Good Misfortune in Kill Skill Builds

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

I’ve seen a lot of people who run Hitman heavy kill skill builds avoid Good Misfortune for the reasoning that “more action skill duration means you’re activating your kill skills less.”

…Please don’t listen to this logic. It’s okay for a skill like Borrowed Time, but GOOD MISFORTUNE IS A KILL SKILL!!! If Good Misfortune is giving you more duration on your action skills, that means you’ve likely gotten a kill, and every kill gives your kill skills 15 second durations, which is far more time than Good Misfortune adds onto your Action Skill duration. The only slight detriment the skill has is maybe in boss situations when it gets triggered off of Seein’ Red, but usually, you can either kill an add to reset your kill skills, use the Doppelbanger augment on your clone, or melt the boss before it becomes an issue anyways.

Maybe I’m missing something, but the benefits from having Good Misfortune always seem to far outweigh the “potential setbacks.”

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#2

There is not much reason to take it (in my opinion they should even get rid of the diminishing returns) as you either want as much AC skill uptime as possible. Then you will take CCC (which basically makes any point in GM useless).
Or you want as low uptime as possible to trigger action skill end annointments (Doppelbanger is annoying to use and limits your skills choices, why would anyone ever go that deep into the red tree if they are going deep enough into the blue one to spend several points on GM, which would mean no Adrenaline, a Barrier without augments or SNTL with a ■■■■■■ cooldown timer). In that case it is of course detrimental to your build.

#3

I’m getting what you’re saying, but you could potentially do both, I was watching a Nova Berner build. You could go Clone drone, spec into Doppelbanger, have the increased duration for SNTL but use the Digiclone to proc Seein Red over and over.

You’d also get the benefit of the AoE from Nova Berner and Dopplebanger.

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#4

But why would you do that? I did try that for a while and it’s just bad to play. If you are not using any macros (so no Jakobs guns for me as well ;)), it’s not much fun. From the time I was playing with exploding the clone I still have first action skill mapped to CTRL, which made it a bit better to use but stuff like jumping and running was still quite bad while pressing the clone explode button. And you need a weapon with a large enough magazine that allows you to keep on firing while pressing the button (you can’t reload).

#5

Oh yeah definitely not Optimal, that’s why I said Could not Should.

It’s fun to find little niche playstyles, but 90% of the time they don’t stack up. But if you’re looking for a palate swap, they’re a nice change of pace but not going redefine the Meta.

#6

I run Clone Drone no green tree. Glass Cannon life!

#7

Why not 11 red/green, rest blue? That would net you almost all damage increases, you could use Barrier Dome (another 25%/14.5% damage increase while it’s active) and (imho the most important part): You don’t have to deal with that 20-30 second cooldown (depending on your shields) from the Drone. If the cooldown was similar to Barrier/Clone it would be much more viable.

#8

Oh, oh. I can answer this! Double Barrel. My favorite Zane skill is double barrel. I love Trick of the Light. Supersonic Man. Boom Enhance. Kill skill enhance.

I love Zoomer and the Clone. We’ve been together since the beginning. Now Zoomer runs rocket pods and bad dose, so I get speed and she gets damage. I run a Shattered Kneecaps build which involves a LOT of sliding and firing. Zoomer and The Clone both make grenade messes. I use Shockerator and Frozen Heart for Mobbing, and Messy Breakup Infiltrator for bosses/anointed.

Topped off brings my drone back between fights, and most fights I keep my skills up a while, and they come back quick enough that I’m never too upset.

#9

well i already gave up on talking about this as well as seein red being underrated. so many people die to annointed enemies because they run out of salvation lol but somehow seein red is ■■■■ xd

#10

You’re certainly not wrong in suggesting that Good Misfortune can be a great skill.

Where it causes the most problems, is if you’re wanting continually activate kill skills without first getting a kill; boss fights being the most obvious example(s).

It’s entirely valid to argue that usually, you’ll be getting kills anyhow, as that’s what the game is about after all.

It’s equally valid to argue that extending action skill duration, especially if you have no way to end them early, can be very detrimental to the usefulness of Seeing Red; particularly for boss fights with few adds.

So in short, it comes down to the rest of your build, the specific usecase, and how you choose to play really.

Added duration can be fantastic for heavy mobbing scenarios, like the various Circles of Slaughter, but can also leave you short in some boss fights too.

TL;DR: Avoiding duration buffs provides dependable kill skill activation, irrespective of the in game situation.