Oblivion Amara SYNOPSIS Phasecast and gun-based cryo build that creates all sorts of chaos. ​ INTRO Oblivion Amara is one of the two builds I originally made in 2020 after the purple tree came out, along with its sister build Fission Amara. Here it is updated for level 72, and it's very strong. This is a cryo gun and Phasecast build, and has the potential to create some very fun, very destructive shenanigans. Sometimes you might find yourself suddenly wondering where your nearby enemies went and how they died. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE ACTION SKILL Tandava for general usage, Reverberation for bossing, with the special Reverberation technique. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always cryo, with a few exceptions. You can stick with cryo vs many armor bars, but you much switch to corrosive vs Wotan. You can also switch to better match harder content, such as fire vs Guardian Takedown creatures and shock vs Guardian Takedown Guardians. Your action skill element greatly affects your guns' power, as that is the element Unweave The Rainbow procs as. ​ PHASECASTING GUN Guardian Angel, with either the Killstack or 200% Astral Projection anointment. Killstack is the only anointment that is attached to the player, not the gun, so if you get some Tandava/Reverberation kills while holding a Killstack Guardian Angel, that damage and reload speed will transfer when you swap back to your shooting gun. 200% Astral Projection is great for Reverberation vs bosses. ​ SHOOTING GUNS Anything cryo and splash. Even though you can change your action skill element as mentioned above, do not deviate from cryo weapons (exception: "Notes - Frozen Heart" below) My favorites: Beacon, Recursion, Kaoson, Sand Hawk, Flipper, Plaguebearer, Anarchy, Trevonator. The reason we want to stick with cryo is because shooting and freezing enemies and then hitting them with Unweave The Rainbow is a very strong mobbing strategy, especially when coupled with radsplosions and Free The Soul. ​ The anointment varies based on your preferred playstyle. If you want to swap to the Guardian Angel for your casts, put Consecutive hits or 150/90 on your guns. If you don't want to swap, you can put 250% Phasecast on your guns to get more gun damage. Swapping is not necessary; Tandava won't kill as often without the Guardian Angel, but it will definitely freeze enemies, allowing you to kill them easily with the aid of Unweave. Reverb will still kill if you aim it correctly. ​ FFYL GUN My favorite FFYL strategy is to use my cryo gun to freeze a nearby enemy and get up when Unweave finishes them off. But if you're using a less powerful gun for your shooting, it may not be strong enough to freeze, so carrying something like a Consecutive Hits Free Radical or Plasma Coil may be wise. ​ CLASS MOD Phasezerker, with points into Clarity. This class mod will allow you to automatically stack Rush and Do Harm, leading to more powerful Phasecasts and other action skill effects such as Unweave The Rainbow, Free The Soul, and Remnant. Further, it increases your cooldown and gun damage. Because of the way the Phasezerker works, you should generally cast Tandava or Reverb twice in a row for maximum Do Harm and maximum damage. ​ Recommended passives: weapon damage, action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage, splash damage, splash damage radius, weapon crit damage, weapon type damage. ​ SHIELD There are a few options, but the most important one is the Void Rift, with Action Skill Start anointment. It's the shield that was used for the original version of this build, and it both synergizes so well and helps create so much chaos. Upon break, it will suck nearby enemies towards you (and barrels - watch out) and then release a strong cryo nova. Further, when enemies shoot you and damage it, it responds by sending homing cryo projectiles back at them. Both of these types of damage are cryo splash, further helping us freeze things and finish them off with Unweave The Rainbow. ​ Other options: Frozen Heart, cryo Stinger, Band of Sitorak, Plus Ultra. The Frozen Heart, with Action Skill Start anointment, is easy-mode for freezing enemies. Just cast and then shoot at whatever blocks of snow are laying around you. Unweave will take care of the rest. The cryo Stinger, with Action Skill Start anointment, is just a powerful punch in nova form. ​ The Band of Sitorak or Plus Ultra, with ASE 50% bonus element anointment, is for when you don't want to swap to the Guardian Angel to cast. These shields provide great Topped Off uptime, especially the Band of Sitorak, which then leads to great 250% Phasecast uptime on your guns. The Band of Sitorak is especially fun with a Safe Space augment, able to send basically any enemy ragdolling. The Plus Ultra is a little slower to recharge than the Sitorak, but it doubles your health for better defense. ​ ARTIFACT Ice Breaker Otto Idol. The most important passive is Area of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area damage radius. Other recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, movespeed, cryo damage, cryo efficiency, weapon type damage. ​ There are a few other options for artifact prefixes: Snowdrift for moving around a boss arena. Last Stand for more survivability. Ice Spiker for another form of attack and another way to proc Samsara. ​ GRENADE Unfortunately I have to recommend a Fish Slap, not in cryo, in order to deal with cryo immune Maliwan Heavies. Shock or radiation or fire, with an ASE 50% radiation bonus element for radsplosions. There's always the option to Groundbreaker an immune heavy with damage done to other enemies, but sometimes the timing for that can be too tight. ​ If you don't have to worry about immunities, It's Piss or Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or Mesmer, with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. Anything utility oriented like these works just fine. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP Figure out if you want to be swapping for your casts or not, and choose your weapon anoint and shield accordingly. Then you cast, you shoot, you destroy. If you're using the Void Rift and a Beacon, the OG loadout, there will be tons of things flying around, freezing, and exploding. Sometimes you have to play a game of "Are any of these blocks of ice still alive?". ​ NOTES - FROZEN HEART An exception to using cryo-only guns is if you want to only freeze with the Frozen Heart, and use splash guns of other elements. With this setup, I would also recommend not swapping for Phasecasting, and use the 250% Phasecast anoint on your guns to keep their power up between freezes. You also would not need to use the Ice Breaker artifact. ​ NOTES - RAID BOSSES Builds such as this have an inherent way to take out most raid bosses by Reverbing or Tandava-ing a mob and letting either Remnant hit the boss or letting it hit another mob and then you Groundbreaker the boss. Some of the weaker raid bosses can be Reverb'd directly. ​

Red Tree This guide will help you understand the quirks and uses of each of Amara's skills, so that perhaps you can do some build crafting of your own. In this section, we cover the red (Fist of the Elements) tree. ​ ANIMA A skill with many uses. On builds that utilize damage over time (dots), this skill is invaluable. It's what makes Amara the strongest character with the Fish Slap grenade and Unleash The Dragon artifact. It has two often overlooked properties in that it further boosts status damage of your action skill element, and when attuned to shock it gives shock status damage an even longer duration increase. ​ Even on gun builds that don't focus on damage over time, but still use guns with high damage over time (Free Radical, Kickcharger, Plasma Coil), investing into Anima means dots will help finish off enemies. And if you have radiation damage in your build, stronger radsplosions. A common class mod for gun builds, the Phasezerker, can roll extra points into Anima. ​ When self dotting for various buffs, whether it's with the Spiritual Driver class mod or directly shooting your foot, Anima will keep that dot on you longer. ​ Unfortunately, Anima breaks in all respects when your action skill element is set to cryo. It does not buff anything at all in this situation, as if you never specced it. ​ STEADY HANDS Often taken for granted, I would recommend 3 points into this skill on nearly every build that shoots a gun. ​ INFUSION Another skill with many uses. The most basic use is to fully invest in it so that you can diversify the elements of an element-locked gun (such as the Free Radical), non-elemental gun, or to tackle content where enemies have multiple HP bar types. For example, against creatures in the Guardian Takedown, which are armor and flesh, it can be used to infuse a corrosive gun with fire, or the other way around. ​ Whatever percentage that you have Infusion convert, that percentage of your gun's damage becomes a bonus element, and bonus elements do not get increased by splash damage. So if you're using a splash gun and have any increased splash damage, that splash damage bonus is effectively reduced by the same percentage you have invested into Infusion. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because using Infusion for a better elemental matchup can result in more damage than what you've lost from your splash bonuses. ​ The second use for Infusion is to put one point into it to create another damage instance for the Face Puncher, which, when specced into Body & Mind, doubles the amount of Body & Mind novas that get procced. And Body & Mind is a very strong skill when invested into. ​ A third use for Infusion is another one point wonder when shooting your feet to dot yourself, which you may do for various reasons. For example, you want to proc Elemental Projector with a low level Sellout, but you want shock damage, and the Sellout only has fire and corrosive. Attuning yourself to shock and having 1 point into Infusion means a portion of those Sellout projectiles are shock and will shock dot you. ​ You can also use Infusion to diversify the Sellout's dot on yourself, so that you get multiple dots and therefore multiple stacks when using the Golden Rule class mod. E.g., you're attacking with fire phasecasts, so you set the Sellout to corrosive and Infuse it with fire so that you get fire and corrosive dots when you shoot your foot, increasing the effectiveness of the Golden Rule. ​ Infusion can also be used to change your gun's elemental output when you don't want to swap weapons, such as having a buffed Lucky 7 or Sleeping Giant or Anarchy. You can, for example, have a corrosive Lucky 7 that you Infuse with fire while fighting the creatures in the Guardian Takedown, and then you switch your action skill element over to shock when you move onto the Guardians. And then corrosive when you drop down to fight Anathema, and so on. ​ Lastly, investment into Infusion can be useful for true melee builds. It's common to get knocked backwards, especially in the Guardian Takedown, and not be able to melee for lifesteal for a few seconds. Shooting an element-infused Psycho Stabber can allow for enough life steal to regain healthgate before closing the distance again. ​ TEMPEST Very important elemental damage increase. Very hard to pass up. A requirement for nearly every build. ​ ILLUMINATED FIST Extremely important for true melee builds, as it allows your punch to also be increased by elemental damage boosts and to Sustain you. Outside of that, it's just a flat 75% melee damage to all forms of melee damage. It can also be specced so that, even on non-melee builds, when you punch an enemy to deliver Groundbreaker you also get healed by Sustainment. ​ Beware that attuning your punch to an element will make you unable to Sustain off of or deliver Groundbreaker to enemies that are immune to that element. This comes up most often in the Maliwan Takedown. (Use ground slam as an alternate method of Groundbreaker.) ​ WILDFIRE Mostly a low value utility skill that can be specced to help spread around status effects, which, when also specced into Violent Tapestry, can help gain you Rush stacks. On a more dot-focused build, whether it's Unleash The Dragon or gun dots, this skill becomes much more valuable. It also has value on cryo-focused builds, because it can spread the frozen status effect from one enemy to another. It doesn't have the greatest range, though. ​ DREAD Very useful skill on grasp gun builds, mostly for the mag refill upon killing a grasped enemy. It does not matter how the grasped enemy dies, you will get the mag refill. This aspect is very useful for managing the ammo in your mag on, for example, a Lucky 7 build. It is also a generally good DPS increase, because you can skip a reload. ​ One odd situation where it is detrimental is if you're running Terror Ammo Regen and trying to sustain a Sand Hawk in semi-auto mode for a long activity, as Barbie Dahl can do. Dread pulls from reserves, so even with ammo regen, it will eventually run your sniper ammo stock dry. ​ Other than that, it's a good skill. The gun damage aspect of it will also stack with each newly grasped enemy when using Eternal Fist. ​ INDISCRIMINATE Very, very powerful skill, and most gun builds take it. Turns any gun into a multi-target gun, at least the guns that it works with (which is most of them). Also extremely useful for getting up from FFYL. The card says damage of ricochets is reduced, but on Mayhem 10 or 11, it also gets about a 5.5x mayhem multiplier, making your ricochets stronger than your original shot. ​ DEEP WELL 1 point wonder for a slightly significant mag size boost. No reason not to take it on a gun build that goes this far down the tree. ​ CATHARSIS Mostly bad for a few reasons: it has an unnecessary cooldown, it deals self damage, and it can be tough to get all of the investment needed for it to be any good, which is all 5 status effects and lots of action skill damage investment. The only case I've found for it is on a grenade build , as it helps increase area clear. You avoid the self-damage of it because you also want to be out of range of your own grenades, and going down blue tree to get Laid Bare and Avatar gives you plenty of points to dump into action skill damage. Because it's not like there's much else in the blue tree that benefits grenades. ​ SUSTAINMENT Very valuable life steal skill. Not as necessary as most people believe, because of the power of Samsara and Clarity for healing. But still highly recommended, and required on almost all true melee builds on this site. ​ CONFLUX Useful only as a way to get 1 or 2 more status effects for greater debuff from the Harmageddon Guardian Rank perk. ​ FORCEFUL EXPRESSION Decent value increase for both guns and grenades. It can be hard to justify the extra points required to get here on some builds, though. ​

Green Tree This guide will help you understand the quirks and uses of each of Amara's skills, so that perhaps you can do some build crafting of your own. In this section, we cover the green (Brawl) tree. ​ ROOT TO RISE Mostly useless. Is sometimes taken just to get to the next tier after maxing Personal Space on a Deathless build, because while Clarity is also useless on a Deathless build, at least Root To Rise doesn't take up a buff bar slot. ​ In the rare instance that you have lots of points to spend in green tree, the trifecta of Root To Rise, Samsara, and Helping Hands makes for noticeble tankiness increase. ​ PERSONAL SPACE 54% V2 damage that only applies to guns/bullets, with quite a forgiving range. Very valuable skill for gun builds. Note that this does not apply to the Face Puncher. It does apply to ASE 50% bonus elements on shield or grenade, because those are technically a bullet damage source, no matter how they are applied. ​ CLARITY Good general health regen. Worth taking if you have the points, and very strong at 10/5. Not only is there a bonus for using your action skill, but it can stack twice if you've also specced Avatar. The recommended choice for moving down the tree on non gun builds. ​ ARMS DEAL Decent amount of splash damage. The damage reduction is negligible. ​ SAMSARA Very strong healing and a little bit of gun damage. This is specced for its healing. Note that it recovers missing health as opposed max health like it says in game. It is still very good, though. It does not proc with Phasegrasp, Eternal Fist, or Ties That Bind. It does proc with the Ice Spiker artifact, however, because the Ice Spiker is basically another Amara action skill. The Ice Spiker can be a way to get Samsara stacks on a Ties That Bind build, if you were so inclined. ​ HELPING HANDS Minimally impactful damage reduction, it's not a bad take if you have leftover points or need to get further down the tree and don't need the splash damage from Arms Deal. ​ MINDFULNESS Very useful skill, mostly for the movement speed, which is survivability and, if you're using a Spiritual Driver class mod, damage. The shield recharge delay aspect of it can help with Topped Off uptime. ​ FIND YOUR CENTER A very good boost to melee damage, and a required take for true melee builds. Trying to punch things as a main form of attack can be very frustrating without Find Your Center. ​ VIGOR This kill skill stacks, and it procs from any kill, not just action skill kills. Useful for builds that need a lot of speed, and a good take if you need to get further down the tree. ​ ONE WITH NATURE Mostly useless. Not even in a good place to get down the tree, because there are better skills above it you can fill out if you need to go down further. ​ DO UNTO OTHERS Very weak skill. At most it can be a source for Sustainment healing once every 8 seconds. ​ JAB CROSS Very good skill for increasing action skill damage, very bad skill for increasing gun damage. Good synergy on a melee build that also has Body & Mind in the purple tree. ​ GUARDIAN ANGEL Self explanatory, excellent defensive skill. ​ BLITZ Wonderful and powerful skill for true melee, when it works. Not only is it a good melee damage increase at all times (100%), but when it procs it is a fresh 83% increase (at level 72) to your base melee damage. It can be buggy and fail to connect to enemies. It can also make you fly through your Phaseflare when trying to punch it at an enemy. But it can also allow you to fly up and punch airborne enemies, which is very fun. ​

True Melee True melee, the actual punching of enemies, is both the most rewarding playstyle and the most frustrating playstyle, in my opinion. There are several builds on this site focused on true melee. You must be aware of its limitations, so that you can expect them and do your best to work around them. ​ ZERO RANGE True melee has basically zero range, which presents many problems. The obvious one is flying enemies, such as Death Spheres or Seras. many of which actively avoid your approach, even if you could reach them with Find Your Center or Blitz. Even something simple as an enemy jumping on a box can mean they are unreachable, and while you are trying to get to them you get downed. It's for these reasons that grenades and guns like the Face Puncher and Blade Fury exist. ​ KNOCKBACK There are certain enemies that will relentlessly knock you back while you are attempting to punch them. This is most common in the Guardian Takedown. Additionally, most of those enemies in the takedown are not stunned by your melee attacks. So they remain grounded and attacking you, while also knocking you away, making you have to wait to land on your feet and close the gap again. ​ DEATH SKULLS True melee builds massively benefit from the Speed Demon modifier on Mayhem 10. However, being a true melee build removes the ability to use one of the very hard modifiers, Post Mortem. The death skulls that spawn from a killed enemy have hitboxes instantly, and a punch that kills an enemy will also send you directly into that spawning skull, downing you every time. ​ BODY & MIND Body & Mind is a useful damage increase for punching, but its area-of-effect nature will also detonate barrels nearby, or add elemental damage to the water you are standing in, damaging you. ​ WOTAN The most loved boss of Borderlands 3, Wotan, cannot be true melee'd, at least not without huge risk. His deterrence field healthgates you when you get close. ​ TELEPORTATION There is a risk of teleportation when you attempt punching an enemy. This is especially risky in the Guardian Takedown. See below: There is no rhyme or reason to this teleportation, at least not that I've found. You can be teleported forward, to the side, a short distance, a medium distance, out into midair over a cliff, whatever. It's rare, but it happens. ​ GRASPED ENEMIES Thankfully, Find Your Center allows for meleeing of grasped and elevated enemies. However, it is not made easy. To consistently punch a grasped enemy, you need to move backwards a little bit after each punch, as demonstrated below:

Supernatural Amara SYNOP SIS The original action skill build, moves quickly, decimates everything, but with a jarring playstyle. ​ INTRO This build was originally made to make the Downfall action skill viable, shortly after Gearbox introduced mayhem scaling in the summer of 2020. Downfall is 10/10 cool, but 2/10 in usefulness relative to Phaseslam and Tandava and Reverberation. Regardless, this build uses all of those action skills. And Downfall is actually somewhat strong, all things considered. The main problem is its cooldown, a whopping 47 seconds. In order to get around that, you need to self-dot and use the Golden Rule classmod. Yep, at heart, this is a Downfall Golden Rule build. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES The single point into Infusion is so that you always have a dot on yourself of the same element as your action skill element. More on this later. ​ The three points into Unweave the Rainbow are there if you choose to use the Terror Cryo anoint and/or the Frozen Heart shield. ​ ACTION SKILL Phaseslam or Tandava or Downfall. Reverberation for bosses if you use the Reverb technique. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to the content you're facing, except for cryo. Because of the 1 point into Infusion, when you shoot your foot to dot yourself, you will cryo yourself and get slowed if you choose cryo. ​ MAIN GUN 1 A low level Sellout pistol, anointed with either the Astral Projection 200% or Slam 300% anointment, depending on which action skill you have selected. Often, you will be swapping to the Guardian Angel to activate your action skill, but you don't need to; with these anoints on the Sellout, you can cast or slam without swapping and still do great damage. ​ With this gun, you'll shoot your feet once or twice to dot yourself, triggering both the Golden Rule class mod and the Elemental Projector artifact. ​ You can get a low level anointed Sellout by finding one in Earl's vending machine on Sanctuary, after completing the quest. I was able to get to the Sellout mission on Eden 6 at level 21 by killing as few enemies as possible, meaning the Sellouts I found in Earl's vendor were also level 21. You can find an anointed one in the vendor as low as level 10, if you have a level 10 friend that is willing to come and shop the vendor for you after you've completed the quest. ​ Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. ​ MAIN GUN 2 Guardian Angel, with the same Astral Projection and Slam anoints mentioned above, but optionally also one with a Terror Cryo anoint. This is for holding while you cast/slam if you want big, big damage. ​ MAIN GUN 3 Face Puncher, with a Urad anointment. This is for delivering Groundbreaker from a distance. Our action skills will be building up tons of Groundbreaker, and you can make a quick swap to this gun to erase another enemy. The Urad anointment is sort of a last ditch effort to give you more Groundbreaker if shooting the Face Puncher while in FFYL. ​ FFYL GUN Free Radical, with either Consec Hits or Urad anointment. ​ CLASS MOD Golden Rule, preferably with points into Laid Bare first, Mindfulness second. Probably the most essential passive to have on it is splash damage radius. Other good passives: action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage, splash damage. ​ The Golden Rule stacks a cooldown rate increase whenever you take damage, and this includes self damage and even self applied dot damage. So when you shoot your feet with the Sellout and dot yourself with multiple elements, you can loop your action skills fairly quickly, getting even Phaseslam to a total cooldown of about 3 seconds. ​ SHIELD There's a few options here, but the strongest is a Re-Volter with the Action Skill Start anointment. Other fun options are the Frozen Heart and the Stinger, both with the same anoint, the latter when paired with the Static Charge artifact. If you want to use Downfall, an Action Skill Start Stop Gap is necessary so you don't get downed in mid-air. ​ ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Victory Rush. Optionally, an Elemental Projector Static Charge if using the Stinger shield. The most important passive is an Area of Effect roll on either the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area radius. Other recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, movement speed, melee damage (with stinger). ​ GRENADE Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. These are both great utility grenades if you need an extra second or two for your cooldown to end. The 50% radiation element is important, as that's another element to dot ourselves with when shooting the Sellout. This 50% damage will also get added to Groundbreaker. ​ If using the Terror Cryo Guardian Angel, then have one of these grenades with ASE Apply Terror anointment. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP First, set your Sellout element (between fire and corrosive) to a different element than your action skill element. Why? Because if your action skill element is, say, fire, and your Sellout is also fire, when you shoot at your feet you'll only get a fire dot. But if you changed the Sellout to corrosive, you'll get both corrosive and fire dots, the first from the gun and the second from fire Infusion on the gun. That's two dots, doubling the effectiveness of the Golden Rule's cooldown. When your ASE 50% radiation anoint is procced, that's a third dot. If you're using the Re-Volter, that's a fourth dot. The Sellout WILL dot you within a shot or two, because it fires three projectiles, each with a base 72% status effect chance, which gets further boosted by Violent Tapestry. So don't spam it at your feet. ​ Anyway, start off your encounters by firing a shot or two at your feet. If you want big damage, swap to the Guardian Angel and activate your action skill. If you don't care that much, just keep holding the Sellout. After your action skill, find a target for your Groundbreaker and either punch, slam, or Face Punch it. Repeat these steps as necessary - just make sure you stay dotted with the Sellout. Anima will keep those dots on you for a decent length of time. Remember, the dots are not only for your cooldown, but also for lots of Elemental Projector damage. ​ NOTES - HEMOVOROUS None of the action skills used in this build make direct contact with Hemovorous. You can see this by trying to Phasecast at him; it just passes right through. Instead, splash him with Phaseslam. Go wild with it, actually. If you slam while there's a bunch of pods/eggs out, they'll explode and deal lots of damage to Hemo. Remnant will also do some work. If you notice Hemo or Vermi getting instantly phased by a huge chunk of damage, that means Remnant hit something; immediately swap to your Face Puncher to deliver all of that Groundbreaker damage somewhere. ​ NOTES - GUARDIAN TAKEDOWN CRYSTALS This build has Glamour unlocked, so you can Tandava at Guardians during the crystals phase and they'll keep themselves occupied and let you charge your square. Just don't do this while swapping to the Guardian Angel, because you'll just kill them. Stay on the Sellout. ​ NOTES - GUARDIAN ANGEL Believe it or not, you can actually do quite a bit of damage to your health with a dot from a level 21 Sellout. That's because the Guardian Angel increases all self damage by 5x. Don't linger holding the GA for long after using your action skill. You should be swapping to the Face Puncher and/or Sellout to keep your gameplay going anyway. ​

Purple Tree This guide will help you understand the quirks and uses of each of Amara's skills, so that perhaps you can do some build crafting of your own. In this section, we cover the purple (Enlightened Force) tree. ​ TRUST IN YOURSELF Very effective boost for reload speed, swap speed, and charge speed. This skill can stack twice, and when using a shield with Action Skill Start, after activating that anointment, all you need to do is take damage against your shield for this skill to proc. When stacked twice, some of these speeds become almost comical. ​ The swap speed in particular is useful for builds that do a lot of swapping, such as Emerald Swan. ​ NO MISTAKES IN NATURE A basically always-on melee damage increase. Further down the tree is Joyful Freedom, which has a bit more melee damage and can be stacked by multiple action skill uses, however it cannot be activated while in FFYL, which is one benefit that this skill has. ​ HEAVY RAIN Great splash damage increase, and the projectile speed increase is wonderful for many weapons. However, the speed can make some guns such as the Plaguebearer and the Nukem harder to use. ​ GO WITH THE FLOW Minimal speed and gun damage increase. On a build that does a lot of freezing of enemies, this skill can be justified. Otherwise, it doesn't have much value. Note that it also procs on any cryo self damage. ​ UNWEAVE THE RAINBOW Very good cryo synergy skill, whether you're using something like a Frozen Heart shield, or freezing enemies with your gun or melee attacks. It can be applied, for example, to Tandava in conjunction with an Action Skill Start Frozen Heart. Basically, if you're freezing things, you probably want this skill. It is increased by action skill damage. ​ EBB AND FLOW Good but mostly redundant life steal skill. You can grab this if you're not getting Sustainment, but then you're probably attacking with the Stinger or Fish Slap or Blade Fury or Kensei, because true melee without Sustainment is asking for trouble. If you are specced Sustainement (or are using a Knife Drain), this skill is redundant, because your elemental melee damage that you used to kill the enemy will heal you to full anyway. ​ COMBO BREAKER Not entirely reliable, but very helpful when it procs. This skill is somewhat bugged in that it doesn't reset your action skill correctly if its still active, such as when a grasp or Phaseflare is active. But it's not a waste if you have a decent form of melee damage on your build. Like Ebb and Flow, this skill can proc from Kensei damage. ​ JOYFUL FREEDOM Stackable melee damage increase. It also works on fakegrasping, although it is rather inconvenient to do so and the stacks don't go too high before they decay. ​ BURN BOTH ENDS This skill has its own section here. ​ BODY & MIND Very strong skill, when invested into with action skill damage, both as a supplement for true melee damage and for the Face Puncher. The FP will proc a B&M nova for every pellet. It'll proc twice as many novas if you also have at least one point into Infusion. ​ FREE THE SOUL With lots of action skill damage, this skill is like Remnant 2.0, but it can hit multiple enemies and it acts much faster. Of course, you have to be cryo focused to take advantage of it. However, despite what the skill says, an enemy doesn't need to be fully frozen when they die in order for this skill to proc. They only need to be 75% of the way to being completely frozen. ​ ATMAN Decent flat action skill damage increase. If you're investing into action skill damage and this far down the tree, it's a great place to dump points. ​ CLEAR THE MIND Very strong in some situations, however, its strengths are often devalued by the fact that you can often element match. Not every kind of attack can, though, and for those, Clear The Mind is valuable. ​

Gone Fission Amara SYNOPSIS A damaging aura-based slam build, with some action skill damage and Terror Reflect supplements. ​ INTRO The Mind Melt is the radiation slam artifact, and while it's not the strongest item by itself, it encourages a rather fun, oddball playstyle. With the Mind Melt, after you slam, you carry around a damaging radiation aura for several seconds. The Ember's Blaze shield also creates a damaging aura. The Terror Reflect anointment, when holding a Guardian Angel, and especially with bonus elements, can make enemies kill themselves. The combination of these three things allows you to basically just stand there and clear content. Almost as if you're "out to lunch" or "gone fishin'". "Don't mind me, I'm just melt ing things." ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Speccing Sustaintment allows both your damaging auras and your reflected projectiles to heal you. Coupled with your class mod (Stone), this build is quite the tank. ​ You have a decent amount of action skill damage to boost Phaseslam, Reverberation, Body & Mind, and Free The Soul. There's some cryo synergies in there as well, because you'll be using the Terro r Cryo anointment on your weapons. ​ ACTION SKILL Phaseslam. Reverberation for bosses. Phaseslam's wide radius will build up a ton of groundbreaker damage to be released on your next slam. And whatever it doesn't kill, it will freeze if you're attuned to cryo. Reverbation, with a particular technique , can chunk boss health bars. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Cryo, to synergize with Go With The Flow, Free The Soul, and Unweave The Rainbow in purple tree. Unweave procs with splash damage (and melee damage) dealt to frozen enemies; Phaseslam and your damaging auras are splash damage. Switch to corrosive for Wotan, fire for Guardian Takedown creatures, and shock for Guardian Takedown guardians. Everything else: remain on cryo. ​ MAIN GUN 1 Guardian Angel with Terror Cryo anointment. Terror Cryo will get added to all of your damage, even reflected projectiles. It will help freeze enemies for the cryo-related skills in purple tree. Guardian Angel, with Indicriminate, can be shot at enemies in a pinch to build up Groundbreaker. ​ MAIN GUN 2 Face Puncher with Melee Apply Terror anointment. Swap frequently to this gun and shoot at enemies to make sure you have max (3) terror stacks. Body & Mind will also make this gun pretty powerful, if you want to supplement your main damage before swapping back to the Guardian Angel. Always perform your other attacks, action skill and slam, with the Guardian Angel in hand. ​ FFYL GUN Something typical, like a Free Radical or Ember's Purge with Consecutive Hits anointment. ​ CLASS MOD Stone, with heavy preference for a splash damage radius passive. That radius increase is pretty crucial, because all of your attacks rely on it. Skill rolls aren't as important, but lean toward Do Harm and Awakening. Awakening not only boosts the effectiveness of both Do Harm (for damage) and Violent Tapestry (for freezing), but also the effectiveness of the damage reduction on the class mod itself. Other acceptable passives: action skill damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage. ​ SHIELD Ember's Blaze, with the Terror Reflect anointment. This shield and anointment account for a lot of your standing still damage and subsequent healing through Sustainment. ​ ARTIFACT Mind Melt, with heavy preference for an Area of Effect passive in the second or third slot, which also increases splash radius. The second half of the artifact can be a few things: Victory Rush, Safeguard, Cosmic Crater, even Pull Out Method. Pick whatever suits you or sounds fun. Other acceptable passives: radiation damage, incendiary damage, action skill cooldown rate, cryo damage, cryo efficiency, movement speed, corrosive damage. ​ GRENADE Anything utility oriented, with the Terror Damage And Fire Rate anointment. Hyperion Quasar (not sticky), Mesmer, It's Piss. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP When entering a fight, start off with a couple Face Puncher shots to build Terror stacks, then Phaseslam, then start ground slamming with reckless abandon. After that, the order you do things in doesn't really matter. Just don't forget to keep Terror stacks up. For boss fights, switch to Reverberation, and you can use that plus Body & Mind to take them out, while also ground slamming to deliver groundbreaker and take out adds. ​ NOTES - BARRELS & WATER Slam builds are especially vulnerable to barrels and water. Be careful out there and try to clear barrels before approaching them. Avoid water and puddles at all costs. ​ NOTES - HEMOVOROUS You might think a build based on a relatively weak slam effect wouldn't do much to Hemo, but you'd be wrong. While Hemo is kind of a hitbox mess, there's a mechanic in the fight we can take advantage of. The eggs and pods that both Hemo and Vermi launch at you are destroyed very easily by your auras and slams, dealing damage directly to Hemo and building up tons of groundbreaker to be released when you slam near them. Also, the eggs/pods are automatic lifesteal, as Ember's Blaze kills them on approach, and failing that, automatic second winds. Add some Phaseslam into the mix and baby you've got a stew going. This is one of the few builds you can take to Hemo and just go wild with slamming. ​

About Hi! I'm Stone Swan. I'm an Amara build crafter, making builds since around February 2020. I was originally inspired by Moxsy, and tried to differentiate myself by making off-meta builds. I made a green and blue tree gun build . I made the first Amara slam build with the Spark Plug. I had the goal of making true melee viable in Mayhem 4, which back then was the highest difficulty. I accomplished that goal within a couple months with the original Black Swan build , and thought I was done. Mayhem 2.0 rolled around, and I couldn't make anything off-meta work until Gearbox did a couple major balance changes and introduced mayhem scaling. Soon, the builds started flowing again. A generalist gun/melee/action skill build . A Downfall build that was later converted to Phaseslam and Phasecast to participate in the two End Game Rush community challenges (and got 2nd place for the second EGR ). Old builds were updated, purple tree builds were made , Nimbus was used somewhat successfully . I discovered how the Ice Spiker artifact was tied to Amara's action skills and made my second slam build type . Making full-length build videos was fun and very rewarding, but I continued to have less and less time to dedicate to them. I decided to go out with a bang and put out 9 builds at the same time, covering three of them in depth in my Whiteness of Swans video. That was the end of my YouTube builds, but not the end of build making in general; DLC 6 and level 72 were yet to come. I continued making builds but not making videos for them, only showing them on stream. I made more true melee builds. I got Amara to deal damage over time (dots) from guns (NOT Unleash the Dragon) on a level that erases raid bosses extremely quickly. I discovered that the Victory Rush artifact wasn't working properly, and the community responded loudly enough that Gearbox fixed it. I figured out the radsplosion damage formula , and made countless other small discoveries. I made grenade builds , more slam build types , a Hellfire build , builds using nearly every legendary class mod, and even a couple purple ones. A sniper build. A launcher build. Even builds where you can shoot the Guardian Angel effectively. You name it, I've probably tried it. I accomplished my final goal: a true melee Amara that can punch to death True Guardian Takedown enemies without overly relying on action skill damage (Phaseflare, Ties That Bind) or Unleash The Dragon or other forms of melee damage, while also using tropes from the Mayhem 3 days: Phaseslam, Blitz, Brawler Ward shield. Once that was done, I knew it was time to make this site and share everything. Shoutout to my friends, acquaintances, and inspirations along my build-making journey, in no particular order: Moxsy, CZ47, MadGlenny, lesshandsomejack, tbj_quag, soccerchickTV, LazyData, SomeOldGuyInHawaii, Skkra, Ancient_Rune, xEternalDragonx, Lonemasterino, nino_salvaje, and I'm sure many more I'm forgetting... Much love, Stone_Swan

Nightmare Amara SYNOPSIS Dark Army-focused build. ​ INTRO The Dark Army is one of the strongest guns on Amara, if properly set up and built around. The core interaction with this build is the fact that Dark Army drones, when summoned (i.e., when you swap to the gun), retain all of your gun damage bonuses you have at the moment of the swap and summoning. Coupled with the Spiritual Driver class mod and lots of movement speed, you can make the Dark Army drones permanently, hugely buffed. Credit to Skkra on the Borderlands 3 subreddit for informing me of this interaction. More details on setting this up are in the "Gameplay Loop" section below. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is a fairly basic Driver setup, with a couple notable omissions of Dread and Deep Well. You want to be reloading as quickly and easily as possible, and those two skills delay your reloads. ​ ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to the content you are facing, which must also match the Dark Army in your hand. Fire, shock, or corrosive. No cryo - this is a Driver build. ​ GUNS Dark Army in fire, shock, and corrosive, with either Killstack anointment or ASE 125% Splash anointment. Look for a low mag and high damage version. This is your main gun, your FFYL gun, your bossing gun, your everything. It will carry you. ​ CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, preferably with as many points in Mindfulness as possible. Recommended passives: SMG damage, splash damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage radius, weapon damage, reload speed, fire rate, crit damage. ​ Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. ​ SHIELD Re-Volter, with ASE 50% Radiation damage anointment. Preferably a low level one, but it's not necessary. The Action Skill Start anointment is not necessary because it will break naturally as soon as enemies are engaging you. And you can let them engage you; nothing matters with the Dark Army at your side. ​ ARTIFACT #1 Elemental Projector with Otto Idol or Victory Rush. Recommended passives: SMG damage, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot, action skill cooldown rate, reload speed, movement speed. ​ ARTIFACT #2 Snowdrift. Rarity or passives don't even matter. This is for pre-buffing the Dark Army drones by sliding very fast. See the "Gameplay Loop" section below for details. ​ GRENADE It's Piss with ASE 50% Cryo damage anointment. With cryo and radiation as your bonus elements, you get 2 more stacks of Harmageddon, you slow enemies so that the Dark Armies can better aim at them, and you get some very strong radsplosions. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP To get maximum damage out of your Dark Army drones, you must pre-buff them after every fast travel or map load. As noted in the Intro, the Dark Army drones, when summoned (swapped to), retain all of your gun damage bonuses at the time of summoning. With the Spiritual Driver equipped, you can swap to your Dark Army of choice when moving very quickly, and the drones will retain all of that Driver gun damage. ​ Here's how you prebuff: equip the Snowdrift, swap to Phasecast, and do *not* be holding the Dark Army you want to use. Cast at the ground. This dots you via the Spiritual Driver, and because your action skill ended, the anoints on your grenade/shield allow you to get 25 stacks of Mindfulness. Make sure you have plenty of space in front of you. At 25 Mindfulness stacks, run and slide. At the beginning of your slide when you are moving fastest, swap to your Dark Army of choice. Now your drones are permanently buffed, as long as you do not swap away from them. Change the Snowdrift out for the Elemental Projector and select Ties That Bind. Make sure your action skill element matches the Dark Army you are holding, and you're ready to obliterate things. ​ If you need to swap or re-buff your drones in combat, you can get a slightly less powerful setup: after your grasp on an enemy ends, make sure you have 25 stacks, then simply run up to top speed and swap. ​ Note that after you've buffed your drones, you do not need to keep moving fast. You can stand still, and they will still do massive damage. The Dark Army that's actually in your hand will do much, much less damage than your drones. ​ There's two things you need to do while in combat. 1. Fire the Dark Army in your hand and reload it. It must be a full magazine depletion, not a manual reload with some ammo still in the mag. This makes the drones deal elemental damage for a short time, which is important because... 2. Always be using your Grasp in order to keep yourself dotted and keep Elemental Projector procced. This gives the drones a massive damage boost if they're firing elemental shots that match your action skill element. ​ NOTES - GUARDIAN TAKEDOWN There are times you need to switch Dark Army elements between facing creatures, Guardians, armor phase of bosses, and shield phase of bosses. You will also need to re-buff your drones between each Scourge teleport, because they don't teleport with you. At nearly every point you need to swap, instead of redoing the whole gear change and slide setup, you can utilize the speed boost provided by a jump pad. Simply swap as soon as you hit the pad. Of course, you can choose to do the long setup if you prefer. ​ Between the first room and the first Guardian encounter, there's a pad. There's no pad before Anathema, but you can use your falling speed to swap to corrosive. During the fight, you can switch from corrosive to shock on the jump pads. After the fight, you can still use the jump pads to switch to fire for creatures. After creatures, there's another jump pad before the second set of crystals. You will need to manually buff and swap after teleporting into Scourge's arena and before triggering the cutscene. In the first teleport area, there's a jump pad below where you spawn. When going back to Scourge's arena, there's a jump pad to go up and smash the crystal. You'll have to manually run and swap during the second teleport. ​

Emerald Swan SYNOPSIS Formerly the hardest hitting true melee build I've ever made (since eclipsed by Sulphur Swan ). This one is for the purists. ​ INTRO Emerald Swan is one of my three crown jewels of true melee builds, along with Sapphire Swan and Ruby Swan. Emerald Swan is designated as such because it uses a green action skill, Phaseslam. This is my magnum opus, so to speak. I've always wanted to make a true melee build that plays like they did when the game launched: using Phaseslam, the Brawler Ward shield, and speccing down to Blitz. Back then, Phaseslam didn't even kill things most of the time - it was all about punching hard, and Phaseslam only facilitated that. There weren't overpowered melee items like the Stinger and the Fish Slap, and we don't rely on those here. ​ Beware: this principled true melee style will make apparent just how frustrating true melee can be to play , especially in places like the True Maliwan Takedown. You must be very deft with your movement and decision making. This build is very challenging, but also very rewarding. Blitz chaining might be the coolest thing in this game. There are items and skills available to make life easier, even though the build isn't meant for them. Do not feel ashamed of using them. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES There are no wasted skill points here - everything about this spec is important and has a use. ​ ACTION SKILL Phaseslam. Optionally, to make harder areas or bosses easier, you can use a Phaseflare variant. I would recommend Light Fantastic or Shooting Star. When you dot yourself (see "Swap Gun" below), Light Fantastic will "attach" to you, which is quite convenient, if a bit weird looking. Ties That Bind is available, but that strays too far from the principle of the build. ​ But Phaseslam is recommended in most cases because of ease of stacking Samsara and keeping uptime on Find Your Center and your Terror anointments. It will occasionally kill some enemies; more if you decide to swap to the Guardian Angel when slamming. ​ Glamour is an optional augment, if you need some aggro relief at the expense of a longer cooldown. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Fire, shock, or corrosive depending on the content you are facing. Do not choose cryo. ​ PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber with Terror Cryo anointment. The cryo will occasionally freeze some enemies, but at all times it is a great damage boost. ​ SWAP GUN Low level Sellout pistol. Anointment not necessary. This gun is for shooting your foot to place a dot on yourself in order to proc the Elemental Projector artifact, giving you a huge increase to elemental damage. You only need to shoot once and then swap back to the Psycho Stabber. Each of the three projectiles from the Sellout has a 72% chance to dot you, so it's basically guaranteed. ​ When you swap back to the Psycho Stabber with Terror Cryo, that cryo bonus element will start "ticking" on the dot you placed on yourself. It won't actually cryo you - it's sort of a hidden damage instance. But that bonus element ticking on a self-dot will stack Burn Both Ends for you, giving you even more elemental damage. Otherwise, self-damage and self-dots would not stack BBE. Since you can use an Ascetic class mod with up to +5 in Burn Both Ends, that combined with Tempest and the Elemental Projector means this build gets up to +309% increased elemental damage! ​ See the "Notes - Low Level Sellout" section below for obtaining the lowest level Sellout possible. ​ Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. ​ ALTERNATIVE PUNCHING GUN Ionic Disruptor with Terror Cryo anointment. Swapping to this gun and punching with it will convert your punch to shock damage, even if you have it set to a different element via Illuminated Fist. This is convenient for punching an immune Maliwan Heavy, as opposed to switching your action skill element. This can also be a primary punching gun if you choose shock as your action skill element. The shock dot that this gun leaves on enemies will heal you through Sustainment. ​ PHASESLAM / PUNCHING GUN Guardian Angel with Terror Cryo anointment. Swap to this after the Sellout but before the Stabber if you want Phaseslam to kill things more reliably. When your action skill element is set to shock, this is also a great punching gun for mobbing, as your Static Charge chains will become very powerful. But beware, holding this also increases the strength of your self-dot by 5x. ​ You can also shoot this gun at enemies between punches, which, if you land the shot, has 4 possible effects: 1. You can stun them by landing a crit. 2. You can knock them back with high-pellet-count shotgun physics. 3. You get lifesteal to keep yourself alive. 