Zane "The Flash" Hitman (detailed build)

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

This build allows Zane to get high on SPEED. Move fast, fire fast. Be the elusive Hitman.
Note: I’ve invested a full 72 levels of points. See the Progression section of the build on how to distribute as I would lvl up. I would personally knock out a lot of fluff survival skills to get down to lvl 50.

https://bl3skills.com/operative/#205430110100005554141503150550000030000

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Highlights:
With 2 action skills up you will

  1. move +52% faster (+63% if near Barrier) (+6% extra per nearby enemy)
  2. do +60% more dmg (+69% if near Barrier) (+79% if shield is full)
  3. have +20% fire rate (+33% if near Barrier), +15% (+26% if near Barrier) reload speed, +60% weapon swap speed, +10% chance to slow enemy on crit
  4. With the Seein’ Red skill you will have all kill skills active right when you enter battle instead of waiting for that first kill. Death Follows Close adds enough duration and power to all kill skills to ensure they never turn off in a fight.

The essentials:

  • Violent Momentum - Quicker you move, greater the dmg. +30% @ walking speed
  • Violent Speed - Kill skill. Movement Speed +20% (+28% w/ DFC). Base dur = 8s (12s w/ DFC)
  • Supersonic Man - If 2 actions skills are active, +24% speed.
  • Seein’ Red - Activating an action skill activates all kill skills.
  • Death Follows Close - All kill skills gain +40% effect, +4s duration.

All other skills fall into 2 categories:

  • Making sure your action skills last longer and come back faster so you have all the kill skill and action skill required bonuses active as often as possible
  • Surviveability. Shield recharge delay, benefits from Barrier to increase dmg, speed, health regen, etc, and some lifesteal to boot.

Recommended weapons/skills:

  • Accurate smg’s (highly benefit from fire rate increase) or revolvers/shotguns (they both gain lots of extra cryo dmg on first shot after swapping and are accurate enough when hip firing to make sure Violent Momentum is used well)
  • SNTNL & Barrier. SNTNL because he’ll follow you even when you’re speeding and help keep your kill skills active. Barrier if you need to hunker down and increase surviveability and dmg. You can still speed around your barrier and go through it regularly to increase your speed even more with the augment.

Progression:
1)Advise to reach the listed “essential skills” as quickly as possible, capitalizing on any kill skills and SNTNL upgrades along the way.
2)After those I’d go after action skill cooldown/duration increases. These will help maximize stat boosts.
3)By that point you will be much higher lvl and you will start needing survival skills a lot more so finish off with those.
You may have to go back and forth on points 2 and 3 a bit to make sure your barrier is upgraded some to at least get the Charged Relay augment, possibly even the Nanites or Some ■■■■■ augment before continuing.

Let me know your thoughts on the build and what could be improved!
Thanks!

1 Like
#2

Is there like a Borderlands 3 Skill tree builds category for this? If not I can completly understand . Anyways good build dude. I just hope they bring back OP Levels and if the story is as long as they say it is we may need another 23 Levels i’m not even sure.

#3

With respect…isn’t this all theory right now? We don’t know how many of his skills actually work yet.

3 Likes
#4

Yep. And no one knows the level cap yet either. According to @Derch, not even the developers.

Added: nor do we know anything about class mods or what the fourth (relic?) slot actually does.

4 Likes
#5

We aren’t even confirmed to be able to get level 50’s worth of skill points which is the highest anybody could reasonably assume at this point. Your build will interest me far more with 22 fewer points invested.

1 Like
#6

Needs more Bloody Revival.

2 Likes
#7

I just wanted to have a possible maxxed build. That’s always how I put together my builds. That’s also the reason I put a “Progression” section in there, so people know how I plan to make my way through the skills as I level up. So I’ll just follow that plan until I hit 50. If they add more levels it’s just gravy on top. With as much speed as I’ve got here, minimum survival using Barrier should be sufficient up to lvl50.

Is that an Amara skill? Don’t see that one on Zane.

#8

It was a silly joke. Ignore me.

#9

I’m super excited to see if death follows closely is multiplicative. If so, that 40% is huge after cryo/radiation buffs, amp shields, guardian rank, etc. He’s an assassin with a drone, life steal, and a barrier that heals teammates. He’s like 3 classes in one.

#10

I highly doubt it’s multiplicative.
Example: If Zane has a CoM that gives +10% fire rate and guardian rank that gives another +10% fire rate, and then he kills an enemy to activate Violent Violence (+20% fire rate), that would only give you +8% fire rate (which is 40% of the 20 from the kill skill.
So you’d have a total of +48% fire rate.

It wouldn’t make sense for them to tack it onto the total you have (which would be +16% in this example) since it specifically says it only applies to kill skills.

#11

level cap at launch will be 50. Why post a build that won’t get used for a long time?
it even says “very theoretical” on the level counter.

#12

TBF the level cap wasn’t announced until a month after this post was made, so it could have been possible.