The Zane buff? it might actually be!

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

Guys… I might have found something!

I made this really quickly right now, just to do some little showcase of my findings, so pardon the low video quality and the low gameplay quality xD

I want to share with you my findings in detail though…

I’ve been going through almost aaaaall the diffrent guns I still had availabe to me to see if anything comes up… and INDEED I found some guns that actually work really well with the clone now (maybe also did before, but as you can see it works quite well now anyways)

what you did not see in this video, and what I was talking earlier about is actually the night flyer (this is also the reason for the weird shield I used ^^)
if you and the clone both uses the night flyer, while also having spect into “trick of the light” one of you will not be focused… so if you shoot the same target as the clone, the enemys will melt in a seconds (because night flyer damage is insane) and then you trigger the kill with either schock from the skill, the shield drone, or your SNTL drone… or grenades… so you have actually many ways to bypass the downside. this is pretty fun and fast ^^ maybe Ill do another video about it.

but what I also found and showcased in this video is that “secondary” explosions on guns seem to be unaffected by any damage penalty the clone suffers…
so the duc does insane damage, I dont know if you can see but it hit from anywhere from 8k, 20k, up to 40k at one point so it is really really good.
and then there is the scourge, and for whatever reason, when the clone fires it, it travels REALLY slow… and that is actually PRETTY benefical, since the big rocket will constantly spawn these tiny homing rockets around it which do like 8k each, so one rocket fired does easily do 50-80k. and since it reloads after every shot, the clone uses it quite well, because if he is good at soemthing it is reloading! (you might want to get a fire one too, I sadly didn’t pay much attention to it before to notice its greatness!)
also the Hive works pretty good on the clone too, it does less damage than the scourge but covers a whole map with rocket and is better for shields.

so yeah, these 4 guns are pretty nice now! but -bullet damage, or - non elemtal really really hurts and basically insta kills this strategie… thats why the good ol’ crossroads and cutsman are still here, and as you can see even with -50% corrosion the cutsman still shreds…

so yeah… let me know what you think, and what you find in the future.
For now I think we can safely say, that Zane’s double Barrel build might actually be decent now!

this is the first time I managed to clear a trial in 5 minutes on mayhem 3 with zane using a double barrel build btw.

obviously its sad that only like 6 weapons are a viable option to use but for now that is all we have, and its a dim light at the end of the tunnel for zane my friends :slight_smile:

1 Like
#2

I just can’t get into using the cutsman or any Maliwan gun basically. Having to charge a weapon to fire it just might be the worst gimmick I’ve seen on a weapon…maybe not a single weapon but definitely for a whole weapon manufacturer.

1 Like
#3

Glad your have come around a bit haha.

Good call on the Night Flier pistol!

The Hornet/Nemesis also work good. My current favourite is the crossroad, he absolutely loves that!

#4

I mean I always wanted to! I love Zane by far the most… I just didn’t see it… it is still clunky and it should be still very much stronger and more versatile… the AI is a MESS… but at least we get some viable options now

#5

The clone is really good with this Trevonator I have. I hate Maliwan weapons in general, but this one is really good as it doesn’t have a charge up time and it has a fast rate of fire with it. The clone was eating through mobs with it, had everything frozen solid.

The one I have is Cryo/Rad and unfortunately, I cant choose which element the clone uses as even when I’m using radiation at the time I spawn him, he still uses cryo.

#6

It would be pretty ok when the charged shots HIT VERY HARD. But unfortunately, they dont.
There are exceptions.
I was quite surprised yesterday when i found a blue malivan sniper that did one shot small fries and did pretty ok damage against badasses.
Malivan shotguns need a 100% damage buff. Them are useless

#7

Man, good call on that Trevanator, wouldnt have thought of using it. Might have to start a Topic somewhere of weapons he isnt useless with. would probably help new people rather than having to test it sll out haha.

