Borderlands 4 Version 1.11 Patch Notes: Loveless Buffs, Vault Hunter Damage Boosts and a Shorter Horace Fight
Borderlands 4 Version 1.11 is out: Loveless gets major buffs, Amon, Harlowe, Rafa and Vex hit harder, Horace's flying phase is shorter and Story Pack 2 blockers are fixed.
Six weeks after Loveless the Hacker and Story Pack 2: FL4K and the Last Resort arrived with Version 1.10, Gearbox has shipped its first big follow-up. Borderlands 4 Version 1.11 went live on October 22, 2026, and it is a generous one: the newest Vault Hunter gets sizable buffs, almost every other Vault Hunter picks up damage increases on underused skills, the Horace boss fight is reshaped, and a long list of Story Pack 2 progression blockers is finally cleared.
TL;DR
- Loveless buffs: Kernel Panic doubles from 5% to 10% Executable Damage per point per stack, Lag Switch deals 66% more damage and Contagion's Executable hits 33% harder.
- Everyone else: Amon, Harlowe, Rafa and Vex get flat damage boosts of 30–50% on a long list of skills, plus higher per-point bonuses on many passives.
- Horace: the flying stage is shorter and the grounded stage longer.
- Loot: Murmur and Skully get new dedicated drop sources, and Ducky now drops the Phosphene Devourer.
- Fixes: Story Pack 2 doors, elevators, saves and boss bugs, plus a bank in the Takedown at Hadron Abyss lobby and FSR on Steam Deck.
The biggest changes
Loveless gets the attention she needed
Loveless launched as paid DLC in September, and Version 1.11 is clearly aimed at making her more competitive. Kernel Panic now grants 10% Executable Damage per point per stack, up from 5% – a straight doubling for builds that stack it. Lag Switch damage goes up by 66%, and Contagion's Executable Damage rises by 33%. Contagion also now grants RAM, and Pure Fusion jumps from 6% to 10% Maximum Health per point, which helps her survive in higher difficulty content.
Her Wyrm is more aggressive too, with higher speed and turn rate so it locks onto targets faster. The nuk.exe singularities now disappear after 7 seconds even if you aren't looking at them, and their explosion damage goes off at the singularity instead of following the Wyrm.
Not every change is a buff. The Visual Paradox Nexus (VPN) Action Skill was wrongly granting 50% extra Gun Damage while invisible without the Montage Maker skill, and that bonus now requires Montage Maker as intended. The Refactored Damage Formula has been set to 1.5x/2.0x damage with a clearer tooltip, and d://File now properly turns the shuriken's damage into Radiation – but Gearbox removed its Hazards entirely after finding a serious performance issue.
A shorter Horace fight
Horace's health pools have been rebalanced. His first-stage secondary health pool is smaller and his second-stage pool is larger, so you spend less time chasing him through the air and more time fighting him on the ground. For anyone farming him, that should make runs feel less drawn out.
Vault Hunter balance changes
Gearbox's approach for the rest of the cast is simple: push up the damage on skills that rarely made it into builds.
| Vault Hunter | Key changes |
|---|---|
| Amon | Crucible, Blade Tempest and Hour of the Hammer deal 30% more damage; Double-Edge, Snowmaul, Storm Surge, Wrathfall, Glacial Rapture, Molten Slam, Hoarcleave and Conlangarang deal 40% more |
| Harlowe | Experimentation +50% damage; Freeze Frame 30% → 40% per enemy in Stasis per point; Excited State 7% → 12% Crit Damage; Cryodynamics 7% → 10%; Heat Death 10% → 13%; Stunlock cooldown 10s → 8s |
| Rafa | Peacebreaker Cannon, Double-Ought AutoShot, Beam Team and Volatile Hollowpoints +50% damage; El Catrin 10% → 15% Crit Damage; Asymmetric Warfare 9% → 12%; Deadline 3% → 4% Fire Rate; Conductivo 6% → 10% Status Effect Chance |
| Vex | Violent Outburst, Blink Strike, Hexus Nexus, Vorpal Fang and Trouble Bubble +50% damage; Phase Explosion, Eldritch Blast, Geistwave, Energy Vampire, Desecration and Heartpiercer +33%; Havoc, Shiver, Stormblessed, Necrosis and Burnt Offering 8% → 12% per point |
| C4SH | Table Hopper shows the correct stack count and no longer blocks damage after an Action Skill is canceled |
Harlowe's Periodic Table Flip and Elementary each move from 4% to 6% per point, and Rafa picks up several smaller bumps as well: CYA restores 5% of Maximum Health as Shields instead of 4%, Everdrive gives 9% Action Skill Duration instead of 7%, Barrage grants 13% Splash Damage per point instead of 7%, and Concentrated Build Up and Errant Spark each gain one percentage point.
Loot and gear changes
Three drop-table changes make targeted farming easier:
- The Legendary Tediore assault rifle Murmur now drops from bunker boss Genone.
- The Legendary Order grenade Skully now drops from The Immortal Boneface.
- Ducky now drops the Phosphene Devourer instead of the Phosphene Rainmaker.
Homing guns now target "SHOOT ME" attacks and explode on impact instead of spinning out of control. The Enumeration SMG will no longer roll CoV magazines, which ensures its ammo refund works properly, and the Pearlescent elemental override on the Torgue AeroDramatic shotgun now applies against distant enemies too.
This week's activities
The weekly rotation that arrived with the patch features Driller Hole as the Big Encore Boss. The Wildcard Mission is Old Lads with the Vampiric, Armored and Strong modifiers, and it rewards the Golden God, a Ripper shotgun. Maurice's Black Market vending machine has moved to a new spot as usual.
Bug fixes worth knowing
Story Pack 2 owners get the most relief. Mr. Chew now joins fights while traveling with you, and several progression blockers are gone: objectives that stalled if enemies died early, doors and elevator buttons that refused to unlock, and missions that lost their state after a save and reload. Lieutenant Harmony no longer turns invincible in her second phase or dodges throwing knives, Drilla Killa no longer keeps fighting at 1 HP, ocean water stops damaging you, and Unstable Ordonite now scales with the damage it deals rather than your level.
Elsewhere, the Amara and the Vile Shadows bounty pack's lava and siphon orbs now deal damage, and Test Alpha stops spawning enemies from other paid content. In the base game, fast travel now finishes before your character loads in, Vault entrances only appear after you pick up all three Vault Key Fragments, and the Takedown at Hadron Abyss lobby finally has a bank. Steam Deck players can now pick FSR in the performance options. Gearbox recommends restarting your game to make sure the update is applied.
What it means for players
Version 1.11 is a buff-first patch. Instead of pulling down the strongest builds, Gearbox has lifted a large number of neglected skills, which should open up more build variety for Amon, Harlowe, Rafa and Vex. Loveless is the big winner: with Kernel Panic doubled and Lag Switch and Contagion hitting much harder, she should feel far more rewarding in endgame content – though VPN builds that leaned on the unintended invisibility bonus without Montage Maker will need a respec.
If you bounced off Story Pack 2 because of a stuck quest, this is the moment to return. And if you've been hunting Murmur or Skully, you now have a clear farm target for each.
Sources
This article was written by AI (Claude) and checked against the sources above. Games are updated regularly, so details may change.