Counting OP leveling and farming on top of everything else, I’ve used Maya more than pretty much all the other Vault Hunters in Borderlands 2, and done tons of experimenting with builds. For UVHM, damage dealing and survivability are the name of the game and this build structure has proven to hold up to the challenge.
Mirror Synergy deals with a three-fold approach: Tanking survivability, brute force damage and critical control. The entire set up relies on the synergy of certain skills, weapons and gear combined to tailor towards each approach to the given situation, and allows a significant amount of flexibility while still having a rooted core structure to the build. In some ways this could be considered a “Hyperion/Maliwan” build given the associated gear and weapons with it, but it’s a bit more complex than that.
The Skills
Motion -
This branch you’ll want fully flushed out for all the skills since they make up the backbone of Maya’s survivability and damage dealing at the same time.
Kinetic Reflection: The Mirror in Mirror Synergy, and what allows for Maya to flow easily between survivability and damage dealing. On it’s own its a fair effective kill skill at 5/5, but with a blue Mirrored Trickster mod pushing it to 11/5, the skill becomes something to my figuring on par with Maya’s other mid-tier game changer skills: Converge, Cloud Kill and Res. At 10/5 the skill is reinforced to make Maya invulnerable to incoming bullet fire for the skill’s duration, but 11/5 pushes it from protective to restorative, absorbing 10% of the incoming damage as shield/health and negating the rest while reflected bullets deal over triple their original damage to enemies, of course being able to proc Chain Reaction during Phaselock, utilize Reaper bonus and activate Cloud Kill and all her other associated damage oriented skills. What makes this the backbone of the build however is how it synergizes with other skills to maintain itself and support Maya’s other damage dealing and survival abilities.
Inertia: A one-off skill that can’t be boosted past 5/5, but one of those delightfully useful skills all around that in this build is key. Inertia restores up to 4% shield charge upon a kill and grants a 50% increase to reload speed. On it’s own, a very nice well rounded skill, but synergizing with Kinetic Reflection as another kill skill, it restores her shields and keeps her reloading quickly, all while Kinetic Reflection is further restoring shields and health and making her invulnerable to all other gun fire for the duration.
Ward: A 25% boost to shield capacity and deducts 40% of recharge delay time at 5/5, this skill just makes any shield Maya uses that much better, and it makes the downtime between the 4% recharge boost from Inertia and the shield’s normal recharge all that much quicker at at a bigger capacity. More shield is always better.
Suspension: At 5/5, a 2.5 second increase to duration to Phaselock. It seems pithy, honestly, but those two and a half seconds can do a whole lot for Maya in terms of damage, setting up enemies and triggering all her other skills for longer and more effectively. The increased duration makes other skills key to the build all the more valuable in turn.
Converge: A more powerful version of a Singularity grenade’s effect, it makes a Phaselocked target a localized gravity well and tugs enemies towards them, though it can overshoot them depending on their position. This is a fantastic skill to control mobs with and change up the layout of the battlefield, especially if you need some breathing room or to pull mobs in together and hit them with the big guns. This control is also key to some of her other skills and increasing their effectiveness.
Harmony-
These skills boost Maya’s survival through health regeneration and modifying the effects of her Phaselock to make it a more well rounded tool for both support and offense.
Mind’s Eye: Mind’s Eye is an average skill for the most part, but depending on the situation, it’s boost to critical damage can be incredibly helpful when the situation calls for a more offensive, critical damage focused approach. Boosts critical damage by 25% and melee damage by 30% at 5/5 for the base of the overall build.
Sweet Release: The first of Maya’s two Phaselock focused heals, the skill releases health transfusion trails towards Maya and her allies when killing a Phaselocked enemy, up to 15% health restoration per orb with 5 orbs at 5/5.
Wreck: The offensive support effect to Maya’s Phaselock boosts her fire rate by 50% and gun damage by 30% for the Phaselock’s duration at 5/5, synergizing with Suspension so the longer it’s active, the longer Maya deals out more bullets and those bullets hit harder, and with Converge to unleash a lead storm on a whole crowd of clustered enemies. It’s nearly central to Maya’s DPS capability and can be utilized with a boosted Suspension to keep a longer, steady boost to DPS, or boosted itself to double at 10/5 the increase to fire rate and gun damage for larger, albeit shorter bursts of higher damage, or going whole hog for longer periods altogether using the Legendary Nurse, Cat, and Binder class mods respectively.
Elated: The main heal support for Phaselock, this heals Maya AND her allies by up to 5% health per second for the duration of Phaselock at 5/5. This skill is excellent both for long term healing against mobs, but also activates for a brief burst of healing even when used on large enemies/bosses that can be damaged by Phaselock, but not suspended by it. This synergizes with Wreck and Converge alike to keep Maya healthy while dealing out fast, hard hitting damage to grouped enemies.
Recompense: Upon taking health damage, Maya has a chance to deal an equal amount of damage back to the attacker in question, a 10% chance at 1/5 for this build. Has limited returns against higher level enemies, especially in OP levels.
Sustenance: Maya’s central health restoration that activates whenever Maya has missing health in any way, making for a constantly reliable source of recovery even when Phaselock is in cooldown, though not as powerful at only 2% per second at 5/5. Combined with the healing effects from Phaselock though, it keeps Maya always in a state of health recovery even in dire combat conditions.
Scorn: Maya has no melee focus for this build, so having Scorn override her melee attack comes with no drawbacks, adding a free, decent damaging Slag source that can be timed to be on alternating cooldown with Ruin on Phaselock.
Cataclysm -
The offensive side to Maya’s build and the key to making Phaselock more offensively effective while also greatly enhancing Maya’s elemental damage capabilities and dealing greater mob damage.
Flicker: A boost to Maya’s elemental activation chance, nothing outstanding, but more is always good. Specs to 5/5 on this build, at 30% additional activation chance to top off other increases from Badass Rank.
Foresight: An increase to Maya’s magazine size at 20% and to reload speed at 25% at 5/5, making guns fire for longer before reloads and making those reloads even quicker, especially with Inertia adding another 50% to reload speed on kills for a max 75% reload speed increase to all guns.
Helios: A sometimes overlooked or underestimated skill, it adds a fire elemental explosion effect to Phaselock dealing solid damage and having a chance to ignite enemies at 5/5, giving Maya a constantly renewable source of reliable fire damage and boosting the damage dealing effect for Phaselock overall.
Chain Reaction: A 40% chance at 5/5 for all bullets fired to ricochet when Phaselock is active, turning any gun from a single target to a multi-target weapon. This is the second backbone to the build, being boosted to 10/5 with the blue Mirrored Trickster class mod pushing it to 80% activation chance. Ricocheted bullets are actually procced as entire new bullets, meaning they get full Reaper damage, elemental splash damage, and boosted from Wreck and other skills as well as the ability to activate Cloud Kill.
Cloud Kill: Maya’s most significant source of corrosive damage, it makes shots fired act similar to a corrosive cloud grenade that constantly damages enemies in its vicinity for it’s duration and has a high corrosion DoT chance. The damage it deals is significantly high since patched from it’s initial damage range, and is even effective on enemies usually not as vulnerable to corrosive damage. It makes practically any gun Maya uses a corrosive element gun, making actual ones more effective or adding the effect to other elemental type weapons, up to three in the case of the Florentine or Chulainn.
Reaper: An increase of up to 40% gun damage to enemies with 50% of their health or more, this skill makes heavy hitting guns hit even harder and chews even through Badass enemies pretty easily with things like shotguns or elemental guns of the right affinity. It also applies to certain unlisted projectiles for some weapons, and synergizes with Chain Reaction and Kinetic Reflection in being able to proc on the additional or reflected bullets to keep the damage boost sustained.
Ruin: The top-off to Phaselock’s damage capability and Maya’s reliable means of elemental damage, it adds a slag, shock and corrosion effect to Phaselock that executes in said order but after the detonation of Helios, so only the fire DoT damage benefits from the slag effect. The slag effect is very high, almost guaranteed and having it be constantly rechargeable and useable is a solid advantage for Maya in any circumstance.
The Weapons:
Maya’s skills aren’t really niche focused when it comes to weapons, so she pretty much deals good damage with just about anything she picks up. However, her Cat class mods give her boosts to SMG damage, and the equal activation chance of Chain Reaction to all pellets fired by shotguns make them excellent weapon choices for her to deal with anything from smaller single enemies to mobs and bosses. Her quick reloads, fire rates and boosts to damage and elemental effects also make handguns, which are usually already high in all but damage and have some of the highest elemental chance percentages in the game, very good options in her hands, and much the same goes towards boosting the effectiveness of sniper rifles, given that she can set up any enemy within visual range and making them a sitting duck. The following are the optimal choices for the build overall, with a few optional variants:
SMGs:
Maya’s Cat class mods, especially the Legendary Cat mod, all give significant boosts to SMG damage at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy, as well as boosting some of her more effective damage dealing/enhancing skills. With her skill build and the gear set up based around it, Maya could viably go through a good chunk of the game just with SMGs.
The Bitch: All elements but slag, primarily fire and corrosive but shock is still excellent as well if you can get it. Aim for the Rightsizing prefix for maximum damage per bullet. The high innate accuracy added to the Hyperion accuracy over time effect and increased critical damage boost make this one of the best SMGs in the game, and in my opinion the best consistent DPS and critical damage for a short to mid range weapon, even into the long range when using Phaselock.
The Sandhawk: All elements but slag, again shock is a good neutral choice but not required. Flying prefix for bullet speed to offset the slower innate speed of the bird burst formation. Dahl instead of Maliwan or Hyperion, this SMG is widely regarded as the best due to the bullet output per bullet cost, at around 8 per burst to 3 ammo consumed and that all the bullets receive full amp damage bonus. Personally I feel the Bitch works better for more focused damage, and the fire rate just about equals the burst output in a smaller space so it far excels at critical damage. But when it comes to a brute force SMG, the Sandhawk is the way to go and it does excellently with Chain Reaction and the burst damage jumps greatly thanks to Wreck.
The Florentine: First Seraph and first Maliwan weapon on the overall list, locked to the dual shock/slag element. Barring a preference/possession of a shock element Bitch or Sandhawk, this will be one of your go-to shield stripper and neutral element damage dealers as well as a significantly effective source for slagging enemies. It’s not the highest slag chance for an SMG, but with Flicker and its already high fire rate paired with Wreck, it’ll hose anything enough to slag them.
The Moxxi SMGs: Everyone knows these by now, typically the easiest and most straightforward healing weapons to acquire and usually the ones new players to the game tend to scoop up pretty early on. At late game for most they tend to see fall in use due to preferring the Rubi and the Grog Nozzle for healing, but with this build they still have a clear, effective use. The go-to prefix for these will all be Consummate, to make up the damage, though Lucid might be a good alternative for some players. The Good Touch does have a bit better heal to it than the Bad Touch, though they are both outdone by the Crit, which is where your other source of shock damage will come in. The random drop chance on it isn’t quite as unmanageable as some might imagine, and if you’re careful where you use it, it’s rather easy to retrieve quickly. It’s heal and crit damage are far superior to the other two and it’s stats easily are on par with the Florentine and even the Bitch.
The Avenger: Slag element, Hefty prefix if possible. This one isn’t a requirement, per se, but it’s definitely a major advantage for the build if you can get it, though of course as a Pearlescent it’ll take some time and effort. The stats are more than good, and despite a lower slag chance, it still slags excellently, especially since being a Tediore weapon it has a thrown reload, but instead of exploding outright it bounces around like a bouncing betty grenade and fires out at enemies before it blows. This is the key to using the build with primarily SMGs, given it’s ammo regeneration, and when paired with a suitable stock relic, it can make sure you’re never short on ammo or the ability to slag enemies.
Shotguns:
The best brute force weapons in the game rivaling rocket launchers, they are ironically the one weapon type that doesn’t receive a damage reduction for having an element accessory attached, and thus would make Maliwan shotguns some of the best in the game if they still made them. The pellets obviously are excellent for sheer damage alone, but all also receive full effect chance for Chain Reaction per pellet, so the more you put out during Phaselock, the bigger the storm of damage you’re dealing, with Wreck and Suspension obviously aiding in that.
The Interfacer: All elements except slag, with the Practicable prefix for extra pellet count. Again, another one everyone knows, high damage, extra non-listed pellets, a huge critical bonus and unique spread along with full movement speed when aiming down sights. Typically people only associate this one with Salvador, but with Maya it’s actually an excellent weapon on this build. Grouping enemies together with Converge makes blasting mobs a breeze, and setting up an enemy alone puts them in all but perfect distance to hit all the pellets into a critical spot with Phaselock. And of course, non-listed pellets, more pellets for Chain Reaction. The spread may take some getting used to, but its not impossible in the least, and I tend to prefer it over the Conference Call though that may just be my own play-style in effect.
The Conference Call: Speaking of, this is a good alternative indeed, or simply using one for a given element rather than an Interfacer of the same element, in all but slag and again with the Practicable prefix. Instead of converging back on a single point like the Interfacer, the Conference Call moves outward on both sides, making the overall shape of the spread a massive “T” shape. Excellent for mobs, or since the extra pellets manifest upon the max output point of the main blast, for massive enemies with multiple or large critical points. Overall similar with synergy with Maya’s skills, but more towards mobs than Phaselocked solo enemies.
The Twister: A Jakobs, since you can’t do shotguns without them even in this build, it is the strongest shotgun in terms of individual pellet damage, though it doesn’t meet the maximum possible pellet count in the game, even with the Rustler’s prefix which is the one you want. Only shock element, with a pseudo-B0re effect like the skill Zer0 has so it penetrates through enemies for a short distance after impact. This works wonders with Chain Reaction and the extra bullets procced from the tornado shaped spread makes the spread itself much wider, making it viable for larger enemies and mobbing. It’s only downside is it’s much shorter usable range, due to the nature of the tornado shaped spread and the fact that it’s a rather slow moving one at that, so it’s easy to miss enemies if you aren’t right on top of them or have them Phaselocked. Not a required weapon per se, but very much an advantage when properly utilized.
The Butcher: The last of the special Hyperion shotguns on the list, where the others reign supreme for crowd control and high unlisted projectile counts, the Butcher ranks for insane fire rate to balance out the overall DPS capability at the exchange of lowered pellet damage and drastically lowered pellet count, a pithy 3 pellets for most versions and 5 for the Practicable version. What stems the tide of course is the indirect ammo regeneration via the random magazine refilling, making the Butcher capable of huge onslaughts before ever needing to be reloaded, though entirely up to chance on just how long or short the magazine will last. The other aspect is the notable accuracy jump, similar to the Bitch and the Lady Fist in how it steadies even faster than other Hyperion shotguns, overall making it a shotgun equivalent of an assault rifle. For Maya, this is one of her highest damaging straight-forward firing shotguns, and when coupled with Reaper and Wreck can pour an insane amount of damage out in a very short period of time, and her boosts to magazine size and reload speed help boost the Butcher’s abilities further.
There is a notable issue of player decision involved with this one, as aside from the time/effort to farm it as a Pearlescent, it also stands as one of the few shotguns not necessarily requiring the additional pellets per se. While Maya only has Mind’s Eye as any outstanding boost to critical damage, the critical accessory Butcher benefits from an even tighter pellet spread atop the 50% critical damage boost, and with a Jakobs grip to mitigate the lack of direct gun damage, makes for a weapon capable of high accuracy punishment to even small sized critical spots. Thus it comes down to player preference towards critical accuracy versus higher damage per shot.
Pistols:
The bread and butter for all the Vault Hunters, but for Maya the quick reloads, good fire rate and large elemental effect chances make them reliably good weapons with her skills. The two bullets per trigger pull effect prefix will mainly be dominant here, and for good reason.
The Lady Fist: All elements except slag, though slag isn’t a bad choice either. The pistol sibling to the Bitch, and a fair bit more powerful by all accounts thanks to the massive 800% critical damage boost paired with Hyperion accuracy increase effect. Also like the Bitch, it’s far more accurate than even other Hyperion pistols and mitigates the already slim accuracy and recoil reduction brought on by the Redundant prefix to fire two bullets per trigger pull. The name of the game for this weapon is critical damage, and this is one where a boost to Mind’s Eye would add more to it, but Wreck improving fire rate and base damage, already doubled thanks to the Redundant prefix alone, makes it. This weapon with Reaper utterly shreds enemies and chews through the health bar of bosses, though it’s optimal range is shorter than the Bitch and fire rate relies much more on Wreck, but with how massive the critical damage is, most enemies shouldn’t need more than a trigger pull or two to put down if you aim properly.
The Unkempt Harold: We all knew this was coming, and we all knew it’d be Double Penetrating. The extra projectiles, the splash damage, the spread. This is Maya’s brute force gun as much as her shotguns, and these projectiles just love Chain Reaction and the fire rate increase thanks to Wreck. The gun eats a whopping 6 ammo per shot, so Foresight does a good bit to help keep the shots coming.
The Grog Nozzle: The best Moxxi weapon and the best utility weapon in the game, no contest. There is no suitable prefix for this one given that most people will get it as a mission weapon in the Tiny Tina Dragon Keep DLC and it will be randomized each time, or players from the Loot Hunt will have the full valid Evisceration model, adding a 50% melee increase to it. Slag of course, and one of the best ways to do it, with a high slag chance already and more with Flicker, the gun shines with a whopping 65% heal from all damage sources, melee, guns, grenades, action skills, etc. But it also sports a 200% multiplicative critical bonus and the random chance to become “drunk”, making the gun fire multiple additional projectiles for no extra ammo cost with a big reduction in accuracy, an affect that can be transferred to other weapons by quickly swapping once the drunk effect activates. This will be not only be a big means of slagging, but your biggest means of healing and boosting the effectiveness of other multi-projectile and critical weapons.
Sniper Rifles:
Short but sweet list, Maya’s the best sniper next to Zer0 due to her innate effectivness with all weapon types evenly and her fire rate, reload speed, magazine boost, and ability to set up targets with Phaselock means she can make the most of a sniper’s damage and accuracy.
The Pimpernel: The best sniper rifle in the game with all DLC, though with a huge learning curve. Maliwan with a Dalh barrel, it fires one projectile that hits, shoots up to hit a second time, then blossoms out to hit an additional five times, with all the extra non-listed projectiles having full damage as well as splash damage, adding up to one of the strongest weapons in the game, period. You’ll want this in all elements including slag, though the shock element one might be a bit of a redundant choice given how overly effective the tailored fire and corrosive element ones are. This one is a bit of player preference for prefix, as the Barking for damage does have a pretty decent boost, while the Gentleman’s prefix adds an additional 120% critical bonus, on top of the huge critical bonus already inherent to snipers, Maliwan snipers in particular. This with it’s high elemental chance without even adding Flicker yet makes the slag version not only a guaranteed one shot slagging gun, but one of the few slag elemental weapons in the game that has damage output significantly high enough that even with the reduction to slag damage to already slagged targets, even on UVHM AND in OP8, it is still capable of outright killing enemies in two, sometimes even just one shot, and thus in some cases making the other elemental versions not even necessary. All those projectiles love Chain Reaction and Wreck, and Phaselock makes scoping out the altered critical spots much easier. Said crit spots tend to be a good bit below the original crit spots themselves due to the shot rising up on impact before blooming outwards, so it can take some time and practice to adjust.
The Lyudmilia: The most powerful straightforward shooting sniper in the game, most powerful in the base game and second only to the Pimpernel. All elements, slag optional next to a slag Pimpernel. Preferred prefix is Gromky for increased base damage, though Dobby for stability isn’t a bad alternative. A Vladof sniper, it has the best fire rate of any sniper rifle and when scooped has good, controllable accuracy at full fire rate. The real potency of it comes from the 120% critical bonus and the shots splitting into three projectiles after a short time, effectively making it a 3 bullet per 1 ammo sniper rifle and the unlisted projectiles giving it triple the listed damage. Add in the fire rate, critical bonus and accuracy, and this rifle will decimate normal enemies and chew through boss health bars like a machine. With Wreck it’s almost obscene how fast and how much damage it can put out. Given the fire rate, decent magazine size and damage, this sniper rifle works very well as competent replacement/stand-in for an Assault Rifle, though only in smaller bursts when hip fired, as the accuracy effect only works when using the scope.
