INTRODUCTION

This is a [Gara] build focused around splinter storm and building the splinter storm damage as quickly as possible so that you can melt high level enemies on Steel Path and other end game content. The top three helminth options for this build are Eclipse, Nourish and Pillage.

UPDATE JULY 2024
Full armor strip is no longer mandatory for [Gara] abilities to kill in high level SP and endurance, as just having corrosive + heat without any green shards is enough to allow Splinter Storm to easily kill levelcap enemies after a few stacks. With a fully modded Ceramic Dagger statstick with a god-roll riven and Nourish at x12 combo, you could achieve approximately 180k splinter storm damage per stack. After just 10 stacks you can hit 1.8 million damage. This

Nourish gives all your attacks a viral damage multiplier, which also applies to your [Shattered Lash]. This is however additive to any elemental mods you have on your statstick so you may only end up with about 10 to 30% damage boost. The main draw however is the energy multiplier, giving about double energy from all sources including [Equilibrium] . Use this if you have any energy issues (e.g. particularly if you don't own arcane energize). For Endurance, you can partially strip armor with a viral corrosive heat primer e.g. [Kuva Nukor], epiptaph.

Please note these polarities and forma count are based on personal preference to allow for maximum flexibility.
Non-helminth hybrid nuke + splinter storm: https://overframe.gg/build/204674/
Non-helminth pure splinter storm variant : https://overframe.gg/build/213287/

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
High duration gives a splinter storm time of nearly 50s, meaning you just need to refresh splinter storm every half a minute by casting mass vitrify again. Duration also affects eclipse or nourish uptime.

Range
A range of around 100% gives a splinter storm radius of 2.5 to 3m, which just requires you to get closer to enemies to kill them.

Efficiency
Assuming you only refresh splinter storm every 30 seconds, casting mass vitrify followed by [Shattered Lash] costs exactly 95 energy. Even without Arcane Energize, this should be easy to come by within 30s given the speed at which [Gara] can kill enemies. [Streamline] is flexible with [Primed Flow]. Consider additional energy boosters like [Equilibrium] +[Synth Deconstruct], [Dethcube] with [Energy Generator], [Grimoire] with [Xata Invocation], Zenurik if needed.

Strength
Strength is important since it affects [Shattered Lash] damage, which subsequently feeds into both Mass Vitrify damage and Splinter Storm stacking. In addition, strength also boosts the damage vulnerability of crystallized enemies via 4 and the effect of any helminth abilities such as Nourish.

Options
Aura slot is flexible :

• Stteel Charge provides the most mod capcity and adds about 5-10% to shattered lash/splinter storm damage.
• [Brief Respite] for endurance runs where you need to abuse shield gating (in addition to decaying dragon key, you may want to change fleeting expertise to streamline to reduce efficiency further)

Exilus slot is flexible - If you don't have primed sure footed, can use handspring, vigilante pursuit, power drift etc

Flexible options:

• Rolling Guard - useful mod for high levels giving i-frames on roll, but if you don't like the playstyle.
• Adaptation - for casual tanking, increases the tankiness of shields gained (90% splinter storm DR + 90% adaptation + 50% innate shield DR = 99.5% DR), giving a shield EHP of approximately 300k at max overshield.

Arcanes

• Molt Augmented - gives more strength up to 60% at 250 kills
• Arcane Blade Charger - if you have a strong primary eg [Torid] Incarnon, [Felarx],etc you can easily get this buff which will more than double splinter storm stacks. Even a sentinel equipped with Verglas can proc this for you!
• Arcane Fury - similar to blade charger but doesn't require a primary, is easier to proc but provides slightly less stack
• Arcane Aegis - If you have problems with surviving

Helminth

• Nourish: Gives Viral damage boost which applies to [Shattered Lash] (additively to elements so much less bonus than eclipse) but also gives huge energy multiplier to allow you to sustain energy, possibly even without arcane energize.
• Silence : Provides passive CC, blocks eximus abilities and acolyte abilities, particularly against Violence so you don't lose all your stacked splinter storm. This is the number one choice for Endurance Steel Path. Will need to run with higher energy economy without Nourish, for example swapping Blind Rage for streamline.
• Pillage, Fire Blast : both allow full strip in two casts without a huge invesment in range
• Roar: Gives a damage buff to Shattered Lash.

Archon Shards

• Two Amber Cast Speed
• Three Crimson Duration Shards

PLAYSTYLE

• Cast 2 on yourself (making sure you don't aim at an enemy, object or companion) to initiate splinter storm and achieve 90% damage reduction
• Cast 2 on your companion for 90% damage reduction
• Cast 3 to activate Nourish/other helminth
• Optional Build up combo counter to maximum
• Kill some enemies with your primary to proc arcane blade charger
• Cast 4 and quickly stop it from expanding by pressing 4 again
• Tap or hold 1 to shatter the wall (tap for puncture if you modded stat stick with puncture, hold for slash if stat stick modded with slash)
• Repeat 4 + 1 combo every 30-40ss, also making sure 3 is active at all times

STAT STICK

There are two ways to build stat sticks for Gara, non-combo and combo.

A non-combo stat stick means you will completely ignore your melee and only shoot with your primary/secondary weapons. These builds utilise initial combo bonus (+30 from Fragor Prime, +30 from Corrupt Charge, +20 from Synoid Heliocor or Furax Wraith) in addition to the usual damage (Primed Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike), elemental (Primed Fever Strike, North Wind, Molten Impact, Shocking Touch) and slash or puncture mods (Buzz Kill or Auger Strike). Due to the combo bonus, Fragor Prime is an excellent choice as adding Corrupt Charge on top gives a 60 combo allowing you to hit the 1.75x melee bonus straight off the bat.

A combo stat stick means you will use your melee ocassionally to build combo quickly. This will forgo initial combo bonus and instead require combo duration (from body count, drifting contact or primary/secondary dexterity arcanes) or combo count chance (e.g. true punishment, quickening), and is most ideal on gunblades, particularly redeemer (non-prime perferred in case you get a riven) due to quick combo gain from a distance OR Praedos/Innodem which have a passive combo gain perk upon picking up. Using any normal melee may be trickier since enemies may die from Splinter Storm before you can get into melee range.

A riven can be used in any high disposition weapon as well, provided the riven has excellent rolls for +dmg, +element , +slash/puncture or +combo with any other negative

UPDATE 2023
Non-Combo:
The current best non-combo stat stick is Ceramic Dagger Incarnon because it has innate x7 initial combo after getting 100 primary kills:
https://overframe.gg/build/498648/

Next best alternatives are Tenet Agendus/Exec or Kuva Shildeg with > 40% bonus (of any element): https://overframe.gg/build/376515/tenet-agendus/gara-non-combo-statstcik/

The third best alternative is Fragor Prime: https://overframe.gg/build/213539/[[Fragor]](/items/arsenal/1134/[[Fragor]](/items/arsenal/1134/fragor/)/)-prime/[[Gara]](/items/arsenal/24/[[Gara]](/items/arsenal/24/gara/)/)-shattered-lash-non-combo-stat-stick/

Combo:
While ANY melee can be used (particularly one with high disposition with a good riven), the current best options are either using [Rauta] with [Tenet Agendus] which allows you to build combo by shooting from a distance, or use Praedos or Innodem since they can allow you to refresh combo passively by just picking up ammo. This means you can build to x12 combo initially, then swap back to primary weapon and use that indefinitely so you also keep Arcane Blade Charger active without needing to hit enemies with your melee.

Redeemer: https://overframe.gg/build/213542/
Praedos: https://overframe.gg/build/442780/

OTHER TIPS

Use a sentinel as a companion rather than a moving pet. You can cast splinter storm on your sentinel and give it 90% damage reduction as well as creating a second damage source that gains the same stacks as [Gara]. Since the sentinel moves with you and overlaps your splinter storm radius, you effectively do twice the damage per tick compared to when splinter storm is on [Gara] alone. To cast on your sentinel, point your cursor directly up and press the reverse camera key (check key bindings) then spam 2 as the crosshairs pass over the sentinel. Furthermore, since the sentinel never runs away like other pets, you can keep 100% uptime on its splinter storm whenever you cast mass vitrify.

Recommended sentinels:

• Diriga - passive primes in close range and helps consistently produce health orbs for equilibrium
• Nautilus with Cordon and Manifold bond - allows you to passively group enemies so you can kill them quicker with splinter storm. https://overframe.gg/build/540870/
• Wrym prime with negate - prevents status procs including knockdown, very useful if you don't own primed sure footed. https://overframe.gg/build/545608/
• Dethcube prime with energy generator - makes energy orbs every couple of kills, very useful if you don't own a full set of arcane energize. https://overframe.gg/build/224301/
• Helios Prime with Vicious Bond and Deconstructor - allows you to passive armor strip enemies recently damaged by abilities, which is exactly what [Gara] specializes in. This allows you to use Nourish as subsume instead. You can also equip Seismic Bond which will trigger while Mass Vitrify is expanding, giving free 30% efficiency for 12s. https://overframe.gg/build/542050/

Here is a video demonstrating the use of splinter storm and mass vitrify to [Protect] excavators in SP kuva survival:

Here is a video showing just how far eclipse can boost splinter storm, with the use of all strength mods, 200% invigoration and all condition strength boosters (pax bolt, [Power Drain]), I hit 1337% eclipse and gain 20 million splinter storm damage in one lash. NOTE HELMINTH ECLIPSE HAS BEEN NERFED AND THIS NUMBER IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE