Disclaimer: I do not claim this is an optimal way to spec a siren character, in fact I'm sure this is not the one. If you're looking for a guide that will let you slay the raid bosses, you should probably look elsewhere. This guide resolves around a build that I find to be both very enjoyable to play and still a viable and effective solution for UVHM gameplay.

Until recently I wouldn't probably consider Maya to be a viable choice for a melee build. After playing a melee specced assassin extensively, I've been trying to find a melee alternative. When I got my hands on Krieg I've found out that his Mania melee style doesn't suit me at all.

Then I've noticed a lot of players running a Breakneck Banshee/Rough Rider combo. First thing that I thought was "Why not use Love Thumper instead ?". The trade-off seems like nothing relevant, and the melee buff would definitely be a considerable one. This is how my Ninja Maya took off, the rest was a matter of slight tweaking.

As usual the class mod gives a general direction for the build. Because our Maya is a Ninja now she has to move fast and strike hard. She also has some tricks to pull out of her sleeve once things get messy.

Most of the items are either subquest rewards or blue rarity grade common drops, so it shouldn't be difficult to find a complete set.

Class mod We're going to use a blue rarity grade Scorched Banshee class mod. The stat buffs are not really crucial for the build, but the health nerf is useful, as it makes it easier to reach the health gate threshold and stay alive. Blue mods are usually the best ones, since most of the mod types buff one of the skills that is useless in case of the build. While banshee mods have great skill buffs in general, we want to pull the backdraft as high as possible (we'll get to this in skill choice section).

Shield Players with melee Zer0 experience know this shield very well. To be honest it cannot be considered a shield, as it's usually down to 0, almost like the Rough Rider.

Love Thumper is a melee roid buff in the first place. However, thanks to the Fleet skill, it's unique behaviour is what enables our Maya to move around at insane speed.

Obviously, the capacity and recharging has no impact on the shield's quality. Looking for your perfect Love Thumper you should take two factors into consideration:

• The roid buff
  
• Elemental resistance

The highest roid buff and elemental resistance comes with Maliwan parts.
Considering resistance, the Grounded variant is the least preferable (lowest health damage, shortest tick time of 2 seconds). The choice between Inflammable and Alkaline shields is rather situational as they are both very close stat and protection-wise.

Main weapon This weapon should feel very familiar to melee Zer0 players as well. It's a mandatory item, responsible not only for dealing damage but also for Maya's survival. Slag element and Eviscerated variant are the way to go, however you may find it possible to handle your opponents with one of the less preferred Rubi drops. The item level is of little relevance - we'll only shoot with it to slag enemies, all the serious damage comes from melee strikes anyway.

Grenade mod This is one of my favourite grenade mods, surpassed only by it's superior variant (mentioned later on). It's not the most damaging grenade out there, but the thing that makes it so useful is the almost non existant delay between the throw and the moment the damage output is processed. It deals relatively little damage to health so it can be used in close quarter combat. It's also a convenient method of removing your own shield to get both the roid and the speed buff on. Finally the grenade features an essential trait of regenerating grenade supply. You should never run out of them as long a you're using the nade with a mild moderation.

These are the most important items, the rest is generally up to you. The items in the following sections are the ones I'm rolling with, as they prove to be most useful.

Relic There are two reasons for choosing this relic over the other options. First of all it buffs the fire damage dealt, thus improving both the Backdraft and the Blight Phoenix damage output. Additionally it also enhances the already considerable Immolate buff and improves the cooldown rate, making it possible to slam the Thoughlock with higher frequency. A shock variant is also a viable choice since we're going to use our shock grenade a lot.

Tediore Plasma Caster If you're not using one already, you're probably (probably goes for Gaige) doing it wrong. This is one of the best second wind scoring tools in game. Preferable variants include Refill (faster reload) and Hefty (higher damage). Thanks to the largest mags Bandit grip is your best bet, but to be honest any caster will do the job. Fire element is once again a choice made to compliment with the Immolate skill and fire relic.


Tediore E-Tech Launcher One more second wind/high damage tool in Maya's arsenal. Tediore E-Tech launchers are excellent due to several reasons. Contrary to other Tediore's they do not expose the in-mag remaining ammo on reload, which effectively doubles your rocket supply. They are the fastest reloading launchers which makes them far superior in scoring second winds then the popular Norfleets. Additionally, the reload fired rockets count as explosive damage which turns the weapon into dual element one. It's safe to say that explosive damage has a widest range of applications, so you don't have to worry about the enemies that are less suspceptible to fire damage.



Going risky but rewarding Rapier features the highest melee bonus among the weapons in game. Once you wield it, you're stripped of your health regeneration, but you can dispatch enemies faster. Use it, but use it with caution. It's level is even less relevant then Rubi's, as it does an allround-terrible job as the rifle. It always buffs melee with 200% bonus, regardless of the level.


If you love Tediore reloads... I do love them without a doubt. The common problem with the Tediore reloading is ammo consumption. We're already making use of SMG rounds (Plasma Caster) and rockets (E-Tech launcher). To make a good use of one more ammo pool you can go with this pistol. I find it's shooting characteristics atrocious, which makes it a reload-only weapon for me. The reload damage is very high though, surpassed only by casters and launchers (and we already sport these two).

Main weapon replacement
This fancy pistol is a bit tricky to get but it's definitely superior to the default main weapon. It's a subquest mission item from DLC4, always sporting a slag element on it (with superb status effect chance), however the accessory is randomized each time you run your game. To freeze the bayonet you can exchange it via the claptrap stash once you get the attachment on one of your other characters. It features insane health regen rate (65% of dmg done compared to 12% on Rubi). When using Grog you're up to full health on any single blow you lay on your foes.


A Shield for multiplayer Thanks to one-of-many bad design choices the Love Thumper is difficult to use in COOP gameplay. The explosive Nova that goes off with every buffed melee strike is probably the only thing that can damage other players. Unforunate as it is you may work around this issue in two ways:

• Keep safe distance
  
• Use a different shield

Keeping safe distance is not that easy as it might seem, due to the ridiculous AOE range of the explosive Nova (it extends far beyond the visual nova range). I've been testing the build, running with dual identical setups on Maya in the Magic Circle Of Slaughter. It turns out to be possible with a reasonable amount of coordination.

One of the optional shield replacements is the Hide of Terramorphous, preferably one of the borderline recharge options - short recharge will cripple your speed and melee buff but it will allow for constant fire Nova blasts. The long rechare option will require some shield micromanagement, melee Zer0 players using the Hide will be able to do it as soon as they start, otherwise it's going to take a bit of practice.

Set them ablaze once you're down This mod is a good replacement for the default blue-grade Scorched Banshee. It trades a bit of speed and Backdraft damage for a considerable damage buff in Fight For Your Life state.
This item becomes a preferred mod once you're rolling with The Hide of Terramorphous shield. In general all of the blue and purple Banshee mods (Unyielding, Breakneck, Scorched) will be fine, or may prove to be the most useful for particular use cases.

Enhancing The Love Thumper By buffing the explosive damage you can make the Love Thumper even more devastating. If you're using the Tediore E-Tech Launcher you'll also improve the reloaded rocket damage by a considerable amount. The trade-off is a longer cooldown time and diminished damage output on Backdraft and Blight Phoenix. Once again this is not critical for the build to work and is more a matter of your personal preference.


The perfect grenade There's not much to say about it besides the fact that it's an improved version of blue-grade Lighting Bolt grenade mod. Additionally to higher damage it also features a bonus follow-up strike(s), assuming there's a second enemy in proximity to the original target. It also seems to have a higher tendency to reflect off solid surfaces. The only thing to keep in mind is the higher damage output, that requires some (rather mild) level of caution.

When it comes to selecting skills it's hard to define something like 'a perfect setup'.

The skill selection should be driven by the choice of items, use case and last but not least - your own playstyle preferences.

The sections below specify a skill setup that is all-round effective and applicable to most of the situations one can face on Pandora. It's also the one I've found to be highly useful and in the end successful in the Badass Round of Magic Circle Of Slaughter.

OR

This section contains some figures and charts for those of you out there, that find numbers more meaningful then words.

The next two charts are annotated with icons with meaning specified by a picture on the right. Particular circumstances should be easy to read out from the charts bar color, applicable icon and so on.

The purpose of the charts is to draw a picture on the influence each factor has on a final melee damage dealt in a single blow.

In case there's enough interest in the guide, I'll update it with build specific gameplay guidelines. Up till then there's a movie showcasing some of the build gameplay:


Those of you who would like to try the build right away, instead of collecting the missing items may grab the save file I've uploaded to google drive.[docs.google.com]