I feel like the zealot talent tree is pretty messy in general. More on that later. First, I want to talk about keystones.
Blazing Piety (left keystone) - Used with the 2 sub nodes on the right I find to be perfectly fine. However, the 2 sub nodes on the left are just trash. I think Stalwart (+50% toughness on proc) should be changed to be similar to Enemies Within, Enemies Without (2.5% toughness per second when close to 3 enemies). Blazing Piety procs early in hordes and tends to stay active the entire time. Giving it a small % of constant regen while active would be more useful. Infectious Zeal (33% Crit Hit Chance shared to allies in Coherency [aka 5% CHC]) should be double that, if not the full 15% CHC. This would make the left sub nodes viable - better survivability and team buffing (assuming they stay close) at the cost of less self buffing.
Martyrdom (middle keystone) - With its 2 sub nodes it is mostly fine. My main issue here is that in damnation you can only access 4 of its 7 max stacks. In other words, its stronger in easy modes and weaker in hard modes which conceptually is kind of weird to say the least. Seems to work fine in damnation and IDK exactly what I would change here but it just seems wrong haha.
Inexorable Judgement (right keystone) - This one needs some help I think. Even while constantly moving in a fight I never seem to get more than 10-15 stacks back, even with the +3 stacks on successful dodge. I think needing less max stacks to get the same bonuses or slightly buffed bonuses would help give alternatives to the crit zealot meta. All the talent points spent on crit talents could be moved into the toughness ones and could make some really tanky zealot builds.
I think the abilities are fine with the exception of Chorus having Banishing Light below it. This essentially makes Chorus a 2 point cost which is rough when most builds already are stretching all over the talent tree because of how spread out the synergistic talents are. It should be part of Chorus or moved to the side so its optional.
The auras are probably the biggest mess.
Benediction (left aura) - Easily the strongest pick if you aren’t using throwing knives (cost of moving across is pretty high). All the previous nodes leading to it are strong, with the 2 on the right side being even better imo. You get 5% melee damage and movement speed and Until Death + Holy Revenant (immunity to down and some healing, 120 sec CD). And 15% toughness DR for you + team. Strong.
Beacon of Purity (middle aura) - The aura itself isn’t that bad. Can save the team from chip corruption taking away wounds. I’d like to see it restore HP equal to either 25/33/50% of corruption cleansed. Its biggest issue is how useless all but one node leading up to it are. Shield of Contempt is the only one that is more than half decent (I’m being generous to the other options here).
Loner (right aura) - Where to begin. This catches a lot of flak because people think ever loner zealot is off being useless, alone. Who knows maybe they’re on to something but that’s not how good players use it. It provides a small buff when you are alone but if you’re playing with your team it is functionally useless. Short of replacing it, I don’t think you can buff it without encouraging people to play off by themselves even more. That being said, if it were to be buffed, I would say something along the lines of still gaining a reduced % of team auras benefit even while outside coherency. It has another drawback of nodes directly above it being mostly useless. The left 2 aren’t bad but the other 3 are just nopes.
Blitzes are all fine as they are. Don’t see much need to change them. However, the top of the talent tree is loaded. Left talents are all great. Toughness and damage bonuses. Stun grenade is my least favorite of the 3 but not bad. Middle line lots of damage talents, healing option and some more toughness regen options. Can’t go wrong with immolation grenade either. Right side is all your crit buffs, toughness DR as part of crits and another strong toughness regen and okay toughness regen option. Throwing knives are strong if you can aim them and work great paired with certain weapon combos.
The top being so loaded and the middle being relatively weak makes zealot builds very point hungry. All mine are all over the place. And the cost of going for specific nodes often comes at the price of taking some weak ones. The standard crit nodes in the top right and crit keystone in the bottom left means you’re spending a lot if you opt for the crit builds. It all feels kind of messy.
Obviously it is nice having a lot of strong picks right on top because you don’t need as many points invested to reach them. But it feels bad at the same time opting for sub par nodes and less preferred blitz/ability/aura because many of the synergistic nodes are spread so far apart.
Should the be lined up nice and neat with all the best options in a row? Obviously not that either. I find most my builds dip into all 3 top lines and all 3 bottom lines and go straight through the middle two because that area is a mess of pretty crap options, especially compared to the top and bottom.
Maybe it’s that way for balance but to me it just feels bad.
