Skags are large Pandoran creatures, easily identified by their canine appearance, strong bony armor plates, aggressive behavior, and distinctive three-jawed mouths.
What is the distinctive feature of a skag's mouth?
A skag's mouth is characterized by a relatively static lower jaw and two vertically aligned upper jaws, creating a face-splitting effect when opened. Rather than teeth, skags feature a series of barbs on their lower and upper jaws. With age, their tongues can grow to twice the body length in elder skags.
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How do skags create their underground burrows?
Skags, native to the Borderlands universe, construct their underground burrows by employing their hard, hook-like claws for digging. The unique shape of their den entrances indicates the use of corrosive compounds to dissolve the Pandoran stone, a method observed in certain skag types.
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What type of behavior do skags exhibit that is similar to meerkats?
Skags exhibit pack behavior similar to meerkats, with most residing in their den and a few roaming outside. Their mouths are distinctive, with a relatively stationary lower jaw and two vertically aligned upper jaws. Instead of teeth, they have barbs extending from their lower jaw and along their upper jaws, suggesting a similar prey ingestion method to meerkats.
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What is the purpose of a skag's bony armor plates?
A skag's bony armor plates, mainly located on its head and back, serve as a defense mechanism, reducing bullet and melee damage by approximately 75%. Despite this, they don't offer protection against corrosive damage and are less durable than the armor of larger skag variants.
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What is the role of corrosive compounds in the life of a skag?
Corrosive compounds significantly impact skags, especially larger, armored ones like the Alpha Skag, which are more susceptible to corrosive damage. However, Spitter and Elder Skags are corrosion-immune. Corrosive damage inflicts about 33% extra damage on armored skags. Some skags, such as the Alpha Swamp Skag, display a corrosive visual effect during a charge.
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Background[]
Skags dwell in underground burrows. Though skags primarily carve out their burrows by using their hard, hook-like claws to dig, the molded appearance of their den entrances evidences the use of corrosive compounds - common to some types of skag - to break down the Pandoran stone. Skags seem to behave like meerkats, with most of the pack inside the den and a few roaming just outside.
Skags' distinctive mouths consist of a relatively immobile lower jaw supporting two vertically aligned upper jaws which, when opened, seemingly cause the face to split. Despite the ferocious appearance of their mouths, skags do not appear to have teeth. Instead, a series of barbs extends from the end of their lower jaw and along both edges of their upper jaws. This suggests that skags might ingest prey in the same manner as alligators on Earth - by ripping apart the flesh rather than biting it in chunks.
Skags' tongues grow with age. When at the 'elder' stage of maturity and fully extended, this strong, potentially prehensile organ may be up to twice as long as the body.
General Strategy[]
Skags are armored brutes that typically attack in groups of 3-6 individuals mobbing their prey. They are moderately tough, and all breeds sport appreciably armored areas around their head, shoulders, and along their back. The armor on these sections is thick enough to cause some trouble - even the weakest skag pup will take only half damage when shot in the head or shoulder as opposed to the gut, causing the character to waste ammo while more skags crawl out of their dens. Fortunately, skags have a weak spot - their open mouths can be exploited when they stop and roar.
Shotguns, and to a lesser extent revolvers, work extremely well against skags, despite half the damage being absorbed by their frontal armor. Like other weapons, shotguns can cause a tremendous amount of damage to a skag when fired into an opened mouth. The rate of fire between shots and poor recoil handling make aiming for the soft flanks or open mouth a must. Combat Rifles are another good choice, since skags, like Spiderants and Lance Defenders, flinch and become agitated after suffering multiple heavy hits to the armored spots. When agitated, skags start to shake with anger and roar, exposing their vulnerable mouth to the line of fire. Assault rifle-style combat rifles not only deal tremendous critical damage, but generally hit hard and accurately enough to make flanking shots from the hip feasible. Repeater Pistols and Submachine Guns are best used only for taking down the smaller breeds. Sniper Rifles can take down a skag with one hit to the open mouth, and at a distance can reliably hit the flanks. Rocket Launchers are effective in general if the matching element was used.
Skags are vulnerable to incendiary damage, which causes about 33% additional damage (though still reduced by armor), and 1.5 times the damage an enemy of the same level would take per second from the triggered effect. Larger, more developed skags have more armor and are thus more vulnerable to corrosive damage than younger skags. The "Alpha Skag" and their Badass forms are the most heavily armored of all skag species. Spitter and Elder Skag are completely immune to corrosion.
Save for Benjamin Blue, skags are mostly absent Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. However, a digital robotic version of them can be found in the Claptastic Voyage DLC. Clapdogs are robotic, digital versions of skags which live inside Claptrap's mind. They are allies of Insecurity forces and are nearly always found fighting alongside them, and rarely spawn without them.
Clapdogs have a 0.1% chance to drop the Fusillade Assault Rifle.
Trivia[]
According to the Borderlands manual, the discovery of elemental versions of the Skag species caused immediate excitement as many began to postulate that skags could be harnessed to generate cheap power. All efforts to research the idea have so far ended up being very bloody, however. Despite the lack of useful results, there continues to be research funding and volunteers available. Although energy generation has thus far had poor results, much progress has been made in the area of skag pup training, which some hope will one day turn into a profitable pet business or circus act.
Skags have achieved some sort of iconic status among the inhabitants of Pandora. Their name serves as a brand, and their image is used as a logo (on Scooter's workshop in T-Bone Junction). They have even made their way into Pandoran pop culture, as evidenced by a mention of "skaggy-style" intercourse in some graffiti.
They are a staple in many Pandoran food dishes.
They are also referenced to in several curse words as evidenced in Zer0's personal ECHO recordings where the bartender says "HOLY SKAGSUCK, YOU DECAPITATED ZEKE!".
According to Brick and Marcus Kincaid, skags tend to eat everything, from dynamite to gun parts. In some cases, whatever they cannot digest is regurgitated into a Skag Pile after some time.
Scooter mentions that Skag mothers tend to eat their children in Demon Hunter.
Skag pearls release a hunger inducing pheromone, as stated by Helena Pierce in her ECHO recordings.
Skags eat and defecate out of the same orifice (their mouth).
There are plenty of proverbs and slangs based on Skags across Pandora. Some skills are also based on them, like Fire in the Skag Den.
