I like Ironhelm more than the other activation-hit weapons because it has a well functioning moveset (I don’t even consider force swords in this group because they have so many defensive advantages and actually powerful hits without using their buffs). Most of the others are completely awful if you don’t commit to the attack, which is exactly what you don’t have time to do in the middle of a horde last alive with 2 mutants. I don’t know why they have to have extremely scuffed movesets, and I don’t think variants would improve much because we already have ‘strikedown’ attacks on the Eviscerator and they are terrible. It really comes down to how much the light attacks suck across this group, on top of not having a real special since you need it to kill anything bigger than horde. Ironhelm I kill as many elites in a game with the H3 as I do the powered attack. I don’t want for anything but more dodges (man it feels horrible in this game only having 2 dodges).
Edit: the Eviscerator also has it worse with the blessing pool favoring chain attacks on a weapon you need to not spam attacks with, which is why tiny chainsword is more useful on Zealot.
On the Zealot, I find Thrust/Slaughterer and heavy/push attacks do pretty well at managing groups. You will only damage 4 targets at a time, but the base cleave/stagger is decent and having either Thrust or Slaughterer stacked will give you good crowd control.
@MarxistDictator I’ve taken to using a Stamina curio, and I’ve found it feels pretty good to help offset the limited dodges. Doesn’t solve every problem, but being able to swap a dodge for a push (in situations where the outcome of preventing damage is the same) has helped for me.
I actually tested Thrust as a choice vs Slaughterer, since Headtaker is locked for my weapon, and found it quite wanting in the horde clear department.
It certainly helps with hitting certain breakpoints on elites and killing some targets faster but it was’t enough where I’d want to gimp the weapon so badly in general usage, personally. It is only when not actively fighting, from a cold start, where I tend to make breakpoints on elites in the first place and I can usually just shoot them once with my Agripinaa (such as when dealing with muties) and this makes the first kill easy and gets the buff stacks going right there for the next elite.
The weapon needs more damage on heavy attacks and more damage on light attacks. I consider the special attack to be its own economy of risk, reward and time costs but its essentially a good ability and fun to use. The chaxe should be in the Yellow for horde clear without a bajillion buff stacks. The chainsword should be in the green.
