My Theoretical Pain is Power Amara Build

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

Hello everyone…I havent been on the forum since Borderlands 2 so I’m pretty sure Im going to be maining Borderlands 3. For my first post (Sorry it’s going to be very detailed) I wanted to share the build I’m aiming towards first. Feel free to comment, give suggestions, or correct me if I’m wrong with explanation of skills, weapons, etc. Its better to fix it bow than at max level. If this build or something close to it already exists its pure coincidence…this is 100% from my head.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying this is going to be the “best build”…just the build I’m using. Also certain skills have been edited…manning Samsara skill not working with Phasgrasp. So instead.of more health regen I went with damage reduction.

Part 1: Pain is Power build Skill Tree

  1. Action Skill ( Phasegrasp, Revelation, Shockra) I will explain why I skipped over some of the more powerful upgrades in another part.

  2. Fist of the Elements
    Infusion (5/5)
    Steady Hands (3/3)
    Anima (4/5)
    Tempest (5/5)
    Indiscriminant (3/3)
    Sustainment (5/5)
    Forceful Expression (1)

  3. Brawl
    Root to Rise (5/5)
    Personal Space (3/3)
    Clarity (5/5)
    Helping Hands (5/5)
    Samara (3/3) edit* (0/5)
    One with Nature (5/5) edit* (3/5)
    Guardian Angel (1)

Part 2: Required Gear and Build Overview

Required Gear
Pain is Power (Fire, Corrosive, or Both)
Rough Rider Shield

  1. Optional Gear
    Class mod that increases in order of importance. (Tempest, Personal Space, Sustainment, Indescrimanant, Root to Rise)

  2. How the build works. This build is about 3 things. 1. Elemental damage with guns 2. Staying Alive. 3. Sustained DPS via never having to stop firing your weapon.

-Why do we use Pain is Power Assault Rifle. Pain is Power assault rifle is a COV weapon that bypasses the overheat mechanism by stealing life/shield from the user. For most characters this is a death sentence if you have no bullet management… unless you’re Amara. Amara has 3 layers that allow her (in theory) to keep shooting bullets indefinitely.

  1. A Large Health pool. (Root to Rise, One with Nature, and Rough Rider (lvl 22) provides close to 100% increased life. More life equals more bullets and survivability.
  2. Health regen with Clarity and Samsara edit* (ignore)
  3. 20% Life Steal with Sustainment

With this Amara can completely ignore ammo requirements and reloading while not having to worry about the weapon killing her.

  • Why do we use a Rough Rider: Amara has a grand total of 1 skill that boosts shields while having alot of skills that boost health. Amara can constantly regain her health pool while having to wait for recharging of a shield. Further if the Pain is Power is stealing life while overheated then shield cannot recharge.
    So it’s better to get the larger health pool that can be replenished than having half your defenses gone all the time. Plus as the cherry on top the Rough Rider comes with damage reduction that pair well with other forms of damage reduction like Helping hands and One with Nature.

Part 3: Why I choose certain skills
Any skills that isnt mentioned were chosen to either get certain point requirements or isnt need for the build to function at its full potential.

  1. Infusion: This is a confusing skill that people are overkooking. By converting 40% of bullet damage of the action skill element (Shock in my build) it will help deal with enemies with multiple levels of resistances without having to swap weapons. Ex: Fire weapon with shock action skill (60% fire, 40% shock) can destroy enemies with shields and red health. And you can mix and match different gun element types and action skills elements to fit any situation. Now one thing to keep in mind is whether or not radiation gets elemental damage bonuses and how it interacts with (Flesh, Shields, and Armor). RP did say radiation makes enemies more vulnerable to other sources of damage. So we just have to wait and see. If Radiation is a debuff and does actually elemental damage unlike slag then it might potentially be the best choice and just switch out shock, fire, and Corrosive action skill as needed. Final note switch your action skill element to 100% of what you’re facing. Tempest is for mobbing…not bossing. And shock will be the best action skill element since if an enemy has dual resistances it’s most likely going to involve a shield and shock was a neutral element (no negatives damage against flesh and Armor) in the first 2 games. Corrosive was.negative against flesh and Fire was negative against armor.

  2. Tempest is a powerhouse of a skill. It basically double dips elemental damage and the added shock damage is the reason why we use a shock action skill.

  3. Sustainment helps not only keep Amara alive but helps us use the Pain is Power Assault rifle to it’s full potential.

  4. Forceful Expression: This isnt a 18% damage increase… it’s a 18% bonus to damage dealt. 18% increase is an additive drop in the bucket, 18% of damage dealt is a true 18% increase of overall damage. Very powerful capstone.

  5. Root to Rise: More health equals more bullets and survivability.

  6. Personal Space: This skill is broken. Double the damage of Forceful Expression except you have to be up close to get full benefit. With Amara health regen and health steal you want to face tank everyone.

  7. Clarity: up to 5% health regen , 10% health regen actor using an action skill.

  8. Helping Hands… combined with a short action skill cooldown and the Rough Rider you’ll have close to 100% uptime of 60%+ damage reduction.

9 Finally One with Nature gives even more health and shock elemental resistance or whatever your action skill element is. After the level cap increase (hopefully) give it 2 points and move on to the mystical.assualt tree.

  1. An extra life for only 1 point…dont mind if I do. This should have been the capstone tot he brawl tree but screw it…thank you Gearbox.

  2. Optional Skill: Helping Hands give 40% damage reduction for 15 seconds after using an action skill. You can get close to 100% uptime on this and it pairs well with the Rough Rider. If theres a level cap increase Clarity or Helping Hands should be your first choices. Then go down the Mystical Assault tree for action skill cool down reduction. Rush stack are completely useless for this build.

I hope you enjoyed my theoretical build, things.can and most likely will change after the game gets released.

#2

There is a major flaw in your build in that revelation only procs after you deal damage and phase grasp does not deal damage unless the enemy is immune to being grasped.

A fix for this would be to use the fist over matter augment and that actually procs samsara stacks on its own as it hits 5 times and I saw footage that confirms each hit of that adds a stack even if it’s on the same enemy. That has a long cool down however

#3

Okay…if that’s true that is bullsh*t.

New Plan… I’m keeping my action skill the same but switching to Allure bc all these cooldowns for Amara are stupid long for what you actually get. 3 points out of Samsara, and 5 points into Helping Hands,.and 3 points into One with Nature. With the Rough Rider you should have 60%+ damage reduction damn near every fight.

With Tempest, Forceful Expression, and Personal Space you should have more than enough damage to out leech Pain is Power.

#4

I will probably do something like this if Samsara stacking doesnt work efficiently with her action skills:

Status Tank Build

With a cooldown of ~15 sec for ur action skill u can keep up Rush stacks for Violent Tapestry (will see how usefull that is, but it’s a nice synergy for AOE status inflicting) and Helping Hands easily… will see if all that Status & Elemental damage is enough tho…