If you disagree with anything I have in here or have anything to add, links, math, opinion, anything let me know and I will gladly update and change it.
Here is the scale
Sub-par: These are the skills that are generally bad and its really hard to make them worthwhile.
Below Average: These are skills that can be useful but requires you to build around them a bit, just throwing them in to move down a tree is a usually bad idea because there are better options.
Average: These are the skills that are solid choices to move to the skills you really want.
Great: These skills will make the game much easier and should be taken always if you are at that point in the tree they are located in
Outstanding: Skills of this rating will be game changers that you base your build and play style around, they should be taken with almost every set up if you are in that tree.
The scores are on a 5/5 rating, if you have to boost them to 10-11/5 to make them great then they are just average.
I will have 2 sets of rankings
- Digi Death, this is for killing your Jacks for bonuses
- Digi Life, this if for keeping your Jacks alive for bonuses
Hero of this Story
This is the pet tree skill tree, based around keeping your Digi-Jacks alive, maybe the least amount of DPS of his 3 skill trees but it has some of the best survival and utility skills not only for Jack but in the entire game. It also does have some very solid DPS skills.
Best Foot Forward
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Killing an enemy while Expendable Assets is active extends its duration, initially by 0.5 seconds per rank, but adding a reduced amount of time per kill as more enemies are killed.
- 5/5 + 2.5 seconds per kill
- 11/5 + 5.5 seconds per kill
This skill is one of those where you almost can’t skip it because of it’s utility. While your Digi-Jacks are up there are so many great survival and DPS skills as well as the Digi-Jacks going good damage them selves. This can greatly increase your time to where if you manage your action skill right you almost never have to be in combat without your Digi-Jacks. A real must have skill and at tier one there is really no excuse to not get it.
Bolster
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Increases your Maximum Health by 3% per rank and the Maximum Health of your Digi-Jacks by 6% per rank. Additionally, each individual Digi-Jack will gain a Damage bonus of 2% per rank for each second that it survives.
- 5/5 Jack max health +15%, Digi-Jack max health +30%, Digi Jack damage/second +10%
- 11/5 Jack max health +33%, Digi-Jack max health +66%, Digi Jack damage/second +22%
This is kinda an all or none based on your build. If you have a build based around killing your Digi-Jacks for bonuses then this is a total waste of any skill points, and if you have a build based around keeping them alive this is a corner stone skill that you build around. If you build to it 10%-22% damage bonus to your Digi0Jacks per second is a crazy bonus, even keeping them up for 5 seconds can double the damage and with Take Their Freedom you can keep them up that long or longer if you can stay still.
Just Compensation
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Receive bonus Magazine Size (up to 12% per rank) and Grenade Damage (up to 8% per rank), increasing for every Grenade missing from your supply. If you are carrying the maximum number of Grenades, you receive no bonus.
- 5/5 Grenade Damage +40% Magazine Bonus +60%
- 11/5 Grenade Damage +88% Magazine Bonus +126%
This skill is beyond outstanding, If I could exceed 5 stars I might (Wait Derch isn’t this your thread? You can break your own rules. Shut up voice in my head rules are important) Both boosts are amazing on their own and combined even more so, now you do have to run around with 0 grenades to have the full bonus but that is easy with Jack’s Cache. This skill also makes Jack the king of the chuckers, adding mag size and grenade damage to throw reloads is amazing, but its also amazing for just throwing grenades as well as splash damage that gets grenade boost. Last I guess is the combination of this and Absolute Advantage which allows you to almost shoot forever. The fact that this is only tier 2 seems wrong, it should be a tier 5 skill at its power.
You Have My Shield
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Your Digi-Jacks are granted a copy of your Shield.
This is a capstone for Gaige and for Jack it is a tier 2 one point skill. Then add to the fact that you can kill your Digi-Jacks by just moving and set off nova’s on nova shields, and adding in you have 2 other nova skills based on your Jacks spawning and dying. Going the other way giving your Digi-Jacks a shield can help them live longer to help your Digi-life builds.
