Unreal Amara

SKILL TREE

SKILL TREE NOTES

Nothing crazy in the skill tree. Fairly standard gun stuff with concessions made for Deathless (no Clarity, Samsara, or Sustainment) and Driver (going far enough into green for Mindfulness).

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Of note, however, is Burn Both Ends. When you are self-dotted by any means, and if you also have a bonus element active, that bonus element "ticking on top of" your self-dot will stack Burn Both Ends for you, without you having to take damage from enemies. You are self-dotted in this build through both the Spiritual Driver and the Infernal Wish. And you always have a bonus element active in the form of Urad.

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ACTION SKILL

Light Fantastic, but literally anything. Some action skills, of course, will be stronger than others. Light Fantastic is.... fantastic in the Guardian Takedown. Reverberation, Tandava, Phaseslam, and Fracture are all good. There's no reason to use a Grasp skill, but it won't hurt. You don't even have to use your action skill but once every now and then to proc your Terror anoints.

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ACTION SKILL ELEMENT

Whatever is suited to your content, yes even including cryo on a Driver build. You don't need to be moving fast while in combat. See the next section. Your action skill element also does not need to match your gun's element.

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SETTING UP THE DARK ARMY

Dark Army drones, when summoned (i.e., when you swap to the gun), retain all of your gun damage bonuses you have at the moment of the swap and summoning. Coupled with the Spiritual Driver class mod and lots of movement speed, you can make the Dark Army drones permanently, hugely buffed. Credit to Skkra on the Borderlands 3 subreddit for this interaction.

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To prebuff the Dark Army drones before combat: make sure you are not on the specific Dark Army you want. Fire your gun until the Infernal Wish dots you. Wait for your Mindfulness stacks to get up to 25. At max Mindfulness, run and slide and, at the beginning of the slide when you are moving fastest, swap to the Dark Army you want. Now those newly-summoned drones have Driver's movespeed gun damage permanently, or at least until you die, fast travel, or teleport. If any of those things happen, just repeat the process.

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GUNS

Dark Armies in all elements except Radiation, all with the Urad anointment.

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FFYL GUN

The Dark Army drones will get you out of FFYL. However, there is a tiny, tiny amount of situations where they won't do anything for you, such as if you are in FFYL and get teleported during the Scourge fight. In such a case, carry something like a Free Radical with Urad anointment.

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Note that the Dark Army you hold in your hand is only a small percentage of your damage output. The vast majority comes from your drones and Light Fantastic if you're using it.

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CLASS MOD

Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible. This is the core item that will give your drones their permanent power. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, splash damage radius, SMG damage, weapon damage, action skill damage. Avoid mag size passives.

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SHIELD

Infernal Wish, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Wish does not add a projectile to your Dark Army drones. It is simply there to buff your own gun by a little bit and to allow for easy self-dotting outside of action skill usage. The Driver takes care of dotting you when you use your action skill, but Phaseflare-type action skills do not get activated very frequently.

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ARTIFACT

Snowdrift Deathless. This will greatly increase your slide speed when you are pre-buffing the Dark Army drones. Recommended passives: SMG damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (which will also increase area radius), elemental damage, movespeed.

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GRENADE

Whatever you like, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. The Hyperion Quasar (non sticky) is very good for grouping up enemies so your Dark Army drones can shoot 'em all at once, and your Light Fantastic can blow all of them up at once.

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GAMEPLAY LOOP

After pre-buffing your Dark Army drones, all you need to do is fire the Dark Army in your hand a little bit. You don't even need to hit anything with it. The purpose is 1. to empty the mag and force a reload, which makes the drones deal elemental damage (according to the gun's element) for a short time. And 2. to proc the Infernal Wish dot on yourself, which will keep Burn Both Ends stacks up.

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You can stand still, even cryo yourself with a cryo action skill with the Driver; your drones are still buffed, and your handheld gun's damage doesn't matter.

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However, this being a Deathless build that also procs the Wish on itself, you will get put into FFYL as part of the normal gameplay. But don't let that stop you; this build is a freight train. Your Dark Army drones will get you back up in short order. The only thing to watch out for is if you're going to go down, you're dotted, and the last enemy is about to die. You can't get up from FFYL if there are no enemies left. In that case, stop shooting and let that enemy down you before killing them.

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