Maya's Skill Tree

[?]

I'm still relatively new to Blands 2, though I played a lot of Blands 1. But here are my first impressions of her abilities.

+++ Harmony (Healing) / Middle Tree +++

Mind's Eye (Crits + Melee Damage) - Very good ability. No more, no less.

Sweet Release (killing phaselocked enemies heals team) - It's situational, but useful. Plenty of times you won't need the health or it will be hard to kill a phaselocked enemy due to its short span. Use in teams.

Restoration (healing bullets) - Avoid this one. Even fully upgraded, it doesn't heal much. It wastes ammo and time you should be using to defeat more enemies.

Wreck (increased gun abilities when enemy is phase locked) - Yes, it only works for a short duration but it sure helps. And it's better than it's adjacent ability, Restoration.

Res (revive team mate with phase lock) - In co-op games, no question. Use this.

Elated (health regen while enemy is phase locked) - A safer version of Sweet Release. What else is there to say. More reliable overall, but SR is better in danger. Good for teams.

Recompense (your enemies take half the damage you do) - Haven't used this, but it doesn't sound good. In the end, most enemies don't deal that much damage in the first place.

+++ Motion (Technique) / Left Tree +++

Ward (Shield Boost) vs Accelerate (Gun Boost)
Both provide modest but useful buffs. Might go with ward since it's stats are greater.

Suspension (increases length of phase lock)
It does double the length, but even with that it's still short but this is not necessary unless you tie other skills to phaselock like Elated.

Deflection (reflects bullets back at the enemy, you take reduced damage)
Sounds interesting but not sure if practical.

Converge (attracts nearby enemies to your phase lock)
For only 1 point, sure why not?

Fleet (move fast when shields are low) vs. Inertia (shields increase upon kill)
Fleet doesn't do much to improve your situation. Inertia on the other hand is practical.

+++ Cataclysm (Offense) / Right Tree +++

Flicker (elemental boost to guns) vs Foresight (bigger magazine, short reloads)
Magazine and reloading are important, but the stats are negligible. Flicker on the other hand is essential to an offensive build.

Immolte (fire damage when downed) vs. Helios (phase lock shoots fire)
Helios isn't nearly as good as I imagined it to be. There aren't often enemies in its range, and the damage it does is not very significant either. Immolate on the other hand is really practical. Anything to help you survive is because you can't always depend on team mates.

Backdraft (melee attacks become fiery) vs Chain Reaction (richocheting bullets on phaselock
Backdraft is interesting, but melee is rarely used in the game. Chain Reaction could open up new strategy possibilities.

Cloud Kill (creates a corrosive cloud upon attack)
1 point why not?

And the next three abilities are awesome too.

[RiO]

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Flicker (elemental boost to guns) vs Foresight (bigger magazine, short reloads)
Magazine and reloading are important, but the stats are negligible. Flicker on the other hand is essential to an offensive build.

Flicker is worthless. The +30% elemental effect chance it does at 5/5 invested points sounds lovely, but it's quite deceptive. Crunch the numbers and you realize that it increases the element effect chance by 30% of that existing chance percentage. For example: a 10% chance at procing (triggering the elemental effect) becomes a 13% chance, not a 40% chance.
Flicker is only good with weapons that carry a high chance to proc innately, which means Maliwan SMGs. However, SMGs fire bullets in such a rapid succession that their base chance to proc is in practice more than sufficient already.

In contrast the +25% reload speed from Foresight is quite a substantial boon, as is its 20% increased magazine size. One keeps you firing longer and the other gets you back to firing faster. Those additional seconds do add up when paired with Wreck and they help to maximize the DPS you can deliver during an active phase lock.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Helios isn't nearly as good as I imagined it to be. There aren't often enemies in its range, and the damage it does is not very significant either.

Helios does a substantial chunk of damage in the first playthrough and is still so-so on True Vault Hunter mode. Its damage only becomes completely negligible on Ultimate Vault Hunter mode. However, you don't get it for the raw damage; you get it for the added fire DoT.

Also; Helios and Ruin together synergize wonderfully with Converge, ensuring you'll always be blanketing the entire enemy force with the full gamut of elemental DoTs and double or triple their effect thanks to the slag damage multiplier included with Ruin.

[?]

i did not realize that about flicker. thanks for letting me know. foresight it is!

on helios + converge, theyre on two different trees so it may not pan out very well.

also, i'm willing to argue no matter what tree you use, upgrade minds eye

[Oznogrd]

Honestly on my 61 siren, I run alot of Harmony hybrids solo and raid bosses/groups i run a cata/motion with a couple points in harmony just for the rezes and crits. When I"m in a group, if somethings phaselocked, its going down in less than 5 seconds. My only issues come in is the phaselock "force damage" is really negligible once you get to ultimate.

[A Slipstream Sloth]

Sub-sequence, in combination with Suspension and the duration increase of Thoughtlock, makes a lot of abilities tied to Phaselock even better. Sweet Release for example goes off EVERY kill in one phaselock(it's a bit of overkill for healing solo, but it's great in co-op), Helios, Converge, and Ruin are 're-applied' every single phaselock that Sub-sequence sets off, and Chain Reaction/Wreck/Elated get a loooot more time to use.

My only problem is I wish it didn't use up part of the duration during it's travel time between targets, and/or the 'buffs' like Wreck/Chain Reaction/Elated were up for the whole duration, not just when someone was thoughtlocked. I say or because one would probably 'fix' the woes of the other...

Still, extremely useful, in tight-packed groups(which commonly occur because of Convergence), you don't have too much downtime on the Phaselock. I was with a friend one time when we were fighting spiders in the new DLC and I thoughtlocked one, the whole group' fell in' on him, and we focus fired each spider that got phaselocked, for a total of 6 phaselocks in one duration, XD. It was freaking crazy, especially since I was running a +6 sweet release class mod(was just goofing around), there were 66 orbs total(lol, talk about 'redundant' for 2 people).

[A Slipstream Sloth]

Originally posted by Oznogrd:

Honestly on my 61 siren, I run alot of Harmony hybrids solo and raid bosses/groups i run a cata/motion with a couple points in harmony just for the rezes and crits. When I"m in a group, if somethings phaselocked, its going down in less than 5 seconds. My only issues come in is the phaselock "force damage" is really negligible once you get to ultimate.

Yeah, I'm glad that Ruin still applies if the enemy is 'immune', but I wish the force damage was at least 4 times the amount in UVHM. It doesn't even feel worth doing outside of Ruin, since I'd do more damage in the 'cast time' of doing it by actually shooting the target instead...

[WaxxFetish]

Having a considerable amount of Siren hours on the record my views are rather skewed towards UVHM gameplay. The same rules apply to other playthroughs though, the impact of particular skill selection is just a bit less extreme.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Mind's Eye (Crits + Melee Damage) - Very good ability. No more, no less.

Common Maya builds rely on a high fire rate and ruin/converge/chain reaction synnergy to achieve decent damage output. Maya won't reach high damage levels with precise, surgical fire. Critical hits are of little relevance for the final outcome.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Sweet Release (killing phaselocked enemies heals team) - It's situational, but useful. Plenty of times you won't need the health or it will be hard to kill a phaselocked enemy due to its short span. Use in teams.

Generally true, but it's still the most reliable way to heal yourself without resorting to healing weapons.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Restoration (healing bullets) - Avoid this one. Even fully upgraded, it doesn't heal much. It wastes ammo and time you should be using to defeat more enemies.

The healing is proportional to the damage you'd deal, sometimes it's the only way to let someone res you without the procedure turning out fatal for everyone.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Wreck (increased gun abilities when enemy is phase locked) - Yes, it only works for a short duration but it sure helps. And it's better than it's adjacent ability, Restoration.

Wreck is great. It needs the Suspension and Chain Reaction to shine, but it's worth it.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Elated (health regen while enemy is phase locked) - A safer version of Sweet Release. What else is there to say. More reliable overall, but SR is better in danger. Good for teams.

Not really, too slow to be even slightly useful.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Recompense (your enemies take half the damage you do) - Haven't used this, but it doesn't sound good. In the end, most enemies don't deal that much damage in the first place.

Hands down the worst among her skills.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Suspension (increases length of phase lock)
It does double the length, but even with that it's still short but this is not necessary unless you tie other skills to phaselock like Elated.

It's generally a must have, unless the enemies are non phaselockable (hyperius fight etc). Points spent on wreck, chain reaction, subsequence etc are wasted without a capped suspension.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Deflection (reflects bullets back at the enemy, you take reduced damage)
Sounds interesting but not sure if practical.

It requires a build to be resolving around it, it's good besides being situational (bullets only).

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Fleet (move fast when shields are low) vs. Inertia (shields increase upon kill)
Fleet doesn't do much to improve your situation. Inertia on the other hand is practical.

Unless using a shield that's down all the time (love thumper/rough rider), fleet's usefullness is limited. However with a proper shield and a proper banshee mod it's nothing but awesome.
It's not the shield recharge but the reload speed that makes Inertia a choice to consider.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Flicker (elemental boost to guns) vs Foresight (bigger magazine, short reloads)
Magazine and reloading are important, but the stats are negligible. Flicker on the other hand is essential to an offensive build.

Flicker is a poor skill, however it's still better then most of the other cata skills (assuming you want to reach ruin).

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

Cloud Kill (creates a corrosive cloud upon attack)
1 point why not?

Because it's better ditched anywhere else, unless it's recompense which is her worst skill.

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

And the next three abilities are awesome too.

Blight Phoenix is mediocre unless it's a melee build (even then it's a bit underwhelming).

[?]

thanks waxx.

what would your skill tree look like if u could only fill 1 and a half trees (or be a generalist with half of all 3 trees)

[WaxxFetish]

Originally posted by minervx (Liliana of the Veil):

thanks waxx.

what would your skill tree look like if u could only fill 1 and a half trees (or be a generalist with half of all 3 trees)

Which of the Siren class mods are at your disposal ? (or which ones do you want to use)

[?]

i think i have the nurse. i take what i can get with limited drops and small inventory.

[WaxxFetish]

Be on the lookout for (mod/preferred variant):
-Binders (Chrono)
-Cats (Scheming)
-Tricksters (Blurred)
-Banshees (all)
-Legendary Siren

Ruin+Converge synnergy is too good to miss imo, thus you may go with the following cataclysm setup:

Flicker, Foresight, Immolate, Chain Reaction, Reaper: 5/5 Ruin: 1/1 (26 total)

Once you have Ruin, you're pushing for Converge, for example:

Ward or Accellerate, Suspension: 5/5, Converge: 1/1 (11 total)

This is a solid base, you may experiment upon it with the additional points you'll receive as you level up.

Unless going for a specialised build (melee banshee, Nuuance's slowhand/transformer combo etc) you should probably stick with the cataclysm tree setup above.

[A Slipstream Sloth]

On the subject of Recompense, one of the reasons it doesn't do well is a reason why Life tap DOES so well...the damage ratios between players and enemies. Players are dealing almost 10 times what they're 'taking in' from enemies(even without 'legendaries'). The reason I say this is if we ever get a major 'balance/update' that fixes skills like Recompense, it seems they're aware of it. The new shield from the Tiny Tina DLC, the Antagonist, has bullet reflect(similar concept), but instead of saying that it simply reflects the bullets, it reflects them for 7 times damage. That's the kind of update Recompense needs to be useful. It's already got some sweet synergy lined up with Lifetap if they ever do update it(that is that lifetap would 'auto-heal' the damage Recompense reflects, making it effectively 'damage reduction').

If I could have any skill reworked in her tree, it would be that. It could be so useful if it actually did 3-4 times it's damage, let alone 8-10, XD.