For the main weapon manufacturers in Borderlands 2, namely Bandit, Dahl, Tediore, Jakobs, Maliwan, and Hyperion, it's easy to tell how they affect weapons. Bandit gives weapons bigger mags, Dahl has it's unique burst fire, Tediore has exploding reloads, Jakobs has a "fire as fast as you want" mode, Maliwan features increased elemental chance and damage, and Hyperion features a "more accurate as you fire" ability.
What I'm curious is to how these weapon manufacturers affect items like shields, grenade mods, and artifacts. Is there a certain attribute that is tied with them to these items?
Best Answer
Yes and no. They don't have a distinct, certain feature each item will have like guns will. The most important thing to note is brands do not have unlisted shield/mods/artifact effects, unlike guns. But you will notice certain manufacturer equipment still has certain "traits", however these effects are always explicitly listed on the item card (excluding "red text" effects for unique/legendary weapons).
Non-gun parts are less iconic of the brand, but certain things still hold true:
Additionally certain types of shield/grenade/artifact are only made by certain manufacturers. Technically these attributes are a result of the type of item (MIRV, Nova, Spike) but only certain manufacturers will ever make them. Here's some examples as I can't find a wiki page that explains all of them:
Artifacts and class mods have different brands, but the brand effect is irrelevant, the effect is purely based on the class mod or relic type. There's some minor connections like Maliwan mods focusing on elemental damage, and you'll note Siren mods are mostly Maliwan while Commando mods are mostly Dahl, as the personality of the character and brand sync up well.
*As of DLC3 Jakob's makes a unique shield, the Rough Rider, which gives 0 shield capacity.