Zane "Violent Momentum" suggestion

Borderlands 3 Zane the Operative
#1

Every Zane players knows that the main Zane output of damage comes from his clone. I’m not saying he doesn’t do damage himself but clearly the clone does all the hardwork. The damage of Zane comes from “Violent Momentum”, which is the skill who gives you damage dependind on the actual speed, which is moving Zane. We all know that getting that “max possible speed” can be difficult and if you actually reach it, it is more difficult to get a good aim (without getting a headache from all the motion of your screen).

So to get to the point. I’d like to suggest this: Instead of the actual speed for violent momentum, why don’t we change it to the max speed you can get depending on the buffs you have?

Let me explain; let’s say the base speed of Zane is 10%. With the buff I have, I can reach 50% of speed BUT I need to reach the 50% of speed to get my max damage output, which the actual “Violent Momentum”. Again, base speed 10% and with buffs, the max speed I can REACH is 50% but I am only moving a 20%. The skill will take the speed you can REACH with your actual buffs and convert it to the max damage output instead of your actual speed.

I don’t know, might makes life easier for Zane’s main like me, who has the less damage output in endgame anyway.

#2

it is a garbage skill and the scaling changes made it gimmick beyond repair people were asking for it and they got what they wanted a clown class that does more dmg slide shoting and runing around in hipfire than aiming down sights and hitting crits. VM never should have been what it is … every time i am shotting accurately i get anxiety because i know i am missing out on dmg only if i was just hipfiring my sniper into someones face while jumping or sliding…

also your explanation is very confusing. however i agree that you should be able to reach max dmg output for VM at rather lower speeds and it should scale as diminishing returns the faster you go. now it works the opposite. which encourages completely braindead shooting style over accurate critical hit based style (which should not be necessary but should always out damage hipfire spray and pray)

what i would suggest is zane should get at least 70% of possible VM while strafing in ADS state and 100% at snowdrift slide speed. (anyway it would be still garbage because u can not stand still and enjoy popping heads but i’d take it)

violent momentum single handed makes me want to never play zane over fl4k double barrel being close second culprit i have always wanted to use it but then gbx had to buff it beyond reason. it is funny then people will come and cry “just don’t use this skill/gun” get outta here*

#3

So what? Most classes currently rely on a key skill or ability (Skag Den for Moze, TTB for Amara, to a certain degree Megavore for Fl4k).

As for the general suggestion: No, I just don’t agree with that. You can get several hundred percent bonus damage just by walking with your speed buffs active and I don’t neccessarily think that making it super easy to achieve 800% passive gun damage is a good idea.

Instead, I’d rather see some quality of life to allow Zane to more easily capitalize on his high movement speed damage potential, though I don’t really have a concept for how that could look.

But “I want the run and gun class to be slow, precise and methodical” is just a stupid complaint. If you wanna play Fl4k, go and play Fl4k.

#4

Who says i want him slow but crits should out dps hipfire spray and pray

#5

They do if you can aim well. Of course, it’s a lot more challenging to hit them when you are going at the speed of sound, but it’s not impossible.

#6

you realize that by definition in ADS you can not go at any access speed unless you are in a long jump or long slide. regular ads strafe crits do not outdps runing hipfire spray effective dps

#7

Oh, if you are specifically talking about ads, then yeah. Though I don’t agree that hip-firing neccessarily equals spray&pray. Even on characters like Zer0 who reward crits more than anyone else and who even have skills to reward you aiming down sights you still spend most of the time no-scoping, simply because the awareness and the mobility is more important than the extra accuracy.

Would be nice if Zane maybe got a skill that reduced speed penalties for aiming down sights, kind of like Axtons Expertise skill.

#8

this is simply not true ofc you spend most time not scoped, but in terms of shooting you ads 99% of the time. bl2 had proper hipfire innacuracy unless you were in 5 meter range you had to ads and most definitely if you were holding snipers but respectfully so for ars pistols and smg’s only weapons that had passable accuracy in hipfre were heavy weapons or shotguns and even then you wanted to ads with shotguns because it would tighten up the spead by a huge margin. it just so happens that in bl3 hipfire is fairly accurate and due to barrier zane can play up close and personal with out taking punishment. but in bl2 all good players aways ads their shots. Derch had very good videos on this topic.

#9

this should exactly what must have been part of zane’s kit but for some reason moze gets to run and shoot

3 Likes
#10

Maybe you did that, but I sure didn’t. And my build was all sniper. Most guns in the game were perfectly usable just hip-firing, the one major exception being Jakobs snipers.
The only borderlands game that ever required you to really ads to hit something with snipers outside of really long ranges was Borderlands 1 because their base accuracy and stability was absolute ass until you leveled your proficiency, so if you even wanted a chance of hitting something you were stuck ads-ing and even then it was more spray and pray than Zane’s run&gun playstyle ever has been.
But your usual suspects in Borderlands 2, such as the Lyuda or the Pimpernel were perfectly usable just hip-firing (though to be fair, the Lyuda has a fixed ideal range due to the projectile split and the Pimpernel was best when you weren’t aiming for heads).
Proper long-range sniping never really was a thing anyways in this series because most maps don’t give you a really long line of sight and more often than not, enemies only show up once you get close enough.

