Search this site

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.

Tediore chuckin' Amara. Mother chucker. Mother Chuckin' Amara SYNOPSIS Tediore chuckin' Amara. Mother chucker. INTRO Inspired long ago by LessHandsomeJack's Yeetbot build, this is a Tediore chucking build that went through many iterations and many failures, especially after the undeserved 50% nerf to Tediore chucks. This is as consistent and strong a Tediore Amara can be. It's mostly the Anarchy show, at least for high end content. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is a radiation only build, so Clear The Mind is essential. This is also a Spiritual Driver build, so Mindfulness is essential. Sustainment is necessary to stay alive, and that leaves not much room for blue tree. Tediore chucks can crit, though, so Transcend is a good investment. ACTION SKILL Light Fantastic. Optionally Shooting Star to help with bossing. The long duration of Phaseflare-type skills is important for anointment uptime. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always corrosive. This is mostly because a corrosive self-dot from the Spiritual Driver will last the longest and therefore keep up your Mindfulness stacks the longest. Further, most strong enemies are armored, and that's radiation's worst matchup. MAIN GUN Anarchy, x18, in radiation, with either Consecutive Hits or 150/90 anointment. The highest chuck damage rad Anarchy is 3185x18 with a mag size of 11. The per-shot damage is a little less than a x20 Anarchy, but the higher mag size means more chuck damage, especially when factoring in mag size increases. The base of the chuck damage formula is card damage * pellets * ammo left in mag. Keep in mind the Anarchy's quirks. Interrupting your reload animation in any way makes you lose your stacks. If you've started and haven't fully finished your reload and interrupt it with throwing a grenade, using your action skill, mantling, getting downed, etc., then your stacks are gone. You can build up your stacks again while in combat, but just be aware of what might cause your damage to suddenly drop off. OTHER RADIATION TEDIORE GUNS Needle Gun, with Consecutive Hits or 150/90 anointment. This is the second best chucking gun, after the Anarchy. The Horizon, x9, 5 mag, with Consecutive Hits, is noticeably weaker, but very fun to toss around enemies with. Shoot the reload bubble while it's soaring through the air and it will create a huge singularity, then explode. Bangarang, with Consecutive Hits anointment. Also somewhat weak, but fun to use if you don't mind lots of flashing lights. Purple Keenfire and Sureshot Tediores, with Consecutive Hits anointment. Look for homing MIRV parts, as other parts on Tediores have much weaker chuck damage. The Handsome Jackhammer is really strong, and in a corrosive variant is great for bossing if you keep your distance from it. Deviating from Tediore a little bit, a couple other guns that work decently with this build are a radiation Backburner, Plaguebearer, and Slow Hand with Consecutive Hits anointment. FFYL GUN A fully stacked Anarchy could get you up from FFYL, but there are reasons you may not have that available. A Free Radical or Plasma Coil with Consecutive Hits is a reliable FFYL weapon. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible. Recommended anointments: grenade damage (Tediore chucks get grenade damage), splash damage, splash damage radius, action skill cooldown rate, weapon damage, mag size. Tediore chucks get gun damage bonuses at the time the chuck occurs. So if you run fast and chuck, the Spiritual Driver will greatly increase the damage of the explosion. 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 Red Suit, with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. This shield will prevent you from dying to your own Tediore chucks, and will allow you throw them with reckless abandon and increase their radius through splash radius passives. It will also shield you from your own Backburner and Plaguebearer shots, if you're using those guns. A Power Charge augment or two on this shield is beneficial. ARTIFACT Cutpurse Victory Rush. Throwing a Fish Slap with a Cutpurse will keep up your ammo reserves, allowing you to chuck endlessly. Recommended passives: grenade damage, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (which will also increase area radius), action skill cooldown rate, radiation damage, mag size, move speed. A second recommended artifact is an Elemental Projector Victory Rush. This can be swapped in for boss fights where you plan on killing the boss before running out of reserves. Throw a Fish at your foot to dot yourself and proc it. If you do run out of ammo before the fight is over, you can always briefly swap in the Cutpurse to refill. In the gameplay video above, all footage was taken with the Cutpurse equipped, except for the Hemovorous fight, for which the