Ofc they are not similar in a sense but when it comes to mobility, axe&falch has innate increased dodge range just like daggers so it makes it superior already to nearly any weapon in this game when it comes to dodge count/dodge distance. Not to mention Both of the have a mobility button on hand to re-position. Again the main difference comes from the fact that zealot can actually tank stuff.
Oh i know how handmaiden works. My elf is currently around 30 (+134) odd levels with nearly even split in all 3 careers.
I’m still not going to pretend that i can more easily survive with handmaidens 10 % increased dodge compared to the fact that i can deal with every enemy type in the game with light attacks and actually survive 1-2 overheads which elf simply cannot.
This is good and all and if you are actually having success with HM then enjoy it. Still it does not remove the fact which i alluded at first that properly played Zealot really cannnot get surrounded unless piloted by a total idiot since the mobility is still in pretty dam great compared to most careers out there.
If you take Defiance, Handmaiden becomes obscenely tanky, which is kinda niche but reasonable if you’re doing true solo. And in general, she has way more clutch ability than careers like Ironbreaker, who lack mobility, or even Zealot, since her Dash is a more powerful tool for avoiding damage. In general use, Zealot is tankier, though, since he can shrug off stray hits easier and generates absurd amounts of THP. His charge is good, but it’s nowhere near as good as Handmaidens (in this scenario), since it can’t pass through infinite enemies, doesn’t give invis, or do direct damage, plus it has a much longer cooldown.
I really don’t consider Defiance as a factor for this argument since we are talking (hopefully at least) of normal legend game-play here.
Clutch ability is really arbitrary and depends a lot on what is happening in the game. Sure if you literally have the whole world on your back and have to stealth cheese to revive your teammates then yes i guess she does have more power for that but in general i find most people would probably clutch more often with tankier and easier killing character but maybe that’s just my observations.
Finally yes the charge is obviously not as good but it still grants you properly used a re-positioning tool which is the primary thing i was attacking in the first place here.
In the end i still think its little bit folly to thing that zealot properly played would ever lack the mobility to get surrounded in the current state of the game.
As someone who mains elf, around 600+ hours just on WS and HM, i don’t touch the dirty shade(Still don’t have 100 run hat on her). I will agree with you that the HM is a beast. She is one of my favourite classes in the game.
I personally run Glaive for those 1 hit heavy SV kills and 2 hit kills on CWs. I’ve tried the spear a lot and don’t like it. Same goes for Sword&Dagger and even though it’s the meta. I just can’t get good results with it. So to each their own. But to say the HM is stronger than the Zealot is a bit of a stretch…
I just went on Zealot bender and banged out around 100 or so levels just on him. I can assure you he’s the strongest class in the game with A&F/BoP and is the most tanky character in the game, undisputed. He can literally not die, it’s his passive, lol. Once you master him and put in enough time, comparable to “gettin’ gud” with the HM, you will have to royally screw up to actually wipe with him. He’s just so unbelievably over powered and can generate temp hp better than any other class. Meanwhile he’s sitting on a 30% damage buff which you can keep up the entire game. There’s no comparison…
I don’t disagree that Zealot is overall tankier and stronger, but certainly he can get stuck; it’s all a positioning thing, which comes down to skill. Handmaiden has the bonus of “Dash guarantees an escape” even if you make a positioning mistake.
He’s definitely less likely to get trapped than something like Ironbreaker, lol (or even most careers). A lot of it comes down to his dodge count on the default weapon for Saltzy, too - AnF have 6 dodges, which is just so crazy good.
I would call Zealot, hands-down, strongest career in the game right now. Good options for melee and ranged, decent ammo, incredible tankiness, high mobility, excellent damage.
You can just get hit a ton, which will cause your ULT to charge XD Unkillable tatics lol. But yea, 9 times out of 10, if your passive is up, this will happen. Phanrack even did a funny video about it. This happened live on the fatshark stream.
Shields never goes dude. With proppers talents you can stun hordes, tank several chaos warriors at time, resurrect mates without being interrupted, block any overhead hit without spend all your stamina,(just 1/2 shield of stamina) block gatling fire…Usually you will dead because a packmaster or an assasine get you instead of being **** because you were trapped against a wall . Yeah, you can just pick another weapon bla bla bla kill all before they reach you bla bla bla. Tell me that when a Chaos patrol spams next to you playing Vanguard. Shields makes a bubble of safety around them, allowing your team kill everything without risk, if they are smart and have enough DPS. If just let you cover from flamethrower fire it would be a perfect weapon in my opinion.