#8

we should totally do that. although it is quite sad… since all guns should be used as you can use it… anyway… I’ve been farming all day since yesterday to get more guns I haven’t tried… the trevonator always seemed so useless to me for example, I havent even thought about it for a second… will try to get one.
also still looking for a fire scourge…

#9

got three trevonator today, a double pentrating, a rad and a cryo,the cryo had a really bad damage roll, but it was quite potent at freeze, maybe really good for a freeze build (which I am not running) rad was okay and even outperformed the double version because of the clone behaivior.
it was quite decent! definitly a usable gun, can’t keep up with the rest though…

so far my weapon tier list would look something like this:
(keep in might that Zane still is HIGHLY dependent on the mayhem modifiers you get)

S-Tier: the really good stuff

  • Crossroad - Versatile thanks to it having all elements, shoots fast and precise, one burst usually kills an enemy if your using the right element. also the best freeze weapon imo.
  • Scourge - it is REALLY good, but you need to position the clone in a way that the rocket has time to travel and also fly by as many enemies at possible, but a single shot can kill multiple enemys. I only have a non elemental version, but I’d imagine a fire scourge works just as good and I would love to get my hands on one!
  • Night Flyer - this is an honorable mention, use this when you have + normal bullets and/or +pistol modifiers, this thing WRECKS everything in its path, though you need to get tricky with, use specific skills “trick of the light” or even use the “messy breakup” shield, this in combination with your drone, your grenades will provide enough ways to kill enemys and you will basically never see immune for mire than a shot, just focus the same target as you clone and you breeze through anything!

A Tier: The good stuff

  • Nemesis - this is basically a weaker version of the crossroad, but still pretty strong, shoots fast its okay-ish hard, it does half the damage of the night flyer, but it does have all elemental synergies.
  • The Duc - for normal bullet modifers this is insane, but even without it it is quite strong, the secondary explosions have some weird scaling that I dont really understand, but I have seen it deal anywhere from 4k to 89k from the clone… so yeah, a well placed shot demolishes
  • Trevonator - this is like the shotgun version of the Crossroads, it does pretty good damage, but you really need the right element with this, also dont use the double pallet version! the second best gun if you want to freeze with your clone.
  • Hive - a good alternative to the scourge, has huge area coverage, a radiation hive is pretty funny for mobbing

B Tier: the low range tier

  • butcher - B is for Butcher, good damage close range, can freeze preety good, and has a good AI, the downside is that it lacks range and is really hindered by that
  • Lyuda - this can hit PRETTY damn hard, especially a doubled version. BUT even more so than the butcher has to be positioned JUST right to hit its full potential, which is quite hard to do in such a hectic game, okay for freezing.
  • Flakker - the strongest gun in the game arguably, is pretty underwhelming on the clone, the limited range is just to big of a hinderence for this gun to function properly

C Tier: Honorable mentions

  • Cutsman - The boss melting with this on huge targets is insane, the damage is really high, but it is useless against anything that moves around, the clone shoots slow and the beam travels slowly, the AI on this is really bad, still the damage is noteworthy
  • Infinity - quite the oppsite of the Cutsman… this is THE ONLY gun in the game that actually has a good AI! belive it or not! But the clone will actually just shoot it forever! he does not stop, he just shoots at anything he can see and never lets go of the trigger… WHY can he do it with this but not every other fast shooting gun? WHY?.. the damage is abyssmal ofcourse at it is not recommended to use…
  • Hornet - Basically a even weaker version of the nemesis and only CORROSION!

D-E Tier: the rest…

  • Basically every other gun that either shoots fast, hits hard, or need to be charged because the clone has a stupid AI and always burst fires, and also does very little base damage.

F Tier: Dishonorable Mentions

  • Lasersploder - this is the biggest joke in the game right now xD seriously, please try it out! and use a cryo version for poor preejaculation spurt clone xDD this gun shows why Zanes clone has problems… such a good gun, could be SO good on the clone, but the AI ruins it completly! “pfft”
  • any Tediore - this is more understandable… but the clone obviously does not use the throw mechanic of tediore, and in fact doesnt even spawn any projectile on reloads… if I had Infinite ammo and 93% reload speed you could BET your ass I would only spam babymaker and purple shotguns. :stuck_out_tongue:
  • Atlas guns - he also obviously can’t use trackers, so these are just guns that do no damage.

Let me know If I forgot anything… I will probably make this its own thread now :slight_smile: