Amber Swan

SKILL TREE NOTES

With Sustainment, Guardian Angel, and move speed from Mindfulness, this might seem like a tanky build. But punching is your healing, and the goal of this build is to just punch once for every enemy. You still have to be mindful (heh) moving around between encounters.

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ACTION SKILL

Ties That Bind.

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ACTION SKILL ELEMENT

This is somewhat complicated. Unleash The Dragon snapshots the damage of your punch and deals fire damage over time based on that. So you want to remove as much HP as possible with your first punch. However, Anima gives a status effect damage boost to whatever your action skill element is, and the Unleash The Dragon is always fire.

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For removing the most HP from an enemy, there's an argument for shock, because lots of enemies are shielded, and shock damage against shields gets huge bonus. That big hit against their shield will make UTD very strong, especially with a 150/90 anointment. Run shock against Maliwan enemies and Guardians. Run incendiary against COV enemies and creatures. Even though COV enemies can be shielded and armored, there's still lots of pure flesh enemies.

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PUNCHING GUN

Guardian Angel, with 150/90 anoint and a 60% melee damage blade. By punching enemies and running away, not only do you increase your survivability, but the Guardian Angel bonus increases the damage of the UTD dot.

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This gun is also a survivability tool. It can be used to get yourself up from FFYL, if there's no enemy in punching range. The Guardian Angel projectiles will double dip Indiscriminate, so you can shoot the nearest enemy and other enemies in the periphery will take lots of damage.

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It can be shot at enemies for healing through Sustainment if you're taking lots of damage. Alternating between shooting and punching is the recommended way to face True Guardian Takedown Guardians; you will clear much faster if Guardian Angel Indiscriminate projectiles are also taking chunks out of them.

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BACKUP GUN

Blade Fury, with 150/90 anoint. This is for flying enemies such as Seras and Death Spheres. Shoot them once and then UTD take care of it while you turn your focus back to grounded enemies. This can also be used to help you clear the crystal phases of True Guardian Takedown.

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CLASS MOD

Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, melee damage, area damage, area damage radius.

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Alternatively, outside of True Takedowns, an Elementalist with points into Wildfire can help with area clear. At 10/5, Wildfire has an 80% proc rate, so you will often kill two enemies for one punch.

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SHIELD

Brawler Ward, with ASE Apply Terror anoint. Preferably low level, but that is not required. This shield will consistently provide a huge buff to your punches.

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A Stinger shield with Action Skill Start anointment is recommended for the crystal phases of the True Guardian Takedown. Otherwise, you will very likely get overwhelmed.

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ARTIFACT

Unleash The Dragon artifact. It can only roll with 2 out of 3 passives, those three passives being incendiary damage, melee damage, and incendiary resistance. Skip the incendiary resistance.

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GRENADE

Fish Slaps, in corrosive and radiation, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. Radiation for Maliwan Takedown because of immmune heavies (see "Notes - Immune Maliwan Heavies" section below), and corrosive for dealing with most raid bosses. Shock can be used for one shotting Seer.

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GAMEPLAY LOOP

Set your action skill element appropriately. Grasp an enemy and punch it or a linked enemy. Move quickly away to the next enemy, punch it, move to the next, and so on. Throw some zig zag in there to dodge enemy attacks while approaching your next target. Remember, the further away you get from your punched enemy, the stronger the fire dot on them becomes because of the Guardian Angel. For bosses like the Valks, you can punch them and run away just fine. For tankier bosses, simply throwing a Fish Slap at them is recommended.

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NOTES - IMMUNE MALIWAN HEAVIES

You have your action skill element set to shock vs Maliwan enemies, as noted above. However, there are two different problems created by shock and fire immune Heavies in the Maliwan Takedown. For shock Heavies, you can ground slam them, because UTD also works with slam, and your slam is non-elemental. Keep the Heavy at the edge of your slam radius, so that the Guardian Angel applies more damage to it.

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Fire heavies, no matter whether you choose to punch or slam them, simply won't take any damage from the UTD dot. For these enemies, delete them with a Fish Slap.

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NOTES - DOT IMMUNE ENEMIES

Badass Maliwan Heavies of any element, along with Anointed Tinks, will not get the UTD dot applied to them. Use your radiation Fish Slap against them. Blue Fire and Red Rain also are dot immune; use your corrosive Fish Slap against those two.

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NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11

Most of the time, true melee builds should play on Mayhem 10 take advantage of Speed Demon, and this is one of those times. Other benign Mayhem 10 modifiers: Medium - Healy Avenger, Hard - Drone Ranger, Very Hard - Not The Face or Post Mortem. Post Mortem is usually fatal to true melee builds, because your killing punch will send you directly into the spawning Death skull. However, this build, you punch and run away, so you can safely dispatch the Skull from a distance with your Blade Fury.

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NOTES - GUARDIAN RANK

Most of the time, disable Shield Reboot and Emergency Response, so that your Brawler Ward remains depleted as often as possible. When using the Stinger with Action Skill Start for Guardian Takedown crystals, re-enable those perks temporarily.

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