You might know the Forgeknight by his strength, his well-mannered way of talking with his friends, or that his favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio, but nothing beats learning the best Amon builds in Borderlands 4.
With a kit that benefits from exposing yourself to danger, Amon requires the right skills and pieces of gear to make his unique traits shine against the not-so-friendly creatures you face in Borderlands 4.
But no man is an island, and no Forgeknight forges themselves alone. That’s why, based on what the community has been working on, we’ve selected the best Amon builds in Borderlands 4.
Amon’s skill tree and playstyle, explained
What distinguishes Amon from the other Vault hunters in Borderlands 4 is that some of his Action skills balance defensive and offensive tools really well. With his blue skill tree, Amon gains a shield that absorbs damage to build up a damage buff to his attacks. The red skill tree unlocks the Onslaughter Action skill for Amon that buffs his movement, adds fire damage to his gun, and shields him. Unlike the other two, the green skill tree is more offensive. By running this one, Amon can throw his forgeaxes to cause elemental damage.
Amon is more versatile than he initially looks, and the different builds the community created prove that. When it comes to a blue skill tree-based build, EpicNNG created the Blastoid Amon. For the green skill tree, ItalianSpartacus came up with a fun minion build for Amon that allows you to handle multiple enemies with flying axes. The melee-focused red skill tree has so much potential that MrTx01 explores with this Onslaughter build.
Below, we introduce each one of these builds so you can find the best way to play with Amon according to your playstyle.
Blastoid Amon build
The basic question this build answers is “What if Amon could explode anything in front of him?” The process of doing so involves a considerable number of items you want to look after, such as a shield with the “Amp” affix and the legendary repkit “Shiny War Paint.” But at the core of this build there’s the heavy weapon ordnance “Unobtainable Hailspike,” which comes with two important affixes. The first, “Two-Shot” makes this weapon shoot two projectiles at a time, while the second, “MIRV,” spawns three explosive orbs when a projectile explodes.
The potency of the “Unobtainable Hailspike” really appears when you run three pieces of gear with the “High Caliber” firmware, which makes your bullets pierce enemies. This effect interacts directly with the “MIRV” affix in his ordnance by making it spawn the double of MIRV orbs, because the projectiles explode when they hit the enemy, and when they land on the ground or wall after piercing the target. This simple interaction ends up hitting the enemy 16 times per shot, nuking anything you set your aim at.
If you want to learn more about the build and go deep into it, check EpicNNG’s video:
Onslaughter Amon build
The Onslaughter build lets Amon do what he does best: punch things. The core gameplay loop of this build works around proccing “Berserk,” a passive skill that gives Amon bonus cryo damage with gun and melee damage as well as slow immunity, by using your forgeskill. With the “Berserk” effect up, you want to pop “Onslaughter,” the Action skill, and go for the kills. Because of the “There Is Only Red” skill, for every kill you get while “Berserk” is up, you will increase your bonus cryo damage and restore the duration of this passive.
When listing the skills for this build, MrTx01 explains that you can change your augments depending on whether you’re mobbing or bossing. Regular enemies, “Pyroclast” or “Fellfrost” are the best options. Now, when dealing with bosses, you should equip “Force of Nature,” which applies stacks when you cause gun damage while in the Onslaughter state. When you hit the boss with a Rocket Punch or your forgeskill, these stacks explode, hitting the enemy with massive damage.
You can watch a detailed explanation of every skill and gear by MrTx01 below:
Minion Amon build
The beauty in the drone Amon build comes from turning a melee-focused character into a long-range one. This is possible because of four specific skills Amon has in his green skill tree: “Tempered Pyre,” “Twin Tempers,” “Tempered Lightning,” and “Tempered Ice.” Every single one of these abilities will spawn a unique drone (two axes, one hammer, and a sword, to be precise) to attack enemies with different elemental damage.
These drones are the main source of damage for this build and will work great when mobbing or bossing. The idea is that most of your basic rotation — using your Action skill or popping your ordnance — will spawn a drone or increase their uptime. You want to run “Masterwork” and “Escalation,” two passive skills to boost the DPS of your drones. Although this build is not dependent on gear, you need to complement its damage by carrying a corrosive gun to handle enemies with armor.
You learn every detail and watch this build in action in the ItalianSpartacus’s original video:
Do you need more help with Borderlands 4? For those who are new to Kairos, check out our beginner’s guide before you get started and our best classes guide to find the right one for your playstyle.
If you want to have fun with your weapons, be sure to read our guide on how to get more SDU tokens. We know that traversing the immense map of Kairos is a challenge in itself, so you should prioritize unlocking a vehicle, as well as fast travel points. And if you’re already enjoying the endgame of Borderlands 4, don’t forget to check the weekly reset time for all current challenges.
We also have build guides for the other characters: Harlowe, Vex, and Rafa.
