Every Amon Class Mod Explained

Let’s start at the top, with the Blacksmith Class mod. This class mod gives Amon a kill skill to support a forgedrone playstyle.

When we translate what the card says from Amon to English - this class mod basically gives Amon the ability to extend the duration of his forgedrones that are currently active, and simultaneously, get a boost to gun damage for each active forgedrone on the field.

For some additional context, within Amon’s Crucibletree, he gains the ability to spawn ‘Forgedrones’ which are basically pets that are weapons. These forgedrones deal elemental melee damage, and if you get further enough into the tree, you can make one of your forgedrone types deal ordnance damage too, and as a result, gets ordnance related damage bonuses from other trees and passive stats.

Blacksmith Skill Rolls

The Blacksmith class mod can roll with:

Each class mod also has 1 fixed passive stat and 1 that can randomise - and for the Blacksmith class mod, the fixed stat is forgedrone duration. Pretty handy right?

Blacksmith Synergies

Now.. you might be asking.. what exactly is the benefit of having extended duration of your forgedrones? Welllll… the answer is.. a fair bit Before I start going into this, I want to make sure you guys keep in mind the fact that forgedrones deal MELEE damage AND skill damage. Cool? Cool.

So to start, Amon can summon up to 4 forgedrones at a time, provided you invest every skill point more or less into the Crucible tree. For every forgedrone that is active, Amon gets 10% gun damage. So doing some quick maths here, being able to maintain 4 forgedrones on the field ensures you get a flat 40% gun damage bonus at all times (provided every forgedrone is still active). Pretty good right? But it gets better.

Across his 3 trees, Amon has some skills that give some very useful bonuses that are conditional on dealing certain types of damage to the enemy. In the calamity tree, a lot of bonuses come from doing melee damage to the enemy. Skills like Gut Punch in tier 2 for example - has a chance to apply the Weakness debuff to enemies on a melee/ordnance hit. And you guessed it, a forgedrone can also proc this onto an enemy. Another example is Fists of Stone - in branch 3 of the calamity tree. Fists of stone gives Amon a % of forgeskill cooldown when dealing melee damage. So constant melee damage being dished out by forgedrones will be factored into the forgeskill cooldown reduction from Fists of Stone

So I hope you’re starting to see the bigger picture here. While investment in a single tree is great, being able to draw from bonuses in multiple trees is where Amon really shines - and is how you’re going to get the most damage out of him.

The persistent gun damage bonus from having forgedrones out on the field is also handy, but make sure you’re getting other damage sources as well. Things like elemental damage bonuses, ordnance damage bonuses and crit bonuses will all play nicely together - depending on the type of build you’re going for. Just make sure your choices are synergistic.

From a forgedrone perspective, the Endless War argument will play the nicest here - as it allows for primed enemies to spawn a forgedrone when killed, which will have full duration. at the absolute minimum from a skill point perspective, 17 points in the Crucible tree will give you access to 4 forgedrones to summon on the field, leaving you with 32 skill points to invest in other trees (or further invest in Crucible tree)

The next class mod we can talk about is the Furnace class mod - which has a focus on augmenting the Calamity skill tree. The effect of this is fairly straightforward.

By default, Fellfrost, Hoarcleave, Fulminating Fist and Stormcutter do different elemental damage types (like cryo and shock), but with the Furnaceclass mod equipped, all the elemental damage from those capstones and augments are now converted into incendiary damage. The implication of this now meaning that all of the incendiary damage specific bonuses can now be applied to these abilities.

Furnace Skill Rolls

From a skill bonus perspective, the Furnace COM can roll with:

• Dragon's Breath converts your 1st shot after activating an ordnance into a huge incendiary damage amp boost,
• Raging Inferno allows your action skill damage to crit and apply burn to an enemy,
• Maiming Strikenow allows your weapon crits to apply weakness, and
• Mortal Flare now gives Amon the ability to make weakened enemies detonate when they are killed (and therefore now gets detonation damage scaling from the other trees too).

The fixed passive on the COM is always going to be incendiary damage, so keep that in mind when farming.

Furnace Synergies

Now in terms of direct benefits, like I said just before, making these abilities now deal incendiary damage means that these skills get additional benefits from incendiary damage skills in the calamity tree, such as What Burns Within in tier 1 and Electrical Fire in branch 3 (assuming you manage to apply a fire dot to an enemy).

There are also some less obvious synergies with this COM that are worth talking about too. And this start with Dragon's Breath . Which can be boosted by the Blast Furnace COM with a huge 5 extra points if the gods of RNG are on your side. at a 10/5 bonus, this is a 200% bonus amp damage shot. Because it’s considered amp damage, it also gets additive bonuses from stats on gear that boost amp damage.

