FFYL

Amara loses a lot of her buffs when going into FFYL, including Do Harm stacks, the Killstack anointment, and self-dots. Here are some tips to help you get up if you've gone down.

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HAVE A GOOD FFYL GUN

This is the most important measure against death. Good FFYL guns for Amara are basically guns that are powerful on their own. Prime examples are the Free Radical and the Plasma Coil. Other strong contenders are the Backburner, the Plaguebearer, and the Sand Hawk. The Backburner and Plaguebearer both have a vortex/singularity effect, which can be useful for keeping enemies in place, preventing them from running away.

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Another less-well-known gun is the Ember's Purge. This gun works well for grounded enemies. When shooting an enemy, there's a random chance a fire puddle will appear beneath them, and this puddle does massive damage to anything standing in it.

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If you're a melee build and have a Static Charge, a Face Puncher is a great FFYL weapon. (It's even better if Body & Mind is active.) Static Charge will chain to nearby enemies, building up Groundbreaker for every Face Puncher shot.

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SHOOT THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

Lots of builds use the Guardian Angel to buff their attacks, and this gun is actually an amazing FFYL gun if you're also specced Indiscriminate. The Guardian Angel's damage bonus will get double dipped by Indiscriminate. So you can repeatedly fire at a single enemy in front of you, and the ricochets will find enemies off to the side and obliterate them.

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The Guardian Angel is also useful if you have any decent strength dots on enemies when you go down, as it will increase the damage of those dots. You can get decent dots even without building for them if you're using high-dot weapons like the Free Radical or Plasma Coil or Kickcharger.

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FFYL GUN ANOINTMENT

Take care in choosing the anointment for your FFYL gun. Most of the time, it's between Consecutive Hits and Urad. Consecutive Hits is useful because Amara won't have a lot of gun damage while in FFYL. But Urad can be just as effective. If you're specced into Sustainment, beware that you can lifesteal while in FFYL. Your health might not be visible, but it's still there, and you can lifesteal out of Urad, deactivating the anoint while you're still in FFYL.

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In general, I choose Urad, unless I'm specced Sustainment, in which case I choose Consecutive Hits.

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USE GROUNDBREAKER

When shooting an enemy while in FFYL, if you have Indiscriminate specced, you often don't need to finish an enemy off with your gun. Indiscriminate builds lots of Groundbreaker damage from the other enemies. You can get the enemy in front of you most of the way down, and punch your way through the rest. Be careful, though: if you have to crawl to close the distance to connect a punch, you may inadvertently decrease your time in FFYL by losing the Dead Man Walking Guardian Rank perk. It's a balancing act.

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USE YOUR MINIMAP

The instant you get put into FFYL, check your minimap for the most likely target. You should not be spending time in FFYL looking for an enemy to shoot. This can save you precious seconds. Ping the enemy you want to kill to highlight them, so you can follow them in case they become obscured.

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PREDICT YOUR FFYL

If you know you are in a sticky situation you can't get out of, pre throwing a grenade or Fish Slap or grasping an enemy can set you up to recover quickly. For example, if you're mid-reload and a group of enemies starts attacking, but your Ties That Bind is availble, don't wait to finish the reload. Instead, grasp an enemy, then go down. The Lead Or Alive Guardian Rank perk will reload your guns for you, and you'll have an easy time killing enemies caught in Ties That Bind.

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There's also the old Borderlands trick where, in a tough encounter, you leave a weak enemy or two alive for easy Second Winding.

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