Agent Amara

SKILL TREE NOTES

This is a very interesting setup. Sustainment is two points away, but obtaining it requires losing Blight Tiger, Avatar, or 30% elemental/kinetic damage from Burn Both Ends. Blight Tiger is hugely important for infusing Jakobs weapons with corrosive. Losing Avatar is simply not an option; this is a Kensei build, and Avater gives you twice the Kensei damage uptime. And Burn Both Ends synergizes very well with both non-elemental weapons and the Infernal Wish. None of these things can be lost.

​

Which is fine, because Sustainment actually doesn't help very much. Basically, if you have a Wish dot and something healthgates you, you will go down immediately, even with Sustainment. So yes, this build has no life steal and actively tries to kill you.

​

The Wish dot, coupled with an active bonus element (from your shield and grenade anointments), will self-stack Burn Both Ends. Normally, self damage such as the Wish dot does not stack BBE, but the bonus element "ticking on top of it" as a hidden damage instance will stack it. Just through regular action skill usage and gun shooting, BBE will give you damage without having to worry about being damaged by enemies.

​

ACTION SKILL

Ties That Bind. Phasecast coupled with 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment for bossing.

​

ACTION SKILL ELEMENT

Whatever is suited to the content you are facing. This is a Kensei build, and it also has Infusion at 40%. This is so you can add lots of elemental damage to your non-elemental weapons for better element matchups. Choose your action skill element wisely, as it will greatly impact your damage.

​

CLASS MOD

Kensei, with as many points into Joyful Freedom or No Mistakes In Nature as possible, and with one of the four possible manufacturer crit passives: Jakobs, Dahl, Hyperion, and Atlas. This crit passive is a whopping 64% at level 72. And this is why the build is not just restricted to Jakobs weapons. Other recommended passives: weapon damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage radius, weapon type damage, weapon crit damage, melee damage, shield recharge rate, incendiary resistance (works against the Wish dot).

​

JAKOBS GUNS

This build uses lots of Jakobs guns well, because they tend to pack a stronger punch per trigger pull, and pulling the trigger fewer times is beneifical because you don't want the Wish dot stacking too high. Bekah, Rowan's Call, King's/Queen's Call, Hellwalker, Clairvoyance (single projectile), Love Drill, Trickshot, Bird of Prey. You can even use overlooked or less powerful guns, although some may only work against non-True Takedown-level enemies: Dead Chamber, Companion, Maggie, Quickdraw (have 2 so you can swap between them), Seventh Sense.

​

Some of these guns are normally fired rapidly, such as the Rowan's Call. Exercise trigger discipline and only fire as many times as it takes to kill the enemy. The damage output of this build is designed to require fewer trigger pulls. The Trickshot fires rapidly automatically, but whatever you're aiming at should be dead after 1-2 trigger pulls anyway.

​

All guns with the Consecutive Hits anointment. Killstack would be a contender, but you lose Killstacks when you enter FFYL, and this build definitely enters FFYL.

​

For a bit of nostalgic fun, use a Wedding Invitation with Next 2 Mags Cryo anointment, with an ASE 50% cryo bonus element, and cryo action skill element. You might be surprised how strong it is. The Wedding Invitation, when it crits or hits an enemy with a ricochet projectile, stacks a debuff to both fire and cryo damage, the former up to 100% and the latter up to 200%. Credit to Lonemasterino for this discovery. So cryo damage is very strong with this gun.

​

DAHL GUNS

Soulrender, Kaoson (x1), Sand Hawk, with Consecutive Hits anointments. These weapons synergize with the Wish because they allow you to restrict your trigger pulls. The Soulrender can be fired in bursts until a couple skulls appear, at which point you can let off and let the skulls destroy enemies. The Kaoson has extra damage from the stickies exploding, allowing you to stop firing before an enemy is dead. The Sand Hawk, in semi-auto mode and when aimed at a crit spot, kills just about anything in a few shots anyway.

​

HYPERION GUNS

Guardian Angel, Masterwork Crossbow, Heart Breaker (x8), Smog, Reflux (x7), Convergence (x3 or x4), all with Consecutive Hits. Exercise trigger discipline and these guns will take you a long way. The Crossbow is especially powerful when you get used to aiming it. The Guardian Angel with Indiscriminate will wipe out a whole group quite easily.

​

ATLAS GUNS

Multi-tap and OPQ System, with Conseutive Hits anointments. Trigger discipline required.

​

OTHER GUNS

This build can make use of some other guns, in which case you can ditch the manufacturer crit passive on your class mod and use a Splash Damage passive: Anarchy, Contained Blast, Prompt Critical, Backburner. With Consecutive Hits.

​

FFYL GUNS

Each manufacturer listed above has a good FFYL option: Hellwalker, Soulrender or Sand Hawk, Guardian Angel, OPQ System. However, it may also be wise to have a separate FFYL gun that will work in all situations, such as the Free Radical or Plasma Coil, with Consecutive Hits anointment.

​

BOSSING GUNS

Some of the stronger guns listed above should be equipped with a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment and be used for bossing: Bekah, Trickshot, Hellwalker, Bird of Prey, Sand Hawk, Soulrender, Anarchy, Contained Blast.

​

SHIELD

Infernal Wish, with a highly recommended shield charge part or two. With ASE 50% bonus element anointment. The shield charges are very important for survivability, as the Wish dot will do much less damage to its own shield than to your health bar. A strong dot can be chunking at your health, and picking up a shield charge will suddenly make it much less likely to kill you.

​

Avoid the following augments, which disable the Wish's extra projectile effect: Adrenaline, Capacity, Delay, Recharge, Reflect, Trigger Happy, Turtle.

​

Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time.

​

ARTIFACT

An appropriate well-rolled Company Man or Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge with a mag size passive. Passives for Company Man: elemental damage, area of effect damage, melee damage, shield recharge rate, action skill cooldown rate, move speed, incendiary resistance (works against the Wish dot).

​

GRENADE

Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) or Mesmer, with ASE 50% bonus element anointment. Both of these are great for crowd control, which may be necessary more often than you expect. Throw these for utility whenever there's a hint of danger.

​

GAMEPLAY LOOP

Activate your action skill and start shooting, but exercise great trigger discipline. Only shoot as often as necessary to kill. If needed, wait for your action skill to come back before continuing firing, so that your trigger pulls are more powerful with Kensei damage. If there's trouble brewing, throw your crowd control grenade. Aim for crits.

​

This build will often play like a Deathless build, in that getting health-gated means you instantly go down anyway, because your Wish dot takes out the rest of your HP. But as long as you have a good FFYL gun, this is no problem. Going down resets the severity of the Wish dot. You're just going to have to rewire yourself to not get frustrated by going into FFYL.

​

At the end of combat, or with one enemy left, keep an eye on how strong your Wish dot is. You don't want to go down with no enemies left. If it looks like you might go down, look around for health vials and shield boosters. Health vials, in general, are going to be something you should pay attention to at all times with this build.

​

NOTES - ANATHEMA FIGHT

There is a dumb mechanic to this fight where if you pass close to a Guardian mob, you are health-gated just by touching them. This can mean an instant down if you have a Wish dot active. Do your best to avoid the mobs walking around, especially when taking a jump pad back to the arena or when they're doing a pole-vault-front-flip at you.

​

NOTES - RAID BOSSING

When referring to bosses like Hemo, Seer, or the True Trials bosses, this build cannot raid boss well at all, unfortunately. If you want to try, equip a Re-Volter with Action Skill Start and use something like a 250% Phasecast gun damage Free Radical.

​