#18

No, melee has no impact on Phaseslam, Phasecast or Grasp, only Phaseflare damage is affected by melee.

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#19

I find it does pretty well for mobbing as well. It only loses very noticeable damage whether you are playing on the 4-player scaling takedowns or you didn’t match elements (Fire slam on armor, Cryo on shieldsc etc). I’m still down for either buff, however. Cuz i-frames would def be nice, and it’s pretty wild on how Phaseflare gets melee buffs on hit as well.

#20

I mean, that’s usually how it is for a lot of action skills, not just Amara (unless you are moze, in which iron Bear is OP). Rakks and pets don’t do much for FL4K unless you spec for them at the cost of damage, and Zane’s clone can only really be used for utility it’s purposes unless you full spec into red tree. And so I don’t know about not being able to one shot badasses, as I’m able to do slaughter shaft on TVHM (Mayhem 11) just fine. Do you mind if I ask how you set up your Phasecast build (or Phaseslam)?

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#21

I obviously don’t mind, but currently I have no build centered around Phasecast or Phaseslam. But I know what is possible. But that requires gear specific enough that most people just wouldn’t even try to go for those builds. Without any major grind and just running a regular Avatar build with a bit of splash and action skill damage thrown in both do alright on their own on M11. But that’s already a tough ask for like 90% of the player base. But we’re talking about Mayhem 10/11 so that’s alright.

But just to elaborate on the “feeling powerful” thing in normal mode. Fl4k has multiple charges and can - on average - fire 1.5 Rakk Attack per 1 use of Amara’s base Slam and Cast skills. That is more than enough to kill any basic mob and even some unshielded Badasses. And due to the shorter Cooldowns Rakk Attack can be used to grant short bursts to finish off enemies. The desired applications are different. Moze is Moze, no comparison needed. Iron Bear is straight up broken all around throughout all difficulty modes. Zane has the utility of multiple action skills active at a time and if you look up what they do on normal mode, they can put in a lot of work, the Clone starts as a mere distraction, but with the capstone becomes basically Zane 2.0 with many weapons. The Drone is mediocre first, but the Rocket Pods do a lot for the basic damage output and it’s beam augments can do very well against groups of enemies.
It’s generally hard to compare skills with an uptime against those with charges of singular actions.

But that’s also why I don’t think that Amara’s Slam and Cast need massive buffs (relative to Borderlands 3 standards that is). Phaseslam could use more love as it’s a way riskier move and even if you use it defensively, which in turn will just lower it’s damage even further. I want the risk to be worth it, because it really is not unless you run some specific setups.

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#22

Exactly. As is phaseslam can be used, but there isn’t much reason to beyond just wanting to.

TTB will mayhem scale the melee mayhem scaling to all enemies in the vicinity, outpacing the phaseslam melee anointment in mobs. If you want a skill to proc other anoints Phasecast has a faster animation and can be cast from range. At the moment, considering that phaseslam has a close to 40 second cool down with no i-frames, what is the skill useful for compared to others?

Personally, I think phaseslam has been one of the worst action skills for a while. It requires a lot to make it worthwhile in builds. I don’t think it’s a matter of “does phaseslam need buffs”, but more of “which buffs would be most effective to make phaseslam more desirable for builders”?

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#23

Something like this could be pretty cool.

1 Like
#24

I see your points here. The other AS’s are definitely easier to make use of in builds for Phaseslam, whether the damage is there or not. I personally would much rather go for the shield recharge skill and rad def buff for the drone, as you will get a lot more mileage out of and forego the missle augment entirely. And yes, some buffs for Phaseslam for it be on the damage and utility level on Phasecast would be very nice.

#25

Yeah, TTB is pretty wild, when compared to any action skill in the game. The only thing I find Phaseslam as it going is that it can proc Samsara, which gives passive health regen, and this in turn helps fight off DOT damage. Phasecast can also make use of this, and also be used from a distance. Phaseslam at the moment is a very niche play-style that’s mostly melee centered, and it’s definitely not for everyone. I still prefer playing Phaseslam over TBB as I still find it the most entertain to use (Phasegrasp and Phasecast is not my style), and I’d say it’s definitely more viable than iron cub and trapper IMO. I don’t think it needs to be to the level of TTB, but buffs that allow it to be as approachable as Phasecast would be very welcomed.

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#26

That would be an amazing com. Only thing I would change is probably unweave the rainbow, as I recall that not really adding much damage to melees. it’s more suited for gun builds, and i think instead it should be 1 point toward combo breaker. A greater chance to reset on a com that can also reset cooldown would be bonkers.

#27

Ah, good point. I had actually meant to put a different skill. Corrected it now. The point is to put a mixture of action skill damage, splash damage and elemental damage on the COM. With how the formulas work in this game, these skills would all have a nice effect on Phaseslam when mixed together.

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#28

Exactly my thoughts. That’s also why I would try to go with simple, numerical adjustments, so that the skills themselves behave like they do now and also still get stronger with buffs. For builders to focus around any action skill it has to have a solid foundation and while there is definitely a lot of personal opinion out there, I don’t think that the following can really be argued about too much:

  • Phasecast has the easy usability of a projectile, is basically “aim, fire, forget” in the best and safest of ways, has a lot of range and therewith safety.
  • Phaseflare has the utility in its variants, including a version that becomes remote controlled and has damage like almost no other action skill in the game, but needs a bit more player action to build that damage up.
  • Phasegrasp has control aspects, utility, range and can put out tons of damage as TTB. There is nothing bad about except for the fact that it doesn’t do damage on it’s own (except for FOM, which isn’t really worth it and could be argued about needing a buff as well).
  • Phaseslam is probably the most expressionistic of her actions skills and can hit multiple targets easy enough but is very unsafe due to its non-existent range and base damage thats not enough to “protect by killing threats”. Depending on who you ask it also has the highest skill ceiling as it can be used to skip obstacles and evade attacks, but for the average gameplay experience that isn’t too relevant I think.

The short end of it is that Phaseslam as an action skill doesn’t have what it takes to be worth building around as you could - with mostly the same gear - just as easily build around the other action skills and get better results. There needs to be something that makes Phaseslam worth using over Phasecast and the easiest thing would be if it just hit much harder. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best and we might have a case for that here.

3 Likes
#30

Just did some testing on Sanctuary and compared both action skills (base forms) on the dummy using Fire element. I’m specced into rush stacks, and used a spark plug with no bonuses to AOE (this was used to build stacks on the car that spawns where Ellie is). No com was equipped to have no skill point or laid bare interference, as i usually use either a golden rule or muse. Here were my results;

Phaseslam:
Base: 103k
w/ Jab Cross (JC): 165k
w/ Rush Stacks (RS): 140k
w/ JC + RS: 202k

Phasecast:
Base: 62k
w/ JC: 100k
w/ RS: 85k
w/ JC+RS: 122k

It looks like Phaseslam technically hits harder than Phasecast, and that’s even before mayhem scaling entered the picture. Below is the build that i used to test the damage on both. It’s built more for Phaseslam+melee than it is for Phasecast, so that could def be a factor in how the results played out

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#31

I play around a lot with a phase cast build, with a plus ultra ( and the guardian ranks which I can’t remember the name that makes AS reload faster with full shield and start shield recharge on kill) and a splash spec, it definitely can do any m10 content with ease. I used phaseslam for normal mode no mayhem and felt great jumping around with it and killing multiple targets. Thing is, neither of them has the real dmg output that for example MNTS has, but phasecast act as a stack AS with the right build, thus leading to easy anointment triggering, while phaseslam has the above mentioned problems. I feel like i-frames would make a fantastic addition to the AS, making it safer but also a good way to retreat faster while being immune.also that would make it up for the longer recharge time

3 Likes
#33

The cooldown is my biggest problem with Phaseslam. It’s why i love to rock expedite on Phaseslam, along with cooldown white text on my class mod and artifact. This is especially true for M11, where having Phaseslam as often as possible is very desirable. I find that once you handle the long cooldown (along with sustaining), then Phaseslam feels pretty nice to use, as I recently discovered how it can actually do more damage than Phasecast when specced right, as it isn’t stack reliant as Phasecast is (test was shown above, along with build used.)

1 Like
#34

I play phaseslam on my facepuncher build. It’s a great action skill.

Plus the phaseslam300 is the most powerful anointment in the game.

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#35

My problem with phaseslam is that its feel is ruined by an eons-long recovery animation and camera lock. Its numbers being weak compared to other action skills is just salt in the wound.

2 Likes
#36

Yo dude that’s a strong build! I’ve actually achieved something similar, but it’s with the build that I used to test the damage comparisons between Phasecast and Phaseslam, so it’s just Blitz as a capstone. I can put a driver com on it, and just decimate using a 300% Phaseslam weapon damage on my Facepuncher. I also use a brawler Ward with 300% roid parts and 200% phaseslam melee anoint to just make ridiculous damage. Combo breaker just makes this combination ridiculous. The last thing I did regarding Phaseslam was with the pestilence pistol and that was performing crazy damage too:

And btw, that’s a nice breaker mod you got there. I’ve tried to farm that exact one, but no luck on that. I could trade you some items for it in return, as I’m trying to put together a comprehensive Phaseslam Guide still. My psn is Ehram212 if you are interested.

1 Like
#37

Eh I’ve gotten so used to it, I’ve become numb lmao. It be great to have that recovery time reduced.

#38

Yeah, I use lvl 1 bw with the 300roid and a driver to break it for one-shotting.

1 Like
#39

I think both Action Skills ( Slam and Cast) require specific gear setups to work well, but when you do they both shred the endgame. Personally, I don’t like being locked into an animation without I-Frames (way too used to Release The Beast), so I prefer Phasecast. However, I think that they offer you much more rewarding gameplay than just using TTB. Cast works way better for gun setups as well and that is just more my jam than melee in BL3.

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