I am a heavy user of, and advocate for, SS. The main argument against it is the downtime when there are no enemies left, SS just flies away or bounces around and that causes PL to have an effective longer cooldown. Other arguments include SS chasing fliers that it can’t catch, and hitting walls and bouncing off surfaces. The latter can be remedied through careful micromanagement, and that just takes experience, knowing what to PL and judging where it’ll go next, though a Quasar to pull enemies from high vantages helps remedy that too.
Since most SS builds use a L. Binder, and most non-SS builds use a L. Siren, that too adds to the cooldown of a traditional Binder build.
IMO the pros outweigh the cons. Being able to clear large mobs in one PL, multi proccing Helios and Sweet Release, hard crowd control from 3-4 procs of Converge, and the +5 to Suspension, Wreck, and Reaper on a L. Binder means massive DPS on heavy enemies. SS allows you to take full advantage of PL against mobs, and the L. Binder boosts some of Maya’s best damaging skills.
Blight Phoenix scales poorly and requires you to be in close quarters, take Helios. Helios scales very well, and since it applies before Ruin, it synergises very will with SS as the whole mob will be slagged when it (SS) procs. L. Binder also adds +5 to Helios, I have nine points in and at OP10 it kills fleshy enemies on its own, which means even more procs of Converge and SR. Oh, the L. Binder also adds +5 to SR Sometimes PL kills whole mobs on its own.
The final thing I’ll add to your build is that if you do use a L. Binder, which I think you should, you’ll only need one point in SR.
Edit: Here’s my guide, updated for level 80. I use it at OP10.
This is my Legendary Binder kinda coop build.
I dont know if I max out SS as it is already there or if I go down to Ruin.
Either way, it is going to get insane. Maya and Axton are the ones that get the most from the new cap imo
Blight Phoenix : sure it can pop barrels but one point is very slow to do so. Besides Scorn will normally clear much of the area. Works great with Life Tap and can sometimes deflect axes.
Kinetic Reflection : a bit of damage reduction. Can send Cloud Kill to the wrong target though.
Backdraft : shield pops and gives you a bit of elemental damage which can give you a bit of extra healing (Moxxi, Life Tap).
Lastly : SS is only good at 5/5 so the 3 points in the original build should go to Inertia. But I’m just repeating previous posts.
You get used to it, I think. As I mostly used Maya in co-op play, the Slow Hand is my main source to Slag/Heal teammates. Sometimes I even swap Ward for Accelerate so I can play the gun better.
So I dont really miss Ruin at all, as it is not a so good Slag tool without SS imo. I like the Slow Hand + Quasar option together with Scorn.
And when I play solo, Wreck, Reaper and Helios give me a nice burst damage. When playing in console, 100% fire rate means the soft cap (15) with guns like the Tattler and the Butcher. Due to PL short CDR you are always geting this burst damage, so you can pop the Bubble and go to the next target.
SS would turn my burst into momentum, granting more damage output per PL.
Even better than going down to Ruin, as it would be only a new source for Slagging.
Thanks for write up. It is interesting to hear of different styles of play.
So I switched over to the Binder and initially it seemed slower. I think it just has a slightly different cadence to the style of play. I am now moving more quickly through things. (Doesn’t hurt that I upgraded my bee). I have been mainly running Dust. In this set up Mobley and Gettle are stupidly easy. Not that they were difficult before but now it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
I too had difficulty speccing to subsequence since it screws with my phaselock timing. What i did is go subsequence but removed points from suspension and it works.
If you will look at maya speed runs in the peak uses the same setup, ss without suspension.
That is a good point. I think I will start by trying it with one point to see how that rolls. With Binder that is still better than what I was running before.
Sometimes PL kills whole mobs on its own.
