There’s essentially no downside, no difference between 180 green health and 180 temporary health.
Sure THP decays but it’s easy to come by, in abundance.
Zealot’s attack speed, increased healing and/or damage reduction + safety nets makes THP farming incredibly easy.
If anything Zealot is tankier or at least harder to punish than majority of other careers.
Exactly. FF is just bad for the game in its current state, and I don’t see how tying his passive to hit trading would be balance-able. Just front load 20% melee damage and make his career passive just anything else.
I mean, what’s the difference with others strong melee career then, that do not take any risk (even minor) to achieve strong breakpoints/cleave ?
The thp actually does drop a lot when there’s no enemy, so even if it’s minor it IS a downside.
I do not see zealot taken a lot for high end game, which means that even if the “no downside argument” was correct, it just mean it doesn’t perform way over the others melee brawlers when it comes to dealing damage.
Relative to Zealot, they do take risks and/or don’t have permanent stat buffs.
Mercenary is the only other career that has access to a lot of power and feels somewhat risk free, even then Zealots survivability is cheesy/unmatched.
Unchained too but that’s just because of Abandon which most people can agree, needs adjustments.
Pick-rate doesn’t really represent career strength tbh, but in this case it’s probably because WHC exists. WHC offers a lot to the team and might need some adjustments.
The whole Zealot rework isn’t about him being weak or strong, just ironing out problems and strengthening the flagellant identity. Not buffs or nerfs, just changes.
I agree with some give and take. Personally I think some of Shade’s talents right now are underwhelming (Shadowstep, Herald etc.).
WHC’s crit fishing is also more difficult in high stagger teams or when an IB taunts (the latter’s exception is only the Billhook due to its reach). Shade has higher potential dps with less reliance on headshots at the cost of requiring more support to go all out. WHC has higher dps when on the defensive at the cost of requiring headshots.
This kinda, specifically the synergy between IB and Shade.
Shade backstabs are also more difficult in higher stagger teams tbh, backstab hit boxes are wonky and don’t always line up with enemy stagger animations/models.
Either way, it’s generally safer to just play like a WHC i.e sticking with the team and fighting head on.
They could always remove the crit component from Cloak of Mist and do something like folding the Vanish effect into the talent. Could also replace Shadowstep with an ‘x seconds of 100% crit on ult without any cooldown reduction’ talent.
Then Shade’s talent row would be a choice of safety, damage, and a little of both.
So just make him into Grail Knight w/ a gun? I fail to see why that is a compelling change. Especially with a 4th Saltzpyre career on the way.
Well as long as it’s stay “fun to play”, I’m a simple man, I do not mind.
They seem accurate to me. https://youtu.be/qY6Gbu1tgbc. There’s some minor misalignments but nothing significant. I don’t play Shade much though so I could be misinterpreting.
Yeah I misread your original point as WHC is easier/safer sorry. I agree that staying with your team is generally safer (with Vanish + Cloak of Mists being the exception).
You mean he isn’t already?
Seriously, could nip a lot of anti-game play Zealot represents just from lowering his health and removing fiery faith and giving him any career passive that isn’t health dependent. Get rid of the 30% power level boost, make it melee damage only (heck, cap it at 20% melee power, that is technically enough to be significant but not stronger than Slayer, Merc, or Grail Knight), and pick literally any other aspect of Zealot people like about him. Just don’t tie his damage power to his health at all and drop his base health by a lot! He already has the tools to not die, could even expand on that even.
So what I’m getting is that you want to.
Remove Fiery Faith.
Replace Fiery Faith with a flat melee power boost.
Also replace Fiery Faith with a new, undecided passive.
Rework 3 talents at minimum because they all rely on Fiery Faith.
Reduce overall mitigation by nerfing health values
Maybe rework some other talents to increase mitigation.
And the benefits to all this work and effort is the making Zealot “finally a risk reward class” and the removal of “anti-game play.” Not to be disrespectful, but I don’t even know what you mean by those phrases. They seem very nebulous.
I don’t know man, the cost-benefit ratio seems skewed to me.
Considering Grail Knight’s pretty squishy in comparison to Zealot? Yes, I would say there’s currently significant distinction there.
Therefore you remove all its identity to make it a “generic melee class”. Which isn’t what I call fun in any way. If you were to remove that, give him something a bit unique.
Zealot needs a rework but not in the sense of removing and gutting his whole gameplay gimmick and replacing it with something else
To tweak/rework zealot, we should check lore and intent behind his mechanics.