The Trespasser: Non-elemental Jakobs sniping goodness, not at its absolute strongest but still stronger than most other sniper rifles, and with the Tum-Tum prefix the critcal bonus more than makes up the lack of element affinity, obscenely so with the Skookum prefix boosting base damage, so it’s player preference there. The ability to ignore shields only applies typically to two significant raid bosses, but dealing with badasses or other distant enemies/snipers it chews through them with ease. Not as effective with synergy for Maya’s skills, but easily obtained and works excellently for high damage headshots and other one-hit kills.
Rocket Launchers:
The biggest of big guns, these will destroy lesser enemies in mobs and take out even Badasses with ease, chipping away huge chunks of boss health at the cost of low ammo capacity overall and smaller magazines, something Foresight can help with along with fire rate and damage thanks to Wreck.
The Norfleet: If you’re playing any build or any character without a Norfleet, you’re doing it wrong. The Puissant prefix is king here to make this strongest rocket launcher even stronger, and making it all the more viable as your one-hit, get-out-of-Second-Wind wonder. All elements (the other weapon in the game that even as slag element can kill anything by itself) though shock is typically the best overall unless you know you’re facing all flesh/all armor enemies. Enemies rarely survive the blast by itself, and even more rarely with Reaper and never at all with Wreck.
The Baddaboom: A Bandit classic, this is the strongest viable explosive rocket launcher there is, the multiple projectiles adding up to a higher damage count on a single target than even the Nukem or Tunguska can manage, second only to the Ahab for actual highest damage, but far, far better actual combat usage. Available in all elements, but for this spec only explosive need apply, preferably the Big prefix for damage, but Rappid for fire rate is a good alternative.
Assault Rifles:
Ideally a good medium to long range weapon type, these guns unfortunately as a whole generally suck. From Borderlands 1 to the Pre-Sequel, the mass majority just aren’t good weapons. Fortunately there are a few that stand out and work well with this build and Maya in general, her boosts to magazine size, fire rate and damage supplementing them well, and Flicker making up for the abysmally small elemental effect chances they possess.
The Ogre: A Torgue masterpiece, an explosive damage rapid fire weapon using a Vladof gattling barrel that easily supplements the typically slow explosive projectile speed with a chance to improve fire rate further and reload speed, as well as add ricocheting projectiles. With the Nasty prefix to boost base damage, this thing will decimate anything and it is tailor made to work with Chain Reaction and Wreck to cover entire mobs with EXPLOSIONS! It’s a pain to get, having to go through the combat round missions in the Tiny Tina DLC and getting an enemy in the final round to drop it, but its worth the effort if you can manage it.
The Bekah: An even harder prospect as a Pearlescent, this is definitely the best assault rifle in the game, even next to the Ogre. A Jakobs masterpiece, it fires a second slower bullet after the initial bullet that splits into three, similar to the Lyudmilia, but with four total projectiles instead of just three, and all three extra as non listed with full damage. The Boss prefix is the one you want if you can get it to add base damage, and again with Wreck and Reaper, and even Chain Reaction this is one of those weapons that like the Lyudmilia can kill enemies even WITHOUT slagging them, so with slag it annihilates them.
The Kitten: Another non-requirement but a big bonus if you can get them, they make very good stand-ins if the Ogre and Bekah are out of reach or even just to take advantage of having the pool of assault rifle ammo at the player’s disposal and needing a good weapon to do so with. As Moxxi weapons they do have a solid 2% heal from damage, and thanks to the three projectile bullet multiplier, they deal excellent damage at that. The issue is the fixed fire pattern, slowly spreading out to make a stretched smiley face image which makes for generally a terrible time staying on critical spots and the like. The prefix you want here is Severe to improve the accuracy and tighten the fixed spread as much as possible, in all elements except slag. Wreck helps the DPS and healing even further while not as good as with the Ogre, the Chain Reaction synergy still works well.
The Gear:
This is where the build really shines in flexibility around the core set up, mainly in the shields and how they interact with the blue Mirrored Tricker mod empowering Kinetic Reflection, though of course there are other class mods that work well with the skill build and weapons as well, and the relic list increases that flexibility.
