THE BEST Borderlands 3 Amara Build for Endgame
If you’re playing Borderlands 3 as Amara and you’re getting toward the end of the game, you’re going to want to know the best possible, most OP, ridiculous Borderlands 3 Amara build you can achieve. There are several options for building Amara for endgame content, but it chiefly comes down to two different builds: the Phasezerker based Mystical Assault build, and the Spiritual Driver based “Ricochet Witch” build.
Phasezerker is much easier to achieve. However, if we’re talking for true damage potential and the absolute pinnacle of Amara’s ability to slaughter content, Ricochet Witch is second to none.
This Borderlands 3 Amara Build guide has been updated for level 65. A Spiritual Driver Borderlands 3 Amara build that dips into the green tree for Mindfulness remains the best endgame Borderlands 3 Amara build, but now you have more points to spend in Mystical Assault.
Borderlands 3 Best Endgame Builds for Vault Hunters:
Amara – Zane – Fl4k – Moze
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So, in this article, which is about THE BEST Borderlands 3 Amara build, we’re going to talk about how to achieve the Ricochet Witch build and why it’s so dominating.
The Build – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
Now, taking a look at that talent tree, if you’re familiar with the Ricochet Witch Borderlands 3 Amara build, you’ll notice that what I’ve laid out there is a little bit different than what most people are using. As I explain the Borderlands 3 Amara build itself, I’ll also explain my reasoning for the changes. In my opinion, this is a modest improvement over the traditional Borderlands 3 Amara build, and it’s the build I use myself.
The main concept behind this Borderlands 3 Amara build is it takes heavy advantage of Amara’s Indiscriminate skill, ricochet modifiers from various guns, and her elemental damage in order to slaughter enemies quickly in a huge AoE. It is very equipment dependent and requires you to have specific items to take full advantage of it.
However, it is still a very strong leveling Borderlands 3 Amara build overall, since Fist of the Elements is a fantastic leveling build in general. But the absolute absurdity of this Borderlands 3 Amara build, which exceeds what even Zane is capable of, is impossible to achieve before beating the game and reaching max level.
Fist of the Elements – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
Anima – Increases status effect duration and effect. This is fairly decent for the effect that it applies to enemies, but it also works on elemental damage you apply to yourself via the effects of the Spiritual Driver class mod. It’s very important that you max out this skill, because if you ever phasegrasp for real instead of casting it on the ground to activate your Action Skill bonus effects, a combination of cooldown reduction and this skill is required to make sure status effects linger on you for the full duration of your skill cooldown.
Infusion – This is controversial. This skill is the subject of much discussion. In a lot of cases it’s actually a significant DPS decrease to take this skill. The reason we both take this skill and max it out for this Borderlands 3 Amara build is pretty simple. The way that ricochet mechanics work in this game is that each pellet fired by your weapon ricochets.
When you add on additional damage elemental skills, like Infusion, Forceful Expression, elemental damage anointments, etc, they calculate as additional pellets. So if you fire a weapon with an effect like The Carrier, Recursion or Queen’s Call, which ricochets automatically on crit, you’ll produce an additional ricochet bullet for every elemental effect you have, and Infusion counts.
The Carrier normally ricochets one bullet; with Infusion, Forceful Expression, and elemental damage anointments on your weapon, shield and grenade, you will ricochet not one pellet, but 6. Infusion counts for this effect. That’s why we’re taking it. If you’re not using ricochet weapons, this skill is DPS neutral at best and you should skip it.
Tempest – Increases elemental damage by 30% and shock damage by 40%. This is just a great overall damage increase, especially with the sheer amount of elemental damage we’re going to be doing. A straightforward skill that has tremendous upside. Definitely want to max this out.
Dread – Increases Gun Damage whenever an enemy is grasped and killing a phasegrasped enemy automatically reloads your gun. You want the first effect more than the second, but the second effect is certainly welcome. A lot of ricochet witch builds skip this skill because they exclusively phasegrasp the ground (“fakegrasp”) and never actually use the skill on enemies.
That’s not my preferred playstyle, which I’ll go over later on. I do like to fakegrasp, especially on certain bosses, but you lose very little from building this way (survivability), and you still get to take full advantage of your action skill which is great for mobbing. It’s only 1 point.
Indiscriminate – Since ricocheting is kind of the whole point of this Borderlands 3 Amara build, you’d be silly not to take Indiscriminate. It’s a fantastic skill that adds another ricochet chance and which is boosted when your action skill is active. You should max this out.
Deep Well – 20% increased magazine size for 1 point. It’s a nice little perk. You get a fairly nice little upgrade for a very small point investment.
Sustainment – This is a fantastic skill that adds lifesteal when dealing damage with elemental weapons. You definitely want this, but anything more than 2 points is overkill. With the amount of damage you’ll be pumping out with this Borderlands 3 Amara build, you’ll be healing to full basically every time you fire a shot.
