Addressing Zealot's Weaknesses Post BbD: Firearms, Blocking, and Cosplay, Oh My!

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
21

Good guess but I am running Thammer zealot with:

  • Fire nades
  • Shield of contempt
  • Backstab nodes
  • Beacon
  • Chorus
  • IJ

So it is not as one dimensional and thus the nodes shine.

Backstab nodes help with deliberately killing bosses. Maulers/ ragers are one-taps, crusher two taps.

Increased movement and dodges help greatly with day-to-day gameplay especially when facing a wall of armour. So IJ is a real game changer. The inbuilt attack speed increase is enough, so I don’t need that other attack speed increase.

The combination of chorus and shield of contempt help keeping your team alive and shine the second you start clutching. I understand you only want to control when you get the damage resistance, but if that is possible the DR value would have to be nuked. It is the randomness which allow for the effectiveness and frankly I don’t need a node which grants me 25% DR while blocking.

About shroud field; yeah delete in from the game. I never understood why there are two stealth abilities and why it is on one of the, if not the tankiest class in the game. I am particularly cranky it allows the DS to one shot captains… I like your thought process of making it a ranged spec and/or a taunting ability, full thumbs up!

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22

Small intermediate thought: Don’t make enemies run away from the melee classes, sounds really annoying to me. Rather add a node like: “the knock back of your perfect block forces the blocked enemy to turn(by 180°)”

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23

I always get mixed up on this terminology because in Star Wars a Force Pike is a common melee weapon lol.

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24

Yeah, also option.

25

brief stop to gift you one Gary Busey

copyImage

:+1:

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26

Melee rending would be awsome for Zelot. It could make so many more weapons and blessings pickable

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27

I read somewhere testerday that you can do this with Bulwarks if you special hjt their shield with a revolver

28

Blocking is bad, forget blocking.

Pushes and push attacks are great. Retaliatory Defence is good for weapons that rely heavily on push attacks.

29

Yeah, this guy gets it! :winking_face_with_tongue:

Ohhh, you meant THESE?

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Power Spears WOULD do the job, and they can be paired with Shields.

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30

Yeah haha, I used to be a Star Wars fanatic growing up, so all that stuff is second nature to me. XD Power Spear and Shield or whatever would be good. Love me a spear and shield.

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31

It is kinda weird that Zealot is still half a class and every other class can very comfortably step on its toes but it can’t do a dang thing to encroach on anyone else. Like, I get that ‘best at melee’ is functionally ‘best at Darktide’ but still.

Most of the class’s toolkit isn’t really functional. Stumm grenades are nearly useless now (and actually worthless compared to Arbites Shock Mine), Incendiary Grenades are actually useless (horde clear is the least valuable role possible), leaving only the very good throwing knives to pick up the slack. But that isn’t really the case for anyone else?

Ogryn rock is great, it one-taps a ton of specials, regens and what not. Every single one of (yes, even smoke) Veteran grenades are super useful. Assail is fine and Smite is excellent. Brain Burst has been power crept to death, but the rest of the class makes up for it.

What’s left is a melee-centric class with 1 (one) functional ranged weapon in the admittedly broken-in-high-difficulties Flamer, no support for any kind of ranged, and…half their melee choices are practically junk due to no access to rending or brittleness or what not. It’s frustrating.

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32

I want to preface that this is an earnest question and not me attempting to dismiss you based upon skill level: How deep into Havoc is that build viable. Again, I’m genuinely interested. While I don’t think that the game as a whole should be balanced around Havoc, it’s my understanding that Auric Maelstroms are comparable to around Havoc 25-30ish, so the viability of builds into Havoc is still a useful marker for understanding the power of options.

