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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.

A Driver, Deathless, Infernal Wish, Light Fantastic (but can use any action skill), Terror, Urad, Dark Army build. I'm sure this combination breaks some cosmic rule somewhere. I can't believe this build exists. Unreal Amara SYNOPSIS A Driver, Deathless, Infernal Wish, Light Fantastic (but can use any action skill), Terror, Urad, Dark Army build. I'm sure this combination breaks some cosmic rule somewhere. I can't believe this build exists. INTRO Probably the most wild build on this site. It's the demented cousin of Nightmare Amara. The Dark Army allows for some crazy build concepts, and this build has all of them in one. It will get you killed, but it will kill other things way more effectively. All it requires is a little bit of setup and upkeep in some situations. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Nothing crazy in the skill tree. Fairly standard gun stuff with concessions made for Deathless (no Clarity, Samsara, or Sustainment) and Driver (going far enough into green for Mindfulness). Of note, however, is Burn Both Ends. When you are self-dotted by any means, and if you also have a bonus element active, that bonus element "ticking on top of" your self-dot will stack Burn Both Ends for you, without you having to take damage from enemies. You are self-dotted in this build through both the Spiritual Driver and the Infernal Wish. And you always have a bonus element active in the form of Urad. ACTION SKILL Light Fantastic, but literally anything. Some action skills, of course, will be stronger than others. Light Fantastic is.... fantastic in the Guardian Takedown. Reverberation, Tandava, Phaseslam, and Fracture are all good. There's no reason to use a Grasp skill, but it won't hurt. You don't even have to use your action skill but once every now and then to proc your Terror anoints. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to your content, yes even including cryo on a Driver build. You don't need to be moving fast while in combat. See the next section. Your action skill element also does not need to match your gun's element. SETTING UP THE DARK ARMY 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 this interaction. To prebuff the Dark Army drones before combat: make sure you are not on the specific Dark Army you want. Fire your gun until the Infernal Wish dots you. Wait for your Mindfulness stacks to get up to 25. At max Mindfulness, run and slide and, at the beginning of the slide when you are moving fastest, swap to the Dark Army you want. Now those newly-summoned drones have Driver's movespeed gun damage permanently, or at least until you die, fast travel, or teleport. If any of those things happen, just repeat the process. GUNS Dark Armies in all elements except Radiation, all with the Urad anointment. FFYL GUN The Dark Army drones will get you out of FFYL. However, there is a tiny, tiny amount of situations where they won't do anything for you, such as if you are in FFYL and get teleported during the Scourge fight. In such a case, carry something like a Free Radical with Urad anointment. Note that the Dark Army you hold in your hand is only a small percentage of your damage output. The vast majority comes from your drones and Light Fantastic if you're using it. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible. This is the core item that will give your drones their permanent power. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, splash damage radius, SMG damage, weapon damage, action skill damage. Avoid mag size passives. SHIELD Infernal Wish, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Wish does not add a projectile to your Dark Army drones. It is simply there to buff your own gun by a little bit and to allow for easy self-dotting outside of action skill usage. The Driver takes care of dotting you when you use your action skill, but Phaseflare-type action skills do not get activated very frequently. ARTIFACT Snowdrift Deathless. This will greatly increase your slide speed when you are pre-buffing the Dark Army drones. Recommended passives: SMG damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (which will also increase area radius), elemental damage, movespeed. GRENADE Whatever you like, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. The Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) is very good for grouping up enemies so your Dark Army drones can shoot 'em all at once, and your Light Fantastic can blow all of them up at once. GAMEPLAY LOOP After pre-buffing your Dark Army drones, all you need to do is fire the Dark Army in your hand a little bit. You don't even need to hit anything with it. The purpose is 1. to empty the mag and force a reload, which makes the drones deal elemental damage (according to the gun's element) for a short time. And 2. to proc the Infernal Wish dot on yourself, which will keep Burn Both Ends stacks up. You can stand still, even cryo yourself with a cryo action skill with the Driver; your drones are still buffed, and your handheld gun's damage doesn't matter. However, this being a Deathless build that also procs the Wish on itself, you will get put into FFYL as part of the normal gameplay. But don't let that stop you; this build is a freight train. Your Dark Army drones will get you back up in short order. The only thing to watch out for is if you're going to go down, you're dotted, and the last enemy is about to die. You can't get up from FFYL if there are no enemies left. In that case, stop shooting and let that enemy down you before killing them.