Conflux – I take this skill, but these 3 points can go basically anywhere. You could put them in Wildfire, Steady Hands, or even Catharsis. The reason to take Conflux is that sometimes when you activate your action skill you’ll sometimes afflict yourself with 2 status effects, maxing your Mindfulness stacks faster and also giving you more damage from your Elemental Projector artifact. For that reason, I think Conflux is the optimal point placement. Still, Wildfire and Catharsis are very fun skills.
Forceful Expression – In addition to 18% more damage, you also get another ricochet effect when using Ricochet weapons. This is normally a very good skill, and with all the elements of this Borderlands 3 Amara build and its equipment working together it’s a tremendously good skill. Absolutely take the point here.
Brawl – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
Personal Space – You don’t always get the benefit from this skill, but when you do, it’s very strong. 36% increased gun damage is no joke.
Clarity – Gives you health regen. With Sustainment, this isn’t particularly useful. You could also put the points into Root to Rise. We’re just taking points to get further down the tree.
Helping Hand(s) – This skill adds a significant amount of damage reduction. I don’t normally like survivability skills, but this ends up being ~50% damage reduction at all times between the mod bonuses and the playstyle. That’s huge. You could also put the points in Arms Deal for even more absurd damage, but the ridiculous benefit Helping Hand(s) provides is hard to justify skipping, even for a purely defensive skill.
Mindfulness – This is the reason we spec into this tree. Also, it’s the reason that this Borderlands 3 Amara build is better than the Phasezerker build. Let me tell you why with some example numbers. If your bullet does 300 damage, with Phasezerker and max rush stacks, it’ll do about 600-650 damage.
If your bullet does 300 damage, with Spiritual Driver and 25 Mindfulness stacks, running at fullspeed, it’ll do approximately 1500-1800 damage. That’s what makes the difference between Phasezerker and Spiritual Driver. Zooming around the battlefield does take some getting used to, but consider this: your DoTs and bullets actually react to your damage bonuses in real time.
So if you DoT an enemy of fire a slow moving projectile, such as the Cutsman while standing and then start running around, the bullets and DoTs will get the bonus damage after you start moving. You can, for instance, drop in on a boss, shoot it to apply DoTs, and then just start running around in a circle and your DoT damage will increase by like 500% and melt the boss. It feels glitchy (like a lot of this Borderlands 3 Amara build), but it’s ridiculously good.
Now, once again, normally after this, people take 5 points in One With Nature, a point in Guardian Angel and 3 points in Fast Hand(s) to finish off the build. I find those points to be wasted. I don’t think you need the survivability that One With Nature/Guardian Angel provide, and although Fast Hand(s) is a great skill, you have just enough points left over to achieve the classic Ties that Bind/Stillness of Mind/Do Harm setup, which is extremely powerful and it’s totally worth having.
So, you can either have Amara’s best action skill setup which basically CCs the entire battlefield at once and increases her damage output enormously, or commit to never using her action skill and get some unnecessary survivability.
Mystical Assault – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
Do Harm – This allows you to generate rush stacks whenever an enemy dies and it also increases the damage of your action skill by 45% at max level. This works with the link caused by Ties that Bind and allows you to spread a truly stupid amount of damage between enemies in addition to the damage caused by all your ricochets (which, of course, also proc this skill).
Let’s take some of the glitchiness out of it and use some simple numbers. Normally you hit an enemy with Ties that Bind and it deals damage to the linked targets once. But if a bullet ricochets, it deals damage to the linked targets… several times. Once with the initial shot, once with the bullet ricochet itself, and then again by spreading the link damage from the ricochet shot. The link shot can also proc a ricochet. It’s very stupid. Skipping this seems unwise, especially since it’s so fun and it really puts the “witch” in Ricochet Witch.
Violent Tapestry – Increased chance for status effects. With just 1 point here, it’s a 6% increase which is not that bad for 1 point. The main reason to take the point here is so you generate rush stacks when you inflict status effects, which you do constantly.
Restless – This is probably somewhat controversial as well. The reason I take this skill is that normally the status effect you inflict on yourself via Spiritual Driver won’t last the whole cooldown if you actually activate Ties that Bind on an enemy. Between this and Anima, statuses still don’t last the entire cooldown, but they lasts most of the cooldown. Plus, you get to use Ties that Bind significantly more often, as 25% is a pretty big bonus and you don’t have any other cooldown reduction skills.
Ascendant – We take the point here basically to get the Stillness of Mind bonus. You could also use Allure instead. Both produce much the same effect. Allure is a little less powerful, but also has slightly lower penalties. Up to you.
