Search this site

Phasecast and gun-based cryo build that creates all sorts of chaos. 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 INTRO Oblivion Amara is one of the two builds I originally made in 2020 after the purple tree came out, along with its sister build Fission Amara.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.

A Nimbus and damage over time (dot) build. Amara Dot Com SYNOPSIS A Nimbus and damage over time (dot) build. INTRO The Nimbus class mod is still pretty weak, but it can be built around to make a fun and interesting build. The damage over time from the cloud by itself is great for mobbing, but would make very slow work of bosses if you don't supplement it with additional mechanics. Notes that the Nimbus class mod has two dots, the tiny one that's listed on the class mod itself, and one that the cloud applies based on the gun you are holding. You can ignore the one listed on the class mod; this guide only references the second one. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES There is an extra point in blue tree, and 5 points in Restless that can be moved as you like. If you want to fire your gun in addition to using the Nimbus cloud damage, you can put more points into Alacrity and/or From Rest. If you want Tandava to deal more damage, you can move 4 into Do Harm. The Nimbus cloud damage that is based on your gun looks at your gun's dot chance. Every tick of the cloud has that chance to apply the dot to an enemy within it. This is why you spec Violent Tapestry and Awakening, to increase that chance. Nothing in purple tree helps except perhaps Burn Both Ends, but speccing that would mean taking a lot more damage and therefore losing Topped Off cooldown. ACTION SKILL Tandava is the best option here, for a few reasons. 1. You need to have an action skill that ends immediately so your anoints kick in and apply to the Nimbus cloud, adding dots in different elements. 2. Having the splash version of the action skill makes you much more likely to land a hit on an enemy and proc the cloud. 3. The Phasecast 250% gun damage anoint greatly increases the cloud damage, because it increases your gun's dot damage. Glamour's aggro-relief is the best option for keeping Topped Off active, which is important because of Tandava's long cooldown. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Your action skill element determines the primary element of the Nimbus cloud, and this should be selected to match the content you are facing. GEARING STRATEGIES There are many ways to gear for this build, depending on if you want to go all-in on the Nimbus dot or if you want to supplement it with a dot from your gun. Before going into the gear recommendations, you need to know how dots work. The cloud's damage over time is based on your gun's listed dot damage. The chance for it to apply this dot is the same as the listed dot chance. All guns have a dot damage and dot chance, even non-elemental and cryo guns. Non-elemental and cryo versions of a gun have dot stats proportional to the other elemental versions. For example, a fire Ion Cannon lists 295529 card damage and 201698 dmg/s for the dot. The ratio of dot to card is 201698 ÷ 295529 or 68.25%. That ratio is the same for all Ion Cannons, and in fact all Vladof launchers. 68% is also the same cryo efficiency you'll find on any cryo Vladof launcher. (The ratio varies based on manufacturer and weapon type.) That means that a non-elemental Ion Cannon, with it's higher listed card damage of 369411 multiplied by 0.6825, has a higher hidden dot damage of 252123 (with the same dot chance). Non-elemental versions of guns create stronger Nimbus cloud dots. And cryo versions are stronger than other elements (dual element Maliwans being the exception). The strongest Nimbus cloud gun is the non-elemental Ion Cannon, while the second strongest is the Masterwork Crossbow. The third is a cryo kickcharger. The Nimbus cloud damage, being based on your gun's dot damage, is also increased by your active gun damage bonuses at the time the dot takes effect. Any skills, anointments, artifact passives, and classmod passives that add to gun damage will be factored in. The cloud dot is also increased by elemental damage. The Nimbus cloud's size and area of effect is increased by splash radius boosts on class mod and artifact, though splash damage itself does not affect the cloud's dot at all (nor does it affect gun dots). The Nimbus cloud applies a primary dot based on your action skill element, regardless of the element of the gun in your hand. The cloud will also apply a dot for each active bonus element, one per element. The bonus elements are applied at 100% of the damage of the primary dot, regardless of the bonus element's strength, whether it's a 50% ASE, a 100% Urad, or a 200% Re-Volter. Therefore, the way to get the most damage out of your cloud is to diversify your action skill element and bonus elements. Similarly, if you also choose to shoot the gun you're holding in order to apply dots from that source, you get one dot per element. Therefore, in this case, match the element of the gun you're holding to your action skill element. Your gun, then, will match your Nimbus cloud element, and be diversified from your bonus elements. Never hold a radiation gun; in all situations with this build, radiation is much more effective as bonus element, and radiation guns have the lowest base damage. With all of that explained, you can now make decisions about your gear. GUNS All guns with the 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment, and all of them single projectile. You want guns with high dot damage, whether it's listed or not. For maximum Nimbus cloud damage, hold a non-elemental Ion Cannon. Vladof Launchers have a movement speed penalty, however, so perhaps the 2nd best Masterwork Crossbow would suit you, or a non-elemental Major Kong. If you'd like to shoot the elemental gun you're holding to supplement Nimbus damage, good options are the Kickcharger, Major Kong, Slow Hand, Recursion, and Storm. The Kill-o'-the-Wisp can have a very high dot damage, but it is only applied by the orbs exploding, not the lightning chains. Shoot the Wisp for chip damage and Sustainment healing. Your non-elemental and cryo guns, if shot, will still be able to apply dots from your bonus elements, but you'll be missing the full power dot from your gun. SWAP GUN Guardian Angel, with Elemental Critical Hit anointment. Swap to this if you want to accelerate the Nimbus cloud dot damage, AFTER the dot has taken effect. Once the Nimbus cloud dot has applied your main gun's dot, swapping weapons won't change the damage of that dot. HOWEVER, if you swap before the dot applies, it will likely apply based on the Guardian Angel's much, much weaker dot value. In practice, this means waiting 2-3 seconds after the cloud has appeared before swapping. The anointment here is for triggering a large status effect explosion on enemies. The best way to do this is with a grenade. Radiation is going to be your workhorse dot for the vast majority of content, so a radiation Hex is great for critting while holding the Guardian Angel. The Guardian Angel is also your FFYL gun. You will likely have at least some dots going when you are downed, so the GA will help finish off those enemies. Additionally, you can shoot the GA at the nearest enemy and Indiscriminate projectiles, which will double dip the GA damage bonus, will kill other enemies nearby. CLASS MOD The Nimbus, with as many points into Tempest as possible. The most important passive is Splash Damage Radius, as that will increase the effective area of the Nimbus cloud. Other recommended passives: weapon damage, action skill cooldown rate, shield recharge rate (for Topped Off uptime). SHIELD There are a few options here, but all of them must have ASE 50% Radiation anointment. If you want to shoot your gun, a triple-amp One-Shotter or Mana Well or 0.m are great options. An Old God will increase a specific element's damage. A Band of Sitorak is great for Topped Off, especially with a Safe Space augment, which will help clear away approaching enemies. The Mana Well offers the most damage for your cloud, although it comes with some complications. If you have any capacity, slamming will give you a shock bonus element and start draining your shield. This can be the fourth element for your cloud, assuming your action skill element and your two anointments cover fire, corrosive, and radiation. However, you need to work that slam into your attack pattern, and you will lose the cooldown from Topped Off. Tandava with Glamour has a base 42 second cooldown, so losing Topped Off is significant. ARTIFACT Again, more options. The highest damage for your cloud is offered by the Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge. The cloud damage will ramp up on the fly as your Pearl stacks accumulate. However, the Pearl does not offer Area of Effect or Cooldown passives. An Atom Balm Victory Rush is great for more effective radsplosions. The overall best, though, is a Company Man of the appropriate manufacturer with a 50% Damage roll on the top. With the Company Man, you get gun damage as well as whole suite of good passives. The most important passive, again, is Area of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will increase area radius and the effective size of your cloud. Other recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, movement speed, shield recharge rate. GRENADE And still more options, with an ASE 50% bonus element anointment that's a different element from radiation and your action skill element. There's always the general crowd control grenades such Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) and Mesmer. But those will not easily take advantage of the Elemental Critical Hits anointment on your Guardian Angel. For proccing the Ele Crit anoint, the most all around useful grenade is a radiation Recurring or MIRV-tacular Hex. If you want to Ele Crit your fire or corrosive dot, a fire or corrosive Lightspeed will work. GAMEPLAY LOOP To be absolutely clear, this build clears slowly. Patience is required. However, at least Glamour allows you to relax while you wait. How you play depends on your chosen loadout. Assuming you're going for just cloud damage, you would cast at some enemies, perhaps cast again at a different group of enemies, let the dot take hold, then switch to the Guardian Angel and throw your grenade for some Ele Crits. Then you have to wait for your cooldown. While waiting, avoid damage in order to keep Topped Off active, and stay on your Guardian Angel and perhaps throw another grenade. When Tandava is cooled down, repeat. If you're trying to get the Mana Well bonus element in the mix, cast once, slam for the Mana Well bonus element, then cast again at different enemies to spread the dots around and put more enemies under the effect of Glamour. Your cooldown will be longer this time without Topped Off. If you want to shoot your guns along with the cloud, equip an amp shield. Cast, shoot, cast, shoot. Then swap, throw grenades, and await cooldown. The caveat here is that you can't swap back to your gun and fire some more, because then you will have lost your 250% Phasecast anointment. You should also, before swapping to the Guardian Angel, space out your shots so that each shot is amped. Even further, wait until an enemy dies before shooting so that your shot gets Overkill , which will increase your gun's dot. You will need to always be mindful of all of your elements: action skill element, gun element, anointment elements, element of your grenade. The Nimbus needs all the help it can get, so forgetting something can make your gameplay more painful than it needs to be. Once you're comfortable aiming your Casts and avoiding damage, you can switch to base Phasecast or Deliverance, use Allure, and equip the Band of Sitorak for a much faster action skill cooldown. NOTES - RAID BOSSING It's possible for the Nimbus cloud to take out a raid boss if you only help it along with Guardian Angel and Elemental Crits. However, it's slow going. The recommended raid bossing setup is to use the gun dot from something like the Kickcharger. Have your elements diversified like normal, equip an amp shield, equip a Toboggan, hopefully have Overkill, and fire a shot after Phasecasting with all of those bonuses applied. If the shot applied a dot, then swap to the Guardian Angel and start Ele Critting. NOTES - BONUS LOADOUT For the actual highest damage cloud dot, you can dot yourself with a low level Sellout and use an Elemental Projector Victory Rush. Gameplay loop would be as follows: shoot your foot with Sellout, swap to non-elemental Ion Cannon, cast at enemy, slam for Mana Well shock, cast again, swap and shoot your foot again, swap over to Guardian Angel and start Ele Critting. This is usually more work than it's worth, and you lose Topped Off. This would be a way to take out a tough boss with just the Nimbus cloud, though.

A Multi-tap-only Ties That Bind gun build. Leeloo Dallas Multi-tap SYNOPSIS A Multi-tap-only Ties That Bind gun build. INTRO The Multi-tap is pretty consistently underrated, so this build is simply meant to optimize and showcase it. The dang thing can get up to nearly 100K damage per bullet with 7 shots per second fire rate, with a mechanic that can make it do extra damage on reload, plus Atlas Critical Hit Damage can roll on class mods. These upsides outweigh the downsides of it being non-elemental and non-splash. Yes, the build name is a Fifth Element reference. Atlas guns sort of look like the guns they have in that movie, too. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Typical red/blue Ties That Bind gun build. However, Dread is avoided and as many reload speed skills are specced so that you can take advantage of the Multi-taps cryo projectiles on reload. This occurs every reload when at least one enemy is tagged with the tracker grenade. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. Phasecast for bossing with the 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to the content you are facing. This build has 5/5 Infusion to allow for some element matching (and lifesteal with Sustainment). GUNS Multi-tap, with Killstack anointment. An additional Multi-tap with 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment. There are perhaps other weapons that can take advantage of the fast fire rate and reload speed of this build. The Prompt Critical is not bad. You can experiment and find others. CLASS MOD Phasezerker. Skill points don't matter much. What's most important is an Atlas Critical Hit Damage passive. Other recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, pistol damage, weapon damage, splash damage radius (for larger hollowpoints). SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start anointment. The boost to fire rate is key for depleting the mag quickly and getting to the cryo reload. The shock bonus damage, of course, is also good. ARTIFACT Atlas Company Man, with any top rolls except Magazine Size. Recommended bottom passives: area of effect damage, reload speed, action skill cooldown rate. Avoid mag size here as well. If you set your action skill element to cryo and use a cryo bonus element on your grenade, an Ice Breaker Victory Rush would be a good substitute. GRENADE It's Piss, with various ASE 50% bonus element anointments. Change out the elements to suit your content. GAMEPLAY LOOP Grasp an enemy, shoot the tracker grenade at them, and fire away. Tracker grenade enemies between grasps, too, or don't. Using the tracker can make it hard or impossible to hit crits, but having those cryo projectiles is great for some bosses such as Anathema and the Valks. There's not much to this build. The Multi-tap melts.

Giving love to the unloved, this true melee focused-build uses Fist Over Matter and the Dragon class mod. Antimatter Swan SYNOPSIS Giving love to the unloved, this true melee focused-build uses Fist Over Matter and the Dragon class mod. INTRO In my quest to find a use for the Fist Over Matter action skill, I got lucky and also ended up with true melee and the Dragon class mod. It doesn't get much further off-meta than that. This isn't the most powerful or efficient true melee build, but it is well-synergised, and it will steadily carry you through your content. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is heavily over-specced into purple tree, but it still picks up two true melee essentials: Sustainment and Find Your Center. It gets a third important skill from the class mod. ACTION SKILL Fist Over Matter. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Any of the four, although there's some really nice cryo synergies in purple tree, so it's recommend to try staying on cryo. If you're fighting vs Guardians, for example, you can stay on cryo because you get shock damage from Re-Volter and Static Charge, and even Shock Stone if you're so inclined. PUNCHING GUN 1 Guardian Angel, with Terror Cryo anointment. This gun is necessary in order to get the most out of Fist Over Matter. You can punch with it while FOM is active, letting FOM kill all enemies in the vicinity while also giving you great Groundbreaker damage for your punches. PUNCHING GUN 2 Psycho Stabber, with Terror Cryo anointment. Swap to this when FOM is on cooldown. BACKUP GUN Face Puncher, with Terror Cryo anointment. Use this to take out flying enemies or whatever else may be annoying you from a distance. FFYL GUN A separate FFYL gun may not be necessary when you have the Face Puncher, but you have an extra weapon slot, so might as well. A Free Radical with Consecutive Hits anointment works well. CLASS MOD Dragon, with at least one required point into Remnant. Remnant is going to greatly help you in nearly all situations. Extra points into Do Harm are also highly recommended, as you have a lot of things that benefit from action skill damage: Remnant, Fist Over Matter, Unweave The Rainbow, Body & Mind, Free The Soul. Recommended passives: melee damage, action skill damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, splash damage radius. The special effect of the Dragon class mod, where your augment is procced upon a melee kill, occurs only once with this build. Yes, unfortunately, the Dragon only procs Expedite on the first melee kill, not any subsequent melee kills. Still, it's basically a free 30% cooldown, and you'll get plenty more Expedite procs from all of your action skill damage skills. SHIELD Re-Volter, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. It will proc naturally, no need for the Action Skill Start anointment. After it breaks, killing an enemy will let it begin charging again via Shield Reboot, and taking another instance of damage will likely break it again. This loop keeps the Re-Volter effect going, without losing an anointment slot. ARTIFACT Elemental Stone Static Charge. Match the element prefix to the content you are facing. Recommended passives: melee damage, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot, action skill cooldown rate, move speed, elemental damage. GRENADE It's Piss, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. The extra damage you get from the debuff really helps Fist Over Matter, and even your punches for that... ...matter. Utility grenades are also an option, such as the Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or Mesmer. You can put on a Fish Slap if you're a degenerate :) GAMEPLAY LOOP Select an action skill element and Elemental Stone suited for your content. First enemy you encounter, grasp them with Fist Over Matter and find something else to punch. The further away you are from Fist Over Matter, when holding the Guardian Angel, the more damage it will deal to the grasped enemy and any others near it. Keep an eye on your action skill active yellow icon, and when FOM is over, swap over to your Psycho Stabber and continue punching. When FOM is done cooling down, repeat the above. It's actually pretty straightforward. While FOM is active, it will grant you healing through Sustainment, making you pretty hard to kill. It will also spawn Remnant orbs from the enemies it kills, creating further destruction and giving you tons of Groundbreaker damage. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS Without recommending Fish Slap or Phaseflare, especially on a true melee build, you might wonder how a build like this can make it through a fight like Hemovorous. But trust in the chaos that Fist Over Matter and Remnant create. Hold the Guardian Angel, grasp at Hemo/Vermi, and run around shooting the Guardian Angel at them for lifesteal while you wait for Remnant to do something. Once you hear or see some Remnant action, slam or Face Puncher Hemo/Vermi to deliver all of that Groundbreaker. This is basically how it goes for all boss fights: wait for Remnant and capitalize on it. This is a slow and steady and patient build anyway, so it fits the playstyle. NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11 For nearly all true melee builds, it's recommended to play on Mayhem 10 for the Speed Demon modifier. You can roll Healy Avenger, Drone Ranger, and Not The Face for your other modifiers and have basically zero downsides.

A Jakobs Amara, except it also uses a select few other manufacturers. Agent Amara SYNOPSIS A Jakobs Amara, except it also uses a select few other manufacturers. No "Sheriff" or "Deputy", just "Agent". INTRO This build is not for you. It requires extreme care and discipline. It is punishing, if you don't play it correctly. And even sometimes if you do. It's also quite gear specific. You have been warned. ... With that out of the way, this build is the result of putting the Infernal Wish on an Amara gun build. It actively kills you, but rewards you with high damage and the ability to use some weaker weapons. (And the inability to use a lot of regular weapons.) GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is a very interesting setup. Sustainment is two points away, but obtaining it requires losing Blight Tiger, Avatar, or 30% elemental/kinetic damage from Burn Both Ends. Blight Tiger is hugely important for infusing Jakobs weapons with corrosive. Losing Avatar is simply not an option; this is a Kensei build, and Avater gives you twice the Kensei damage uptime. And Burn Both Ends synergizes very well with both non-elemental weapons and the Infernal Wish. None of these things can be lost. Which is fine, because Sustainment actually doesn't help very much. Basically, if you have a Wish dot and something healthgates you, you will go down immediately, even with Sustainment. So yes, this build has no life steal and actively tries to kill you. The Wish dot, coupled with an active bonus element (from your shield and grenade anointments), will self-stack Burn Both Ends. Normally, self damage such as the Wish dot does not stack BBE, but the bonus element "ticking on top of it" as a hidden damage instance will stack it. Just through regular action skill usage and gun shooting, BBE will give you damage without having to worry about being damaged by enemies. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. Phasecast coupled with 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment for bossing. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to the content you are facing. This is a Kensei build, and it also has Infusion at 40%. This is so you can add lots of elemental damage to your non-elemental weapons for better element matchups. Choose your action skill element wisely, as it will greatly impact your damage. CLASS MOD Kensei, with as many points into Joyful Freedom or No Mistakes In Nature as possible, and with one of the four possible manufacturer crit passives: Jakobs, Dahl, Hyperion, and Atlas. This crit passive is a whopping 64% at level 72. And this is why the build is not just restricted to Jakobs weapons. Other recommended passives: weapon damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage radius, weapon type damage, weapon crit damage, melee damage, shield recharge rate, incendiary resistance (works against the Wish dot). JAKOBS GUNS This build uses lots of Jakobs guns well, because they tend to pack a stronger punch per trigger pull, and pulling the trigger fewer times is beneifical because you don't want the Wish dot stacking too high. Bekah, Rowan's Call, King's/Queen's Call, Hellwalker, Clairvoyance (single projectile), Love Drill, Trickshot, Bird of Prey. You can even use overlooked or less powerful guns, although some may only work against non-True Takedown-level enemies: Dead Chamber, Companion, Maggie, Quickdraw (have 2 so you can swap between them), Seventh Sense. Some of these guns are normally fired rapidly, such as the Rowan's Call. Exercise trigger discipline and only fire as many times as it takes to kill the enemy. The damage output of this build is designed to require fewer trigger pulls. The Trickshot fires rapidly automatically, but whatever you're aiming at should be dead after 1-2 trigger pulls anyway. All guns with the Consecutive Hits anointment. Killstack would be a contender, but you lose Killstacks when you enter FFYL, and this build definitely enters FFYL. For a bit of nostalgic fun, use a Wedding Invitation with Next 2 Mags Cryo anointment, with an ASE 50% cryo bonus element, and cryo action skill element. You might be surprised how strong it is. The Wedding Invitation, when it crits or hits an enemy with a ricochet projectile, stacks a debuff to both fire and cryo damage, the former up to 100% and the latter up to 200%. Credit to Lonemasterino for this discovery. So cryo damage is very strong with this gun. DAHL GUNS Soulrender, Kaoson (x1), Sand Hawk, with Consecutive Hits anointments. These weapons synergize with the Wish because they allow you to restrict your trigger pulls. The Soulrender can be fired in bursts until a couple skulls appear, at which point you can let off and let the skulls destroy enemies. The Kaoson has extra damage from the stickies exploding, allowing you to stop firing before an enemy is dead. The Sand Hawk, in semi-auto mode and when aimed at a crit spot, kills just about anything in a few shots anyway. HYPERION GUNS Guardian Angel, Masterwork Crossbow, Heart Breaker (x8), Smog, Reflux (x7), Convergence (x3 or x4), all with Consecutive Hits. Exercise trigger discipline and these guns will take you a long way. The Crossbow is especially powerful when you get used to aiming it. The Guardian Angel with Indiscriminate will wipe out a whole group quite easily. ATLAS GUNS Multi-tap and OPQ System, with Conseutive Hits anointments. Trigger discipline required. OTHER GUNS This build can make use of some other guns, in which case you can ditch the manufacturer crit passive on your class mod and use a Splash Damage passive: Anarchy, Contained Blast, Prompt Critical, Backburner. With Consecutive Hits. FFYL GUNS Each manufacturer listed above has a good FFYL option: Hellwalker, Soulrender or Sand Hawk, Guardian Angel, OPQ System. However, it may also be wise to have a separate FFYL gun that will work in all situations, such as the Free Radical or Plasma Coil, with Consecutive Hits anointment. BOSSING GUNS Some of the stronger guns listed above should be equipped with a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment and be used for bossing: Bekah, Trickshot, Hellwalker, Bird of Prey, Sand Hawk, Soulrender, Anarchy, Contained Blast. SHIELD Infernal Wish, with a highly recommended shield charge part or two. With ASE 50% bonus element anointment. The shield charges are very important for survivability, as the Wish dot will do much less damage to its own shield than to your health bar. A strong dot can be chunking at your health, and picking up a shield charge will suddenly make it much less likely to kill you. Avoid the following augments, which disable the Wish's extra projectile effect: Adrenaline, Capacity, Delay, Recharge, Reflect, Trigger Happy, Turtle. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. ARTIFACT An appropriate well-rolled Company Man or Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge with a mag size passive. Passives for Company Man: elemental damage, area of effect damage, melee damage, shield recharge rate, action skill cooldown rate, move speed, incendiary resistance (works against the Wish dot). GRENADE Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or Mesmer, with ASE 50% bonus element anointment. Both of these are great for crowd control, which may be necessary more often than you expect. Throw these for utility whenever there's a hint of danger. GAMEPLAY LOOP Activate your action skill and start shooting, but exercise great trigger discipline. Only shoot as often as necessary to kill. If needed, wait for your action skill to come back before continuing firing, so that your trigger pulls are more powerful with Kensei damage. If there's trouble brewing, throw your crowd control grenade. Aim for crits. This build will often play like a Deathless build, in that getting health-gated means you instantly go down anyway, because your Wish dot takes out the rest of your HP. But as long as you have a good FFYL gun, this is no problem. Going down resets the severity of the Wish dot. You're just going to have to rewire yourself to not get frustrated by going into FFYL. At the end of combat, or with one enemy left, keep an eye on how strong your Wish dot is. You don't want to go down with no enemies left. If it looks like you might go down, look around for health vials and shield boosters. Health vials, in general, are going to be something you should pay attention to at all times with this build. NOTES - ANATHEMA FIGHT There is a dumb mechanic to this fight where if you pass close to a Guardian mob, you are health-gated just by touching them. This can mean an instant down if you have a Wish dot active. Do your best to avoid the mobs walking around, especially when taking a jump pad back to the arena or when they're doing a pole-vault-front-flip at you. NOTES - RAID BOSSING When referring to bosses like Hemo, Seer, or the True Trials bosses, this build cannot raid boss well at all, unfortunately. If you want to try, equip a Re-Volter with Action Skill Start and use something like a 250% Phasecast gun damage Free Radical.

All possible locations of breakable crystals in the Guardian Takedown, useful for eliminating enemy knockback.

Dark Army-focused build. 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 Next 2 Mags anointment matching the element of the gun. 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.

