I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Although the build looks pretty solid, the equipment part is pretty much the Top Gear for Maya. I expected this to be a build around Kinetic Reflection, using a Mirrored Trickster COM, considering the name of the build and all. Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong. I think that if you could narrow it down a bit, it would be easier to follow your thoughts for the build. It kinda points in every direction right now.

2 Likes

Thanks for catching that, was hitting the 1 AM mark when I did the skills layout so I was nodding off a bit there.

A lot of the experimenting I did was with Life Tap, given that it sits right on the Trickster COM itself with Kinetic Reflection and Chain Reaction, but the build itself already has a ton of reliable healing to it, even without the Grog Nozzle or other Moxxi weapons pretty much to the point that I didn’t see any major difference with a single point moved around even with the COM boost, and any more points would require altering more to the build.

Plus it being a kill skill, you really don’t get much use of it with major boss/raid boss battles, even the ones with subordinate enemy spawns do them so spaced out and infrequently that you don’t have much opportunity to benefit from it any more so than the other heals she has, whereas the heals focused around Phaselock and her own flat regeneration ability/equipment lets her reliably heal even when not outright killing enemies.

It’s basically what you could consider a solid support structure that has flexible appendages. The blue Mirrored Trickster COM boosting Kinetic Reflection by itself is an effective ability, but the idea is to take the foundation of it and link it to the skills that support it and the types of tactic-changing shields/weapons that go with the various approaches (Bee for all offense, Blockade for defense, Antagonist for offensive tanking, etc).

For example, everything with the weapons pretty much falls into Maya having that endurable survivability to rely on either for keeping the Bee up for continuous offense at more controllable ranges (critical damage like the Bitch, Lady Fist and Pimpernel) or being able to brute force her way through everything while tanking some of the damage and using the Bee in shorter, but faster recharging spurts ( high damage with Sandhawk, Moxxi SMGs, Interfacer/Conference Call, Unkempt Harold).

I did a lot of testing with other uniques, legendaries and even a few other Seraphs and Pearls I have, and these are the ones that just seemed to fit the flexibility of the build and still help support that endurance foundation that the Mirrored Trickster boosting Kinetic Reflection gives.

Just playing devils advocate here, but how does it handle in areas where both sustained and burst damage are in close proximity? Say Sawtooth Cauldron where a Blaster Goliath can get you with a rocket, now you’re below healthgate defending against rocket and grenade splash. Is Sweet Release and Elated strong enough to pull you back above healthgate? I imagine with a Binder com equipped it would be however does it manage with a trickster com where you don’t get increased sweet release, elated and cooldown.

I actually did a lot of my test runs in Sawtooth (kind of a walk in the park with the Sham honestly) and part of the flexibility of the build works with how the skills meld with the weapons and other equipment and being smart about using them together. If you’re going up against Blasters, you’ll want them to be your number one targets to Phaselock from the get go to keep the rockets off your back, or taking cover and hitting them with Magic Missile to stay out of firing range and slag them for follow ups, which when holding the Grog will heal you back up right there. And there are the other Moxxi weapons as well of course, which at OP8 damage and their fire rate should have you regaining health without any trouble.

If you have multiple Blasters or other such hardhitting/Badasses to deal with, try and use Converge to group them, slap on the Blockade and introduce them to the Harold or appropriate element shotgun, and Wreck and Chain Reaction should do the rest, all while you’ve got Elated running from the Phaselock which should keep you above board on health with the Blockade on. All else fails, hit them with the Norfleet while Converged and using Evolution to help heal and adapt to whatever damage type is being thrown at you.

Very solid build, just tested it in the Sawtooth Cauldron and it really can tank some serious damage.
Although I agree with @Ronnie_Rayburn about the gear part of your build, it’s pretty much Maya’s most recommended weapons.

Very good work, keep it up :slight_smile: !

:smile: We’ve all been there, mate!

The real benefit of Life Tap is that you can heal yourself in just a few shots, whereas the other skills take some time and/or require phaselock. However… It’s not necessary! You have plenty of healing as it is. Especially if you use Moxxi guns.

A build doesn’t have to be good against bosses in order to be a good build. Your build should work really well for general mobbing. A boss build tends to be more of a glass cannon on most chars, and even when there are minions, the kill skills aren’t that important in most cases.

The build is pretty similar to the one I use. From memory, about the only difference is moving some points from Motion to Harmony to unlock Scorn (by taking Res and putting something in Restoration for co-op play). I generally switch between Leg. Siren/Nurse/Cat/Binder without respeccing, so I was going for something that worked with as much of each COM as possible.