Also keep in mind that Dragon's Breath scales with action skill damage, meaning it gets boosts from Tritanium Knuckles for example, and any other skills or passives that boost action skill damage. Good to know if you’re planning a build that intends to do as much damage as possible in a single shot.

Raging Inferno is yet another skill that can be incredibly useful. It gives Amon the ability to make his action skills crit, and if a crit does happen, the enemy gets burn applied to it. however for now, the skill is bugged, similar to Blackout, in which even at 5/5, the skill only provides the bonus for 1/5 - so while this skill is incredibly powerful on paper, the actual damage output is restricted for now until it gets fixed.

The 3rd class mod is the Forge-Master class mod which buffs a smattering of skills across the 3 trees. The effect for this one is INCREDIBLY straightforward.

It lets you use your forgeskill once while its on cooldown. In simple terms, you can use your forgeskills twice per cooldown rotation. Pretty handy for forgeskills with high cooldowns such as those in the onslaught tree like Molten Roil for example.

Forge Master Skill Rolls

From a skill bonus perspective, the Forge Master can roll with:

• Bellows gives Amon extra gun damage after activating a forgeskill
• Cast Iron gives increased Forgeskill cooldown
• Smelter + Metal Urge gives Amon extra forgeskill cooldown rate and action skill cooldown.

All in all, a very heavy utility focused class mod.

Forge Master Synergies

Amon’s kit has heavy synergies with a lot of effects proccing after a forgeskill is activated, even outside of the skills that the COM itself can roll with.

For example, Berserk in the Calamity tree only kicks in after activating a forgeskill, and this skill, in combination with there is only red, gives Amon a very powerful cryo damage boost which forms part of some of his strongest builds.

Some of the deeper synergies that this COM can provide is constant detonation procs through a combination of Force of Nature + Stormcutter combination from the Calamity tree, or if you’re feeling spicy, a Conflangarang and Hour of the Hammer.

While this COM isn’t as mechanically involved as say, a Furnace COM, the Forge Master still has it’s place in a lot of builds primarily due to it helping to fuel a forgeskill spamming build - which can in some instances be a huge source of burst damage for Amon.

Forgemaster =/= Furnace

However, one thing to note is that the forge-master isn’t always the answer to forge-skill spamming. While it is the path of least resistance, you can still achieve forge-skill spamming through clever gear and skill synergies like making use of the slippy grenade ordnance in combination with fists of stone in the calamity tree to rapidly reduce the cooldown of your forge-skills. For Amon, experimentation is key. You can do A LOT once you figure out how it works.

The 4th class mod we can talk about is the Elementalist, which places a heavy focus on elemental kill skills in Amon’s Vengeance tree which go by the name of affinity skills.

In each of this 3 branches in the vengeance tree, Amon has a skill that gives certain bonuses provided you kill an enemy with a specific element. The Elementalist COM supports a playstyle to gain bonuses from all these affinities. How you may ask? Well, the effect of this class mod is that whenever Amon gains a stack of an affinity skill, he gains a stack for all other unlocked affinity skills as well. So lets say you gain a stack of Icy Rage (which gives Amon a cryo affinity stack), you’ll also get a stack of Thunderous rage (shock affinity) and Burning rage (flame affinity) as well, provided you have points in those skills to begin with. As an added bonus, Amon gets increased movement speed for every stack of affinity he has.

Elementalist Skill Rolls

From a skill bonus perspective, the class mod provides additional points to:

• Thunderous Rage gives Amon increased crit damage per stack of shock affinity,
• Icy Rage gives Amon increased gun damage per stack of cryo affinity and
• Burning Rage gives Amon extra reload speed and action skill cooldown per stack of flame affinity.
• The wildcard skill here that the elementalist can also roll with is Freezer Burn. A very solid skill that has some innate synergies with this build. Freezer burn increases your cryo damage after you deal incendiary gun damage, and vice versa. This means that if you choose to use incendiary weapon damage as your primary damage source, dishing out damage in this format means that you’re getting a cryo damage boost - which can apply to things like your cryo forgewaves - assuming that's the action skill you've invested in to.

Elementalist Synergies

Now, I’m gonna come out and say this - the Elementalist class mod is far from the best one that Amon has. BUT, that’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s place. If for example, you want to invest in a heavy Vengeance tree spec with a focus on elemental damage, then the Elementalist class mod is going to be your best friend. Reason being that it’s not always easy to get kills with multiple different elements at once, unless you want to be constantly swapping weapons in order to maintain your affinity stacks. The elementalist class mod makes things easier in that department as you can just use one element (either shock, cryo or fire) to kill enemies and still stack the elemental bonuses. If you’ve invested in all 3 affinity skills, killing an enemy with cryo damage for example, will all of a sudden start to give you gun damage, crit damage, reload speed AND action skill cooldown rate. So you can really squeeze utility out of this class mod. Overall, the elementalist class mod is..... alright. and that's about it

The 5th class mod to talk about is the Shatterwight class mod, yet another Vengeance tree focused class mod that now enables Amon's forgewaves to deal melee damage, as well as the ordnance damage and action kill damage it does already.

