I just made an account to tell you how disappointed I am with the new patch nerfs to Zealot.
Rip Eviscerator crit build ,rip Braced autoguns on Zealot.
I am already tired trying to play something different from Bolter / Zarona to deal with Crushers while not having a carapace killing melee weapon.
My Katachan and Heavy swords are gone into the void for me.
And let me tell you, now I play more melee with Veteran than with Zealot ,because … Veteran is actually more fun in melee than Zealot, what a surprise.
Maybe I have learned the game and can communicate what is wrong with the update unlike you ,who probably runs 2 top builds and dismisses any criticism.
Yes ,I want to play some other ranged weapons than Zarona and Bolter on Zealot
Here is one comment in reddit thread that is articulated well and resonates with my exact thoughts :
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There was a lot of build variety that zealots had because of the chastise ranged rending. Braced autoguns could be paired with heavy sword and feel good to run in most situations. It wasn’t optimal but it could do just fine at the highest difficulties and felt fun. There was build variety there.
Running heavy sword without bolter or zarona is going to feel pretty **itty. Not having a good answer for crusher patrols on your own makes pulling clutches with non optimal stuff so much harder.
It wasn’t broken. It was a calculated risk to blow your charge like that for a burst of damage.
Flamer was in a fine spot too, it took a lot of investment to still kill crushers with 2 chastise uses. There were a lot of situations that it was not great to rely on that on the highest difficulties and the flamer was still ammo hungry as hell.
I cant imagine why I would want to take agri braced auto anymore if its going to always be total dogsh** at killing armor.
The quickdraw revolver had a nice spot too before that. It could kill 2-3 crushers sometimes with an ult and could fill in as boss dps and armor clear. Was it optimal? No. Did it do good enough? Absolutely. It was fun!
It just feels like there was a ton of build flexibility that zealot had thats going to feel way worse now because they took out that option. Zealot felt incredible to play and so many weapon combos that could work and feel both effective and fun to run. Now a useful and imo not at all broken tool has just been snatched from the toolbox.
Theres plenty of stuff that still works fine. Plenty of great ways to play, but a lot are going to also feels like s*** too. Leaving that feature in for two years and having it be something they balanced around before to now remove feels like a fat slap in the face to people who have poured a lot of time into the game and come to love it for what it was.
Fatshark if you are going to torpedo those weapons then change something for them. If you can’t change anything for them because they are shared by other classes then give some rending ranged option to the zealot talent tree so they have some recourse.
"
Understandable, people here complain even about minor stuff like a camping spot removal on Mercantile.
Flamer’s interaction with the charge was especially broken because it was capable of killing infinite amount of crushers as hit mass doesn’t block fire. Overall, the charge’s interaction with ranged weapons was silly as low-calibre guns shouldn’t be able to kill heavily armoured targets.
Even tho I feel like bolter pairs perfectly with stuff like heavy sword, you aren’t forced to play with it.
Apart from Heavy and Claw all weapons on Zealot have an ok to great time against carapace, so there are lots of options to pick and still you’ll be able to deal with Crushers.
If you want to go for those 2 and FotF there are 4 options to cover your weakness currently. Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Revolver, and Agri shotgun. Apart from Bolt Pistol which I find weak, the other 3 options are all viable good.
Braced auto is still great on Zealot. FotF carapace damage was nice, but it’s still very strong without it.
I don’t disagree but I don’t think you’ll realistically be running it with D Claw or Heavy Sword anymore, and as someone who really enjoyed both those weapons with brauto I have to again ask what over performer was brought in line by this change that was worth nerfing those setups?
Counter proposal for those that really can’t stand the ranged interaction. What if you got the melee rending for the full duration rather than 1 hit? So as long as you could shoot for with it before this change? That would help claw and hs dealing with crushers a little better allowing them more ranged weapon freedom while still being significantly weaker against crushers than they would be with an anti carapace ranged weapon?
Bolt pistol is a new tool against them (but not really good).
Situation has not changed.
They did not… but I am more concerned that the nerfs have hit several weapons but not the ones that were the priority in my opinion (zorona revolver and plasma gun).
Situation has changed ,because charge ability doesn’t set opponents to flak armor for both ranged and melee weapons.
It now gives 100% rending for melee hit only and it doesn’t actually set the armor type to flak anymore.
That’s what I meant by less build diversity because of that change.
Hope you actually read this post now.
Also ,rather than big nerfs to top perfoming guns like Zarona Revolver, why not bring the other weapons more in line.
Comparing the hand boltgun to ol’ Boltgun is just night and day difference, no need to get something with less ammo, less stability ,less damage.
And the new shotgun, while it is fun to play with, it’s somewhere on the same level of the Kantrael shotgun. Somehow the Unyielding damage is kinda bad on the new one compared to the Kantrael shotgun.
This would have pretty wide balance implications and would change the feel of the skill I think. With no certainty, it would most probably make you light attack spam instead of going for a big hit on many weapons, which would just be terrible. It would also boost weapons that don’t really need it more than this specific setup.
I empathize with your favorite setup getting hit, but every weapon being good against everything isn’t good for game health. You can still kill crushers with Heavy Sword and buy some time with stun nades if there is more than one.
There are some other setups in the game that have a weakness that could easily be covered by a different pick of either blitz or weapon that are far worse than this one.
I’ll try HS+Brauto, so I can have a more educated opinion of the setup after the nerf, but based on my previous experience it should be fine.
By the way, playing Crit-focused Mk XV Eviscerator with Perfect Strike+Shred is completely balanced. Just stagger several melee elites spamming light attacks. Rip the crit build.