Your (@redorigin ) comments about kinetic reflection synergies are not something I had considered before though, and are pretty interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the blue rarity Trickster COMs drop, but I will be keeping my eyes open from now on for sure, and then doing some experimenting of my own! Thanks!

Oh trust me, I get the pain there. The only thing I had to work with initially was a purple Mirrored Trickster and a blue Bullet Witch mod to do my earliest testing with and ended up doing tons of dashboard farming with the turn in for the Grendel quest in the Pirate’s Booty DLC. Took me about three hours total to get it (and of course it popped up in a chest as soon as I did a run on Salvador for fun later >_>; ) but once I got to run with it, it definitely proved worth getting.

This is the first time I read something like this. Have you done any test / do you have any reliable source?

Also since you don’t have any cooldown bonus from the trickster com or skills, why don’t you recommend a bone of the ancient? Furthermore, the elemental damage boost will stack multiplicatively with reaper etc.

1 Like

I’ve seen comparisons and done tests of my own under different combat scenarios (using them slowly versus throwing them out as fast as possible) and the tests all showed the Magic Missile regenerated a bit faster. Plus it’s got a far more viable usage for combat anyways. Only regen grenade mod I’m not sure of is the Fire Ball/Storm grenade mod since I haven’t gotten ahold of one yet to test out.

And as I listed, the Legendary Siren and Binder mods are options if cooldowns are really a problem for you, but as low as the cooldown for Phaselock already is, it’s not that big an issue. And elemental damage isn’t so much the key to this build as the set up for weapon variety for different scenarios. You’ll pretty much always have an elemental gun to handle any given enemy type and with slag on top of that already another fifth of damage on top of it isn’t that huge a margin.

I’ll run my own testings about those grenades as I find it odd.

I don’t know where you’re getting that number from. Bones can reach +40% elemental damage, which is a straight multiplier to maya’s DPS. Heck, without a class mod boosting it, it’s even better than reaper. And the cooldown bonus is huge.
I mean, how can you say that a 40% DPS multiplier and a 50% cooldown aren’t worth a mention (when they clearly are the best relics) when you recommend a Blood of the seraph with all the healing skills already specced in (and grog nozzle)? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

I think you might have a different approach to build making than the OP does (and that’s fine). I’ve noticed there are two broad approaches to build designing in games:

Min-Maxing: I like to describe this as ‘doubling down on your strengths’, you build towards getting the most out a specific strategy or mechanic even at the cost of accepting any inherent weaknesses that strategy or mechanic has in real gameplay, so that you can maximize the power of that strategy or mechanic.

Flex: Instead of ‘doubling down’, you build to be able to adapt to whatever situation you find yourself. So you’re essentially trying to counter build against the strategies and mechanics that will be used against you.

1 Like

Because this isn’t an elemental focused build, the priority is on flexibility and high damage tanking. In that sense, the emphasis on healing skills is all about keeping the regeneration high rather than giving her a ton of health overall. Between them and the incoming damage healing from Kinetic Reflection on top of the shield regen at full health, you’re able to shrug off more damage for longer with DPS being secondary. Blood of the Seraphs aids in that.

Tossing out Phaselock as often as possible does help, but it’s not essential to the build being maintained, and unless you’re looking solely at offline play viability, anything that takes the time out of the fight for online play to swap relics around to keep adjusting to enemy elemental weaknesses isn’t a priority.

1 Like

Updated, finally got ahold of a Butcher to test with the build and listed accordingly.

Hey I love your build, but i was playing coop with a friend and wasn’t sure whether it res would be worth picking. What do you think?

Personally, I always like to have Res on deck if I’m playing co-op.

For multiplayer I’d take a point from Elated or Sustenance, though one from Suspension might do since it only adds half a second to Phaselock without being boosted by a class mod. I recommend taking it from Sustenance since Elated heals you and your teammates when using Phaselock so it works well with Res in that set-up.

1 Like

Updated with level 80 point allocations, will update gear and weapon lists upon further testing with new Legendaries and Effervescents.

3 Likes

This is a pretty standard Maya build and I’m not sure as others have stated on some of your other posts, why you list out the normal top gear for Maya instead of just linking to the top gear page as most of the gear you list doesn’t have any special synergies with your build, it’s just good gear. In terms of the build itself, I don’t understand Sustenance (a weak healing skill that won’t do much at OP10) over Life Tap (one of the game’s best healing skills and can sometimes heal you through OP10 dots). Other than that, looks like a solid Leg Siren build with all her key skills that lets you switch over to a Trickster COM if you want for bullet heavy areas.

1 Like