In addition, melee attacks while Scourge is active also gain increased cryo efficiency AND radius, meaning your forgewaves and other attacks now have a higher chance to freeze enemies which can then tie in nicely with skills in branch 2 of the vengeance tree, like Age of Ice - which makes frozen enemies take more damage from all sources. So that’s already a good bit of synergy.

Shatterwight Skill Rolls

From a skill perspective, the Shatterwright COM can roll with:

• Age of Ice, like i mentioned before, makes frozen enemies take increased damage from all sources. Once again, a very handy skill to pick up, especially if you’re planning to use cryo damage as your mobbing damage source of choice.
• Northern Wind is a bit of an... interesting skill. In my opinion, a bit of a bait skill - but it exists nonetheless. Northern wind gives your critical hits a chance to apply a slow effect to your enemies. Now, i say this skill is a bait because if you’re in a position where you’re dealing a bunch of crits to an enemy - there’s a pretty solid chance that the enemy will die anyway, well before the slow effect would have any form of use or utility for your build.
• Next skill that this COM can roll with is Tactician. Now this one is significantly more useful than Northern Wind. Tactician gives Amon increased fire rate (but decreased weapon handling) while hip-firing, but on the flipside, extra gun damage and weapon handling when aiming down sights. And this is pretty handy to have, because this same gun damage bonus applies to your Ordnances as well.
• The final skill we have on this class mod is Berserk, and it just so happens to also be one of Amons best skills. While it doesn’t do much on its own (because typically you’d want to pair it with There Is Only Red to get the massively increased cryo damage), it’s still a nice skill to boost if you do a hybrid tree of Vengeance and Calamity.

Shatterwight Synergies

By default, Amon's forgewaves deal both ordnance damage and action skill damage, so with that in mind, you can make use of skills in the Vengeance tree like Scorched Kairos for example, to increase the damage of the forgewaves. With Shatterwight equipped, you can now also draw from skills and gear synergies that boost melee damage as well. Think of skills like Tritanium Knuckles in the Calamity tree, which boosts both melee damage AND skill damage. If you’re planning to make a build that uses forgewaves heavily, make sure you’re boosting this up as much as you can from as many different skills as you have points available for in Amon’s trees. This also means you can get benefits from the Bear Arms specialisation as well. So invest in some gun damage bonuses across your spec and you can get some added melee damage bonuses as well.

The final legendary COM that Amon has, is the Viking. Which in my opinion, is one of Amon's best class mods.

The Viking class mod gives Amon an extra 2 Crucible charges which apply to any throwable as well as increased crucible duration AND damage reduction while its active.

This damage reduction can be quite handy not just because it can give you survivability while THROWING weapons, it can also give you survivability while getting up in the faces of your enemies and swinging at them. In case you weren’t aware, Amon can actually use his forge-axes as a melee weapons.

Viking Skill Rolls

The Viking COM can roll with:

All of these skills have a great amount of damage and/or utility behind it so let’s run through them.

• Cacophany gives Amon a straightforward increase to ordnance damage and detonation radius. The ordnance damage doesn’t need to be much explained but applies to virtually anything that mentions it does ordnance damage. And as for the detonation radius, this itself can be quite useful if you’re trying make a build focused on splash damage and detonation spamming, since the radius can then catch to enemies and spread dot’s and damage constantly.
• Blast Furnace is the second skill this COM can roll with and this gives Amon a stacking increase to damage dealt for every crit or detonation that him or his forgedrones trigger. And once again, if you’re trying to make a detonation focused build - this skill will more or less give you a persistent global damage buff!
• Reactive Armor is another skill on the Cybernetics tree that the COM can have and this one gives Amon partial shield and ordnance cooldown restoration. Quite handy for survivability as well as some added utility if you end up weaving in some ordnance spamming gameplay as well within your detonation build.
• The final skill that Viking can roll with is Fists of Stone from the Calamity tree - and this one’s a good one. Fists of Stone gives Amon a % of forgeskill cooldown after dealing melee damage. And this doesn’t just mean physical punching. Any action skill that does melee damage OR ordnance that does melee damage will all apply to this, meaning that you can fuel a forgeskill loop just by dishing out additional melee damage through things like the Slippy grenade ordnance for example.

Viking Synergies

Overall through, the Viking Class Mod has some incredible utility and can form a critical part of any Crucible build that wants to lean itself towards forgeskill activations for other triggers (think of things like Berserk and Forged in Steel) OR a detonation focused build that wants to leverage heavy ordnances like launchers and miniguns for some added oomph. By and far, the Viking class mod is my favourite. And if you want to see what happens when you optimise a Viking focused build - check out my Hammerfall Amon build right here!