Best SMG? Best build for solo UVHM?

Borderlands 2 Maya the Siren
#1

Two topics I was curious about.

First: I just hit lvl 50 and finished TVHM, I was wondering what SMG to grind when playing through UVHM.
Which profits most from Chain Reaction/great at mobbing?
What do you all use to slag/kill?
What’s best for bossing?
Anything that can do it all better than the rest?
I like the Sandhawk and Bitch, Lascaux and some Plasma Casters I’ve came across are decent (mind you I may not be using these to their best potential). I haven’t gotten ahold of a Hellfire/Avenger/Slagga, so I can’t have an opinion on them. I just can’t tell what is best for any specific situation.
Also read that the Tattler isn’t worth getting?

Edit: I have really enjoyed the Maggie on my first two playthroughs, so I don’t think I need any Slagga recommendations unless it’s very strong.

Second topic, I’m VERY interested in Spunky’s Guide to Nursing (Spunky’s Guide to Nursing), but the builds I’m following don’t feel like I’m doing much damage. I’m either playing it wrong or it’s just not meant for soloing. I’m aware he said “minimizing your damage, but you can still kill things”, and I feel like I can’t kill things at all, at least within a decent amount of time. Are there easier builds to carry me through until end game when I can go back to this build once I’m geared for it?

Only having access to Pirate and Torgue DLC, what can you guys recommend me for solo play on UVHM?

Thoughts? Tips?
Thanks!

#2

You can nurse through anything. As far as slag goes, you may need to just move a couple points out of somewhere and spec into Scorn early on for UVHM. TVHM is a cakewalk with nurse and slag isn’t needed there. Mixing some Harmony and Cataclysm might yield the results you’re looking for.

#3

Try this with a L. Cat mod and see how it works:
http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#555201150054051002004550510501
As far as SMG’s goes you can get a Tattler form the Capt Scarlett dlc in UVHM by beating Hyperious, an Avenger as a world drop once you hit level 61 and a Slagga at level 72 is still a pretty good killing gun depending on the character you use- the fact that it also slags is just a great bonus. I’d suggest at least trying the Tattler- I’ve started trying it on my new Maya and the results are pretty good- your mileage may vary depending on your play style of course…
https://bl2skills.com/siren.html#555101150055051004514550510501
Edit as of 4 Aug 2019 (to account for the level cap increase to level 80)

#4

I wish I had the opportunity to nurse. It’s rare to find people around my level to play with (through ‘Match Browser’)
I only had a bit of trouble in TVHM with damage around late game, I know I didn’t need slag I was just lacking good weapons, I just went and did the DLC for a Sand/Pimp and it carried me through the Warrior.
As for current progress I literally have to slag something and wait for my CD so I can LF people with lucky shots, and that’s only for a single enemy… It’s not going too well.
You think if I specc’d Scorn until Wildlife Preserve/LLM farm I could switch back after? I think I’ll be fine after I get my hands on a Butcher/Bekah.
Is Hellfire worth farming before level 72?

#5

If only I owned and L mods for Siren. If I was to farm for one on my Zerker it would be 10-15 levels higher than my Siren. All the L mods and Etech relics that drop on my Lvl 67 Zerk are all lvl 62-65ish, would they be lower leveled if I farmed them on Maya?
As for Hyperius, not even guides help me beat him. And If I can’t beat him with something as brainless as my Zerker, I have no idea how I would do it with Maya.
Getting a Slagga would mean I couldn’t get a Maggie though, unless I reset, but I didn’t really wanna reset before every 5 levels or so.

#6

Legendary mods outside of L Siren don’t appear until level 61. Also the hellfire is always worth farming for.

#7

So would I be able to get it as a drop from tubbies on my 67 Zerk?

#8

Get a slag pimpernel from the Scarlett DLC at level 50 (post story in TVHM), and farm every element if you can, it’s just a great weapon for Maya, but the slag variation will still be useful even once it stops doing damage.

