Hoping one day for a dedicated patch boost to Zane, other than the basic bug fixes. Had some ideas for QoL changes, at least the ideal without becoming too exploitable (powerful but appropriately so with the right investment), mainly focusing on skills that otherwise had weak aspects or are usually ignored.
Under Cover tree
Double tapping barrier on initial use automatically picks it up as a personal shield
Rise to the occasion swapped with ready for action
Best served cold swapped with Stiff upper lip
Best served cold now adds a 4% damage vulnerability bonus against enemies that have been slowed/affected by cryo
Confident competence now adds up to an additional 10% crit damage depending on percentage of shields
Nerves of steel now adds 1.5% crit damage per stack per point (i.e. max 22.5% for max 15 stacks per point)
Distributed denial now works as such – while barrier is active it applies your shield effects on allies (including pets), double’s your own shield’s special effects
Charged relay and Nanites or some â– â– â– â– â– work while his Barrier is picked up
Retaliation augment gun damage increased from 10 to 20% damage
Concept:
Swapping the skill placements means those using the rough rider and no shield mods can invest in skills that are not useless to them.
Barrier tree needed additional damage (only defensive skill tree that is so limited with this), and zane needed more multipliers to damage, and more ability to both sustain+burst damage against bosses. Cryo vulnerability improves cryo build and ally aspect (and better to consider investing in cold bore or digiclone cryo nova).
Crit damage boosts means the concept of the tree’s damage is to hit precisely without taking much damage. Substantial crit damage boost is the reward for prolonged time not taking damage.
Hitman tree
SNTNL now has a base 45 second cooldown and damage (including augments) scales partially to movement speed
Cold Bore is now a 3 point skill, each point applies 20% weapon swap speed and first 25% magazine on swap deals 10% bonus cryo damage
Violent Momentum increased 4 to 5% damage per point
Seeing Red has been swapped with Death Follows close
Playing dirty now adds an additional shot per point invested (i.e 2 points is 6 shots with 20% chance)
Death follows close
- The 25% kill skill bonus has been rolled back to the baseline for the kill skills violent speed/cold hand/violent violence without investing in death follows close
- Death follows close still adds 7 second duration
- It now adds a kill skill that is a stacking x5 25% bonus to violent speed, cool hand, violent violence, donnybrook and pocket full of grenades.
Bad dose scales in damage as intended
Static field recovers shields as intended
Concept:
With this the skills are more appropriately scaled at baseline.
Cold bore now more usable with different weapons
The concept is that with death follows close capstone you are meant to blitz at rapid speed to maintain stacks.
Similarly drone is boosted in damage when you are actively blitzing.
Seeing red is at a more appropriate place for more sustained/boss builds to proc the kill skills if you are investing in other trees
Doubled agent tree
Borrowed time increased 3 to 4% duration per point
Donnybrook now heals max health not missing health
Duct tape mod now applies to the first 25% of a magazine, not just the first shot
Supersonic man increased 4 to 5%
Boom enhance now works as intended – always consumes 3 grenades and gives additional health
Double Barrel now works as intended – AI will now shoot continuously
Doppelbanger’s explosion activates faster
Concept:
Mostly fixes for the digiclone
Some skills slightly boosted so that they are worth a single action skill being active
Duct tape mod becomes more reliable to use with a wider range of weapons (and doesn’t lose out to the mag size increase in the same tree)
Legendary mods
Legendary mods should be gamechangers for builds. Of the 5 mods, only 2 (executor and infiltrator) make a difference and are usable. For the other 3 replacing changes could be:
Cold Warrior – massive increase in cryo efficiency, increased further against bosses. However frozen enemies immediately shatter, causing a cryo explosion.
Brain Freeze, nerves of steel, synchronicity
Concept is to boost cool calm and collected builds against bosses, boosts it against mobs without making it overpowered in freezing enemies.
Shockerator – Zane’s digiclone now releases a constant nova around it. A portion of damage dealt with the nova heals the digiclone. Binary system augment automatically activated.
Duct tape mod, pocket full of grenades, best served cold
Concept is a packaged explosive build that uses the digiclone without much investment to be a good surviving distraction, going up close to mobs then swapping with cryo nova.
Techspert – 50% chance on swap to produce a second digiclone. If the primary digiclone dies, it can consume the second digiclone for a second wind.
Trick of the light, synchronicity, donnybrook
Digiclone specialty, relies on maximising swapping the digiclone in combat to keep it going (both doing more damage and surviving).
Not that they would ever change things in this much detail (likely they will just do more hotfixes) but at least one can dream if Zane was properly thought through from the start…