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Best Borderlands 4 Amon build to become a freezing Forgeknight

Guides
By Will Sawyer last updated 23 September 2025

This Amon build focuses on making the Forgeknight into Borderlands 4's premier punching machine

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Borderlands 4 Amon Forgeknight build Amon in character selection screen with description
(Image credit: 2K)
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Best Borderlands 4 character builds

Borderlands 4 Vault Hunters

(Image credit: Gearbox)

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Borderlands 4 Harlowe build
Borderlands 4 Rafa build

The best Borderlands 4 Amon build that I've been using lets you beat up your enemies with a flaming Forgeknight Rocket Punch. Packing a great mix of survivability, melee damage, and elemental damage, this Onslaughter build can handle a whole range of situations in Borderlands 4, especially crushing weaker foes with ease so that you can focus on the tough things with fewer distractions.

With the right skills from the Calamity skill tree, Amon can bolster his fiery fist with extra elemental damage to his kit, and focusing on the left branch adds lots of cryo damage effects for a potent mix of burning and freezing status effects. Below, I've laid out all the essential skills for this Amon build in Borderlands 4.

Borderlands 4 best Amon skills and build suggestions

Borderlands 4 Amon Forgeknight build calamity skill tree

(Image credit: 2K)

I've found that Amon's Onslaughter Action Skill is not only fun to use but also really quite powerful, helping him stay alive with constant shield regeneration and deal massive damage with the Rocket Punch. This build adds to it even further via the Fellfrost Augment and Hoarcleave Capstone, adding lots of cryo damage for even more elemental power and freezing.

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Make sure you equip Amon with a range of close-range weapons to support this in-your-face brawling playstyle. Shotguns and SMGs are therefore ideal, with Torque and Maliwan being good manufacturers due to their explosive and elemental power respectively – although, this build lacks anything for breaking shields easily, so pack a shock-damage weapon and make sure you know about Borderlands 4 elemental damage types!

With the basics out of the way for this Amon build, I've laid out the skills you need for this build below. Bear in mind that it's best to spend your skill points as far into the skill tree as you can when levelling up your Borderlands 4 characters, so while I've mentioned how many points to invest in each skill, you shouldn't necessarily aim to invest the necessary points before moving on – variety helps early on and you can always reset your skills in Borderlands 4.

  • Impetus x3: Kill Skill – gain increased shield regeneration rate and movement speed.
  • Discombobulate x3: Gain a melee critical hit chance.
  • Tritanium Knuckles x5: Increased melee and skill damage.
  • Pyroclast Augment: Activating Onslaughter fully restores your health and shields and is surrounded by an incendiary Forgestorm that damages enemies. Killing enemies inside the Forgestorm also restores duration to Onslaughter and increases the storm's damage.
  • Metal Urge x5: Gain Onslaughter cooldown reduction for a limited time whenever you deal gun damage.
  • Wield The Storm x3: Increased status effect damage and duration
  • Bullet Storm x3: Gain increased gun damage for a limited time whenever you apply a status effect.
  • Forged In Steel: Become immune to all damage for six seconds after activating Molten Slam/Hoarcleave.
  • Fellfrost Augment: Press the Action Skill button immediately after performing a Rocket Punch during Onslaughter to follow up with another melee attack that deals massive cryo damage in a large area in front of Amon. Non-boss enemies below a quarter of their total HP that are hit by this are killed instantly.
  • Bloodlust x5: Gain temporary Lifesteal and increased reload speed whenever your shield breaks.
  • Berserk x5: Gain immunity to slowing effects and bonus cryo damage for guns and melee after activating Molten Slam/Hoarcleave.
  • Brimming Vigor x5: Gain increased maximum health and deal more melee damage the more full your health is.
  • Rimebreak x3: Release a freezing cryo detonation and restore shields when your shield breaks (this skill has its own cooldown).
  • There Is Only Red x3: Kill Skill (while Berserk is also active) – partially restore the Berserk buff's duration and increase its bonus cryo damage.
  • My Touch Is Death x2: Gain a chance to activate Kill Skills with melee damage.
  • Hoarcleave Capstone: Molten Slam gets replaced with Hoarcleave, which sends out a cryo-damage Forgewave that passes through enemies and freezes any it hits. Enemies killed by the Forgewave then explode in a cryo detonation.

Start by dipping into Impetus and Discombobulate to set a robust baseline for your Amon build with shield regeneration and improved melee damage. Tritanium Knuckles should be next to bolster the damage of the Onslaughter Rocket Punch. Metal Urge then massively helps with letting you Rocket Punch things more often, boosting Onslaughter's cooldown whenever you deal gun damage. You should also grab the Pyroclast Augment, which you could stick with and build around instead with a few adjustments (it's very fun!), but I suggest switching later.

You can cap off the first section of Amon's Calamity skill tree with points in Wield The Storm to boost his status effect damage and duration, which will help with both incendiary and cryo damage, and Bullet Storm which adds a modest damage buff to gun damage whenever you apply a status effect (which should be quite often). Forged in Steel is a nice invincibility bonus to have but isn’t essential, so you could spend this point on a different skill.

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Borderlands 4 Amon Forgeknight build onslaughter action skill

(Image credit: 2K)

Heading into Amon's left branch, grab the Fellfrost Augment which adds an immensely powerful follow-up attack to Amon's Rocket Punch – it deals massive cryo damage and can also instantly kill damaged enemies – and you can enhance it further by investing in a little bit of everything in this branch.

Start with Bloodlust for its Lifesteal benefits, then you can move into Berserk and its subsequent upgrades to keep you mobile and up your cryo damage substantially. Brimming Vigor and Rimebreak add even more damage in various forms and help with durability in the form of increased maximum health and a sudden jolt shield regeneration.

Round things off with the Hoarcleave Capstone for a freezing ability that you can use as crowd control in hectic fights – and with all the stacking buffs, it should be incredibly powerful too. You should also have a few Skill Points leftover, and you might want to invest them into Wrath of Nature on the blue Vengeance skill tree for another boost to this build's freezing capabilities, but you could put them elsewhere in Calamity too.

Check out the available Borderlands 4 Shift Codes in case you can buff up your loadout with potential legendary weapons. If you get anything good for a different character, try depositing it at a Borderlands 4 bank.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

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Will Sawyer
Will Sawyer
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Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.

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