Lilith is my favorite character of all. I started with Amara, but switched to FL4K and the commando, since Amara seems to be heavily melee focused, and that is not my style, as well as it seems not ideal for attacking bosses. And yea, Amara is looks like she has been hitting the roids too much.
I'm the same way and Lilith is easily my favorite in the series, still. Something about the maniacal joy with a late-level siren, gleefully roasting and corroding things to death. Lilith was....always very happy about this, haha. I came to enjoy Maya, too, but her Sireness was a bit different. She was more: "I'm powerful, STFU." Lilith was always "Hahahha, watch that turd burn to pieces! This is too fun...."
Definitely don't like the Mele focus of Amara, and was also planning to switch to Fl4k early on, but I've stuck with Amara, and am going for this eterna-Samara. it's not....great leveling up, because I should probably just go another route while leveling, then really try this type of build late 30s/40 (I'm currently 32, and still need more points to make it feel like anything) ...but! I'm not having to punch stuff, and it's still elemental-heavy with my procs and damage. If you pick Maliwan or proper elemental guns (I don't like the way vladoff is now elemental-only-on alt mode...which is a little missile that only works every 4 or 5 seconds...their ele handguns are really bad compared to previous series).
Here's that build (I wouldn't say best, but it's a very viable mele-alternative maya. the trick is ensuring the proper action skill that will trigger all of your Samsara stacks.
...Samsara really only makes sense when you can keep at least 4-5 stacks up. I've found that 2-3, really aren't that good at all, even if I have modded into it, so +2 = 5 points into Samsara. That's why this build takes so long: need enough to unlock the 5-fist punchy thingy, which is late in that red tree (for phase grisp that counts as attack), Max Samsara, and Max the action skill CD in the blue tree. So, it's really a later-level thing to play with. Not a blast for leveling...unless you are just having fun with Jakobs pistols like I am, and things just die anyway, ahha. I think the dislike for her gun choices is that maliwan kinda sucks in this game, and you need good Maliwan or at least some very good Dahl/Hyperion elemental SMGs to have fun with a Siren, but we're not seeing that right now, on top of most of her tree really being mele focused for most of the leveling. but they also just removed some of the charge from maliwan and also bumped the standard damage rating, I think (ele always had highest damage rating, but they nerfed the base damage compared to other guns on release, but notes say they have moved that back to more normal damage ratings)
Phasecast is really hit or miss for procing Samsara. I like it because of short CD, but I'm usually stuck with 1 or 2 stacks, because of how it does little splash damage and requires a lot of good placement. and Smash is actually pretty good, but very long CD. It does give you some mele and in-your-face, that actually works well with jacobs pistol play, so I stick with it. It is easier for getting at least 3 procs, because it is wider spread and easier to control the mobs around you that will be hit.
I've been running jacobs-heavy pistols and this legendary jacobs assault rifle i got recently...stash or mission. dunno. It's very in-your face, and lack of ele weapons means less procs....but it's still kind of fun just blasting things in the face, when you get used to how fast those things fire and reload. now they've nerfed all jacobs pistols a bit, but buffed their ARs, which is kinda cool. I haven't noticed much of a sacrifice in the pistols tbh (get close enough and steady enough to open a cyclinder in somethings face, in a crowd sitting, you can usually take out 2 or 3 targets with one 5-6 round cylinder. ...or not. it really is hit or miss depending on your skill. The auto-ricochet on crit is just so good with these guns:
FYI--Ricochet function in BL games is always very very good, because ricochets are always crit damage. Even if you have the damage reduction like they usually do, it counts for a crit because it always ricochets into a head, if it hits anythying....why this is good: lots of skills proc on crit, or damage. but with crit especially, this ensures that all your ricochets are going to proc whatever skill points you have invested into that. It's also just brilliant for high-crit toons (I'm guessing Fl4k is really nuts with ricochets)