Zane, the trash-talking Operative, is one of Borderlands 3’s most underrated Vault Hunters. Since launch, Gearbox has shown a ton of love for the third Flynt brother by buffing many of his skills, making him an extremely versatile character to play as, with a ton of build potential.
With the new Designer’s Cut, a new skill tree was added for each of the four Vault Hunters. Zane’s new skill tree, The Professional, gives Zane a shoulder cannon that specializes in critical hits. With a ton of buffs and patches over the last year, many of Zane’s skills are incredibly useful.
Updated May 24th, 2021 by Stephen LaGioia: There are few ARPGs as complex and customizable as Borderlands 3, which makes its already robust predecessor look tame in comparison. Then there's the trickling of various patches and tweaks, along with timed events and DLC content — all of which add more intricacy and fluidity to this insane shooter. As such, it's likely that many who opt for the popular Vault Hunter, Zane, will want to seek out even more impactful skills. For those looking to best utilize Zane's skill tree — read on.
15 Commitment - The Professional (Tier 2)
Sure, it may not have the flashy, satisfying traits that some of this Operative's skills come with. Yet, this passive skill from The Professional can subtly go a long way in giving Zane that little extra boost needed to overcome a deadly skirmish.
The initial gun damage and cooldown rate boost of 4% can become a truly impactful 25% when maxed out. Given the offensive nature of this Vault Hunter, and his offensively potent Action Skills, these really compliment him and can turn him into a beast.
14 Good Misfortune - Hitman Tree (Tier 5)
Good Misfortune is one of the many Kill Skills for Zane. This Kill Skill increases the duration of Zane’s Action Skill. Good Misfortune works tremendously with Zane’s Digi-Clone if he’s racking up ample kills.
One of the best ways to exploit this is to use the Seein’ Dead class mod, which grants a chance to activate all Kill Skills whenever an enemy is damaged. This means that as long as you’re doing damage constantly, Good Misfortune can be activated over and over again, allowing you to keep both Action Skills active the entire fight, even during a Takedown.
13 Fugitive - The Professional Tree (Tier 3)
Though this one might not impress a ton on its own, Fugitive is one of those consistently efficient skills that can make a difference in BL3's many heated fights. This is a passive skill that tends to stand out amongst the newly-implemented Professional skill tree.
It allows Zane to sprint while gunning down foes, instantly making for a fighter that's swift and evasive while maintaining his offensive prowess. On top of this, gun damage is bumped up 35%, while accuracy gets a 33% boost. This all allows for greater versatility during chaotic fights. Players can scramble to cover while minimizing vulnerability. They can also emphasize running and gunning without sacrificing accuracy.
12 Synchronicity - Doubled Agent Tree (Tier 1)
Zane is the only character who can have two Action Skills at once. In general, Zane is at his best when he has two Action Skills active during a fight. With the Synchronicity skill, players can have a 20% Gun Damage per Action Skill active.
This means that one can have a nearly permanent bonus of 40% Gun Damage during a fight, especially if using the Good Misfortune skill previously mentioned. What’s even better is that this is one of the first skills that can be obtained in the Doubled Agent tree.
11 Double Barrel - Doubled Agent (Tier 6)
Zane is all about firepower, and this passive skill does the right things to amplify this area even more. When paired with the Digi-Clone, Double Barrel can be a pretty devastating and handy skill to exploit.
Having a powerful weapon in the right situation can really bring the best out of this one — as the skill will arm Zane's Digi-Clone with a copy of his currently-used weapon. Not only this, but the skill bumps up the damage of said weapons at 25%.
10 Brain Freeze - Under Cover Tree (Tier 2)
Zane and his gadgets are exceptional with Cryo damage, constantly freezing everyone on the battlefield. The Brain Freeze skill rewards Zane with a 20% chance to slow and freeze an enemy upon scoring a critical hit.
This skill has always been great but it's made even better with the new Professional skill tree, which emphasizes critical hits at all times. Players can effectively freeze enemies left and right if Zane's Cryo Efficiency is boosted with other gear. Using a high fire-rate weapon is the best option since he can score many critical hits at once, boosting that chance to freeze.
9 Eraser - The Professional Tree (Tier 5)
Zane’s new Eraser skill is essentially a new version of Bore, a skill that Zero had in Borderlands 2. Eraser lets critical hits pierce through enemies just like Bore. At three skill points, the damage of the pierced bullet is 120% per enemy hit. That 120% boost is based on the critical hit damage amount.
Eraser pairs extremely well with ricochet weapons such as the Conference Call, Redistributor, and the Recursion. Unfortunately, Eraser currently has a bug where it doesn’t work with Jakobs weapons. This is a shame because Eraser seems handcrafted for Jakobs weapons with their high critical hit damage. Hopefully Gearbox fixes this, but at the time of this writing, it’s still an issue.
8 Boom. Enhance. - Doubled Agent Tree (Tier 5)
With grenades not being all that powerful — unless playing as Moze — Zane doesn’t have much use for them. In fact, you’re most likely only going to equip grenades based on their appointments. Thankfully, the grenade count can still prove useful with the Boom Enhance skill.
After summoning Zane’s Digi-Clone, it will consume up to three grenades. For every grenade summoned, it increases multiple stats for the clone such as Gun Damage, Health, Fire Rate, and even its duration. Zane’s Digi-Clone has gotten more powerful since launch, so there’s no reason why players shouldn’t use this one-point skill if the game plan is to use the clone.
7 Salvation - Hitman Tree (Tier 2)
Salvation is another one of Zane’s Kill Skills, with this one focusing on survivability. Zane’s weapons gain Life Steal upon getting a kill. Salvation stands out among other Life Steal abilities in the game because it works for any weapon, whereas Moze needs grenades and Amara requires elemental damage.
One thing to note is that only one skill point is needed for Salvation, even though it goes up to five. As players level up and get into Mayhem Mode, the damage output is quite high, meaning that only the 2% of Life Steal received from Salvation is enough to refill one's health.
6 Calm, Cool, Collected - Under Cover Tree (Tier 5)
Cryo can be a pretty effective elemental on its own. But augmented with this skill? Zane can become a devastatingly icy killer. This passive skill grants the handy effect of a swift shield recharge that kicks in any time a target is frozen.
What's nifty is that even if players are good at staying protected and unscathed, they'll be rewarded with a few seconds of health regeneration while their shield is full. This can really be exploited with zero capacity shields, as the skill will treat it like a fully-charged shield and skip right to the health buffs.
5 Confident Competence - Under Cover Tree (Tier 6)
While this skill is effective in its own right, those stealthier, more conservative players can really exploit the unique perks its offers.
The skill significantly boosts Zane's gun damage and accuracy under the simple condition that his shields are active. This will kick in if there's even a bit of shield remaining, but the neatest aspect is that the boosts come in increments depending on how full the shield is. Even those players who tend to take ample hits can take advantage of this skill by equipping beefier shields with a high recharge rate.
4 Old-U - Doubled Agent Tree (Tier 4)
Every Vault Hunter needs some sort of skill that allows them to revive themselves instantly. For Zane, it’s the Old-U passive skill in the Doubled Agent tree. It does require the Digi-Clone to be active, however.
If Digi-Clone is active when lapsing into Fight For Your Life, players can revive Zane by just hitting the Action Skill button that the clone is attached to. It will destroy the clone but the Vault Hunter live to hunt another day! A hidden hack with Old-U is that players can avoid the Rogue Lite Mayhem 10 modifier, which doesn’t permit going into Fight For Your Life. If activating Old-U directly after going down, Zane will be safe.
3 Seein’ Red - Hitman Tree (Tier 3)
With the Designer’s Cut update, the Seein’ Red is now a Tier 3 skill instead of a Capstone. This is a great change because it takes away the reliance of the Seein’ Dead class mod. Seein’ Red lets Zane activate all Kill Skills upon activating an Action Skill, with all of them gaining a bonus of 15%.
Zane is a Vault Hunter built around Kill Skills. So having them active at all times makes Zane a force to be reckoned with. The new MNTIS Cannon makes great use of Seein’ Red actually. Each time a charge is used, that counts as activating an Action Skill. Using Zane’s Proliferation Augment grants five charges.
2 Death Follows Close - Hitman Tree (Capstone)
With so many Kill Skills in Zane’s arsenal, it’s only fair that he gets some way to increase their power even more. Initially, a Tier 3 skill, Death Follows Close is now the Capstone for the Hitman tree. With one skill point, it gives all of Zane’s Kill Skills a permanent boost of 25% as well as extending their duration by seven seconds.
For any Zane builds that take advantage of Kill Skills, Death Follows Close is an absolute must-have. Synergizing this skill with Seein’ Red turns Zane into a Kill Skill master, always having these massive stat bonuses.
1 Double Barrel - Doubled Agent Tree (Capstone)
Even with the new skill tree, Zane’s Double Barrel Capstone skill is still his most powerful. It gives Zane’s Digi-Clone a copy of the current weapon that was held upon activation. The Digi-Clone has been buffed massively since launch and Double Barrel turns Mayhem 10 into easy mode.
No matter the weapon, Zane’s clone will be proficient with it. Double Barrel becomes quite overpowered if equipping the clone with some of Borderlands 3’s best weapons. It's important to note that the Digi-Clone also has unlimited ammo. Players can give the Digi-Clone a launcher and let him shoot it for as long as he is active, yielding some insane firepower.