Amara the Siren is a well-renowned hero to the people, but Borderlands 3 is her chance to shine as a badass Vault Hunter. Using her supernatural Siren abilities, Amara pulverizes her enemies with astral projections, pounding them into a bloody pulp with fists formed from pure energy. We’re taking a top-level look at Amara’s three distinct skill trees—Fist of the Elements, Mystical Assault, and Brawl—to help you decide which build best suits your preferred playstyle. But no matter which way you go, Amara will absolutely bring the beatdowns.

Fist Of The Elements

Action Skill: Phasegrasp

“For an early advantage, 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.” - Grant Kao, Game Designer

Make Amara a maven of elemental damage with the Fist of the Elements skill tree. Using the Phasegrasp Action Skill you can lock an unfortunate enemy in place, crushing them in the grip of a giant astral fist. While they’re helplessly squirming to break free, you have the perfect opportunity to fill them full of lead, lasers, electricity, or whatever method you favor for ending their miserable life.

You’ll find plenty of ways to amplify your elemental damage output as you progress through the Fist of the Elements skill tree, from flat bonuses like increased magazine size with elemental weapons, to impressive passive abilities like ricocheting bullets. Here are some other elements-focused skills:

• Wildfire adds a percentage chance that Status Effects applied to an enemy can spread to other enemies. With a little luck, you’ll cause a chain reaction that sets entire groups of baddies ablaze.
• Catharsis makes it so that any time you trigger an elemental effect on an enemy, they’ll explode on death, dealing Amara’s element damage and any other element currently inflicted upon them to enemies in the blast radius.
• Conflux gives you a chance to randomly electrocute, ignite, or melt an enemy any time you apply a status effect to them. Whatever the outcome, they’re going to die a very painful death.

Within the Fist of the Elements skill tree, you can access souped-up Action Skills that amplify Phasegrasp, like summoning an additional arm that smashes anything near a grasped enemy. If regular ammo isn’t lethal enough for you, harness the destructive forces of nature with the Fist of the Elements skill tree.

Mystical Assault

Action Skill: Phasecast

Relentless, sustained attacks are a hallmark of the Mystical Assault skill tree. Kick-off your skirmishes with a Phasecast, an astral projection that bombards everything in its path with a flurry of fists. Then tear your way through the softened-up enemies to score stacks of Rush, a bonus provided by starter skills in the Mystical Assault skill tree that activates buffs whenever you consume stacks by using an Action Skill.

As you invest more points into Mystical Assault, you’ll unlock even more bonuses that trigger every time you use your Action Skill. Check out these other powerful Mystical Assault skills that reward you for using your Action Skill early and often:

• Transcend grants increased accuracy and critical hit bonus after activating an Action Skill.
• Laid Bare makes enemies take increased damage from all sources after they get hit by your Action Skill—perfect for melting a boss’ health bar.
• Avatar lets you activate your Action Skill while it’s still cooling down once per cooldown, effectively doubling your Action Skill output. It also increases your max Rush stacks, so you can trigger even bigger payoffs every time you cash in your accrued Rush with an Action Skill.

Additional Action Skills available further down the Mystical Assault skill tree improves the astral projection of Phasecast, like increasing its damage for every enemy it hits or exploding on contact. Building up Rush stacks then reaping the benefits by using your Action Skill is the name of the game with the Mystical Assault skill tree.

Brawl

Action Skill: Phaseslam

Take the title of Pandora’s prize pugilist with the Brawl skill tree. It’s a great option for melee specialists who love wading into the middle of a fight and punching everything in sight, which is the perfect opportunity to drop a well-timed Phaseslam that knocks nearby enemies into the air with an earthshaking ground slam. If anyone’s somehow still standing after you came in like a wrecking ball, you can put them out of their misery with a few bullets.

Early on in the Brawl skill tree, you’ll find passive abilities that ups your survivability, so you can tank a few hits as you close the distance for some hand-to-face melee. Beyond skills that increase your maximum health and give you some damage resistance, you’ll find skills like:

• Find Your Center ups your melee damage, with the added bonus of granting increased melee range after you use an Action Skill.
• Guardian Angel makes you even tougher to take down: when you enter the Fight For Your Life downed state, you’ll immediately gain a Second Wind that restores health and creates an elemental nova that knocks back nearby enemies. It’s incredibly powerful but balanced by a lengthy cooldown.
• Blitz puts the force of Amara’s Siren abilities into a powerful strike, delivering an amped-up melee attack that dashes a short distance and deals elemental melee damage. Best of all, Blitz’s cooldown instantly resets if you kill an enemy with it, so you can combo them together when slugging your way through large groups.

You’ll find some alternate Action Skills along the Brawl skill tree, like the ability to fire an elemental beam from the air before slamming down on your laser-fried foes. If you fancy yourself a melee fanatic, the Brawl skill tree will help you barrel your way into scuffles and punch your way to victory.