Mayhem is additional difficulty therefor it isn't required. However if you do want max mayhem there are 3 ways to get there. Slowly ramp up mayhem as you get good loot. Know where a chest of valuables will be, switch to mayhem 10/11 on sanctuary, teleport to then open the loot, farm a boss you identify as easy as a springboard. Switch to mayhem 10/11 and win a few rounds of Arms Race.

Keep in mind high mayhem is vastly different then normal game play even before the modifiers are accounted for. Enemies will deal damage on par with mayhem guns, they will have +100% health/shield/armor per mayhem level, tougher enemies will appear, and shields + class mods + artifacts don't have mayhem level. Mayhem 11 is mayhem 10 without the mayhem modifiers, and half the loot.

Woops 2 final important things about mayhem. It level scales everything so should definitely be done on max level if you want the gear to be important. It does nothing to vehicle health, or your vehicle so due to the comparison your vehicle along with vehicles you jack with enemies present will likely explode in the blink of an eye.

Mayhem in BL3 can be considered the new OP Levels from BL2. Unlike BL2 where you go through Raid on Digistruct Peak to earn your additional levels, in BL3 the Mayhem system can be toggled to your preferred difficulty.

You can go traditional by farming your best build and then attacking Mayhem 1 until you farm enough to handle Mayhem 2, etc. all the way up to Mayhem 11.

Some might shortcut by raising to a high Mayhem level and then just getting a weapon from a vending machine before going back to a lower Mayhem level.

There are some Legendaries that are only obtainable from Mayhem 6 and up.

Easiest way to transition to Mayhem 11 : Do Ava's mystery podcasts first mission, at the end of the mission farm Sumo until he gives you a Re-volter shield. Then go to Sanctuary, Switch your game to Mayhem 11 and to tip Moxxi until she sends you a Crit. Equip the Re-volter and the Crit and you are now ready to start farming for the stuff that you need.

For Borderlands 2 it's a lot more complicated as you are forced to grind your way to OP10, you can't just switch to whatever OP level you want from the get go. To unlock OP levels you need to go to Digistruct Peak and do the quest Tannis gives you. Every time you finish the Peak, you can go up one OP level and every time the Peak gets harder. I suggest farming good gear before your first run, then from experience, you'll hit a sharp difficulty spike at OP4, around OP7, and then OP8 and 9, so I suggest farming gear again before attempting these runs.

Originally posted by Kobeth:

Easiest way to transition to Mayhem 11 : Do Ava's mystery podcasts first mission, at the end of the mission farm Sumo until he gives you a Re-volter shield. Then go to Sanctuary, Switch your game to Mayhem 11 and to tip Moxxi until she sends you a Crit. Equip the Re-volter and the Crit and you are now ready to start farming for the stuff that you need.

For Borderlands 2 it's a lot more complicated as you are forced to grind your way to OP10, you can't just switch to whatever OP level you want from the get go. To unlock OP levels you need to go to Digistruct Peak and do the quest Tannis gives you. Every time you finish the Peak, you can go up one OP level and every time the Peak gets harder. I suggest farming good gear before your first run, then from experience, you'll hit a sharp difficulty spike at OP4, around OP7, and then OP8 and 9, so I suggest farming gear again before attempting these runs.

Alright thanks I'm already at op5 and I decided to farm flipper first, will try this ava quest now