A few things first to make clear the purpose of this post. Apologies ahead of time for the length; it’s necessary to prevent fruitless discussions. There will be a point to all of this beyond me seeking help for one of my weird ideas, one that hopefully will end with the good people here providing some details to assist others (like me) struggling to understand the intricacies of Amara. But first things first.
Number one: I put scare quotes around “build” because what I’m running with is more of a personally tailored distribution of points, rather than something optimized or min-maxed. It’s just what I’ve found best to run with, more or less, given my peculiar aims. I’m aware that I’m a silly goose.
Number two: my peculiar aims. For anyone who partook in my last thread on Amara, it’ll come as no surprise that I aimed to center my “build” around Jakobs weapons.
Initially, I was running a basic Hellzerker spec, got a little bored with it, then got enchanted by the puzzle box of the Kensei COM. I’m under no illusions that what I’m doing here will outperform builds like Hellzerker, and in a sense I don’t want it to. I simply want it to be the best it can be, without regard to separate build concepts. In addition to facilitating the use of Jakobs weapons, I wanted, thus, to stop relying on the Re-Volter, which is beginning to feel too crutch-like and Bee-ish for my liking. The more I can move away from it the better.
So that’s the prologue: Kensei, Jakobs, no Re-Volter.
Now, in the process of researching Kensei builds it became very clear, very quickly that most of the popular build maestros on YouTube never settled on any one concept, eventually giving up on the COM altogether - probably for good reason.
Some went all purple tree; others barely went there at all. Various fixes to some of Amara’s skills and how they interact with each other further complicates things, as older ideas no longer hold as much water as they once did.
Point being, Kensei left space for experimentation. That’s good, in the sense that thinking is good. That’s bad, in the sense that I’m bad at thinking.
What I’m currently running - which you’ll see just below - is working rather well for me. It’s fun, challenging enough to be interesting, and doesn’t obviate tactical thinking. To emphasize: I’m not posting this because I’m struggling with survival or dealing damage or anything related to gameplay. I’m posting because it bothers me that I don’t know certain important details about what does what type of damage, and consequently whether or not I’m wasting skill points.
Here’s my spec:
I’ll get to my gear in a minute. Let me explain some aspects of the spec that might seem puzzling.
I began my Kensei experiments by going all the way down the purple tree, but the lack of survivability made it a chore. I tried to run without Sustainment and Avatar, which felt like living without food and water. Can’t do it, no can do. Unfortunately, then, this locks me into a full blue tree and a nearly full red tree - similar to a Hellzerker build, wouldn’t you know. I wish it weren’t so, but 'tis so. I cannot do without Sustainment, and playing without Avatar is the opposite of fun (for me).
The rest, then, was figuring out how to divvy up the leftovers between the green and purple trees.
My Kensei COM has 2 points in NMIN, 1 point in UTR, and 2 points in Joyful Freedom (passives are weapon dmg, cooldown, and melee dmg). After some toying around, I concluded that stopping my purple tree point allocation before getting to Joyful Freedom - cutting my losses there at +2 from the COM - and focusing, instead, on getting to Find Your Center in the green tree, I got better results than going deep purple. Arms Deal certainly plays some role in that.
Here’s my load-out:
Guns: Bird of Prey, Maggie, Bekah, Hellwalker. Sometimes I’ll use the Dakota when the Hellwalker bores me.
Shield: I haven’t settled on one, but am focusing on nova shields. Thus far, the Frozen Heart, Red Suit, and Stinger have worked best. For non-nova shields, a cryo Old God has worked splendidly. Old God notwithstanding, though, I’m a sucker for nova shields, always have been, so I’m mostly interested in getting the most out of either the Frozen Heart or the Stinger.
Grenade: Recurring Hex, usually with an ASE corrosive anoint.
Relic: I shift between an Ice Breaker Victory Rush, which performs best, and a Jakobs CM, which fits my Jakobs emphasis better. Passives are all good (cooldown, AOE, mag size on the CM; cryo dmg, AOE, mag size on the VR).
One of my most pressing questions is just what kind of damage novas involve. I’m aware that the Stinger nova is unique in that it deals melee damage, but I still wonder if it also does splash damage (same question for the Frozen Heart).
If I had to boil down this lengthy post to one issue, splash would be it - specifically, the mystery of splash damage in relation to Amara’s Infusion/TTB and nova shields. I can’t determine, with Amara, just what and what does not deliver splash.
So, yeah, I’m using Jakoks weapons in a build that in many ways depends on splash damage and status effects, which you are free to say is a dumb thing to do. But work with me here.
NMIN depends on status effects. Heavy Rain boosts splash damage (I only go +4 here because +5 screws with my Bekah distance too much). UTR depends on splash damage. Arms Deal boosts splash damage.
All of that I want to integrate into a kind of passive addition to the sheer kinetic force of Jakobs weapons. My thinking - note, not my knowledge - was that Infusion would put cryo (from my AS) into my weapons’ damage output, proc status effects thereby and with TTB and elemental ASE anoints, and… well… that’s that.
But is there actually any splash damage in there? Does cryo do splash damage? Does infusion weave elements into damage output in such a way as to do splash damage?
With respect to the shields, I’m completely in the dark about elemental novas and splash damage. I haven’t found anything online that shed any light on the subject. The Stinger in particular has a lot of potential here if it deals splash damage in addition to getting buffed by melee damage boosts. I’m certainly shredding with it. But I don’t know why I’m shredding with it.
In sum, the underlying concept is: Infusion/TTB, proc status effects and deal splash damage, proc purple tree stuff and get Heavy Rain/Arms Deal splash boosts, while also buffing my shield nova with splash (if I’m using a Frozen Heart) or doing that as well as buffing it with melee damage (if I’m using a Stinger). That quasi-passive chain of splash and status effects is supposed to be woven into or laid on top of my basic Jakobs boom-boom pew-pew.
It amounts to a kinetic Amara “infused” with splash, cryo, ASE elements, potent novas, and melee damage multipliers. Or at least, that’s the idea.
Trouble is, as I’ve been indicating, I have no idea if I’m even getting a fraction of the splash damage I think I’m getting. I don’t know if my novas are dealing splash damage. I don’t know if Infusion is helping to deliver it. I don’t know if TTB deals it. And I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to get up-tp-date information on all of that.
The only other questions I have relate to the blue tree. I’ve seen people running with +4 in Alacrity and only +1 in Do Harm. Likewise, they don’t spec into Awakening at all. I haven’t a clue how Do Harm works with TTB, or if Awakening is worth specing into at all. Again, all I see online are conflicting and often contradictory remarks.
I want to apologize again for my lack of brevity. I didn’t have time to make this shorter, and I figured some people here would enjoy having something theoretical or Amara-related to talk about.
That’s all, folks.