Of course, if you really badly want to, you can ads during a jump or slide without using any momentum.

#11

what lyuda was perfectly hipfireable? did you even play the same game as i did can you drop into op8 with zer0 and show me any game play with hipfiring lyuda or even p1mp which was sort of hipfieable but again only in close range you can not land the split up’s without ads because of hipfre rng. sal can spam it with steady as she goes but zer0? no way. i don like to refer to molmf for anything but it is undeniable that he was really good at zer0 i have never seen him or any other zer0 player not adsing and myself i have never not ads’d unless i was melee rushed which pretty much never happens. hip firing lyuda? sounds like a joke mate maybe in normal mode? neither jacobs nor any other snipers are anywhere remotely accurate and usable in end game settings (regular uvhm and higher) dahl can not hipfire at any sucess rate neither does hyperion since u need to wait for reverse recoil. you can hipfire vladof and maliwan but you will miss a lot and get body shots which is insane losss of dps. i am ready to drop into a game any time on a weekend and you show me how you can handle zer0 even with p1mpernel without adsing you will be dying every second on a non washbourne roughinery map. and then there is non zer0 and sal cahracters who do not get any hipfire accuracy bonuses. you gon hipfre lyuda with maya? no way my dude

#12

Interesting discussion so far. Just a small thing I’d like to add for argument’s sake. I think the inaccuracy of hipfiring is pretty much automatically and naturally balanced by the fact that increased movement speed allows you to position and reposition yourself easier. In other words, if I’m running around at the speed of sound, I don’t need to ADS to get headshots, because I can quickly stuff my gun’s barrel right in the enemy’s face. At least in the context of Zane, and BL3’s relatively close quarters enemy encounters.

Also, in terms of snipers, hipfiring while running around is absolutely viable. I used to do it with the Wedding Invitation all the time. Sure it’s difficult to get a headshot when you’re goin fast, but it’s definitely possible, and the damage scaling often results in a one shot kill, making it very much worth the effort imo. And pretty damn satisfying to boot. Enjoy the game how ya want, but personally I like going fast :slight_smile:

#13

Nobody’s sayin it is not viable in bl3 it is too easy was my argument xd

This game has not got near as much hipfire inaccuracy as bl2 or tps

In fact jacobs snipers are 100% accurate on run and jump hip shot

#14

It’s a great skill for Torgue/White Elephant stickies. Aim you shots then run around whilst the stickies work their magic. Now if only there was a Torgue sniper…

#15

I’m OK with hip firing with Zane to keep the damage up, constantly running figure-8s while firing is pretty straightforward.
Much different from 1 & 2 where I’m always ADS-ing, usually takes two or three minutes when I change games to get back into the appropriate style.

Ain’t that the truth. I’m going through DLC 4 again since I hadn’t done it on my Xbox yet, and it’s almost comical.
Playing M-8 and just letting Clone and Drone do the work.
For example, during the Evil Brick and Evil Mordy fight I did nothing but run around dodging damage, let C&D do all the work, and they successfully defeated the foes as quickly as I would have myself. Pretty, well, lame since I might suggest it’s important that the player do something during a mini-Boss fight to win.

#16

that is what you get when you throw in random numbers.

gearbox has 3 modes over buff underbuff and completely miss the point.
they either do buffs like lob krakatoa sotrm hellwalker-overdone
or they do buffs like hyperfocus bitch lucians call-under cooked
or they do stupid ■■■■ like rowans call lyuda woodblocker-completely missing the point

there are millions and millions of inconssitencies in their work regarding gun changes only. they are terrified of all call guns (ricochate split based guns like hyperfocus/lyuda/recursion go to same category for some odd reason) for some odd reason they insist on having smg damager per shot in the range that is not even the half of what kaos and and breath of dying do post buff while having same kind of fire rate and mag size as many many smg’s and they by far touched on the SMG’s the most and did not make good changes, outside of flipper being ungodly gun even with the kaoson and bloodstarved beast smg’s are in horrific state. so are pistols and snipers relatively to their peers that are good.

i won’t say they always miss the mark like monocle and headsplosion buff was almost enough but they clearly do not udnerstand what they have going on in the game right now. vanilla and dlc 1 guns do smidget of damage per shot/damage per second than dlc 3 m6 exclusive guns.

and of course a baalncing team like that had to come up with the scaling number of 3100% action skill damage on mayhem 10 regardless action skill. that is what made ties bear and clone severely opieop. unlike sntnl that is doing okay and base clone and pets doing relatively okay (unless you want pets to be main dmg dealers-like why do you want that in a gun game doe dude) giving a clone’s double barrel ridiculous x31 boost for m10 after it takes 1x0.7 penalty on guns card dmg is just out there same for ties or ib rail guns hitting for some 20 mil shots. it is just random number based on nothing and not every action skill damage should scale the same for lords sake. ties was supposed to be a crowd control damage sharing skill… instead it ends up doing more damage to tied enemies than enemy that is getting shot which from design standpoint is ridiculous. and on tp of that they can not control anointed damage boosts transfering wrongly through multiple interactions. it is a mess on all fronts. and people like me are left with ■■■■ like hey find a gun that is functional but not op use skills that are not op etc etc. basically i design my own game instead of gearbox and it sucks donkeyballs.