4. You can build up a lot of Groundbreaker and even kill nearby enemies - the Guardian Angel does some wild stuff with Indisciminate. ​ FFYL / FLYING ENEMY GUN Face Puncher or Blade Fury, with Consecutive Hits anointment. Blade Fury can take out multiple flying enemies at once with Indiscriminate, making life a bit easier. As punch-themed as this build is, these guns are still necessary to get rid of things out of reach and for some bosses. ​ CLASS MOD Ascetic (spelled incorrectly on the item card by Gearbox as "Acsetic") class mod with as many points into Burn Both Ends as possible. This purple class mod can only drop with 1 passive but that's fine. Recommended passives: melee damage, splash damage, splash damage radius, action skill cooldown rate, reload speed. ​ Alternatively, until you can get a nice Ascetic, you can use a Muse class mod with 1 point in Illuminated Fist and as many points into Laid Bare as possible. Same recommended passives as above. ​ SHIELD Brawler Ward with ASE Apply Terror anointment. A low level one is recommended, but not necessary. There are a couple other fun options: the Messy Breakup and the Shooting Star (if you use the Shooting Star Fix Mod ). Make sure to match the element of these shields to your action skill element (which means don't use Messy Breakup if you're using fire action skill element, because it only comes in shock or corrosive). Same ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Re-Volter will also be very strong, even though it strays from the OG Mayhem 3 vibes. ​ ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Static Charge. The Elemental Projector will be procced by your Sellout pistol, granting you lots of damage. The Static Charge is not only a nice bonus element for your punches, but the chains will be very strong. The chains will double dip your massive elemental damage stat, and get the Terror Cryo bonus element on top of that. They will kill or freeze enemies and also give you lots of Groundbreaker damage for your punches. ​ An Unleash the Dragon artifact works well with this build, even though the build isn't meant for it. That's Amber Swan's specialty. ​ GRENADE Mesmer, It's Piss, or Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. These are great utility grenades. You can use a Fish Slap if you want to have an easier time with bosses. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP Set your Sellout pistol to corrosive. This will do less damage to your health bar. You don't need to worry about element matching for Elemental Projector and Illuminated Fist - Infusion will make sure that you're always dotted with your action skill element. Swap to the Psycho Stabber or Guardian Angel and use your Phaseslam. Then start punching with the Stabber. Every several seconds, swap back to the Sellout to keep yourself dotted. Repeat, dotting yourself again before Phaseslamming again. ​ This might seem like a lot of swapping that you don't have time for, but Amara has tons of swap speed. Even though you have a Brawler Ward that you want depleted, keep your Shield Reboot Guardian Rank perk enabled, so when you kill an enemy it begins recharging. It will deplete again immediately because you have dotted yourself. This re-depletion-upon-kill keeps Trust In Yourself stacked, giving you lots of swap speed. ​ In dangerous places like the Maliwan Takedown or Slaughtershaft, you may find that enemies down you before you can reach them. You either need to dodge better or use one of the extra tools available to you: Quasar, Mesmer, Fish Slap, Face Puncher, Blade Fury. This is the pain of the true melee build. But you will have lots of movement speed, and you should use it your advantage. A good general tactic is to punch and then immediately back off a little bit and throw some lateral movement around before coming back in for another punch. This throws off the aim of distant enemies. You can also circle around an enemy bit by bit as you punch, forcing them to turn and delaying their attack. ​ Shooting Star (action skill) and Light Fantastic are always there for you, even if they are a bit too strong and take away from the pure punching nature of this build. ​ Blitz, when it works, is extremely useful for hitting flying enemies or enemies perched on top of boxes/terrain. ​ NOTES - LOW LEVEL SELLOUT A lower level Sellout means less chance of being downed by your own self-dot. Normally, completing the Sellout mission nets you a level 26 unanointed Sellout. There's a few ways to get an even lower one. First, before completing the mission, have a friend join you in the Ambermire with a fresh level 1 character. When you complete the quest, they will receive a level 8 unanointed Sellout in the mail. ​ Second, after completing the mission, the Sellout appears as a mission reward in Earl's Vendor on Sanctuary. Have a friend join you with a level 10 character and shop the item from the machine for you. Level 10 is the lowest level it will appear for them. ​ Third, after completing the mission and receiving your level 26 Sellout, discard it and shop for the item in Earl's Vendor yourself, where it will be your level. You can reasonably get one at level 21, if you go through the story up until that point killing as few enemies as possible. ​

Lame Faker Amara SYNOPSIS Revelation and Face Puncher build, in honor of one of the greatest builds of all time. ​ INTRO Moxsy's Game Breaker Amara used to be a crazy build where Amara would grasp enemies with Ties That Bind and every enemy within the linkage would instantly vaporize. This was mostly due to the fact that the damage from the Revelation augment would transfer through the Ties links. After the enemies were vaporized, you could redirect all of that damage with a Face Puncher through Groundbreaker at anyone unlucky enough to still be around. The build was nerfed in many ways, and basically no longer exists. This build seeks to emulate that playstyle (relatively poorly, considering the strength of the original). It's not a Game Breaker Amara, it's a Lame Faker Amara. Still, it can clear all content without too much trouble. ​ Instead of Revelation damage traveling along Ties That Bind, you're just going to have it hit enemies directly with splash radius increases. If it doesn't kill anything, the next best thing is for it to freeze your grasped enemy. Then you can direct melee or Unweave The Rainbow damage at the frozen enemy to finish them off. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES The skills you are focused on here are ones that boost melee and action skill damage. 3 points are also given to Indiscriminate, which will be explained later. ​ ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always cryo, except against Wotan, for whom you switch to corrosive. With plenty of Do Harm stacks, a cryo Revelation nova will freeze most things, if it doesn't kill them. ​ GUN 1 Guardian Angel, with Urad anointment. The Guardian Angel damage bonus and the Urad bonus element will apply to the Revelation nova. This is the most effective way to increase its damage. ​ GUN 2 Face Puncher, preferably x7 pellets, with Urad anointment. This is for delivering the Groundbreaker damage accrued by Revelation, as well as finishing off a grasped enemy and any enemies still linked. The Urad bonus element will also apply to Groundbreaker. ​ CLASS MOD Phasezerker. Skills do not matter. The most important part is having a Splash Damage Radius passive on it, so that your Revelation nova can hit more things. Other recommended passives: splash damage, action skill damage, melee damage, action skill cooldown rate. ​ SHIELD Re-Volter with Action Skill Start anointment. The shock bonus element will also increase Revelation damage as well as apply to Groundbreaker. ​ ARTIFACT Cryo Stone Deathless. The Cryo Stone is for freezing enemies with the Face Puncher. The most important part is having an Area of Effect passive in the 2nd or 3rd slot, because then it will increase the radius of your Revelation. Other recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, melee damage, cryo damage, cryo efficiency. ​ GRENADE Fish Slap in various elements, with ASE 50% Cryo damage anointment. This anointment will apply to Groundbreaker. Revelation isn't really strong enough for bossing, unfortunately, and neither is the Face Puncher in this loadout. The Fish Slap picks up the slack. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP You can actually Fakegrasp to build up Do Harm stacks, if you so desire, but you can also just jump into the action. Stand far away to get a greater Guardian Angel bonus and use your grasp as often as possible to keep your stacks up. The lifted enemy will get hit with the Revelation nova, and hopefully it also hit some linked enemies. With lots of Do Harm, and assuming the enemies are not too tanky, everything should basically die instantly. Swap to your Face Puncher and fire at whatever else is around to deliver Groundbreaker damage. ​ If the grasped enemy is still alive, hopefully they are frozen. Frozen enemies take 300% damage from melee. You will also get bonus damage from Unweave the Rainbow. This also means you can simply not swap and shoot the Guardian Angel at the frozen enemy; the Guardian Angel does splash damage and will also get Unweave bonus damage. It will further annihilate anything still linked through Ties That Bind. ​ The Guardian Angel projectiles will also Indisriminate, further decimating enemies and giving you even more Groundbreaker damage should you want to swap to your Face Puncher. ​ If the grasped enemy is still alive and not frozen, simply try and whittle them down with your Face Puncher. Your Cryo Stone's damage will hopefully freeze them, allowing for an easy finish. ​ Beware, this is a Deathless build, and going into FFYL will make you lose Do Harm stacks. When you get back up, you will need to rebuild your stacks through continuous action skill usage. Generally, stay as far away from enemies as possible. ​ For bosses, hold the Guardian Angel, grasp, and throw a Fish. That should take care of it. ​

