Borderlands 4’s Amon May Fall Victim to the Ultimate Buildcrafting Sin

Borderlands 4 has yet to come out, and it’s already making the rounds online for several reasons – from the price discourse started on social media by Randy Pitchford to the quality of gameplay and updates, impressing many fans, though not without some controversies. For example, Borderlands 4‘s Super Deluxe Edition, priced at $130, raised many eyebrows because it feels like the true complete version of the game, but is priced like two AAA games combined. On the other end of the spectrum is the hype surrounding the new Vault Hunters, the loot and weapon changes, and the overall gameplay. As much as he looks like a great character, Amon may have committed the ultimate buildcrafting sin already.

Builds have gradually become more and more important to Borderlands as a series, with Borderlands 3 placing a big focus on all the new skills and combos that players could pull off, especially with a fourth skill tree for all Vault Hunters. Borderlands 4‘s Vault Hunters were initially received poorly due to their design, but have since grown on some players who have seen more footage of the game. Builds will be very important for BL4, if not more so, but Amon’s Action Skills include a potentially not-very-effective one, if not straight up bad.

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Borderlands 4’s Amon May Have Dropped The Ball With One Action Skill

As per Game Informer’s exclusive coverage of Borderlands 4, the Action Skills of both Amon and Harlowe were revealed, and the former has one that could be interesting and fun to play, but not as effective. The Action Skills for Amon are the following:

Crucible: Pull two elemental axes, one Fire and one Cryo, to throw against the enemies
Onslaught: Allows Amon to punch an enemy for big Fire damage, followed by a hammer strike with AoE that also deals Fire damage
Scourge: Summon a shield that absorbs and then deals it back as a projectile whip. Amon can also summon a Fire wall to block damage

Why Amon’s Scourge Action Skill May Be a Mixed Bag

Crucible and Onslaught seem the usual Action Skills from the game, in the sense that they are simple, big damage buttons, whereas Scourge stands as an alternative option that both mitigates damage and retaliates. As much as Scourge can be useful, raw damage is typically much better than defensive options for looter-shooters and FPS games in general, so the idea that Amon will have an entire skill tree in Borderlands 4 that is about blocking damage may be flawed from the get-go.

Unless there are big changes to the formula for Amon, reducing incoming damage or blocking it entirely can seem very good, but at the same time, this often requires using defensive abilities that take away precious DPS time. For example, this is part of the class identity for Titans in Destiny 2, but Bungie had to add some offensive effects to the Barricade skill in order to make it more valuable in PvE, as offensive often beats defensive in this regard.

Scourge does deal damage back to enemies after absorbing it, but while it’s absorbing damage, it doesn’t seem to do much else, which is a DPS loss. Also, some Borderlands 4 bosses may have damage phases and others where dealing damage with a certain timing is more important, so Scourge can mess things up.

There is no official gameplay showcase for Amon’s Action Skills or skill trees yet, so players need to wait for more details.

Borderlands 4’s Scourge Action Skill Being Bad May Not Matter In The End

Borderlands 4 has co-op, but at its core, it’s a single-player game. As such, players can still use Scourge and defensive perks without worrying about optimizing their damage and build. However, defensive options are often a bit limiting in terms of buildcrafting, and spending points there is fundamentally less synergistic than combining two damage-oriented skill trees, for example. It remains to be seen how Gearbox implements this logic into the game, but unless it hits all the right notes, the defensive skill tree for Amon may be a mixed bag.