Borderlands 4: Best New DLC Weapons and Where to Farm Them

The latest Borderlands 4 content drop added a fresh pool of Legendary and Pearlescent guns, and a handful of them have already reshaped what high-damage loadouts look like at level cap. Eight stand out because their perks either multiply damage directly or feed a build’s existing skill triggers rather than just adding raw numbers.

Quick answer: The eight to chase are the Astonisher, Devourer, Decompiler, Honeymooner, Tempered Essence, Triplicate, Pragmate, and Wind Skimmer. Most come from named bosses; the Tempered Essence comes through Vault Card rewards.

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New DLC weapons and drop sources

Weapon	Type	Perk	Source
Astonisher	Ripper shotgun (Pearlescent)	Pure Energy	Lieutenant Harmony
Devourer	Ripper sniper rifle	Ruin	Ducky, Pyroclast Field / Bagheera Range
Decompiler	Maliwan shotgun	Tinkerer	Blackgrin, Pyroclast Field / Pyroclast Grotto
Honeymooner	Maliwan SMG	Rising Action	Megan
Pragmate	Shotgun	Praxis	Hybrid Thrashers
Wind Skimmer	Sniper rifle	Higher Ground	World drop farm
Triplicate	Vladof assault rifle	Cluster projectiles	World drop farm
Tempered Essence	SMG	Damage aura	Vault Card

Element rolls matter as much as the drop. The Decompiler and Honeymooner are elemental only, while the Astonisher can roll either Kinetic or elemental.

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Devourer and Astonisher: the two biggest burst options

Devourer is the single most explosive weapon of the group. Its Ruin perk checks the target on hit, consumes a status effect matching the gun’s current element mode, and immediately deals that effect’s remaining damage as one hit. Stack a large damage-over-time first, then detonate it — that is how the sniper reaches damage numbers in the billions rather than the millions. Because the element has to match the gun’s active mode, element switching is part of the rotation, not an afterthought.

Astonisher works from the opposite direction. Its Pure Energy perk dumps the entire magazine in one trigger pull and scales the shot by the ammo spent. The item card advertises +3.3% per round, but the real value is 1/30 per consumed round, applied as a pure multiplier. Anything that raises magazine size raises the ceiling, so mag-size bonuses are effectively damage bonuses here. Pairing it with the Freeloader enhancement and a Ripper reload lets you keep firing without the usual downtime between dumps.

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Honeymooner and Decompiler: elemental damage amplifiers

Honeymooner is a support gun that happens to shoot. Rising Action raises the status effect damage a target takes by 20% for three seconds per hit, stacking five times for a 100% increase. Stacks refresh on further hits, underbarrel fire builds them too, and the element you apply does not need to match the element of the status effect you are amplifying. Bonus elements that inherit from the source stack it faster. It pairs naturally with anything that leans on contagion or damage-over-time, and it is the obvious setup tool for a Devourer detonation.

Decompiler is the Maliwan shotgun with the Tinkerer perk, firing across multiple elements at once and producing very large damage procs when those elements land together. It drops from Blackgrin, found in the Pyroclast Field area at Pyroclast Grotto, and only rolls with elemental damage.

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Triplicate and Tempered Essence: crowd clearing and skill triggers

Triplicate is the Vladof assault rifle built around cluster projectiles. Every trigger pull spreads several projectiles outward, which is why it works so well with Jakobs ricochet parts and why it clears packs faster than its raw damage suggests. That same projectile count is what makes it a trigger machine for builds that need repeated hits, including Cash’s Glom and Harlow’s Neutron Capture setups.

Against grouped enemies the spread does most of the work, so you rarely need precise aim to keep skill procs rolling.

Tempered Essence is the SMG of the set, and its value sits in the aura perk it projects rather than in per-shot numbers. It lines up well with Loveless skills and Amon synergies, and unlike the boss-locked guns it comes through the Vault Card, so the grind is a currency and reward track rather than a repeated boss kill.

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Pragmate and Wind Skimmer: melee stacks and airborne ammo savings

Pragmate is a shotgun for melee characters rather than shooters. Its Praxis perk builds melee damage stacks that climb up to 20 times, which makes it a strong opener for Loveless melee whip builds — shoot to stack, then swing. It drops from Hybrid Thrashers, so it is one of the more approachable farms on the list.

Wind Skimmer is the sniper rifle with the Higher Ground perk, which cuts ammo consumption while you are airborne. In practice that means jumping before each shot to stretch a magazine much further than the ammo pool would normally allow, while the projectile still splits on the way out. DPS stays high despite the reduced ammo cost, and the rifle can also roll a Daedalus shotgun underbarrel for close-range cover.

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Parts and licenses worth rolling for

Each of these guns pulls from a limited license pool, so a drop is only finished when the parts line up. The Astonisher is the strictest case — it accepts just two licenses, and the Jakobs ricochet accessory is the roll to keep.

Weapon	Notable licenses	Best roll
Astonisher	Jakobs (Ricochet Accessory), Hyperion (Accuracy Grip)	Jakobs
Decompiler	Hyperion Gun Shield, Torgue Impact Mag, COV Unlimited Mag, Ripper Charge Mag, Daedalus Multi-Loader	Elemental only
Honeymooner	Jakobs Ricochet, Tediore reload variants, COV Unlimited Mag, Atlas underbarrels	Elemental only
Devourer	Jakobs Ricochet, Hyperion Gun Shield, Tediore reload variants, COV Unlimited Mag	Match element to status

Together these eight cover the full spread of endgame roles — single-target detonation, mob clearing, melee support, and ammo sustain — and most of them are one named boss away. The Devourer and Honeymooner in particular reward being farmed as a pair, since one builds the status effect the other cashes in.