Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters: Amara’s Skill Trees and Action Skills
Amara is the third of the four Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters to receive a new character trailer in the last two weeks, as Gearbox continues to reveal more details about their new characters. Following the release of that trailer, the studio revealed further details on their website. This includes the names and details of her three Skill Trees; Brawl, Fist of the Elements, and Mystical Assault. Plus, it includes example skills and Action Skills for each one!
Amara’s Skill Trees: Brawl
The first of Amara’s Skill Trees is perhaps her most straight-forward; a tree designed principally for heavyweight melee combat. The Action Skill associated with Brawl is Phaseslam; Amara projects her arms and slams them down into the ground, causing a massive damaging blast that knocks enemies flying. The tree blends damaging frontline skills with defensive abilities that will make you more survivable when wading through the thick of combat.
Three example skills are detailed by Gearbox for the Brawl tree; Blitz, Find Your Centre, and Guardian Angel. The first, Blitz, allows Amara to deliver a single powerful melee attack which deals elemental damage and also dashes her forward. The reason for the name becomes apparent when you learn that if this attack kills an enemy, its cooldown immediately resets! The second skill, Find Your Centre, simply provides a boost to Amara’s melee damage. Plus, after she uses an Action Skill, it also boosts her melee range. Finally, Guardian Angel will give Amara the ability to immediately gain a Second Wind if she enters Fight For Your Life. Not only does this restore her health, but it also releases an elemental blast which pushes back enemies. While extremely useful, this ability does have a long cooldown.
Amara’s Skill Trees: Fist of the Elements
“For an early advantage,” explains Borderlands 3 Game Designer Grant Kao; “Amara players can go down the Fist of the Elements skill tree and grab Infusion and the Soulfire Action Skill Element. This will convert a portion of your weapon damage to Incendiary Damage. Incendiary Damage is great for flesh enemies, so Children of the Vault bandits and Skags are very vulnerable. Paired with Anima, Tempest, or Wildfire, Amara quickly becomes an elemental wizard who applies DoTs to incinerate the battlefield.”
While Brawl focuses on melee combat, the Fist of the Elements Skill Tree is all about elemental damage. Its Action Skill is Phasegrasp, which allows Amara to project a huge astral fist which traps enemies in the air; an ability which is highly reminiscent of Maya’s special ability in Borderlands 2. In addition, the tree is full of abilities related to elemental damage and boosting Amara’s firearms. The three example skills given by Gearbox are Catharsis, Conflux, and Wildfire.
Catharsis, the first example skill, is a powerful and explosive elemental ability. Whenever Amara triggers an elemental effect on an enemy with this skill active, the target will explode when killed. This damaging blast deals Amara’s elemental damage plus whichever other elements were currently affecting the target. The second skill, Conflux, adds a random chance whenever Amara applies a status effect to an enemy. When this happens, there’s a possibility that the enemy will be electrocuted, melted, or set on fire. Finally, the Wildfire skill makes it so that there is a chance that any status effect applied by Amara can spread to nearby foes. This can result in effects spreading through entire groups of enemies!
Amara’s Skill Trees: Mystical Assault
Amara’s third and final Skill Tree is Mystical Assault, which focuses on overpowering enemies with unstoppable force. The Action Skill for this tree is Phasecast, which unleashes a bombardment of astral fists on nearby enemies. The tree also makes use of “Rush,” a stack-able bonus which can be gained from some of the skills early in the tree. Rush is expended when she activates her Action Skill, activating a variety of buffs. As a result, Mystical Assault rewards players who make frequent use of their Action Skill.
The three skills given as examples for this tree by Gearbox are Avatar, Laid Bare, and Transcend. Avatar is an extremely powerful ability which allows Amara to activate her Action Skill before the cooldown has ended! This can only be done once per cooldown, but nonetheless provides a huge advantage for builds focusing on Rush. Laid Bare causes enemies to take more damage from all sources after Amara damages them with her Action Skill. Finally, Transcend will provide Amara with a buff to accuracy and critical hits for a duration after she activates an Action Skill.