Zane – The Operative

Zane is a playable Vault Hunter and known as the Operative class in Borderlands 3. He is the James Bond-like guy, is wealthy, and has a lot of gadgets at his disposal.

Background

Zane Flynt, brother of the infamous bandits Captain and Baron Flynt, has been around the galactic block more than a few times. Over the years, he’s worked for, against, and along with every major corporation conducting espionage and assassination for the highest bidder. With cutting-edge technology and decades of mercenary experience, Zane uses his Sentinel Drone and other gadgets to disorient, disrupt, and destroy his targets.

Born into Pandora’s notorious Flynt family, Zane is a semi-retired corporate hitman who always has a gadget up his sleeve. His action skills include a SNTNL drone that flys around and attacks enemies with a machine gun, a deployable Barrier shield, and a Digi-Clone that simultaneously distracts enemies and dishes out damage and which Zane can teleport to switch places with.

Action Skills

Zane’s Action Skills are Barrier, SNTNL Drone, Digi-Clone, and MNTIS Canon. He can augment the mechanics of their Action Skills in his Skill Trees.

Barrier

SNTNL Drone

Digi-Clone

MNTIS Canon

Skill Tree

Green Skill Tree: Under Cover

The undercover skill tree is focused on Zane’s barrier action skill,  survivability, and the Cryo element. You will also find some crowd control and co-op skills in this tree. The Capstone allows your barrier action skill to get the same special effects as your equipped shield mod. Since there will be awesome legendary shields that will do all sorts of crazy stuff this can be cool to provide such protection for your entire team.

• Brainfreeze: Whenever Zane scores a Critical Hit on an enemy, there’s a chance they will be Slowed.
• All-rounder: Zane’s Barrier becomes a dome, covering all sides.
• Calm, Cool, Collected: Whenever Zane freezes an enemy, his shield instantly begins recharging. If Zane’s shields are already full, he regenerates health for a few seconds. If Zane’s health is already full, his Action Skill Cooldowns and Durations are immediately reset.
• Confident Competence: While Zane’s shields are active, he gains increased Gun Damage and Accuracy. This bonus is based on the amount of shields he has. The more percent full, the greater the bonus.

Blue Skill Tree: Hitman

The hitman skill tree is focused on Zane’s drone action skill and kill skills. A cool thing is that there is a skill that allows you to trigger all your kill skills by activating the Sentinel drone. This is an awesome augment because this will allow you to be badass when you jump into a fight, rather than struggling to get a kill before all your buffs will trigger. The capstone really increases all the kill skill boosts, and there are plenty in this tree. If you sacrificed your grenade to pick up the second action skill, you can use your drone to drop frags, as it will drop a corresponding grenade based on your grenade mod.

• Salvation: After killing an enemy, Zane’s weapons gain Life Steal for a few seconds.
• Drone Delivery: SNTRY will occasionally drop a free grenade based on your current grenade mod while attacking enemies.
• Seein’ Red: Activating an Action Skill automatically activates all of Zane’s kill skills.
• Playing Dirty: After killing an enemy, Zane’s next five shots all have a chance to fire an additional projectile.
• Good Misfortune: Killing an enemy increases Zane’s Action Skill Duration. This skill has diminishing returns.

Red Skill Tree: Doubled Agent

The double agent skill tree is focused on Zane’s ‘Digiclone’ action skill. The interesting thing is that you can pick up the ability to sacrifice your clone to get a second win. Generate and use grenades to boost your stats. Use the digi-clone to trigger shield regeneration. Capstone skill allows you to give your digi-clone the same gun as you. So if you are rocking an epic legendary, it can become mayhem.

• Synchronicity: Whenever one or more of Zane’s action skills are active, he gains increased Gun Damage for each active action skill.
• Duct Tape Mod: The first shot fired from Zane’s gun has a chance to also fire a grenade. The more grenades in his capacity, the higher the chance.
• Pocket Full of Grenades: After killing an enemy, Zane gains Grenade Regeneration for a few seconds.
• Double Barrel: The Clone is equipped with a copy of Zane’s Current Weapon when activated. Swapping places with the Clone causes Zane and his clone to gain increased Gun Damage.

Purple Skill Tree: The Professional

The Professional skill tree is focused on critical hit damage and reducing your action skill cooldown. So you can create a sniper build or spam your action skill.

• Domino Effect: Whenever Zane scores a Critical Hit, he gains increased Fire Rate and Reload Speed for a short time. If he scores a Critical Hit with his Action Skill, he doubles this effect.
• Commitment: Kill Skill. Zane gains increased Gun Damage and Action Skill Cooldown Rate.
• Eraser: Zane’s Critical Hit pierces through enemies for all weapons, dealing Increased Damage for every enemy pierced.
• Our Man Flynt: While aiming down sight, Zane’s weapons deal Bonus Damage and automatically apply their Status Effect when he scores a Critical Hit.

Want to learn more about Zane then check out his Full Skill Tree.

Notes

• Passive Bonuses: Zane loves Cryo Efficiency. If you aren’t running an endless action skill build, you can pick up some Action Skill Cooldown.
• Shields: Zane can easily refill his health. Look for shield components that add to your play style. If you are using the Barrier, look for shields with a low recharge delay. Zane can benefit from more movement speed, therefore, Fleet could be useful.

Trivia

• Voice Actor: Cian Barry
• Character Artist: Sergi Brosa
• Character VFX: Ash Lyons
• The VFX for the decoy took months to create, according to VFX designer Ash. For over a year he worked on and off on the effect. His response to the Developer trailer is that the trailer didn’t do his work justice since there was a film grain layered on top of it. I’m looking forward to seeing this effect in action.
• Gearbox hired a real Irish voice actor to get the accent right for this character.
• Zane Flynt is blood-related to / the brother of  Baron Flynt and Captain Flynt, who we encountered in the original Borderlands and Borderlands 2.
• Zane went to the same assassin’s bar as Zero.

Resources

• My first hands-on impression of Zane during the Borderlands 3 Gameplay Reveal Event
• Zane’s Cosplay Guide
• Zane Echo Log – Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary