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How to get the Rough Rider shield in Borderlands 3

Learn where to farm and how to unlock the Rough Rider Legendary shield in Borderlands 3, a shield that's returned from the previous title.

Sam Chandler

September 22, 2019 7:30 AM

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The Rough Rider shield makes its triumphant return to Borderlands 3. This Legendary shield is an oddity in the game, as it offers some great stats but equally brutal negatives. In saying this, the Rough Rider is great for someone that needs a no-shield build or for the tanks out there needing a major increase to health.

How to get the Rough Rider shield

The Rough Rider Legendary shield is a random world-drop from any source such as bosses, Hammerlock creatures, the golden chest, and slot machines. This means it is rather time-consuming to farm as all these sources can drop any other Legendary item too.

However, there are a few easy bosses and creatures you can farm that should help make this a bit quicker. Before you begin, make sure you’ve unlocked Mayhem mode so you can get increased drop rates.

One Borderlands 3 player, by the name of Moon Landing, managed to have the Rough Rider drop from Chupacabratch on Athenas. This is one of Hammerlock’s Legendary hunt creatures that is found just opposite the bridge leading to Captain Traunt. Simply kill the beast, quit and then load back into the game.

Another place to potentially farm it is from The Rampager, the monster protecting the Vault on Promethea. Use the Forgotten Basilica fast travel point as your load-in zone so you can continue farming the boss. Switching it to Mayhem 3 (and having teammates help), is a great way to get a lot of Legendaries quickly.

Finally, as mentioned above, you can get the Rough Rider from the golden chest in Sanctuary. Make sure you enter all available SHiFT codes so you can get as many Golden Keys as you need. Maybe you’ll get lucky and also get the Speedloadn’ Hellwalker?

Rough Rider stats

Credit to the Borderlands wiki for the above image.

The main appeal of the Rough Rider is its large increase to your maximum health and the fact it has zero shield capacity. The first point makes sense, 35% increase to health makes end-game builds absolutely crazy. However, the zero shield capacity is a bit odd. The reason you might like this is if one of your abilities activates when your shields are broken and when you technically always have zero shields, they’re always considered “broken”.

The Rough Rider Legendary shield is certainly a niche item in Borderlands 3. Depending on your playstyle, this is either one worth farming or one that’s going straight in the bin. Because it is a world drop, it’s going to take a while to farm for a Rough Rider – so keep that in mind before you start. Check out the Shacknews Borderlands 3 guide page for our entire coverage of Gearbox’s latest looter shooter.

Sam Chandler

Head of Guides

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as Head of Guides. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler