INTRODUCTION

This is a general use Gara build focused around nuking maps with high range mass vitrify explosions and providing medium duration damage reduction/splinter storm damage to yourself and defense objectives, which is refreshed with the constant casting of mass vitrify. You can also stack up splinter storm damage gradually and run around with a high radius splinter storm that scales indefinitely. Spectrorage provides some crowd control while [Spectrosiphon] augment is used for some to generate tons of energy orbs to top up energy for yourself and your squad.

See my other endgame helminth Gara builds:
Splinter storm Endurance focused: https://overframe.gg/build/193196/gara-prime/shimmering-glass-eclipse-gara-splinter-storm-500k-stack-solo-sp/
Dispensary low level/base SP nuke: https://overframe.gg/build/194448/gara-prime/shattering-glass-gara-nuke-and-defender-steel-path/

UPDATE MARCH 2025
[Gara] [Shattered Lash] no longer uses statsticks on a regular melee and is now an exalted that can be modded and use arcanes. The stats have been buffed to be both crit and status viable, making it very good with electric influence. If you don't like faction mods, swap Primed Smite for [Primed Pressure Point] (just note faction mods do TRIPLE DIP melee influence procs meaning they boost influence by a 1.55^3 = 3.72x multiplier.

PLAYSTYLE

Make sure to INVERT tap/hold controls for Gara so tap is the sweeping slash Shattered Lash version

• Cast 2 on yourself, your companion, your allies and the defense object
• Cast 3 in front of you/nearby to CC enemies and prime them to drop energy orbs when they die. Note if you cast it around an acolyte, their AI often turns off. Spectrorage can also inconsistently crowd control eximus/overguardeed units. If this is subsumed off, use helminth ability as necessary.
• Cast 4 and press 4 again immediately to end expansion (you want enemies to be outside the wall)
• Cast 1 at the wall to break the wall, nuke the map and build splinter storm stacks
• Cast 1 at enemies to nuke them with melee influence
• Kill heavier targets (e.g. thrax, acolytes) by stacking damage into splinter storm and just standing near them.
• Use active or passive status priming to improve DPS (viral boosts damage by up to 4.25x at 10 stacks, corrosive boosts damage by up to 6x on armored enemies at 10 stacks and unique statuses boost [Condition Overload] on [Shattered Lash] (80% dmg per status))

SURVIVABILITY

Shield Gating
When you lose shields to 0, you gain a short duration of invulnerability known as the "shield gate" which scales off the highest value of shields you had before breaking. [Brief Respite] and Augur mods allow you to generate shields on demand by casting abilities. Casting 4 will be your main way to shield gate since it makes you completely invulnerable during cast, creates a physical barrier and glasses enemies it touches, and costs 75 energy at base efficiency, generating 142 shield with just [Brief Respite] and [Augur Message] (giving 0.9s iframes). Adding up to 2 or 3 more augur mods (eg [Augur Reach], [Augur Seeker], [Augur Pact]) can generate up to 232 shield which gives 1.1s iframes. [Catalyzing Shields] in this case would allow spamming 1 to achieve full gate every cast, which is a good option over [Shattered Storm].

Tanking
Splinter Storm gives 90% damage reduction at 134% strength, allowing you to shrug off a fair amount of damage in non-endurance scenarios. You can maximise EHP by adding in Arcane [Guardian] or [Health Conversion] for armor, Arcane Blessing or [Vitality] for health, or simply relying on shield tanking by using Pillage to gain overshields (since shields have a natural 50% DR).

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
More duration is beneficial for splinter storm giving you more leeway between casts of 4 so you don't lose all your current stacks of splinter storm. You can add more duration over range/efficiency if desired (e.g. put [Narrow Minded] when you want splinter storm to last much longer so you don't need to recast 4 as much).

Efficiency
Since you will be spamming mass vitrify and breaking it with 1, you need to maintain some efficiency for energy economy. 100 to 130% is sufficient since we are running [Primed Flow] and [Spectrosiphon]. [Spectrosiphon] augment generates tons of energy orbs for you and the whole squad. [Seismic Bond] on your pet further helps give free 30% efficiency since it procs while you are expanding 4. [Archon Stretch] procs from electric modded on [Shattered Lash].

Range
Range is the most important stat for [Shattered Lash] range and Mass Vitrify Range, allowing the mass vitrify explosion radius to [Reach] 37.5m and [Shattered Lash] to [Reach] 25m. You can increase this even more by adding [Augur Reach].

Strength
Strength boosts the damage of [Shattered Lash] which feeds into Mass Vitrify and Splinter Storm, and also boosts the damage vulnerabilities from glassed enemies from Mass Vitrify as well as damage vulnerability from Shattered Storm.

Options
Aura slot is flexible - [Brief Respite] is useful for endurance runs where you need to abuse shield gating, steel charge provides the most mod capcity and adds to shattered lash/splinter storm damage,

Exilus slot is flexible - cunning drift for range, primed sure footed if you own it, handspring, vigilante pursuit, power drift etc

Rolling Guard - Nice quality of life for high levels and shield restoration, but if you don't like the playstyle , you can always switch out for something more passive like adapation, or even more range e.g. [Augur Reach].

[Narrow Minded] is an optional addition (e.g. over [Shattered Storm]) that will give you much higher duration at the cost of range. This is useful in situtations where you may not want to nuke and just keep splinter storm on for damage reduction and splinter storm damage etc.

Shattered Storm - optional augment that spreads splinter storm onto enemies hit by 4, which creates a 35% damage vulnerability at base (basically acting like a universal 1.35x damage multiplier at base strength up to 1.7x at 200 strength)

Mending Splinters - support oriented augment for healing defense operative, pets and teammates.

Arcanes

• Molt Efficiency - free 36% duration to improve splinter storm duration
• Molt Augmented - free 60% strength to further boost shattered lash damage, useful in longer missions where you expect to get 250 kills
• Arcane Fury - similar to blade charger but doesn't require a primary, is easier to proc but provides slightly less stack
• Arcane Blade Charger - if you have a good primary weapon, AOE primary or high DPS sentinel weapon (e.g verglas), you can easily get this buff, which will boost the damage of mass vitrify explosion
• Arcane Aegis - If you have problems with surviving
• Arcane Energize - expensive option to help further boost energy restore

Helminth
Subsume over Spectrorage, and drop Spectrosiphon for Equilibrium

• Nourish: Gives additive viral dmg boost to [Shattered Lash], widespread viral procs via influence (giving 4.25x multiplier to health dmg) and gives energy multiplier which helps greatly with energy sustain.
• Dispensary with [Equilibrium] is another good option for energy sustain in mostly stationary missions like defense and mobile defense, or for camping in survival. Drop Spectrosiphon for Equilibrium in this case.
• Pillage strips armor/shields and provides shields to you, useful for both shield tanking and shield gating
• Roar boosts Shattered Lash damage and triple dips melee influence procs

Archon Shards
Amber Cast Speed - at least 1 tauforged cast speed shard to improve Shattered Lash and Mass Vitrify casting speeds
Amber Energy Orb Effectiveness - if you like to keep spectroshon, this will make energy orbs dropped by Spectrosiphon provide even more energy.
Crimson - 3 to 4 Tauforged Duration shards to increase splinter storm duration

ARSENAL/OTHER TIPS

Sentinels
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. You should also equip Seismic Bond which will trigger while Mass Vitrify is expanding, giving free 30% efficiency for 12s.

Recommended sentinels:

• Diriga with Arc Coil - most consistent close range priming for splinter storm DPS and synth deconstruct health orb generation: https://overframe.gg/build/541464
• 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: https://overframe.gg/build/542050/
• 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 and want to block knockdown. https://overframe.gg/build/545608/
• Dethcube prime with energy generator - makes energy orbs every couple of kills, very useful for energy economy: https://overframe.gg/build/224301/

Weapons
No specific weapon synergies exist apart from having a good primary to proc arcane blade charger quickly if you are running that (e.g. [Cedo] which can be both primer and DPS) and a utility secondary such as [Grimoire] that can help with energy [Regen] ([Xata Invocation]) and survivability ([Fass Canticle])