Take Their Freedom
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Whenever you or your Digi-Jacks kill an enemy, you and your Digi-Jacks are healed by 2.5% of your Max Health per rank.
- 5/5 +12.5% health back on kill
- 11/5 +27.5% health back on kill
This is really close to being outstanding for both types of builds. Its so easy to get a kill with Jack that the 12.5% health back adds up quick but also heals your Digi jacks, which can go 2 ways. If you are building a Bolster pet build its perfect, if you are doing a more kill your Jack builds and lower the health with Optimism it has its drawbacks but still a great healing skill. What holds it back from a 5 star rating for me is in the next tree, Greater Good, there is a equally great healing skill in the exact same spot. Why that holds it back slightly is while you can get both they are both so good you only really need one, making both slightly less essential.
Jack’s Cache
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
When you or your Digi-Jacks kill an enemy, you gain a stack of Cache. Throwing a Grenade when you have 4 Cache stacks consumes these stacks in place of a Grenade.
So every 4 kills you get a free grenade and you can boost grenade damage to pretty large amounts with skills/coms/bar/oz kits/lunshines and like I mentioned above Leadership adds your Digi-Jacks deaths to your kill counter making it really easy to have almost unlimited grenades. Even without leadership build this is great because kills add up fast and free grenades is a pretty big deal.
Inspire
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Jack will occasionally monologue, at the end of which a star will travel across the screen with a rainbow trail, leaving the word “INSPIRED” behind it. This skill has no other effect on gameplay.
Here is the simple lowdown on this skill, this game has too many skill points and this is fun. It does not add anything to your characters DPS, Survival, or Utility, but Dameon Clarke (the voice of Jack) is incredibly talented and I want to hear more Jack lines. In bl2 they nerfed Krieg’s constant talking while on fire because it annoyed people but others loved it, now we have a choice in the matter and I kinda love Gearbox for this. This skill is what makes Borderlands great.
Hero Pose
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
+4% Shield Capacity and Shield Recharge Rate per rank. -4% Shield Recharge Delay per rank.
- 5/5 +20% Shield Capacity and Recharge Rate and -20% Shield Recharge Delay
- 11/5 +44% Shield Capacity and Recharge Rate and -44% Shield Recharge Delay
While this is a pretty strait forward skill it is not easy to rank for a few reasons. On paper this is a really solid skill, getting all 3 of your shield stats boosted to these levels is great but do you need it? Jack has 2 of the best healing skills in the game with Take Their Freedom and Teamwork, then on the Digi Death builds you have Winning for keeping up your shields and your Digi Jacks take agro from you. So while this is really good, at tier 4 it might not be needed. If it was tier one it might be different but you might not want to go this deep in this tree based on your build. So no matter the score really look at your build and see if you need it, if you can get to it and you are having survival issues get it, if you are not having survival issues skip it.
On My Mark
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Pressing (Action Skill button) during your Action Skill causes your Digi-Jacks to throw a copy of your Grenade at an enemy under your crosshairs. You can do this once per Action Skill Activation.
This sounds better than it is, your action skill is typically really long if you have Best Foot Forward and most builds have it, so once per action skill isn’t often. The next issue is with longbow grenades (many people’s preferred delivery method) the accuracy of the Digi-Jacks throws is pretty bad. Also with Just Compensation you have so many free grenades, 2 more once a min is not a big deal. If this was on a cooldown like scorn or other melee overrides then it would be really great. Even at one point a lot of people skip this for multiple reasons I listed above.
Lean On Me
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
+7% Fire Rate. Your Digi-Jacks have up to a 7% chance per rank to fire a bonus Corrosive shot based on how high your health is.
- 5/5 Up to +35% Fire Rate and Digi-Jack Corrosive Shot Chance
- 11/5 Up to +77% Fire Rate and Digi-Jack Corrosive Shot Chance
There are many skills like this based on how LOW your health is but this is based on how HIGH your health is and since Jack has 2 of the best healing skills in the game, really solid shield skills, and the agro relief of 2 pets, it is really easy to keep your health at full. The fire rate part of it is pretty big and even at that its a good skill but bonus shot to me is a freebie and although its corrosive in a game with a lot of flesh its still great just for the fire rate.
Persistence
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
While your Action Skill is cooling down, you gain +8% Shield Capacity per rank and regenerate up to +2% of your Maximum Health per second per rank. The lower your Health, the stronger the regeneration.
- 5/5 Up to +10% Max Health/Second and +40% Shield Capacity
- 11/5 Up to +22% Max Health/Second and +88% Shield Capacity
While this is tier 5 if you can get it you should no matter your build. When your Jacks are down you are vunerable, you loose your agro relief, some of your DPS and Survival. The health regen on this is really fast and 40% capacity is pretty large. If you have this boosted you are very hard to kill with your Jacks down. Not all builds can get to this, but its worth going for and enough amazing skills above it to get to it as well as skill points to get to it on many builds.
Resolute
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
You and your Digi-Jacks gain +4% Damage Resistance per rank and +7% Weapon Damage per rank for a few seconds after you take damage.
- 5/5 +17% Damage Resistance and +35% Weapon Damage
- 11/5 +37% Damage Resistance and +77% Weapon Damage
For a Digi-Death build you really don’t need the resistance nor do you want it for your Digi-Jacks, the Damage bonus is good but you have a lot of that already. For Digi-life builds this is a great skill, it helps you keep them alive for Bolster to do its thing and the damage bonus is for both you and the Digi-Jacks. Stack this with Bolster and you really have a lot of damage from your Jacks.
Promote the Ranks
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Your first Digi-Jack spawned will be a Badass that deals increased Damage, has increased Maximum Health, and can launch a powerful Digi-Missile Barrage. Each Digi-Jack spawned afterwards has a 33% chance to be a Badass.
If you are going for a Digi Pet build based on keeping them alive this is everything, Badass Digi-Jacks do a ton more damage and have more life. Combine that with Bolster and they can really wreck, you even have a chance to have both Digi-Jacks Badasses. For Digi Death Builds it doesn’t hurt to get this if you are already at tier 5 but its not worth going all the way down the tree to get.
Greater Good
Integrity
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
You deal 8% bonus Weapon Damage per rank against enemies who are below 40% health. Additionally, if you haven’t damaged an enemy before and they are under 40% health, your Weapon Damage is increased by 300%.
- 5/5 +40% Damage Bonus +300% Weapon Damage if you didn’t damage the enemy
- 11/5 +88% Damage Bonus +300% Weapon Damage if you didn’t damage the enemy
This is the Boss killer skill, I say that because while mobbing it won’t do a ton for you but on your Bosses and UBA enemies it can really help you finish the kill. You won’t often see the bonus damage on bosses but the extra 40% really helps. You do see this proc while mobbing but at that point the enemies are dead anyways.
Collaborate
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Whenever one of your Digi-Jacks dies, you gain a stack of Collaborate, up to a cap of 10 stacks. You and your Digi-Jacks receive a 1% damage bonus per rank for each stack of Collaborate. All stacks are lost when your Action Skill ends.
- 5/5 +5% Damage bonus to you are your Digi Jacks per stack, upto 50%
- 11/5 +11% Damage bonus to you are your Digi Jacks per stack, upto 110%
For Digi Death builds this is a no brainer, sure it is additive but it quickly gets to 10 stacks, since you have 2 Jacks that is only 5 deaths each and 50% is a large bonus, even more so with a com that boosts it. For life builds it can still be good since it increases both you and your Digi Jack’s damage. Sure it is additive but its a big additive and with all of Jack’s critical hit skills you want to increase your base damage.
Synergy
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Killing an enemy grants you 6% bonus Weapon Damage and Critical Damage per rank for a short time.
- 5/5 +30% Weapon and Critical Hit Damage
- 11/5 +66% Weapon and Critical Hit Damage
Critical hits love additive base damage skills to make the crits do more, and this skill does just that. With the 30% both stacks its more like a 69% bonus at 5/5, and a 175% at 11/5. You get more out of this than it shows on paper since they multiply each other The numbers on this skill are really high and balanced out by being a Kill Skill but with a Digi Death build that balance it broken with leadership making this a must have if you have guns that can crit.
Diversify
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Each Digi-Jack will now fire shotgun laser blasts from their wrists instead of their normal laser.
I don’t know about everyone else but I don’t notice a lot of damage increase from this, but I do notice some. For one point if I have it left over it’s not bad but its not one of those “must have” game changers. At close range it does do more for sure, and at long range they use their normal attack. If you have the point and you have no where else to spend it, go for it. But there are a handful of game changers on Jack I would take as a priority over this.
Teamwork
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Whenever an ally enters Fight For Your Life or a Digi-Jack dies, you regenerate 0.5% of your Maximum Health per rank for a few seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
- 5/5 +2.5% Health per second, per stack
- 11/5 +5.5% Health per second, per stack
For Digi Life Builds this really doesn’t do much, but for Digi Death builds its one of the best healing skills in the franchise. Now I rarely get to 10 stacks of this but I’m often running around with 4-6 stacks. So unboosted you often have a passive health regen of 12.5% per second, enough to bring you past healthgate from near 0 in 4 seconds. Boosted its near instant. This thing keeps you very healthy and with some shield skills on top of it its almost seems impossible to die with your Jacks out. The Co-Op side of it for me is just a bonus, not something to rely on but it does help revive people since you have agro relief from your Digi Jacks and constant healing.
Commitment
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Whenever an ally enters Fight For Your Life or a Digi-Jack dies, you gain a stack of Commitment. Stacks gained from Digi-Jacks dying last 6 seconds. You will continually gain stacks while an ally is in Fight For Your Life, but stacks gained in this way are quickly lost when the ally exits Fight For Your Life. Each stack of Commitment increases Fire Rate by 2% and Reload Speed by 4%.
- 5 Stacks +10% fire rate and +20% reload speed
- 10 Stacks +20% fire rate and +40% reload speed
While on paper this looks great a 1 point skill and you get some solid buffs to good DPS skills but in reality the stacks decay too fast and you never really build many up so you rarely see more than 5. Also right below this on the skill tree you have Accountability which does the same thing but much better.
Winning
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Killing an enemy instantly restores your Shield by 5% of its maximum capacity per rank, while also increasing your Movement Speed by 4% per rank for a short time.
- 5/5 +20% Movement Speed and +25% shield capacity per kill
- 11/5 +44% Movement Speed and +55% shield capacity per kill
First off, no this is no longer bugged it has been fixed for a long time.
This is a skill that is good for both types of builds but really great for Death builds for multiple reasons. Just look at this with 5/5, you move and kill both of your Jacks and since they count as kills, you get 50% of your shield capacity back just like that and since you also now move faster you also can kill them faster. It’s literally a Win Win for Digi Death Builds, and with that kind of Shield regen and Teamwork for your health you are insanely tanky. Now for life builds this is still really good, you don’t get your kills for Digi Jack deaths but you still get kills quite a lot and that shield capacity is great. You are less likely to take full advantage of the movement speed while your action skill is up in a Life Build but it really helps when your Action skill is down.
Accountability
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
When an ally or Digi-Jack takes damage, you gain a stack of Accountability, up to a maximum of 50 stacks. However, if you take damage, you lose half of your Accountability stacks, and if you enter Fight For Your Life you lose ALL Accountability stacks. Each Accountability stack increases your Fire Rate by 1% and Reload Speed by 2%.
- 10 Stacks +10% fire rate and +20% reload speed
- 50 Stacks +50% fire rate and +100% reload speed
This is the better of the two fire rate/reload game changers. For this one its just anyone but you taking damage and the stacks do not have a decay time and yes I have often reached the 50 stack count in both solo and Co-op. 50% fire rate and 100% reload for 1 point is crazy good, now most of the time I’m can maintain around 20 stacks which is really solid but when you get it up past 30-35 its really amazing. Sure it can go away really fast but you can also build it up really quick. To me this is just an automatic because the high side of it is so good and its only 1 point.
Optimism
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Digi-Jacks now explode on death, dealing damage that increases with each rank of Optimism. After a Digi-Jack has died in this way, the next Digi-Jack to spawn will have lower health than normal.
- 5/5 Rank 5 damage explosive nova
- 10/5 Rank 10 damage explosive nova
This is one of those one point wonder skills, where even if you don’t need this at 5 points in a Digi Death build it is more than worth the one point. The fact that after each death they spawn with less life means they die faster and that means more DPS and more Healing and more Shield regen, if you are speced right, but it also means more BFF as well. This really helps the Digi Death build tick, and you have a pretty good nova on top of it. Add in the fact that you can put Cryo Nova’s on top of this and boost it without any effort. It leads nicely into the triple nova build. The Nova’s also knock enemies back a bit if it doesn’t kill them giving you more agro relief than normal. Keep in mind a lot of nova’s can cause massive visual pollution. For Digi Life builds this is a terrible skill since it causes them to die faster. So Death at least 1 point, life 0 points.
Believe
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
For a short time after killing an enemy, your Weapon Damage is increased by 5% per rank while your Fire Rate, Reload Speed, and Accuracy are increased by 4% per rank.
- 5/5 +25% Weapon Damage +20% Reload Speed, Fire Rate, and Accuracy
- 11/5 +55% Weapon Damage +44% Reload Speed, Fire Rate, and Accuracy
To me this is what Axton’s Ranger should of been, tier 5 all around DPS buff but this is DPS is more noticeable. Sure it is a kill skill and maybe that is why the buffs are higher in percentage, but Digi Death builds have Kill Skills on almost 100% of the time. This hits your 3 biggest DPS increasing skills in a big way and adds to Jacks crazy accuracy buffs that make him a master of shotguns. Even in Digi Life builds if you are this deep in the tree you should get this for sure. I don’t know what else to say but I believe you should spec into this.
Potential
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Digi-Jacks create a Shock Nova upon spawning. Additionally, you can now use Expendable Assets while in Fight For Your Life.
This doesn’t sound like much on paper, but in actual play you get a really solid shock nova and being able to activate your action skill while in FFYL can save you. Not much more to day, in a Death build its kinda a must have in a life build its not a bad idea if you are this deep in the tree.
Delegation
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
5% per rank of damage dealt to you is instead redistributed to your Digi-Jacks.
- 5/5 +25% of Damage dealt to you is redistributed to your Digi-Jacks
- 11/5 +55% of Damage dealt to you is redistributed to your Digi-Jacks
Once again a skill with amazing synergy for Digi-Death builds, instead of you taking the damage it goes to your Digi-Jacks and they die faster, which means you get longer action skill duration, more DPS, and more Survival. You don’t always need this in a Digi-Death build but mainly because this tree is full of amazing skills and you already have such good survival that you might skip this, but that doesn’t mean its not a great skill.
Leadership
- Digi Death
- Digi Life
Whenever a Digi-Jack dies, it counts as if you had killed an enemy. This can only grant a Second Wind once per activation of Expendable Assets.
To some people, including myself, this is considered to be one of the best capstones in the franchise. When Jack was first announced many people were way more excited about his other 2 capstones and its understandable since they both sound more exciting. However the synergy this has with not only this skill tree with all the kill skills but Absolute Advantage, Best Foot Forward and Jack’s Cashe as well outside this tree makes it one of the best capstones gearbox has ever made. Starting boss fights with your kill skills on is a huge advantage but this helps more than just your DPS it helps so many survival skills like Teamwork and Winning. It has more synergy with skills above it than any other capstone in the franchise for sure. Then add in the one free second win and its even better.