Shields:
Part of what makes Kinetic Reflection so powerful at 11/5 is that the healing effect doesn’t just work on Maya’s health, but her shield as well, meaning that with a full health bar, any more damage will recharge her shield at 10% per shot, and keep it consistently charged by any further damage for as long as the kill skill is active. This sustained shield use is the cornerstone for the different approaches the build can use for given situations in combat.
The Antagonist: This shield was tailor made for the Mirror Synergy build and the blue Mirrored Trickster mod. A huge shield capacity (not massive but huge) with a decent delay and recharge rate, but with a separate but stacking activation chance percentage for it’s own Kinetic Reflection ability. The damage reduction is only around 50% or so at best and a flat 50% activation chance, but it’s constantly active, even when the shield capacity is depleted, not limited to a duration like the kill skill so Maya constantly has a change to reduce damage she receives. What adds to this is the massive increase to reflected bullet damage, up to a full 880% on top of Reaper, Chain Reaction, Wreck and all of Maya’s other skills and the damage from Kinetic Reflection’s own activation max of 220% damage. Not enough? The shield when even just at partial capacity has a chance to fire homing slag projectiles at enemies, making it a viable slag damage/slagging source all at the same time. This shield makes this build effective as a defensive powerhouse capable of tanking and enduring massive incoming enemy fire and sending it right back at eight times the damage along with slag damage, all while keeping Maya healed and fully shielded when under the right circumstances.
The Bee: Some love it some hate it, but the Bee is the best amp damage shield in the game, with zero amp cost and massive amp damage bonus applied, so as long as it stays charged, the shield constantly empowers every shot you put out, as fast as you can put it out. Can come with immunity to all elements but slag, and half damage to explosions, player choice or chance there if you can only get one. This is the key to the build’s massive DPS ability, with weapons like the Harold, Pimpernel, Interfacer and Bekah all having unlisted projectiles with full damage, thus each projectile getting the full amount of amp damage applied to add up to insane total damage capacity, and all that before adding bonuses from Reaper, Wreck and using Chain Reaction. With Kinetic Reflection at 11/5 and Inertia and Ward, the Bee has higher capacity, shorter delay and upon killing an enemy with all that extra amp damage, instantly grants the 4% recharge and boosts Maya’s reload speed, making her able to keep pouring out bullets to keep killing enemies and thus keep Kinetic Reflection up to heal and actually recharge and maintain the Bee with incoming fire. Under the right circumstance, this can completely NEGATE the depletion of the Bee in general and allow for near constant amp damage bonuses when continuously killing enemies quick enough.
The Blockade: This shield takes being a shield and pushes it to the limit. It has massive capacity and recharge rate with a decent delay, and on top of it adds up to a 32% overall damage reduction from all sources when fully charged, with a lesser damage reduction when depleted… well as described. Technically the thing is bugged (as of this being written) so it has the full damage reduction regardless of being fully charged or not. This makes it an exceptional shield overall and for this build with Kinetic Reflection at 11/5 makes Maya almost a literal tank, able to shrug off massive amounts of damage in between activation of Kinetic Reflection and maintaining a huge shield capacity when active, Ward and Inertia again adding to this.
The Evolution: I really do miss the days of Borderlands 1 when you had shields aplenty with health regeneration, whether slow or fast. This adaptive shield has a reduced shield capacity, decent delay and recharge but adds a solid boost to your health total and of course, health regeneration. An inverted health regeneration increase type as well, with the percentage total and speed increasing as the shield is depleted and you take on more damage, allowing you to stay alive longer and keep fighting. This pairs wonderfully with all of Maya’s healing skills and the Moxxi weapons, making it so she can keep coming at her enemies even when taking massive damage in successive hits. With Kinetic Reflection at 11/5 it adds even more healing to the mix, as well as the shield regeneration from incoming damage making Maya one of the hardest characters to kill with this build. Ward adds capacity and reduces delay again, and Inertia again gives it that extra boost in recharge every time you kill something.
The Sham: More bullets in your ammo box is never a bad thing, and with this build it also translates to avoiding even more damage. The Sham has a whopping full feasible total of 94% chance to absorb incoming bullet fire, including rockets, meaning there’s only a 6% chance for any bullet fired at Maya to actually do any damage. Given how many hundreds can come flying at you at any time, that’s still enough to get through. Unless you have Kinetic Reflection at 11/5, thus making that utterly negligible and making Maya a literal sponge for health, shield charge and bullets. This is another excellent choice for running an SMG only weapon list, taking on all incoming fire to recharge your ammo reserves, and Ward and Inertia make what few bullets do get through to actually do any damage to Maya only effect the shield charge itself and keep it high or full at nearly all times.