Barbie Dahl SYNOPSIS An unconventional gun build using unconventional weapons. ​ INTRO Back in late 2020, SomeOldGuyInHawaii showed me how powerful the Sleeping Giant can be if you used Terror Ammo Regen to prevent reloading and allow it to keep all of its buffs. I made my own Sleeping Giant build, which has since evolved into this build. Rather than focusing on just the Sleeping Giant, it generally uses Terror anoints and Kensei to make use of a handful of overlooked guns. ​ GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Some extra points are given to purple tree for some melee synergy. No Mistakes In Nature will boost the Kensei's bonus element, and that bonus element can proc Combo Breaker if it gets a kill. Otherwise, it does not deviate much from a traditional gun build. ​ Dread is hugely important for reloading your guns automatically, preventing guns like the Sleeping Giant, Lucky 7, and Tankman's Shield from losing their buffs. ​ ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. You can use Phasecast with 250% Phasecast gun damage anointments for faster boss melting. ​ ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to your content that also goes along with the element of your gun. Note that the skill tree has 5 points into Infusion, making 40% of your damage potentially different from the element of your gun. Additionally, Kensei damage is essentially a 160% bonus element (10% on the card x16 melee mayhem scaling) that will match your action skill element. With Kensei active, 200% of your 260% damage will be your action skill element, not the element of your gun. The element of your gun is secondary. Perhaps even tertiary with Re-Volter shock damage active. ​ SLEEPING GIANT With Consecutive Hits anointment, or Terror Crit if you can aim well. With all buffs active, this gun shreds, especially when critting. Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell when you have all of the buffs. Test on the Jack dummy in Sanctuary before heading out. There are 4 levels of damage; stop shooting *and don't reload* when you're sure you're shooting for the highest damage. Or use a hotfix that guarantees all of the buffs after every reload. ​ With Terror Ammo Regen and enough mag size boosts, it's hard to run out the mag on this gun and lose your buffs by reloading. ​ TORRENT With Consecutive Hits anointment, or Terror Crit if you can aim well. Another gun that gets overlooked because of ammo problems. Terror Ammo Regen allows you to use the Torrent for as long as you like. You can even drop the Terror Ammo Regen for Terror Dmg/Fire Rate when at the end of an activity or for a boss, where you won't use up all of your reserves. But that aspect of gearing will be covered later. ​ LUCKY 7 With Terror Crit anointment. The most powerful gun with this build. I still have a couple time trials placements with this build using the Lucky 7. Terror Ammo Regen, a Jakobs Company Man with two mag size boosts, and mag size on your Kensei will make it relatively easy to keep all of the Lucky 7 buffs, if you have a little bit of trigger discipline. Try using a hotfix to make the Lucky 7 roll all of its buffs with every reload. ​ TANKMAN'S SHIEL D With Terror Crit anointment. This gun is very hard to use, but worth it. For every enemy you kill with it (and it must be a direct kill by the gun), the next magazine gets 40% more gun damage, stacking up +250% gun damage. The problem is that you lose the stacks if you go into FFYL. This gun is best suited to a longer form activity where you can stay relatively safe, such as Slaughterstar 3000 or Scaled Maliwan Takedown. ​ Pair it with a Hyperion Company Man with double mag size boosts for extra assurance you can gain/keep stacks without reloading. Terror Ammo Regen may not be necessary if you're making good use of Dread to refill your magazine. ​ GUARDIAN ANGEL Usage #1 is with Killstack anointment. This gun does silly things with Ties That Bind and Indiscriminate, and Kensei will help buff the initial shot as well. There's no need to run Terror Ammo Regen with this gun; instead run Terror Dmg/Fire Rate. ​ Usage #2 is with Terror Cryo anointment. There are only a few melee effects that the Kensei bonus element can proc, and the Shooting Star shield is one of them. Shoot enemies with the Guardian Angel with the Kensei active and your shield depleted and your dozens of Guardian Angel projectiles will spawn dozens of Shooting Stars, all buffed by the Guardian Angel's bonus damage. If the Shooting Star worked on all maps, this would be the most powerful Amara gun build by quite a margin. There is a hotfix available that makes the Shooting Star shield work on all maps. ​ SAND HAWK With Terror Crit anointment. Using this gun in semi-auto mode will make your ammo last much longer, if you have a Dahl Company Man with double mag size boosts and Terror Ammo Regen. You will eventually run out, though, simply by killing grasped enemies, because Dread pulls ammo from reserves. Spec out of Dread if you want to run with only the Sand Hawk for a while. ​ THEMATIC GUNS Two more guns fit the bill of never reloading, even though they're relatively weak on this build: The Butcher and the Super Shredifier. The former does not need Terror Ammo Regen (run Terror Dmg/Fire Rate instead) and the latter, with Terror Ammo Regen and enough mag size, will never reload no matter how hard you try. ​ META GUNS Any strong gun will also work on this build. Free Radical, Skullmasher, Kaoson, etc. Choose between these three anointments: Consecutive Hits, Terror Crit, 250% Phasecast gun damage. ​ CLASS MOD Kensei, with skill points in No Mistakes in Nature and/or Joyful Freedom. The six second bonus element that this provides is enough to get you rolling or phase a boss. ​ SHIELD Re-Volters, one with Terror Ammo Regen and another with ASE Apply Terror. This means you must occasionally take damage to let the Re-Volter proc naturally. Run Ammo Regen for the guns that need it. Run ASE Apply Terror when you need Terror Dmg/Fire Rate on your grenade. ​ Shooting Star, in various elements, with ASE Apply Terror anoint. This is for pairing with your Terror Cryo Guardian Angel, as explained above. When using this shield, turn off Shield Reboot and Emergency Response Guardian Rank perks. ​ You can use the Infernal Wish, with ASE Apply Terror, for a bit easier time with the Tankman's Shield. ​ ARTIFACT A Company Man of the appropriate manufacturer, with double mag size rolls (one on top and one on bottom). Backup option would be a Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge with a mag size roll. ​ GRENADE Fish Slaps, with ASE Apply Terror (if using Terror Ammo Regen) or Terror Dmg/Fire Rate (when you don't need ammo regen and have ASE Apply Terror on shield). There's some melee damage specced with this build, so the Fish can do some work. You can even swap to the Guardia n Angel when throwing it. ​ Alternatively, an It's Piss (with those same anointments) for dealing more damage with just your guns. ​ GAMEPLAY LOOP Choose your loadout carefully. Does your gun need ammo regen? If so, make sure your grenade has ASE Apply Terror. What element do you want your gun to be, and what is your action skill element? For guns like the Sleeping Giant or Lucky 7 where you can't change the element without losing buffs, you can change the element of a lot of your damage by changing your action skill element. Keep in mind that shock damage is usually covered by the Re-Volter. ​ Is the right Company Man equipped? If you're using the Shooting Star, are two of your Guardian Rank perks disabled? Have you switched to Phasecast if you're using a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment? There's a lot to consider when you decide to play with a certain gun. ​ Terror anoints won't kick in until your action skill ends, so start off using your action skill. Kensei damage will help you kill your grasped enemy without emptying your mag. Let yourself take damage every now and then to proc Re-Volter. Have some trigger discipline when using the Sleeping Giant and Lucky 7, especially when you have that Re-Volter fire rate. ​