Story time: I was farming Wotan to get an upgrade for my redistributor. After the fight, checking the drops I found a kinetic Sickle with 100% SNTNL cryo annoint. “Ugh, this trash gun”, but I decided to take it anyway because it was the best drop I got from that run.
Some runs later, I got a Stagecoach with +75% accuracy and handling while airborne. Decided give it a try and the crosshair was really small, and that gave me an idea: What if I stack a lot of accuracy with Zane and use the Sickle? And with that I decided to do a Vladof allegiance Zane.
The build: Skill tree
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The plan behind this skill tree is to improve the 2 biggest problems the Sickle has: Accuracy and Fire Rate.
With confident competence and nerves of steel I improve a lot the spread and with 5/5 Violent Violence I improve the DPS. With barrier is very easy to keep the NoS stacks, except when some projectiles go through your barrier and you need to stack again. -
Since the Sickle has 10 pellets, this is great news for Brain freeze and CCC.
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Skills: Barrier and Drone.
The Gear
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Mobbing: Sickle
This is your main gun for mobbing, with all the accuracy bonus you’ll proc a lot of brain freeze and CCC with 1 shot most of the time. Similar to using a Maggie (kinda).
For annoints, the best one is SNTNL cryo, the +acc +crit barrier one is only good if you hit crits. -
Bossing: The Dictator
Following the theme, the dictator is our best option, great for bossing and deleting Annointed enemies. In bipod mode + Deterrence field no one will survive. Try to use it for special occasions because with the increased fire rate is very easy to run out of ammo. -
Multi purpose: ION CANNON
This gun doesn’t need an explanation, it’s a Vladof launcher, so it fits with the theme. -
4th slot: Anything you want (Lyuda maybe?)
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Shield: Transformer
The absorb chance is nice in case a projectile goes through your barrier (I’d love to use the one shotter shield, but the shield drain removes all the NoS stacks) -
Class mod: Seein’ Dead
It’s the best Zane com right now, and now you can keep your Action skills up with CCC and GM, apart from having your kill skills always up. The more points in Donnybrook the better.
Best stat roles: +% AR damage, +% Vladof Acc -
Grenade: It’s piss (more damage) or Storm Front (for keeping up your kill skills) (yeah, it has to be Vladof
) -
Relic: Ice breaker Victory Rush
Accuracy improvements:
Without any boosts:
With CC and NoS:
With CC, NoS, Guardian rank (+10%) and Vladof +acc in class mod:
- Gameplay:
The same as a classic CCC build, hit crits to proc Brain Freeze. If you want someone really dead, swap to your Dictator in bipod mode and use deterrence field to stagger it while you shoot it.
Mobbing is really slow because there’s no way to hurt or kill unintended targets sadly.
Extra Details and thoughts
I imagine that a radiation SNTNL cryo Sickle would deal better damage that a non elemental one. And if you can get a boom Sickle it would be much better. I don’t really know if it benefits from +splash damage but I guess that in the end it would be a lot more powerful. Just try to be careful with the self damage.
And I don’t know if this build has potential with another guns that also have bad accuracy in general (stagecoach, Crossroad, etc) maybe Deputy Zane? Who knows.
Thank you for reading my post, it’s a different build with a gun that almost no one uses, it isn’t as powerful as the meta builds or the new Lob builds, but it’s different and fun, and that’s what matters.
If you have any improvements let me know.