I would argue brick is mid tier because he is the physically strongest vault hunter at base albiet a tad stupid. Sure krieg can be stronger but he has to transform to do it and in the lore we don’t ever see or hear of hi. Transforming so he is arguably better then krieg discounting gameplay.
Even if we’re talking lore-wise, he’s still a bullet-spewing tank…in terms of gunplay its hard for anyone to match him
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Playable Vault Hunters…Tyreen would definitely be the strongest without question.
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I hear you, but that’s part of that “extra stuff” clause:
It’s right up there with Eridium.
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Oh yeah, not trying to include that in this, just as an explanation why she could phasewalk the moon, within the story, given her low power level. That shouldn’t count for making her the most powerful. =]
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Nisha and Wilhelm should be on the lower end of VHs considering that you kill both of them in BL2 with whichever VH you happen to be playing.
Same for Aurelia in BL3.
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Let’s see what we got here lorewise:
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Roland was one-shot by Jack, and Lilith (as the Firehawk) basically too (through the use of anti-siren technology). While Roland was caught by surprise, Lilith acted impulsively and she didn’t expect Jack to take her out so easily. The whole scene was over very quickly and was never an open combat for any participants.
After that, Lilith doesn’t do much that might be relevant for a combat situation. Notable however is blowing up Sanctuary (with huge amounts of Eridium - comparable to her Phasewalking Sanctuary earlier) and Phasewalking Elpis. -
Mordy and Brick captured Athena together, but they barely managed to do so (with some indirect help from the second fight that was going on at that moment). Earlier Athena was captured by Mr. Shank, who was killed by the 4 OG VHs.
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Nisha was defeated by the 6 BL2 VHs in an open gunfight.
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Wilhem (post-TPS) single-handedly destroyed New Haven and almost killed the 4 OG VHs, including pre-Firehawk (and most likely pre-Eridium-addict, too) Lilith. Further, it took the 6 BL2 VHs to take him out (whether or not he was poisoned by Jack beforehands).
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Axton and Gaige captured Aurelia together, while all 4 BL3 VHs were required to kill her:
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Maya was killed by Troy, but nothing here suggests she was actually inferior to him. She was just vulnerable to his attack/touch and was caught by surprise. On the other hand, it took 4 BL3 VHs to kill Troy off.
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Zero takes out various mobs and bosses on his own.
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While I consider Fragtrap to be an improved version of the INAC, he got no notable battles whatsoever. Same as Timothy, Salvador and Krieg.
So in the end it’s very hard and even more subjective to quantify the feats of the various VHs.
While the Sirens, and especially Lilith, are widely considered to be the most powerful due to their “crazy magic”, it’s not really set in stone. One could even say the BL2 VHs might be the strongest of all generations because they both took out bosses their predecessors struggled with and because they needed less manpower to achieve the same feats as their successors.
I’d personally say however that New-Haven Wilhelm might be the strongest Vault Hunter there is/was to date, followed by Firehawk Lilith full of Eridium.
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I think the playable Sirens tend to cause the writers a bit of a dilemma in things like this so I’m inclined to think they didn’t factor her into Jack’s statement (i.e. that although she certainly existed Jack may not have counted her being “on the planet” for the purposes of the game).
Could be wrong, of course. Just think it’s a little dangerous to take things like that at face value as I think they are generally designed for effect than with any great thought behind them. Or necessarily any accuracy
I’m inclined to think the strongest must be one of the Sirens, just because of how the Lore really emphasises how powerful they are.
And of those I find it hard to go past Maya. Lilith was strong, certainly, but needed Eridium to ramp up her powers (until the ending of BL3 but that might be down to additional factors such as residual power transferred back from Tyreen etc). Tyreen wasn’t that powerful on her own (although she did seem to have some powers when fighting Lilith and it’s not really explained where they came from, unless Leeching wasn’t the only power she had?) as she needed to get within touching distance of other Sirens, but I guess she had the potential to be the most powerful as she could essentially absorb the powers of all the other Sirens as well as other powerful beings (such as Vault monsters etc).
And regarding Tyreen it’s a little puzzling how any VH would let her near them as given there are only 6 Sirens at any one time (7 if you include the prophecy) and the powers are seemingly static you’d think the other Sirens would be aware of what the rest had and would have been very cautious around physical contact. I guess you could argue Troy may have been a surprise but Lilith really shouldn’t have let Tyreen near her
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That would be kind of awkward though, considering Maya was the only other living siren on the planet at the time (he said it during the second half of the game, after what happened in control core angel). I don’t think Jack would have worded it like that, if he had disregarded Maya.
Lorewise if you only count the initial canonic team, Sirens are the strongest because “yeah powers” with arguably Lilith being strongest. Weakest is really hard to say, that would be among the humans with no powers, special equipments or training so Salvador and Nisha?
If you include dlc then yeah Claptrap 
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Krieg is the strongest. The Hyperion warmachine that can bloodslpode anything with blood in its veins and overpower any mechanical device because near death Krieg mutates, becomes StRoNgaH…is close to invincible
Like Hulk, get angrier…the tougher.
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This was a really good post. I take issue one with the assumption that 6 or 4 VHs killed in-game bosses (Troy, Wilhelm).
While there were 6 VHs in BL2, you could only ever co-op 4 at a time.
And, as I play solo almost exclusively, my “canon” is that all of these bosses were killed by 1 VH.
The rest of what you say is spot on, though!
Out of the playable vault hunters, I would argue that, lore wise, Salvador, Amara, Lilith, and Athena are the strongest in that order.
