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

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

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.

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

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

Tips for understanding and building with Amara's Blue Tree at endgame. Blue 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 blue (Mystical Assault) tree. DO HARM Very powerful action skill damage increase. It gets further increased in effectiveness by Awakening further down the tree, and the capstone Avatar allows you to stack more Do Harm at a time. This increases all things that are action skill damage, not just your action skills themselves. This includes Revelation, Remnant, Ties That Bind links, Unweave The Rainbow, Body & Mind, Free The Soul, Catharsis, and Ice Spiker. FAST HANDS Very useful, always-on reload and swap speed. Always take this if you're doing anything with guns at all. VIOLENT TAPESTRY Great utility skill, at the very least useful for 1 point simply for the ability to gain Rush stacks by applying a status effect. Even with a Phasezerker class mod, you can keep your stacks topped up very easily with this skill. If you need to be applying status effects in general, whether its to enemies or to yourself, it's worth investing some points into this skill. It is further increased in effectiveness by Awakening. Violent Tapestry also increases cryo efficiency, making it an extremely important skill for cryo-focused builds. Amara does have a lot of synergy with cryo, either directly or indirectly through melee-related skills. ALACRITY Always worth at least 1 point in a gun build. A good place to dump points if you need to go further down the tree. TRANSCEND Very strong critical hit damage increase, especially because it can be stacked twice with Avatar. Great for boss melts when the boss has an accessible crit spot. A purple Mantis class mod can give you an extra three points into this skill making those boss melts go even faster. This skill can also be taken for builds that crit in unconventional ways, such as Ruby Swan or any Spark Plug build. RESTLESS When Expedite is available, this skill is pretty low value. Otherwise, it can be a points dump if you don't need the reload speed from Alacrity or anything above it. ASCENDANT Always taken if you're going at all deep into blue tree. Increasing the effectiveness of augments like Glamour, Expedite, and Stillness of Mind is game changing for how a build can play and flow. FROM REST This skill is hit or miss, depending on the type of guns you are using. If going for a conventional gun build, I would always recommend putting at least 2 points here. Lots of Maliwan weapons feel sluggish without this skill, because of their charge time. If you're strapped for points in this tree, usually Wrath is taken over this skill, but if you have plenty of other gun damage sources (such as Spiritual Driver or a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment), this can be prioritized over Wrath. LAID BARE Very powerful damage increasing skill. Always taken if you're this far down the tree, and some builds go into blue tree simply to get Laid Bare , because it applies to everything. WRATH Good gun damage increase, nothing more to it. REMNANT Extremely powerful skill. Always take it if you're this far, and you never need more than one point into it. Some builds even require you to get this skill on a class mod. Remnant gets your overkill damage as its base, then gets a x31 multiplier on Mayhem 10/11, and then gets action skill damage, elemental damage, splash damage, etc. It will always target the enemy closest to you, if that enemy is reachable and still existant by the time it gets there. You may have seen some raid boss 1 shots with Remnant. Yes, it's that powerful. AWAKENING If you need to be investing in Do Harm and/or Violent Tapestry, then you also need to be investing in Awakening, if you get this far down the tree. This skill also increases the effectiveness of the damage reduction on the Stone class mod. Having 6/3 Awakening with the Stone gives you significant tankiness. AVATAR Perhaps the most important skill in all of Amara's skill trees. The ability to get twice the amount of Do Harm or Violent Tapestry when you use your action skill can make or break many builds. It also refunds you half of your converted Rush stacks if your action skill activation killed an enemy. And of course, the ability to activate your action skill twice in a row is huge.

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.

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.

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.

A close-quarters, chaotic Driver gun build. Cold Hearted SYNOPSIS A close-quarters, chaotic Driver gun build. INTRO This build makes use of the anointment, "While Phasegrasp is active, Amara constantly triggers novas that deal 24756 damage." When you put this anointment on the Frozen Heart, these novas take on properties of that shield, in that they freeze and heal you. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Unweave The Rainbow is the star of the show, as it will greatly increase your damage against frozen enemies, provided you're using a splash gun. Unweave is boosted by action skill damage, so maxing blue tree is a necessity. ACTION SKILL Eternal Fist, for potentially the longest grasp time, for more nova destruction. It's also one of the grasp variants that begins and ends immediately when grasping a non-graspable target, and begins cooling down. This is useful because, for the most part, targets that cannot be lifted also cannot be frozen. With Expedite, every enemy that gets grasped and kills gives you a stack, and any enemy that gets killed by Unweave The Rainbow also gives you a stack. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to your content. Unweave The Rainbow will be that element, as will your "constant novas", even though those novas still have the ability to freeze enemies. You should also match this element to the gun you're using. GUNS Anything decent that does splash damage, in fire, shock, and corrosive. Anointments: Killstack, Consecutive Hits, or ASE 125% Splash if applicable. Suggested guns: Plaguebearer, Backburner, Beacon, Sand Hawk, Free Radical, Major Kong, Guardian Angel (yes, as a gun to shoot), Kaoson, Prompt Critical. Try the Firecracker for a bit of fun. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible, and also with a recommended Splash Damage Radius roll. Other recommended passives: action skill damage, splash damage, action skill cooldown rate, weapon type damage. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. SHIELD Frozen Heart, with the anointment, "While Phasegrasp is active, Amara constantly triggers novas that deal 24756 damage." As mentioned at the top, these novas on this shield makes every nova have the freezing and healing properties of the Frozen Heart. They'll freeze everything around you while Eternal Fist is doing its thing. ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Victory Rush, with an Area of Effect Damage roll in the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will increase the radius of your novas. The Elemental Projector means your action skill element needs to match your gun's element. Other recommended passives: weapon type damage, action skill cooldown rate, movement speed, elemental damage. GRENADE Anything useful, with an ASE 50% radiation bonus element. The radsplosions will help obliterate frozen enemies. For utility, It's Piss, Hyperion Quasar (non sticky), Mesmer. Something like the Lightspeed can also deal decent damage with Unweave on frozen enemies, especially if it matches along with Elemental Projector. GAMEPLAY LOOP The novas from your shield anointment aren't as large as the regular Frozen Heart novas, so getting good damage with the Driver usually means staying close and strafing around a grasped, frozen enemy. Once that enemy is dead, everything around you will also be frozen, and you can finish them off, then go looking for the next enemy that Eternal Fist found. Generally, like any Driver gun build, move quickly and shoot. Because this is a fairly close-quarters build, the only thing you have to look out for is splashing yourself in the face. NOTES - IMMUNE MALIWAN HEAVIES Because of Elemental Projector, nearly all of your damage is stacked on one element, which can create problems with immune heavies in the Maliwan Takedown. Either punch/ground slam to deliver Groundbreaker to kill them, use a different element gun, or briefly swap action skill elements. NOTES - RAID BOSSING This build has the old Amara-bossing-with-guns problem, at least when it comes to raid bossing. To overcome this, change over to a regular Driver build by swapping your Frozen Heart out for an Action Skill Start Re-Volter and move fast while shooting strong gun. If you wanna get really strong, put your action skill element on shock, swap to Phasecast, and use a 250% Phasecast Free Radical.

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.