Launch-window outlets rank Long Tong S-tier: Amber fights permanently at her side, her breath reportedly deals a large share of your main weapon's elemental damage while applying a damage-over-time flame, and Fury opens a burst window that raises Final Damage and Attack Speed for several seconds. We treat those numbers as reported until we reproduce them in-game.
Why the build works
Most Hunters convert items into their own shooting. Long Tong converts them twice: once through your weapon, and again through Amber, whose damage follows the weapon's element. That makes her unusually coherent — every elemental upgrade you take is also a companion upgrade — and unusually punishing to off-element pickups, which feed neither half of the engine.
Skill order
Open with Dragon Breath — it is the engine. Take Multiple Breaths next so companion damage events happen often enough to matter, then Ever Burning to extend the element chain. This order is our current working route and is labeled needs-testing: if a run offers strong survival instead, taking it second is reasonable.
Weapon choice
Pick one element and commit. Fire families such as Ember Spark or Flare Gun pair naturally with the burn theme and build Ignition; Frost (Dark Ice, Ice Shatterer) trades burst for Freeze control. What matters is not which element you choose but that relics and Tarot reference the same Transmutation your weapon builds — Physical→ Hemorrhage, Frost→Freeze, Lightning→Disruption, Acid→Corrosion, Fire→Ignition.
Relic and Tarot directions
Prioritize relics that scale your chosen element or shorten reload gaps (Magician's Hat) so the weapon keeps generating the events Amber amplifies. For Tarot, The Hierophant's [Heretic] mark is a strong boss option for a build that already concentrates damage; Embarkation cards like The Fool are fine value but do not touch the companion engine directly. Avoid The Lovers unless your Sub Weapon genuinely contributes — it competes with element-focused picks.
What kills the build
Splitting elements. A higher-rarity weapon in a second element resets your Transmutation progress and half of Amber's value. When the run refuses to offer your element, the honest fallback is reload, fire-rate, and survival support rather than a second engine.
Open this route in the planner
Evidence boundary
Reported damage shares and buff durations come from launch coverage and the current English database; patch 1.0.466 is still under review. Where our own testing disagrees, this page will change — see how evidence is labeled.