Simple yet very effective Phasecast-centered build. Sorceress Queen SYNOPSIS Simple yet very effective Phasecast-centered build. INTRO This was the build, years ago, that resulted from my discovery of the Reverberation technique. After DLC6 gear, level 72, and Expedite fix, it's quite a bit more effective and easier to play. The Reverb technique is now only needed for bossing, as Tandava is strong enough to be used for quicker mobbing. This build's damage is entirely cast-centric, and it gets recycled through Groundbreaker and Remnant. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is basically blue tree carrying, with a little support from each of the other trees. There's some cryo-related skills for use when your action skill element is cryo. ACTION SKILL Tandava. Reverberation for bossing, with the Reverb technique. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to the content you are facing. MAIN GUN Guardian Angel, with Astral Projection anointment. There is a Urad version of this build, in which case, also have a Guardian Angel with Urad anointment. SECONDARY GUN Face Puncher, x7 simply for less reloading, with 150/90 anointment. This is your tool for delivering Groundbreaker after you cast and again after Remnant lands. The 150/90 anointment helps assure enemies are 1 shot with Groundbreaker. For the Urad setup, another Face Puncher with Urad anointment. FFYL GUNS Because you can't cast while in FFYL, and Groundbreaker and Remnant might not be available, you have room for a couple FFYL guns, all with Urad anointment: Free Radical, Backburner, Plaguebearer, Plasma Coil. CLASS MOD Phasezerker, preferably with points into Clarity. The most important passive is Splash Damage Radius, to make your Tandava explosion larger. Other recommended passives: action skill damage, splash damage, action skill cooldown rate. SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start anointment. This massive shock bonus element will not only apply to your casts, but also to your Groundbreaker. Groundbreaker is at 40% effectiveness relative to its power when this build was made, and this bonus element helps make up for it. Frozen Heart with Action Skill Start anointment is a good option for the Deathless/Urad version of the build, where crowd control may be necessary. This will also allow Unweave The Rainbow to give you a bit more damage, as well. The original shield option is still viable: Band of Sitorak, this time with ASE 50% Cooldown anointment. The Band of Sitorak has an extremely short recharge delay and an extremely fast recharge rate, making it the optimal shield for Topped Off uptime. So while this shield won't give you more direct damage, it will allow for more casts overall. ARTIFACT Snowdrift Victory Rush, most preferably with an Area Of Effect passive in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area radius. The Snowdrift is important for mobility and avoiding damage, so that your shield can remain undamaged for Topped Off uptime. It can be swapped out for a Last Stand if you feel you need more survivability, or an Ice Breaker if you're running cryo action skill element. If using the Urad loadout, this can be a Snowdrift or Ice Breaker or Last Stand Deathless. Other recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, move speed, elemental damage, health regen. GRENADE Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or Mesmer, with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. This bonus element will apply to Groundbreaker, and the radiation dots, in tandem with Violent Tapestry, will keep your Rush stacks topped up. If you want to throw a grenade for damage, even though it's not the theme of this build, you can use a Fish Slap. GAMEPLAY LOOP The basic loop is to cast, shoot for Groundbreaker, let Remnant hit something, shoot for Groundbreaker again, and then repeat all of those steps. Then await your cooldown by either stunning enemies with the Face Puncher's melee, throwing a crowd control grenade at them, or simply dodging out of the way with your Snowdrift. Once you are familiar with this build, you should start aiming your Groundbreaker more deliberately. If you cast, then shoot your Groundbreaker at the same enemy that Remnant is going for, then you effectively lose two attacks. Remnant will always go toward the enemy closest to you, so get in the habit of aiming for mid-to-far enemies. You can then stun the enemy closest to you while Remnant closes the gap. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS FIGHT Phasecast, any variant of it, will not make contact with Hemo or Vermi's hitboxes. Use Tandava to splash the ground below/next to them, and then shoot them with the Face Puncher. Usually, Remnant or the Groundbreaker damage after Remnant are the things that end up finishing the fight for you. NOTES - NON-DLC LOADOUT This build can be made without DLC, and it will only be slightly less powerful. Hold the 150/90 Face Puncher at all times (or the Urad one, if going Urad), except in FFYL, and use the Frozen Heart or Band of Sitorak. Use this skill tree and pick any augment between Revelation, Soul Sap, and Glamour. You may have to use the Reverb technique against tougher content such as True Guardian Takedown.

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

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.

Tips for recovering from Fight For Your Life (FFYL) as Amara at endgame. FFYL Amara loses a lot of her buffs when going into FFYL, including Do Harm stacks, the Killstack anointment, and self-dots. Here are some tips to help you get up if you've gone down. HAVE A GOOD FFYL GUN This is the most important measure against death. Good FFYL guns for Amara are basically guns that are powerful on their own. Prime examples are the Free Radical and the Plasma Coil. Other strong contenders are the Backburner, the Plaguebearer, and the Sand Hawk. The Backburner and Plaguebearer both have a vortex/singularity effect, which can be useful for keeping enemies in place, preventing them from running away. Another less-well-known gun is the Ember's Purge. This gun works well for grounded enemies. When shooting an enemy, there's a random chance a fire puddle will appear beneath them, and this puddle does massive damage to anything standing in it. If you're a melee build and have a Static Charge, a Face Puncher is a great FFYL weapon. (It's even better if Body & Mind is active.) Static Charge will chain to nearby enemies, building up Groundbreaker for every Face Puncher shot. SHOOT THE GUARDIAN ANGEL Lots of builds use the Guardian Angel to buff their attacks, and this gun is actually an amazing FFYL gun if you're also specced Indiscriminate. The Guardian Angel's damage bonus will get double dipped by Indiscriminate. So you can repeatedly fire at a single enemy in front of you, and the ricochets will find enemies off to the side and obliterate them. The Guardian Angel is also useful if you have any decent strength dots on enemies when you go down, as it will increase the damage of those dots. You can get decent dots even without building for them if you're using high-dot weapons like the Free Radical or Plasma Coil or Kickcharger. FFYL GUN ANOINTMENT Take care in choosing the anointment for your FFYL gun. Most of the time, it's between Consecutive Hits and Urad. Consecutive Hits is useful because Amara won't have a lot of gun damage while in FFYL. But Urad can be just as effective. If you're specced into Sustainment, beware that you can lifesteal while in FFYL. Your health might not be visible, but it's still there, and you can lifesteal out of Urad, deactivating the anoint while you're still in FFYL. In general, I choose Urad, unless I'm specced Sustainment, in which case I choose Consecutive Hits. USE GROUNDBREAKER When shooting an enemy while in FFYL, if you have Indiscriminate specced, you often don't need to finish an enemy off with your gun. Indiscriminate builds lots of Groundbreaker damage from the other enemies. You can get the enemy in front of you most of the way down, and punch your way through the rest. Be careful, though: if you have to crawl to close the distance to connect a punch, you may inadvertently decrease your time in FFYL by losing the Dead Man Walking Guardian Rank perk. It's a balancing act. USE YOUR MINIMAP The instant you get put into FFYL, check your minimap for the most likely target. You should not be spending time in FFYL looking for an enemy to shoot. This can save you precious seconds. Ping the enemy you want to kill to highlight them, so you can follow them in case they become obscured. PREDICT YOUR FFYL If you know you are in a sticky situation you can't get out of, pre throwing a grenade or Fish Slap or grasping an enemy can set you up to recover quickly. For example, if you're mid-reload and a group of enemies starts attacking, but your Ties That Bind is availble, don't wait to finish the reload. Instead, grasp an enemy, then go down. The Lead Or Alive Guardian Rank perk will reload your guns for you, and you'll have an easy time killing enemies caught in Ties That Bind. There's also the old Borderlands trick where, in a tough encounter, you leave a weak enemy or two alive for easy Second Winding.

A very strong Spark Plug slam build. Teslamara SYNOP SIS A very strong Spark Plug slam build. INTRO The ultimate evolution of the original Amara Spark Plug build , it has grown almost too strong. It can speed through nearly any content. And it's very simple to play. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES There are some gun-related skills for your the Face Puncher, your FFYL weapon, or shooting the Guardian Angel (see "Notes - Shooting the Guardian Angel" section at the bottom). Transcend also is beneficial for the Spark Plug, because the Spark Plug can crit. Burn Both Ends can be self-stacked by the Spiritual Driver self-dot and an active bonus element (Terror Cryo). Normally, self damage does not stack Burn Both Ends, but a bonus element "ticking on top of" a self-dot will. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. Optionally base Phasegrasp for bosses for the lack of duration and shorter cooldown. You can actually use any action skill you want, just be aware that waiting too long between activations will make you lose damage. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always corrosive. Nothing of importance changes if you change your action skill element, so corrosive is chosen for the longest dot length. The longer the dot is on you, the longer you have Mindfulness movement speed and the longer you have Burn Both Ends damage. MAIN GUN Guardian Angel, with Terror Cryo anointment. Hold this, slam, and move away for increased Spark Plug damage. FFYL GUN If you have any still going, your Spark Plugs will get you up from FFYL most of the time, but it may be wise to carry something like a Free Radical or other strong gun. Anointment possibilities: Consecutive Hits, Terror Cryo, Terror Crit. BACKUP GUN Face Puncher, preferably x14, with Terror Cryo anointment. With Body & Mind active, this gun can help you quickly take out distant flying enemies or get you up from FFYL. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible. Movement speed is quite important for slam builds. Otherwise, it's used to self-stack Burn Both Ends, in conjuction with an active bonus element. The most important passive is Splash Damage Radius, as that will increase the radius of your slams, and thus increase the area over which you can apply Groundbreaker. Other passives: action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, action skill damage. SHIELD Re-Volter, with ASE Apply Terror. Your Re-Volter will break naturally, and reproc every time you kill an enemy, via the Shield Reboot Guardian Rank perk. This frees up an anoint slot instead of using Action Skill Start. Another favorite of mine with this build is a corrosive Messy Breakup, with the same ASE Apply Terror anoint. Like the Re-Volter, this shield can re-break over and over again with Shield Reboot, giving you lots of drones. The drones are very helpful for bossing, distant enemies, and shock-immune enemies. ARTIFACT Spark Plug Static Charge. The Static Charge bonus element applies to the Spark Plug. The most important passive is Area Of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot, as that will also increase your splash radius and the radius of your slams. Other passives: action skill cooldown rate, shock damage, cryo damage, movement speed. GRENADE Fish Slap in various elements, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. Use the Fish if you want to more quickly deal with immune shock heavies or dispatch a boss. GAMEPLAY LOOP Grasp immediately when it's available, then slam with reckless abandon. Move away from your Spark Plugs to increase damage from Guadian Angel. When out of combat, get into the habit of swapping away from your Guardian Angel, perhaps to something like the EMP5. The Guardian Angel increases all self-damage by 6x, so with the Driver self-dot active, you can actually down yourself while running between fights with no enemies around. NOTES - SHOOTING THE GUARDIAN ANGEL Guardian Angel with Indiscriminate makes the Indiscriminate ricochets double-dip the Guardian Angel bonus damage. The ricochets are very powerful. Randomly shooting the Guardian Angel at an enemy will sometimes clear all of the enemies around you and give you huge Groundbreaker damage for your next slam. This is a great technique for speeding up the Anthema fight: as you approach Anathema to slam a Spark Plug, shoot the Guardian Angel at his face. The bullets will ricochet and kill the mobs all around the arena, and your next slam will take a huge chunk out of Anathema. NOTES - SPECIFIC BOSSES The Spark Plug can completely meme on some bosses: Scourge, Rampager, Tyrant of Instinct (even the True version). Try and and see for yourself. Beware that during the Scourge fight, slamming a Spark Plug too close to the center of the arena can automatically chain-kill the Diadems that he spawns. Instead, place the Spark Plugs near the top of the center diamond on the side you enter the arena. The Spark Plug does not work at all against Hemo and Vermi. For that fight, equip an Elemental Projector Static Charge, and corrosive Fish Slap, and just Fish them to death. This build has a great damage formula, and this will make very quick work of the fight.

True melee and action skill hybrid build. Sapphire Swan SYNOPSIS True melee and action skill hybrid build. INTRO Sapphire Swan, along with Ruby Swan and Emerald Swan , is one of my "jewels" of true melee builds. This one is the "blue jewel", designated as such because it uses a blue tree action skill, Tandava. It is the simplest of the three, currently, although I do have an update planned that slightly increases its complexity and greatly increases its power. The philosophy of this build is to supplement your punches with action skill damage, Groundbreaker, and the melee damage bonus vs frozen targets. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Blue and purple trees synergize very well with a melee and action skill focus. However, you can't cap both of them and also pick up Sustainment, and this build currently needs Sustainment. It also needs Find Your Center, but you'll get that from the class mod. There's some reload speed taken in blue tree, and that's because there is a strategy for shooting your gun occasionally. ACTION SKILL Tandava. Optionally, Reverberation for bossing or better single target damage, especially with the special Reverberation technique. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Freezing enemies through punching is a core mechanic of this build, so always cryo. Even against Wotan. (There's no points in green tree for corrosive anyway.) PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. CASTING / UTILITY / PUNCHING GUN Guardian Angel, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. Swap to this to cast Reverb or Tandava for more damage. In areas where mobs are weaker, like trials or Slaughterstar, you can get away with casting while holding the Psycho Stabber, if you like. You can also shoot the Guardian Angel at enemies for a couple of benefits. First, it will grant you healing th rough Sustainment. Second, when the projectiles ricochet through Indiscriminate, they will double dip the Guardian Angel bonus. When those ricocheted projectiles hit enemies, they will either kill them or at the very least give you good Groundbreaker damage. Because of that, this is the recommended punching gun against Guardians in the True Guardian Takedown. When you're not Phasecasting, alternate between shooting the Guardians and punching them. FFYL / BACKUP GUNS Face Puncher and Blade Fury (masher preferred) with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointments. The Face puncher is for killing enemies out of reach or to help with bossing. It will also get you out of FFYL if you still have Body & Mind active. The Blade Fury is a backup FFYL gun for when Body & Mind runs out and you're still not back up. CLASS MOD Breaker, with a required point into Find Your Center. True melee builds don't function well at all without FYC. The remaining points should go to Jab Cross, which adds action skill damage to your attacks. The most important passive is Splash Damage Radius. Other recommended passives: action skill damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, melee damage. SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start anointment. This adds tons of shock damage to all of your attacks, allowing you to keep cryo as your action skill element, even against blue HP bar bosses. Defensive augments are recommended, such as absorb, health charge, shield charge, turtle. ARTIFACT Cryo Stone Static Charge. The Cryo Stone further helps your punches freeze enemies. The Static Charge is the best all-around artifact suffix for melee. The most important passive is Area of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area radius. Other recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, melee damage, movement speed. GRENADE Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or radiation Fish Slap (for immune Maliwan Heavies; see "Notes - Immune Maliwan Heavies" below), with ASE Apply Terror anointment. GAMEPLAY LOOP Phasecast at something to get your kill skills and anointments rolling. Throw a few punches, then repeat. Try to kill lots of enemies with your cast, to get more stacks of Expedite. If you fail, you still have other skills that will proc Expedite for you: Remnant, Unweave The Rainbow, Free The Soul, Body & Mind. There's also Combo Breaker, which comes in clutch every so often. Beware of the timing between your casts. Sometimes you don't want to cast twice in immediate succession. Since this is not a Phasezerker build, Rush stacks will need to be accrued manually. This isn't hard, but it's something to keep in mind. If you have 20 Rush stacks that are converted to Do Harm stacks when you cast, and your cast kills something, Avatar will refund you 10 Rush stacks. Then you can build up another 10 to get back to 20 before casting again. For bossing and tankier enemies, you will be relying more on your Reverbs and Tandavas than you will on your punches, but you can still punch down even the toughest mobs if you desire. For raid bosses, you can use a Phaseflare variant such as Shooting Star. During the Wotan fight, keep using cryo Tandava, and wait for some mobs to spawn. Tandava hitting Wotan and also killing those mobs will either 1. make Free The Soul and Remnant target Wotan or 2. give you enough Groundbreaker to shoot Wotan with the Face Puncher or Blade Fury. NOTES - IMMUNE MALIWAN HEAVIES The two elemental damage types you deal with this build are cryo and shock. There are no others. That means both Cryo and Shock immune Heavies in the Maliwan Takedown pose a problem. For Cryo heavies, your punch will essentially have zero effect, not even for delivering Groundbreaker. Cast at them with Reverb or Tandava and let the Re-Volter damage kill them. If it doesn't, ground slam at them to deliver Groundbreaker. You can also deliver Groundbreaker this way from damage you dealt to other enemies. Shock heavies are less of a problem. Your attacks will do significantly less damage to them, but it's still enough. They can be punched directly to deliver Groundbreaker. They can also be frozen. NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11 Most of the time, true melee builds should play on Mayhem 10 take advantage of Speed Demon, and this is one of those times. Other benign Mayhem 10 modifiers: Medium - Healy Avenger, Hard - Drone Ranger or Ticked Off, Very Hard - Not The Face.

