So after about 40 hours of playing Zealot (amateur hours, I know), I have some general feedback and suggestions I’d like to give to help open up builds options and improve his feat tree. While initially concerned by his “copy paste” appearance compared to VT2 Zealot, I’ve warmed to his playstyle and feat tree to a great degree while playing him. That said, let’s quickly lay out some of the issues with him as context for the suggestions to follow. I don’t think he’s weak currently, but I think his feat tree is a little incoherent and lacking enough competitive options.
Firstly Martyrdom not stacking correctly currently further undermines his weakest build path. All suggestions further down are working on the assumption of Martyrdom working as per its descrition, +5% power per stack, with each stack gained per flat 15 health lost from maximum. Furthermore some of the low health mechanics have not been adapted well to how Darktide plays differently to VT2. Lastly, there is a significant lack of satisfying synergies across talent columns, that makes a number of choices dull, and sometimes redundant. Let’s go through column by column to discuss what is fine, and what could be tweaked. Please note I focused more on the concept for changes, and while I did put some thought into exact values, naturally they may need to be tweaked to be properly balanced.
One last note before going onto the feats themselves. Why does Chastise the Wicked vary so wildly in distance between the targeted and untargeted versions? The targeted version feels like triple the distance. Please make the untargeted version significantly closer the untargeted version in distance traveled, so if we try to target an enemy with it but they are a smidge too far away to target, we don’t feel like we’ve just completely wasted our Ult.
Column 1
Enemies Within, Enemies Without: Fine
Faith Restored: Fine
Purify in Blood: Currently - “Replenish 50% more toughness on melee kill.”
Change to - “gain 2% toughness regen per stack of Martyrdom.” Here is the first place we try to increase synergy across columns, and offer a more desirable option to what is currently present. There are a few different bonuses you could use here, the core idea is just that is stacks and synergises with the low health, Martyrdom playstyle that seems to be implied by other apects of Zealot’s kit. 2% might be too much, 1.5% might be more appropriate in light of 6 possible Martyrdom stacks. Or you could go 1% regen along with 2% toughness damage reduction to give it a smathering of both the other feats’ bonuses.
Column 2
Bloodletting: Fine
Punishment: Fine
Retribution: Currently - “+10% attack speed below 50% health. Bonus is doubled below 20% health.”
Change to - “Gain 4% attack speed per stack of Martyrdom”. The current values of 50% and 20% max health are non sensical with Martydrom being able to gain even 6 stacks before hitting the 50% health mark with health curios. Again the idea here is to increase synergies, as well as make the bonus more granular, so it functions more as a gradient than being “on or off”. You could also play around with some spicier bonuses here, like +3% attack speed paired wtih +3% move speed per Martyrdom stack.
Column 3
Benediction: Fine
Holy Fervour: Fine
Inspiring Excoriation: Currently - “+20% power to allies in coherency for 5 seconds upon gaining a stack of Martyrdom.”
Change to - “Allies in coherency gain 50% of your Martyrdom bonuses while in coherency range”. Assuming the current feat works how the description makes it sound, it’s just so conditional and so short lived as to be pretty much dead on arrival. Please note that for this suggestion, it would share the power, and the attack speed from Retribution, but the toughness regen from Purify in Blood would probably be too much. I dunno, maybe it could have all 3 but you tweak it down to 30% of the bonuses or something similar.
Column 4
Holy Revenant: Fine
Faith Restores All: Currently - “After taking damage, you regain 25% of the damage taken over 5 seconds.” Maybe buff to 50%? Feels a little lacklustre currently, maybe 50% would be too much, but assuming it gets cancelled by consecutive instances of damage would probably be fine.
Thy Wrath Be Swift: Probably Fine? I’m a bit lost with this column, Holy Revenant is so good it’s hard to come up with credible competition. Some might say “make Holy Revenant passive!” or some such, but my intention with these changes is to leave his current strong builds basically left as is while just bumping up alternatives for more varied build variety.
Column 5
Rising Conviction: Fine. Maybe nerf to 3%? I dunno it’s probably fine.
Emperor’s Executioner: Probably fine for a flamer build? Dunno, haven’t experimented with flamer or this talent so unsure.
Honour the Martyr: In light of the changes in previous rows, 6 stacks of Martyrdom becomes a much more desirable option, as you are gaining the potential to double up to 3 different bonuses. Again a reminder this is all operating on the assumption that Martyrdom properly stacks per 15 flat lost health, allowing you to keep a good amount of health and still achieve max stacks. If combined the bonuses ended up a bit too easy to maintain, Martyrdom could always be slightly nerfed to stacking per 20 health instead.
Column 6
Invocation of Death: Fine
Purge the Wicked: Fine
Fury of the Faithful: Current - “+20% attack speed for 5 seconds upon using Chastise the Wicked.” To be honest I’m not quite sure where this one stands currently, but I have a strong feeling it won’t be getting picked often over the other two. You could continue the Martyrdom synergies with “+50% Martyrdom bonuses for 5 seconds after using Chastise the Wicked.” I don’t know, it’s hard to compete with how much more you get to use your Ult with the other 2 options.
Apologies for how long and rambly that all is. I hope these ideas at least help to provoke more conversation about how to round out Zealot’s feat tree and create more build paths.
Sorry if this is a faux pas, tagging a few people I know have played damnation for feedback on these suggestions and Zealot generally.