Elemental Projector was used. Or you can run the Elemental Projector most of the time by equipping a different weapon type in each slot, and simply swap when you run out of ammo for one type. Just remember that if you swap away from the Anarchy, it is no longer stacked. GRENADE Fish Slap, in radiation, with ASA 150% grenade damage anointment. This anointment will greatly increase your chuck damage when Light Fantastic is active, as chucks get grenade damage. The Fish itself will be used to proc Cutpurse and restore your ammo reserves. It can also be thrown at your feet to dot yourself and get stacks of Mindfulness outside of an action skill activation. The Fish in radiation will not be able to hurt you, because of the Red Suit. If running the Elemental Projector, something like a radiation Lightspeed for throwing at your feet will more reliably proc a radiation dot. GAMEPLAY LOOP Summon Light Fantastic, shoot your gun once, make sure you're moving really fast, and then chuck. Shoot your chuck's target bubble if it has one. Chuck again. The faster you move while the gun leaves your hands, the more damage it will do when it explodes. Throw Fish at enemies every so often to replenish your ammo. If you've lost Mindfulness stacks, throw Fish at your feet until you're dotted. Light Fantastic is often not used for damage. Just activate it and forget it; go about chucking. Occasionally, though, it will find a way to kill some enemies and become very strong, in which case you can pay attention to it and direct it around. For tankier bosses such as Scourge, the Shooting Star variant of Phaseflare can help you out, provided you buff it up with a few punches. There's also the Elemental Projector. As long as you're chucking, Sustainment will do a great job of keeping you alive. You can be very aggressive with this build if you keep performing actions. If you're using the Anarchy, pre-stack it at the ammo vendor. Be careful not to ever interrupt its reload animation until it is fully complete, otherwise you lose your stacks. You can rebuild stacks while in combat, if necessary.

One shot basically anything in the game with damage over time from your guns. Amara Dot Gun SYNOPSIS One shot basically anything in the game with damage over time from your guns. INTRO The ultimate evolution of Amara Dot Com , this build focuses on damage over time (dots) applied with high dot damage guns. This build can one shot anything in the game, if you allow some tech to accelerate the dots after the shot is fired. But it also allows you to use some overlooked weapons for regular gameplay. This build is somewhat complicated to set up and play correctly, though, so pay attention. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is somewhat atypical of a red/blue Ties That Bind gun build. Skills like Personal Space and Transcend do not affect dot damage. Nor does splash damage, so Heavy Rain is more about the projectile speed for use with some weapons. Five points go to Do Harm to make sure Ties kills linked enemies, giving you Overkill even at the start of combat with no Overkill or anointments active. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. There is a bonus loadout that uses Reverberation, see "Notes - Radiation Loadout" at the end. Stillness of Mind is important for preventing enemies from damaging your shield. It also allows the Recursion to ping around and hit more enemies while they're stationary. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element matches the gun in your hand. Your main gun will apply the largest dot, and when your AS element matches it, Anima provides an extra boost to that element's dot damage. DOT SCIENCE AND ON-SHOT VS ON-HIT Gun dots are increased by gun damage, any form of amp, the charge mult on certain weapons (such as Major Kong or Kickcharger), Overkill (Guardian Rank perk), and most global on-hit modifiers such as elemental damage, V1, and Guardian Angel bonus. Gun dots are not affected by crit damage, splash damage, weapon type damage, or Personal Space, because all of those are non-global on-hit modifiers. What does that mean? Let's go on a tangent. There are certain things that occur "on shot", when you fire a projectile, and others that occur "on hit", when the damage actually occurs on the enemy. Gun damage, for example, is on shot; if you were to fire a projectile with bonus gun damage, then removed those bonuses before the projectile hit, it will still do damage according to the gun damage you had when you shot it. Same goes for amp, the charge mult on certain weapons, and Overkill. These on-shot modifiers are essentially an increase to the card damage of your gun, and therefore they increase the applied dot. Something like crit occurs on hit, because how can the game know you actually landed a crit until it hits? If you were to remove your crit bonuses before the projectile lands, it would