General Advice

KNOW YOUR BUILD

It's unwise to jump into an activity without first understanding all of the moving parts of your build. It can mean the difference between smooth sailing and getting downed and frustrated and dying. It's why I'm so stupidly long-winded in the build writeups. Even when I choose a build of my own to play, I still open up my inventory and skill tree to make sure I'm approaching the content correctly.

ELEMENTAL ATTUNEMENT

Something that people new to Amara may not be accustomed to, but you need to have your action skill element appropriately set for the content you're facing. This may mean, for example, switching to shock before going down the elevator to fight the valks, and then later switching to corrosive when you fight them individually. Yes, it's tedious, but Mayhem 10/11 can be tough, and having a favorable elemental matchup vs an unfavorable one can, in extreme cases, mean you more than triple your damage.

Amara's action skill element affects such things as Infusion on your gun, Illuminated Fist for your true melee element, Forceful Expression's element, the type of damage that Ties That Bind shares, and all of her other action skills.

There are a few exceptions to switching elements, of course, such as cryo-focused builds or certain Spiritual Driver builds.

AVOID BARRELS

Barrels are an extremely frustrating part of the game, and they're ubiquitous. They are basically an instant down, and because Amara has lots of challenges in FFYL, they can ruin your day. Either look for barrels ahead of time and detonate them safely, or know where they are and avoid them. When I do the Slaughter maps, I blow up all of the barrels between each round before starting the next.

AVOID WATER

Water transfers elemental effects, making you damage yourself if you're in that water. Operating a slam build, for example, in a puddle results in you downing yourself every slam. Punching in water with Body & Mind active will down you. In general, just stay out of water and puddles entirely as best as you can.

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR ANOINTMENTS

Many anointments, such as bonus elements on grenade and shield and the Killstack anointment, aren't active at the beginning of fights. You may have to go through a full action skill cycle and start killing enemies before all of your buffs are active and your damage is rolling. Inactive bonus elements can be very apparent in dot-focused builds.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Understand what your high priority targets are. Jetpack troopers and snipers in general can instantly healthgate you; if you see a red laser trained on you, that's an enemy that needs to be killed, stunned, or line of sight broken from. Badass Maliwan Troopers and Wardogs deal relentless amounts of damage. Goliaths can deal constant, debilitating damage, but can be easily defused by shooting their helmet off. Shock Maliwan Heavies or Nullhounds can easily ruin a Deathless build, or make your Infernal Wish completely useless. Flying Sera Guardians tracking you with a powerful laser attack can be a big problem during the crystal phases of the Guardian Takedown.

COMBAT TACTICS

There are often instances where you can't kill a dangerous enemy immediately; waiting to finish a reload, for your projectile to hit, for your cooldown to finish, or for you to close the distance can result in you going down. Here are a few tactics you can use to stall or prevent an enemy's attack while you get a handle on the situation:

1. Critting the enemy: shoot an enemy's crit spot, and most of them will stagger. Even Wotan staggers when you crit him. This effect has a cooldown, of course, so you can't stunlock enemies by critting.

2. Melee the enemy: melee damage, in a similar way to critting, will also stagger an enemy. Meleeing and critting are on separate timers, so you can make use of both tactics in immediate succession. Note that melee in this instance counts for any kind of melee: punching, Face Puncher, Fish Slap, etc.

3. Grenade toss: the effectiveness of this tactic varies with enemy type, but some enemies will dive for cover if you throw a grenade at or near them. COV enemies have the most obvious response to this. Others may just side step briefly. This was a tactic I used often in my original true melee build; I would throw the Fastball at an enemy while I approached them, giving me time to close the distance while also dealing significant damage to them.

4. Other physics interactions: the Safe Space shield part, Quasar grenade, and high pellet-count shotguns can all toss enemies around. I often recommend a Quasar (Hyperion, non-sticky) in my builds specifically for this sort of aggro-relief. The Safe Space part can even toss around the otherwise almost physics-immune guardians in the True Guardian Takedown.

5. Take cover or dodge: yes, the age-old trick of hiding behind something or moving away from danger. If you just need to reload or wait for your cooldown, sometimes this option is the simplest. All too often I see someone trying something off-meta, they attempt to face-tank whatever content, the build doesn't absolutely destroy everything with a button press, they get downed, they die, and they declare said off-meta thing not viable. If you play intelligently, you'll have much, much more game available to you.