The latest Borderlands 4 patch has brought back the crit knife, which once again offers guaranteed critical hits, albeit with a higher skill requirement for triggering the effect. This marks the second consecutive Borderlands 4 update that targets the polarizing mechanic.
A "crit knife" is any Borderlands 4 throwing knife with the Penetrator Augment perk. Originally, this effect guaranteed that all damage to the affected target would be a critical hit for five seconds. When combined with modifiers like Damage Amp Payload—which increases incoming damage to the target—the original crit knife would allow players to straight-up delete almost any enemy. The October 23 patch attempted to rebalance the mechanic by replacing guaranteed crits with a 30% increase in critical hit chance during the same timeframe. However, players soon reported that the change was bugged: instead of upping their crit chance by 30%, a knife hit would set it to 30% for five seconds. Since many endgame builds can already exceed that threshold even without throwing ordnance perks, the change didn't merely nerf the crit knife but resulted in an outright DPS loss for some players.
Borderlands 4's Best Crit Knife Alternative isn't a Grenade at All
With Borderlands 4's most OP Vex build nerfed, players have a few surprising alternatives to the infamous crit knife that could cause infinite damage.
Borderlands 4 Brings Back the 100% Crit Knife, Though It's Not Exactly the Same
A week later, the Borderlands 4 October 30 update has once again changed the crit knife. As reported by YouTuber Lazy_Data, a knife throw that connects with the target will now correctly applies the Penetrator Augment's 30% critical hit bonus. However, the effect appears to be stackable: three successful hits raise the crit chance to 90%, while four result in five seconds of guaranteed criticals. While the mechanic differs from the original version, the new crit knife remains just as potent, requiring only slightly more effort to activate its full potential and melt through targets with a barrage of criticals.
The New Crit Knife May Not Be Long for This World
The Penetrator Augment flavor text following the latest patch still reads "damage to the impacted target has a 30% Chance to be a Critical Hit for 5s." This wording does not suggest the effect is stackable with multiple knife throws. The patch notes for the October 30 Borderlands 4 update acknowledge the previous week's bug, stating that the crit knife nerf "was unintentionally setting all attacks to a 30% critical chance." However, they make no mention of the effect being stackable either.
Similarly, the October 23 changelog only states that the update "reduced critical chance on Jakobs crit knife to 30%," without implying any stacking behavior. Given this context, it remains possible that the current behavior of the crit knife is unintended and may be revised in a future patch.
The likelihood of further changes appears higher given that Gearbox has been openly talking about its efforts to implement the now-partially-reverted balancing tweaks for some time. The developer even produced a humorous in-memoriam video dedicated to the Borderlands 4 crit knife nerf. Therefore, seeing the 100% crit chance return just a week later—even if slightly more difficult to trigger—suggests the story of this overpowered item is not over.
Borderlands 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 82 /100 Critics Rec: 88%
- Released
- September 12, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
