The issue with amara, or, why phasecast is the worst ability in the game

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

Tl;Dr: The issue with phasecast is how easy it can miss, the fact it lacks the utility of other abilities in the game to make up for this, and it must be fixed before you pick this up and I suggest ways to fix it.

So Amara is amazing; one of the best characters in the game for handling mobs of enemies. Each of her skill trees provide a unique and interesting way to approach this. Each skill tree is fun and completely different then the other two. Each one is really powerful and plays into the character which creates a very very different character then the rest of the characters. Each of the skill trees plays into her personality. There is one issue though and that is the issue with the phasecast ability itself.

Don’t get me wrong the mystical assault tree is amazing and it works really well when with the other trees. When paired with the fist of the elements tree you can become an elemental powerhouse. When paired with the brawl tree you gain a huge boost to the damage of your slam and make your guns a lot better giving them a boost to damage and utility. The mystical assault tree by itself has an issue which is the ability itself and it makes your skill tree next to useless by itself.

The biggest issue with phasecast is how easy it can miss. By itself being able to miss isn’t an issue phadeslam can also miss but it also is close range which makes missing that much harder to do expecially since the brawl tree wants you close to an enemy anyways. Not only that but phadeslam also has several frames of invincibility which makes you unable to Be killed while doing it. The augment which let’s you shoot a laser increases the duration of these frames which can be used to dodge strong attacks by a boss of a tough enemy. Phasecast doesn’t have this. Every other ability besides phasecast and phase slam cannot miss or otherwise has built in utility which makes it shine.

Ironbear for example has invincibility frames when entering and exiting as well as the armor bar of itself. Zane’s clones can be used to change position shoot and draw aggro. Zane’s drone can shoot draw aggro and can be focused on a target. Zane’s shield can be picked up and used as a second shield or used to protect the party from harm. Fl4ks fade away skill can turn it invisible removing aggro as well as giving them a means of escape. Their rakk attack ability cannot miss and has tracking built in. Likewise, fl4ks final ability can be used to teleport their pet into or out of combat which can either draw aggro towards of away from their pet and either towards or away from fl4k and it buffs the pet as well. Phasecast by itself unlike these abilities has no such utility built into the base skill.

The phasecast ability variations require you to hit the target which is fairly difficult to do due to the duration of the windup ability associated with phas casting. Additionally unlike phaseslam which hits a group of enemies which are near each other, which happens quite often, phasecast hits enemies in a line, which happens next to never. This by itself wouldn’t be so bad due to what phasecast was designed for.

Phasecast was designed to fill in a gap with Amara’s playstyle. Overall Amara is fantastic at dealing with large groups of enemies but is weak against strong single targets with lots of health , aka, bosses. Phasecast was designed as a means to solve that issue but bosses make up a small portion of the game and through most of the game you will be fighting large groups of enemies which the mystical assault tree does not do well against. You can always respec your skill tree before a boss fight but this doesn’t always work.

Respecing requires you to go to sanctuary or find a changing station to do it. Many boss arenas have these plsced before a boss fight but not all of them do. Several boss fights require a large extensive dungeon just go get to them full of enemies. Phasecast’svabilitu to miss combined with it’s low base damage makes killing large groups of enemies difficult. The mystical assault tree can use these enemies killing them and inflicting status effects on them to build up stacks of rush which can be used to power up phasecast to do massive damage as well as increase things like your fire rate and such. The issue is not all bosses have these dungeons before you face them which creates a unique predicament of the mystical assault tree. The ability the tree focuses on requires you to kill enemies to get it powered up which is the thing it is bad at which Amara:s other skill trees are good at and the thing it is good at which is killing bosses requires you to either stack up status effectsvwhich bosses tend to be resistant to or kill enemies which are not always present before the boss fight. This is a huge glaring issue with the skill tree but it is not without it’s answers.

Here are several ways to improve phasecast and the mystical assault tree: 1. Refund the cool down if the phasecast misses and make it usable instantly again. 2. Increase the width of phasecast. 3. Decrease the cool down of phasecast. 4. Give phasecast some utility such as the ability to ignore enmy shields/damage reduction. 5. Give phasecast a way to track enemies. 6. Give phasecast a way to change direction/jump from enemy to enemy.

If we understand the issues with phasecast and work together to push to fix it together we can make Amara’s phasecast great again.

3 Likes
#2

Iron bear is worst, or the FL4K Gramm something.

