What exactly makes Maya so great with SMG's?

[An Innocuous Chef]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I've heard many people say Maya is great with SMG's, but I've never seen anyone give any specific examples as to why except for a single class mod (Cat). What exactly makes them so great on her?

[Bringoutyerded]

Originally posted by Valt Boi:

What exactly makes Maya so great with SMG's?
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I've heard many people say Maya is great with SMG's, but I've never seen anyone give any specific examples as to why except for a single class mod (Cat). What exactly makes them so great on her?

Not a silly question. I actually think that Maya is great with all weapons, not just especially SMGs.

But for SMGs in particular, she has a few skills that synergize well with that type of weapon, elemental ones especially.

SMG's tend to have higher automatic fire rates than other guns. Fire rate is further buffed by Wreck, itself buffed by the Cat class mod. Throwing out more bullets and doing so faster is something that feeds into her Chain Reaction skill during phase lock, while Flicker boosts elemental effect chance. All together, these three skills, combined with the Cat's huge maximum +138% buff to SMG damage, means that SMGs are the best choice for this kind of build.

Other guns like the Shreddifer, with it's fast fire rate and elemental damage are also buffed in similar ways by Chain Reaction, Flicker, and Wreck, but there the maximum damage buff from a Legendary Siren class mod is only something like +38%, a far cry from +138% for SMGs with the Cat.

Most think of the Sandhawk and B***h as being the best weapons for Maya with a Bee, and certainly both are powerful. But the double-edged sword that is the Bee makes everthing better - at a price.

I rarely use the Sandhawk and B***h with Maya, even less so with the Bee. There are far too many other effective and fun guns out there for her to play with and still dominate. Even at OP8. Maya shouldn't be pigeon-holed, she's much too fun to do so.

She's great with pretty much all weapons, to me.

[RyoKami]

Legendary cat class mod

Sirens like smgs a lot for some reason

Dunno bout the steele or angel but lilith also had class mods for sub machine guns

[snaketeeth01]

the above reasons, but also that she can enhance crit damage. So you can stack crit dmg on top of all the elemental.

[Bringoutyerded]

Originally posted by snaketeeth01:

the above reasons, but also that she can enhance crit damage. So you can stack crit dmg on top of all the elemental.

snaketeeth01: Don't forget that the crit damage boost isn't SMG-specific, but does singularly favour the B***h.


OP: Am currently about to meet the Warrior at level 57 with my new Maya. Primarily a solo Jacobs run (I did play a bit of coop with a friend or two periodically). My main SMG use has been periodically for slagging when a decent slagging pistol hasn't been found, as well as a Lascaux for about 5-6 levels in each of the first and second play throughs. BAR off. No DLC gear. No launcher. Most damage has been from Jacobs pistols, snipers, and shotties (in the absence of the Ravager, I love the Bushwack...both work very well with Maya).

Main legendary I've used during this run has been a [shock] fastball (L53) farmed from Boll. Did use a Kerblaster dropped by Midgemong at level 48, but not for long - it's never been my favourite weapon.

Aside from a brief Boll farm for a fastball, farming has been mainly restricted to the chest at the end of Hero's Pass prior to the Warrior fights for all three play throughs. There I've looked for on-level Jacobs, as well as short fuse singularities (preferrably shock) to help with Jack. Did farm LLMs at Sawtooth for kicks with a friend in TVHM for a short time. Otherwise found gear only, mainly Turtle or Quick shields, no Bee. Only very sporadic use of healing weapons so far. Used the Rubi in TVHM for a bit as I focused my points on damage and phaselock. Now at 57, I still only two points in Sweet Release in the middle tree.Will flesh this tree out from this point forward.

Only a couple of sticky points through all three play throughs, the most recent being UVHM Contol Core Angel - the core's turrets gave me a bit of heartache as I didn't have a decent slag weapon at the time. I did go down a few times when three turrets spawned as well as Ion and gun loaders. Got behind in my mob triage and dps and couldn't take cover fast enough.

I mention all of this because Maya is a pretty versatile toon, even without gear or gear types normally associated with her. I've taken her and Zer0 to the mid-OP levels before without legendaries or key gear, and am trying to push this even further with this run. May be even more challenging to do given my mainly Jacobs constraint here, but so far, so good.

Don't think that you have to play Maya (or Zer0 for that matter) a certain way, or absolutely need very specific gear.

[Edit: typo]

[HiTmAn]

maya with legendary cat and sandhwak makes game so easy that is not even funny

[Palumtra]

Since almost every character specializes/synergizes with certain type of weapons trough their class mod and skilll tree, its no wonder.