#39

Also, Zane gets two augments per action skill.

#40

Augments are unlocked once you spend enough skill points to unlock that tier. Say you max out Violent Speed, then congrats, “Winter’s Drone” is available for your drone. Another 5, say maxing Salvation, and you unlock Bad Dose and Statis Field for use.

You don’t need to invest points into unlocking the augments themselves. In fact, if you don’t believe me, try to do so on the skill planner.

#41

You’re wrong about it unlocking automatically. Bear in ming that the skill planner is NOT an official thing. It’s made by a fan, a fan who doesn’t know how it all works yet.
Watch this video of a person who actually played the game at E3. And look at the check marks on some of the augments… and not on others of the same level. You must use something to unlock them.

#42

The check mark is to show they’re being used. Compared the checks to the Iron Bear setup to the right of the skill tree. In fact, if you go to 0:12 in that particular, you’ll see the checked Augment (Let Off Some Steam) is equipped to the Iron Bear’s minigun hardpoint.

#43

So you can only activate a certain number of augments per tree then?

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#44

I’d say yes but I don’t think you asked the question you wanted to ask. So. Give me five minutes and I’ll drop everything I know.

Back. So we have three characters we know about.

Amara has Three Trees. Each of these trees starts with an action skill. That’s a Hexagon. Hexagons for her are called skills. Now. In each tree there are two new hexagons to replace the action skill with a leveled up version. You can pick any of these that you have unlocked at any time. To Unlock the, you must spend enough points to light up their row. For example. The Phase Grasp tree has Eternal Fist. Then Fist Over Matter. Those would be used INSTEAD of Phasegrasp. Next. She has diamonds. The diamonds are elements for her. So. Her default element is Shock. She has a Corrosive and a fire element available as well, if you go down their trees far enough. Last. Are her chevrons, the little upside down arrows. These are called augments. She can mix any augment from any tree that she has unlocked with any Action Skill. So. A Phase Slam and Stillness of Mind means she’ll hit a bunch of nearby enemies who will then be stiff for a moment.

So then we have Moze. Her action skill IS Iron Bear. But Iron Bear is outfitted with two hexagons. One on each side. And these Hexagons are called Hard Points. She can use any two hard points she wants, even two of the same one. On the right side of each second tier is a new hard point. Those can then be picked instead. Then is her chevrons. If she’s unlocked them, she can add a Chevron to its applicable hard point. For instance, hell on rails can be applied to the railgun. She unlocks these the same way as Amara does, but spending enough points in a tree to make them light up. She can only pick two hard points and one augment for each hard point at a time. But these can be changed at any time in the menu.

Now Zane has the option of choosing two action skills by removing his grenade button and turning it into another action skill. His only options are Drone, Clone, and Fffff why doesn’t shield rhyme? DOME. HAHAHA. I DID IT.

Sorry.

But on each of these action skills, he can assign TWO Augments each from their respective tree, again. He unlocks these augments by filling the tree up far enough to reach them. At that point, all of these things can be changed at any time in the menu, provided you have them unlocked.

I think that should cover it.

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Master of Maya's Melee Amara Build
#45

Ok then, thanks for clearing that up.
Here’s the build then, using winters drone & boomsday. Then binary system & dopelbanger.
https://bl3skills.com/operative#000000000000005050151503140551010130100

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#46

From my perspective, Zane is the easiest of all the characters to come up with a build for, mostly in part because I’m not wholly convinced by the Doubled Agent tree. I like the ability, the augments and I see a lot of potential in the capstone, but I’m swayed a lot more by the individual skills, the progression and the overall synergy in the other trees. Unless Fl4k’s skill trees make him more coop-oriented somehow, I think I’ll reserve Zane as my secondary coop character after Moze.

The Hitman skill tree is an obvious one in my eyes, and Under Cover allows for a brief taster of cryo fun which is what made Aurelia my favourite in the Presequel. If there’s enough enemy-freezing going on, I might make Zane my character which runs mostly Jakobs and/or Torgue weapons. SNTNL will have Winter’s Drone + Boomsday, and Barrier will be boosted by Charged Relay + Nanites or Some ■■■■■.

The last point in my build I put towards Nerves of Steel. The description is a little vague, is it like Aurelia’s Duchess skill where the stacks never really decay unless you die? And do you have to be in a combat situation with your shields full for it to accumulate stacks, or does it function all the time regardless?

https://bl3skills.com/operative/#505033111101105054051500100000000000000

#47

I find it hard to not use the Doubled Agent tree, so I challenged myself to come up with a build that doesn’t use the clone at all! My idea is to alternate between the action skills to have as little downtime as possible. I try to switch from a mid-range playstyle with the drone with “Bad Dose” and “Winter’s Drone” to a mid/far-range playstyle with preferably cryo/shock snipers and the “All-Rounder” + “Nanites” augments to reset the action skills as often as possible with “Calm, Cool, Collected”.

https://bl3skills.com/operative/#500534011101000550151053100000000000000

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#48

I looked at Zane, and the first thing I saw was “Almighty Ordinance” – and that it resets on enemy killed. The next thing I did was make a build around keeping that rocket barrage up for as long as possible, obviously contingent on things like Singularity Grenades. Unfortunately, I lost that build. Reading it again, though, it says: “SNTNL fires a missile barrage at that area, and if an enemy is killed, Almighty Ordinance’s duration is reset”. Does this imply that I can paint a boss, then kill an add elsewhere, or inside the area but not with a missile, to reset the duration? It seems to me that the kill should come from SNTNL’s missile, but it’s just ambiguous enough to give me hope.

