How is Zane in terms of DPS?

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

I’ve been curious about this for a long while and Zane was the character I wanted to play. However, seeing that he has abilities that suite different situation’s, does that mean his dps is amongst the worst or at least lack luster compared to like moze and fl4k, when it comes to bossing?

This kind of puts me off because I like Zane but I also like high dps, as i’m not into supporting at all lol. Moze looks pretty boring and fl4k, well there are a multitude of reasons why I don’t want to play them but I digress…

What do you guys think, or know about Zane in terms of DPS?

#2

seems only a few skills that directly increase damage but when you add in cool hand and violent violence for increased reload speed and fire rate this will certainly pump up the dps.

have a feeling that some of the skills, especially things like the free grenade skills will affect his dps in a manner which may not be evident whilst looking at the stats as a paper exercise.

top this off with how the clone is looking when you reach the bottom of the undercover tree and again we have more damage output that indirectly ups his dps.

personally i like to try and up my character damage without skill reliance, so for me zane is looking a bit out of my comfort zone but have a suspicion he is going to be fab after a bit of playing around with builds.

1 Like
#3

That’s good to hear! thank’s for your input!=D

1 Like
#4

I think he will end up being this game’s Axton. He doesnt have the damage multipliers that the other 3 characters. His strength comes from having alot of quality of life skills and a ton of support options.

I think if B3 isnt as unbalanced as B2 UVHM he will.be fine. But he Zane players are going to have to have more skill that the other vault hunter who get thier DPS very easily.

#5

Creating a clone with your gun sounds pretty close to double damage as a baseline. I don’t think Zane is going to lack damage, but against bosses I could see him really struggle with survivability as he doesn’t have much to offer there that isn’t tied to his action skills or kill skills. A raid boss with no minions who takes more than 30 seconds to kill is going to be a struggle.

#6

Remember seeing a YouTube mention the capstone skill and stating that the clone didn’t do damage in a 1:1 relation to Zane’s own when equipped with a gun. Dunno the exact damage it does tho, a lot of things to figure out in the next few weeks.:slight_smile:

#7

also with that capstone is the fact that when you switch with your clone you both do an extra 20% damage.

#8

I don’t know, Zane gets his DPS easy compared to the others classes. Some of Moze and Fl4k skills are far more difficult to get going. Zane gets almost everything by activating his action skill and swapping positions with his clone. The issue here is that he doesn’t have alot of dps ‘on paper’ compared to Fl4k, Moze and Amara.

But ‘on paper’ may not translate to the actual game. Lots of youtubers have said Zane’s legendary class mods are crazy, which could massively increase his dps (imagine a com which allows his killskills to stack, or buffs Playing Dirty + VV + DfC). His ability to toggle 2 action skills also has alot of synergy with the op anointed weapons.

#9

Increased gun damage is nowhere near as good as bonus damage, % of damage dealt, % of gun damage. These are the damage skills the other other hunters have an abundance of…Zane does not.

Increased gum damage is additive, bonus damage are multipliers

#10

You do know Fl4k has a capstone that can automatically crit for him? Moze can get 75% of all gun damage as extra splash just for shooting her weapon. Amara gets 18% bonus elemental damage just for attacking something. It doesnt get any easier than that.

None of these are tied to to an action skill or kill skill.

#11

@smtrentcf

Hm, I think you can´t just tell straight away: Gun damage isn´t nearly as good as total multipliers. If there´s no “foundation” to multiplicate, a %damage won´t have the great effect as it first sounds.
And Zane has a very high cap in terms of gun damage. And it´s also not totally correct: Zane has such a multiplier: Trick of the Light. Ofc - he can´t choose the element like Amara. And it needs its circumstances - but with clone it should be nearly always up. So i don´t see that as tragic as you described it right here - You can´t just go and say “Gun damage is additive” = bad. You need to look at the whole formula, the whole package.

And yes Fl4k has that capstone. But again: Is it really that op? I mean. With Fl4k you should aim for the crit spots anyway. So basically it shouldn´t care that much if a shot, which won´t hit the crit spot has a 20 % chance to crit. Well it´s nice. But op? Or would just take a smg and go for body shot`s if u also could go for the crit spots the enemies have naturally?
Moze has a lot of “ifs” and “when”, when it comes to her damage. But ofc she seems pretty strong, dependent on the skill tree. And Amara imo needs that 18 % bonus elemental damage like no other to not fall behind them. She doesn´t have that many single target damage skills, so this is just a must have to even stay competitive. And if she takes the capstone she struggles to reach skills like Laid Bare and Wrath with lvl 50, which would add nice damage to her.
Only my opinion. Just guess that´s a bit onesided all in all.

#12

The foundation is the weapon you’re using and the more increased gun damage bonuses you add the less valuable they become. The trick to getting more DPS isnt stacking the same additive bonuses, it getting a wide variety of different multipliers.

Example: Arama and Moze gets multipliers to elemental damage, crit, and % of damage dealt. Zane has a grand total.1 while Amara has 4. Personal space, Tempest (in fact this skill double dips with itself), Forceful Expression, and Laid Bare. And we are note even taking into account her DOT potential. Gun damage isnt bad… it’s just not as good as other forms of damage.

The Fl4k criticism only applies if you’re using a sniper rifle…using a masher style Jacob’s masher pistol or shotgun Megavore becomes ridiculous

#13

I’m not trying to bash Zane…but he will never be a DPS powerhouse unless the gear he gets changes that. I think the people who made his trees went alittle too fancy and needed to give him more DPS options.

#14

Firstly, lets get Megavore out of the way. I don’t see how Megavore is a DPS increase at all - outside of F4de Away, you are still way better off going for crits rather than relying on a 20% chance for the skill to do that for you. And I don’t see how using a Masher or Shotgun is any different from using a Sniper - say you land all 5 pellets of your masher on a body shot, each pellet still has the innate 20% chance to crit, so ultimately 1/5 of your pellets will crit per shot. Say you choose to go for crits, but one of your pellets misses and lands a body shot, that one pellet will still only have a 20% chance to crit. Of course if a com buffs it Megavore can get all sorts of stupid - but not for DPS, because all weapons except grenades can crit in this game. So Megavore is a QOL improvement, not a DPS skill, for most guns. Do I think buffing Megavore would be a mistake? Yes, but that’s a discussion for another topic.

I feel you are being disingenuous in describing Moze capstone - it is a 25% chance to deal 75% splash damage (aka it can’t crit) - ie, unless it is buffed, it is really not very strong. Amara’s Forceful Expression is definitely one of the flat out stronger capstones in the game, but unless it is buffed 18% isn’t huge and does not form the core of her DPS.

And I read your post below - you are clearly a person who understands the Borderlands damage formulla well. So when I say a class doesn’t get DPS easy, I’m not referring to that one capstone which is completely passive, but the class other skills which form the core of a class DPS, which are not easy to get.

Take Moze for example. Zane has to score a kill to get his killskills going (well or just activate his 100% upkeep action skills). Moze has to score 6-10 kills to get the most out of her strongest DPS skill.

Fl4k has alot of crazy requirements to keep his strongest skills going - score 3 kills in 7 seconds, kill a badass enemy, be at FULL health at action skill activation, make sure you are standing still while shooting an enemy (very difficult for a fast paced shooter like BL), make sure your pet has scored 10 consecutive hits on an enemy within a short span of time, etc. Fl4k may have a ton of potential dps, but he also has to micromanage a ton of things.

1 Like
#15

The lack of damage multiplier with Zane did have me concerned with overall DPS output, but we may have multipliers with Violent Momentum and the amp damage from barrier. There is Cold Bore, but that requires a swap first. Either way, we’ll be finding out soon enough.

Edit: most of my belief that Violent Momentum is a multiplier is from the skill damage getting reduced from 30% to 20%. I can’t think of a reason to do this with a toon with minimal damage buffs unless it is indeed a multiplier.

When it comes down to it, I think Zane is going to be more gear dependent, but from what I’ve seen from the anointed gear for other toons, I think with the right setup, Zane will be a powerhouse. Getting there, though, may be a bit of a pita compared to the other toons.

#16

If you want to figure out why Megavore is so powerful…use a Tombstone Nisha build in TPS…and unlike Tombstone Megavore doesnt need a kill which makes it great for bosses. Let’s keep in mind that there are +2 capstone class modes too. If it gives you 60%, good god just delete the game.

Further if using a Jacobs weapon…bullets that crit ricochet and hit other enemies. With Megavore those bullets can also crit. Let’s go further and talk about Headcount…the more you crit the faster your Fade away come back. So the moral of the story…the faster you shoot and the more projectiles you have the more powerful Megavore become…something like The Maggie or Conference Call.

