The opening hours of Borderlands 3 can be difficult to get through as characters do not yet have many skills to heighten their survivability and players may still be learning the ropes. Finding a good shield can be a major help in that regard and many provide more than just some extra survivability.
With the right setup, these early-game Borderlands 3 shields can carry the player forward without them going into "Fight For Your Life." Players looking to increase their durability or collect every legendary item in the game should read on to learn where these shields are and what they can do.
"Early game" is a bit of a vague term, but all the upcoming Borderlands 3 shields can be picked up within the first half of the campaign. The screenshots also do not reflect each shield's base level.
6 Red Card
The Red Card shield is one of the more unique shields in Borderlands 3 as it grants you bonus damage for sliding into enemies. This damage is not very useful in the late game as there are no other ways to increase it and enemies will quickly kill players if they stay near them for too long. In the first half of the game, however, this can be quite strong.
Early in the game, most enemies do not have much health and so can be quickly finished off with the combination of the Red Card and a melee attack or shotgun blast. It also makes for quite a fun and unique playstyle. The Red Card can be found by farming Gigamind, who players will come across in the main story.
5 Front Loader
For players who feel like they are dying too often, the Front Loader could be a great solution. This Hyperion shield reduces the player's health by 60% and gives it back to them as bonus shield capacity. This is great in the early game because many players will not have health regeneration yet. This shield makes sure that they will not be constantly walking around with low health.
To find it, players will want to accept the "Invasion of Privacy" quest from Ava. During that quest, the Vault Hunter will have to fight Private Beans, who can be farmed for this shield. If players are lucky, they may find a Front Loader with the Last Stand Prefix, which grants the player immunity to damage for 5 seconds with a 40-second cooldown, increasing their tankiness even further. Whether this shield is worth spending time with Ava, however, is another question entirely.
4 Re-Charger
Another shield that can massively help survivability is the Re-Charger. After the shield is depleted for the first time, it instantly refills, giving the player a chance to get to cover or finish off any enemies. If it is then depleted again within 20 seconds, it will recharge slower. So long as players do not lose their entire shield twice in less than 20 seconds, which is unlikely in the campaign's early stages, this shield can effectively prevent them from ever taking health damage.
The shield is definitely worth picking up for any Vault Hunter, so players should head to Borderlands 3's Lektra City and farm Ulrist McEnforcer. It also stays quite strong into the later parts of the story, meaning that players may want to familiarize themselves with the route.
3 Messy Breakup
If players want more out of their shields than just a bit of survivability then the Messy Breakup is an excellent choice. It grants players a drone that fires at nearby enemies and spawns an additional drone upon being depleted. The drones can deal some decent damage, especially in the early game, and can deal with smaller enemies while the player focuses on more dangerous ones.
The shield is even stronger on Borderlands 3 characters such as the Gunner and the Operative as they have ways of spawning additional drones, but it is still more than usable on the other two Vault Hunters. The shield is also unique in that it speaks to the player in GenIVIV's voice, which is somehow not as annoying as it sounds. To find it players will want to farm Rax in the Meridian Outskirts.
2 Stop-Gap
When it comes to improving a character's survivability, immunity to damage is about as good as it can get. The Stop-Gap shield grants the player 5 seconds of immunity when it is depleted. This is excellent for survivability so long as the player has a way to stay alive while it recharges. As combat usually does not last too long during the campaign's first half, the decent shield capacity and the immunity are enough to ensure that the player will rarely go into Fight For Your Life.
This also only gets stronger later in the game as the player gains more ways to recharge their shields and gets access to Anointments and can end up making them effectively immortal. The Stop-Gap drops from El Dragón Jr. in Leery Hamlet at the Jakobs Estate.
1 The Transformer
Players may initially think that the Transformer only gives them a bit more survivability, but in truth, it is one of the best shields in Borderlands 3. The Transformer converts any shock damage that the player takes into shield capacity and grants them a 40% chance to absorb bullets. The immunity to shock damage is nice, but to make the most of the shield players will want to use a weapon that deals shock splash damage. They can then run around the map shooting it at enemies point-blank, dealing damage, and healing their own shield.
If their shield gets close to being depleted, they can simply fire a shot at their feet and keep moving. The 40% absorb chance makes this even better as it ensures that the player will not run out of ammunition as they absorb ammo from their own splash damage.
The Transformer can be found by killing Killavolt in Lektra City and will stay powerful throughout the game. The run and splash playstyle is still viable in the hardest end-game content, although many new shields have been added to the game, and will help players kill even the hardest bosses in the game.
Borderlands 3 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.