn: For the friendless gamer, compensate with as many in-game companions as possible. The tanky, yeoman mushroom and mouthy demilich will form the vanguard of your hydra force.
Brr-zerker/Clawbringer: Triple the elemental damage and double down on a close-range playstyle. I haven't tested this at the higher difficulty, but the versatility in elemental damage here may prove useful there where matching enemy element types matters a great deal more.
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