If a class mod gives Megavore 60% crit…no need to aim…the game will play itself. Also a not mentioned aspect of DPS is target acquisition. Unless you’re playing like a sniper you’re going to have bad time aiming for crit spots if someone is damaging you and on top of you. While other people are aiming I’m shooting and killing things That’s true Damage per second…time is big aspect of that.

Also we better pray that there are no Saturn type bosses that have no crit spots what so ever.

75% of gun damage that’s splash is nothing scoff at. Again you build it through gun damage and fire rate…something that SOR tree has an abundance off and fire rate. Take something like shredifier that fire 16 bullets a second…that’s alot of of splash damage coming from a non splash type weapon…on top of the bonus incidiary damage.

This is all stuff Zane wished he had.

#17

If you want to figure out why Megavore is so powerful…use a Tombstone Nisha build in TPS…and unlike Tombstone Megavore doesnt need a kill which makes it great for bosses. Let’s keep in mind that there are +2 capstone class modes too. If it gives you 60%, good god just delete the game.

As I wrote in the post you replied, I feel it would be unwise to buff Megavore, not because it would be ‘overpowered’ as you say - but because it would encourage no skill gameplay.

Comparing Tombstone and Megavore is discounting all the advantages that Tombstone had that made it ridiculous. Megavore makes weapons that can already crit score an automatic critical hit. Tombstone made EVERYTHING crit - grenades, splash damage etc. This made it not just a QOL improvement, but a massive DPS increase for everything that didn’t normally crit like rockets and tediore reloads - a 3.14x dps increase at minimum, and with cryo things got even stupider. Secondly, Nisha had a bunch of splash damage skills, most significantly Hot Lead. This is where Tombstone got really dumb. Hot Lead caused critical hits from a non-elemental weapon to deal +35% damage as incendiary. Tombstone, since the game designers thought it was great idea to allow it to make EVERYTHING crit, allowed Hot Lead to trigger Hot Lead again, which then triggered Hot Lead again. So now a single shot from your Jakobs Pistol does almost 10x its original damage. It was really, really dumb. Lastly, Gearbox thought it was a brilliant idea to have class mods to not only boost Tombstone, but also Trickshot - resulting in truly mindless gameplay. You see, all the truly powerful Nisha out there are powerful not just because TS allowed autocrits, but because 1) the weapon they used couldn’t automatically crit 2) They benefited off Hot Lead.

Further if using a Jacobs weapon…bullets that crit ricochet and hit other enemies. With Megavore those bullets can also crit. Let’s go further and talk about Headcount…the more you crit the faster your Fade away come back. So the moral of the story…the faster you shoot and the more projectiles you have the more powerful Megavore become…something like The Maggie or Conference Call.

I think from gameplay videos, those bullets only ricochet once, which is why Fl4k can’t fire one shot in F4de Away to clear an entire room. And the rest of what you are talking about (Head Count, target acquisition) is what makes Megavore such a good QOL skill, not a DPS one.

Unless you’re playing like a sniper you’re going to have bad time aiming for crit spots if someone is damaging you and on top of you

Yeah thats why the other 15 not-Nisha classes had so much difficulty scoring crits when not using Snipers. I mean Fl4k’s a total glass cannon - if someone’s on top of him, he’s going down.

If a class mod gives Megavore 60% crit…no need to aim…the game will play itself

And if a class mod gives +2 Boom, Enhance, the game’s gonna play itself. I mean I think it would be unwise to buff Megavore to more than 40%, but that’s cos I think that would encourage ‘sloppy gameplay’ as his optimal playstyle, not because it is any real DPS increase.

75% of gun damage that’s splash is nothing scoff at. Again you build it through gun damage and fire rate…something that SOR tree has an abundance off and fire rate. Take something like shredifier that fire 16 bullets a second…that’s alot of of splash damage coming from a non splash type weapon…on top of the bonus incidiary damage.

Dude it doesn’t make a difference whether you are using a Shredifier or a Sniper, the math speaks for itself - 25% of the shots will proc 75% splash damage. Which is a less than 10% dps increase if you are scoring crits - even less if the gun has any crit bonus. And why would you not go for crits if you are playing Moze?

This is all stuff Zane wished he had.

Then don’t play Zane. That’s like saying - man I wish Amara had F4de Away and Money Shot! Zane’s his own class - he shouldn’t be like the others, much like how Fl4k shouldn’t play like Amara.

