Money is a valuable commodity in Borderlands 3 and players coming over from Borderlands 2 might not be prepared for just how important it is. In addition to buying necessities like better weapons, gear, and ammo from the stores the vast majority of your cash will go to Storage Deck Upgrades or SDU’s.
These are required to carry more of everything, more guns, more loot, more cash you name it. The higher tiers of these upgrades can go for millions of dollars, each. So to make sure you can afford anything you want, there are some techniques and tricks to keep in mind while playing to keep the golden streams flowing.
10 Order Of SDU
To make money you need to spend it. In addition to the better weapons, gear, and ammo you need to start seriously upgrading your storage capacities. In order of priority you need to buy SDUs for personal inventory, Lost Loot Machine capacity, cash on hand, grenades, ammo for your primary weapon and then whatever you want.
Personal inventory and Lost Loot Machine storage will increase the amount of stuff you can carry and later sell, cash on hand will ensure you can pick up whatever fat stacks you find, grenades will be explained in the next entry, and ammo will minimize the number of times you have to go to the vendor to refill.
9 Artifacts/Grenades
Artifacts, grenades, and grenade mods all have the possibility of coming with a modifier that increase the amount of cash that drops when you damage an enemy. There is no guaranteed way to get this modifier on any of these items, unless you bought the deluxe edition, so be patient, keep an eye out and cheer when you get one.
Having a 1% increase on money drops may not seem like much, but after your 100th enemy kill you’ll be grateful you had it as you’ll be sitting on quite the pile of dough.
8 Combine With Other Farming
In general any form of farming is bound to bring you some cash, whether it be Eridium, legendaries, or bosses. Make sure to buy some SDU’s for your inventory and Lost Loot Machine and start gathering anything that drops while you’re busy grinding for something else.
Even a meager white item will put something in your wallet and if you have the space for it why not? Whatever you find yourself doing keep an eye out for income potential and you’ll have a steady stream of credits hitting your account.
7 Cheese Enemies
If you bought the deluxe edition of the game you are in luck because each new character is given the Rubber Cheddar Shredder grenade. This grenade has a modifier called Make It Rain that according to the item’s description will cause enemies to “drop a holy metric buttload of cash” whenever they take damage.
This is why you want to buy SDUs for your grenade capacity, the more grenades the more you can make it rain. This is awesome for grinding bosses or groups of enemies, but if you really want to start cooking with gas then get a friend in co-op who also has this grenade, start a duel and proceed to hurl grenades at each other. Bonus points if you’re near a vending machine that sells grenade refills.
6 Thieving Enemies
As you're out in the world gunning down the myriad of foes you’ll face keep a eye out for anyone with the Thieving modifier in front of their name. These special enemies that rarely spawn are an absolute gold mine if you’re farming for cash.
One example is the Thieving Jabber, these critters run around with a barrel on their shoulders that when shot will start dropping money. Simply pop the barrel, scoop up the goods, and then blast them in the face for loot when the well runs dry. A great place for Thieving Jabbers is in Floodmoor Basin near the spawn point tunnels.
5 Loot Tinks
Another great enemy for some serious cash flow are Loot Tinks, these goblin-like creatures will often have lucrative loot and carry a backpack with more goodies stashed inside. The second you see one blast it and start scooping up the items they drop.
A great spawn point for Loot Tinks is in Jakob’s Estate on Eden-6. It’s no longer a guaranteed spawn, but it does have a high chance of spawning and a good chance of dropping legendaries that can be sold for great sums of cash.
4 Blitz Campaign
The big money in this game is after the campaign at the higher difficulty levels when you character’s level is maxed out. You can grind in the beginning, and honestly you may have to now and then, but your primary goal should be to get to the endgame as quickly as possible.
Find a build that’ll give you lots of DPS and movement speed and start blitzing the story, ignore the side quests for now and just focus on scooping up cash on the fly while you race to the credit reel.
3 Side Quests
The reason you want to save side quests for later is because their enemies and subsequently the rewards scale move with you. You could complete that side quest as a level 10, but if you wait till you’re level 40 you’ll get much, much more out it.
The exception to this rule is if you know a side quest will give you a helpful weapon that’ll help you progress faster. Even so, while it may help you in the short run it’ll typically pay off more in the long run to hold off and do it later.
2 Mayhem Mode/True Vault Hunter
The big money in this game is at the higher difficulty levels. After beating the game on Normal you’ll unlock the ability to go into Mayhem Mode or True Vault Hunter mode. Mayhem has three levels of difficulty that are unlocked after beating the campaign on the previous level. It ups the difficulty, but with the greater challenge comes greater rewards.
True Vault Hunter mode is essentially New Game+ and is much more challenging and much more rewarding than Mayhem Mode. Ideally you want True Vault Hunter mode for income purposes, but honestly either will be great for your bottom line.
1 Endgame Content
The best place to be and where you want to spend most of your time grinding for money is in the endgame content. Right now that’s the Proving Grounds and Circle of Slaughter. The Proving Grounds is a race to take down three waves of enemies and a final boss as quickly as possible for the best reward.
Circle of Slaughter is comprised of several waves of enemies with much tougher bosses and much better reward. If you don’t have a lot of time to play grind the Proving Grounds, if you do then focus on Circle of Slaughter. Make sure to upgrade your SDUs and take as many money modified items with you as possible and start making that cheddar.