Eridium artifacts, otherwise known as Relics, have been around throughout the entire series in some form. Originally, in Borderlands, they functioned much the same way Action Skill Augments do now. Then, in Borderlands 2, they were less drastic (but still very beneficial) buffs that players could get from bosses. In Borderlands 3, they're essentially a combination of the two.
This time around, artifacts have a variety of modifiers and variables that can be applied to them, and depending on the RNG (random number generator), they can get pretty absurd. However, Legendary artifacts also have an innate benefit marked by the Diamond with the + symbol, and these effects can have entire builds centered around them. So, in order to clear some things up, this list will explore the best of the best.
Updated March 31, 2022, by Stephen LaGioia: As if this adrenaline-fueled RPG shooter wasn't massive enough, Gearbox has continued cranking out various extra content, challenges, and weapons, which has helped keep its momentum going despite being released back in 2019. The latest batch of updates (November 2021) includes the third Vault Card, featuring a number of new items and skins to play around with.
Off the heels of this comes an action-packed Circle of Slaughter community challenge. So while many have since been enticed by the fantasy spinoff, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, there remains loads of content to enjoy for the robust BL3. And with the addition of some new items including useful new artifacts, along with some worthy older examples, we felt it appropriate to revisit and reload this list.
17 Shlooter: For The Borderlands Scavengers
This artifact from the Director's Cut Upgrade Pack embraces one of BL3's greatest joys; the art of looting as many awesome items as one can carry. The item adds to the value of notching kills by hugely bumping up the chance of getting more legendary drops, specifically 1000%. This only lasts for a brief time, but it's a great choice for those heated battles crawling with several baddies.
As an added bonus, the Shlooter grants bumps to EXP gained from combat, Cryo damage, and (significant) Area-of-Effect damage.
Swap this out for the (epic) Mysterious Artifact, which grants the chance to turn slain Badasses into piles of Eridium, to truly rake in those Mayhem 10 rewards.
16 Toboggan:
A fun find courtesy of the Designer's Cut Upgrade Pack, the Toboggan brings juiced-up defense and mobility for those who like getting around in style. The item doubles the speed of the slide move while triggering a ten-second shield that reduces damage taken by 50%. This makes it a solid get-out-of-jail-free card, which can also shift to an offensive tool when needed.
Shooting will consume this shield for the exchange of 100% added amp damage. Bumps to grenade damage, and certain elemental resistance is also possible.
15 Company Man: A Valuable Token
This one tends to shine more for its novelty than sheer effectiveness in battle, being an exclusive release for the Director's Cut DLC. Still, it should be appealing to those resourceful, economical players.
Beyond the damage boosts for guns bearing the prefix gun manufacturer name (variants for all are available), the Company Man also yields boosts in a few useful areas. These include weapon reload speed, magazine size, fire rate, and the ever-useful damage and critical juicing. But perhaps most interesting is its ability to dish out cold hard cash after every 10th kill through the player's "investment."
14 Moxxi's Endowment: Yep, It's From Moxxi
This is a Moxxi-based item, so of course, it's loaded with innuendos. There's not all too much to say about this pick, as it happens; it just gives more combat EXP. Frankly, not a whole ton of it, either. Still, more EXP is always better, especially since it buffs each individual instance of EXP.
The real crazy stuff comes from its variables and modifiers, as it has a high potential for some good ones. Knife Drain in particular is great because it adds 75% Life Steal to each melee attack.
13 Grave: Concentrated Adrenaline
This Eridian artifact is ideal for those players who thrive on adrenaline and like to play with fire, as it were. The ability to milk the Fight For Your Life duration by a pretty decent chunk helps ease the tension and could mean the difference between life and death. Between this neat perk and the hefty boost in health, the ironically-named Grave can really aid in the player living to fight another day.
But it doesn't stop there. Boosts also come on the offensive front too, as melee, weapon, and splash damage all get a nice bump when flirting with low health.
12 White Elephant: A Massive Wildcard
Those who favor eating away at enemy armor and shields will surely love this beast. This Legendary artifact offers a great chance to dish out quite a bit of elemental damage while granting a chance of shielding its user from elemental return fire.
For good measure, variants may also come with increased Luck or bumps in movement or shield recharge speed. Then there's the always-amusing perk of slapping a deadly sticky bomb for about one out of three attempts. Its powers and perks seem to be all over the place, but that's part of what makes the Elephant so fun.
11 Splatter Gun: Elemental Anarchy
Vault Hunters with a soft spot for shotguns and elemental juice should get a kick out of this gem. Between the melee healing and boomstick boosts, players are encouraged to get up-close and personal when equipped with the Splatter Gun. The already fun act of sliding is made all the more enjoyable with the 50% bump of shotgun damage while doing so.
Beyond this, there's an extensive list of potential bonuses, which involve some elemental boosts, melee damage, and faster movement or weapon reload speed.
10 Deathless: Moze's Golden Ticket
Welcome to the reason why Moze is probably the most broken Vault Hunter. The Deathless artifact sounds insane just from its description, but that's only the beginning. It reduces the user's max health to 1 but increases their shield capacity by 100%, their recharge rate by 25%, and their recharge delay by another 25%. Basically, it trades health for a massive bulky shield. When combined with Moze's skills like Desperate Measures and the Bloodletter class mod, she's almost impossible to kill.
This artifact can also be used on any character with skills dependent on max health or on shield capacity. Unfortunately, it basically needs an entire build centered around it and isn't something that should be thrown on all willy-nilly.
9 Otto Idol: A Great Healing Charm For Glass Cannons
This is our personal bread and butter Artifact. It's the perfect life regain for experimental builds, or while leveling a character to 50. Basically, any Otto Idol Artifact has the innate effect of giving the player a percentage of their max health back on every kill. Needless to say, players kill a lot in Borderlands.
This percentage ranges, but tends to stay between 15 and 20%. It's some pretty absurd life regain honestly. Using it on the Elemental "Ties That Bind" Amara build is favorable, as one can ignore the Soul Sap augment and use the Stillness Of Mind modifier to bubble every enemy in sight. There's no set drop for this, though, so it's a bit hard to farm for specifically.
8 Safeguard: Actually Makes The Slam Useful
This impactful item isn't everyone's cup of tea, but there are enough artifacts and modifiers in the game that augment the slam—so players could actually be missing out on a source of crucial damage. In any case, the innate skill of Safeguard is pretty crazy. Whenever a player performs a slam attack, they take at least 50% reduced damage for the next 5 seconds.
Again, this percentage varies, but the number stays pretty high. This artifact also tends to have a modifier that increases both movement speed and damage against frozen enemies, so it's perfect for those going for that Iceman Zane build.
7 Victory Rush: Berzerk, But Better
There are a couple of purple and green artifacts spread throughout the game with a modifier on them that temporarily buffs based on a few variables — but as this duration is often quite short, most of them were ignored. Victory Rush is the best of the best in this regard though, as it's very effective on multiple fronts and has a long duration of 60 seconds.
It's a perfect artifact for Mayhem modes, as Badasses multiply like rabbits there, and it'll help speedrun True Vault Hunter Mode. Try and nab one with a Max health or Weapon Accuracy modifier, though, because all its other potential modifiers are sub-par.
6 Unleash the Dragon: A Fiery Fire-Based Flame Charm
Initially, it makes sense to get the impression that Unleash the Dragon is bad. Then again, when playing an Elemental Amara, one's element proc chance is almost always at 100%. That said, this particular artifact is great for players who need to melt through chunky Red bars. It's also actually great for Amara!
Why? Because it's the cornerstone of her fire melee build. One can be sure that's not the only one that'll come out with this rocking artifact at its core. It doesn't seem like much on the surface but Unleash the Dragon is absolutely an artifact worth the grind.
5 Loaded Dice: Hard Mode For Farm Fanatics
So far, all of these artifacts have been geared towards increasing the Vault Hunters' killing potential. Whether it's to keep them safe or increasing their base damage, most artifacts act as passive buffs to the player. However, the Legendary Loaded Dice artifact actually nerfs the player, taking away 75% of their max health! So, why would this warrant a recommendation? Because it pumps up the Luck stat by quite a bit in return!
This means that the chances of getting Legendaries, especially in the later Mayem runs, are greatly improved. Think of it as an extra hard mode that increases the 500% Loot Drop chance in Mayhem 3 to something like 800%. Plus, there's a huge list of potential modifiers and variables for it, so it might even be beneficial depending on the RNG.
4 Static Charge: A Static Shock Variation For Melee Builds
Sliding can be quite a satisfying action in the game, and many spam this ability at every conceivable opportunity. Really, long powerslides are just pure fun. One can't help but think of games like Vanquish, Warframe, and Metal Gear Rising for example.
This Static Charge Legendary buffs the move substantially, turning the swift slide move from a disengagement mechanic into a more aggressive one. Plus, it's quite worthwhile to hold a Legendary item that can give bonuses to Shield Capacity late in the game.
3 Electric Banjo: Careful, There Might Be A Risk Of Rain
Not many artifacts have enemies that they're more likely to drop from, but the Electric Banjo is one of those rare instances. This item references Risk of Rain. It's a world drop but has a greatly improved chance to drop from the Zer0 Assassination Targets, the Psychobillies on Eden 6. Essentially, it's a passive version of the grenade mod Hex or Storm Front.
Every single bullet fired has a 20% chance to shock the enemy and cause electricity to arc to another nearby foe. That has the potential to be absolutely insane! 20% for every bullet? Not once every three or something? That's perfect for an Endless Mags Moze or maybe even a Shock-dependent Elemental Amara. Combined with one of the many guns that already ricochet between enemies, this could potentially cause a full-on lightning storm.
2 Commander Planetoid: With Our Powers Combined... We Irradiate?
Face-Puncher synergies are awesome, and the list of Legendary artifacts is dwindling at this point. As such, here's one of the most fun combinations of all. The Commander Planetoid artifact changes the element a player's melee causes every 5 seconds, and it increases said elemental damage by 60%.
Now, imagine that on a Face-Puncher build. A gun that changes between buffed-up elements constantly? It sounds like a blast! Additionally, this mod can get the Berzerker buff, further increasing the passive buffs each melee has.
1 Pearl Of Ineffable Knowledge: Knowledge Is Power!
This beast can be obtained as a quest reward from the lovable Claptrap in Guns, Love, and Tentacles — and what a reward it is! The ability to rapidly stack damage to a whopping 90% when blasting away proves exponentially useful.
But what's great about this is that while boosting the player's offense to an absurd level, it can also help survivability, with the chance of granting ample health regeneration or max health. It also yields a chance to bump up EXP gained, adding resourcefulness to its bag of tricks.
Borderlands 3 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.