Banana Scoop

Hopefully you guys had an awesome Thanksgiving break (for those of you who had one), for the rest of you, I apologize for not being able to post last week. I was incredibly busy, but now it’s time to get back to the weekly grind and give you guys the final installment of the Borderlands 2 Character Build Guides for now, at least until they release the next awaited character (who has been hinted at by Pitchford himself.) Anyway, let’s move onto the reason why we’re all here, Maya, the siren. While I haven’t had much playtime with her, she has been one of the most fun multiplayer experiences I’ve had thus far with the characters. While I don’t feel that she’s suited to single-player play due to her ability, I feel like Maya reigns supreme in lobbies due to her ability to both lock down an opponent and revive other players from across the map with appropriate aim. For the rest of the following article, you’ll be learning a bit about Maya’s history, reading about my playstyle with her, learning a way to build her, and checking which weapons I find useful with her. Without further ado, let us begin.

History

Maya was originally stuck on a planet with a faction known as ‘the brotherhood’. Essentially she was taken care of by them under the guise of helping lead the planet, when in reality she was being held captive in order to force the entirety of their planet into fear of facing a siren. It didn’t help when the apparent head of the order refused to take her seriously (referring to her as ‘child’ constantly). They use her in place of a goddess, threatening her otherwordly powers against anyone who dared to go against their cult. Eventually they ask her to kill people in forms of public execution, many of whom had crimes that were left unknown (presumably innocent). Essentially the way the story goes is that Maya gets mad after they ask her to sacrifice a person and kills the head of the order before leaving the planet for good, finding her solace on Pandora while trying to search for more information concerning her people and her powers.

Recommended Build

There’s only one build that I recommend for Maya, but that’s only because I enjoy her as a multiplayer character. Overall I feel like she does sub-par in a single player environment, but shines above all with her revive ability in a multiplayer game. I’m not quite sure how hard she hits as I don’t really like her passive abilities too much. To be completely honest, I dreaded doing this character guide since I started because I honestly didn’t really like Maya’s role in general. After getting to play with her for a while, however, I’ve found that she’s incredibly fun to use in the right circumstances (mainly in multiplayer with lots of other targets to keep the enemies away from you). I like to focus primarily on the Harmony tree for obvious reasons when playing with friends. It helps keep both you, and your allies alive. Additionally, the extra slag from the final skill is never a bad thing. I like to go straight down cataclysm next in order to at least buffer my DPS with elemental weapons. Of importance here is the hellfire (which is still an amazing gun despite being compared to its predecessor from the original Borderlands). Overall this is really the only build I’ve played around with, but I’ve had immense amounts of fun doing it. There are more DPS oriented builds out there that focus more on Cataclysm or Motion, but they aren’t as fun to me, nor as gratifying as seeing my friend be lifted up his feet from across the map thanks to my res.

Created Using Borderlands 2 Skill Builder

A little side note is that the Siren’s ability is probably the most spammable ability in the game, and should be used as such. If something isn’t phaselocked during a fight, you’re doing it wrong. With a couple of cooldown relics, you should have no problem maintaining phaselock with reduction. Anyway, that’s a little tip more or less. Now we’ll move onto the weaponry.

Recommended Weaponry

This section is really odd to me for Maya, as there really aren’t that many weapons that she won’t use well. I will note that I recommend any elemental SMG’s and a couple of elemental assault rifles. A slagged Shredifier is also really fun to use (but good luck getting it to drop…). I would additionally recommend anything that buffs your elemental damage or elemental effect chance just because the additional damage stacks up quickly. Overall just use whatever you’re itching to fire at the enemy (with a preference for elemental things).

Sniper Rifles: Volcano, Elemental Pitchfork, Railer
Assault Rifles: (Elemental) Shredifier, Veruc, Hammer Blaster
Pistols: Anything (Preferably Infinity cause they’re fun)
Submachine Guns: (Elemental) Babymaker, Bitch, Hellfire
Rocket Launchers: Anything (I’m partial to the Mongol)

Afterward

That concludes my Borderlands 2 In-Depth Character guides for right now. I’ll focus on writing more concerning the DLC for now while trying to stray away from spoilers. I’ll probably end up just making a review for each DLC as I play through it (starting with Captain Scarlett, which is by now long overdue with the advent of Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage). Hopefully you guys have enjoyed learning a little about each character, and learned a little concerning how to play them (with my style). Stay tuned for more awesome video game coverage from SoGoCJE!