deal less damage. But this also is why crit swapping exists. Weapon type damage is on-hit, and this is the reason why "Shotgun Damage" does not apply to the Face Puncher. The Face Puncher is a shotgun and uses shotgun ammo, but its bullets land (on hit) as melee damage. Thus, the on-hit modifier "Shotgun Damage" won't apply. And it's why it won't increase yours dots; your dots are "hitting" as "status effect damage", not any sort of weapon type. Similarly, splash damage is a global on-hit modifier that applies to all things splash, but dots are not splash. They are not "gun", so Personal Space doesn't apply. They are status effect damage, so the only on-hit modifiers that will increase them are the ones that increase *all kinds* of damage: V1, Guardian Angel, and elemental damage (dots are an element). Dots can be applied one per element per damage source. So your gun's main element must be different from your bonus element anointments, in order to apply as many dots as possible and get the most damage. GUNS Anything that can be shot a single time with a high listed dot damage, with ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment. That anointment says 75%, but it's actually 40% increased status effect damage. Regardless, it's multiplicative with Anima's status effect damage, so it's still very strong. The increased chance also makes your dots much more reliable. Good guns for this build: Moonfire, Recursion, Storm, Major Kong, Kickcharger, Slow Hand, x4 Fearmonger . All of these must be fire, shock, and/or corrosive. Do not choose radiation weapons (outside of the Radiation Loadout), and do not choose cryo weapons. Radiation is much more effective as a bonus element, and cryo does not have a dot. The Major Kong is fucking crazy with this build. That's all that needs to be said. It is possible to use non-elemental guns, such as the Bird of Prey seen in the gameplay video. That gun is anointed with a Next Two Mags anointment, essentially making it an elemental weapon. It does lose the consistency of the ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment, though. SWAP GUN Guardian Angel, with Killstack anointment. Swap to this to increase the damage of the dots you applied with your main gun. Beware that swapping makes you lose your ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment on your main gun. The Killstack anointment, however, attaches to the player, so if enemies die while you're holding the Guardian Angel, that gun damage will still be there when you swap back to your main gun. Dots are increased with gun damage. For quicker raid bossing, you can take advantage of a Guardian Angel with the Elemental Critical Hit anointment. You can trigger this anointment with a grenade that matches your main gun's element or one of your bonus elements. CLASS MOD Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible. Anima is hugely important to this build. Recommended passives: weapon charge speed, action skill cooldown rate, weapon damage, splash damage radius (for larger radsplosions). Weapon charge speed can be very useful for guns like the Recursion and the Major Kong. The Kong normally takes 5 seconds of charging to reach its maximum damage, but with a passive on your Phasezerker, it reduces it down to about 2.5 seconds. SHIELD Amp shield, with ASE 50% bonus radiation anointment. The recommended one is a triple amp purple Pangolin shield, called a One-Shotter. It amps for 100% damage, and has a pretty quick delay and recharge rate, allowing you more amp shots faster. A 0.m amps for more damage, but it takes significantly longer to refill. If you want to use the Major Kong regularly, a double-amp Big Boom Blaster would help you recover some ammo, at the cost of some amp power. ARTIFACT Toboggan. Recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot. This amp multiplies with your shield amp to even further increase dot damage. This means you must slide between each shot. Don't worry, though, if you play correctly, every shot does a lot of work. You can carry a Cutpurse Launchpad to help keep up your launcher ammo, in case you get addicted to the Major Kong. GRENADE Any grenade that can be used for crowd control, such as the Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar (non sticky). Alternatively, if you're trying to Ele Crit a raid boss with your Ele Crit Guardian Angel, a grena de that can crit such as the Lightspeed, Hex, or Hunter Seeker, matching the element of the dot you want to explode. The anointment is important here. It must be a shock, fire, or corrosive ASE 50% bonus element, but it must be suited to your content, and be different from your main gun's element. Radiation is always a bonus element you want, but that's covered with your shield anointment. The element here must be the "2nd or 3rd best" for your content. GAMEPLAY LOOP Make sure your loadout is correct, with