Borderlands 3 recently revealed its first big wave of story DLC content, called Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot. But before players dive into that, there is the Takedown at Maliwan's Blacksite DLC to tackle. Along with some brand new story content, the update adds a plethora of new features, new challenge mods, and plenty more loot to collect.
Among the new loot is a brand new sniper rifle that players are saying might be the best currently in the game. Though the Sniper Rifle in question, known as the Tankman’s Shield, is a random drop from one of the bosses in the new Mayhem 4 difficulty mode, players currently exploring the new content to Borderlands 3 are already singing its praises.
The Tankman’s Shield is only dropped by one specific boss in the game while playing on the intensely difficult Mayhem 4 mode. Mayhem 4 customizes a variety of the game’s systems to add a substantial challenge to the game, like buffing enemy’s health, shield, and armor ratings. To access the different levels of Mayhem, players need to use the central pillar aboard the Sanctuary III, while adjusting the difficulty level with the smaller pillars on the side.
The boss that drops the Tankman’s shield is a boss called Captain Traunt who players can find on Athenas. Though this boss is absurdly difficult to take down in Mayhem 4, players are already scoping out certain builds to chew through Captain Traunt’s health in a matter of seconds. The build in question is a build based around the character FL4K, which focuses on boosting critical hit damage and ration while utilizing a certain action skill.
Though Captain Traunt can be taken out quickly with this specific build, that unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that the Tankman’s Shield sniper rifle seems to be an incredibly rare drop. Some players are even guessing it to be around a 3-5% drop rate for this specific sniper. With the low drop rate on top of the increased difficulty of Mayhem 4, players will have quite the challenge ahead of them. However, that challenge may be well worth the struggle, as the Tankman’s Shield is shaping up to be the strongest sniper in the game, as mentioned before.
With Borderlands 3’s recent wave of DLC finally released and a newly discounted price thanks to Black Friday deals, now is the perfect time to jump in for any players looking for a chance to take the plunge. Though the most dedicated players will probably spend a lot of time grinding for loot, Borderlands 3 still has plenty to offer those who want to enjoy the game at their own pace.
Borderlands 3 is available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Google Stadia version also in development.