In regards to “Shield of Contempt”, I can see how 25% DR while blocking might not seem compelling. I think this is less of an issue with tying the DR to the Mechanical Expression of blocking and more so a problem regarding Mathematical Value. The reason I can be so comfortable w/ my suggestion potentially not being the perfect is because once you start bring in numbers, you aren’t talking purely about Mechanics anymore. The suggestion shared in the OG post was devised in part with concerns that 60% DR for every ally in coherency would be too powerful. Dividing that 60% across all players was one solution. But I had considered other solutions to this. One was making the ability work somewhat similar to the Veteran’s “Deadshot” Node, where Blocking would automatically cause you to lose 0.75 Stamina per second, in addition to any Stamina Lost actually blocking the hit. And the 60% DR would either cease or be reduced once you had depleted your stamina. That still ties the Bonus to Mechanical Expression, but raises the value of the Bonus to something that might be a bit more consistently useful. It also incentivizes the usage of Stamina Curios, which you should probably be running on a Blocking Oriented build anyway.

I appreciate your aggreeance regarding “Shroudfield”. I recognize that it’s a bit of a hot take but I really believe that its bonuses would be better served on a Keystone (albeit at a reduced value) that can support the designated target nature of the ability. Which would leave room for FS to recontextualize the Ability to something that could incentivize the expanded use of guns on the class in a way that’s limited and controllable. Kind of like how Knives are great for the Flamer and Bolter because they make up for the weakness of the heavier firearms, a Firearm Focused Ability could elevate builds that currently aren’t currently viable by amping all of those options. Every Firearm Weapon Family save for the Vigilant and Braced auto guns have Critical Related Blessings, and even for those two families, 50% Ranged Strength (Damage, Impact, and Cleave) and Rending is a lot of Value. I think it even works from a narrative perspective. The crazy preacher brandishing a gun and drawing everyone’s attention is almost a western movie classic. And when looking at the Zealot’s Personalities, the Abelites Scan pretty well to each (Fury is the Fanatic, Chorus is the Judge, and Shroudfield is the Agitator), but to be honest, the class doesn’t need two separate sing target chase down and kill abilities. Hell, Fury could realistically fit the Fanatic or the Agitator. But gun zealot as an ability feels specifically like Fanatical fervor in a way that charge doesn’t. Of course, keep in mind, all nodes are supposed to be compatible w/ every personality at the end of the day. The Ability suggestion as a whole is inspired by some of the gun related abilities that Ecclesiarchy Kill Team units have.

And just to share my own insights regarding this; when trying to think of suggestions I tend to look at a combination of Narrative Justification and Mechanical Expression first and foremost. If by chance FS was to see and be interested in taking the suggestion, they will most likely figure out the Mathematical Value on their own. But for the argument of like, a decoy, my first concern is what is the mechanical justification for the invisibility to do this. If it was Psyker or Ad Mech, I could believe that they were conjuring an illusion or had a device that could project one. So like, mechanically speaking, yeah, a decoy could work, but there’s very little Narrative Justification for that kind of Mechanical Expression.

33

Predator 2. Meat Packaging Plant Scene. Classic Busey.

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34

Oh man. I say this with equal parts respect and revulsion: That sounds like Havoc Play Logic. I don’t want that to be taken the wrong way though. It reminds me of a Knife Build i’ve seen that just spams the Shove Attack. I want to be clear; I’m fine w/ that kind of gameplay existing in the game. In fact, I think it should exist in the game, especially around Havoc 40 level of play. But it’s also the exact opposite of why I fell in love w/ Zealot in particular. I felt like I had to understand movement, enemy attack patterns, and my own weapon combos in a way that I didn’t for other classes.
Ultimately though, I agree; Blocking is bad. But that’s why I don’t want to forget it. Raising the base value of blocking wouldn’t delete this shove attack centric style of engaging w/ the game. It will just elevate other styles of play, potentially even making other styles of play and engaging w/ the game viable into higher level of Havoc.
While it’s a bit off topic, my personal desire for Havoc is that one day it’s balanced in such a way where it’s testing your build craft across a number of viable builds. Right now, it can just kinda feel like a meta check that isn’t interested in clever solutions. Just cheap exploits.

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35

Just imagining a charge up attack where you’re spinning the Flail while hiding behind the shield. A satisfying THWACK when you finally release the charge and turn a heretic head into the confetti. Bonus points if they give us a skin that turns the head of the flail into Censer. I mean, considering what’s happening on the planet, it would fit. Why should chaos get all the drip?

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36

Zealot, as a class, is largely about Melee Superiority and Survivability. And if you are looking at their options individually, they actually have great tools for expressing that. Flat DR, Toughness Regen, Blocking, and Dodging all are forms of survivability, and Attack Speed, Impact, Cleave, Rending, and Designated Targets (like Weakspots and Backstabs) are all reflective of melee superiority. Which is exactly why engaging w/ the class is frustrating. Zealot has all the tools of mechanical expression it needs to be distinct, but the value of those tools is either too low, too inconsistent, or too contingent to be impactful. Additionally, the class is almost completely inept at an entire half of the combat sandbox experience (shooting) and it doesn’t possess the CC needed to fully capitalize on the strengths remaining to it. Everything needed for greatness is there, but so little of it is connected in meaningful ways. It feels like FS has too much power invested in the wrong places for the class, and so my personal anxiety regarding it is that they will forgo the really interesting and mechanically rich foundation that they have in favor of consolidating even more of the class’s power and identity into just a handful of nodes.

I don’t even believe that options like Stunstorm or Immolation grenades are bad; they are niche tools that find their most value in highly specific scenarios (just like the knives). Immolation does its best work when you can fight in the fire, but the class doesn’t have the CC to force enemies to stay there. And Stunstorm provides the CC, but the class has few wide sweeping enough damage options to clean up everything in that AoE. But it goes back to the class not having the tools it needs to properly capitalize on the ability. If you’ve been playing since launch you might remember that before Class Trees the zealot had a Talent Node that made enemies stunned by Stunstorm take extra damage. And now, as you pointed out, that’s just an Arbites thing. Especially considering the Arbites can regenerate grenades, and the fact that the AoE of the shockmine is smaller, meaning that enemies stopped by it are more grouped up. Even if Zealot still had the damage bonus, they just don’t have the tools needed to make the blitz as impactful as the Arbites one.

That’s part of why I suggested replacing “Shroudfield” with a gun related ability. Especially one that could be spec’ed into a CC ability. Chorus can keep enemies locked down in the fire but you can’t attack during it. But a Gun Amplification Ability would give you tools to clear away Stunned Targets in the Stunstorm AoE (which pairs nicely with a lot of Blessing options in the Firearm families Zealot has access to), and if it has a CC Taunt ability, that also makes it usable w/ Immolation that won’t step on the CC Stun/Stagger of Chorus. Generally, all of my suggestions were made w/ deep appreciation for what the class already has, and were focused on how to make those options shine when compared to other class without diminishing the core identity of the class as being a highly survivable melee specialist.

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37

Melee superiority isn’t in Zealot’s tookit imo. Veteran easily outdamages it (while simultaneously being infinitely better for the team) while Ogryn and Arbites equal it at worst there. Survivability I 100% acknowledge as one of their most powerful and readily available aspects though.

It just has the illusion of superiority.

I’ve been playing since the Beta, back when Veteran was hands down the best class, and then got nerfed into being the best class, and then got nerfed into being the 2nd best class (ad nauseum), so I do remember the +damage aspect of the stumms. They were fine then; because they had a fairly unique role. Nobody else at the time could drop a ‘nade and be basically guaranteed to be salvage a bad situation (or just outright STOP a bad situation from ever occurring). But with the game working the way it does (spawning enormous waves of specials clad in carapace) they don’t have any real impact, and certainly nothing that a Smite Psyker can’t replicate at-will (with + damage!).