Salvador I can see being confusing here, and in most any other universe he wouldn’t be close to the top. After all, he’s just a dood with double gun. How powerful could he be? Well, this is Borderlands. All kinds of guns can do all kinds of things, and even apply buffs to your character (think Moxxi guns). He can have two different guns which can apply two different effects to him. A Harold could nuke basically anything he saw in front of him, and then combine that with another gun like a trespasser and now it bypasses other characters defenses. Or a rubi, so now he gets healed every hit. Or hell, if he wants to he can pull out 2 norfleets and a sham and what’s everyone else gonna do? Athena has her shield, but it’s not gonna block 2 norfleets. Lilith can Phasewalk, but Gunzerking will outlast it and probably give him the survivability needed to tank her phaseblast coming back in. And let’s not forget, Sal is just as, if not more tanky, than Brick. So this is why I put Salvador at #1. He can use two separate weapon effects at any time he wants. Yeah, it could be argued those special weapon effects are simply gameplay mechanics, but then where’s the fun in that? Why would that be any different than Krieg being able to transform himself, or him being able to bloodsplode things?
Amara is the strongest siren for a couple reasons. She could do what every other siren couldn’t. She killed Troy at the height of his power in a full on battle, which Maya couldn’t. Lilith got rekt by Tyreen like 20 seconds into the game, and then Amara had to deal with Tyreen not only having Tyreen’s powers, but Lilith’s powers throughout the whole game. Then she had to deal with the amalgamation that was Tyreen × Destroyer. While it could be argued that that form was weaker, I doubt it was any significant difference. After all, what would’ve stopped her from throwing a tentacle at Amara and leeching her powers then?
Lilith doesn’t really need an explanation as to why she’s one of the strongest. Just play BL2 if you want to know why.
Athena is likely the 4th strongest vault hunter. She pretty much soloed all of Atlas at the height of their power. She’s quite possibly the best trained Vault Hunter out of all of them, given she was the very best of all of Atlas. It took both Mordecai and Brick, two best friends who have been working alongside each other since BL1 that have fantastic chemistry, and an experienced crime boss, to just barely capture her WHILE SHE WAS PROTECTING SOMEONE. Nuff said.
Edit: I seemed to forget Wilhelm existed as a playable vault hunter for a second. So lemme correct my list. Pre poison Wilhelm is probably the strongest character lore wise. Even before the Pre-Sequel, by only being a mercenary, somehow managed to kill enough people to be compared to a small country by Angel who has the most access to knowledge in the series. And then according to dialogue in BL2, apparently he was able to solo and nearly kill every person in new haven. This included the original 4 vault hunters who were likely working as a formidable team, along with Zed, Helena Pierce, Marcus and some other citizens. While none of them died, it’s quite a feat to solo all of those characters. And then even Angel herself doesn’t believe that the 6 vault hunters from BL2 could take him down AFTER he was in a trainwreck. If the poison was cannon, (which I think it is) than that was likely the only reason our characters were able to defeat him, and thus making him the strongest above all others. However, if the poison was NOT cannon, and our vault hunters beat him at his strongest, than disregard this as he gets bumped down quite a few places.
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Yeah, there’s room for debating what the “true” canon is, 4 VHs from the base game or all 6 (for TPS and BL2)?
I personally tend towards 6, since every single one of them (Timothy, Aurelia, Gaige, Krieg) was mentioned/shown/otherwise described in DLCs, cutscences, intros/endings, and in-game echo logs AFTER their introduction/initial release.
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He was rocking the Rough Rider + Deathless setup 
As many times as he was shot in BL1 you’d think he could tank it
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This^…Everyone’s saying Lilith is the best but then, she couldn’t save the Crimson Raiders from being killed off by the COV and Colonel Hector’s troops…
She couldn’t last in the fight with Tyreen & Troy, who didn’t even absorb the vault monster or Maya yet…
And Amara (with other 3 vault hunters) beat Tyreen, who absorbed the Destroyer, Troy, the first Vault Monster, and an infinite supply of COV…
Lilith phase walking an entire moon shouldn’t have happened IMO, but Gearbox writer’s are the real power in Borderlands.
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I like this discussion…so the impression I’m getting is:
- Typhon Deleon (
) - Lilith
- Amara
- Maya
- Wilhelm (New Haven, not poisoned by Jack)
- Athena
- Salvador
- Zane
- Fl4k
- Moze
- Krieg
- Zero
- Gaige
- Brick
- Mordecai
- Nisha
- Aurelia
- Axton
- Roland
- Fragtrap
- Timothy
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It is hard lore wise imo. As strong as the Sirens are, I really think someone like Zer0 could assassinate them if paid for. The same way I dont see many of them winning against Athena 1x1. Like, both of them are trained assassins.
Wilhelm seems the strongest lore wise, at least pre Lilith Eridium Power Up. Even in BL2, both the OG VH and Angel feared Wilhelm and there is the poison thing.
Angel knew both Lilith and Maya and still was not convinced the VH could take down Wilhelm until they did it.
On the othe side, there are the ones like Salvador and Krieg. They are basically beast when talking about game breaking mechanics but outside of it are Just a two-guns crazy short man and a Badass psycho.
Salvador echos show that he can wipe Hyperion personel alone but every other VH seems able to do so.
Like Gaige. She has her crazy mech, but both Anarchy and the elemental mastery are game mechanics only.
In the end, I would say Wilhelm, then Sirens, then Zer0/Athena and after it I dont know how to order. Mordecai is a sharpshooter but that is all about it. Brick seems to be able to punch his way through everything but how powerful is it when compared to other things? How good of a Gunslinger Nisha is?
The Soldier are veterans so I would put them above someone like Gaige, but dont know about the others like the already mentioned Brick, Mordecai and Nisha.
Salvador and Krieg seems to be rated due to their game mechanics and not by lore. Dont know If they are past mid tier.
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