Melee Zane: help needed

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

I have very very strong melee FL4K and Amara builds and was looking to make a Zane melee build.

Am I best off using a low level brawler and going down the green tree (to cap?) using barrier with the drone, or would I be better off using clone and drone with the ward. Will the clone proc the white elephant stickies? I’m finding it difficult to tell in a combat situation due to all the visual pollution.

What about a roid RR and barrier?

I’m not seeing a great synergy with melee and zane. The FP + White Elephant combo works after a fashion but it is not the explosive result I get with my other two melee builds. Groundbreaker is enabled.

If using a ward, would the infiltrator be a better choice of mod and have the guardian perks relating to shield regen turned off?

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#2

To help you,

I’ve tested the Roid RR and the Stinger.

The Stinger is better to use with melee builds.

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#3

If you find one, do tell! :laughing:

Cryo is probably your friend here, since Zane has some skills meant to freeze, and melee against frozen targets nets apparently a 300% damage buff (and I don’t otherwise remember any melee skills)?

For Infiltrator use to light up a roid shield, you kind of need a Clone with Dopplebanger (so you can sort of manually re-trigger the shield break by ending the Clone early). That said, a roid Rough Rider should be viable given enough points in Salvation and Donnybrook (and Digital Distribution for this use case), freeing you up to use a COM you’re more amenable to.

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#4

As far as I know, the clone plants white elephant stickies with his facepuncher. Those stickies should be able to crit making you able to proc brainfreeze. You can try if ice breaker white elephant or an elemental stone white elephant would be better.
I’d probably go for brain freeze, double barrel and then go as far as possible into the blue tree.

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#5

I’m sort of leaning towards the brawler ward, I have a lvl 1 version with 300% melee when depleted.

I’ve been doing some testing now I am at lvl 60 and at m10, the damage seems ok. My other characters use the frozen heart ass, but obviously for zane this anointment is less than ideal. I have sntnl set for cryo and rockets.

May try a cryo stinger but again not using the ass anoint reduces its effectiveness.

If I can find a good cry hex ogt that may work.

I’ll post some video tomorrow.

#6

Haven’t found a decent ice breaker white elephant yet, currently using a knife drain white elephant with great melee and aoe rolls

#7

He will.

Zane’s main issue is that whilst he can get good damage, it’s basically all gun damage. Almost none of his skills will benefit his melee damage.

Fl4k has a good amount of neutral damage perks that will also apply to melee, like Interplanetary Stalker.

Amara has tons of melee boosts as well as bonus elements that apply to her melee.

Zane on the other hand… I believe the only things in his entire skill tree that could technically affect melee damage are Trick of the Light and it’s not that good of a skill and to get the benefit from that you either need to be using the Clone or leave all of the cryo damage to the SNTL and Cold Bore (which only would work when constantly swapping between Facepunchers).

As for other boosts, I’d say the strongest boost that Zane can get on top of the Stinger might be the U/Rad anoint combined with a health-capping relic (I don’t know if that would be worth trading away the White Elephant though). I think a Stinger would probably outperform a Brawler Ward since the Stinger’s melee nova when breaking apparently can double dip Mayhem scaling, making it one of the strongest melee shields in the game when combined with a melee boost weapon.

I don’t think you are going to be finding a viable build no matter what exact combination you are using since, again, Zane doesn’t have any good melee boosts.

But I think the highest damage setup you can get would probably look something like this:

  • 120% melee damage CoV Pistol with U/rad anoint and a Facepuncher with either U/Rad or 300/90
  • Stinger with Action Skill Start shield break anoint (this one you might have to trade because farming it could require an ungodly amount of grind)
  • A relic that caps your health below 50% (either Deathless or Loaded dice), ideally with melee and spash damage rolls.
  • Clone with Doppelbanger to let you re-trigger your shield anoint as often as possible.
  • Drone with Winter’s Drone for some extra chance at freezing enemies.
  • Points maxed in Trick of the Light (if nothing else, at least the drone gets permanent benefit from it) and Cold Bore for a shot at Facepuncher freezing.

I’m not sure which class mod would be the best, but it’s probably either the Cold Warrior (some additional effect against frozen enemies, can get points in Trick of the Light) or the Conductor (provides bonus shock damage that I believe also does apply to melee). And Infiltrator could in theory work with that and wouldn’t require that specific anoint on the Stinger, but it would also make you extremely squishy since you are capping your health for the URad.

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#8

i have a melee zane, but i am on break. i go with clone/barrier with infiltrator cm (i have a melee perk at 60 :wink:), and the usual ward-elephant-face puncher combo.

i also have a face puncher moze, there are some good ones already here like the one from roboteconomist.

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#9

That sounds like the sort of com I may be interested in, maybe when you return :wink:

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#10

if you use low level ward on zane, executor might be better. i think i have a melee perk executor as well.

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#11

I ran three different builds through Athenas, all with the seein dead com. I’m finding that there is plenty of damage with each set up. The third build seems to be a little more powerful due to the frozen heart novas freezing enemies. However, i found it, and the second build, to be a little fussy with managing action skill usage to proc the novas on the stinger and heart. I found the first build to be a little more forgiving, especially with the knife drain white elephant.

#12

Salvation doesn’t work with facepuncher if I remember correctly. And if I’m right, I think this was what pushed me away from playing melee facepuncher zane. Also I’ve counted quite a few times of you chilling yourself, so it might be worth a try to swap trick of light with more magazine size.

Also, I think, on the second and third build, an ASE grenade might add even more damage.

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#13

That is great advice about salvation. I will investigate other heath options, though on the third build it is not used.

I have an ASE cryo grenade to try. The other thing that may be useful would be a cryo stone white elephant, providing I can get enough health regen from the build to avoid the knife drain.

However, I do like the knife drain due to the cutting sound it makes when it lands on target. Helps he know that I am actually on target :rofl:

#14

I have settled on my build for now. Going with perma-action skills rather than using action skill start end end to proc anointments. Plenty of damage and easy playability :slight_smile:

https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/facepuncher-melee-zane-build-guide/

#15

Really? )
Check this