SMG wise I’d recommend a bad/good touch from Moxxi, great high damage SMG that also heals.

#9

How long will a lvl 50 Pimp last through UVHM though? Good Touch would be a nice placeholder if I’m stuck maybe.

#10

The Pimp will probably last 5-8 levels before you really start to notice the damage drop off. The nice thing about it though is because it reliably slags in one shot its one of the best weapons for slag in the game, so even if it isn’t doing the damage at higher levels it’s still very useful to apply slag. I often use a level 50 slag pimp up to 60+ just for slag purposes.

The good touch is nice since you can get them every level if you’re stuck for alternatives. It’s fantastic in its own right though, comparable damage to the hellfire with the added bonus of healing.

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#11

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.

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#12

I recently ran my Maya to the end of UVHM.
Stuff and things I used :

  1. I farmed for a Hellfire (no specific parts) and a Ladyfist (went for good parts on this, since it’s easy to reroll) both on TVHM.
    The Hellfire is not a difficult farm between breakneck banshee and phaselock.
  2. Scorn and slag fuster cluck for slagging, I only started using a slag weapon in Arid nexus since my fuster cluck was too weak by then to reliably slag anymore. I stayed away from weapons for slagging because Maya has no switch speed bonuses, which annoys me greatly.
  3. Used a lower level legendary com the entire way, I dislike slow reloads and this let me get away with just 1 point in that reload speed mag size skill. Cat com should be fine, extra points in wreck is good thing.
  4. I eventually got myself a Hornet towards the end of the main story due to my randomly found gear not being good enough/slightly under level.

I find myself doing terribly without specing into the middle tree. I’m used to running and gunning a bunch, which requires staying alive. Even though i wasnt specced into cataclysm, the lady fist did enough crit dmg to slagged targets and the hellfire took care of all the fleshy ones. The hellfire didnt last too long however, but i was lucky enough to find a very good parts hyperion plasma caster to replace it.
Just match elements and slag everything.

Fire : I recommend the Hellfire over the Goodtouch. You can spam the Hellfire at fleshy animal type enemies and dispatch them quickly, while the Goodtouch requires more consistent crits to be equally effective. The animal type enemy movement is difficult to crit too. A good plasma caster is perfectly good to use too (not bandit). They are pretty similar to the Hellfire, just more ammo cost.

Corrosive : Badtouch, again plasma casters are good. Most armoured targets have easy crit spots though, so Badtouch is solid, also healing.

Shock/Non-ele/General : Eventually a Florentine is something to look forward to, but you can consider the Crit. The Tattler and Bone Shredder are both too inaccurate for my liking but they can come in shock as well as every element, depending on your usage range, this is a spot that can be filled out by various weapons. If you’re spamming shots to rip stalker shields, shotgun smgs are probably pretty good.
I haven’t used the Actualizer, so can’t comment.
The Bitch is solid choice to have in shock, works fine in non-ele too.

Slag : For purely slagging, slagga is the best thing (for smgs) Florentine can fill this spot too, serving dual purposes to empty a slot.

The Bitch can come in any element, and as such a corrosive one is good to fill the corrosive slot. Similarly a fire one can replace the Goodtouch. I don’t really like the Emperor, it fires far to slowly, and requires constant ads shooting, both things I dislike.
However BNKR is a bitch when it comes to his drops, which makes farming the Bitch a bitch.

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#13

The first generation legendary class mods can drop as random world drops as low as level 27- just got a level 27 L. Mechromancer from a red chest just this past week (before that my lowest level legendary class mod was a level 29 L. Psycho, also from a red chest). As for Sal vs. Hyperious, what build and weapons are you using? It’s a favorite of mine with Sal (next to the Ancient Dragons). I can offer advice at least. And as for the Maggie/Slagga choice both can occur as world drops from the normal loot sources so don’t feel that taking one automatically eliminates the other…

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#14

Thank you both for your lengthy replies, very insightful! :smiley:

@Carlton_Slayer Harold/Rubi, I dont have grog nozzle Only have acces to DLC 1/2), norfleets or quasars which is what I see in EVERY youtube guide. It’s a little irritating everyone only has one specific gear requirement/strategy to beat him. I don’t have any good corrosive weapons that might help me with it either.

