I’m around level 60 with Cataclysm tree maxed to Ruin, and I’m working my way up the Harmony tree for Scorn. At this point I need to fill up either of these two skills to get to Life Tap, and not sure which would be better…any tips? I have SR, Wreck, and Elated full already.
And while I’m on the subject of Maya, does the Harmony tree (for Scorn) go well with Ruin, or should I be looking at putting the points in Sub-sequence for better control of the combat? I have 10 in Suspension because of a mod, so I find that one of two things usually happens with PL -either I hold a really tough enemy like a badass, which takes most of the duration to bring down, or I catch a trash mob enemy and end up blowing the whole thing in three seconds. This second scenario is the one that makes me wonder about SS instead, so I can keep the convergence working. Anyone have a preference?
If PL jumps to a second enemy, does everyone in range get another blast of elements?
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VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish)
#2
Got you moved to the right section.
I find sub-sequence to be a personal choice. It’s upside - for mobbing or a Thoughtlock build - is that it keeps all the skills tied to active phaselock up longer. The downside is that if the first target dies quickly, the bubble can sometimes end up bouncing around like a giant table tennis ball and not actually acquire a second target. That wouldn’t be a problem if you could cancel phaselock, but you can’t… It’s probably something you’d be best off trying for yourself. I personally didn’t like it when I tried it, but others use it pretty often.
On to Sustenance versus Recompense - honestly not entirely sure on that one. I guess it depends a bit on what class mod you’re actually using. For example, if you’re using one that adds more passive health regen, you might want to take Recompense at lower levels. I think I just split points between the two skills, but I’m not a min-max player by any stretch. @Derch gives Sustenance the slight edge:
Scorn and Ruin work well together for me, because you always have a slag source on hand when your action skill is on cooldown. It’s certainly a good mobbing combo, plus Scorn lets you clear environmental hazards in an area before you go in. This is particularly useful for areas where phaselocking with Ruin might trigger barrels in your immediate vicinity…
Sub-Sequence is my preferred - the great thing is that because Sweet Release is on tier one, you have pretty much all the healing you need. For level 60 something like this will get you 3x orbs for each kill ( if you’re really crafty you can get up to 8 kills ) - just keep filling Harmony for Wreck and Elated. I presume you’ve got a Binder COM - which is the ideal COM for SS ( actually the Legendary Binder is - that’ll come soon hopefully ).
Yes : Ruin, Converge, Helios ; the PL skills like Wreck will go dormant briefly until the orb finds another target.
First got down the Harmony, than the Motion and now all the way down the cataclysm tree to ruin.
I think you need the slag source from ruin or scorn only in the third playthrough were slag is a must have. Just like the restoration skills from the harmony tree (wich doesn’t work well with an melee krieg as a partner).
So in my opinion you should keep ruin and distribute your points in the harmony and Motion tree for usefull skills like sweet release, wreck and converge
Edit: oh yeah and ward is really awesome to. Depending on your class mod you should go with one point in Accelerate and 4 in Ward to get down on tier 2 motion
Yes immolate is better and at the end it will be 4 flicker 5 immolate but at this point i would like to have the element(slag) chance because i don’t get in ffyl that often, krieg is able to insta heal me and i support often with a slag weapon
I would put 1 point in Mind’s eye for Com Consideration, and 1 point in Restoration and Res if I decide to play Coop. At level 72 Recompense works effectively, while Sustenance is also good with fighting Damage Over Time. In OP8 though, Sustenance is more effective.
On Subsequence, depends on what you prefer. For me I cannot get used to orbs flying around and messing up my phaselock timing, since I am so use to it. However i used Subsequence while speedrunning arena’s with Maya, The fix I made is that I do not put points in Suspension so that you will not lose cooldown time while the orbs chase another enemy to phaselock.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m still undecided, but I think I’ll try out both setups and see which one I like. I remember using sub sequence with Maya when I played years ago, and liking it, but that was probably on TVHM where slag wasn’t an issue. On UVHM this time I find most weapons useless without it, so I just go for the PL explosion, take out what I can, then grab cover for 5 or 6 seconds until I get the cooldown. I also find that running with singularity grenades helps a lot as well, since if I’m caught in the open on a cooldown, I can buy a few seconds of relief with this bit of CC. In my perfect world I would find some slag singularity nades.
VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish)
#10
As Jefe said, having one slag weapon on hand (at least until you get - or as an alternative to - Scorn) is good. Some like slag bouncing betty/bonnie grenades, some like Magic Missile (the X2 variant is just fine), and some like a Slagga, Pimpernel, or really any half-way decent slag gun. (While levelling, a slag plasma caster does wonders!)
I’m a subsequence guy, and yes, it does proc converge and Ruin on every bubble…so that’s great, but the main drawback is you miss out on Life Tap along with the fact that you have less control of your phase lock as the bubble will wander randomly and perhaps go to lower priority enemies or just get stuck somewhere…
Normally, people pair a subsequence build with a Leg Binder setup because of the boosts to suspension, wreck, and Reaper (it also boosts Sweet release, but that isn’t needed and Helios which isn’t a great skill), whereas people pair a Life Tap build with the Leg Siren COM because the passive bonuses negate the need for Quicken and the gun damage passive bonus competes with the boosted Wreck and Reaper you get from a Leg Binder COM…The Leg Siren also boosts Foresight, which is another DPS boost (more bullets in the mag equals more overall damage output).
Subsequence doesn’t shine till you have 4/5 or 5/5 in it, so until you have that many points, I’d leave it. At that point, try both setups, as you’ll have the 2/5 necessary for Life Tap too at that point…to finally answer your original question, There are gimmicky builds with Recompense, but unless you are using one, take Sustenance even though it won’t save you in a fire fight…
If you can’t get the magic missiles which would solve your slag grenades problems, see if you can get a Quasar or shock singularity grenade, which gives you extra converge basically and then use a slag gun as VH101 suggested, either Slag Pimp or Slagga (both relatively easy farms) are best for that job…Grog is also a solid slag gun despite its inherent cheese…
Personally, I’ve never felt the need to go 5/5 in Life Tap. 2/5 is usually quite enough for me. If LT was the only healing skill I had, I might see it differently, but there’s also SR, Elated and Sustenance. So, it all comes down to one question. How much healing does one need? I prefer putting the spare points in Mind’s Eye instead. Like this!
If you’re doing Co-op, you could move the points from Sustenance to Res and Restoration. Sustenance is good, but at this stage, you have a lot of healing already. Life Tap has a more powerful healing, so keep that. Recompense is one of those skills that you might pick if you had 5 points to spare, but there are better skills to spend those points on. There is a melee build for Maya, which centers on Recompense. It’s about the only time where I’ve seen Recompense work well.
Turns out I did have some magic missiles from the DLC in an old save. Does the grenade level matter? I mean, slag is slag, right? It’s not like you’re using them for damage.
Not really but if you’re using them to heal while holding a Moxxie weapon then level does matter, as more damage equals more and faster healing. Otherwise a level 35 version works as well as an OP8 one does…
An on-level MM is actually remarkably powerful. The only problem is they’re also remarkably powerful at killing you if one happens to fly back into your face.
When I use them I tend to use higher level versions and just exercise caution.
Recompense gives less and less valuable returns the higher you go up the difficulty scale, even when fully maxed out. The only thing adding more points does is add to the chance to deal damage back to enemies, not improve the damage itself. Against similarly leveled enemies on NVHM or TVHM it is passable, yes, but go to UVHM and then the OP levels and it does next to nothing, as the reflected damage is scaled to Maya to account for things like Chain Reaction chance and Reaper bonuses.
yes, you are correct, to my understanding the slag % chance is the same regardless of level and so in many cases a low level magic missile is preferable, because you won’t down yourself on it if you accidentally throw it too close to a charging psycho or any enemy that just dropped down in front of you…
edit: thanks to @redorigin for a succinct breakdown on why Recompense isn’t recommended to be taken in UVHM…
