So im always missing some of the issues that i have with how the character is designed when i read this forum.
He can do very specific things very well currently - e.g. slidespeed boss 1 shots with amp shields.
But he has a few huge problems and ill try to point out some of the less talked about so hopefully someone from GB will read this and relate it to someone who cares.
The current state of the character makes him always want to: Have 2 action skills active - 1 of them being barrier + having 2 kill skills active + going fast + full shields. Keep that in mind for the following.
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1 - He can not reliably proc ASE annointments.
This is mostly because all of his Action skills have a duration. This makes him MUCH MUCH worse at proccing ASE than all other VHs. His only useful/competetive annointment right now is 120% damage increase on clone swap and this is a lot worse than Amaras 250%+ damage or Flakks 100% on rakk.
This means he needs an insanely rare ultra specific annointment on the best guns in the game - making it VERY unlikely to get one of these while all the other VHs can be much more effective with general ASE.
Even worse Zane has a specific skill that basically reads: “action skill duration is basically endless unless you make a mistake” (freeze resets duration at full shields/health).
The only way for zane to somewhat reliably proc ASE is by - call clone - immediately explode clone. This is unfortunately not a great solution but it is the only solution.
The animation for exploding the clone in particular is way too long and during that animation you cant reload/throw grenades / do anything but shoot. It also uses 1 finger for like 2 seconds which is fairly annoying - not unsolvable but annoying for sure.
If you have good guns with >exactly< damage on clone swap annointment its not that bad. but yea…
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2 - His FFYL is terrible.
If youre going down and nobody is there to help you - YOURE GOING DOWN!
This is because FFYL entirely removes everything related to zanes “going fast” damage increase which is fundamental to the character being viable.
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3 - His skills have antisynergy.
There are a lot of these and ill just mention a few that i find relevant.
One of his capstones activates kill skills on action skill activation but like i said at the start^ everything else is laid out to have action skills with longer duration/endless - you cant really use them repeatedly to reliably be at 2 stacks kill skills - this is specifically a problem in multiplayer but even outside it makes the capstone look kinda silly.
His +10% damage barrier augment doesnt work for himself when barrier is picked up. Why?
He always wants to have as much shield as possible based on his green tree. But one of his coms increases his damage based on how empty his shield is + breaks shield on action skill. In addition there are shields that gives Movementspeed on empty - cant use those either.
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4 - He does not do well with the elemental projector artifact.
This is the single best artifact in the game on basically everyone. Zanes skill that resets his action skills requires him to be at full shields/hp so dotting self makes this basically unusable - even if the damage is basically irrelevant.
Zane has a skill that halves dot duration.
Zane really wants snowdrift artifacts - especially for bosses where elemental projector is the most important. So in boss fights - 2 top tier relics compete for his slot.
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Honorable mentions:
He has the single worst class mod in the game - giving a >random< status effect on a target after freezing them.
Its a useless effect that has a fairly high cost requirement. wow. Not sure if it even works at all on targets like bosses that technically cant be frozen. Not touching that thing ever.
PS: If someone can tell me how i can force the forum to respect empty lines created by hitting enter rather than capping empty lines at 1 max - id love to make the paragraphs a bit less clumped.