Amara has 2 and half trees dedicated to melee yet not ONE Action skill actually helps her use melee more effectively 
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Phaseflare kinda scales off the Melee dmg you punch it with ( plus being one very absurdly powerfull action skill) so yeahā¦ Not much but still somethingā¦
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I have been saying for 2+ years now that Amara is a poorly-designed character in general, at least in the context of BL3. I am sure she would have been great in another BL game. Which seems weird to me I guess.
The only thing that makes her even remotely enjoyable to me is TTB and Indiscriminate. I mained Maya and I loved that playstyle, but Amara is like a version 0.9 of Maya to me.
She has melee skills but melee (via the blade) sucks in BL3. She has splash damage skills but you can get almost as much from COMs and artifacts. Her COMs basically suck except for Phasezerker. I canāt stand listening to her scream constantly when she gets DOTed or DOTs herself.
Amara was a big disappointment to me as a character.
Man, am I in a good mood tonight LOL
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It really does suck if Borderlands 3 at least had one satisfying melee character I would probably be playing it right now instead of returning to Borderlands 1 lol
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Yeah I donāt really get the COM commentary lol.
She doesnāt have a Moze or Fl4k level of variety when it comes to COMs but you still have diverse options out of Phasezerker (even though it is still best in slot in most of her gun builds).
Kensei is usable, her potential best bossing COM in a gun build is actually a purple COM (Mantis with +3 Transcend is absolutely insane), Driver is really good even though it got nerfed week 1, Muse with +3 IF is ridiculous (not possible to get it with +3 IF anymore but Iām never dropping my level 65 one xD), you can roll a Breaker with +3 Personal Space and have a blast with shotguns. And they would all be endgame viable.
I just think most Amara players are stuck in the Zane loop about COMs : they like one COM (Seeinā Dead), they never bother with the others when they can be better options (in the case of Seeinā Dead itās not even a ācan beā, Seeinā Dead isnt even best in slot anymore, Executor and Spy give more potential dps output, some cursed builds even revolve around Hustler and stoopid interaction with Eraser)
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Zer0 was the best Melee character
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Yeah exactly that. Or course PhZerker is a very solid and optimal choice for most Generalist builds, but damage wise it cant compete the Kensei.
The stone is viable with a dedicated phasecast build, the Elementalist is very cool albeit not that much powerfull ( buh ehy, 10/5 infusion right?), deaths blessings even after a huge nerf stands as a decent class mod with very good skills.
Zane syndrome? More like dps syndrome. Everyone ( also on yt) seeks the " best dmg build omg annihilate all endgame content" and seems to forget that other than meta builds, also FUN builds are a thingā¦
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Yeah, I am not stating this as a fact obviously, just my opinion, and Amara is not the only VH that falls victim to this - itās kinda all of them. COMs on the whole are really not as great in BL3 where it comes to providing interesting niche playstyles. The biggest part of that comes down to the fact that BL3 is less difficult than other BL3 games so you donāt have to min-max as much. There are pros and cons to that approach in terms of gameplay. The other issue is that while there are some very cool special effects present (Red Fang, Mindsweeper, etc.), a lot of the COMs boost skills that donāt necessarily support the COMās playstyle - and they only provide 5 total points so regardless, the skills donāt get a huge boost unless you have a +5 COM in the exact right skill, plus good passives. Good luck getting that legitimately.
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I agree
I agree that Amara is badly designed, but I would go as far as to say the other vault hunters are as well to varying degrees, with the possible exception of Fl4k.
Amara was my 2nd favourite vault hunter when the game came out but for a long time now, sheās been #3 on my list, only above Zane. Gearbox just didnāt get melee combat right with Amara. They make a Phasezerker COM but no Phasezerking action skill? Like Brick or Krieg but using all those mystical fists. While you can go true melee as Amara, itās far more powerful to do so with a Face-puncher and Fish Slap.
This is probably the biggest thing I miss in BL3 vs BL2 - taking a build concept and going all-in on it. You can still do it, but itās just not the same.
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I think sheās poorly designed to fight bosses. She shreds through mobs with Ties That Bind.
I used to play her more, but then they took my fun away with the FacePuncher nerf. What would we do without the wisdom of the GBX ivory tower.
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Phaseflare hits insanely hard on almost every boss. It would be great if there wasnāt a couple of them where the ball cant reach their hitbox. Its range of dmg is insanely high, for example moxsy did a super duper complex build and kill where phaseflare with all kinds of buffs applied to it hits for hundreds of billions of dmg to a modded Rampager, and when true trials where actually a thing all of the bosses with raid health werenāt a problem at ALL. It does require a lot of investment and specific gears but Phaseflare does the job when exploited.
Also, we have that stupid broken scaling thing that Remnant is which is capable to oneshot the Seer and many other bosses ( without immunity phases) with the Guardian 4ng3l and the proper investment. In fact, even while mobbing you can see remnant hitting for dmg cap, with just 1 point snd without the 4ng3l
I almost forgot : as anyone, amara can heavily exploit Fish slap + unleash the dragon tactics. Unleash the Dragonās fire DoT scales off your melee dmg and via her skills she can stack insanely high amount of melee.
( Joyfull freedom at 9/5 adds 126 melee per stack for a total of 6-7 stacks obtainable with fakegrasping, illuminated fist and find your center both adding 100% and No Mistake in Nature adding another 65% for a total of ~1000% melee dmg) Aswell as holding the 4ng3l for silly results that are overkill for anything
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Amara is one of the few examples of that in bl3. A purple Mantis class mod with 3 in Trascendant and 1 into the others adds a great amount of crit dmg, handling and precision and is actually capable of competing with her strongest leg COMs
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Personally I love using melee Amara. More than the other Vault Hunters sans FL4K actually. At least ever since the purple/Enlightened Force tree came out. By then enemies actually die from getting punched 2-3 times and I didnāt need to rely on the Face Puncher or Unleash the Dragon.
Yes, sheād be deadlier now with them (along with the psycho stabber), but theyāve been crutches to me for so long since before that I donāt bother.
That said, itās ironic that I havenāt been using Blitz for the builds I use. In fact, speccing into the green tree for survivability in general is redundant compared to putting one point into Sustainment (Life Steal is bad design in itself).
Not to mention the synergy between her melee and gun damage skills is pretty poor compared to Zer0 or Athena. Who both were designed to whittle their enemiesā health away so they could go for the killing blow (Much more effective on bosses too.) For Amara I would have spec into an actual gun build or strictly use elemental weapons for something along the lines of āgoodā damage.
Still, itās at least fun to experiment on making that synergy work to some level.
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I am actually glad they nerfed the Facepuncher it completely defeats the purpose of trying to run a melee build its NOT melee, its just a shotgun build that scales off melee damage its the most brain dead build in the game and requires 0 skill.
I just canāt find any enjoyment with her like I can with Melee Zer0, Athena, and Krieg. She doesnāt have any cool abilities like being able to combine kunai and execute to deal damage and stay invisible, or a dash ability with incredible range and precision with a shield to back her up, or a crazy good melee action skill that allows her to go berserk. Itās all very underwhelming and there isnāt a community of actual āMeleeā Amara players like BL2 or even TPS.
When you pay for my game, you can tell me how to play it.
Iāve since gone to Joeyās mansion and managed to get a couple of decent Fishslaps. Iāve also put the El Dragon to use thatās been sitting in my bank. Iāve also re-rolling Blades of Fury. Thanks for the tips.
I might have to try Phaseflare. I still canāt get kill trial bosses on āTrue Trialā mode. I run out of time or ammo, or both. Actually I need to look at the ānewā purple tree in general. Iām using my current build as a security blanket