differing elements for your gun and your bonus elements. Make sure your grenade is of the appropriate element if you want to Ele Crit a boss. Grasp, slide, shoot, or slide, grasp, shoot. Your first grasp in combat won't have bonus elements, because your action skill hasn't ended yet. It will be a little weaker. You also won't have Overkill. Overkill is a huge increase to dot damage. Any damage can build Overkill, not just a gun shot. An enemy dying to a heavy dot will give you good Overkill. Miss your shot, but you still have Groundbreaker built up? Melee kill an enemy to get Overkill again. Miss your shot, but Remnant is going after an enemy? Let it land and get you Overkill. You shoot the grasped enemy, it doesn't die because you don't have Overkill, but a linked enemy died? Now you have Overkill, try shooting the grasped enemy again (make sure to slide again beforehand). You must be aware of your buffs for every shot you take. Did you slide before the shot? Is your amp shield full? Do you have Overkill? Are your bonus elements still active? Are enemies going to shoot you and damage your shield? Master the flow and pay attention to what's going on and this build will destroy everything. NOTES - RADIATION LOADOUT For a change of pace, for a more carefree, fast-firing, run-and-gun style, and yet still get big radsplosions and strong dots, ignore most of the normal loadout recommended above. Get a good radiation weapon such as the Beacon, Trevonator, Plasma Coil, RYNAH, or just a radiation version of one of the normal guns. Put a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment on it. Switch to Reverberation. Equip a Re-Volter with Action Skill Start anointment. Equip an Atom Balm Victory Rush. Put ASE 50% fire or corrosive anointment on your grenade. And shoot away, no worrying about an amp shield or sliding for Toboggan. The 400-level/AP course for this build: use the radiation loadout but instead put ASE 50% radiation on your grenade and use the Hellfire or DNA, with 250% Phasecast anointment.

Simply a grenade build for Amara. No, not the Fish Slap - actual grenades. Phase Yeet SYNOPSIS Simply a grenade build for Amara. No, not the Fish Slap - actual grenades. INTRO I suppose it's not "simply" a grenade build when you get down to it. It has one of the most complicated theories on this site because it also implements grenade dots. It's not as strong as Boomfist but potentially more fun. It requires quite specific gear set up in a quite specific way. This build is pretty far off-meta, which appeals to me, and has the ability to delete both mobs and bosses. It has an unconventional skill spec and even the ability to use a purple class mod you don't remember the name of. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Probably the most alarming thing here is Catharsis. This is covered in the "Notes - Catharsis" section. Personal Space is specced merely for more damage in FFYL. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. You can also use Tandava—I just had too many Phasecast builds at the time of making this one so I decided to focus on Ties. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Most of the time fire. This is related to Catharsis. But switch to shock against Guardians in the Guardian Takedown, and element-match any boss's HP bar. MAIN GUNS Guardian Angel, with Urad anointment. The radsplosions created by Urad will help greatly with area clear. Ties That Bind does not transfer grenade damage, so you have to use some work-arounds. Radsplosions is one of them. UTILITY GUN Face Puncher, with Urad anointment, for delivering Groundbreaker from a distance and stunning enemies. FFYL GUN Free Radical or Plasma Coil or Backburner, with Urad anointment. CLASS MOD Phasezerker or Master (purple class mod) with points into Catharsis. Did you remember the Master com? It legitimately has a use-case here. See the "Notes - Catharsis" section below. Anima points are recommended for the Phasezerker, because there is some dot tech incorporated into this build. Passives on your class mod and artifact are where the specifics really hit hard with this build. The most important are both a grenade damage and a splash damage radius passive on your class mod, the former being more important. Other passives: action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, grenade radius. Even shield capacity or recharge rate can help your shield survivability a little bit. There's a third Class Mod option, but it's mostly just used for raid boss kills: the Spiritual Driver. See the "Notes - Spiritual Driver Loadout" section below. SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start anointment. Since this is a Deathless build, the parts on the Re-Volter are fairly important. For survivability, Turtle parts are best, then Absorb, then Adaptive. For utility, Vagabond is pretty nice. With Urad and now the Re-Volter, you