Melee/Phaseslam Amara questions

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

Hi

I did a search but didn’t seem to get definitive answers.

As it stands with the most recent patches I have a few questions regarding melee damage and phaseslam skill interactions.

Does Samsara affect the facepuncher’s damage?

Does wrath affect the facepuncher’s damage?

Does personal space affect phaseslam’s damage? It says gun damage but I have heard it affects other damage (apart from facepuncher which it doesn’t affect)

Does Jab Cross affect the facepuncher’s damage?

I am currently building around the blue and green trees to increase the phaseslam damage with Jab cross, Do harm and awakening. Are there better interactions?

This is my build currently:

https://bl3skills.com/siren/#0055153100050153103510301310050100000000

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#2

Yes and yes.

No.

Yes.

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#3

About the build: Personal Space is a must have whenever you use any gun besides Face-puncher. If you only do melee and FP, that’s fine, but if you ever use anything else, you definitely should max out PS. Clarity and Root to Rise do so little that it’s difficult to justify not taking PS unless you just want to minmax for minmaxing’s sake.

Tempest is another one of Amara’s best skills, I mean, it’s a flat +30%/+40% bonus on all elemental damage you deal, regardless of source. That includes Blitz and Phaseslam. If you absolutely must have Blitz and Avatar you can’t have Tempest, but just know that’s an extreme tradeoff.

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#4

The reason I go deep into the brawl tree is to get jab cross, for the action skill damage. I am trying to make an action skill damage build. Jab cross and do harm both boost it. I need to get to avatar for the double as usage and extra 10 rushstacks . Taking away blitz only releases 1 point. To get tempest I’d need to sacrifice jab cross.

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#5

And this build is facepuncher only with critswapping to an unforgiven. Both are 300/90.

I am using breaker with 1 in FYC and 4 in JC with as cooldown, splash damage and melee damage along with a knifedrain white elephant with as cooldown, splash damage and melee damage.

There is potential to take some points from JC and put them in tempest.

Putting 4 points in tempest would give me 24% elemental damage boost at the cost of 60% as damage boost from JC .

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#6

Am playing around with this change:

https://bl3skills.com/siren/#3025333100050050103510331310051100000000
.It is taking the point from blitz and putting in tempest, along with getting wrath and samsara. Whilst more in tempest gives much more gun damage I wasn’t seeing more action skill damage. Need to keep JC at 5(+4)/5 for the AS damage to be meaningful. Losing blitz’s 100% melee damage boost seems to be compensated by wrath, samsara and the 6% elemental bonus.

These are the sorts of numbers I am getting atm:

index
index1920×1080 463 KB

index2
index21920×1080 451 KB

#7

If I may, I think I would suggest this: https://bl3skills.com/siren/#5005050104050150140500331310050100000000

Assuming you are taking Soul Sap and the Knife Drain White Elephant then you would not need Samsara or Clarity, giving you more points available for your overall health pool. If going with Soul Sap, the current power of health steal makes Ascendant an optional extra.

For reload speed, I find that Alacrity + Awakening is more effective than Fast Hands if you can keep your stacks up. I have a Phasezerker with melee, cooldown and splash damage so that’s pretty nice. The Phasezerker also works really nicely with Do Harm benefitting your Slam.

What do you think?

#8

Yeah, I guess I can see that. Sacrificing only Blitz doesn’t make any sense because 1 point in Tempest isn’t going to do a lot, it’s better to keep Blitz in that case. Tempest is a skill where you go all in, but yeah that’d mean losing Jab Cross too, and you’re destroying what your build is about. So in this context, what you did in the first place with 0/5 Tempest is probably the way to go.

#9

I am currently testing options. By taking wrath and samsara, I am compensating for the lack of blitz damage. Putting that single point in tempest is making a difference at no cost to overall damage etc. PS is a no as I only use the FP (well, it would apply to the unforgiven when critswapping, but that is a big investment for limited return).

This build plays hyper aggressively. I am currently using a lvl 1 ward with 300 roid and 200% melee after phaseslam.

This means I sacrifice mindfulness as I don’t want the shield recharge. I use speed demon so don’t need the movement. So I need health/tankiness. Samsara gives health and damage so that’s a no brainer. +5 in clarity fights dots with the shield down constantly. Thanks to @damien_hine for the suggestion to use one with nature. I am getting damage reduction from helping hands (only 1 point but it is still 12%), arms deal (40% elemental damage reduction) and now one with nature (40% elemental damage reduction)

The biggest thing I am giving up from the OP build is fast hands for the reload and swap speed. I can put a single point in alacrity but need to lose a single point from ascendant to maintain max gun damage. This seems a good trade off as I am using soul sap as my augment and it seems plenty efficient enough at 30%.

so build looks like this:

https://bl3skills.com/siren/#0055310105050050113500331310051100000000

with find your center (+1) and Jab cross (+4) boosted by the com

#10

So after some testing (this is getting really finicky) and doing a couple of runs I have these 2 builds. I did 2 runs through Athenas with the same gear and action skill element, one run with each build and am leaning towards the second one as it seems to be less fragile:

Build 1: https://bl3skills.com/siren/#0055310105050050113500331310051100000000

Build 2: https://bl3skills.com/siren/#3025330103050050113500331310051100000000

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#11

I think I agree that build 2 has better survivability. It’s a nice arrangement of skills that synergises well. I would be tempted to use it with the Frozen Heart and less use of the FP. Of course, as soon as one more point was available I’d put it into Blitz (it’s a shame the skill is so clunky; I’d give it immediate reset on melee kills and the ability to drive your cooldown by a second or two per melee kill). Do you think that single point in Tempest outweighs Blitz/Guardian Angel?

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#12

I do. At least in combat it seems to work better.

With regard to blitz, an improvement to the skill would be to link it to shield break, so it was like having a roid shield. Make it 300% melee damage, but only if shield is down.

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