A Pestilence build, with a twist. Radnarok SYNOPSIS A Pestilence build, but with a twist! INTRO I have avoided making a Pestilence build for a very long time because to be honest I kinda hate the gun. Who enjoys not seeing anything as they sprint through hordes of disintegrating enemies? Wait... Probably everyone who plays this game... Still, it took me a while before I came up with a Pestilence build that was different enough from the others to merit a spot on this site. And this build is indeed quite different, even though it requires the same foundational pieces of gear: the Pestilence and a Red Suit. Like all other Pestilence builds, it is extremely strong. Stupidly so. And it's not hard to learn. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES I wish I had more points. I want to max Do Harm and Wrath and From Rest and Anima and Infusion and Clarity and Unweave the Rainbow. Alas, compromises must be made to get our important skills: 3/3 Samsara, Remnant, Sustainment, and 5/5 Burn Both Ends. ACTION SKILL Whatever action skill pairs well with these four anointments: Killstack & Consec Hits (Ties That Bind), 250 Phasecast (Tandava), and 300 Phaseslam (Phaseslam). Tandava is your choice when using the 250 Phasecast anointment, because it can splash multiple enemies with Laid Bare. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to the content you're facing, except for cryo. Because of our points into Infusion, when you shoot your foot with the Sellout to dot yourself, you will cryo yourself and get slowed. The two cryo skills, Go With The Flow and Unweave The Rainbow, are there if you choose to use cryo guns. DOTTING GUN A low level Sellout. You can zip through the story and get to the Sellout mission on Eden 6, killing as few enemies as possible, at about level 21. The Sellout mission reward will get sent to you at level 26, but then it will be available in Earl's Vendor on Sanctuary at your current level. The anointment doesn't matter. The lower the level, the better, and yes this matters; because of your great damage formula, you can down yourself with the Sellout. You can get 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. Anyway, this is the gun you shoot your feet with before swapping to whatever gun you're attacking with. More on this in the Gameplay Loop section below. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. ATTACKING GUNS Just about anything. There are plenty of guns that are hopeless, but some old fan-favorites can be put to good use if you have a 250 Phasecast or 300 Phaseslam anointment on them: Maggie, Companion, Hellshock, etc. I encourage you to experiment. One caveat: because the self-dots will shake your screen, avoid any gun you need to be precise with. FFYL GUN Just in case you're trying some off-meta guns that won't help you in FFYL (and you WILL go down with this build), it would be wise to always carry a Free Radical or Plasma Coil or similar. CLASS MOD Golden Rule, preferably with points into Laid Bare first, Mindfulness second. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, splash damage radius, weapon damage, weapon type damage, weapon critical damage, magazine size, manufacturer critical hit 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, assuring yourself constant uptime on whatever anointment you're rocking. SHIELD Re-Volter with an ASE 50% bonus element. Not the Action Skill Start anointment, although you can use that if you like. But I recommend the ASE 50% because the Re-Volter will proc naturally as soon as you deplete it through your own self-dots. And then it will continue to proc when you kill enemies via the Shield Reboot Guardian Rank perk. Kill an enemy, and it will immediately begin recharging and deplete again due to your dots, keeping the effect active. If the self-dots are just too much, you can use an Asclepius to reduce their strength, although you will lose a lot of damage and fire rate. Stick to strong weapons if you're doing this. ARTIFACT Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge, preferably with magazine size, fire rate, or reload speed passives. GRENADE Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar with ASE 50% bonus element, both great utility grenades. 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% anoints are procced, and your Re-Volter is procced, that's more dots. 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. Then swap to your main gun, activate your action skill, and shoot away. As soon as your cooldown is finished or just about finished, swap back to the Sellout to shoot once at your feet, and then again swap back to your main gun, activate action skill, and go to town. That's your basic gameplay loop. Besides enabling the Golden Rule's cooldown effect and reproccing the Re-Volter in conjunction with Shield Reboot, dotting yourself has two other effects. First, Trust In Yourself will get procced over and over again, just like the Re-Volter, keeping your weapon swap speed up and enabling this basic gameplay loop of constant swapping. Second, it will stack Burn Both Ends. BBE does not normally stack on self damage or self dots, but if you have a bonus element active, which you will, it will stack on those instances of self damage. This gives you a constant 75% elemental damage that also applies to non-elemental attacks, as long as you're dotted. The self-dot with this build is sometimes uncomfortably strong. At times, it will seem like you're playing a Urad build, because an enemy can health gate you and then the self-dot takes care of the rest. Just be ready for it. NOTES - RE-VOLTER A slightly deeper dive is required here if you're not using the Action Skill Start anointment on your Re-Volter. Because you're reproccing it by killing enemies and triggering Shield Reboot, you need to kill enemies every 15 seconds to keep the Re-Volter going. It's essentially a kill skill. So be careful if, for example, you're plowing through the Wotan fight and phasing him before he can spawn adds; eventually, your Re-Volter will wear off. As long as there are adds around, though, Indiscriminate will reproc it for you. NOTES - RAID BOSSING This build is pretty much like other standard Phasezeker or Spiritual Driver gun builds when it comes to raid bossing. Use strong weapons (like the Free Radical) and strong anointments, such as 250% Phasecast or 300% Phaseslam. The advantage this has is you don't need to worry about your cooldown. And, well, it's extra cool because it's a Golden Rule build.

Tips for understanding and building with Amara's Green Tree at endgame. 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.

Tips for getting the most damage out of your Phasecast and its variants. Phasecasting There is a special technique to getting more damage out of your Phasecasts, more specifically Reverberation. This does not work with Tandava. When you cast at a surface, your Phasecast "splats" against it, whether it's a wall or floor. This is a separate instance of damage from the cast itself, and it deals splash damage. So if an enemy is backed up against a wall and you cast at them, they will take two instances of damage: the first when the Phasecast passes through them, and again when it splats against the wall behind them. This can be done to an enemy that doesn't have a wall behind them, as long as the enemy is on the ground. You can splat the ground just under their toes, and force the enemy to get hit twice. This is especially important for Reverberation, because Reverb's inherent ability is that it gains damage as it passes through enemies. So that second instance, the splat on the ground, will be stronger not only because of splash damage, but because the Reverb buffed itself. This is on top of Reverb's base damage being much higher than the other Phasecast action skills. Watch as a normal Reverb cast is compared to this special Reverb technique: This is especially useful for casting builds vs bosses. Tandava is great for mobbing, but falls far short on single target damage vs Reverberation with this technique. TANDAVA Tandava does have its own special ability, though (along with Phaseslam). Its ability to wrap around or penetrate hit boxes allows you to hit enemies behind cover. This ability also allows it to multi-hit a couple of bosses that have multiple hit boxes. Wotan's bottom half actually has 5 hit boxes: one for Wotan himself, and one for each of his legs. Tandava's ability to penetrate hit boxes allows it to hit Wotan for 5 times the damage. Check out this screenshot: This is a single Tandava cast at Wotan. Note the four damage numbers up top, one for each leg. There's also an obscured one in the middle near the bottom. Another boss that has multiple hit boxes that can be exploited by Tandava is Blue Fire at the end of Slaughterstar 3000. There may be more. HEMOVOROUS & VERMIVOROUS Unfortunately, Gearbox coded Hemo and Vermi in a way that no form of Phasecast makes direct contact with them. If you send a Phasecast at them, it will simply pass on through as if they weren't there. The only way to damage them is to splash Tandava on the ground near them, and hope they are within the damage radius. This can be tricky when they are in their flying stages.