Beginner-friendly Ties That Bind gun build that is very Ties That Bind gun build. Possibly even the most Ties That Bind gun build. Acidwolf SYNOPSIS Beginner-friendly Ties That Bind gun build that is very Ties That Bind gun build. Possibly even the most Ties That Bind gun build. INTRO When facing off against raid bosses, most Amara gun builds change something, like switching to a Phasecast action skill and Phasecast anointed gun. Or a Phaseflare action skill and a Psychostabber. Or swapping to the Guardian Angel and throwing a fish, perhaps also with Unleash the Dragon. Or whatever else. In contrast, this build leans so hard into Amara's multi-target abilities that it *becomes* the raid bossing solution. Using Ties That Bind to kill a boss through a second enemy isn't anything new. What's new is the strength with which this build does it. This isn't just: "Ties That Bind Wotan as he splits to kill both halves instantly." This is also: "Ties That Bind True Hag of Fervor (and a tink) and a single Beacon projectile produces a Remnant that hits Hag for hundreds of billions." This is: "Every Indiscriminate ricochet hits for hundreds of millions instead of just 10 or 20 million." If you're a real OG, the damage philosophy is very similar to Pain Amp Amara , even though that isn't a gun build. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This skill tree isn't too far off from a typical red/blue TTB gun build. However, there are a few very deliberate omissions and inclusions. Remnant, Ties That Bind, and Indiscriminate are all double-dipping skills. That means that their damage is based on a different, initial source of damage, and then they get their own damage increases as well. (That initial source in this build is our guns.) So to increase the effectiveness of these three skills, we need to choose damage increases that affect both the initial source and these skills directly for maximum double-dipping effect. All three skills double dip elemental damage, for example, if you're using an elemental gun. If you use a non-elemental gun, then it's just a single dip, a normal damage increase. Remnant and Indiscriminate double dip splash damage if you're using a splash gun. That's why we spend the five points in Arms Deal - for more splash damage. It's why there's zero Infusion points - the Infused portion of a gun's damage does not get splash bonuses. Action skill damage is maxed through Do Harm and Awakening, because Ties That Bind link and Remnant damage is increased by action skill damage. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always Corrosive. This is a single element build. As for why, see the artifact section. GUNS Anything splash and corrosive that can roll the ASE 125% splash anoint. Effective weapons that fit that criteria: Beacon, Recursion, Trevonator, Gargoyle, Major Kong, Anarchy, Contained Blast, Fearmonger, Hive, Plaguebearer, Backburner. Those last three don't really Indiscriminate, but they're strong enough that it doesn't matter. You can use some other strong corrosive splash guns that can't roll the splash anoint: Kaoson, Soulrender, Sand Hawk, Hornet. For these, use the Killstack anoint. CLASS MOD Phasezerker, ideally with points into Anima for that extra dot damage, but it's not too important. Prioritize passives: splash damage, splash damage radius, cooldown, weapon damage, weapon critical damage. That splash damage passive will make Remnant and Indiscriminate double dip harder. The Phasezerker is ideal for this build because it will stack up a lot of Do Harm for our TTB links and Remnant. It does this by its special Rush stacking nature, and because the cooldown it provides will keep our TTB cycling quickly. It also provides some much needed gun damage. SHIELD Corrosive Old God, with ASE Apply Terror anoint. The corrosive elemental damage increase provided by the Old God will get double dipped by our three important skills. ARTIFACT Flesh Melter Victory Rush. This is why we only use corrosive guns and corrosive action skill element. The Victory Rush part isn't essential. A purple Flesh Melter with great passives will beat an average Flesh Melter Victory Rush. The passives you're looking for are corrosive damage and AoE damage, with cooldown closely behind those two. The Flesh Melter is an absurd amount of corrosive damage when fully stacked up. This, of course, makes us lean even harder into the "need more than one enemy" linchpin of this build, but we're already in too deep. The only way out is through. Turns out, there's hardly any relevant end game fights where you have just a boss and no mobs to work with. GRENADE Fish Slap, in radiation, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. Because all of our other damage is pure corrosive, we need something to take out those corrosive immune Maliwan heavies. Even if it's just to deliver Groundbreaker. (You could also just switch elements on your Beacon, but whatever.) The Terror Dmg will get double dipped by our skills. GAMEPLAY LOOP You grasp. You shoot. You destroy. Indeed, that's the gist of it. The whole idea here is to make it simple to raid boss. There's no elaborate setup or anything; you just wait. You grasp the boss and wait for an add to get linked up, then you shoot the boss. Remnant kills the boss. Ok, there's a *little* more to it. One important thing to know is that Remnant targets the enemy closest to you. So before shooting that raid boss with a mob linked, make sure you're kinda close. But not close enough to splash yourself, of course. You'll find the same sort of thing happening often during regular mobbing. You grasp and shoot an enemy, then all other nearby enemies die, and Remnant drifts toward the original grasped enemy and obliterates it. In scenarios where waiting a few seconds gives you extra enemies, then wait. Notable example here is the first few phases of Wotan. Wait for him to spawn some adds before you attack his shields. That way, you can utilize TTB and get Flesh Melter stacks. Versus the Seer, step in the water and wait for guardians to approach. You get the idea. Otherwise, this doesn't play much differently than a normal red/blue TTB gun build. But you will see tons and tons of large damage numbers. It will definitely be weaker in single target scenarios and/or when your buffs have worn off. But that's what strong guns like the Plaguebearer and Backburner and Beacon are for. Or, if you're quick enough, Groundbreaker can be utilized on that lone enemy. If the somewhat weaker single target damage is too frustrating for you, consider the alternative loadout... NOTES - ALTERNATIVE LOADOUT Swap out your Phasezerker for a Spiritual Driver (with points into Mindfulness, same recommended passives) and your Flesh Melter for an Elemental Projector. Again, the artifact doesn't need to be a Victory Rush, but it helps. Prioritize passives: corrosive damage, AoE, cooldown. This setup will have less reliable raid bossing ability when utilizing Ties That Bind and Remnant, but it will have much better single target damage. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS Indiscriminate and Remnant make this fight pretty fun. You can pew pew at Vermi, and Indiscriminate will chunk Hemo if he's nearby. Or just spam a Recursion. Stay somewhat close and Remnant will track them, although there's still a chance it gets thrown off by all of the little bugs in the fight. Their red HP phases are probably the only time you might consider switching your action skill element to fire, using a fire weapon, and using the Driver/Projector loadout. NOTES - OTHER BOSSES As mentioned above, there's hardly any relevant end game fights where you have just a boss and no mobs to work with. Bosses like Anathema and Scourge initially start alone, but just wait 5-10 seconds and mobs will appear and you can begin doing work. Spawn mobs in the Seer arena by walking in the water. Spongeboss can be lured out by the Spiderants. Etc.

Non-DLC true-melee focused build. Stone Swan SYNOP SIS Non-DLC true-melee focused build. INTRO This build is meant to give the true melee experience to everybody, no DLC required. There's a lot of true melee tech with DLC items and the DLC skill tree, but there's still a lot of fun options with base game items. This build allows several different gameplay styles, some easier, some more challenging. It goes back to basics, calling on tech I've used throughout my time crafting true melee builds. It's the Stone Swan. Hey, that's me! Hopefully the name won't lead to any confusion... GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Typical green tree melee skills, red to Sustainment, and blue increases action skill damage and cryo efficiency. Remnant is a very helpful skill, but that will be picked up through your class mod. ACTION SKILL Phaseslam or Ties That Bind. Which of these you choose depends on how much challenge you want. Ties That Bind makes killing groups and controlling the field very simple, and is recommended for harder content such as true takedowns. Phaseslam is more thematic, and gives you Samsara stacks as a bonus. Either one of these action skills will proc Glamour on every enemy affected, allowing you to punch without much trouble. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to the content you are facing. PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber, with Terror Cryo anointment. The cryo bonus element will help freeze enemies through punching. It will also apply to Static Charge chains and your action skill (Phaseslam or Ties That Bind links). SHOOTING GUN Face Puncher, with Terror Cryo anointment. For flying enemies or anything else that seems out of reach or annoys you. This is a true-melee focused build, but do not feel bad about using tools such as the Face Puncher; true melee has a lot of obstacles. ALTERNATIVE PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber, with 150/90 anointment. This is for using with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. CLASS MOD Dragon, with at least one point into Remnant, and preferably the rest into Do Harm. Recommended passives: splash damage, splash damage radius, melee damage, action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage, weapon damage (for Face Puncher). Whenever you melee kill an enemy, all nearby enemies will have Glamour procced on them, basically taking all aggro off of you. The ability to get Remnant through this class mod is also very important. Remnant helps clear enemies and, after it lands, gives you lots of Groundbreaker damage for your next punch. Alternative class mod is the Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible, for use with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. SHIELD There are a few options here, but the most important one is the Stinger, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Stinger is kind of a cop-out when it comes to true melee builds, but at least you're not using Action Skill Start on it. It will help you out when it breaks naturally, which occurs less often than you may think. Glamour controlling the battlefield means your Stinger is full, most of the time. The 50% melee damage increase that the Stinger gives while full is multiplicative with regular melee damage. Another option is the Nova Berner, preferably with Nova parts. The novas on this shield are quite strong, and when they go off they will either kill nearby enemies or at the very least give you lots of Groundbreaker damage. A third option is the Frozen Snowshoe. With this shield, you can slide into an enemy and proc a large nova, freezing enemies in the area. Not only is this a form of aggro relief and healing, it allows for a very powerful punch against those frozen enemies - great for pairing with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. The last option is the classic Brawler Ward. Pair with any artifact. Make sure to turn off Shield Reboot and Emergency Response when using this one. ARTIFACT Elemental Stone Static Charge. Cryo Stone is recommended, for more frequent freezing through punches, but you can also element match. Recommended passives: melee damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage (in the 2nd or 3rd slot), elemental damage, move speed. Alternative artifact would be the Unleash The Dragon. Use with the Phaseerker (that has Anima points) and a 150/90 Psycho Stabber for the greatest effect. Any of the shield options will work except the Nova Berner. GRENADE Fish Slap, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. This is your bossing tool, or just something to throw at a lone badass you don't feel like punching several times. This build is meant to be easy-going; don't be afraid to Fish. GAMEPLAY LOOP Start off using your action skill and then punch whatever is the most convenient target. Enemies will be affected by Glamour for a while, allowing you to basically roam freely. Throw a fish at extra tanky enemies. If you're using a Stinger, occasionally it will go off, obliterating anything near you. Face Puncher flying enemies. Note that Glamour has some weird effects. Grenades do not make contact with Glamour'd enemies, so if you grasp one and try to throw a Fish at it, the Fish will just pass right through. Either splash a linked enemy on the ground, or wait for Grasp to end and splash the original enemy. Or just punch the grasped enemy. Glamour will also cause some flying enemies to initiate an aerial battle with each other, making them fly high up and far apart. You may have to use the Face Puncher to take them out.

Tips for best utilizing the powerful Groundbreaker Guardian Rank perk. Groundbreaker Groundbreaker is a kind of damage just like any other, and therefore can receive some bonuses and be buffed, beyond whatever damage you used to build it up in the first place. Groundbreaker can be delivered by melee or slam, and the only method by which it can be applied to multiple targets is via ground slamming. Even the Stinger nova, if it hits mulitple enemies, will only deliver Groundbreaker to one of them. Bonus elements apply to Groundbreaker, such as the ASE 50% bonus elements and Urad and Re-Volter. Since there is no mayhem scaling involved with Groundbreaker, all of these bonus elements properly scale. The Guardian Angel's damage bonus also applies to Groundbreaker, which is a very strong synergy when applying Groundbreaker at a distance and to multiple enemies with a ground slam. Other global bonuses apply, such as V1 from Victory Rush and the bonus from Burn Both Ends.

The try-hard grenade build. Boomfist SYNOPSIS The try-hard grenade build. INTRO Want to see the Fastball hit for hundreds of millions of damage? Want to make the Lightspeed seem like it's double dipping as it chews through raid boss HP bars? Want to be a little try-hard about making grenades really strong? This is the build for you. Unlike the other grenade build on this site, Phase Yeet , this build is very active. Also unlike that build, this one is rather easy to understand. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Over-specced into blue, nothing in green. Don't worry, Blight Tiger is not necessary. Max Violent Tapestry for the occasional freeze via Terror Cryo. ACTION SKILL Fist Over Matter. Grenades go *boom*, Fist Over Matter goes.... *fist*? But also *boom*. Whatever, don't think too hard about it. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Either fire or shock. The actual element you need to worry about is that of your grenade, which will be either fire, shock, or corrosive. If you can match your action skill element to your grenade (i.e., fire or shock), then great. If your grenade is corrosive, then your action skill element should be whatever is second best for the content you're up against. Fire is almost always gonna be second best, the exception being when you're fighting Guardians. Action skill augment is either Expedite or Allure. The former for more Fist Over Matter activations, the latter for more aggro-control / defense. Dealer's choice. MAIN GUN Guardian Angel, with Terror Cryo anointment. SWAP GUN 1 Face Puncher, with Melee Apply Terror anointment. You'll be regularly swapping to this to keep terror stacks up (and sometimes deliver Groundbreaker). SWAP GUN 2 Low level Sellout. Anointment not necessary. You will also be regularly swapping to this to keep yourself dotted, which activates Elemental Projector, Burn Both Ends, and the Golden Rule class mod. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. FFYL GUN Free Radical with Consecutive Hits or Terror Cryo anointment. CLASS MOD Golden Rule, with points into both Laid Bare and Mindfulness being very helpful. Normally, Fist Over Matter is a clunky action skill because of its duration and long cooldown. This class mod (and self-dotting with the Sellout) help shorten that cooldown substantially. Recommended passives: grenade damage, splash damage, action skill damage, mag size, splash radius, grenade radius, action skill cooldown rate, Hyperion weapon critical hit damage (for when the Lightspeed crits while you're holding the Guardian Angel). SHIELD Re-Volter, with Terror Health Regen anointment. Even though this build has Sustainment, and plenty of elemental damage instances with Fist Over Matter and your grenades, it's still a bit squishy. Burn Both Ends makes enemies *very* angry. Additionally, your Sellout self-dot will be steadily eating away at your HP and shield, because holding the Guardian Angel will boost that damage x6. I very highly recommend finding a Re-Volter with at least one shield charge augment. That way, you can keep reactivating its effect by picking up a shield charge, which allows your self-dot to immediately deplete the shield again, refreshing the Re-Volter bonus. This is as opposed to relying on the Shield Reboot Guardian Rank perk, which requires a kill. ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Victory Rush. The Elemental Projector is the more important part, here, so a purple one with good passives will be much more effective than a Vic Rush with bad passives. This artifact will boost the damage of your grenade's element, your Re-Volter bonus element, and the element of your Fist Over Matter. Recommended passives: grenade damage, area damage in 2nd or 3rd slot, fire/shock/corrosive damage, mag size, move speed, action skill cooldown rate. GRENADES The only downside to this build is that the grenade options are somewhat limited. The upside is that the options we do have are extremely strong. Any of the following grenades in fire, shock, and/or corrosive, with the Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment: Fastball, Lightspeed, double or triple sticky Hyperion Longbow, Ghast Call, Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb. A purple grenade with just a single sticky part can raid boss if you keep your distance well enough for max Guardian Angel bonus. A shock Hex can do low level content. GAMEPLAY LOOP Choose a grenade of the appropriate element for the content you are facing. Match your action skill element to it if you can, otherwise choose the 2nd best option between fire and shock. Set your Sellout to corrosive (it should *always* be set to corrosive on this build). Then, in any order, grasp an enemy, shoot an enemy with your Face Puncher to generate terror, and dot yourself with the Sellout. At that point you're ready to swap to the Guardian Angel and start chucking grenades. In the midst of battle, do whatever needs doing - if your self-dot is running out, swap to the Sellout and re-up it. If Fist Over Matter is cooled down, go ahead and grasp something. Shoot the Face Puncher regularly to keep up terror. You get the idea. Whenever you aren't doing those things, you should be chucking grenades with the Guardian Angel. The chaos created by your grenades, Fist Over Matter, and Remnant should start wiping everything out. Even vs raid bosses, you don't need to switch off the Lightspeed if you don't want to, despite the Ghast Call and double/triple sticky Longbow being stronger. Hemo, for example, is totally pwned by Fist Over Matter. The constant re-depleting of your shield as you pick up shield charges may be a little jarring and make you think you're being attacked when you aren't. You'll get used to it. NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11 This build requires you to play on Mayhem 10 with the More Than Okay Boomer easy modifier, so you don't run out of grenades.

About Stone_Swan, creator of countless off-meta Amara builds. 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. Since this site's launch, I've figured out how Zane's Our Man Flynt skill actually works , eventually leading it to be one of the strongest skills in the entire game . More builds have been added to the site, starting with the resurrection of the White Elephant on true melee builds , making true melee capable of raid bossing . I performed the first Graveward one-punch and the first Mayhem 11 boss kill with the Binary Operator . Shoutout to my friends, acquaintances, and inspirations along my build-making journey, in no particular order: Moxsy, CZ47, Puptea, MadGlenny, lesshandsomejack, tbj_quag, soccerchickTV, LazyData, SomeOldGuyInHawaii, Skkra, Ancient_Rune, xEternalDragonx, Lonemasterino , nino_salvaje, Oh yes 10 FPS, and I'm sure many more I'm forgetting... Much love, Stone_Swan