I’ve been playing BL3 for a while now, exclusively as Zane. Made it to 65 and have been able to kill a few “rare” mobs for dedicated drops on M10, largely thanks to the clone and Hellwalker. I’ve been using the “splash damage clone build” by Moxsy (from this video), with a few tweaks, which I gather is pretty much a standard clone build that is centered around movement speed, kill skills, and using the shoulder cannon every few seconds. I lack all sorts of equipment still, but fundamentally this is working.
My problem is, while this very fast playstyle is fun at times, I wonder if there are accessible, M10 viable builds that are a little slower. I’d prefer to use the drone instead of the cannon, because having to “self-buff” myself every ten or seconds isn’t really that much fun (also the way the cannon handles doesn’t “feel good” to me). So a somewhat slower build that uses clone and drone would probably be a better fit for me.
Patches and hotfixes change things somewhat frequently, and DLCs (I have all of it) added more items, so I’m often at a loss which guides and builds are still reliable and viable. I lack the experience to judge the quality and viability, too.
If anyone could give me a hand with inspiration for a build or two, and a few recommendations for guns and other gear, I’d be grateful for the help!
I have two Operatives: a Dahl allegiance (Barrier and MNTIS: full purple and green trees: half blue), and an Atlas allegiance (Clone and Drone: full blue and orange trees: half purple).
The Atlas allegiance is built for speed: I just nail them with whatever tracker and focus on maintaining speed (jumping/dodging) while firing, since the shots will find their way to the target automatically. It is, however, not slow by definition here.
The Dahl allegiance is definitely a slower gameplay, and is a wonderful slow burn. While we don’t have to aim down the sights for burst fire anymore, as their primary gimmick is the alternate fire modes (with their associated bonuses), they’re otherwise pretty plain weapons. I kind of make it as fast as I want here, but the default playstyle is hiding behind the Barrier and slowing incoming enemies with Brain Freeze (and Deterrence Field if that doesn’t work). The game here is to dial critical hits for Brain Freeze to trigger Calm Cool Collected and Sheer Will, both of which keep the Barrier up and/or available constantly. I mostly use MNTIS for firing Domino Effect, but won’t say no to abusing Anointments with it if I’m at some high difficulty level (and Seein’ Red, which triggers Salvation and Cool Hand).
Some Dahl gear hits pretty hard, and can carry you through the Takedowns, but my favorite is a cryo Mngwa as a main with other (shock/corrosive) weapons as support… that thing has a long range, is as steady as a rock, and really puts the freeze on people.
I’m not even sure I’d recommend allegiance play if that’s not your thing, but maybe this’ll give you some ideas.
If you give any sandhawk to your clone, it’ll take care of pretty much any threat in the game. So basically just build for clone as you see fit and give it a sandhawk and you’ll be smooth sailing. The version of sandhawk you give it is effectively irrelevant until you fight raid bosses, so as long as you get one to drop from Katagawa jr. you’re good.
Preferably, you want to match elements and get a 200% splash annoint, as sandhawk and clone get splash bonuses and then grab a seein dead with action skill damage and as much points into donnybrook as you can get, as it’ll boost clone damage even further. But again, these things are irrelevant unless you want to fight a raid.
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VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish)
#4
I don’t play on M10, so I can’t really comment on what’s viable there and I don’t run an optimized build. However, I do play drone’n’clone pretty much exclusively. My approach is largely around positioning the Clone through swapping places and then positioning for cover-fire/pincer movement; then using the targetting feature for the drone to flush enemies out of cover. It can be fairly quick (I still have the movement speed buffs for example) but it can also be pretty deliberate and methodical. Weapon-wise, I use whatever seems to work best for the map and its enemy types. Build-wise, that’s all base game trees (haven’t even looked at the 4th one yet!)
you can do urad drone clone or dome drone that is viable hell if you know what you are doing you can do ice breaker conductor urad zane problem is it seems like you do not know the character and copying builds is not something i advise. but the answer to your question is you can do many non canon ase stacking playstiles
I feel your pain as i can only manage 3 points in violent speed haha.
I use 2 main zane builds.
First is dahl allegiance using clone and mantis and as has been mentioned, sandhawks for your clone will deal with harder bosses but the clone is quite happy using any item for general play.
My second is a mantis/sntl set-up that utilises nova shields with the action skill start annointment along with maliwan weapons using splash ase anointments and the conductor mod. This one is very much a change of pace and is quite dangerous near barrels but does most content with ease.
I do have a third zane who was a classic style chain zane but still trying various things atm.
