I’m gonna be honest, I’m insanely happy with the new tree, I was able to make so many more builds, play so many different talents as well as all abilities being really good even in High Havoc
There’s only 2 issues Zealot has that need to be solved in my personal opinion
The first is easy, and it’s just a rework to a few useless talents that nobody pick since they aren’t exactly good with the class with how it works right now
The second however, is giving Zealot an unique thing that people can easily distinguish them from other classes
So let’s begin with the simple one first
Talent Rebalance
Buffs:
- The Voice of Terra:
Added 2.5% Toughness regenerated while ranged weapon is out
Simple buff, for more ranged oriented playstyles, and to give you a motive to use on slower firing weapons like revolvers and so
- Dance of Death:
Changed proc condition from “After successful dodge for 3s” to “While Sliding”
Added +10% slide distance
Sliding is kind of Zealot’s thing, encouraging slide-in revolver unscoped shots, or even shotgunning stuff with it can be really good with this for all shotguns available. And of course, let’s not forget about our beautiful Shredder auto pistol
- Got Your Back:
Removed all current effects
Upon killing an enemy with melee that is targetting an ally, win 25% melee damage bonus for 3s. Ally wins 15% Damage Resistance. Has a 3s cooldown
The Talent needs to give a reason for the Zealot to equip it, by rewarding the class with more damage, Zealots will be incentivized to keep clearing their allies should they choose this
- Retaliatory Defense:
Cooldown increased to 18s
Stamina gained per block break increased to a 100%
Gain 15% less stamina consumption for 4s
Simple changes to make this talent worth, not really much to elaborate here. Idea is good, it just needs slightly more as proposed here
- Out of Pocket:
Removed current effect
Win 1% ammo on backstab kill (Elites and Specials only), 5s cooldown
This is the only change I think could be controversial, since it’s “ughhh more ammo regen slop!” which I do kinda agree, but 1% every 5s and ONLY on backstab + elite/specialist kills will not generate as much ammo as something like Veteran’s passive talent, Scavenger or any of the 1% regen every 15s talents, I promise. Yes this one applies for ranged weapons too, so things like Revolver could see some sweet use, or even IAG with Raking Fire blessing, who knows
- No Respite:
Added “Next push is free on proc”
A simple buff to give it better control upon crits. Should benefit slower weapons a lot more than faster crit full boosted weapons because of the cooldown
- Desperation:
Added “+5% Movement speed on max stamina” (Alternatively, +10% attack speed on max stamina)
Basically giving it the Hive Scum talent treatment, where you get more dmg from no stamina, but instead of winning more DR on high stamina, you get faster movement speed that gets drained the lower your stamina goes
- Risen + Fire and Fury:
Removed, and their benefits added to Zealous Pilgrim
Zealous Pilgrim essentially requires (or heavily encourages) having these 2 extra talents picked to benefit from the Unkillable from ability effect, meanwhile you could just pick Holy Revenant for a safer and less restrictive ability
Zealous Pilgrim is goated for charge martyr builds, but the fact that you need to spend 2 extra points really makes this a high risk for mid reward. If you had those 2 extra points for other stuff just as if you picked Holy Revenant, the ability would be absolutely worth it
- Martyr’s Purpose:
Effect increased from 50% to 60%
While it would still be inferior to the other 2 alternatives, giving this talent a little bit of love should help this becoming a good choice for players that can’t go for constant weakspots and aren’t using a crit based weapon
Nerfs:
- Shroudfield:
-Now it cancels upon starting a rescue/revive, rather than only when finishing it
-Enemies will now continue their attack for at least 1s after activating Shroudfield (Basically, melee enemies will continue their attack where you were last and finish it, and ranged enemies will keep firing for to where you disappeared)
-Upon leaving stealth, +20% stamina cost for 3s (actions that take stamina take more stamina for the duration)
The idea is to nerf the ability to use this as a get out of jail free card and garantee complete game domination with it. The ability being strong is not the issue, the damage it can deal neither is IMO (especially since they keep adding soft damage caps to new bosses). It’s the survivability you get from it, and ability to essentially true solo any map
True soloing with stealth should be harder than it is right now
- Until Death:
Cooldown increased to 160s-180s
It has been a long while since this talent needed a nerf. Making the change to this talent to be core and a must pick to the class was good, it gives Zealot some sort of identity (even tho not enough since Arbites has True Grit), however this talent has been overtuned for a while now
an Until Death nerf also means a Holy Revenant nerf, and a greater reason to pick Zealous Pilgrim (so both options now would rival each other, maybe)
Giving Zealot an Identity
Ok, the ever so hyped change that will probably blew your mind (it’s already a kinda popular idea)
Allow Zealot to pick a 2nd melee in their Secondary Slot (this would be a Zealot class passive)
I’ve recently been playing Realms with the ability to play with 2 melees on Zealot thanks to Realms Loadout, and it has been insanely fun and effective, making me pick talents, perks and blessings on my melees that I would never pick if it wasn’t because I could have 2 melees
Realms Loadout even does this in an elegant way, by splitting the menus into ranged and melee for the slot, like this. I think this would be perfect
This alone would make Zealot SO MUCH FUN and a lot more deep on what options you can choose
Wanna use Heavy Sword but don’t wanna get ruined by Carapace? Now you can pair it with Knife, Tacaxe, DS, Relic Blade, Thunder Hammer, and so and so
Love using the Knife but you lack horde clear? You could pick flamer since it’s broken, but that’s so boring + pug players will scream at you for picking ammo, so you can now equip Relic Blade / Crusher to compensate for that
I went on trying this in H40 solo, and here’s one of the combos I liked most
Bonus: Add shivs to Zealot already pls
TLDR:
Zealot is nearly perfect and just needs slight changes on the OP talents and buffs to the never used talents + the ability to use 2 melees as a passive
