is it?
Stealth = Best ability in the game that allows Zealot to solo the game if paired with a mobility weapon as well, which makes him the best class
FoTF / Book = Weakest class compared to all others
FoTF is underrated
Imagine telling youself stealth is not the bigget gamewarping crutch this game has to offer.
Watching the vid, thatâs also not a true solo, itâs a speedrun
Funny thing I donât see mentioned enough is that shroudfield gives a big damage buff to throwing knives and throwing a knife does not make you exit stealth.
You can kill A LOT of stuff with one use of shroudfield.
Imo hive scum is the boring one, pretty much everything they do is just pressing a button to buff yourself then killing everything in 1 light attack with hyperviolence
Chem nades are prob also the most boring type of blitz in the game
I take issue with this assessment. Its not that I totally disagree with the angle of it, stealth is wild for how powerful it is both in coordinated and pickup games.
But FotF is not some weak ability. Everyone seems to forget how survivable it makes zealot. Its an insane gap closer, generates 50% toughness per cast on a class with the highest available damage reduction besides ogryn but moves faster than abody with a much better foot speed. It is a seriously lengthy and significant attack speed buff (massive DPS boost) but everyone seems to focus only on the single target damage effect (which is also good by the way). Also Fotf has local stagger properties on body check. It can be used to run at or away from threats.
If you take away DS4 and Power Sword 6 from veteran or do not use Scrierâs on Psyker, or if the balance around multiple high hitmass heavy armor enemies ever shifts at all: zealot is pretty much only conditionally second for melee damage to Scum using Rampage specifically. Which like, ok, scum is super good but he speed tanks where zealot face tanks and both can gigakite. Put Scum and Zealot in a corner, with no movement options, zealot somehow slogs through. Scum gets an unlucky pancake and dies. Every other class in the game, besides I think Arbitrator, just falls over in that situation. But zealot survives forever in stupid situations.
The gap just isnât as big as people make it out to be.
Chorus dumpsters DPS but is seriously the strongest ult in the game except maybe taunt. So like, ok.
[Edit]
And by the way - zealot is already better than PS6/DS4 into all targets except crushers conditional on using his strongest weapons.
Let me just start by saying that how a class performs on H40 is evidence of absolutely nothing when it comes to game balance. Havoc is not - repeat, NOT - a viable basis for balance discussion. H40 is Darktide on pure crack, and if you think balance should somehow be adjusted to accommodate that mode of play, you have officially left your sanity behind.
That said, I donât know how anyone could get the impression that zealot is somehow a weak class. Iâve played this game since release and have roughly 3.4k hours in it, most of them on zealot. Iâve never felt weak - either in absolute terms or in comparison with other classes. Unless perhaps your basis for comparison is the utterly insane Rampage Scum, or whatever the OP build de jour happens to be. But taken as an average over time, zealot has always been a fairly strong performer, and still is today.
I do think zealot might appear less flashy than many other classes, especially now that the role of zippy dodgy melee has been passed to scum. But if you account for survivability, zealot is still a top performer. The class feels a lot like Old Reliable⢠these days. Itâs not as sexy, but it always makes it through somehow. It will consistently be the one left standing to res everyone when the rest of the team dies. I canât tell you how many missions Iâve saved that way, and every time it happens, I am reminded why I could never main scum.
Ok but I think youâre misunderstanding what I said
Me saying theyâre the weakest does not mean theyâre Bad
I use them lots, I do well, I find them fine
But when compared to others, they are the weakest
Itâs just that with Vet and Combat Blade I can consistently get the same breakpoints as Zealot when the Zealot has crits and Vet doesnât
I tend to get 2 heavy weakspot kills on things like gunners in H40 when running vet, but for that to be doable as Zealot I need 1 crit
Hell the same happens with Combat Axe even if I remember correctly
And so and so, meanwhile with Vet I can have shout and not lose any DPS while remaining safe
I think this post should be titled âwhy shroudfield is the most overpowered and unecessary thing in the gameâ also letâs not mention the fact Dueling sword would be perfectly fine if they kept it Psyker only.
I got 1700 hours on my Zealot and I have NEVER considered a stealth build and I never will. Shroudfield goes against the entire point of this game and I still have no idea why it even exists. It breaks the game in a completely unengaging way and creates situations where you are actually actively screwing over your teammates every time you press the button.
I also donât consider running to the end of a level as fast as possible while actively avoiding every major fight a win - I consider it a speed run that eliminates the actual challenge from the game. Take away Shroudfield and we both know Zealot isnât soloing any actual difficult level. With that being said, Shroudfield is completely broken and doesnât belong anywhere near this game.
This is cope tho, DS was OP even when Psyker only
VT2 Shade class obviously
Who could, though? I canât recall a single true solo Havoc 40 clear. By âtrue,â I mean not using the TrueSolo mod, but on official servers, with a teammate effectively acting as baggage, and without Shroudfield.
Itâs pretty obvious why â no one wants to be dead weight for dozens of attempts. Still, the fact remains: there hasnât been a single real solo under those conditions, with the server AI director and no Shroudfield.
P.S. I wonder if itâs possible on a powerful enough PC to run two Steam clients at the same time with different accounts â buy the game on both, launch both clients simultaneously, create a private lobby for two players, and effectively control two avatars of the same player from one machine. One could move to the first contact point and immediately go down, while the other actually does the solo run
Why would you redefine the definition of âtrue soloâ to mean âassuming another player sandbags your gameâ instead of âiâm literally aloneâ???
I meant this kind of solo:
On a server, with a teammate and bots, but the teammate intentionally goes down on the very first mob. And after that, the solo playerâjust solos everything alone. Thatâs the most real solo Iâve ever seen, but done with Shroudfield. If someone could pull something like that off without Shroudfield (and without Infiltrate), that would honestly be truly giga-chad level.
By the way, Iâm fine with taking the âbagâ role if anyone reading this decides to try it.
It isnât cope, itâs the truth - the reason it worked with Psyker is because it has such a high skill ceiling. Yeah, the dueling sword is OP and all but when itâs on a class that can die when sneezed on, the balance is there.
Want an example? I tried switching back to my Psyker after putting probably another 700 hours on my Zealot. I got about 70-80 hours on my Psyker total. First game I died 5 times, 2 times from blowing myself up and other times from random stuff. It requires a completely different playstyle and also a much more defined approach in comparison to the other classes.
Calling it a high skill ceiling when you donât have to learn combos, not have good positioning since high mobility, as well as rivalring damage with PS6 from the veteran, itâs just a funny statement
A safe, extremely high damage dealing and easy to use weapon, just because it was on psyker ââthe squishy classââ apparently?
This class is NOT squishy bro
What does âdefined approachâ even mean here?? just not holding W like a monkey when your build is not scriers gaze? Thatâs it???
Psyker uses DS in the exact same way a ranged Veteran does, as an anti carapace stick that can also deal huge damage to bosses as well as dealing with horde easily
I genuienly donât understand how can you say DS would be fine if it was âpsyker exclusiveâ when it made weapons like tacaxe and combat axe irrelevant on the class
There isnât any difference between solo mod and doing it on the server other than map/modifier combo being selectable. The director is the same.
You are referring to people using âcookie cutterâ builds and the very same people couldnât survive for 1 minute if they werenât using their favorite youtubers build. Psyker has a very specific playstyle and it requires much more knowledge and skill than other classes.
If you want to limit yourself and play something just because itâs âoverpoweredâ and you saw it on Reddit or Youtube, yeah you can go fire staff and spam stagger everything while obliterating everything with minimum effort while simultaneously being able to wipe out an entire screen with your melee weapon. A lot of people wouldnât even be aware of these builds if Youtube didnât exist.
So yes, a part of psyker CAN be OP if specced and played properly - but guess what? You still need the skill to make the build work and Psykers require a lot more playtime than others for this to happen.
Shroudfield is definitely the most synergistic ult with the rest of the zealots tree. If the zealot had some more skills that leaned in to his 2h brawler identity thatâd be great too. I donât really think itâs his keystones either because those are fine IMO.
I personally hate shroudfield and book play styles and prefer fotf play style. I do feel like itâs current conception is kind of dated. I frequently charge at things and end up stopping because my foot touches some goofy uneven flooring or try to chain axe something and get glued to it and have my camera spin 180 degrees and end up facing the floor. If itâs cooldown was 20s itâd be more attractive.
That said I think zealot blitz and tree has more pressing identity problems than power problems. When I see the zealot tree and weigh my options Iâm always left with the conclusion âThis is the stealth assassin classâ, just from what the tree has in it. Then I see all his unique weapons and Iâm like, âuh, heavy flamer and heavy eviscerator and giant 2h power sword, wtf whereâs my classes unique assassin toolsâ. Throwing knives are dope so no complaints there.
What exactly is the objection to the solo play mod?
Iâm not sure the AI director in TrueSolo is identical to the one in the actual game (honestly, Iâm not even sure the AI director behaves the same regardless of the number of players or active players). Also, with the SpawnTweaks mod you can definitely change mob spawn parametersâyou can even take that mod and tweak its code a bit