Zane, The Barrier Lover

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

Hey everyone, this is my first post ever on this forum and I had an idea in my head for a build and I wanted to share, so enjoy!

This build is mainly defensive. While I do try to squeeze out as much damage as I can without losing it’s juicy defense. This build should also be really helpful to other players/friends who will be playing with you and it should be shining in the harder content.

This build also has a very unique approach to it’s second skill. The first one is obviously barrier, but the second is up to you. I will explain this below.

Screenshot_5
Screenshot_5.png1142×777 629 KB

https://bl3skills.com/operative/#535001105101315050100000050500000000000

The Barrier + SNTNL build

The Augments:

  1. The Barrier - All-rounder, Charged Relay
  2. The SNTNL - Winter’s Drone, Static Field

The Under Cover tree

  1. The upper half of the tree - Just pure defense. Trying out to maximize the use of shield itself.
  2. Confident Competence - This is where the shield helps. More shield = More dmg (up to 10%) and more accury (up to 22%)
  3. Calm, Cool, Collected - This is the juicy stuff right here. You freeze someone and you immediately start recharging shield, if your shield is full, then you get health. Your health is full, well have your Action Skills back OR reset their duration entirely. This is incredibly strong and we need to get more cryo!
  4. Best Served Cold - Whenever you kill someone, they fire a cryo nova. This has potential to freeze enemies around them, thus a potential to proc the awesome Calm, Cool, Collected.
  5. Nerves of Steel - If your shield is full you get +6% accuracy and +7,5% handling every second, stacking up to 99 stacks. This shouldnt be hard to achieve with the barrier since they can’t shoot you and if you get a good shield this has an awesome potential. It might not sound like much, but you will see later in the build why this has a nice potential.
  6. Distributed Denial - What can I say get an awesome shield mod and make your friends happy and your enemies cry.

The Hitman Tree

  1. Violent Momentum - Keep moving for more damage. This paired with Nerves of Steel talent could completely eliminate the negatives of moving and shooting. And it has even more potential if you pick the barrier up for your own use. Also more movement speed enhances the damage increase of this talent. Thus the Charged Relay augment for Barrier, which gives fire rate and movement speed.
  2. Violent Speed - You kill, you gain movement speed. This supports the skill above gaining more damage.
  3. Drone Delivery - Get a cryo grenade mode and make your drone drop them grenades on enemies. Further increasing your chance to proc Calm, Cool, Collected.
  4. Winter’s Drone (Augment) - This makes your drone fire Cryo Bullets. Increasing the chance to proc Calm, Cool, Collected.
  5. Static Field (Augment) - Draining enemy shields helps you with survivability, maximize the bonus of Confident Competence talent and get those Nerves of Steel stacks going.

The Doubled Agent Tree

  1. Synchronicity - Having both action skills active gives you +20% damage. The use of this is maximized through Calm, Cool, Collected.
  2. Borrowed Time - This should make the skills active longer so have a longer window to get that Calm, Cool, Collected proc.

The Bonus Stats

  1. +20% Gun Damage for having a barrier up and standing in it.
  2. +20% Gun Damage for having both of your skills active.
  3. +10% Gun Damage and +22% accuracy with full shield.
  4. +30% Gun Damage for moving, further increased by higher movement speed.
  5. +20% Movement Speed on kill.
  6. +11% Movement Speed and +13% Fire Rate from a barrier augment.
  7. +6% Accuracy and 7,5% Handling per stack per second up to 99 stack.
  8. A lot of defense from bonuses to shield, shield recovery, barrier and drone augment.

The Barrier + Digi-clone build (requires you to all of the above to understand the synergy)

  1. The left tree stays the same with the same augments.
  2. You remove a point from Drone Delivery and a point from Violent Speed from the Hitman tree.
  3. You invest one of these points into Fractal Frags, which basically replaces the Drone’s grenades.
  4. You invest the other point into Quick Breather, which again helps you get that shield topped for Confident Competence and Nerves of Steel talents.
  5. Augment one - Binary System. Whenever you switch, you fire a frost nova from yourself and your Digi-clone increasing the potential to freeze and proc Calm, Cool, Collected.
  6. Augment two - Schadenfreude. Your clone takes damage. You get shield. Again helps with Confident Competence and Nerves of Steel.

Super sorry for the long read. This was a fun build to do and theorize about. Tell me, what you think and perhaps how would you personally change some things. I have to say I am personally super exicited to try this out! :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#2

Nice writeup, and welcome to the forums.

1 Like
#3

Hey! Looks like a super cool build around trying to proc CCC as often as possible. I like it! I’m trying to develop a “I never have to shoot” mess-around build with Zane, relying on many of the same skills. Personally, I’m not sold on Nerves of Steel. The percentages get big really quickly, but for me it depends on how the stacks disappear on damage. Do they drain slowly? On a per-hit basis? All at once? If they disappear all at once, I don’t think I’d ever take it over Really Expensive Jacket and Refreshment. There are just too many ways to get nicked (and I think – not certain, but I think – that grenades/non-projectile damage like flamethrowers/skag puke/melee psychos can slip past Zane’s Barrier, based on the wording).

Best Served Cold is a skill that I struggle with. On one hand, I want the explosions to do awesome damage, and on the other, it’s only 3 damage per stack (and the cooldown stays the same). Not exactly rapid-fire burst or good sustain damage… so I usually stick one point there for more freezin’, one point in Really Expensive Jacket because DoTs are looking more powerful than BL2, and some points in Refreshment to get CCC to keep the action skills up more often.

With Refreshment, Zane doesn’t really need Rise to the Occasion, so those points can be worked into Brainfreeze or Stiff Upper Lip. That one probably depends on what COMs Zane gets.

Here’s a respec with a hint more survival by reshuffling Under Cover, but less Nerves of Steel and free cryo damage:
https://bl3skills.com/operative/#535300111131115050100000050500000000000

1 Like
#4

Aren’t we all! :smile:

#5

I believe that, if you get shot you lose all the stacks. It would make the most sense to me at least. But the Barrier with all-rounder should make this a bit easier to sustain the stacks. And moving around in the barrier with the increased damage while eliminating the negatives of running-and-shooting. It just sounds fun on the paper.

Now Really Expensive Jacket is awesome, and I might pick it up. But I would need more clarification on Futility Belt, because if you proc Futility Belt you dont receive elemental damage. Does that mean you can’t get the elemental status on you? Because if you can’t, I wouldnt take the Jacket. And yes the melee enemies can get through the barrier, but you can always switch the other augment for Deterrence Field to stagger them, I guess. It all needs testing and is, of course, theoretical.

I agree with your Best Served Cold that one point could be enough and It might be better to invest elsewhere. To make it more defensive. But again that requires testing, but could totally be a way to go.

Overall I like the build you posted. Its a slight change that totally could work better. Its gonna be a point of testing in my endgame. Thanks for this. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#6

Thanks for posting! Futility Belt and Really Expensive Jacket definitely need testing against elemental weapons that also deal splash, but taking them doesn’t really change the core of the build. I wonder if elemental effects can get applied to the Barrier separately? The ramification would be that they get washed when the barrier disappears. Ohhhh I am so excited to play this game!