Amon Calamity Skill Tree Full Breakdown

G'day friends, it's ya homie Nootmad back with the final skill tree breakdown for our Vault Monster slaying friend Amon. This time around, we're covering the Calamity tree. Not as if we have much of a choice in the matter, since I already covered the Vengeance tree here and Cybernetics over there. So without further adieu, let's move forward into Calamity.

Overview

Amon's Calamity tree places a huge focus on elemental damage, melee damage and tanking damage through shield regeneration and over-shield generation as you proc damage. Much like each of the other trees, there's a unique bonus tied to this tree, this time around in the form of weakness. Weakness is a status effect that Amon can apply to enemies through Gut Punch and Maiming Strike which results in affected enemies taking more damage AND makes them deal less damage at the same time. There's some powerful utility in this tree outside of weakness proccing that so happens to form part of some of Amon's highest damage builds (which conveniently I have a written guide for right here. And a video here)

The primary action skill for this tree is Onslaughter. When Amon activates Onslaughter - he readies his forgefist and gains constant shield regen, bonus incendiary damage to guns as well as increased movement speed. Pressing the action skill button while this is active will launch Amon to the enemy in his crosshairs and punches them - dealing incendiary melee damage in a small area around the enemy and causes them to stagger. Perfect for an up close and personal style of gameplay.

From a forgeskill perspective, we have forge-slam, which makes Amon slam a flaming hammer onto the ground that deals incendiary damage in a very large area to enemies in the affected area, and leaves a flame area of effect for a short duration.

In saying all though, there's a lot to get into for this tree so lets get cracking

Trunk Skills

Tier 1

• As always, starting with Tier 1. And we kick things off with Impetus - which gives Amon increased shield regeneration and movement speed for a short duration. Keep in mind that this is a kill skill and can also stack.

• The next skill we have is What Burns Within and this is a very self explanatory flat incendiary damage boost

• We follow this up with Discombobulate that gives Amon's melee the chance to crit. Now, while this may seem like a very surface level skill - it's far from it. This skill has long spanning effects that can result in some of your actions skills in this tree do increased damage as a result of being able to have a higher chance to crit.

• To round out tier 1 skills, we end with Heavy Plate - which gives Amon a very straightforward increase to max shield and overshield capacity. Handy if you're planning to make a build that focuses on large shield capacity and tanking damage.

Tier 2

• To start in tier 2, we have Wield the Storm - a skill that gives Amon increased status effect duration and damage. Now while we haven't touched on this yet, the weakness debuff is considered a status effect and as a result will receive bonuses from Wield the Storm and any other skills that boost status effect duration

• Conveniently, the next skill we can talk about is Gut Punch, which is the skill that gives Amon the capability to apply debuff to an enemy. Gut Punch gives Amons melee and ordnance damage a chance to apply the weakness debuff, and as this may lead you to assume - can proc from damn near anything that Amon can throw at enemies. Any form of augment/action skill that does melee damage can now proc weakness. Very useful, and you'll see this a lot in any optimised Amon build that wants to maximise their damage output.

• The next skill in the tier 2 section is Tritanium Knuckles, which gives Amon increased melee damage and skill damage. Much like a few of his other skills, while this skill looks simple on paper - it scales well with any of Amon's action skills and also a few of his other damage proccing skills in his tree such as Dragon's Breath in Branch 3 of the calamity tree. But we'll get to that soon enough.

Augments

• Let's talk about augments now - and as tradition dictates, we have 2 to discuss. First one is Pyroclast which is triggered once Amon enters Onslaughter. Pyroclast gives Amon immediate full health and shield regen and surrounds himself in a forgestorm that deals incendiary status effect damage to enemies in the range of it. And for every enemy Amon kills, the duration of Onslaughter is partially restored, as well as increasing the damage of the forgestorm itself.

• The next augment we have is Thermal Diffusion - which now gives Amon 2 different punches. One punch can deal incendiary melee damage, and the other can deal cryo melee damage. However, they both receive increased radius buffs, as well as a damage bonus that scales with his maximum shield capacity/

Tier 3

• Starting things off, we have Forged In Steel which enables Amon to become immune to all damage for 6 seconds after activating a forgeskill. This skill can be particularly useful if you've optimised your build for forgeskill looping. If you can can get the cooldown to be quick enough, you can have immunity active for most of your combat encounters - which obviously makes staying alive a lot less of a challenge.

• Next we have Bullet Storm. An powerful conditional gun damage bonus which is activated whenever Amon applies a status effect. As I mentioned at the start, Amon has a lot of ways to guarantee/increase the chances of applying a status effect, so being able to get some easy access to gun damage bonuses has a high level of utility.

• Metal Urge is up next and this gives Amon increased Action Skill cooldown rate for a duration whenever he deals gun damage. This effect can stack as well so can be quite handy to make sure you can keep popping Onslaughter.

• The final skill in tier 3 is The Best Defense - in which Amon can now gain overshield whenever he deals melee damage. The level of overshield received scales based on the amount of melee damage dealt. Naturally, the higher numbers of melee damage you hit - the bigger the overshield bonus.

Branches

Branch 1

• Before we start talking about the skills, let's get the augment out of the way. For Branch 1, we have Fellfrost - a very fun augment in which Amon more or less gains an execute capability to his forgefists. Whenever Amon presses his action skill button after a rocket punch, he immediately follows up with another punch that deals cryo melee damage to a large area in front of him, and tying back to the execute capability I just mentioned, any non boss enemies that are hit by fellfrost AND are less than 25% hp are immediately killed. Pretty handy right?

• Now for the skills. We start with Berserk - an incredibly powerful skill which is triggered after Amon activates his forgeskill. Once he does, Amon enters a state known as Berserk, in which he gains slow immunity and gets bonus cryo damage added to his gun and melee damage.

• The next skill we have is Bloodlust. After having his shield broken, Amon gains Bloodlust for a duration, which gives him increased reload speed and lifesteal. Bloodlust can also be activated by action skill triggering as well - so pretty handy for pinch situations where your life forecast starts to look quite bleak.

• The next skill we have is There Is Only Red, one of Amon's strongest skills in this branch. This skill can only be specced into if you have Berserk and for good reason. This is a kill skill what can partially restore the duration of Berserk on each kill AS WELL AS increasing the bonus cryo damage by a SIGNIFCANT amount. It can also stack quite high so the damage bonus is only further extended.

• Rimebreak is the next skill to talk about. Rimebreak partially restores shield and detonates upon shield breaking completely - and this explosion deals cryo damage to all nearby enemies which freezes them. Pretty handy utility tbh.

• Next we have Brimming Vigor which gives Amon increased max health capacity and increases his melee damage based on how full his health is.

• We then have My Touch Is Death which can trigger an incredibly powerful self sustaining damage loop with the right gear equipped. My Touch Is Death gives Amon the chance to activate ALL kill skills whenever he deals melee damage. and guess what? There Is Only Red is a kill skill.. wink wink nudge nudge.

• We finally get to the capstone, and for this branch, we have Hoarcleave. Hoarcleave replaces Molten Slam with a large cryo melee damage forgewave that freezes enemies that it passes through. Any enemies that are killed by Hoarcleave causes a detonation which deals cryo damage to nearby enemies as well. Good stuff.

Branch 2

• To get Branch 2's augment out of the way, lets talk about Force of Nature - my personal favourite augment in this tree. Force of Nature now allows amon to prime enemies with gun damage, which can then cause a detonation if they die or are hit by a forgeskill. Any enemies detonated then deal incendiary damage to nearby enemies. While force of nature is active, primed enemies can also be detonated through melee damage, but the resultant damage is reduced.

• Moving into branch 2 skills, we start with Into the Fray. For this one, Amon gains increased damage dealt and increase damage reduction based on how close he is to enemies. The bonus for this maxes out as you get as close as you can to the enemy. Very encouraging of an up close and personal gameplay loop.

• Next we have Burning Ramparts. This gives Amon increased weapon fire rate and status effect chance and the bonuses scale based on how full his shields are. Similar working operations to Brimming Vigor in Branch 1.

