Amara's Sustainment

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

In the recent hotfix, Zane’s Salvation got nerfed/fixed. Previously you could get life steal from grenade damage. I thought this was intentional because the skill’s description says “weapons” instead of “guns”. A grenade is technically a weapon, right?
Amara’s Sustainment also works with grenades, including the Red Suit’s special effect and nova effects (they seem to be considered grenade damage like they were in BL2). The description has almost the same wording as Salvation (“gains Life Steal […] with her weapon”). I wonder whether this skill will be next for a change/nerf. Since both skills work almost identical I hope they won’t for those reasons:

  • Amara’s skill is more limiting due to it activating only off of elemental damage (on guns only those that inherit an element by default, elemental conversion/bonus doesn’t work)
  • she can’t spam grenades to the degree Zane can
  • Sustainment is quite far down the tree and requires some investment to get to it

If they’d change the skill so that it also affects converted/bonus elemental damage I’d be somewhat okay with them removing the grenade part even though it would still destroy builds that rely on heavy nova usage. Not sure how I’d feel about that.

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#2

I hope they don’t. I wouldn’t really notice much personally, because the game has always said F U and I can’t get anything better than a quasar.

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#3

if they will nerfed amara, first one would be do harm stacking.

i think there is difference on sustainment and salvation. and both works on both characters strenghts.

#4

Hang on… you’re saying that elemental damage done via infusion doesn’t work with sustainment?! i could’ve sworn it did ! something is definitely healing me when i use non-elemental butcher.

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#5

Correct. The only confirmed sources for life steal are guns with an inherent element (Tsunami is the only exception I know of so far), elemental grenades and novas from shields (those seem to count as grenade damage like in BL2). Infusion doesn’t work, in fact, on elemental guns, it actually reduces life steal due to reducing the base elemental damage. Forceful Expression or any other source of bonus elemental damage doesn’t work either.

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#6

Projectiles from shooting star also get healing from sustainment.

#7

Thanks, that’s good to know. It probably works similar to nova shields, maybe it is even considered greande damage as well.

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#8

My shooting star is rad resistance (they said the resistance is the same as the element of the projectile). Not sure if no resistance shooting star will heal from sustainment though.

#9

Haven’t tested it with the Shooting Star but nova shields definitely work that way.

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#10

does zane heal with the aura?

#11

The messy break up shield also works that way whatever element resistance it is that is the element the drone will shoot

#12

Hang on a tic, so if I were using an all elemental Rowan’s setup for example, I should stay completely away from infusion?

#13

Yes, unless you are breezing though content anyway and don’t want to switch weapons.

#14

As of last night, this is incorrect. I have seen this argument a lot and had to find out for myself because while I do like seeing what others have found, I enjoy finding out first hand as well. So here is the quick notes, as I plan on doing further testing and gathering more data at another time.

I used the Vehicle as it was a constantly available source. I was not aiming for any % of damage to verify modifiers on armor vs flesh, just to see what did and did not heal. I could also stop damage and let it regenerate as needed (or respawn it). To get my health lower, I used a Torgue gun and shot my feet (careful when doing this once you have Infusion or Forceful Expression, as these allow you to DOT yourself).

Weapons used for testing: Pa’s Rifle (Electric), and The Hunt(er).
Test target: Bandit Technical equipped with the Heavy Armor
All points of Guardian Rank in Hunter atm, so no modifiers to factor.

Shockra used until later tests. Game mode was normal, Mayhem 1.

Baseline: No Skills
https://bl3skills.com/siren#0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Hunt(er) Pa's
Damage 2229 832

1st Test: Tempest
https://bl3skills.com/siren#0000000000000000000000000005005000000000

Hunt(er) Pa's
Damage 2229 1164

2nd Test: Sustain
https://bl3skills.com/siren#0000000000000000000000000005005051310500

Hunt(er) Pa's
Damage 2229 1164
Heal 0 256

3rd Test: Forceful Expression
https://bl3skills.com/siren#0000000000000000000000000005005051310501

Shockra Hunt(er) Pa's Soulfire Hunt(er) Pa's
Damage 2229 1374 2229 1164
Bonus 397 0 284 150
Heal 0 256 0 256

4th Test: Infusion (Root to Rise added for access to Blight Tiger)
https://bl3skills.com/siren#5000000000000000000000000005055051310501

Shockra Hunt(er) Pa's Soulfire Hunt(er) Pa's Blight Tiger Hunt(er) Pa's
Damage 1338 1374 1338 699 1338 699
Bonus 1279 0 914 482 3197 1688
Heal 0 256 0 256 0 256

Bonus Test: Gernades - Epicenter. Healed on impact only, not DOT or bonus projectiles.

In conclusion, what I have found is this:

Sustain seems to work off base bullet damage from Elemental guns and calculated prior to damage changes due to Forceful Expression or Infusion. It was not healing off any DOT damage that I applied (sad day) from any source I could find. This seems to be match up with the consistent 256 heal across the board no matter what element I have for my active skill and which skills I have. I would like to find a way to see if Tempest does in fact increase the heal.

[Edit 1] Fixed some typo errors.

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#15

That’s good to know. Seems they changed that at some point. I’ll link your post in my guide. :+1:

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#16

What about damage over time from elemental status effect? Does that heal you as well?

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#17

No, unfortunately it doesn’t.

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