Tbh if the class is meant to be a melee specialist they should be the most easily effective class in melee; less ‘50% of your kit stops functioning when there’s any CC involved’ and more ‘just get bonuses for existing’ which is what Arbites and Ogryn and Veteran currently have in their tree. But Zealot has to jump through hoops for no adequately explained reason.

It reminds me a lot of characters in fighting games that are deliberately designed to be low tier.

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38

On this build I reliably clutched upto havoc 30 pubs. Above that every team member should know what they do and I usually allow next to anybody in my team’s and don’t give a f*CK about team composition so I am stuck between 29 and 33.

I did have some interesting matches with full zealot team and me on zealot all else vet. Get your guesses out which went better :sweat_smile:.

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39

A lot of the problems mentioned here stem from one of the design principles of zealot. Zealots seem to be designed to thrive in chaos. When sh*t hits the drain zealot becomes strongest.

And frankly do you want to have your god mode when you are whacking smited enemies or when you are the last man standing on 1hp?

Yes damage wise zealots are the weakest when everything klicks, weakest in melee damage, weakest in AoE damage, weakest in ranged damage. It is when you are overrun that zealots damage skyrockets in all aspects. So you have the choice of taking a vet which dishes out reliably as long as you care bear him with his high potential damage reduction as long as he doesn’t get hit, or you “build for failure”/sarcasm with a zealot who starts his killing spree when faith needs to be unwaivering.

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40

I generally appreciate these posts pointing out issues with the Zealot class, and I hope they are drawing Fatshark’s attention.

-Zealot’s talent-based buffs are too conditional, too low duration, and/or too unreliable in comparison to other classes. This gives many of them relatively poor uptime and/or ability to be stacked. You need to work harder than other classes to keep up the buffs that you do have.

-Zealot no longer stands out from the other classes in terms of his melee power.

-Zealot has almost no buffs to ranged combat. While zealot should remain a melee-focused class, it wouldn’t hurt to see a few more viable ranged options to incorporate into builds. Other classes are able to be powerful both in melee and at range, but Zealot is not. Currently Zealot feels like the least versatile class by far in terms of the roles he can viably fill.

-Other than FotF, Zealot has no reliable way to deal with carapace quickly other than over-reliance on weapons with rending blessings. This shrinks the pool of viable weapons on higher difficulties, thus limiting playstyles.

-Stun grenade has been power-crept by shock mine/smite and increasing armor spam. Fire grenade has been almost invalidated by armor spam, unless exploiting rending blessings.

-Inexorable judgement doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the other 2 keystones and is considered inferior by most. Blazing Piety and Martyrdom both offer superior damage and survivability. Yes, I know you can make IJ work, that isn’t my point.

-I don’t really want to see shields or more focus on block-based talents on Zealot. Leave that for the Ogryn and Arbites. I’m ok with Zealot being dodge-based, as long as it is enabled better by his talents. I’m inclined to agree that blocking is inferior to dodging and I’m still not going to block more regardless of talent changes - dodging is too ingrained in my playstyle at this point.

-I don’t have a problem with reducing the ability to spam Chorus. But then Zealot needs other powerful things to offer a team if we can’t have that. Currently he offers little.

-I don’t disagree that Zealot gets better when things hit the fan, but I don’t think the class should be designed for that. You won’t see many people want to play Zealot if that’s his schtick.

-Zealot’s talent tree still doesn’t offer much of a dedicated build path for heavy 2-handed weapons, which is a shame because those are some of his coolest weapons. The game in general seems to still very much favor light, fast, crit weapons with rending blessings. This further limits playstyles. Yes, I know you can make 2-handers work, I use them almost exclusively, that’s not my point.

It’s important to remember that the fact that you can make something work, is not an argument that that thing is in a good state. We can’t look at Zealot in a vacuum. He should be on par with the other classes. Right now he is not. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he needs straight buffs - power creep has been a big problem in this game. But something needs to change. Zealot certainly doesn’t feel like THE melee class right now, but he does feel pigeonholed.

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