#49

Quick proof-of-concept build. Hitman for kill skills, as this is a mobbing build, Doubled Agent for grenades. Survivability will have to come from Doubled Agent, so Binary System (plop the clone in the middle of the baddies to freeze them, then paint the area for nuking), and anything but Dopplebanger for survival. Besides Almighty Ordinance, perhaps Static Field for shield damage on SNTNL? If I remember correctly, shields resist radiation, cryo and explosive, making Bad Dose, Boomsday, and Winter’s Drone not viable for mobbing shielded targets.

I basically picked up every kill skill in hitman because I could, and the rest went into Doubled Agent to maintain my grenade stock. Because it’s for survival and not damage, and I want to control my grenade stock, I didn’t spec into Boom. Enhance. I didn’t spec Drone Delivery either because I want the grenades away from me and my summons, but I did spec Fractal Frags because that has a lot of potential for free grenades. Last point went into Ready for Action, because I have life steal but no shield buffs.

https://bl3skills.com/operative#001000000000000505041523150501503100000

#50

Here is my my generalist co-op build. I tried to focus on a mix of survival and damage, while also using the action skills I wanted (Digi-Clone and Barrier). The augments I’ll be using are Nanites or Some ■■■■■ and All-rounder for Barrier and definitely Schadenfreude and either Binary System, Which One is Real?, or Digital Distribution for Digi-Clone (I’m leaning more toward Which One is Real?).

https://bl3skills.com/operative#505000100000000055000000050551010133101

Some things to note:
Confident Competence and Seein’ Red are interchangeable, waiting to see which fits better.

If Trick of the Light is a broken skill like it some are saying it will be, I’ll take a point from Old-U and 2 points from Cool Hand to put into TotL, and stay with Confident Competence (so I can keep Nanites or Some ■■■■■ and All Rounder).

If Like a Ghost is bad/not worth it, I’ll put those points in Trick of the Light. If both LaG and TotL are bad, the points will most likely go into Praemunitis.

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#51

Here my own build. This one is focused toward the Kill Skill for if the seein’ red work how I think it works then I can activate all the kill skill in all of the tree. I also went down the two skill tree for I think I would mostly use if I play Zane which is the SNTNL and the Digi-clone. Of course, I also did a cap LvL for 50, 61, and two 72, one if I focus on those two skill tree and the other where I got down the green one so I have all the mod for all three active skills. LvL 50 V1, LvL 50 V2, LvL 61, LvL 72 V1, LvL 72 V2

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#52

After taking a closer look at Zane’s tree, i’m kinda hedging towards playing him 2nd but making him the first to level 50…and here’s why.

If you take into consideration the Legendary Operative might have Gun Damage and Cool Down, the top line on the tree becomes super juicy. And would be my level 50 Legendary farming VH.

This has speed, gun damage, health regen and life steal, the SNTNL, action skill cool down and duration. So it’s basically a combo of Axton and Fleet Maya. I really like this!!

06-102

See’in Red and Death Follows Close are key to the build as they active, buff and prolong all the yellow highlighted skill kills. This is why the Legendary Operative would make this even better, and some points could be singled out to add the top row benefits.

I’d probably use the ‘Boomsday SNTNL’ which is similar to Axtons turret with missile pods and guns for added BOOM on boss farming.

One alternative is to swap out Donnybrook for Cold Bore if you had a couple of high powered Jakobs shotties. Swap and shoot for the Cryo damage.

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#55

What augments are you going to run? I put Schadenfreude and Which one’s real? on my Clone and Boomsday and Almighty Ordinance on SNTNL, though Static Field would help keep shields up and Winters Drone could be an interesting combo with Boomday, turning enemies into chipped ice.

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#56

Decided to quickly make a silly little build titled either “This is my House” or “Get off my Lawn”. Focuses on a Clone and Dome approach to lock off areas and create choke points/safe areas for allies or self to regain shields or just mess with enemies. They get into the dome, Zane, his clone, (and potentially his friends) shoot enemies down from a distance. If enemies get close… ZAP! I figured the Double Agent capstone granting your clone a copy of your weapon was more useful than a copy of your shield effect with the Under Cover capstone. Sure, the lower potential healing is a bummer, but the fact that the clone can have a cryo weapon that deals more damage more than makes up for that IMO.

Under Cover capstone version:

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#57

This is the first one I have set, tweaking it a bit before I start on any others.

Also waiting to see first-hand how the “can’t use grenades to have two Action Skills” thing pans out for gameplay, basic idea to let his action skills use grenades for him in exchange.

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#58

A build based on utilizing speed boosts to do insane extra gun damage

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#59

Guaridan/Support Build (31/0/17)

Build based around survivabilty for both you and your teammates, utilizing the barrier for healing/protection and your clone to draw some aggro. Barrier augmented with “All-Rounder” and “Nanites…” for better cover and healing potential and topped off with “Distributed Denial.” Also uses “Brain Freeze,” “Best Served Cold” and “Refreshment” for some CC.

Clone uses “Which One’s Real” and “Binary System” for aggro and boosting CC potential.

ZANE_2
ZANE_2.jpg1133×979 577 KB

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#60

Experimenting with the trees and I think I’d like to play Zane with the gun damage and shield buff skills synergizing in the clone and barrier trees. The tricky part for me is going to be choosing what to take when. That instant second-wind could be a godsend for us solo players, so I’d want to get to it quickly, but that means putting off a lot of helpful skills and buffs in the barrier tree until later in the game.

This is going to be fun.

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