Fun suggestion to buff zane

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

I think that since zane seems to be a gear specific all rounder, improvements (not including fixing or improving some of the skills that don’t quit live up their description) can be made that would allow him to hold his own a little better but (hopefully) shouldn’t break the game and would be more interesting than just buffing some skill numbers. For this post I’m specifically suggesting some tweaks to the double barrel capstone and digiclone.
A. I think the AI for the digiclone could use some tweaking since it doesnt seem to do so well with some of the weapons. Some it does really well with and unloads on your enemies while others it seams to kinda fire at 1 shot per 2 seconds or something. Almost like its trying to shoot burst fire with a semi auto and is just sitting there holding the trigger instead of constantly firing.
2. Make it so that the digiclone spawns with your weapon in whatever fire mode you have active when you summon it. Right now it seems to only summon with whatever the gun default is and that seems like a missed opportunity and kind of a let down sometimes (especially with dual element maliwan guns, torgue stickies and vladof guns)
Lastly, make it so the digiclone’s torgue stickies counts with yours in the damage bonus. This way you have the potential to get a good amount of burst damage to bosses but it shouldn’t break the game against mobs.
Bonus would be if the digiclone could utilize the tediore reloads too.

I think there are a few opportunities with distributed denial too but I’ll leave it at double barrel for now.

3 Likes
#2

if distributed denial added auto pickup of shield boosters, would be a nice touch.

2 Likes
#3

  • Make Which One’s Real? consistently pull agro for at least a few seconds

    • This might also make Trick of The Light worth taking

  • Remove the “up to” from Duct Tape Mod % and increase the % so it’s a usable skill

  • Make Like A Ghost scale based on movement speed

  • Increase Praemunitus to 9%-10% per point, or at least set it to 8% so its accurate

  • Zane’s should have Rushin’ Offensive, either as a part of Violent Momentum or as a 1 point tier 3 in blue

  • Violent Momentum could use a small buff

Bonus based on movement speed are fantastic and I want more synergy for that play style. It allows for a really high skills cap if you build around Violent Momentum, Cold Bore, Executor com, and crit weapons like an Unforgiven, the faster and more accurate you are the more damage you do.

#4

10000% agree with Making “which one’s real” be like a mmo tank’s taunt that agros all enemies in a large radius. I’ve said that on these forums previously. It would make Trick of Light worth taking. As it is, Trick of light is nearly worthless for solo players and takes a huge point investment for little return.

Praemunitus should be 10% per point. having 3/3 to only have 24.9% increase and not having an extra shot to your 4 mag weapon is TERRIBLE.

And I still stand by my opinion on making Cold Bore to be a kill skill that gives 30% cryo bonus damage.

2 Likes
#5

Cold Bore as a kill skill would be kind of crazy, especially at tier 1. There is an anointing that give +50% element damage while sntnl is active, which is pretty much 100% uptime, and it’s really really strong. I like Cold Bore how it is currently, it synergizes really well with certain weapons.

#6

Giving Zane a crazy good buff is the point. Even if it you give Zane a 30% damage multiplier that is either an always on passive or a kill skill, he would not be stronger than the other characters. He would be much more in line with them.

Simplified Damage formula = ( Gun Damage x Critical Damage x Splash Damage) x Elemental Bonus (based off BL2 damage formula which appears to be the same for BL3)

For Zane:
Damage = ( ( base weapon damage x *playing dirty x (1 + synchronicity + donnybrook + double barrel + violent momentum + confident confidence)) x (1 + cold bore + trick of light) )

*Playing Dirty is a multiplier based off number of projectiles.
1 projectile = 2x multiplier
2 projectile = 1.5x multiplier
3 projectile = 1.33x multiplier
ie (n+1)/n = multiplier where n = number of projectiles per weapon

These are the only skills Zane has that impact his weapon damage. Looking at it this way, the only places where a buff to his skills will translate to a significant damage increase is either cold bore and/or trick of light.

TLDR… This is my understanding of Zane and the damage formula. I could be wrong. I often am.

#7

x(1+Barrier stationary/Barrier mobile)

And retaliation. They could make retaliation multiplicative and/or stacking that would be a great buff, the more the barrier gets shot the more dmg you deal

#8

That’s not the bl2 formula and I don’t this thats the bl3 formula. Are you sure thats where playing dirty goes? I haven’t tested that yet but I thought it was after gun damage and crit(?)

I think 30% bonus cryo, effectively always on, is a blunt was to buff and it would require rearranging the tree. I really like most of Zane’s kit already so I’d just prefer increasing the % of a few skills and the changes I mentioned before.

#9

I think he accidentally put a second bracket after confident competence

#10

If that’s not the BL2 formula, then the site I pulled it from was wrong. The actual full formula was much longer too and I’m just trying to simplify it a bit.

In the little testing that I did…

Base weapon damage x (1 + gun damage +% skills) = value
then this damage value was multiplied by the playing dirty modifier = value 2
then cold bore multiplied all of it.

so (playing dirty x gun damage) x cold bore

I also didn’t include the barrier or amp damage from a shield, b/c i’m trying to show the relationship between the skills.

#11

Nvm, you’re right about Playing Dirty, my bad. That formula is correct as far as it goes. I’m very familiar with the bl2 damage formula.

#12

Make all current kill skill bonuses passive, and just double their current bonus as the kill skill part.

This would give Zane the throughput increase he so desperately needs.

I’ll also say that they have to significantly increase the defensive/survival bonuses in the clone/drone tree if they want Zane to not completely rely on his barrier 3 to not go down faster than a prom dress in Mayhem 3.

Salvation is way too expensive for 5 points.

Make the drone and clone augments not total garbage too. Most of the clone augments are terrible, double barrel should be baseline to the clone (the clone is completely useless and does virtually no damage without it), make the clone attack what we attack by pressing his action skill while it’s on cd or whenever he swaps with us.

The clone needs some competent aim when throwing grenades.

The drone’s cd needs to be halved or around 35 sec cd. Its augments need to scale much better. It’d be great if it also applied a % of our current weapon’s elemental damage to give Zane damage variety.