I mean, in the end I do agree with you that Zane’s dps on paper isn’t up there with Fl4k or Moze. But I also feel his max DPS is much easier to achieve. Like you, I have posted on the forums before lamenting his lack of dps (and skilltree nerfs). But upon seeing how some of the anointed weapon and legendary class mod buffs are pretty crazy, and how many streamers have said Zane has some insane legendary class mods, I have decided to withhold judgment till the game is out (which is now XD). You clearly have a good understanding of BL DPS mechanics, so you shouldn’t let your bias against any class cloud your objectivity.

1 Like
#18

  1. Like I already said…tombstone had a tradeoff. It was a kill skill which made it not as good for bosses. I will take not having to crit with grenades and splash with having it active during boss fights.(who knows…I would like to think a grenade is a weapon. And Megavore applies to weapons).

  2. Further DPS is Damage per second…not damage per shot. DPS is about killing things faster. Megavore helps you kill things faster bc if you miss you can still crit. And if you uses fast firing weapons and/or multiple projectiles you can crit without having to worry about accuracy.

  3. Loot RPG games was never about skill, it’s about killing things fast bc the faster you kill the more loot and exp you get overtime.

  4. It’s not 75% splash damage… its 75% “OF” gun damage. If a weapon does 100 damage, the splash is 75 on top of that. Then add the bonus incidiary damage of overall damage dealt on top of that. Plus the bullet itself can still crit. So the fire rate of the weapon is a very important factor in getting the skill to proc as many times as possible. And another aspect of DPS is reducing overkill unless you have a skill that benefits from overkill.

Finally I’m not knocking Zane…I’m answering the orginal OP post about Zane’s DPS. My first post gave my honest opinion about him Best support character in the game, best QOL skills in the game. Not on par with the other vault hunters in terms of DPS. Didnt say he was bad…he is who he is. I could care less what streamers say…its thier job to hype the game since they need it to make a living.

#19
  1. Dude, there is hardly a boss fight Nisha could not get Tombstone active. It’s also the only killskill that had literally a 99% upkeep because of Trickshot.
  2. Its not the same thing - Zane also has a ton of indirect dps, with his clone firing a copy of his gun (imagine if it was rocket), free grenades flying everywhere etc. No one is denying 60% Megavore is gonna make Fl4k really broken, but it doesn’t increase his DPS. DPS is damage per second, not how fast i clear a room/second. Maya wearing a FotF can clear flesh maps faster than Cat Maya, but no one is gonna say it has higher dps.
  3. Yeah splash damage is always % of gun damage, but it can’t crit. So it deals 75% of your gun damage as splash. And obviously something like the Shredifier helps alot in proccing Means of Destruction and Explosive Punctuation, but as an actual dps increase, it helps all weapons equally.

best QOL skills in the game. Not on par with the other vault hunters in terms of DPS

And I agree with you that Zane has less dps ‘on paper’. My argument was that Zane actually hits his peak DPS much easier than the likes of Fl4k or Moze.

I could care less what streamers say…its thier job to hype the game since they need it to make a living.

I don’t take what streamers say as word of law, but thing is, they have seen alot of things we havent (the only things we’ve seen are the skilltrees and some limited gameplay). If you just showed me Salvador’s skilltree, I wouldn’t think he can obliterate Athena’s, Nisha’s or Krieg’s DPS. Thing is the game’s already out, so let’s wait till we see if the streamer’s claims on Zane’s ‘dumb’ class mods really hold true.

#20

  1. TPS barely had barely any bosses what so ever so it wasnt a pronounced.

  2. Clear speed is more important than DPS. So not only does it increase his DPS (I mean it doesnt go down if he picks it) it also increases his overall killing ability. Call it whatever you want…Megavore is an amazing skill for Fl4k. Damage per second is you have a person in front of you, I gave a person in front of me…who’s kills them quicker. If I dont have to worry about recoil and aiming I will have the advantage. Does it take more skill, of course not. But the result is all I care about.

  3. Moze doesnt have that many skill that directly increase crit damage (of the top of my head she has 1)…just skills that proc WHEN she crits. So I dont know what the obsession is with a crit Moze…you still get the same amount of crit with or without short fuse. Whether or not it can crit is irrelevant, she doesnt have other skill that boost crit damage when she does crit. So unless you’re doing a Fastball krieg grenade build I dont see how that arguement applies. If short fuse could crit it would be the most broken skill in the game. The power of short fuse is tur ing non splash weapons into splash weapons so Fire in the Skah den can constantly proc.