Generally, any action skill that meant to do damage sucks. Phaseslam need teh cooldown to drop to at least 20 sec. Phasecast, I never even tried once. Can’t say.

But Phasecrasp is too good

1 Like
#3

Phasegrasp is so good, why bother using the others appart from annointed perks

1 Like
#4

Ironbear is invincibility frames garuntees you will let that shield cool down and gives you a second health bar. Low on health? Hop in ironbear qland when you get out boom your shields are back and you can do damage while in the mech even if that damage is abysmal. As far as the gamma thing I outlined how it could be useful as it draws agro.either towards your pet and away from you or towards you and away from your pet depending on how you use it it also give your pet a small boost even if the boost is tiny. Phasecast however just misses a lot and deals no damage most of the time and when it does deal damage it is not that much

#5

Phasecast activate a +300% gun damage annointed perk on guns.

Just saying

#6

But the phasecast itself is pretty bad. It’s the action skill of choice for boss fights specifically because of that annointment and only for that annointment. The skill itself isn’t good.

#7

I don’t have a problem with aiming Phasecast, but I do think that the action skill could benefit from ignoring the collision certain objects, such as cover.

7 Likes
#8

Missing isn’t the only issue with the skill but I agree

#9

Phasecast and let not forget Phaseslam need to be adjusted. I think the major issue is the cool down for both these skills. The damage is also lacking but that is across the board for all vault hunters. Amara is my main (I have all vault hunters at 50 and tvhm complete for each). Unfortunately, Kaos thinks Amara is in a good place

She maybe more versatile than other vault hunters as far as build diversity is concern. The problem with Amara is that Phasegrasp overshadows everything. If you want to play melee your better off making a Phasegrasp hybrid then using phaseslam. If you want to play caster your better off using Phasegrasp then using phasecast. Even though your spec for blitz or avatar your better off using a different action skill.

Amara is very strong. A lot of people think she is the best. I would have to disagree with this. A lot of people are seeing exploits used on her and have the wrong notion. The cooldown exploit has to be fix. Moze is by far the strongest vault hunter… if you own a Recurring hex + Bloodletter.

#10

250%.
The 300% one is tied to Phaseslam.

1 Like
#11

Quick tid-bit. The version of phaseslam with the Lazer, downfall, doesn’t give you invincibility frames. When I was leveling with it I got put into fight for your life a few times while “shooting” the Lazer.

1 Like
#12

cool i didnt know that but thank you and anyways in that case phaseslam needs to be ajusted too

#13

actually the base skill doesnt give you that big of a bonus at all that is using an exploit with a specific class mod to get that bonus i am speaking with just the base skill no exploit and you can do the same thing actually with phasegrasp just saying

#14

Even without using the phasezerker class mod exploit it’s still far and away superior to any other action skill.

Honestly, I can’t think of a way to make people use phaseslam and phasecast over Ties That Bind Phasegrasp other than to nerf ties that bind into the ground.

The biggest part is how phasegrasp is refunded if you miss while the others burns your cooldown anyway even if it doesn’t hit and can snag enemies that are out of line of sight. Of course if you make phasegrasp so that it burns your cooldown even if you miss with how janky the targeting is, that would make phasegrasp pretty worthless.

TL;DR - I have no idea how to level the playing field out with her action skills.

1 Like
#15

Just make it like BL2. Phaselock didn’t even go off until it was possible to do so.

In Borderlands 3, it lets you activate Phasegrasp and THEN the game checks to see if it was possible to use the skill. If there was nothing to use the skill on, it still pretends the skill was used and refunds the reuse.

In Borderlands 2, the game did a check for success before it even let you activate the action skill. Therefore it was impossible to do an exploit like this where you build up stacks or activate your “after action skill ends” skills.

#16

But fixing the exploit is irrelevant to the issue as even once fixed, phasegrasp + ties that bind are still miles away better than phasecast and phaseslam

#17

like i said with phasecast i had like 6 options in the post to improve it all 6 are pretty decent and while some are harder than the others to execute the same an be said with phaseslam for all of these except i think 1

#18

as far as I’m aware the only thing wrt cooldown you can do is reduce to a few seconds, but that was intentional w/the phasezerker mod

#19

Maybe they’re talking about the exploit where you just keep respeccing and you end up with a super short cooldown. It reverts when you exit and come back.

#20

“worst ability in the game” laughs in iron bear