WEAPONS
Mantra is the perfect synergistic weapon to use as main or main backup. It will also serve to access different elements for Melee Attacks through the Maliwan (Element Switch Underbarrel).
- If you don't have any Mantra, then just bring any other elemental weapons so you make use of
Phase Covenant.
Crow-Sourced and 
Swan Song are nice fallback choices. They also double down as a Kinetic option for Phase Covenant. You can bring whichever other weapon you find comfortable using that is also decently strong.
Spread Launcher 
Jakobs Shotgun loaded in another slot is a nice panic button to have.
Equip the weapons in the order most comfortable to you, and organize their modes in a way that has all your elemental matchups covered for 
Dead Ringer summoning, Phase Covenant attuned Melee Attacks and 
Groundbreaker.
Mantra Licensed Parts
When looking for a Mantra, there's a few Licensed Parts that matter:
- Jakobs (Ricochet Accessory) is very strong: it enables ricochets and access to powerful enhancement effects.
- Ripper (Charge Mag) is an extreme DPS boost, but is generally reserved for bossing due to the charge time and ammo inefficiency. The more fire rate PARTS a Mantra has, the quicker it will charge-up the Ripper magazine.
- Mantra can roll both of these licenses at once.
Bladed Weapons
Avoid most bladed weapons, 99% of them nothing other than slow down your Melee Recovery.
The ones that work are Bladed Maliwan Shotgun or Mantra. Those blades currently apply an extra 82.5% Melee Damage boost (additive) to your Default Player Melee Attack. However, they do have long recovery frames, which still makes them pretty meh to use.
Debuff/Buff Weapons
Some weapons can be used for achieving a little extra damage through Debuffs or Buffs, such as:
-
Ripper Sniper with Target Marker. 
Tediore AR with Support Drone.
Silver Sliver which applies a stacking Debuff on hit.- You don't have to use any of these, I'm simply including them as possible options you may want to consider.
Underbarrels
If your 'melee philosophy' is open to experimentation, you can also use heavy-hitting underbarrels to build up Groundbreaker, such as:
REPKIT
Order Repkit, 
War Paint, 
Triple Bypass, 
Kill Spring and 
Vitae are all good choices of Repkit with their own relative strengths.
Look for these effects, or combinations of them:
- Enrage (Experimental)
- Enrage is highly recommended if you're looking to maximize damage, since it will apply to all damage and be double and triple dipped by
Reverburnations into 
Bloodletter, and can go even further with Groundbreaker.
- Hard Hitter (Steroidal)
- Elemental Affinity (Reactive)
- This can have nearly as much value as Enrage, since the vast majority of our damage is elemental. It won't boost Bloodletter, but that's not a big deal.
- Accelarator (Adrenalized)
- Amp (Amplified) on any of these Repkits can be situationally useful if your self-imposed melee rules allow usage of heavy-hitting underbarrels for Groundbreaker.
ORDNANCE
Slippy with Crit Chance, Nuke or +1 Max Charge
- The Slippy gives us another way of accessing melee, and is excellent at building up Groundbreaker. It is also a safe way to burst Vile crystals enemies and some other types that you find to be very dangerous when at close distance. It will be attuned to Vex's current held element due to Phase Covenant.
- It gets its own triggers of Reverburnations.
'Crit Knife' 
Jakobs Grenade
- Great choice for setting up some Groundbreaker boss kills.
CLASS MODS
For Stat Rolls on any Class Mod, all of these are acceptable:
- Melee Damage
- Skill Damage
- Melee Crit Chance
- Skill Crit Chance
Main Class Mods
Great general use choice. 
Infusion is a powerful skill that lets you double down on element-matching, alongside getting its own Reverburnations triggers.
On a Slam, the Bonus Element from Infusion and 
Watts 4 Dinner can cause two additional of the same Groundbreaker to trigger, making for an extremely powerful combination.
- +5 Infusion; +2
Grave Implements
This is a great choice for bossing, and also works well for general use. It can situationally feel better than Commander, especially when facing purely Flesh health bars.
- +5 Reverburnations; +2
Fell Inscriptions or Any
Living Weapon
Good, farmable choice. While its special effect is nothing to write home about, it is appreciated here. The massive soup the boosted Kill Skills provide is also welcome.
- +3
Grave Power; +4 
Mourning or 
Grave Fiends
Secondary Class Mods
Teen Witch
Good fallback choice. It sustains both damage and survival excellently through its very powerful legendary effect. If you'd like to mess with the 
Heavyweight, even though it's the weaker of the shield choices, this Class Mod is the most effective at it.
You can also use this Class Mod to perma-amp the Mantra, but there's a better build for that.
- +3
Corporeal; +4 
Blood Is Magic or +4 
Grave Thirst - Pure damage from Blood Is Magic or some sustain for yourself and minions through Grave Thirst. The sustain can be overall more impactful due to action skill uptime.
Bleed is Bleed. It can result in very high peaks and a lot of added damage.
- +5 Bloodletter; +2
Material Components
SHIELD
Watts 4 Dinner
With Siphon. This is the main shield of choice due to its Bonus Shock Damage.
- The Bonus Shock Damage inherits the source type. This means that on Melee Damage instances, including Melee Attacks, Slippy and Mantra, the Reverburnations skill can be triggered on your base damage, on Infusion (if using Commander Class Mod) and on the Bonus Shock from Watts 4 Dinner.
- The minion drain from Dead Ringer can trigger Siphon.
- You can also carry with you a 150% Amp version of this shield, which you can use as backup with a Teen Witch + Mantra for certain situations that are just incompatible with close range melee.
Heavyweight
With Missile Swarm, ideally the double variant.
Not at all the best choice of shield, but is fun to mess with. Use it withTeen Witch, since that mitigates the armor loss and allows Melee Attack spam at will.
Missile Swarm is ideal since it contributes to Groundbreaker buildup and stacks 
Recurrence. We can easily trigger and sustain it through Melee Attacks, Slippy and Teen Witch.
- The element of the Heavyweight will dictate the element of the Missile Swarm. You could look for different elemental variants or just settle for a neutral element like Kinetic.
ENHANCEMENT
Stat Rolls to look out for on any Enhancement:
- Gun Equip Speed
- Shotgun / Gun Damage
- Shotgun / Gun Crit Damage
- Shotgun / Gun Mag Size
Quintain | Bounce Pass | Piercer
- Very good choices with high general applicability.
Multistrike and Sequencer are also good, just beware that Specters can mess up the Sequencer effect.
Entropic | 
Devourer | Hard Charger | Free Loader | Short Circuit 
Ripper Enhancement
- Some of these can be extremely powerful, however the RNG and overall inconsistency can be an annoyance. Experiment to your liking.
Lame | Mixologist
- The weaker options of the bunch, but still serviceable.
Vex
Dead Ringer
Haruspex is accessible for ranged 
Mortal Terror or 
