Most of Zane's legendary Class mods are rather errr... meh

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

I’ve been playing a fair bit of Zane and have seen all of his legendary COMs right now. Truth be told, most of them aren’t particularily useful. The two that do currently seem some use both from me as well as the community as a whole are the Executor and the Infiltrator, thus I will be going over the ones that aren’t really being used.

Shockerator: On a base level, this skill has a pretty interesting idea since it grants you a free action skill augment. However, it’s just not that strong. Binary System is kind of alright but it’s still nothing to write home about and the shock Nova deals nowhere enough damage to justify using this over anything else. It’s a shame, too, because this is the only Class Mod that has a perk which directly impacts the clone. Increase the nova damage a little and maybe have it grant you guaranteed action skill damage (if anyone actually knows how the clone with double barrel and action skill damage bonuses interact, please let me know. Is it just a straight buff to the clones gun damage?)

Techspert: This skill gives Zane a chance to immediately refresh SNTL’s duration/cooldown upon killing an enemy. Here’s the thing: The activation chance is not high enough to make it worth using and if you are invested into the undercover tree, Cool, Calm, Collected is a straight upgrade. As long as your health and shield are full it is guaranteed to trigger and freezing an enemy is generally speaking easier than killing them (unless they are anointed). Now, there’s three things I would do with this:
1: Make the special effect affect both equipped action skills instead of just SNTL
2: Give it the shockerator treatment. Allow it to grant SNTL an additional augment (not sure which one it should be, maybe almighty Ordnance because it is related to attack commands).
3: Give the effect a chance to trigger upon dealing gun damage, like Fl4k’s Bounty Hunter COM which would make it a lot better against bosses.

Cold Warrior: Long story short, the bonus is just not good enough. Most enemies are nearly dead once you freeze them anyways so a random additional status effect is not all that usefull and the more tanky enemies like bosses and anointeds are mostly immune to being frozen or cryo damage in general. Also, none of the boosted skills provides any synergy with the main effect.
Suggestions:
1: Allow Zane to get the same advantages against frozen enemies as the Pre-Sequel did. Additional critical damage and splash damage is much more useful than extra melee damage (which I always found to be a strange bonus to leave there in general. Like, the only melee class in the game is Amara and she doesn’t even have cryo-based skills and on any of the other characters the boost is just not big enough to justify melee attacks over guns either way)
2: Change the boosted skills to more cryo based ones. I’d suggest Calm, Cool, Collected which would make this an invaluable COM for players who haven’t invested into the Undercover tree as well as Brain Freeze, Refreshment or Best Served Cold.

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#2

I agree. Zane on top of being weaker, actually has the worst CLASS MODS of all the vault hunter. Even his best one is bad.

#3

Zane’s action skills are great.

I’d argue his worst one, his drone, is actually his most popular one.

The barrier is universally useful and the clone has more utility than both the drone and the barrier. Does more damage than the drone by a longshot and gives you the ability to yeet yourself out of the battle and replace yourself with a bomb.

He might not be absurdly broken, but that’s not the issue.

#4

Damn it! I meant to say class mods. Have no idea why I posted action skills

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#5

It’s all gud

#6

I’d argue the clone is actually his worst one because without investing in double barrel it is all but worthless in M3, it just does no damage whatsoever if you don’t spec for double barrel (and even when you do, the damage is pitiful; he’s mostly there to freeze with a crossroad or lucian’s or lyuda).

The drone at least functions just fine with only half a tree worth of investment, and its glaring problem is the humongous CD if you fail to proc CCC, otherwise it is better at landing grenades on enemy than the awful clone, and it comes with a skill tree that provides better damage amps besides donnybrook and the first tier 5 points in double agent. The drone can also be retargeted and doesn’t evaporate to enemy fire while being able to shoot enemies out of cover, while the clone will simply shoot at walls and die to 3 rockets.

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#7

I don’t use the clone for damage 99% of the time and don’t really need it for damage either for it to be wildly more useful than the drone. If you spec it for damage, it will do a bunch of it, but I don’t like having to protect the clone.

The clone throws at least 2 grenades, can nova (augments and nova shields)/proc shield effects, can use your gun if you want it to, draws enemy fire, actually freezes enemies, and gives you ins and outs of combat.

I use my clone mostly to life steal from a safe distance or as set ups for kills. Also it’s CD is much lower which means if I just need action skills for my Executor class mod, it’s more efficient than drone in that manner too.

#8

I’ll agree here. His Legendary COMs are pretty disappointing. Pretty much the only one I ever want to use is Executor, and Infiltrator maybe with a Rough Rider. But that’s really it. Most definitely could use some work to at the very least bring all the COMs on the same level as Executor.

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