Fast Hand(s) – Now that you can get to level 65, you can pick up this skill (or Transcendence, if you prefer). It increases your reload speed, which is really helpful especially for Amara and especially if you’re using Phasegrasp. It’s still not ideal to pick up 2 capstone abilities, because the Spiritual Driver is still nuts and you want to dip into the green tree for Mindfulness.
Wrath – Now that you’re able to get some extra points at level 65, you can max out Wrath for a whopping +40% weapon damage. Times are good.
Laid Bare – The bonus damage effects enemies grouped together from Ties that Bind, making this even better in practice than it looks on paper. Now that you can get to level 65, you’re able to finally incorporate this skill into your build.
Awakening – You have a choice of where to dump your last two points. You can either put them in Remnant or Awakening. Both are nice skills. I prefer Awakening because it increases the overall effectiveness of your rush stacks.
Basically, the Ricochet Witch only requires you to go full Fist of the Elements and Brawl down to Mindfulness, and then I take 12 points in Mystical Assault to give us a beefy, superpowered action skill. Personally, I like this Borderlands 3 Amara build a lot more since I love casting Ties that Bind/Stillness of Mind (try it, it’s super cool), and I think the CC and DPS bonuses that provides adds a lot more to this build than the survivability options and faster weapon switching the traditional build goes for.
People might mention the elemental damage anointments. Keep in mind how that mechanic works: you get the damage for 2 magazines. In other words, until you reload twice after proccing. Dread keeps your gun magazine full. So, if you fake grasp to activate the effect, then use the action skill, you retain the bonus as long as you’re murdering your action skill targets, then it reactivates when it ends. I find that it’s actually stronger.
Action Skills – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
You’re going to want to use Ties that Bind and either Stillness of Mind or Allue. I prefer Stillness of Mind, which just feels more powerful overall. As for your element, the rule of thumb is that when you’re using Infusion, you want to pick a different element than the main element of your gun. Reason being that two DoTs of the same element don’t stack, and the game tends to use the 40% damage from Infusion instead of the 60% damage from your weapon to calculate the DoT.
With this Borderlands 3 Amara build, you have access to all 3 of Amara’s action elements, so you can have some versatility, but in general, Fire+Shock does the most consistent overall damage and it’s often more convenient to switch your weapon element than your Action Skill element. Shock tends to be the best element to stick with unless you have a particular reason not to use it, because it gets slightly more benefit from Tempest, and the shock DoT you inflict on yourself via Spiritual Driver can be absorbed by a Transformer shield.
Weapons – Best Borderlands 3 Amara Build
Weapons are very important to this Amara build because it’s so reliant on proccing weapon effects. What you’re looking for on weapons are basically 2 things: a legendary ricochet effect, and the anointment “On action skill end – next two magazines have 50% increased <elemental> damage”. The element itself doesn’t really matter that much.
The weapons you’re going to really want are these, in order of usefulness:
- Recursion
- Carrier
- Rowan’s Call
- Queen’s Call/King’s Call
- Brainstormer
- Lucian’s Call
- Cutsman
Cutsman doesn’t synergize with the Borderlands 3 Amara build in any particular way, it’s just a great weapon for melting bosses on every character.
Other Equipment – Borderlands 3 Amara Build
The most important thing to point out for this Borderlands 3 Amara build is that you want the same anointment (+50% elemental damage on action skill end) on your shield and your grenade, but it has to be a different element. It doesn’t matter if either one is the same element as your weapon anointment, it only matters that the shield and grenade anointment elements are different from each other. Otherwise you won’t get an additional ricochet bullet.
Aside from that caveat, shield-wise, you’re going to want The Transformer. With that, when you shock yourself via the Spiritual Driver, you won’t take damage (you’ll actually be healing your shield), you’ll just get the Mindfulness stacks for free.
For the grenade, it really doesn’t matter at all. You’ll almost never be using your grenade. “It’s Piss” is probably the best option since it gives 20% increased damage and it works on bosses. Otherwise, a Recurring Hex is usually considered to be the best grenade for general use.
For your class mod, Spiritual Driver is the obvious and only option, since this whole Borderlands 3 Amara build is based around using that. Spiritual Driver has 2 effects which are both extremely powerful. First, it inflicts a status effect on you every time you use your action skill, which procs Mindfulness and also procs the effects of an Elemental Projector artifact. Second, it increases damage based on movespeed (by a silly amount), which benefits from the Mindfulness stacks. Overall it increases damage by an absolutely staggering amount.
For your artifact, what you’re looking for is an Elemental Projector Victory Rush, which increases damage and movespeed every time you kill a badass, and then further increases elemental damage when you’re afflicted with a status effect (which you will be).
Anyway, that about does it for the best Borderlands 3 Amara Build. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this and also check out the Borderlands 3 Section for game guides for Borderlands including builds, tips, best guns, character reviews and more.