• We then have Harbinger, a kill skill that gives Amon increased melee damage and max shield capacity for a duration. This effect can stack so keep that in mind as well.

• Next up we have Rearm. A handy dandy utility skill that partially reloads the magazine of his current gun whenever he deals damage with a melee attack.

• Maiming Strike is up now and this is yet another way for Amon to proc the weakness debuff onto enemies. This time around, making it way easier, as Maiming Strike gives Amon the chance to apply weakness to enemies on critical hits with guns. As you can possible piece together, this means that any crit chance related bonuses are going to synergise INCREDIBLY nicely with this skill.

• Finally, we have Mortal Flare. Which now makes enemies detonate, provided they had the weakness debuff applied to them at their time of death. This detonation deals incendiary melee damage to nearby enemies

• The capstone for this branch is Molten Roil and this now puts Molten Slam on steroids. Molten slam now gains increased radius AND stores damage which is then thrown out in the form of flaming pyres that spawn underneath enemies after a small delay. These flaming pyres deal additional melee incendiary damage and scales with the amount of damaged stored by Molten slam.

Branch 3

• Fulminating Fist is the augment for Branch 3, and plays quite nicely with an elemental damage/status based build for Amon. Fulminating fist gives Amon increase status effect chance while Onslaughter is active, and pressing the action skill button again launches a wave of lightning in front of enemies that deals shock melee damage to enemies as it passes through them. This skill has a nice synergy with Fists of Stone but we'll get to that soon.

• From a skill perspective, we start with Catastrophe. A very nice conditional damage bonus. Whenever Amon applies a shock status effect to an enemy, he gains increase crit chance, and whenever he applies an incendiary status effect to an enemy, he gains increased crit damage. A bit of a.. yin and yang situation if you will.

• We then have Dragon's Breath, an oh so juicy skill that forms a massive part of a lot of high damage potency Amon builds. Upon activating his ordnance, Amon's next gunshot is converted to incendiary damage, staggers enemies damaged by it AND gains increased damage. This bonus already provides a high bonus, but also scales with any skill damage skills (like Tritanium Knuckles all the way back up in tier 2 of the trunk in Calamity tree). Dragon's Breath is an incredibly powerful skill, and if you want to see an optimised build that makes heavy use of this skill, look no further than my Hellshot Amon Build.

• Next skill we have is Judgement which increases the melee damage that Amon deals to enemies when they are below 50% HP. Very straightforward.

• We then have Fists of Stone, which I briefly mentioned just before. Fists of Stone restores a % of forgeskill cooldown whenever Amon deals melee damage, and melee ATTACKS double this effect. So while Fulminating Fist works very nicely with this build to act as a way to reduce cooldown of the forgeskill, certain pieces of gear (like the Slippy grenade - which deals melee damage) can mean that throwing a single slippy grenade can restore your forgeskill cooldown entirely. VERY USEFUL!

• Getting close to the end now, we have Crackling Aegis. Very similar to Burning Ramparts and Brimming Vigor. Crackling Aegis gives Amon increased status effect damage AND ordnance damage based on the level of his shields. If you want to make sure you're maintaining the damage bonus from this skill, make sure your shields are topped up and you got an overshield working overtime.

• The final skill we have is Electrical Fire, yet another powerful status effect skill that SHOULD be found in any optimised Amon build that focuses on maximising DoT potential. Electrical Fire makes it so that any time Amon burns an enemy, he applies shock to them, and vice versa. Pretty. Damn. Handy.

• And now we've finally made it to the capstone, Stormcutter. A VERY fun capstone to use, and also has some solid utility behind it. Instead of slamming a flaming hammer, Stormcutter throws out a forgewave that deals shock melee damage to any enemy hit by it. And for every enemy that gets hit by Stormcutter, Amon gets a small portion of Action Skill Cooldown, Action Skill Duration AND Ordnance cooldown restored. Looping Stormcutter means you can reliably maintain both Onslaughter AND ordnance uptime, which can be key to maximising your overall damage potential with your builds.