Main thing I’d probably personally hit is their survivability. With Ogryn finally coming into their own, and being geared toward the ‘tank bruser’ that’s meant to break the back line with presence and force, Zealot always seems like it was intended to be the ‘opposite’ of that where they break it by sheer force of will and raw speed/killing power. But right now, just because being in melee is so tumultuous especially when you’re shoving your face into it, I feel leaning into the dodge stuff more and raining in their DR options would be the way I’d go.
Ogryn is the one that gets hit and doesn’t care, Zealot’s the one that doesn’t get hit or has the emperors protection (golden toughness/Until Death).
To that end, I’d probably leave those as is, go about the process of making the tree feel more ‘freeing’ (right now there’s so many ‘paths’ it feels terrible to try and experiment as you’re almost always taking numerous tax nodes, and while for some things they absolutely deserve it, stuff like sainted gunslinger being locked behind sprint cost reduction is like excuse me but why?!?), add more lines between things/especially BEFORe the grenades so you can pick what you want there, then hit the ‘outlier’ talents that give ridiculous stat increases for free.
Main examples would be:
-
Enduring Faith, 50% DR permanently is insane, Veteran has to be a glass cannon and be above 75% toughness to feel this effect and it’s still busted on them, let alone all the time for free. It’s what makes crit almost feel required, and only very select builds can get away without it. I won’t give exact numbers for nerfs though as it all depends on the tree changes and how you can ‘make it up’ with other talents that would drive the numbers, but it needs to get looked at. (especially on top of Blazing Piety getting the additional 25% with Stalwart, making you even more unkillable with it all active).
-
Duellist, with the new ‘weakspot strength’ node on Ogryn, I’d absolutely shift this to be similar. 10% weakspot and crit strength as a base, up and down from there if need be. It just casually doubling a crit weakspot hit is half the reason you can just drop anything in seconds with them.
-
CDR talents, they have the most, they have the easiest access to them, they can even pick more than one if they want to sacrifice other effects. Feels busted AF, and with the direction they are taking Ogryn’s CDR, a ‘lockout’ would make sense to me, or just generally shifting it all to ‘regen’ as they seem to be wanting to so they can better manage the amount that’s given, especially given they get all their CDR for free unlike the rest of the cast (which only gets it off specific kills).
That would be where I’d start, as while they have a lot more DR related things, I don’t entirely think they should be ‘glass cannons’. Just more ‘duck in an out, take a few hits but keep on going’ with a focus on things like second wind and kills keeping you topped off. I feel the ‘speedster’ fantasy is the point of zealot, and other avenues should be pushed a little more out of the realm of ‘invulnerable deity being’ (without chorus active, I mean), and into ‘very quick ferocious individual with a desire to cleanse the corruption no matter the ‘chip’ caused to them!’
That’s my main thought at least, I know many in here got the opposite ideas XD but as someone who’s been grinding out havoc this week so I don’t ever have to think about it again, the sheer amount of zealots I’ve seen compared to everything else is staggering. Always 2 to sometimes 3, because nigh immortality is a hell of a drug on top of being faster than light, and I feel the class should probably have to pick one given everyone else has to.
(and I will say while I love it, Purgatus Psyker in specific I think needs to get looked at. They can clear a room very effectively with all manor of other options, but most of the other ones at least require a bit of finesse and aren’t super free, but Purgatus costing negative peril and nuking waves while also CC’ing them is a bit much atm with the rest of the face lift they got. Beyond that they are still ‘always in 1 shot’ to the smallest of enemies so I don’t really think they are a problem beyond that, just the infinite blue infinite spread melters that make it seem so oppressive. I’ve run enough Havoc’s to know outside of that staff it’s not nearly as free as people seem to think, or at least a lot of my team mates seem to think so given they drop the moment things go south xD.
And I bring up havoc not to say things should be balanced around that, just as a way of displaying the ‘skill floor’ difference, as trying to compare classes in Auric is like ‘wow, every single class is terrible, at least my rando’s make them look as such’ XD. Zealots are very capable at carrying, performing, and just overall ‘surviving’ infinitely easier than any other class in this game atm regardless of skill level, and thus I say what I say. )
).
