[build] Amara the Thorncaster. A Slaugher shaft mh3 capable build

Borderlands 3 Amara the Siren
#1

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class mod removed to show point placement

This is a elemental projector phasegrasp casting elemental affliction spreading build. It uses Roisen’s Thorns with a shock phasegrasp attunement to imbue the Roisen’s Thorns with 3 elements. One bullet can spread incindiary, corrosive, AND shock. This means
that you are strong against flesh, armor, and shields all at the same time.

The play style of this build is to keep your phasegrasp up as much as possible while nuking the phasegrasped target with as many Roisen’s Thorn projectiles as you can. Hard targets should be the phasegrasped target while the links should kill of weaker targets from the shared damage.

This build requires you to get 165-170ish cool down reduction so that your stillness of mind phasegrasp has a 5.5-5 second cool down. I go ties that bind to spread damage as much as possible during the duration of the phasegrasp.

Phasezeker gives a 150% cool down reduction based on rush stacks. This means you need 15 to 20% more cool down reduction. For the sake of the screenshots provided realize I am getting 21% from my artifact. If you do not have an artifact/class mod that provides the necessary cool down reduction spec 3 points into Restless from Alacrity. That will give enough cool down while only sacrificing reload speed. The reload speed is nice, and will help you get more Roisen’s Thorns shots on target per phasegrasp but is not essential to the build.

This build is capable of MH3 Slaughter Shaft, and is very helpful to the team as you provide much needed crowd control on rocket launcher zealots while doing good damage.

I recommend the Transformer shield (damage anointed if possible) so that when you elemental projector afflict yourself for bonus damage you can ignore the shock portion of the dot.

Gun load out I recommend using at least one splash shock weapon so you can self heal shields using the Transformer. I use Trevonator but some people swear by the shock Handsome Jackhammer. Really up to preference.

For grenades I currently like Stormfront but again that is all flavor.

Since Roisen’s Thorns does 3 elements at once you don’t need to element swap weapons to kill. This means that you have 3 slots open for any gun you desire. I go with utility… Trevonator to heal. A launcher for big spawn clearing, and a super low level gun that can ignite/corrosive/shock me to use elemental projector without killing myself.

One thing to note with this build is helping hands. Since your phasegrasp can be cast every 13.5 seconds or so (up time + cool down) you will have the 40% damage reduction at all times.

If you have questions/comments/suggestions please do not hesitate to drop a line in the comments.

**** EDITS BELOW THIS POINT ****

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Changed a few point placements based on community suggestions.
Handling does help with Roisen’s though accuracy is useless.
Ties that Bind gain damage from Do Harm (I had no idea)

Tested for a few days. Sorry for the delay.

5 Likes
#2

I’m interested in what kind of mileage you’re seeing in Wildfire.

#3

well this build gets crazy spread chance with violent tapestry… i think its around 70%ish since roisen’s has around 25% chance base. So 3 elements inflicting 70%ish of the time, combined w/ a 40% chance to spread everything something is inflicted?

Not sure how to put into miles, but yeah, it is amazing. Everything is afflicted with everything.

#4

Just curious. Have you tried it with out wildfire and noticed a difference? In my experience it made no change maxing the skill vs not using it at all. The radius seemed really low and with TTB and Indiscriminate I could still spread DOTs.

#5

I have noticed a difference, but it might be worth looking at…
Its been a while since i did serious testing on it.
Let me do some and i’ll get back to you.

#6

One thing is… if you remove the points from it, you’d have to place them other places on the tree…

the places you’d put 'em would be steady hand(s) (not useful at all with roisen’s thorns)
and catharsis (not really useful period)

maybe conflux, but i think the points really are better spent giving spread chance.

#7

On paper yes. In game? No! From what i tested it is about 3% per Rush Stack.

#8

on paper or no… you need 15% ish more to get down to 5.5-6 second cooldown

#9

Roisens has terrible handling (recoil) so don’t see why it couldn’t be useful there. Wildfire (only good use is unleash the dragon melee build to spread the dots to all close up enemies with one melee) , catharsis, conflux are absolutely useless

#10

on paper the recoil is hideous. in practice it is not bad at all.

#11

i’m currently testing swapping 3 points from wildfire into steady hand(s) as per suggestions…

Will report back.

