Restricting yourself to SMGs is oddly specific unless you’re using a Cat COM. My Maya (just short of 61 as of this writing) typically uses a Good Touch as her fire weapon, Hornet for corrosive, a Harold (currently DP, but that’s just good luck, I’d accept other prefixes) for FFYL and “this large nearby target needs to die right now” situations. The last slot is usually a purple Jakobs rifle, but currently a blue Bushwhack (Jakobs 3-barrel shotgun). I used the rifle as a poor-mans sniper because even in UVHM, basic enemies will still die to one bullet and the resulting cloud kill, and the rifle is very efficient at putting that bullet on target at range. The Bushwhack is for the reverse use case, where something is really close and it’s quicker to swap and blast 15 high-damage pellets into its head than hosing on it with the Good Touch. Returning to your question - only one of those guns is an SMG. I do have a Lascaux in my backpack, that’s a perfectly good gun to use if you like it. I generally fight at a range where the gimmick firing pattern of the Lascaux becomes annoying though. Plasma casters are also very powerful and worth using if you have them.
Chain Reaction - anything that delivers lots of bullets to the target area. High fire rate is good (SMGs), high pellet count (shotguns, Sandhawk, DPUH, Pimpernel) is also good. Make sure not to kill the phaselock target too quickly!
Slag - Ruin. If I need to slag something else while phaselock is on cooldown or if something pops up that wasn’t near enough for Converge to pull into the Ruin, I carry either slag bouncing betty or slag transfusion grenades. I do carry a slag SMG in my backpack, but almost never use it (I carry a lot of situationally-useful stuff just in case I need it). Looking forward to Scorn as an additional slagging tool.
Bossing - depends on the target, I guess. I’m not really worrying about it until I hit 72. Hornet plus Cloud Kill absolutely melts Wilhelm, for what that’s worth.
You do know that pearlescents (Avenger, Butcher, Bekah) are even rarer than legendaries, right? I’m not sure why you’re even mentioning them in the context of leveling.
Depends on your tolerance for farming, but my answer would be “absolutely not”. Good Touch is a very powerful fire SMG, and is infinitely easier to farm (there is no farm easier than walking over to Moxxi and tipping her).
If you’re dedicated to SMGs (Cat COM and/or strong personal preference), the Emperor is very good and relatively easy to farm. I had a nice pair with fire and slag at level 53, which my Axton is now enjoying. Generic blue guns work fine too; just for variety I used a blue Hyperion fire SMG for level 58-59.
Well, yes. You’re using a healer build to solo; just like in an MMO that is absolutely possible to do, but will be much slower than using a dps build. The nursing build omits Maya’s four best dps skills (cloud kill, ruin, chain reaction, reaper) and puts six points into Restoration and Res which do absolutely nothing in single player.
You asked for level 50 and 61 trees in the other thread, so here’s what I use:
Level 50: http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#505001000005030000001553510501
Level 61: http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#505001000005055004001553510501
The key points are getting all the lovely goodies from the Cataclysm tree, Converge from Motion for its fantastic synergy with Ruin, then go down Harmony to get great self-healing skills plus Scorn at level 68. I’ve been using a Cunning Binder blue COM for a while, with +6 Reaper +5 Suspension. Other COMs will certainly work too, but that’s the best I have and it’s plenty good enough. I’ll start looking for legendary COMs after hitting 61, and may move some points around depending what I find. The point in Flicker is there for future legendary COM boosting, for example.
The only fights where I’ve had any trouble with Maya are a couple of boss fights where the boss can’t be phaselocked and there are no adds. In those situations, Wreck, Elated, and Sweet Release don’t work, and Chain Reaction is irrelevant (nothing to phaselock but also no second target to chain react to). Against normal mobs and most bosses, you should be killing things very fast and it takes an awful lot to overwhelm her.