have lots of bonus elements for your grenades. ARTIFACT Atom Balm Deathless. Atom Balm buffing the radsplosion damage and radius is very important for mobbing. Just like with the class mod, passives are very important here, with Grenade Damage being top priority and Area of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot right behind it. Other good passives: action skill cooldown rate, elemental damage, or even a shield survivability passive like extra capacity or recharge rate. To better take advantage of Unweave the Rainbow you can sub the Atom Balm for an Ice Breaker Deathless. Look out for the same passives, but also include a Cryo Efficiency passive in that list. GRENADE Finally, the meat & potatoes of the build. There are several options here, and also some restrictions. Options: Ghast Call (Roided preferred), Fastball, Lightspeed, triple Sticky purple Hyperion grenade ("Fixative Longbow"), Porcelain Pipe Bomb, Recurring Hex, Whispering Ice, Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb, Core Buster. Restrictions: all of these require the ASE 50% Corrosive Damage anointment, excepting the Ghast Call, which cannot come anointed. Further, if any of the above grenades can come in cryo, you must choose cryo. Last, if you're using the Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb, change your action skill element to cryo. The reasoning for these restrictions is explained in the "Notes" sections below. Your heavy duty bossing grenades are mostly going to be the Ghast Call and the Fixative Longbow, but depending on the boss the Lightspeed and Miracle Bomb can also do some work. GAMEPLAY LOOP Have your action skill element set to fire, equip your cryo grenade with the corrosive anointment, and you're all set. Grasp enemies and throw your grenade at them or a linked enemy. Use your grasp as often as possible, as soon as it becomes available. Grenade damage cannot pass through Ties That Bind, but the ASE 50% corrosive damage can. So if you have that anointment activated from your previous grasp, you can send that damage through Ties That Bind. This, along with radsplosions, is another work-around for area clear. If your cryo grenade freezes an enemy, it will get a significant damage boost from Unweave The Rainbow. Get really good at avoiding damage and you can loop your action skill pretty quickly, which will build up stacks of Violent Tapestry, leading to more freezings with your cryo grenades, leading to more Unweave the Rainbow damage and even faster cooldowns (because kills with UTR damage will also proc Expedite). This build can get some pretty significant momentum. Note that when using the Lightspeed, it is very strong when you throw it at the ground directly in front of an enemy, so that the child projectiles split and bounce into them. Thus, when grasping and using the Lightspeed, try to aim for an enemy on the ground instead of the grasped one in the air. 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. Other non-impactful modifiers you can use along with it are Healy Avenger, Drone Ranger, and Not The Face. NOTES - GRENADE DOTS The reason you select a cryo grenade, where possible, beyond Unweave The Rainbow, is because they can apply good dots for mobbing. Something to know about dots in this game is that you can only have one dot per element per form of attack. So if you have, say, a corrosive grenade with an ASE 50% corrosive bonus element, you can't get two separate corrosive dots. You only get one. So to apply more dot damage, you need to differentiate your elements. Your cryo grenade does not play by the rules in two ways in relation to dots. First, elemental grenades that list a damage over time will do that same damage over time with any bonus element. For example, if a radiation grenade lists 600 radiation damage per second as a dot value on the card, it will deal that damage when the dot procs. Everything normal so far. If that grenade has an ASE 50% corrosive bonus element anoint, and that anoint is active and applies a dot, it will also deal 600 corrosive damage per second (we're ignoring elemental multipliers here). In other words, it deals the same damage as listed on the radiation grenade's card, not 50% less... If you have Forceful Expression and your action skill element set to fire, that grenade will also deal 600 fire damage per second from a dot, not 18% of 600. If Re-Volter procs and dots, the grenade will deal 600 shock damage per second, not 1200 per second. As you can see, the strength of bonus element dots, when applied by grenades, are always the same value: 100% of the card value. You come out ahead here: Re-Volter loses 100%, but your ASE gains 50% and Forceful Expression gains 82%. (Urad is 100% regardless.) The above example illustrates why you have your action skill element set to fire and use a corrosive ASE. With Re-Volter and the Urad anointment, you've covered all elements that can dot, maximizing your dot damage. The second way your cryo grenade breaks the rules is because for grenades, cryo efficiency is not tied to the dot damage displayed on the other elements. For guns, on the other hand, cryo efficiency and dot damage are related. Example, if a fire gun does 1000 damage per shot and deals 1500 damage per second when a dot procs, a cryo version of that same gun will have 150% cryo efficiency. Cryo efficiency is the ratio of dot damage to card damage. However, with many cryo grenades, their efficiency is much, much higher than the ratio of dot damage to card damage in other elements of that grenade. Example: a fire grenade might do 1000 card damage and list 200 damage per second as the dot. But the cryo version of that grenade will not have a cryo efficiency of 20%; it could be something like 60%. Thus, when you apply a bonus element dot with a cryo grenade, the dot will be much stronger, especially since all bonus elements proc at 100% of listed dot damage as explained above. In summary, having a cryo grenade and having your bonus elements differentiated results in the highest possible dot damage from throwing grenades. There is also the added benefit of getting maximum debuff damage from the Guardian Rank perk Harmageddon. NOTES - CATHARSIS In this build you are encouraged to have all 5 status effects applied: cryo from the grenade, corrosive from the grenade anoint, fire from your action skill element (Forceful Expression), shock from the Re-Volter, and Urad from your gun anointment. Catharsis creates an explosion upon enemy death for each status effect applied to that enemy, and will proc up to 5 explosions in all of the elements. These explosions, with Guardian Angel and action skill damage and an extra 3 points from the Master class mod, can deal 40-80 million damage in total, with an average amount of Do Harm stacks. If these explosions kill anything, they will proc Expedite. This is why the Master class mod is viable here - it's the only class mod that can roll Catharsis. Catharsis can deal self-damage, but on a grenade build you do not want to be near your target anyway. Along with radsplosions and your ASE corrosive anointment, this is the third work-around for area clear since grenade damage does not pass through Ties That Bind. NOTES - SPIRITUAL DRIVER LOADOUT For bossing or raid bossing, you can use a Spiritual Driver combined with an Elemental Projector Victory Rush for big damage. However, it's not as straightforward as equipping those two things. The challenge you need to overcome is the fact that the Driver's self-dot is your own damage, and is boosted by the Elemental Projector. Further, when holding the Guardian Angel, all self damage is multiplied by 6. So if you use this loadout you will probably kill yourself before you kill anything else, unless you build some survivability into it as well. The first thing you need is a Re-Volter with adaptive parts. The second thing you need is the Terror Health Regen anointment on your Guardian Angel. This also means you need a way to apply terror. If you don't want to sacrifice the Action Skill Start anointment on your Re-Volter, you can put ASE Apply Terror on your grenade. However, I would recommend you put Terror Dmg/Fire Rate on your grenade and put Melee Apply Terror on your Face Puncher and swap to apply terror at the same time you swap to shoot for Groundbreaker. Alternatively, you can sacrifice the ASS anoint on your Re-Volter and put ASE Apply Terror on it. Then, you can let the Re-Volter naturally break, which can happen very easily in some boss fights. Every time you kill an add, it will begin filling via the Guardian Rank perk Shield Reboot, and then re-break from your own self-dot damage, re-triggering the effect. If you just want to, for example, drop down and one-shot Seer with a Fixative Longbow, you don't need to worry about survivability, and can use the loadout shown in the gameplay video at the top of the page. NOTES - GUN DOTS The general cryo-grenade-dot mobbing strategy of this build is not quite the strongest against raid bosses. In a lot of raid boss fights, Ties That Bind and Remnant haphazardly end up doing a lot of damage, but they're unreliable. For some extra damage that fits the theme of the dot loadout, consider carrying a cryo Kickcharger or Major Kong (or other high-dot weapon) with a Urad anointment. Fire it at the boss after you've used your action skill a couple times (so that you have Violent Tapestry stacks) and when you know you have Overkill (which is often with this build). It'll apply a hefty set of dots that will do a lot of work when you swap back to your Guardian Angel and continue chucking cryo grenades. This is a far-from-optimal gun-dot setup (see Amara Dot Gun for that) but it's still strong enough and doesn't require anything other than a brief weapon swap.

Learn how to play the popular Borderlands 3 esport: Djira Ball! DJIRA BALL a hilarious introduction to a super serious esport: What is Djira Ball? Djira Ball is an esport within Borderlands 3 made by myself and CZ47. It consists of throwing a Fastball grenade at a Djira (the small Nekrotafeyo creatures) that has been launched into the air by a melee attack. If the Fastball is thrown just right, the Djira will get launched away from you, potentially at a very high velocity. In this way, a launched Djira could be seen as a sportsball. This interaction between an airborne Djira and a fast moving projectile was discovered when I was testing how damage affects an airborne Djira. When testing grenade damage by throwing a Fastball, a Djira randomly got yeeted. CZ47 jokingly proposed making a sport out of it. I took it seriously. We collaborated on the parameters of said sport, and CZ47 made the arena for it with hotfix modding. It takes place in the Guardian Takedown. Find the Djira Ball hotfix mod on the Modding page How to Play Djira Ball: Unspec all skill points, remove all gear, do not select an action skill or a pet. Perhaps make a separate save file for playing Djira Ball. Minos Prime’s drop pod is now located above Anathema’s arena, which is now the Djira Ball arena. At the drop pod, buy a Fastball from the ammo vendor and a Toboggan at the shield vendor. If the Toboggan has a movement speed passive, save/quit and try again. If you need money to buy these, open the white chests at and above the vending machines for gear to sell. (Designer’s Cut DLC is required for the Toboggan, lest you be at a movement speed disadvantage. Snowdrifts are not allowed, because the snowball itself will send Djira into the air in an unpredictable manner.) At the staging area above the arena, the teams decide which goal to defend: red plants or blue statues. All players drop down into the arena at once, and play begins immediately. Turn on the “Minimap Legendaries” option under Options > Gameplay. When a Djira is scored and dies outside the arena, it spawns a single legendary. The amount of legendaries on the minimap outside each goal counts as the scoreboard. The first team to score 5 Djira on their opponents wins. Own-goals count against you. The “scoreboard” settles all disputes. Djira can get stuck in walls and on various platforms outside the arena. Play continues until there are zero Djira in the arena and in play. If that occurs, take note of the current score, travel out to Sanctuary and back to Minos Prime and resume the game at the previous score with fresh Djira.

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

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

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

All sorts of tricks, techniques, and knowledge to help you plow through the most difficult content as Amara. Tips Various tips for increasing your general knowledge and skill level at endgame, opening up more build possibilities for you. Combat General Advice FFYL Maliwan Takedown Guardian Takedown True Melee Skill Trees Amara's Green Tree Amara's Blue Tree Amara's Red Tree Amara's Purple Tree Other Skills & Gear Burn Both Ends Groundbreaker Grenades Overkill Upkeep Phasecasting

A fire-themed Hot Drop slam build. Magmamara SYNOPSIS A fire-themed Hot Drop slam build. INTRO The Hot Drop slam artifact is fairly strong, especially when built around and using Amara's Clear The Mind capstone. This build is purposefully thematic, because just a few changes would make it overshadowed by action skill damage, and leave few enemies left for actually slamming with the Hot Drop. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES There's lots of action skill damage to help supplement the Hot Drop. There's also some cryo synergies taken in the purple tree, despite this being a fire build, and that's because Terror Cryo is a recommended anoint. ACTION SKILL Phaseslam, because this is a thematic build and it's also a type of slam. You can choose something like Tandava or one of the Phaseflare variants if you like. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Fire. Choosing cryo would almost be too powerful, setting off Free The Soul and Unweave The Rainbow constantly, leaving little room for actual damage from the Hot Drop. MAIN GUN Guardian Angels, with Terror Cryo and Urad anointments. This build can use either anointment, and has slightly different setups for each. FLYING ENEMY / FFYL GUN Face Punchers, with Terror Cryo and Urad anointments. With Body & Mind active, this is a pretty good weapon for taking out flying enemies that the Hot Drop can't reach, as well as getting you up from FFYL. BACKUP FFYL GUN Ember's Purge, with Terror Cryo and Urad anointments. Shoot enemies with this gun and the puddle that spawns below them will be strong enough to get you a Second Wind. It can't do anything against flying enemies, but it is very much in theme with the build. CLASS MOD Stone, with points into Awakening being the most important. Awakening will boost the effectiveness of the Stone's damage reduction, as well as the effectiveness of both Do Harm and Violent Tapestry, two very important skills for this build. The most important passive you need on it is Splash Damage Radius, so your Hot Drop can hit enemies in a wider area. Other recommended passives: splash damage, action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage. SHIELD If using the Urad anointment, then Beskar with a Reflect part, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. See "Notes - Beskar" section below. If using the Terror Cryo anointment, there are a few thematic options: Torch, Nova Berner, Void Rift. A Re-Volter is strictly going to be the most damage, of course, but not very thematic. Each of these shields has effects on shield break, so you can choose to run either the Action Skill Start anointment on them, or let them break naturally (more fun) and choose the ASE Apply Terror anointment. ARTIFACT If using the Urad anointment, then Hot Drop Deathless. If using the Terror Cryo anointment, then Hot Drop with one of a few suffix options: Victory Rush, Otto Idol, Cosmic Crater, Pull Out Method. All of those are pretty self explanatory and you can choose whichever one suits you. The Pull Out Method is more for show; the singularity is very weak. But it can briefly stagger some enemies and throw a bunch of debris around, which pairs well with the Void Rift shield. The most important passive to have on your Hot Drop is Area of Effect in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area radius. Other recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, movement speed, incendiary damage. GRENADE Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb, with either Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment (if using ASE Apply Terror on shield) or ASE Apply Terror (if using Action Skill Start on shield). Very thematic, and also very strong. You can melt enemies with this grenade alone, which a good way to eliminate far away enemies while you're occupied with Hot Dropping on enemies nearby. GAMEPLAY LOOP Simply start Phaseslamming and Hot Dropping. Pull out the Face Puncher briefly to take out flying enemies or anything else that annoys you at a distance. NOTES - BESKAR The reflect ability on legendary shields still lets you take damage when a projectile is reflected. The Reflect part that appears on purple shields and some legendaries negates damage when the reflect chance rolls. When the Beskar rolls with a Reflect part, and you enter FFYL once and get a second wind, the Beskar's legendary reflect ability "breaks" and it takes on the properties of the Reflect part. Because the Beskar has a 100% reflect chance, after that point, it will reflect 100% of projectiles without letting them damage you. This does not negate all damage, however; indirect splash can still damage you, and if a projectile dots you, you will take that dot damage. NOTES - GUARDIAN TAKEDOWN Unfortunately, this build does not work at all in the low gravity of the Guardian Takedown. The Hot Drop projectiles time out and disappear before they can hit the ground. NOTES - GROUNDBREAKER Despite this build being themed around the Hot Drop, it can appear that Phaseslam and your other attacks are carrying the damage, and actual ground slamming is only killing things with Groundbreaker. But you can actually turn Groundbreaker off for this build, and still clear content very effectively. NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11 For most slam and true melee builds, Mayhem 10 is recommended with the Speed Demon modifier, to help you close the distance and get to your next enemy before the enemy downs you. Other benign modifiers for this build: Medium - Healy Avenger, Hard - Drone Ranger, and Very Hard - Not The Face. You can certainly play on Mayhem 11, but you will more often go down by way of distant enemies shooting at you. It's fine; there's good FFYL options in the form of the Face Puncher and Ember's Purge.