#12

Ok… so 3 points in fast hand(s) is noticibly better recoil. Shots become pinpoint. The accuracy does not seem to do anything, as roisen’s does have a set pattern of fire, and accuracy does not shrink the pattern at all; HOWEVER the recoil is… very nice.
I’ll update the build based on this suggestion. Thank you to those who contributed suggestions.

I went 3 points in fast hand(s) and left 2 in wildfire.

#13

Ties that Bind + Stillness of mind is very obviously the best option for any slaughterdome, the rest is just a good weapon of choice.

#14

You are correct. Ties that Bind + Stillness of Mind is an obvious choice for almost any situation that Amara finds herself in.

The reason I posted this build was that most of the time when I ran into other Amara players they were using weapons that did not really compliment her, and had no idea what Roisen’s Thorns was.

In my opinion Roisen’s Thorns is one of, if not, THE best weapon Amara can use as you can make it do all 3 major damage types.

It gets the best bonus against shields, against armor, and against flesh with one bullet.

I’m not trying to tell people how to use their action skill, but am trying to bring attention to a often neglected weapon.

1 Like
#15

It is a good suggestion and I appreciate it im definitely gonna try it out. I love using guns where I don’t have to switch weapons and Miami a triple element Brainstormer. I just forgot for whatever reason roisens does fire damage. The two anointed ones I have had sitting in the bank for ever should be fun to use

#16

My Amara runs a Tsunami with Soul Fire and a Nuclear anointment :joy:that’s four hand things

#17

I’m curious about a few things. Firstly, no points in Do Harm. Even one point will give you an extra means of gaining Rush stacks, and Do Harm stacks increase TTB damage. Violent Tapestry is unreliable beyond one point, elemental status effect chance scales very poorly unfortunately. Do Harm will give you more reliable damage output, from both bullet damage and DoT. IMO you should always have at least one point in both Rush skills, even with a Phasezerker.

I’ll have to test this again, maybe something’s changed in a hotfix, but this wasn’t the case last time I checked. The skill dutation doesn’t (or didn’t) refresh, meaning if you activate an action skill while it’s active you’ll lose out on the duration until the next action skill. Most of the time you’ll probably not be using your action skill again until the 15 seconds are up, but for when you do you wont be getting the benefit from it. Still a great skill regardless.

Alacrity is a great skill now that it works, but if you’re using an Elemental Projector and switching a lot then Fast Hands will probably be more beneficial. The reload speed loss isn’t significant but the swap speed gain is.

Do you use a Sellout to inflict yourself with DoT? Curiously, if you have it set to corrosion it will corrode and ignite you, which would greatly benefit the Rosien’s Thorns.

Edit: Do you notice the DoT inflicting significant damage and killing enemies? I’ve never seen much merit in Wildfire as most of the high DoT weapons have low DPS and vice versa. It sounds great on paper, but in practice raw gun damage almost always outweighs DoT. Something like the Devil’s Foursum is good for this, it has high base damage and high DoT (around ~4500 damage and ~1500 DoT) but even then I kill with bullets most of the time and only leave squishies to die to DoT. Arms Deal would be good for both it and Rosien’s Thorns.

1 Like
#18

Very interesting points raised. I did not know about the bonus damage to the link… must test.

Alacrity is probably over pointed you are correct.

I’m currently reworking build quite a bit based on a few suggestions…
I will update this thread with what I come up with.

dropping wildfire entirely for example

#19

I mean, if it works it works. The idea is good, Rosien’s + Wildfire sounds neat. The problem I see is that you’re already inflicting three DoTs naturally. I think Wildfire is better used on rad weapons personally, if at all. A rad Devil’s Foursum with Wildfire might actually be pretty sweet, especially if you have the anointment for extra DoT chance and damage. Your build is pretty similar to what I run, just with different guns.

#20

i’m going to test a bit more before i repost build, but i’d love to get some input on the changes.

as per your suggestion i’ve dropped violent from 5 to 1, and picked up 5 in do harm. i had no idea it buffed link, and that 60ish percent damage is crazy.

I dropped alacrity down to 2 and picked up 3 in steady hand(s). You are absolutely correct about weapon swap speed. (i use a lvl 10 roisen’s btw not a sellout :stuck_out_tongue:)

i put the remaining 2 points i had in wildfire into infusion… not sure exactly how it will work out (it used to be bugged iirc) but should give a slight damage boost as it converts incindary and corrosion to shock (and shock has a higher damage mod from tempest)

any first impression thoughts?