Ok so on my Zane, (lvl 18) I just finished Rampager. (skipping a lot of side quests for mayhem for fun like i did Fl4k) I love Zane’s use of action skills, however I am finding myself in FFYL more often on bosses and dying. I did all the way to Old-U thinking it would be a saving grace but never got it to work, and reading forum here it seems bugged. My Fl4k, never once died to a boss going through story in NVHM.
General mobbing is no issue and find it a lot more fluid than Fl4k.
You are not going melt bosses with Zane at lvl 18 unless you have some good anointed guns. So the approach I recommend is a more defensive one where you just take your time and whittle them down. I’ll give you a specific example.
Start the fight
Drop your barrier to increase your DPS
Only after taking some damage then spawn your clone.
Because you have quick breather only swap with your clone to avoid damage or to start recharging your shield after you have taken damage
So in other words, it’s not a straight ahead DPS approach, it’s more of strategic dance.
That is what I have been doing, guess I have been two-stepping instead of the tango. Rampager had been the toughest so far. Even when I switched clones, his shotgun fire balls would hit me on switch and kill clone at same time. Took me roughly 3 tries until I was able to get a Q-system in the vending machine then it was a bit easier running and gunning. Barrier does ok in the fight but he moves around too much to keep in an area and managing it was costing too much time.
Pick it up and run w/ it. You loose 15% dmg but it’s still better than zero and it makes you a little more tanky. Another thing is you can dodge his attacks. And I’m not being trite or telling u to “get gud”. I’ve been playing the Borderlands franchise for years and I remember boss fights where the only mechanic was unavoidable AOE that health gated you. Now we have bosses where all their attacks can be dodge. So dodge my friend, dodge.
He was the hardest for me too on my first playthrough. But I also THOROUGHLY enjoyed the challenge. Like I said I’m a Borderlands old timer and I have been so delighted by the bosses in this game because it’s not just about pure DPS and health gating. Enjoy the work gamer it’s part of the fun.
Hardest boss was the anointed at Jakob’s mansion. Died a lot to that guy, until I got the sliding thing down and an Atlas Q if memory serves. I was using Clone/Drone then, and I was very squishy.
While leveling up I chose to use as much skills as possible, that are not reliant on a skill as I can.
Violent violence 5/5
Adrenaline 5/5 (or if you have a shield that produces booster Ready For Action 5/5)
Rise To The Occasion 5/5
Confident Confidence 1/1
Stiff Upper Lip fill up until 3 then go down the hitman tree with life leech etc. I did really well going through the story without any side missions
Yeah I was thinking in first playthrough mode. Take what you think fits until confident competence. It’s really beneficial to get a booster shield for survival. Then go full hitman.
Low levels I got a shock cutsman which made most of the bosses pretty easy in early game. Then from Agonizer I got the Agonizer 1500 and immediately respecced into Double barrel to give that to my clone, which trivialized the rest of the game until I ran into Tyrene who was definitely a challenge to the build I was running.
Q-system was also something I abused on Zane for early game. The first and only time I’ll use that weapon as it sort of feels like cheating to me.
drone does nothing to bosses except for bad dose or static field can help you out but nowhere as good as barrier that both protects you and gives you 25% multiplicative AMP.
You want barrier for bosses, if nothing else for reload speed. Some bosses you don’t worry about taking damage so you spec full offensive but barrier augments can still give you damage (retaliation) or reload speed (nanites/charged relay) and if you are specced into violent momentum then charged relay adds to damage, all of this increases DPS.
