A question on the intersection of Seein Dead, Death Follows Close, and Playing Dirty

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

So Death Follows Close boosts kill skill effect and duration. Playin Dirty boots kill skill effectiveness. With just Death Follows Close, PD has a 75% chance, which gets reflected on the Skills menu. Seein Dead also boosts kill skill effectiveness by 25%. With how the Death Follows Close buff works, it appears to straight raise the skill by 25% (going from 50% to 75%), with the inclusion of Seein Dead, would 5/5 in PD get 100% chance to proc? This does not seem to be the case, from what I have noticed, but wanted to ask the community of those far more knowledgable in the realm of Zane than I am. Am I missing something with my understanding of how these synergize with each other?

Any information would be most welcome

Thank You

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#2

Seein dead secretly puts another point into death follows close.

So with DFC + SD you get a bonus 50% which is multiplicative.
Example:
1 point of Playing Dirty = 10%
now lets multiply the bonus from DFC + SD
10% * 50% = 5%
Add that back to the original
10% + 5% = 15%

So with DFC and SD 1 point in playing dirty now = 15%

#3

With that in mind, the ideal skill point allocation to get the most out of PD and Seein Dead would be 7 points?

#4

Not necessarily at all. The redistributor + barrier chains on every shot, and the chains proc the class mod. About 5 points total are more than good enough to keep it active. With a gun like the unforgiven or monocle, you’d (hypothetically) be one shotting your enemies, meaning that you will usually be shooting far less than the amount of times your kill skills are getting proc’d.

The only time I’ve really wanted all 7 points in playing dirty was when I posted a vid of a 58 and 56 second wotan kills pre scaling on zane using hedgehogs. I wanted to make sure playing dirty proc’d every single time guaranteed otherwise I couldn’t pull off the kill. But in most other builds and scenarios it’s not necessary.

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#5

I see. I’m running a pure ASE build, built around a kintetic Craps with 125% ASE Splash buff and a creamer with the same anointment, cycling through Barrier and Clone to keep ASE up. My current com is a +3+2 Donnybrook/PD with splash and gun damage, and a third stat I ignore. I am not specced into anything that extends my AS duration, and I am specced into Seein’ Red to start off engagements with active kill skills. Been a ton of fun, and I have no problems on things like the slaughter shaft on M4 with just using the craps, but I feel like I am missing a little bit of efficiency with my skill setup. Granted, my goal is to have PD active on every single shot

#6

If your goal is to have PD active every shot then use a recurring hex grenade with clone, he’ll spam them and they proc the class mod right now. The craps is actually a very strong weapon and reason to keep PD active all the time. The bullet that shoots 5 stickies actually doubles to 10 with PD. So you definitely want to guarantee that uptime lol.

Hope your sticking and sliding btw :wink:

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#7

I figure that was unintended, so I try not to abuse it. I was using a storm front, sometimes a hex, but recently switch to an its piss as I have a habit of opening an engagement by throwing out my clone, sliding into a group, swapping places, and going to town. I kind of love the little bits of debuff while my initial round of ASE anointments activate, but probably not the most effective.

Trying too! Not very good at this, but I have been practicing on various maps to get the hang of it (with the help of a couple video tutorials on getting the most out of sliding). Never been particularly good at Zane’s mechanics, but getting better with every map

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#8

Not super familiar with Zane yet, still leveling him. What interaction are you talking about here? Why would barrier impact redistributor chaining?

#9

Part of the redistributors special effect is that the amped shots chain to nearby enemies. Zane’s barrier is technically an amp shield so while you have the barrier active every shot from the redistributor chains to nearby enemies, not just on every 7th shot.

#10

No it doesn’t. The 7th ampshot is a specific mechanic to the Redistributer. A shot being amped has nothing to do with the 7th shot from the Redistributer.

Another myth is that Playing Dirty speeds up the 7th shot, absolute BS. Just tap the dummy and regardless of Playing Dirty, only the 7th triggertap is amped like clockwork. It counts past reloads which might make you think PD speeds it up.

It’s a strong build, but let’s not tell fairytales.

#11

They’re not telling fairytales, the Redistributor will chain on every shot that goes through Zane’s barrier.

The Redistributor’s self amp on every 7th shot is not the trigger for it to chain, any amp on the Redistributor will make it chain.

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#12

Yeah, there’s video evidence now of streamers exploiting the mechanic. The gun even says “Amped shots chain to nearby enemies” as a separate sentence from saying the 7th shot is Amped, so its not saying only the 7th shot can chain. Haven’t tested it with normal Amp shields myself, but just using the Barrier it worked that way for me.

Overall though just Violent Violence and Playing Dirty together are more about pure DPS than exploiting the timing between Amped shots, more outgoing damage is always better anyways.