I think zealot is meant to be a crazed lunatic who gets stronger and more ferocious from the pain he feels.
But the current implementation is nothing about it. Its just getting beaten/FF-ed at the start of a map, then generating THP for the rest of the run, playing the same way as a usual bruiser. Theres no zealot style of ‘power from pain’, no such thing in gameplay feel imo.
Its a tricky thing i must admit, to make a career that wants to be hit. Its almost needs a separate approach like sienna with her magic staves.
Just brainstorming ideas for this kind of rework:
-Ultimate - full rework, its not a dash anymore. He gets into a frenzy for 10s, unable to block or dodge, run speed +10%, Atk speed +15%, stagger strength +50%, damage resist +50%, every melee hit you take prolongs the ult for 3s up to 40s max total, you can’t generate THP while ult is active. A branching talent choice to swap +stagger strength for something else (+20% melee dmg?).
-Passive - full rework - The more enemies are near zealot, the higher his damage resistance is. 10 stacks (enemies). To a max of 40% dmg resist. One elite counts as 2 stacks, boss as 4.
-Passive 2 - duration of hit-stun is reduced by 75%.
-Passive 3 - if you get hit, the THP generation is increased by 30% for the next 10s.
So the whole style of zealots ‘power from pain or being hit’ is in the ultimate, and passives with talents support it.
What is generic melee class when everything is a melee class? Who was the standard? Where was the starting point?
It’s been pointed out numerous times Zealot is a problem. He inspires bad gameplay, loses power when healed, he’s been called anti-synergetic, bad for high difficulty modes, people ask all the time to give him a passive where he ignores healing entirely; rework threads from years past constantly ask for the same crutches so he can ignore elf heals, GK heals, Twitch heals, med heals so Zealot players can start with the 30% power boost.
He’s called disgustingly strong, brain dead, but also said he doesn’t bring enough benefit to the team and too anti-synergetic with WS or GK to bring over WHC and BH.
Yeah, Fiery Faith, imo, should be removed or fundamentally changed and that’s what I suggested.
Yeah that’s the thing to figure out, ain’t it? Make a Sigmar zerker, but he can’t have ranged damage boost, can’t be too mobile or he steps on Slayer’s toes, can’t be too strong or he steps on GK’s toes, and can’t be too tanky because that’s OP. My opinion is current Zealot’s passive to not die is plenty enough to justify dropping his base HP, add in the healing talent and the DR talent, with it and base 150 is just kind of disgusting. Footknight wishes he was that tough.
I’ve seen suggestions many times that he should get bonuses based on hit trading. I already think that’d be pretty bad since surviving requires not getting hit and not to mention in high weave content or modded content he wouldn’t survive some hits even with 180 health without triggering his passive to not die first.
Yes. That is things FS has done before and will do again.
Man, current Zealot is already lazy. I don’t see why cutting out the parts of him that keep causing frustration and just give him something new is so bad a request? Certainly would prefer they figure out how to Zealot before they do something like Warrior Priest class, cursed to do the same thing as current Zealot, but better.
I’m not against giving something new but he have to play with some sort of gimmick. If you only let the passive, it won’t be enough. It will be like the ‘no respawn’ deed where you vastly ignore that modifier entirely. In good hands you’ll ignore it as you won’t die or need the passive as a safety net. Making him indeed generic (aka without a gimmick).
Which is why I favour “Conflicting buffs” as solution. He starts with increased defense and range damage. He gains more melee power by losing health but his finesse modifier and ranged damage decrease because is getting more ferocious.
That way he would have different playstyles depending on where you keep his permanent health. His talent kit could actually stay identical in that case. But it would be no longer be the case that the sweet spot is the easiest reachable and maintanable.
Indeed! The current gimmick includes too much power and enough frustration to justify giving him something completely new to get rid of the eye rollingly annoying habits zealot inspires, with the waiting around the start of the map to get put to 1hp and then steam rolling the map, or zealot players getting angry when healed. It’s got to go.
Like this, I don’t hate this. Leans on the tanky side but also separates Zealot from Slayer/GK. This wouldn’t make me despise every moment while playing as Zealot or roll my eyes when a Zealot player in QP starts griping about WS heals.
Why ranged damage? I get the “conflicting buffs” but ranged damage seems out of place.
You are right. It doesnt make sense. It is more a situation where I am not sure what else. There should be a motivation to play his high defense, regeneration, try to stay at top health built. Currently he has a lot of defense talents no one is choosing. This would change if there is a benefit which starts high but is lost while going down. I am open for better suggestions though.