Edit: I’m sure you wanna know the rest of the gear, my bad: L Berzerker, Sheriffs Badge, purple singularity, purple adaptive shield (I can no longer use FotFH it destroys my eyes)

#15

I’m going to come at this a little sideways and say this: shift your thinking a little. Don’t worry about SMGs, as far as finding specifically those. There are some legitimately strong weapons that are very easy to farm, rather than relying on mission rewards before endgame.

Hornet
Hammer Buster
Lyuda (!!!)
Unkempt Harold

That’s enough firepower to waste pretty much anything. Get a corrosive Bone of the Ancients from the loot midgets ASAP, and you can farm the loot train for a Legendary Siren and random legendaries and etech (good source for Plasma Casters). The Bee is very easy and quick to farm from the treants in the Forest, and you can get good defensive shields from the loot train or by sorting out how to kill Pyro Pete and getting an Antagonist or Big Boom Blaster.

You won’t need to go hard for the truly top end stuff until you’re trying to overcome the toughest challenges.

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#16

Just to clarify for everyone, I was asking for SMGs because I mainly wanted a good mobbing weapon, so I’m not stuck waiting to kill 1 at a time at the cooldown of my Phaselock.

#17

Not sure of your build but try this (unless you have this specced already):
http://bl2skills.com/gunzerker.html#505020521515005510515155003000000
If you want to do some tubby farming try to get a L. Gunzerker and or L. Hoarder to run with this. Also, Tesla and other A.O.E. grenades might work here- a Storm Front from the Splinter Group side quest rats is something worth farming. A slag Bouncing Betty will help keep Hyperious slagged if your Rubi ins’t a slag version (or try a slag O-Negative from Pyro Pete). Your singularity grenade should be enough to draw the loaders together (although if you find a corrosive one with 0.0 fuse time- KEEP IT! :grinning:) but remember you don’t want to necessarily kill them (yet)- you just want to drop the shield they put around Hyperious. When they do, aim for his head and pour it on, circle strafe to minimize damage taken and hopefully get a few Money Shot chains on him.

#18

I’m currently using this build http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#150501354041050000002345510501 and have been having a lot of fun with it. I’m currently using a Slayer of Terra COM and plan on this http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#155501355051050000002345510501 to be my final build.
As far as SMG’s, I’ve been enjoying eridian ones.

#19

The two most powerful guns a Siren can have are Pimpernel and Sandhawk. No contest! Sandhawk suffers a bit when it comes to flying enemies, because of it’s slow projectiles, but phaselock takes care of that. There are other really great guns, which the rest of the guys have already pointed out. The only question is what YOU prefer? I usually go for Maliwan Plasma casters as my main gun. It’s hard to not use the Pimp, so I usually end up there.

For close encounters… A Juicy Ravager! It doesn’t just annoy the enemies. It tears them apart! The fourth slot depends on what I’m fighting. A PBFG is always fun to use, and if I’m fighting crystalisks, I carry a DPUH. I rely solely on Scorn and Ruin for slagging, and skills for healing.

Even if you like nursing, you don’t really need that many points in the healing skills to be an effective nurse. Think back to when you were a small child… When the bigger kids beat you up, you could always run to your mom for some medical care, but… Wouldn’t it have been better if your mom could fix you up, while she ,at the same time, kicked the living crap out of those bullies? That’s the kind of Siren I prefer! :sunglasses:

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#20

@Ronnie_Rayburn may consider me a traitor for saying this but for the toughest enemies, the best combo I’ve used is a Leg Binder (to max Suspension) and a Tattler. Phaselock, rush the target and that massive mag size will last the entire Phaselock. Even for mobbing, Chain Reaction will send bullets everywhere. Granted, it’s not easy to acquire…

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