Hellfire-only build. It's only half a joke. Inferno Amara SYNOPSIS Hellfire build. It's actually pretty good! INTRO This build started as a meme, a proof of concept, the concept being just how far theorycrafting and optimizing can take you. The Hellfire is widely considered to be a very weak, very terrible gun. But it can still be built around to make it kill True Guardian Takedown enemies, even without Ties That Bind. It's also, actually, a pretty fun build, because the Hellfire has a great feel to it, as do most Dahl SMGs. The core interactions that make this build work are down toward the bottom in the "Notes - Hellfire Advantages" section. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Note no Sustainment. Samsara is your sustain. Unweave the Rainbow is your damage. Violent Tapestry allows you to access that damage. ACTION SKILL Reverberation, usually. Tandava can also be used, but beware the longer cooldown. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Almost always cryo, but you can experiment with matching your element to your content. Even against Guardians in the True Guardian Takedown, I tend to stick to cryo for the faster freezing, even though shock makes for much stronger Unweave damage. When bossing with Reverberation, element match the boss (cryo can often be used in place of corrosive, unless you're fighting Wotan). GUN Hellfire, with Phasecast 250. I recommend going for max dot damage, single projectile. Get as low of a mag size as possible, because mag size passives are preferred on your artifact to make up for this. FFYL GUN Free Radical with Consecutive Hits anointment. Even though you can often get up from FFYL with the Hellfire on this build, sometimes it just isn't enough to cut it. UTILITY / BOSSING GUN Guardian Angel with 200% Astral Projection anointment. This is for big bossing Reverb/Tandava damage. CLASS MOD Phasezerker. Skill points aren't too important, but lots of points into Clarity does help your survivability. This, and also the artifact, are where optimization really goes a long way toward raising up the Hellfire. Passives such as SMG Damage, Action Skill Damage, and Dahl Weapon Critical Damage, Weapon Damage, and Mag Size really make a difference. Splash Damage Radius is very helpful for Hollowpoints, which greatly help with area clear. Action Skill Cooldown Rate is also not a bad passive. SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start anointment. ARTIFACT Dahl Company Man, with damage, crit damage, and mag size top passives. Good passives for the bottom: mag size, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage, cryo damage, cryo efficiency. Mag size passives are highly preferred because you don't want to spend precious time reloading while an enemy is frozen. Backup artifact, until you get a good Company Man, would be a Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge with a mag size passive. GRENADE Whatever grenade you want, with ASE 50% bonus cryo damage anointment. It's Piss, Mesmer, Hyperion Quasar are all good utility. Fish Slap if you want to incorporate it into your bossing strategy. GAMEPLAY LOOP Cast Reverb at enemies, then shoot them in the face. That's the basics. Always be casting as soon as you can, because the more you cast, the more Violent Tapestry and Do Harms stacks you build (because of the Phasezerker's Rush stacking method). I often cast twice in a row whenever it's available. See the "Notes - Hellfire Advantages" section to learn why both Do Harm and Violent Tapestry are critical to this build. Always be aiming for crit spots. Unweave the Rainbow can crit, making it obscenely effective. A nice bonus to killing with Unweave critical hits is more Hollowpoints. NOTES - HELLFIRE ADVANTAGES So how does Amara make the Hellfire kill True Guardian Takedown enemies? By dealing damage to them via Unweave The Rainbow. Unweave The Rainbow is a form of action skill damage, and it gets mayhem scaling and is increased by Do Harm stacks. UTR requires two things: splash or melee damage, and for the enemy to be frozen. The Hellfire is actually a splash gun. But why does this build go this route for damage when the gun is fire-locked? Because the Hellfire has a very high cryo efficiency. A gun's dot damage listed on the card divided by its projectile damage listed on the card is its cryo efficiency. You can confirm this if you have two versions of a gun, one cryo and one of a different element. The Hellfire has an extremely high listed dot damage relative to its projectile damage. The one in this save file lists 90,786 dmg/second with a projectile damage of 7,205. If this gun were cryo, it would have over 1,200% cryo efficiency! So how about we just add some cryo? And Amara can make any gun cryo, through Infusion. It's only 40% of the damage at 5/5 points, but that still makes for an effective cryo efficiency of about 500%. The 50% Cryo ASE bonus element also inherits the Hellfire's efficiency. The Hellfire freezes very fast for as little damage as it does. And when the freezing occurs, Unweave The Rainbow kicks in to finish the enemy off. This is why constantly Phasecasting is recommended in the "Gameplay Loop" section above. More stacks of Violent Tapestry means greater cryo efficiency and faster freezing. More stacks of Do Harm means stronger Unweave The Rainbow damage. Beware that going into FFYL makes you lose all stacks for both of those skills. So don't act like you're invincible or anything. Remember: no Sustainment. NOTES - BOSSING The Hellfire is not a bossing gun, even with this build, because bosses cannot be frozen. That's why we have the Guardian Angel and use powerful action skills like Reverberation (learn more about Phasecasting technique here ) and Tandava. Add on the Fish Slap if you want. You can even get an Orb Damage anointed Guardian Angel and use the Shooting Star variant of Phaseflare. Equip a Snowdrift when bossing, if you like, because it's not like a Dahl Company Man or Pearl are going to help your action skill damage.