Zealot Antisynergy

Pretty sure dwarf has the worst weapons on average. Although I’m not too sure if this still holds up after the BBB.

Sorry, I should have said armour dps. It’s good against Berserkers, but I believe only out performs the Exec in large groups of the (at least 6+ from a quick test).

They changed it to be the same as the 1h Axe heavy but it still looks like a cleave attack so it feels off.

I’ve done that as every career. It’s easiest as Zealot but only felt marginally more difficult on BW thanks to Bolt and movement ult. Again Slayer does it easily just because of sheer movement speed (who can have movement speed, stagger, attack speed, damage and damage reduction all at once at the cost of allies getting to snipe ambients before you lol).

Huntsmen is very strong with the Repeater. Oppressively so. Absurd sutain, absurd dps, excessive clip size potential and it works well against CWs and monsters because of the ult. Spear + Stagger temp is still incredibly strong. I’m not sure if I’d call it underrated but it’s very much ignored. Basically a light machine gun on Huntsmen brought to a time of knights and magic.

BoP on BH is good for specials but doesn’t have the versatile damage other range careers have. It’s pretty bad against massed elites because it relies on the crit to be effective and BH has a pretty weak effective melee game (6 hits of power is nothing to a horde and on average three elites). It’s also bad for hordes. For comparison the Crossbow can have a full assassin melee BH and still bodyshot every special on crit without sacrificing attack speed without even needing Hunter (only breakpoint it misses is bodyshotting a Mauler at distance).

Since you’re bringing up Cata+ I’m going to bring modded into this. BoP is trash on Deathwish Cata 3. It basically cleaves nothing and takes 5 bodyshots for distant specials. Terrible sustain and kill time. The other special killing weapons still one shot headshot. Zealot works well with the Greatsword on Onslaught but is again bad on Onslaught+. Falchion is insane on Onslaught+ because of specific cleave breakpoints, aggregate armour damage and shield breaking.

I know modded isn’t official but it’s also not a joke like official is. It’s pointless to use difficulties as points for balance discussion where spamming push is the only thing one needs to do to stop being surrounded by a horde with low stagger weapons like the Rapier. Simply not enough pressure to make any weaknesses of these weapons significant without making them just have terrible damage.

My average damage taken is 6k without using healing or relying on Merc/RV/UC on Cata. If you’re getting more you’re clearly Nurgloth pretending to be a forumer or you’re build is really that good.

Faith’s Flurry lasts for 5 seconds so I’m not convinced it’s anything but a meme talent. It would be good with a high base damage weapon like the Exec, but Zealot doesn’t have the alpha strike damage to make good use of the extra damage like Slayer and Kruber would (Dawi-Drop lasts for one attack which is why it’s bad).

It’s interesting mechanically but it’s also good for few weapons to have it. It helps make them unique. It’s the Greatsword’s strongest card. In the beta balance mod they gave the Halberd super armour cleave and it was simply superior. I’d prefer it to not be spread out.

Afaik the number of crits a player gets is the same as before. They’re just spread out more evenly now.

Usually a non-threat for a well-positioned GK and Slayer can always just ult away and ignore it while being crazily independent.

It may do after a certain number of Berserkers (I’d say 6+).

It’s hard to judge but even the Warpick feels okay now even if it lacks any identity besides technically-high-dps on heavies.

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They weren’t so good maybe before but after BBB they got extreamly nicer 2hh always was nice and basically all the other got nice buffs greataxe especially very good.

No doubt there are other broken careers that exist, its not about it being the “only” one. Zealot is easy and strong and tanky, all of them. Slayer depends as i said here:

Also zealot has way stronger ranged. I’m not saying slayer isn’t easy or not strong, but you cannot ignore that zealot doesn’t have a price to pay to be effective.

Zealot transferring buffs to ranged is bonkers. I have no idea why this is a thing.

Zealot bot can pull off clutches at Legend as it is so forgiving and downright tanky, plus the damage output is high and he can shrug of hits. If even a bot can pull off a clutch by being a mindless idiot swinging weapons and yoloing gunners then it suggests the class is OP.

The anti-synergy with a Zealot rework that ISN’T so forgiving is a big problem I agree. Currently, Zealot players will get very very little sympathy from me because Zealot is one big safety-net wrapped up in a powerhouse.

Make Zealot actually live on the edge, with THP counting towards stacks(Full THP Removes stacks) and I’d be right there arguing that Healing is Bad. But currently it feels like there is no penalty for being downright reckless as Zealot, and a small part of me feels like “Good, about time Zealot got reigned in a bit. Have some ambient healing!” although I stop at outright healing Zealots. My Earphones might short out with the screeching.

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But my argument is why does he has to pay a price to be effective? And thp decays or you can take a bad hit at the end of the horde so you are not able to top it up before the next one so it may be very small but still it’s a price nonetheless.

Yeah sure let’s make zelot go around with 20 hp to be on par with other careers that seems fair.
And i remember that when i was saying that shade is too strong people where saying “shade fine she doesnt bring any utility to the team so of course she can delete evrything on her path withouth punity” so there you have it zealot doesn’t bring any utility to the team so should be fine if he can have good survivalbility.

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not as much since she has no where near as many melee steroids as HM. imo the talent changes to HM in the BBB were a step too far in terms of her melee, she was already a powerful class with 90% BCR, 100% stam regen and a ton of crit (or invis) and attack speed

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Well, I think if zealot had a "sweet spot " where he could cause the most damage with a manageable level of risk that’d be much better. I’m not suggesting player have to run around at 1 hit down… although Ranger Veteran with 2 grims is 1 heavy hit down most of the time… but anyhow.

If his HP bar was split into thirds, and the middle third caused the most damage it would be a mechanic that was manageable by the zealot, gave the most stacks if he was in the sweet spot ,and would allow more control over how reckless a player wanted to be.

Think of the red overcharge on Sienna - only with the Zealot its a middle range of his HP causes the most Damage. Zealot takes too much damage and they’d be happy for HP regen or healing, Heal too much and they’d lost stacks. The skill would be to keep the balance of power and pain in the middle range sweet spot. Not too much pain (lose Stacks) not too much health (lose stacks)

There’s no punishment for healing if you’re at low HP, but there’s no benefit of being at high THP.

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Yes unless you take 50 hits after one another, or you don’t attack for a couple seconds and let it decay and then take a hit and your passive is off cd, then yes he has to pay a price. You just argued he has a price to pay to activate his passive, when that’s not the case (it’s very negligable). If he didn’t have a second life passive, i would agree more that he has to pay a price, but not currently.

That could be one option but to much of an annoyance to manage expecially because in this game to take a hit when you want and how you want it’s extremly hard unless you are playing solo and this solution you offer would be excruciating to work with grims.

Oooh, so like between 75%-100% hp you get more attack speed. 50%-75% more power and 25%-50% you get tankier. there are probably some issues with this but just reading this sounds intresting.

Edit: or do you mean with some kind of rework where he has to “self damage” and manage his power bar. attacking makes the bar go up and taking damage makes it go down. When you reach the “sweet spot” your damage and attack speed is increased.

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At which difficulty you are referring to? I don’t think there is something below recruit :thinking:

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Nvm, lets agree to disagree.

True. But it’s the same challenging balancing act Sienna plays all the time, and it is more manageable, has an impact on the whole run(for the Zelaot player), and skilled players could make it very successful.

@anon75893681 I was more think that at < 50 hp or > 100hp you get almost no stacks of anything. Between > 50hp and <100hp you get boosts to power, speed, tankiness and so on. The skill would be to keep your green HP between these zones, maybe leaning towards the most buffs being at 55-85 hp.

A zealot thrives on the pain, but if it gets too much it’d hinder him.

Hmm, yea i can see the idea behind it.
How about when a zealot takes to much damage and falls below, does he have no way to get back up to the sweet spot? or does temp hp also count?

If temp hp counts, it would just result in zealots having to damage themselves constantly and taking hits on purpose, which is what alot of players don’t like to do.

But then he woukd actually need heath rigen to be able to have a second chance if he goes under the sweet spot.

If he goes under the sweet spot I think he’d be in exactly the same boat as everyone else - playing defensively to stay alive. I think a plague monk last hit is something like 60 hp, and beastmen also are utter shi!bags.

This is GREEN hp going below the sweetspot. the idea is to manage GREEN hp to keep it in the sweet spot rather than have no Green HP and rely on THP. you could be outside the sweet spot and stay alive by THP, although causing less damage and less tanky.

It’s not so punishing as it seems, but to keep up the Zealot powerhouse you need to manage the Green HP to keep a Zealot “In the zone”.

Ambient Healing would be a BONUS therefore, rather than a pain-in-the-neck which prompted the start of this thread. If you drop to 40 HP you might be grateful for GK healing, or Amaranthe.

It might also wider the choice of weapons+Talents as players build to keep them in the sweet spot.

Spitballing a bit here though, so help me out.

I find it ironic you’re gonna mock his comment when you believe that Zealot’s passive actually has a price attached to it

If anything the only current price is that someone might heal you out of your stacks

It’s funny how you mock mine wen you belive that zealot HAS to pay a price to get his passives but other careers can get it for free.

  1. taking damage is a “price” only in the most technical sense, it’s semantics at best since practically it’s not a cost at all
  2. “free” Grail Knight, Merc, Ranger Vet and Waystalker all say hello. Their passives all have technical “prices” in the same manner as zealot;
  • Merc requires 3 targets to cleave through
  • Waystalker has to be below half health to benefit
  • Ranger vet requires specials be present
  • Grail Knight has to achieve quest conditions, some of which (monsters) may not even show up

We wouldn’t say these are really prices to pay though since practically you’re going to meet these conditions pretty naturally over a course of a game even if it may not have 100% uptime