I’ve been really underwhelmed by Playing Dirty. In its current state, it just seems like a weaker version of Two F4ng. Not only is it tied to a kill skill instead of being a passive, but only five shots even try to roll the chance. I’m thinking, to differentiate it from Two F4ng, it could be made to double the projectiles of your next shots instead of adding a single projectile. This would preserve its strength with low projectile count weapons like the Flakker or launchers, while making it not feel negligible on just about every other weapon type.
I don’t think it’s too out there to believe Zane needs some help killing bosses, and this would give him a niche. He’ll have the ability to run a Seein’ Red build for ~10 doubled shots when staggering action skill usage, along with hunting adds to get more double shots onto the boss. Using it with weapons like the Lyuda, Mashers, or various shotguns (Torgue especially) would give him some good burst damage while hopefully not being too abusable (relative to the other characters, of course).
That would be awesome and make certain shotguns better with the skill, but personally I have been satisfied with the skill overall. It does have better synergy with low projectile count weapons, but these type of weapons aren’t just the Flakker and launchers. Any gun that’s powerful or has unlisted extra projectiles appreciate this skill. The Lyuda already synergizes with this skill because its first 5 shots will shoot another shot that also splits. I think this skill is fine, it just doesn’t work well with every gun. I had a Double Penetrating Boring gun that normally shoots out three saw blades, but with the DP prefix it shoots six, and while Playing Dirty is active it shoots 9. It’s a lot of fun.
Only problem I have with this skill is that for some reason the skill won’t always activate when you use an action skill with Seein’ Red, but all other kill skills do. So if you use one action skill and then take five shots, then you use your other action skill, it won’t always active Playing Dirty again. It’s really annoying especially when you need it for a boss fight and there’s no adds around. I really hope this is a bug, because if it is, you can chain Playing Dirty 15 times at the start of a boss fight, and Zane could use it for that.