Two Skills or One plus Grenades?

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

Now that the game is actually out and folks have had a chance to play, I’m wondering what people decided to do and why they did it. Did you take two skills, or one and keep access to grenades? Why - what do you see as the pros and cons?

While levelling

  • Took one skill and grenades
  • Took two skills (no grenades)

0 voters

Mayhem modes

  • Take one skill and grenades
  • Take two skills (no grenades)

0 voters

Vote, comment, and discuss!

Also, related topic:

  • I would like grenades available while 2nd skill is on cooldown
  • I don’t think the previous option is a good idea

0 voters

1 Like
#2

but what setting my man? leveling? gearing? endgame?

because it is completely different.

for leveling 1 AC and nades if i don have good nade then switch to 2AC on the fly

in endgame always 2 AC

#3

Good point - will adjust.

Edit: well, that was a bit more involved than I though, but there it is - two separate polls. Have at it!

1 Like
#4

On my first playthrough, I chose two skills almost as soon as I hit the Hitman capstone. From the outset, I wanted to piece together a viable kill skill build, with alternating action skill activations letting me trigger them on demand. This approach has worked pretty well so far, and I’ve had a blast running a barrier/clone build with a maxed Hitman tree, amongst various other options.

I genuinely do miss the utility of grenades, but the trade-off seems worthwhile overall.

Not sure how others feel about Zane’s grenade skills, but I’ve found most of them don’t really suit my playstyle at all. They’re too random, too inaccurate, or the chances are too low, for how I like to use them. Fully spec’ing into the Doubled Agent tree can make them a lot more viable, but it’s my least favourite of the three trees, and I seem to get far better value for the points elsewhere.

In general terms, I think it would be great to shoehorn in an option for Zane to manually throw grenades while maintaining two action skills.

Practically however, I’d much rather see the same button(s) allocated to provide better utility to his existing action skills instead; not unlike how holding the AS button activates Dopplebanger (for example).

Currently, Zane’s action skill animations and execution are functional, but incredibly clunky for a fast paced playstyle. Held button features used to say, automatically collect/drop the shield, or offer added clone utility, could really improve his gameplay IMHO.

Edit: fixed some wonky sentences and typos. :blush:

1 Like
#5

okay then, in nvhm i ran barrier and nades

in tvhm i ran either barrier nades or barrier/clone

in endgame i usually run drone/clone but best option is barrier/drone or barrier/clone.

i voted, cheers.

P.S. yes i intentionally run “worst” version of the possible AC combinations in my mind cuz it is dummy fun.

1 Like
#6

I’m team Two Skills and No Manual Grenade Throw.

So, I have never been a grenade person, my Amara and Moze are getting better at it, but I absolutely have my melee and grenade bound to two buttons that feel the same under my thumb, which…lead to many hectic Claw Gaige moments.

But I managed to recreate this by having the Drone and Clone, with the clone set to almost melee, so I…I totally swapped once when I meant to melee.

But I also put a point into Duct Tape. A shockerator pumps that up point or two.

But my clone and drone throw more free grenades than I ever would. The whispering ice grenade with a clone drone tape build can just kinda make the area look like a megaman snow boss level :joy::joy:

2 Likes
#7

So, Zane’s skills aren’t particularly great. even if they get buffed, as single skills they’re not really worth it (maybe, MAYBE shield… on a good day). Together is where it really shines, and thanks to the modifiers that help drop grenades, it’s basically free DPS to just use those and keep the skills up.

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#8

I’ve mostly run Shield and Clone which I think is the best. Second best would be Clone + Grenade/Shield Grenade.

I don’t really switch off for any reason, but like the utility of being able to do so if need be.

#9

thanks for this post, it inspired me to have a play last night using only drone (for utility rather than damage) so that i could try out the changes to hex and flacker and grabbing playing dirty along with all the damage buffs in the lower part of all three trees.

actually had a blast (forgive the pun lol) and actually got downed less than usual running through athenas :ok_hand:

2 Likes
#10

Give Zane a capstone where instead of 4 different guns, he can equip 4 different grenades.

#11

I’ve found alternating between the shield and one of the other action skills to be best for survival; I tend to switch between drone and clone depending on my mood (at first I only used the clone because of the drone’s long cooldown but then I got Topped Off and now that’s no longer a problem)

#12

Speaking purely from Mayhem modes, the Operative class needs a LOT of love. The dependency on cryo is a huge problem for the drone/shield build, especially when you encounter Annointed mobs in places like Slaughter Shaft and elsewhere in the game. (I can elaborate if necessary, but if you’ve played Zane in M3 TVHM, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.) Either Annointed mobs elemental immunities need to be adjusted, or the build needs to have more versatility.

As for your third poll about being able to use grenades with both Action Skills slotted, I’m not sure I understand the point of the question. In any of the build combinations (i.e. drone/shield, clone/drone, clone/shield) you can still use a grenade with both Action Skills slotted either through your Digi-Clone or through your Drone, or both if you’re a clone/drone build. From my experience, the drone tosses grenades fairly often, and the best part is it’s free. I don’t need to worry about it, and I’m not sure I’d want to worry about that mechanic on Zane.

#13

I guess my concern from my admittedly limited time so far is that my digiclone appears to be even worse at throwing grenades than I am, which is saying something!

I suspect that some types and delivery methods are going to be a lot more effective on the clone than others though - has anyone taken a look a this?

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#14

basically homing ones are the only ones you can rely on aka atlas nades.

#15

I’m sporting a leveling Digi-STNL as main and loving it. Waited before adding the STNL.

As a gamer I have the bad habit of not taking full advantage of high damage/low ammo count weapons. Playing a Fastball Axton as main I learned something different.
Playing Zane you have to think differently about grenades than you did in any previous Bordelands games. You’re more limited on mods but on the good side I’m spamming more nades than I ever did! :joy:

Pocket Full of Grenades is a really good skill and I bet it can make a fun “solo skill” Zane.

#16

Pocket Full of Grenades is an excellent skill.

The clone isn’t bad at throwing grenades, he just throws them straight in the direction he is facing when he spawns. Grenades that have huge AoEs or are homing are good on the clone.

My favorite legendary grenade mods for the clone include:
Hex
Firestorm
Quasar
Chupa’s Organ
It’s Piss
Epicenter
Stormfront

…in that order. There are also several regular grenade mods that work well, but since I don’t have a list of all of them in front of me, a few that stand out are:

Mirv
Flamer/Chiller/Corrupter (any of the elemental-specific types)
Artillery
Homing
Divider
Link
Roider
Large

Any huge AoE runs the risk of SDing when in-range. Types of mods I specifically don’t like are fewer and also harder to remember, but include Rubberized/Bouncing, Nuke (for SD purposes), lobbed, and longbow.

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#17

I’ll try to keep those at hand for reference.
Surprised to see the Mirv up the list thou. They were my worst experience with Self Damage. Maybe it was something else tho but… :thinking:

#18

Some mirvs don’t do self-damage, the obvious example being Hex which is one of the reasons it’s so good.

If you are throwing grenades manually you can use anything, but I always feel bad losing efficiency when I throw a fun grenade (fastball / nagata / piss) and watch my clone immediately miss it after spawn. If you are using Fractal Frags, it’s better to just have the grenades find targets for you.

If you cast the clone outside of aggro range and swap it in, it’ll still throw the grenade from FF.

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