Zane – The Operative

Overview

• Name: Zane Flynt
• Tag: The Operative
• Class: Assassin
• Action Skill: Sentinel, Digi-Clone, and Barrier
• Voice Actor: Cian Barry
• Character Artist: Sergi Brosa
• Character VFX: Ash Lyons

About

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.

Description

Zane, The Operative is one of the playable characters in Borderlands 3. Zane is the Assassin class of the game.  He is the James Bond-like guy, Zane is wealthy and has a lot of gadgets to his disposal. Zane has more precision gameplay.  His skill trees are focussed on the action skill that sits on top of the tree.  Zane is the min-max character, he is the only Vault Hunter that is able to equip two action skills. By doing this he will sacrifice his ability to throw grenades as there needed to be a button to make that possible. By cleverly incorporating the grenades into the skill trees they will provide other cool bonuses or abilities.

Action Skills

• Barrier
  • Drop a deployable Barrier that blocks incoming projectiles. Zane and allies can shoot through the Barrier, dealing increased Gun Damage. Pressing the Action Skill button or Grenade button while Barrier is active picks up and holds the Barrier, but the size and bonuses are decreased.
  • Duration: 9 seconds
  • Cooldown: 18 seconds
  • Damage Amp: 20%
• SNTNL S
  • Send into battle an automated SNTNL drone that continually flies through the environment and attacks enemies with its Machine Guns. Pressing the Action Skill or Grenade button while SNTNL is active causes it to attack the enemy under Zane’s crosshairs, if any.
  • Machine Gun Damage: 10 @ lvl 10
  • Duration: 24 seconds
  • Cooldown: 36 seconds
• Digi-Clone
  • Spawn a Digi-Clone of Zane. This clone stays in place but distracts and fires at enemies. Pressing the Action Skill or Grenade button while the Clone is active causes Zane and the Clone to swap places.
  • Duration: 18 seconds
  • Cooldown: 26 seconds

Skill Trees

• Doubled Agent
  • The double agent skill tree is focussed on Zane’s ‘Digiclone’ action skill. Interesting 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.
• 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 Sentinal 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.
• 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.

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

Action Skill Augments

• Binary System
  • Whenever Zane Swaps places with his Clone, a Cryo Nova is triggered around Zane and his Clone. Nova Damage: 66 @ lvl 50
• Schadenfreude
  • Whenever the Clone takes damage, Zane’s shield is restored by a portion of that damage. Shields Restored: 11% of Digi-Clone Damage
• Doppelbanger
  • Hold down the action skill button or the Grenade button to end the action kill early. When Zane’s Action Skill is ended, the Clone explodes, dealing Fire Damage to all nearby enemies. The more Action Skill time remaining, the greater the damage. Damage: Up to 1326 @ lvl 10
• Which One’s Real?
  • Enemies are more likely to target the Clone for a few seconds after it’s summoned and after swapping places. Duration: 6 seconds
• Digital Distribution
  • If Zane takes health damage while the Clone is active, a portion of that damage is shared to his Clone instead. Shared Health Damage: 75%
• Winter’s Drone
  • Converts SNTNL’s Primary Weapons to Cryo Damage.
• Bad Dose SNTNL
  • occasionally shoots out a beam of Radiation that weakens enemies and buffs Zane. For every weakened enemy, Zane’s Movement Speed and Fire Rate are increased. Weakened enemies have decreased Movement Speed and Attack Speed. Fire Rate: 3% per enemy Movement Speed: 6% per enemy Damage: 2 @ lvl 10 Duration: 12 seconds Cooldown: 8 seconds
• Boomsday
  • SNTNL adds a rocket pod to its primary weapons, allowing it to shoot rockets as well as machine guns Rocket Damage: 50 @ lvl 10
• Static Field
  • SNTNL emits a static field that sends a shock beam to nearby enemies, draining their shields and replenishing Zane’s. Shield damage: 2/second Cooldown: 2 seconds
• Almighty Ordnance
  • Hold down the Action Skill or Grenade button while SNTNL is deployed to poaint a target area. SNTNL fires a missile barrage at that area, and if an enemy is killed, Almighty Ordnance’s duration is reset. This can only be used once per Action Skill use. Missile Damage: 25 @ lvl 10 Missiles per Barrage: 5
• Charged Relay
  • Whenever Zane or an ally touches the Barrier, they gain increased Movement Speed and Fire Rate for a few seconds. Fire Rate: 13% Movement Speed: 11% Duration: 8 seconds after moving from barrier
• Nanites or Some Shite
  • Zane and his allies gain Health Regeneration, increased Reload Speed, and greatly improved Shield Recharge Delay while near his Barrier. The lower their health, the more health is regenerated. Health Regeneration: up to 4% of Max Health/sec while near barrier Shield Recharge Delay: -33% Reload Speed: 11%
• Redistribution
  • Zane and allies near the Barrier gain increased Gun Damage for a few seconds after the Barrier takes Damage Gun Damage: 9% Duration: 3 seconds
• All-rounder
  • Zane’s Barrier becomes a dome, covering all sides. Cooldown: +20%
• Deterrance Field
  • Enemies that touch the Barrier take Shock Damage and are staggered. Shock Damage: 18 @ lvl 10

Trivia

• 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.

Screengrabs

Resources

• Zane’s Cosplay Guide
• Zane Hands-on Impression @BL3 Gameplay Reveal Event
• Zane Echo Log – Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary