Amara Dot Gun

SKILL TREE NOTES

This is somewhat atypical of a red/blue Ties That Bind gun build. Skills like Personal Space and Transcend do not affect dot damage. Nor does splash damage, so Heavy Rain is more about the projectile speed for use with some weapons. Five points go to Do Harm to make sure Ties kills linked enemies, giving you Overkill even at the start of combat with no Overkill or anointments active.

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ACTION SKILL

Ties That Bind. There is a bonus loadout that uses Reverberation, see "Notes - Radiation Loadout" at the end.

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Stillness of Mind is important for preventing enemies from damaging your shield. It also allows the Recursion to ping around and hit more enemies while they're stationary.

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ACTION SKILL ELEMENT

Whatever element matches the gun in your hand. Your main gun will apply the largest dot, and when your AS element matches it, Anima provides an extra boost to that element's dot damage.

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DOT SCIENCE AND ON-SHOT VS ON-HIT

Gun dots are increased by gun damage, any form of amp, the charge mult on certain weapons (such as Major Kong or Kickcharger), Overkill (Guardian Rank perk), and most global on-hit modifiers such as elemental damage, V1, and Guardian Angel bonus. Gun dots are not affected by crit damage, splash damage, weapon type damage, or Personal Space, because all of those are non-global on-hit modifiers.

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What does that mean? Let's go on a tangent. There are certain things that occur "on shot", when you fire a projectile, and others that occur "on hit", when the damage actually occurs on the enemy. Gun damage, for example, is on shot; if you were to fire a projectile with bonus gun damage, then removed those bonuses before the projectile hit, it will still do damage according to the gun damage you had when you shot it. Same goes for amp, the charge mult on certain weapons, and Overkill. These on-shot modifiers are essentially an increase to the card damage of your gun, and therefore they increase the applied dot.

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Something like crit occurs on hit, because how can the game know you actually landed a crit until it hits? If you were to remove your crit bonuses before the projectile lands, it would deal less damage. But this also is why crit swapping exists. Weapon type damage is on-hit, and this is the reason why "Shotgun Damage" does not apply to the Face Puncher. The Face Puncher is a shotgun and uses shotgun ammo, but its bullets land (on hit) as melee damage. Thus, the on-hit modifier "Shotgun Damage" won't apply. And it's why it won't increase yours dots; your dots are "hitting" as "status effect damage", not any sort of weapon type.

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Similarly, splash damage is a global on-hit modifier that applies to all things splash, but dots are not splash. They are not "gun", so Personal Space doesn't apply. They are status effect damage, so the only on-hit modifiers that will increase them are the ones that increase *all kinds* of damage: V1, Guardian Angel, and elemental damage (dots are an element).

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Dots can be applied one per element per damage source. So your gun's main element must be different from your bonus element anointments, in order to apply as many dots as possible and get the most damage.

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GUNS

Anything that can be shot a single time with a high listed dot damage, with ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment. That anointment says 75%, but it's actually 40% increased status effect damage. Regardless, it's multiplicative with Anima's status effect damage, so it's still very strong. The increased chance also makes your dots much more reliable.

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Good guns for this build: Moonfire, Recursion, Storm, Major Kong, Kickcharger, Slow Hand, x4 Fearmonger. All of these must be fire, shock, and/or corrosive. Do not choose radiation weapons (outside of the Radiation Loadout), and do not choose cryo weapons. Radiation is much more effective as a bonus element, and cryo does not have a dot.

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The Major Kong is fucking crazy with this build. That's all that needs to be said.

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It is possible to use non-elemental guns, such as the Bird of Prey seen in the gameplay video. That gun is anointed with a Next Two Mags anointment, essentially making it an elemental weapon. It does lose the consistency of the ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment, though.

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SWAP GUN

Guardian Angel, with Killstack anointment. Swap to this to increase the damage of the dots you applied with your main gun. Beware that swapping makes you lose your ASE Status Chance/Damage anointment on your main gun. The Killstack anointment, however, attaches to the player, so if enemies die while you're holding the Guardian Angel, that gun damage will still be there when you swap back to your main gun. Dots are increased with gun damage.

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For quicker raid bossing, you can take advantage of a Guardian Angel with the Elemental Critical Hit anointment. You can trigger this anointment with a grenade that matches your main gun's element or one of your bonus elements.

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CLASS MOD

Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible. Anima is hugely important to this build. Recommended passives: weapon charge speed, action skill cooldown rate, weapon damage, splash damage radius (for larger radsplosions). Weapon charge speed can be very useful for guns like the Recursion and the Major Kong. The Kong normally takes 5 seconds of charging to reach its maximum damage, but with a passive on your Phasezerker, it reduces it down to about 2.5 seconds.

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SHIELD

Amp shield, with ASE 50% bonus radiation anointment. The recommended one is a triple amp purple Pangolin shield, called a One-Shotter. It amps for 100% damage, and has a pretty quick delay and recharge rate, allowing you more amp shots faster. A 0.m amps for more damage, but it takes significantly longer to refill.

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If you want to use the Major Kong regularly, a double-amp Big Boom Blaster would help you recover some ammo, at the cost of some amp power.

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ARTIFACT

Toboggan. Recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot. This amp multiplies with your shield amp to even further increase dot damage. This means you must slide between each shot. Don't worry, though, if you play correctly, every shot does a lot of work.

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You can carry a Cutpurse Launchpad to help keep up your launcher ammo, in case you get addicted to the Major Kong.

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GRENADE

Any grenade that can be used for crowd control, such as the Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar (non sticky). Alternatively, if you're trying to Ele Crit a raid boss with your Ele Crit Guardian Angel, a grenade that can crit such as the Lightspeed, Hex, or Hunter Seeker, matching the element of the dot you want to explode.

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The anointment is important here. It must be a shock, fire, or corrosive ASE 50% bonus element, but it must be suited to your content, and be different from your main gun's element. Radiation is always a bonus element you want, but that's covered with your shield anointment. The element here must be the "2nd or 3rd best" for your content.

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GAMEPLAY LOOP

Make sure your loadout is correct, with differing elements for your gun and your bonus elements. Make sure your grenade is of the appropriate element if you want to Ele Crit a boss.

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Grasp, slide, shoot, or slide, grasp, shoot. Your first grasp in combat won't have bonus elements, because your action skill hasn't ended yet. It will be a little weaker. You also won't have Overkill. Overkill is a huge increase to dot damage.

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Any damage can build Overkill, not just a gun shot. An enemy dying to a heavy dot will give you good Overkill. Miss your shot, but you still have Groundbreaker built up? Melee kill an enemy to get Overkill again. Miss your shot, but Remnant is going after an enemy? Let it land and get you Overkill. You shoot the grasped enemy, it doesn't die because you don't have Overkill, but a linked enemy died? Now you have Overkill, try shooting the grasped enemy again (make sure to slide again beforehand).

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You must be aware of your buffs for every shot you take. Did you slide before the shot? Is your amp shield full? Do you have Overkill? Are your bonus elements still active? Are enemies going to shoot you and damage your shield? Master the flow and pay attention to what's going on and this build will destroy everything.

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NOTES - RADIATION LOADOUT

For a change of pace, for a more carefree, fast-firing, run-and-gun style, and yet still get big radsplosions and strong dots, ignore most of the normal loadout recommended above. Get a good radiation weapon such as the Beacon, Trevonator, Plasma Coil, RYNAH, or just a radiation version of one of the normal guns. Put a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment on it. Switch to Reverberation. Equip a Re-Volter with Action Skill Start anointment. Equip an Atom Balm Victory Rush. Put ASE 50% fire or corrosive anointment on your grenade. And shoot away, no worrying about an amp shield or sliding for Toboggan.

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The 400-level/AP course for this build: use the radiation loadout but instead put ASE 50% radiation on your grenade and use the Hellfire or DNA, with 250% Phasecast anointment.

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