Borderlands 2 Raid Boss Guide

So you have finished the play through on True Vault Hunter Mode. Now is time to get the best gear for when the DLC comes out. To do that you need to farm and farm and farm the badassest bosses in the game.

The Bee

Note: that you can't farm this one until you've completed Mordecai's quest "This Just In," which becomes available after the story mission "Toil and Trouble" is completed

First, head to the Arid Nexus - Boneyard fast travel location. A short distance away from where you land -- straight ahead if you happen to grab a vehicle from Catch A Ride -- is an elevated radio station that you'll need to use a lift to get to the top of. You've been here before, for This Just In, and you're essentially just replaying that mission. Head to the top, hit the button to open the radio station's door, and there's your target, Hunter Hellquist. He won't be hostile initially if you've completed This Just In already
To farm The Bee, simply take down Hunter repeatedly. Loaders spawn outside as soon as you attack him, but you needn't worry about them. If Hunter goes down and The Bee doesn't drop, "Save and Quit," reload, and head back to the tower (you'll spawn at the Boneyard travel station again). Simple.

Conference Call

Farming Conference Call is pretty simple. Head to Hero's Pass and sprint past all of the enemies until you reach the next map, Vault of the Warrior, where the final boss awaits. Take him down and search through the loot for Conference Call. Now here's the important part: if the shotgun isn't there, "Save and Quit" from the menu and reload your game before you go anywhere. When you reload, you'll still be in the Vault map -- no need to run through Hero's Pass again -- and the Warrior will have respawned. Rinse and repeat.

Terramorphous The Invincible

Now that you've got Conference Call and The Bee, you're basically unstoppable. Enjoy it while you can, as I've heard from Gearbox that they know how overpowered The Bee is and will be patching it to some unconfirmed degree.

Your first stop in this grand tour of Pandora's endgame is Thousand Cuts. If you've beaten the game already then you probably got the "You. Will. Die. (Seriously)" quest from Tannis; that's the one you want. You might eventually want to farm Terramorphous for the various Legendaries that he drops, but you'll have to turn in that quest first by defeating him.

Hook a right as you enter Thousand Cuts and proceed straight until you see a red arrow sign pointing downward. Follow a series of stairs and catwalks down along the side of the cliff until you reach a cave opening. Head inside and you'll find a stone altar of sorts; interact with it to spend four Eridium and the rock wall behind the altar will slide open, revealing the entry point for Terramorphous Peak.

Head in and follow the path until you reach a pit that you can drop into. Head down and run straight forward to the large, white horn at the edge of the plateau you land on. Interact with the horn, thenimmediately do an about-face and run to the other end of the plateau, setting up at the base of a giant rock wall. Ultimately, you'll want to face Terramorphous with your back against that cliff face. He'll probably go down before it becomes an issue, but if he happens to smack you with a tentacle and send you skyward, having the cliff at your back will protect you from being knocked off the map.

It's pretty simple from here. Once the giant thresher spawns, aim for the eyes and unload clip after clip from Conference Call into his face. Watch in delight as his health bar melts down in seconds. The multiple Conference Call shots plus the huge damage boost that The Bee offers amounts to the most effective DPS combo in the game right now.

If you're using Axton, Zer0, or Salvador, make sure to use your active skill as well; the former two can distract Terramorphous, keeping your shields up for that much longer, and Salvador's dual-wielding adds that much more punch to your attack, especially if you've managed to farm two Conference Calls.

Once you've handed the quest in, there's a trick to farming Terramorphous. Every time you head to the Peak, you have to spend four Eridium. You'll get that much and then some from killing him, but you can skip the fee entirely by using "Save and Quit" after he's down and reloading. That'll bring you back to Terramorphous Peak with the boss respawned. This strategy works in solo and co-op sessions.

Vermivorous The Invincible

What many fans don't know is that there's actually an even tougher endgame boss than Terramorphous in Borderlands 2. Vermivorous the Invincible is the final stage of evolution for Varkid insects. The sequence is Larval > Adult > Badass > Super Badass > Ultimate Badass > Vermivorous the Invincible.

There are many theories out there concerning how Vermivorous spawns. Some say you need to be playing with a full group of four. Others say that you need a lot of Varkids around, and that you need to let most of them evolve to the Ultimate and Super Badass stages. I've only ever gotten Vermie to pop up once, and he arrived amidst the chaos of two Ultimates, three or four Super Badasses, and numerous Badasses/Adults. According to Gearbox, it's totally random.

Whether or not you need four players to get him to spawn, it is highly advisable that you bring four players, and preferably four level 50 players. When Vermivorous does spawn, he's an extremely tough cookie. Not only is he supported by a virtual army of evolved Varkids, but he himself is also much more mobile and aggressive than Terramorphous, and he's got twice the health as well.

There's really no elegant strategy for taking Vermie down. Get him to follow you and take him on close to a spawn point. Not only will that quicken the process, it'll also give you easy access to an ammo vending machine should you actually survive long enough to require a re-up. The Conference Call/The Bee combo is certainly useful, but with Vermivorous being so aggressive and all of those other Varkids running around, it's not easy to keep your shields fully charged. If you're running with four level 50s equipped with The Bee, have at least one hang back -- far back -- to take potshots with the strongest sniper rifle available.

The best place you can go to get Vermivorous to spawn is Tundra Express. There are many Varkid spawn locations, and a lot of them are close enough to each other that you can double up on evolving insects and, presumably, double up on your chances of seeing Vermie. Don't even bother trying to make him spawn at the Creature Slaughter Dome (GameStop's pre-order exclusive). While you'll fight plenty of Varkid there, the arena resets if everyone goes down. And everyone will go down.

Vermie drops lots of loot, but the item you should be looking for is a Legendary class mod. It's actually called "Legendary [insert class] Mod," and it's similar to but more than a little bit better than the one you can get from Terramorphous.

DLC-Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty

Hyperius the Invincible

Hyperius looks positively puny compared to Terramorphous and Vermivorous, but don't be deceived. His combined health and shield will be the biggest you've encountered when you fight him for the first time. Four overpowered Loaders that shield Hyperius while keeping him planted firmly on the ground join the raid boss on the battlefield.

Hyperius and his robo-buddies will slowly advance toward the nearest aggressor, launching volleys of missiles as they go. Hyperius himself will also sometimes release a series of damaging shockwave blasts that can't be avoided unless you stagger him at just the right moment. If the four Loaders are destroyed first, the big boss will start leaping around the arena, attacking the nearest player.

Here's some advice from Wardwell on taking down this first Seraph:

• Kill skills or phaselock skills are not optimal for this fight unless used to support others. You may want to respec towards a straight DPS or survivability build for this fight.
• The longer the fight takes, the more powerful his area-of-effect pulses become in phase 2. This makes the fight a race, and requires players to have sufficient gear to complete it. Players can gear for DPS to make the boss go down quicker, and/or can gear for survivability, which allows them to survive the boss for a longer period of time.
• Corrosive guns are best for the loaders and will also work just fine for the boss. One player should be on slag duty, though! An optimal way to do this is with the Siren’s Scorn skill, because it automatically slags and allows all 4 players to take advantage of the slag bonus without switching weapons.
• A quick regenerating shield is helpful for sustaining red area-of-effect pulses in phase 2.
• Transfusion grenades can help extend the fight in phase 2 if you don’t have the DPS to get him down.

Master Gee the Invincible

Unlike Hyperius, who is pretty much just a straight damage sponge, Master Gee presents more of a puzzle. When you first step into his arena, he's actually invulnerable. None of your attacks will penetrate his shields. The Master moves slowly, advancing straight at the nearest player, but he only deals out direct damage via melee attacks and when he occasionally drops to one knee to fire off a volley of slow-moving rockets.

The bigger danger in Master Gee's chamber is the constantly spawning stream of sandworms. They're easy to overlook and write off as Fight For Your Life bait, but that's actually the opposite of what you're really required to do.

The sandworms create pools of acid that grow in size until someone -- you, your teammates, or Master Gee -- steps into the center, at which point the acid is asorbed and the pool disappears. This is the onlyoption you have for draining Master Gee's shields -- it also deals plenty of damage once the shields are gone -- so the real focus for this fight is on leading the boss around.

Here are Wardwell's tips for taking down Seraph number two...

• Master Gee has considerably more health than Hyperius, and he is literally invincible until his shield is gone. Both of these challenges can be overcome with a little ingenuity. Pay attention to the corrosive slime pools that form on the ground where worms are killed.

• Players will want to focus-fire down each sand worm after it spawns. Having 2 or 3 sand worms alive at once is not too viable.

• Surviving this fight boils down to keeping your eye on Gee and the sand worms at the same time. Too often, players will go down because they got jumped by Gee while fighting a worm, or vice versa.

• Health regeneration goes a long way in this fight. Do not spec for shield capacity or shield regen unless your teammates plan on handling the slime pools alone… this will make more sense after you’ve seen the fight! Players should expect to have no shields for most of the fight, so maximizing your health pool is the way to go. Also, booster shields are amazing in any fight where you expect to be taking constant unavoidable damage.