Grenades:
Pretty self explanatory, but always effective, and for some, very much so for this build.
Magic Missile (Purple Variant) Another one everyone knows and loves, fires off four high damage homing slag projectiles with a high slag chance and slowly regenerates grenade ammo. Very useful for constant slagging against high speed, dodging targets, and when paired with the Grog Nozzle makes for guaranteed high healing.
Chain Lightning: Slower grenade ammo regeneration than the Magic Missile and lower damage, but works well thrown into a mob after Converge from Phaselock to keep shock DoTs going and strip shields, also works well during bouts of Chain Reaction. Decent but not a requirement, unless unable to get Magic Missile in purple or even blue variant.
Quasar (Any Longbow Variant): A shock singularity grenade with a wider radius and deals tesla damage at the same time, excellent for grouping mobs, stripping shields and adding shock DoTs for Grog Nozzle healing, in between or during uses of Phaselock for stacked damage. Better for shield stripping than the Chain Lightning in this regard.
Class Mods:
Class mods make this build what it is, same as for any build, though the exact skill set up for this particular build does allow for more than just the Mirrored Trickster mod to take full benefit or use for the build in general. The Legendary Class mods all allow for various advantages in offense, tanking and health regeneration for whatever the situation calls for.
Blue Mirrored Trickster Mod: The heart of the entire Mirror Synergy build, boosting Kinetic Reflection by 6, Chain Reaction by 5, and adding a 29% bonus to overall fire rate. Seemingly simple and straightforward, this is what makes this build so viable in so many different combat scenarios even all the way through to OP8.
Cat: The Legendary of this mod boosts SMG damage up to an additional 138%, with a reduction in accuracy of up to -36%. With the Bitch this reduction is almost unnoticable, though the Sandhawk and Moxxi SMGs do have some additional spread to their shots as a result. The boosts to Mind’s Eye, Wreck Reaper and Foresight are all excellent for this build, while the boost to Accelerate goes unused.
Binder: The Legendary Binder works on reducing cooldown for Phaselock, up to 29% and it boosts Reaper, Helios, Wreck, Suspension, and Sweet Release all at once, allowing for longer, more powerful gun damage and fire rate boosts for Phaselock all the more frequently.
Nurse: Maya’s major healing booster when all else fails, this class mod grants a massive flat amount of health regeneration per second as opposed to a percentage of her health total, not only to her but all her allies as well. With boosts to Elated and Sweet Release, it reinforces the healing ability of her Phaselock even further, and boosting Suspension allows her to heal for longer, with the boost to Sustenance covering her when Phaselock is in cooldown. Also boosts Restoration, not used in this build.
Siren: Maya’s distinct Legendary mod, granting up to a massive 53% cooldown rate improvement for Phaselock and a solid 39% boost to all gun damage, with a 45% increase to her base movement speed while Phaselock is active. This allows her to move around the field of combat more easily and deal more damage more often with Phaselock active and the boosts to Ward, Mind’s Eye, Foresight and Flicker give her an all around boost to general capability, pairing well with the Blockade or Evolution for more well rounded combat ability.
Relics:
From simple little bonuses to effective damage and ammo inefficiency, relics all help out in some small way. These are the ones I’ve found best suited to the build in general.
Blood of the Seraphs: A health boost and regeneration relic for when Maya needs some additional healing but still wants a focus on an offensive class mod and better defense/tanking offensive shield, granting 1% regeneration and up to an additional 39% to her total health bar.
Heart of the Ancients: An E-tech relic that boosts heath and Fight for Your Life Duration, plus boosts damage for one weapon type, in the case of this build, SMG damage preferred.
Allegiance Relics: Two in particular here, a Maliwan relic for increased damage and reload speed, and a Hyperion relic for increased damage and reduced build up time before reaching full weapon accuracy.
Stockpile Relic: Three types for this build, SMG, Shotgun and Pistol ammo respectively.
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